by Claire Peate
“Actually, there aren’t that many sheep wandering around in the capital city. And besides, I know they’re sheep. It’s just I thought I heard another noise as well as the sheep…”
“Another noise?” Cathy asked nervously, and the girls hushed up. “What, like a big cat sort of a noise?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Whatever it was the sheep sound like they’re scared. Laura said so.”
Laura nodded. “It’s true. They sound scared.”
“Which ties in with Rachel hearing the other noise,” finished Henna. “The other noise scared them.”
Louisa shrugged and stumbled back to the sofas saying, “Sounds like bloody sheep to me. Where have the chocolates gone? Henna, did you eat my chocolates, you fat cow?”
The four of us turned back to the window.
There was a face.
Less than a metre away from the window.
I screamed. My heart leapt into my throat. The girls at the window screamed too, and Louisa ran back to us. A man was standing in the shadowy field below the window. Right there – looking in at us.
I could feel my skin prickling. I felt sick.
“What the fuck!!” Louisa tore the curtains open.
“There’s a man in the field of sheep!”
Through the twisted, thick panes of the old window, I could just make out that he was wearing a dark jacket and he was slowly walking towards us, emerging from the black until he was just directly under the window, his face lit by the lamplight coming from our sitting room. He could reach out and touch the old lead panes. My head was filled with horrible images: what was he doing to the sheep? Why was he here? What was he going to do…?
“Hello there, ladies!” he shouted at the window.
The five of us girls, crammed in to the bay, gaped wordlessly back at him. I could hear from the shaky breaths that the others were as frightened as I was. The shock of seeing a face look up at me from the night would haunt me for the rest of my life. However long that would now be.
No one said anything. En masse we all stared back like a pack of meerkats watching the hunter. I felt the urge to scrabble back from the glass and run to the safety of the cellar. But at that very moment, Marcia popped into my head. What would Marcia do in this situation? Run off to the cellars and hide? No.
I stepped forward.
“What do you want?” I shouted at the figure. His face was horribly distorted by the bubbles and folds in the ancient glass. I shifted my position, trying to get a better look at him through a less opaque patch of window: did he look violent, angry, honest, harmless? How would I identify him in a police line-up afterwards? If there was an afterwards…
“I’m sorry to scare you, love! Can I come in and use your phone?” his muffled voice called out in a sing-song, lilting Welsh accent.
“Don’t you have a mobile?” I shouted back.
“Good point,” whispered Laura at my back, patting me on the shoulder.
“Not got it on me, see,” the man answered, holding his hands up in a sort of a shrug.
“Pah! Unlikely,” whispered Laura in my ear. “Ask him why he needs a phone.”
I turned to her, temporarily forgetting my terror, “You bloody ask him, Laura!”
“You’ve made the connection, Rachel.” She patted me on the shoulder again. “That’s very important. Go on, ask him.” The others nodded wordlessly at me. Meerkats, the lot of them. I sighed and turned back to the window.
“Why do you need to make a call?”
“It’s my sheep. They’re in danger. I need to get a vet here right now. Please love, let me use your phone.”
I turned back again to the girls, huddled tightly behind me in the bay. Louisa and Henna, who were the most drunk of all the drunks assembled there, just looked green-faced and incapable of speaking at that moment. Laura seemed to have more of her wits about her and together with Cathy they shrugged their shoulders.
“It’s up to you,” Laura slurred.
“It’s up to me?”
Why was it up to me?
“Please!” the man shouted from outside, “I won’t be a minute. I just need to make a call to my vet, see.”
“OK, OK,” I relented, throwing my hands in the air. “Come round to the front door and I’ll let you in.”
“RACHEL!” Louisa gaped at me, horrified. “What the bloody hell are you doing? You can’t let him in!”
“I’m making a decision. Nobody else looked like they would.”
“What if he’s a murderer? He could kill you. He could kill us! Maybe he’s the big cat – yes! What if he’s the Beast of Brecon like on the news? What if he goes around killing sheep and making it look like it was a cat attack?”
“What?”
We all looked at Louisa.
“Well,” she began defensively, “I mean, maybe he’s mad and … you know … he had this big trauma as a boy and … he has to kill as a way of dealing with the trauma. Fuck, I don’t know. It’s possible. Stop looking at me like that. At least I’m not the one inviting him in to the house.”
“I’m not a killer, love. I’m a farmer.”
We turned back to the window, having forgotten we had an audience just a pane of glass away.
I felt myself turning red with shame. “Yes, well, you can understand what we’re worried about. It’s not as if you’ve got the equivalent of a British Gas calling card or something.”
There was a pause. “No, you’ve got me there. Hold on a minute though, I’ve got my NSA invite.” Through the glass I could see him scrabbling around in his jacket pocket. He found whatever it was he was looking for and triumphantly held it up to the window.
“What’s the NSA?” Laura asked.
I peered up to the glass and read the worn scrap of paper, “Cymru Wales National Sheep Association AGM 2007. Royal Welsh Show Ground Tuesday 29th July at 2pm. Well-known auctioneer Mr Bryn Davies from McSparrows has agreed to be guest speaker. All welcome.”
Laura looked sceptical. “He could have written it specifically to…”
I held up my hand to stop her and looked out to the man at the window. “Enough! Come round to the front!” I called to him and I walked out of the bay.
“Rachel!” Louisa and the others padded after me, still clutching their drinks for support.
I looked around the hallway as I walked down it to the heavy wooden door. “Laura, you grab that poker and keep it nearby. Everyone be on their guard. No, Laura, don’t brandish it. Jesus Christ, we’re not going to attack the man – he’s probably harmless. This is rural Wales after all, not Manchester. Just keep the poker nearby, hidden or something. That’s better.”
Slowly I slid back the iron bolts and turned the key in the lock. My heart was still thundering in my chest and it was a wonder I could hear the scrape of the metal as I opened up the house to the man outside. I sincerely hoped I was doing the right thing here.
I pulled the heavy wooden door open.
“Oh…”
There was a clang behind me as the poker slipped out of Laura’s hand.
This man was handsome. Very handsome! Dark-eyed and almost swarthy, he was tall and broad with a mop of thick brown hair and the most amazing cheekbones.
I looked round to see the girls clearly having the same revelation that I was having, marvelling at the Welsh Adonis on our doorstep. Suddenly I felt happier about the prospect of letting him in to the Hen House. He looked harmless enough. I know they say that about serial killers, but this man really did look like a nice chap. And really, so handsome. Surely no one so good looking could do anything really bad, could they?
He was still holding his scrappy invite which he now proffered to me.
I shook my head, ashamed to be such an untrusting townie. “Come in, then,” I said, pulling my fingers through my hair in a bid to look more presentable. He stepped in to the porch and now he was fully lit I could see he was wearing a filthy jacket that had probably once been waxed, with well-worn jeans and T-shirt. And t
here was a broad gash of blood across his chest.
I stared at it.
“Not mine,” he said, obviously seeing my expression of horror as he walked past me into the hallway, “don’t worry. It’s sheep blood. The name’s Gwyn, by the way. Gwynfor Jones. I’m the farmer down yer in the valley.” He pointed back up the driveway. “Sorry for interrupting you all. Party, is it?”
“Hen weekend.” Louisa stepped forward in front of me and held out her hand, trying to balance and stay upright. “I’m Louisa,” she giggled in what she probably imagined was a coquettish way and I inwardly groaned. What is it about alcohol that impairs all sense of judgement?
“Pleased to meet you, Louisa.” Gwyn shook the proffered hand then, looking round at me again, said, “I won’t be a moment, if I can just use your phone – it’s quite urgent, like.”
“Of course.” I led him in to the sitting room. He followed and as he did the girls crowded round him, eager to be the one who walked alongside him.
“So are you a sheep farmer, then?” Henna sidled up to him and stared at him with doe eyes.
“Err … yes. I have sheep so that makes me a sheep farmer.”
“Wow. That must be like a really amazing job. I’m a journalist. I write for The Times. Do you get The Times here? Yes? Well, you might have seen my picture then, they always print it on my columns but I keep asking them to change it because it’s taken from above and it looks like I have a double chin but I haven’t. Look. See?”
“Oh right.” Gwyn shot me a nonplussed look. I lifted my hand in a glass-tilting motion to imply she’d had the best part of a couple of bottles of wine. He nodded, smiling. Fortunately none of the others had seen this exchange, being too busy admiring his broad chest and tanned features.
I’d always had an image of farmers in my head based on those adverts for milk and cheese; hearty middle-aged fellows with ruddy faces and jolly, round stomachs full of beer. A bit like Santa in a Barbour. But this one looked more like the models from the aftershave commercials – all dark tousled hair and strong jaw line. A model in a bloodied waxed jacket and manure-clad wellies. Still…
“I like Welshmen,” Henna whispered deafeningly into my ear. She overtook me and flopped down on the sofa nearest to the phone where the farmer would be sitting to make the call.
“It’s good of you to invite me in,” he was saying, looking round for the first time, “but my God, look what’s happened to it!”
“What?” I asked, alarmed. Had we trashed the place already? We were rather drunk but surely we’d not spilt wine on the rugs?
“Phew!” He walked forward and went up to the fireplace where a few of the largest logs were still glowing in the grate. “The last time I saw inside this place was about eight years ago when they started the restoration. It was nigh on a ruin, it was. Now look at it, you’d never know, would you?”
“Know what?” Louisa asked, sitting down next to Henna on the seat second nearest to the phone, patting it lightly as an indication for Gwyn to sit beside her.
“That it had been a near ruin.” He looked at me as he said it.
“Oh. No. Well, I suppose not really,” I said, not really understanding what he was saying, watching his hair flop round his face as he brushed it away with a large rough hand. “So, anyway, here’s the phone.” I handed him the cordless phone and he smiled and sat on the opposite sofa to Henna and Louisa. Cathy immediately sat down next to him. Thwarted but not discouraged, Louisa jumped up from her sofa and glared at Cathy until she moved aside and let her take the coveted position next to the farmer. Hen’s prerogative. She slowly lowered herself next to him, smiling in what she no doubt thought was a provocative way, but was actually pretty glassy-eyed and unsteady.
If it weren’t so weird, it would have been funny, seeing Louisa and Henna turn on the charm like a plumber turns on the mains water. I was glad I was the more sober of them; at least it meant that someone took charge and I didn’t seem to have done a bad job up to this point. I was quite pleased with myself actually. Perhaps tomorrow Laura would take me aside and speak to me about how the Territorial Army needs people like me, that I’d shown excellent leadership material and perhaps I should come along to their HQ or whatever they call it, and enrol.
That’s what I could do to inject a little excitement into my life on a more permanent basis: join the TA! That would wipe the superior smile off Marcia’s face when I entertained her with tales of weekends spent dusting and buffing anti-aircraft missiles and crawling on my stomach through the barren wastelands of war-torn Dorset. Rehearsing violent warfare scenarios dressed in full combat gear, in places called Pippin Winterbury and Honeybourne Minster.
Actually, that sounded really crap. I could never be in the TA. After all, I wasn’t even sure what sheep sounded like, so what good would I be trying to survive in the countryside? I’d probably die of a gnat bite on my first night away from a town. And as Marcia had so helpfully pointed out, I hadn’t even been hiking or jogging in my dull and sheltered life. So to go from nothing to everything might be pushing it a bit. Besides, the uniform would never flatter my curvy figure. Camouflage only goes so far.
8
While Gwyn dialled the number, he looked round at the girls surrounding him, smiling sheepishly. “If I’d have known I’d be entertained I would have dressed for it,” he said and ran a hand through his hair. How old was he? Mid-thirties? Phew! He was lovely. Louisa laughed at him, like he’d just said the funniest thing ever, and laid a hand on his thigh. I cringed. I really couldn’t bear to watch.
It shocked me to realise that I had instantly been transported into a full-blown school-like crush. I wanted to sit on his lap. I wanted to run my fingers through his lovely Welsh hair. How long had it been since I’d felt like this? It must have been years. Nevertheless I was the perfect example of British reserve, standing at a distance, the others milling around him while I managed to exercise some restraint and not fling myself into the mix. They giggled and pouted and flirted while he smiled and leant back, a broad strong man looking ever so slightly overwhelmed by a gaggle of girls.
Invisible, I went into the kitchen and made a cup of tea for him. I couldn’t imagine the girls would let him escape back to his sheepy field straight away. Besides he would probably have to wait for his vet to come over, so he might as well wait in the Hen House rather than in his dark field. If there was a big cat on the prowl outside then he’d have a much better chance of survival in here than out there.
Louisa laughed loudly. “Oh Gwyn, that is just so funny.”
Well, a slightly better chance of survival.
I poked my head round the door to ask if he would actually like a cup of tea but he was busy dialling his vet’s number and politely peeling Louisa’s hand off the top of his thigh.
I went back into the kitchen. While I searched for the teabags and sugar I could hear the chatter stop while he was on the phone to the vet, describing what had happened. He was telling the vet that his sheep had been clearly distressed and making such a noise that he’d gone to investigate, finding one of the younger ones had been torn in two…
Torn in two.
I thought about that phrase while I boiled the kettle. Torn in two. Torn into two pieces. Torn. That wasn’t good. For a brief moment my imagination got the better of me and I pictured Louisa’s alternative scenario with the handsome farmer ripping a sheep in two with his bare hands, smearing himself with blood and laughing manically. Then, flinging aside the mangled carcass, he searched for the next kill, coming to the isolated house full of women to carry out more dark deeds, pretending to call his vet while lulling the girls into a false sense of security…
No. That was stupid.
The plain fact was he was far too handsome to be a bad man.
So did the “torn in two” imply that there was actually a big cat out there? At the very least there must be something out there that could tear a sheep in two? Urgh. What a horrible phrase. But now it was stuck in my head.
Torn.
In two.
That would probably explain why it was such an emergency and he had to call a vet straight away. If the vet identified it as a cat attack, what would happen? My thoughts went back to that TV report with the girl knocked down by the big black animal. Were we really really in danger? Should we be scared?
Would he want milk in his tea?
I considered it for a moment and then decided that he probably would. He didn’t seem like a slice of lemon type chap and besides we had no lemons. I stirred in a generous spoon of sugar, contemplated it and then stirred in another one. These farmers probably had at least two sugars, like builders. See? I was starting to find my way around this rural unknown.
I headed back into the sitting room. Gwyn had come off the phone now and I handed him the mug. He lightly pushed Louisa’s hand off his thigh again and took the tea.
“Thanks.” He smiled at me and I felt myself blush.
“No problems. I put two sugars in. I didn’t know whether I should…”
“Oh lovely,” he said, taking a sip and really doing quite a good job at hiding a wince.
“Sorry,” I grimaced, “I’m crap at making tea.”
“She’s crap at cooking as well,” chimed in Louisa. “I’m not. I’m a really good cook. I bet you like your food, eh Gwyn?”
“No no, it’s lovely. Honestly,” Gwyn said, so obviously lying.
“Gwyn was telling us about the Hen House.” Laura steered the conversation to something a bit more sensible. “He helped in renovating it.”
“Really?” I perched on a dining chair as the sofas were taken up with the Gwyn Appreciation Society. Even the quiet and hitherto rather sedate Cathy was looking more animated than usual. And hadn’t she undone the top button of her blouse? I was scandalised.
“There I am!” He brought me out of my thoughts as he handed me a scrapbook of the property. I glanced at its pages showing the old building in various stages of restoration. Countless photos of roof beams, dodgy brickwork and plastering.
And there he was, stripped to the waist, hoisting a giant rafter on his bare shoulders.
