Peaks and Troughs

by Nick Perry

  To my right Isobel Hobart, a bookkeeper on the Glynllifon estate, blew gently on her watercress soup. ‘I always feel I’m here under false pretences, not actually being a customer,’ she told me. ‘Todd, the farm manager, can’t stick these sorts of occasions. I suppose it’s because he has a speech impediment, a stutter you could say. So they send me along as a sort of representative . . . I’ve been coming for years now. I even put it in my diary in case I double date.’

  After a main course of pheasant, we finished with crème brûlée. Then came the speech from the managing director, who spoke to the audience as one would to a brotherhood, with the sinister embrace that large corporations like to wrap around their customers. What do they really care, as long as we pay our bills?

  ‘To you all,’ he concluded, ‘a heartfelt thanks.’ As he raised his glass, people applauded, rattling their cutlery.

  Then the band started up, too loud for anybody to hear a word being spoken. For the first time that evening I saw Josh Hummel, as he and his wife took to the dance floor.

  Now, with all the strobe lighting flashing, I saw my chance to slip away unnoticed. But Isobel Hobart’s hand grabbed me and pulled with a strength that belied her petite build.

  ‘Come on, let’s twist. It’s a silly dance, I know, but I don’t care,’ she said.

  Just as I was leaving I bumped into Evan Evans and his wife Eleri, and lied that I had been looking for them to say goodnight.

  When I eventually crept into bed at twelve thirty, the room smelled of Vicks vapour rub. I could hear Ros’s congested breathing, and managed to get between the sheets without disturbing her. My eyes closed with the music playing on in my head, images whirling, Isobel Hobart dancing. I didn’t have to wait until the midnight hour, or for my love to come tumbling down. I put my arm round Ros’s waist and just dropped off.

  8

  Mirror in the Bathroom

  It was May again, the most wonderful month of the year. Deep green grass, rich in protein, flecked with daisies and purple clover, white trails of blossom scattering across the fields. The air warming. The smell of bread baking was coming from the house.

  Shirtsleeved, with Moss walking beside me, Rob and I made our way down to the lower fields to round up the bullocks. Beneath the larch trees dappled light played upon our feet. Dragonflies zipped through the air, hovered over the ivy-clad gatepost; our ears rang with the raucous cry of rooks, busy in the tree tops feeding their young. We were going to move the bullocks up to Cesarea and rest the tired fields where they had spent the winter. Give them the luxury of tasting spring grass, roaming free in their new surroundings.

  In the distance we could see them grazing on the raised bank of grass above the bog and heather, a narrow green plateau that ran across the land. I put my hands to my mouth, shouting ‘Come on then’, and almost as one they lifted their heads. ‘Come on then.’ Always when they were called they followed their leader, a Hereford-Charolais cross, who walked ahead of them through the ferns, along the track between the clumps of gorse, a mixture of mottled colours, their heads swaying as they lolloped, keen and hungry, expecting to be fed.

  We swung open the gate, Moss tugging on the lead, barking. ‘Quiet!’ I snapped at her, for I wanted them moving slowly, to where Gitto’s lorry waited with the ramp down, but it was not to be. They stampeded, running up the lane several yards ahead of us.

  I reprimanded Moss as Rob ran after them. ‘No! Now stay there!’ taking off the lead. ‘Stay!’ raising my finger. I walked a few yards away from her, watching her, until I told her to come, which she did slowly, her head down, looking miserable. There were good and bad days with Moss. She had to learn, had to be disciplined. I wasn’t being hard on her; she was progressing every day. Sometimes she just happened to take a few steps backwards.

  ‘I counted twelve,’ said Gitto.

  ‘What? It should be thirteen.’

  ‘I promise you, twelve.’

  ‘There are thirteen.’

  ‘I’ll count them,’ said Rob, climbing on the back of the lorry, leaning over the barrier. ‘I make it twelve.’

  ‘There are thirteen,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll count them again,’ offered Gitto. ‘God! I’ve been counting cattle in and out of lorries for years!’

  ‘Well, how many?’

  ‘Hang on. Stand still you buggers.’

  ‘Well, how many? Come on, Jack’s waiting up at Cesarea.’

  ‘There are twelve, on my mother’s grave.’

  ‘Well, get going,’ I said. ‘Count them when you’re unloading them.’

  ‘I’ll have a bet with you,’ said Gitto. ‘There are only twelve.’

  ‘OK, you’re on. A quid.

  ‘You know,’ I said to Rob as Gitto drove off, scraping another layer of paint from his lorry, ‘we should have counted them as they came through the gate. Maybe we’ve left one behind down there.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Jack will count them. There’ll be thirteen, you wait and see.’

  Frieda let me know she was waiting to be milked. Her udder looked heavy. Amazing what happens when spring comes around and the grass perks up; no wonder our spirits rise. Harry swished by on his bike, whistling cheerfully, on his way to butcher the meat ready for my round tomorrow.

  Recently back from California, Rose Tobias, wearing a summery blouse that announced it was the weather for flirting, coo-eed for me, asking ‘Where’s your brother?’

  ‘He’s up at Cesarea,’ I told her. I hardly ever saw Jack during the working day. He followed his own routine. ‘There’s every chance you’ll see him before I do.’

  She went off to see Ros. ‘I need to get some of your delicious vegetables.’

  I never knew what went on between Rose and my brother. It could all be a game she was playing. The older woman teasing a younger man. Jack just shrugged his shoulders when Ros asked him about it.

  When I had finished milking Frieda and was carrying the milk down to the kitchen to filter it through a fine sieve, Ros came running from the house wearing an apron, her sleeves rolled up.

  ‘All of you come now. There’s a bullock in the bathroom!’

  ‘What? How the hell did it get in there?’

  ‘Looks like you owe Gitto a pound,’ said Rob.

  It wasn’t hard to work it out. Before we caught up with them, it had run through the gate into the old garden beside the house. Being such a warm day the back door was open, and the beast had strolled in and wandered into the bathroom. We found it wedged between the wall and the bath, staring at itself in the mirror above the wash basin. My first thought was, how on earth are we going to get the thing out? It seemed to be fascinated by its own image, probably wondering who was looking back at him. For how often does a bullock find itself staring into a mirror? Rob thought it was in a trance, that on seeing its own reflection it had entered an altered state of consciousness. Whatever was going through its head, it at least had a calming effect. Its docility gave us time to work out what we were going to do. Somehow we were going to have to reverse it out. If it panicked we were in for trouble.

  Rob suggested fetching the mirror from the hall, believing it would indeed panic if it could no longer see itself. So I crawled along the bath holding the mirror in front of its face, Harry gently tugging on its tail as step by step we eased it out. A deluge of the brown stuff splattered onto the floor. I wanted to, but I didn’t let myself laugh, or even smile. Once out of the bathroom we steered it into the garden and back down the drive. Harry said he would be putting in a dry cleaning bill. It took Ros an hour to hose down the bathroom and clean the rugs. It made me wonder whether this sort of thing happened on farms across the country every day, or whether it was just us.

  Of course, as Harry was leaving to go and get himself cleaned up Dewi was on his way to the house and got the full story from him. As he handed me the post he gave me that knowing smile. ‘Who writes your script, boy?’ I knew when I went on my delivery round the next day word would be out. ‘Is i
t true a cow got into your bathroom?’ I suppose in a funny way it was good for business.

  Evan Evans turned up on Friday morning, just as I was rubbing Ambre Solaire into Dave’s pink skin. We were in the middle of a hot spell. I could tell straight away the rep was suspicious of my sexual proclivities. It was written all over his face. I explained to him that pigs suffer from sunburn, and are susceptible to heat stroke.

  Evan Evans had come for commercial reasons, to give me, as he said, ‘the inside nod’ that feed prices were going up eight pounds a ton and suggest, as a friend, I get an order in quickly, before the end of the month. When I asked him to justify another price hike when last year’s harvest had been so good, he moved to the safe excuse of world markets. These companies relied on the ignorance of their customers.

  ‘Oil prices,’ said Evan.

  ‘I doubt that very much,’ I said.

  But I would have been a fool to fall out with Evan over such matters. He was, after all, the obedient messenger. However, there was nothing for me to lose by telling head office that I failed to see how they could justify such a price increase, that I might take my business elsewhere.

  As I continued to massage sun cream into Dave’s back, I told Evan it was my intention to approach BOCM or maybe Spillers. He was aghast, turning away in disgust. ‘It’s not the end of the world, Evan.’

  ‘It’s not that.’ he said, ‘I can’t watch you exciting that boar any longer.’

  In the villages now they would wait for me; a lot of them pre-ordered their meat. In the early days I didn’t think about the time, often stopping for a cup of tea. But now all that had changed. I could afford no more than five minutes with each customer, otherwise I wouldn’t get home until midnight. Sometimes they crowded round at the back of the van, turning it into a social gathering.

  I got the stories of their lives in weekly instalments, and although I couldn’t speak Welsh I would chuck in the odd word. Those that I could pronounce without swallowing my tongue. They didn’t mind, finding my attempts humorous.

  ‘Diolch yn fawr, Mrs Hughes, and don’t forget dim parcioyn Castle Street,’ as I handed over the meat.

  Bit by bit I entered their lives, getting to know their hardships and struggles. The history of those who worked in the slate quarries, why some despised the English who lorded it over them. Every week I found out more about the folk who lived in the remote villages of North Wales. But it was Dorothea that brought it all home to me, the haunting atmosphere amongst those derelict buildings. Everyone in Talysarn had a relative who had laboured there.

  When I returned on Friday nights, the first thing I always did was empty my pockets on to the kitchen table. Sam and Lysta made columns of coins, whilst I counted the notes. It was a time of great excitement; when the twins saw all this money they thought we could buy anything we wanted. Lysta couldn’t wait to have a pony, Sam a flashy bike. They got neither, instead had to go through the ordeal of inspecting what I had brought home in the ‘bartering box’ full of children’s clothes swapped for meat. No sooner had they grown into something than they grew out of it, but they were at school now, and how they looked was crucial to their self-esteem. So when I showed them the crocheted ponchos Mrs Hughes from Talybont had exchanged for a couple of lamb shanks it was too much for them to bear.

  Ros told me bartering was only appropriate when we received something that was actually useful. ‘Please tell Mrs Jenkins we only have one teapot. She doesn’t need to knit us another tea cosy.’

  But I couldn’t tell them. These dear ladies were bored, lonely widows in terraced houses, living on state pensions. I told Ros I wasn’t just doing a meat round, we were a social service. They’d be very disappointed.

  ‘Well, get them to knit socks. We always need socks.’

  ‘Bobble hats in Tottenham Hotspur’s colours,’ suggested Jack, the team we had supported since childhood.

  Arfon was a rare visitor to Dyffryn. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen his Land Rover pulling up outside the house. He was a skeletal figure with a sunken face, one cloudy eye half closed, the other darting about the place. Trouble was coming, I could tell.

  ‘Someone has poisoned Mac,’ he said, in his hollow, hoarse voice. ‘It’s not you, boy, I know that.’

  He fidgeted, leaning forward, putting his full weight onto his crook. Moving from foot to foot every few seconds, drawing in deep breaths. As well as all his other ailments, he was asthmatic. ‘It’s been brewing for some time, and I’ll get to the bottom of it, you wait and see.’

  ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘Dead as can be. Likely rat poison.’

  ‘Who’s behind it?’

  ‘Him over at Cae Uchaf, of course.’

  He said I would do well to stay out of the matter, that he would take his revenge. I wondered if he knew that Gethin hadn’t spoken to me for months, that I had no dealings with the man. I asked him why he thought Gethin had poisoned his dog, what proof he had.

  ‘The man’s a liar. He was brought up on lies.’ So I asked him again, but he struggled for breath, unable to speak. Before he could answer Ros appeared from the vegetable garden, pushing a wheelbarrow. With a nurse’s eye, she saw the state of him. She put her arm round him and walked him slowly to the bench below the kitchen window.

  ‘Go and get a glass of water,’ she said, giving me a look, as if I wasn’t dealing adequately with the situation. She sat with him while he drank, and in a few minutes he’d recovered. Speaking to her in Welsh, getting animated, his breathing becoming more strained, he stood up holding onto Ros with both hands and made his way back to the Land Rover.

  He hadn’t told me what proof he had that Gethin had poisoned his dog. What drove him on I did not know, let alone where he would find the energy to take revenge. Maybe any man is loath to go to his grave knowing old scores have not been settled.

  I had now finished writing my speech for the WI. When I read it to Ros she timed it at only eighteen minutes, well short of the half hour Gwenda Nicholls had suggested. Ros said I’d rather raced through it; I should speak more slowly. I did, stretching it out to twenty-one minutes. So I added some dramatic rhetoric about the coming of Armageddon, the opening of the seven seals, the four horsemen of the apocalypse, and the wrath of the Almighty if we did not stop using modern farming methods. I said that the individual can do something about it. Everybody can play a part, buy British, buy organic food. Look after Mother Earth. Then I crashed my fist down on the table, Ros looking up from her watch, saying thirty-one minutes. ‘Good. That should leave them reeling in the aisles.’

  ‘If you don’t mind me saying, you sound a bit like a religious fanatic.’

  As I sat down again in Winford Hook’s Porthmadog office, every feeling I’d had on my first visit rolled back over me. I sat in the gloom like a castaway, with my only hope of rescue lying at the bottom of the profit and loss columns. Despite his suggestion, we hadn’t taken on a bookkeeper, Ros thinking it another expense and herself more than capable of organising the necessary files. She had filled in the ledgers, showing every transaction clearly in neat handwriting. Every transaction, that is, that went through the books. Some cash had gone into my back pocket, but it hadn’t found its way there by some clever plan to deceive the taxman. It was out of laziness more than anything.

  Mrs Hook, for that unfortunate woman was indeed his wife, traipsed across the room rattling the tea cups. I thanked her and emptied the saucer, while the cat still slept in the fireplace. Everything was exactly as it had been before, except that Winford was wearing a yellow V-neck pullover under his tweed jacket as he went through our accounts.

  The longer I sat there waiting for him to lift his head, the more I rehearsed my responses to his opening salvo. It was a year since I had left here disconsolate, thinking my world was coming to an end. Winford was an unemotional man, adrift in a sea of numbers. My gaze was drawn to the large aspidistra on the windowsill, to the delicate cobweb quivering between its leaves. I was abo
ut to walk over and dust it when Hook at last grunted beneath the tweed.

  ‘Well well,’ he said, ‘the man who reversed the tide . . . well, well. The man who tied the tourniquet around the haemorrhaging wound.’

  ‘Thank you, Hook. Words I can tell you I was not expecting. But as you can see we’ve worked hard, and the improvement, without doubt, is because I’m selling at a retail price.’

  ‘Duw, Perry, I cannot fathom you. You come over in many different guises.’

  It was hard to tell from his expression what he thought. Maybe he was genuinely mystified. He lived in a room of panelled mahogany, tieback curtains, moulded ceilings. It was as if he never left the place, had grown into his furniture, and Mrs Hook was really the dominant one keeping him prisoner. I imagined they lived in a Hitchcock film, his view of the world coming from his clients, the weary hill farmers, pouring out their woes and struggles. I knew all too well his depressing monologue: give it up, son, go and take a job down in the Firestone factory, all is in decline. It made me wonder if he had seen anybody reverse a trend before.

  ‘You have made a profit of four thousand two hundred and eighty-six pounds. The tax man will want some of that.’

  After I left Winford Hook’s office I went to the Cob record shop, where I spent an hour going through the second-hand LPs, wondering whether they would consider bartering. I eventually came home with six new albums, bought at a knockdown price. It was strange that a shop with such a huge record collection should be found in Porthmadog, but there it was, right on our doorstep.

  Sam and Lysta were both down with chickenpox, so Sunday lunch at Trefanai had been cancelled; instead we invited my mother to join us. We hadn’t seen her since her holiday in Cyprus. When Moss heard the droning insect sound of her moped outside, she was up at the window scratching at the glass. Fearless now, she ran out barking at the alien with the huge bright cherry on its head.