by Carmen Reid
Pamela saw how Rosie fitted tightly against her husband, small enough to slip her shoulders in under his arm, whereas Pamela was just a couple of inches shorter than him, met him almost eye to eye.
‘Oh yes, definitely,’ she said and tried to make it sound breezy, although she was anything but. She was feeling shaken. She was 34 years old but she could feel the jolt, the guilty fizz of a big, girlie crush. The kind you were supposed to grow out of when you left school.
‘Lachlan was telling me they might have some work for you,’ Dave added.
‘Yeah,’ was all Lachlan said, which was a shame, she thought.
‘Well, you’ll have to tell me all about it,’ Pamela said into the pause, convinced that whatever the project was – even decorating their farmhouse from top to bottom in Laura Ashley – she would take it, do it, string it out for as long as possible, whatever, just so she could see him again . . . often. Yes . . . and his lovely wife? Beautiful children. Hello? Pamela. Reality check.
Just as Harry interrupted them with his troop rallying, canes and instructions of who was to go where, it began to rain, lightly and drizzly at first, then increasingly steadily.
Pamela was given a cane and put in front of the open gateway to a grassy hill. She didn’t have to do anything, she was assured, just wave the cows on down, as it were.
She stood on her spot, thinking about Lachlan, considering only for a minute or two that she really didn’t know anything about cows, couldn’t even think when she had been up close to one, she’d only ever seen them over fences, at a distance.
After fifteen minutes or so of standing in the rain, waiting, the herd began to come down towards them. She was taken aback at how big they were, these dark cows. Very big, very heavy-looking. Stories she remembered from the newspapers began to flash into her mind: ‘Woman trampled to death by herd of cows’; ‘Man out walking dog attacked by cows’ . . . Good grief!
She could feel pinpricks of sweat forming in her armpits and her breath speeding up a little. There seemed to be some delay: the cows weren’t moving so purposefully any more, they were milling.
Pamela was beginning to feel very anxious, breathing hard. They were close now, looking at her with great bulging eyes the size of tennis balls. Ambling towards her.
Then there was action at the back and Harry shooed them on so that they broke into a brisk trot – towards her! She was backing further and further out of the way into something the cows recognized as a lovely green grass field.
‘Just wave your stick at them!’ came a shout from Ingrid.
Her stick! The rod of bamboo now looked like a Twiglet in the face of a herd of one-tonne animals. The cows were speeding up, just as any really heavy object begins to pick up momentum once it gets going.
They were running towards her and then one of them mooed, a terrible, deep-throated groan of a moo.
Fuck me! Rasping breath, Pamela made a pathetic wave with her stick, but still they came. She realized she was going to have to run. But she’d backed into a seriously boggy bit and was rooted to the spot. Panic, PANIC. Huge effort to run.
Her cashmere-clad feet shot out of her clogs and she began to sprint across the field, convinced all twenty-five cows were belting after her.
‘Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeelp!!!!!!!!’
In the grip of self-preservation, she instinctively headed for the fence.
God knows why she’d chosen a long skirt. There was absolutely no chance of climbing the fence quickly enough, so she launched herself at it, trying to jump, roll, whatever . . . over it, and was skewered on the barbed wire on top for a moment. Aaargh! This is what it feels like to be a kebab.
She yanked her whole body over, feeling the rip. The fence turned out to be on a slope so she carried on rolling, whipped in the face by long grass, scarily out of control. Finally reached the bottom at speed, where she whacked into a rusted, abandoned oil drum with a terrifyingly loud clang.
It was a moment or two before she dared to open her eyes. Yup, she was still lying there, in long grass, a bit winded, a bit stunned, but unfortunately not seriously injured, she didn’t think. Much as she might wish and wish for a dramatic injury to make this worthwhile, to make sure people sympathized with her rather than fell about laughing, she seemed to be fine. Just her pride really, really hurt – she felt like a total tit. Maybe if she could just keep her eyes closed, she could pretend that none of this had happened . . . and in front of that man, that beautiful man . . . Crap.
‘Pamela?’
She heard Ingrid’s voice and opened her eyes reluctantly. Yes, definitely still here, still fine, still lying on her back in wet grass.
‘Are you OK?’ Ingrid asked, face peering down at her, full of concern.‘Does anything hurt?’
‘Erm . . . yes. Everything hurts. But unfortunately, I’m fine.’
Ingrid stood up and bellowed, ‘She’s fine!’ over the fence. Pamela thought this was a little callous, but realized it meant everyone else could carry on tracking the cows which had now disappeared over the brow of the hill and off into the distance.
‘What happened?’ Ingrid turned back to her now.
Pamela thought the question a little unnecessary.
‘I think I’m scared of cows,’ she said, still flat out on the grass, not desperate to get up and face her audience.
‘You should have told us,’ Ingrid said.‘Because they always know and then they take the mickey.’
‘But I didn’t know,’ Pamela said in her own defence.‘This is my first cow herding experience. And last.’
There was a little too much warmth to Ingrid’s smile. Now that she knew Pamela was OK, she was desperate to laugh . . . heave, rock, positively weep with laughter. But with effort she pulled her face straight again and tried to sympathize. Poor Pamela.
Ingrid held out a hand to her: ‘Come on, let’s get you up and back to the house to dry off.’
‘Dry off’ was an understatement, Pamela realized, once she’d struggled to her feet and surveyed the damage. Her skirt and jumper were sodden, mud brown and the skirt had sustained a rip from side split to front in the engagement with the fence. Her frozen feet were clad only in wrecked socks so the suede clogs must still be out there in the field. Double crap.
She hobbled out from the grass and on to the dirt track.
‘Oh no, your shoes.’ Ingrid had just noticed Pamela’s predicament. She made a quick search of the grass and climbed up the slope to look over the fence, but no luck.
‘Can you manage back without them?’ she asked.‘I’m sure Harry will find them.’
Pamela nodded. She didn’t really like to think of the condition her clogs might be in by now.
She took the arm Ingrid offered and began the slow and stony hobble back to the farmhouse, where Ingrid made her a fortifying coffee and sat her on the kitchen’s saggy sofa wrapped in a dressing gown and tartan blanket while she rinsed out her cashmere and dry-clean only velvet in the kitchen sink, then hung the clothes over the Aga rail to dry. They dripped little pools of water onto the lino floor.
Pamela was so grateful for the care and kindness, she tried to push to the very back of her mind the worry that everything that wasn’t ruined would now shrink.
Ingrid, busy setting the table to feed the wet and weary cow herders due in at any moment, talked cheerily about the new place.
‘If I thought fruit and veg were hard work, cows are something else . . . have to be fed and watered twice a day all winter, they’ll keep us up all night calving in the spring and for the rest of the year, they break out of fields, wander off, get mastitis. It never stops – and then the tragic ending! I don’t know how we’ll cope.’
‘Not much call for organic goldfish, though, I suppose,’ Pamela commented.
‘No . . . sadly!’ Ingrid replied. Then they heard voices at the back door. The cow herders were back.
There was activity in the back room for some time as wellies, anoraks, hats and even several pairs of sodden trousers wer
e stripped off both children and adults.
Pamela pulled the dressing gown and blanket tightly round her and stayed on the sofa. It wouldn’t hurt to pretend she’d come off slightly worse than she actually had, she’d decided.
Dave was first through the kitchen door and came straight over to kiss her on the forehead.
‘Are you OK, Pam? I didn’t even hear about it until you were inside. I just waited at the shed for ages wondering why it was taking so long to get the cows down to me.’
She smiled as broadly as she could, not just for his benefit, but because Rosie, all five children and Lachlan had just come into the room.
‘I’m fine,’ she said in the smooth low voice that Lachlan’s presence seemed to induce.‘Just sorry to cause everyone so much trouble. It’s very embarrassing.’
There was a murmur of ‘no no’s, ‘not at all’s as Ingrid made them pull up chairs and sit down to the fearsome table full of tea, coffee, hot apple juice, an enormous home-made carrot cake and scones just plucked from the oven.
But Willy wasn’t so polite. He and Pete came and stood beside the sofa, taking in Pamela’s blanket and bedraggled hair with obvious amusement.
‘Why did you roll over the fence like that?’ Willy asked.
‘Because I thought the cows were chasing me,’ she answered.
‘Why?’ Willy asked, as if this was the most unbelievable thing he’d ever heard.
‘Because they were running at me,’ she replied.
‘They just wanted the grass,’ Willy told her.‘They were running into the grass field. Cows don’t eat people, you know,’ he explained, making her feel like the biggest idiot at the party.‘People eat cows,’ he added and began to giggle.
It was beginning to occur to Pamela that maybe she had wildly misjudged the situation, had in fact run in terror in front of an ambling, grazing herd, not exactly a stampede. These two small boys hadn’t been frightened, had they?
She could feel her cheeks burn.
‘Willy, come and sit down,’ Rosie ordered her son and he and his brother hopped up to the table.
The back door opened and slammed again and after the few necessary minutes of coat and boot changing, Harry, wild hair, face red with rain and exertion, burst into the kitchen.
‘Well, I found them,’ he said, holding something out in front of him.‘But they’re not looking too good.’
It took Pamela several moments to realize that the filthy pieces of wood and tattered cloth that he had in his hands were in fact the remains of her turquoise clogs.
‘The whole herd must have gone over them,’ Harry explained, somewhat needlessly.
‘Oh Pamela, we’re so sorry,’ said Ingrid. She came over to her husband to examine the damage.
‘It’s fine, honestly, my fault for wearing them,’ Pamela managed.‘They weren’t anything special,’ she totally lied.‘Honestly.’
‘Can we buy you a new pair? Where did you get them?’ Ingrid offered
‘No, no, really . . . don’t worry about it, it’s no problem at all.’ Pamela felt slightly panicked, anxious that no-one in this room should know she had attempted to herd cows in outrageously expensive designer clogs.
‘But they looked really smart, I quite fancy a pair,’ Ingrid said now.
Oh hell.
‘Never quiz Pamela about her shoes. Where they came from and how much they cost are state secrets. You’d have better luck trying to find out the Queen’s bra size,’ Dave chipped in and everyone laughed, including a grateful Pamela.
She gave him an appreciative smile and retreated behind her mug of coffee.
Harry dumped the shoes on the ground and sat down at the table.‘Ah!’ he sighed at the spread.‘It was the clang from the oil drum that got me. My God, Pam, it was like a gun going off. No wonder the cows took off for the top of the hill.’
He began to chuckle and with that gave everyone else permission to do what they’d obviously all been aching to do since the moment they came in – laugh heartily.
Pamela smiled and joined in a little, but was dismayed at the level of laughter: long, loud hoots, snorts, attempts to stop and then even more laughter.
‘The stick, the way your stick wobbled . . .’ Ingrid said and there were more hoots.
‘The bit where you stuck on the fence,’ Rosie added. Further shrieks.
‘We really shouldn’t, it’s a shame,’ Ingrid tried.‘Your poor clogs.’
‘Cow revenge,’ Pamela threw in.‘I’ll never wear leather again.’ She was trying to take this as well as she could and chanced a look at Lachlan, who was happily mid-laugh until he met her eye and tried to pull his face straight, but a smile broke out over it again.
They held the look for a moment, and there was something a little too bold, daring and unashamed about his scrutiny that made her skin tingle. She felt conscious of the dressing gown – not how worn, tatty or unflattering it might be, oh, no – only that there was just one item of clothing separating her from him.
Driving home with Dave later on, Pamela thought the humiliating smart of the cow fiasco had almost been worth it, because all she could think about was Lachlan, Lachlan’s cottages and the fact that next week she would be meeting him to view them and prepare a quote.
‘So, Wednesday afternoon.’ He’d shaken her hand, eyes on her again. Macho, outback, rancher type, she’d fantasized, her thoughts running away with her.‘I’ll give you a call to arrange the time.’
‘Great.’ She’d tried to sound casual and jaunty, but saw his smile, felt his grip and already suspected that this was dangerous. Deep water.
Skaters heading out over a newly frozen lake. No good would come of it. No good would come of it at all. But irresistible. The lure of danger and freedom.
Chapter Nineteen
PAMELA STRODE ALONG the back road, enjoying the walk, relishing the cold, clear air, drawing it in to the very bottom of her lungs, loving the warm socks and wellingtons, her new knee-length quilted coat and snug hat. There was a bundle of mail in her gloved hand. Two days’ worth of Mr and Mrs Price’s Christmas mail and she was striding along to bring it to them.
Walks needed a purpose, which was obviously why so many people had dogs. The sky was still pale pink with the afterglow of sunrise. Pamela didn’t think she’d ever noticed until she’d come out here, how little daylight there was in the winter. It wasn’t properly light until after eight now, and gloomy again by three. Right now, just past nine in the morning, the sky was pink and white over brown, bare land, naked trees silhouetted, frozen in the cold. Her breath steamed out in front of her and she could feel the blood prickling in her cheeks and fingertips.
Such a wide horizon: she was always looking around here, to the left, to the right, out for miles around, up into the endless sky, feeling her smallness in the face of this huge view.
There had been a little thawing in her relationship with Olive Price. Olive did now occasionally open the door and say hello. There had even been talk of the weather, how Pamela was settling in and Olive’s family.
The older woman’s attitude had taken Pamela aback slightly.
‘Four boys I’ve had,’ she’d said dourly without any hint of pleasure or pride in the fact.‘Three’s got families of their own. Only the mistake’s left here now. But he’s off to college in Norwich next year. Good riddance. I’ve done enough cooking, cleaning and laundry to last three lifetimes by my reckoning.’
‘Yes,’ Pamela hadn’t felt she had much choice but to agree.
‘You haven’t got any, have you,’ Olive had said.
‘Children?’ Pamela knew this wasn’t a conversation she wanted to pursue.
‘You don’t know your luck,’ Olive had told her.‘A lovely, quiet, grown-up, interesting life. That’s what you can have. Plus, no need to stay married if you don’t want to.’
‘No,’ she’d felt obliged to say, slightly incredulous at the way this doorstep chat was going, wondering what was coming next.
‘Living o
n your own. That must be something.’ Olive had looked at the empty landscape outside her front door, eyes reflecting the sky, then she’d added abruptly: ‘Well, must get on. No time to stand gossiping.’
Gossip? Pamela had thought. Is that what she called it?
The mail had been taken from her hands, and without even a goodbye Olive had stepped back into her porch and pulled her front door shut.
The only other thing Pamela knew about Olive was what Jeff, the landlord of one of the three small pubs in town, had casually confided.
It was on their third or fourth visit on a quiet Sunday evening when Jeff had handed them their drinks with the words: ‘So, what do you make of Olive the lesbian, then?’
‘Olive who?’ Pamela had said.
‘Olive Price,’ Jeff had prompted.
‘Mrs Price? Who lives on the edge of the farm with her husband and youngest son?’ Pamela had replied, with emphasis.
‘Well that’s right enough, but Simon here will back me up.’
‘Oh yes,’ Simon had said straight away, although until now he’d been quietly sitting and smoking at the other end of the bar. But it was that kind of pub. People were left alone if they wanted, but expected to be allowed to chime in with any conversation of interest.
Pamela and Dave now found themselves listening with unwilling fascination to these two ruddy-faced, fifty-somethings stating the case for Olive’s lesbianism.
‘We were at school with her,’ Jeff explained.
‘She had a very good friend,’ Simon added.
‘Very good friend . . .’ Jeff was leaning in so close Pamela could smell beer on his breath.‘Lucy Tierney.’
‘Lucy Tierney,’ Simon repeated.
‘Caught in bed together,’ Jeff breathed, ruined red face flushing even redder.‘By Lucy’s dad. Quite a fuss there was. The Tierneys moved away a year later.’ They looked at the newcomers triumphantly, as if to say: We have our scandals here too, you know.
