by Jo Bailey
I then went to collect our pig, but Chester was two steps ahead of me. He was already under my feet, waiting to be lowered in. I thought Chester would hate the water but he loved it. He waded around, happy as a pig in mud – as they say.
Just as Chester had looked out for Sam earlier when he’d got upset about his plane drawing, Sam now repaid the love, looking out for his friend in return. He had taken my warning to heart and was being very protective of his piglet, making sure no splashes went over Chester’s head.
‘Hold out your hands,’ I told the boys. I squeezed a blob of shampoo into both their palms.
They then got to work building up a huge frothy lather all over Chester’s thick ginger fur. They worked the soap through one trotter and then the other. Chester merrily allowed himself to be moved this way and that as Will and Sam scrubbed all the mud away. He looked like a tiny white fluffy cloud by the end with just his brown eyes, pink ears and nose poking out from the foam. It was such a wonderful sight – the boys and their pig playing in the paddling pool in the courtyard, which was walled in by the old stone farm buildings.
The neighbours – we had two sets, one on either side of us – must have wondered what on earth was going on by this point. I’d met both couples on a number of occasions since we’d moved in, and the laughter now drew them out; or rather the sight of a pig did. The first couple to come and say hello were Neil and Brenda, who had chickens in their garden and a trampoline, which my boys had been eyeing up ever since we moved in.
‘Oh, is that a pig?’ Brenda exclaimed. I’m surprised she could tell what Chester was as he was so unrecognisable covered in soapsuds.
Chester looked up at the strangers with his smiley face.
‘Oh, he’s so cute! Look, Neil, he’s a teacup pig!’ She clapped her hands with joy.
Her husband, Neil, didn’t seem quite so taken by our new addition to the family. He just stood there in silence, staring at Chester, with a slightly displeased expression on his face.
‘I don’t think he’s very impressed,’ I said, once he’d gone back inside.
‘Oh, don’t mind him.’ Brenda waved off her husband’s concerns.
Darren found the whole thing amusing, as if he had foreseen the situation. I’d had no idea a small pig could cause offence, but maybe Neil was worried Chester would eat their chicken feed. I should have explained how, so far, our pig had been nothing short of the most perfectly behaved pet.
Next to check out the commotion were Henry and Liz, who owned the main farmhouse. They had been very welcoming and had suggested we pop round for supper one evening. Liz had big cheeks that were rosy as apples, always flushed red from the country air.
She too seemed a little doubtful about Chester. She brushed her brown fringe from her eyes as she gave Chester the once-over.
‘We used to keep pigs,’ she said, hinting there was a lot more to her story.
‘Oh, aren’t they just wonderful?’ I said breezily, blissfully unaware.
‘Hmm. I wonder when he will start turfing over the garden.’ She looked at Henry, knowingly.
Turfing over the garden? The thought hadn’t occurred to me. I still saw Chester as behaving like a dog rather than a pig.
‘Really, he won’t do that? Surely not?’ I blurted out.
Henry raised his eyebrows. ‘Good luck,’ he said with a wry chuckle.
But I didn’t think we needed luck. Our pig was the best-behaved pig ever; the neighbours may have had bad experiences but we had a micro pig and they were different – posh pigs have manners!
It was time to wash off the soap and dry Chester before he caught a chill. Sam took such care as he rubbed the pig down. I was half expecting Chester to shake himself out like a dog, but instead he pressed his wet fur against our legs.
‘Thank you, Chester.’ I patted down the damp patch on my jeans.
The boys were so worn out from all the excitement that they bedded down in the snug to watch Sunday night television. Chester was sandwiched between them on the green Habitat sofa that I’d shipped back over from Spain.
Meanwhile I sat with a cup of tea at the dining-room table with Mum and Darren. I had a few things on my mind – first and foremost, a worry that our pig could be taken from us.
‘What if the neighbours put a bad word in about Chester to the landlord?’ I fretted, taking another slurp of the hot brew. The landlord had told us we could have cats and dogs and because Chester was the equivalent of a dog, I hadn’t thought twice about it since we’d signed the lease. The neighbours’ reaction was now making me worry. I couldn’t bear the thought of the landlord taking Chester away from Sam.
As usual, Darren calmed me down with a well-timed joke.
‘We can always move again,’ he said wryly.
Mum nearly sprayed her mouthful of tea everywhere.
Darren may have been joking, but right then I would have done anything to keep Sam and Chester together.
And Sam would do anything to keep Chester by his side, so it transpired.
I tucked the boys into bed at 7 p.m. Chester was two steps ahead again – he had already taken himself off to his dog basket underneath the radiator.
Mum also decided on an early night and I got to have Darren to myself for the evening. We cuddled on the sofa in the snug. He wrapped his arm around me and I pressed my face into his big chest. Every time he came home, we grew closer and closer, and it was getting harder and harder for me to say goodbye to him each time he had to return to the rigs. I’d become well aware of how Darren’s calming influence was such a positive force in our lives, and was so happy being with him.
There was only one thing that could make the moment more perfect; I crept off to the kitchen to fetch a bar of chocolate.
‘Oh my God,’ I suddenly shrieked, as I passed Chester’s basket by the radiator.
It was empty. Where was Chester?
I checked every corner of the room, panicking he might have escaped somewhere or got stuck in something. I looked under the chairs, under the sofa, beneath the coffee table, behind the curtains . . . I even searched the kitchen cupboards. He was so tiny he could have squeezed in anywhere.
Then it suddenly dawned on me where he might be. I dusted off my knees and made a beeline for Sam’s bedroom.
I tiptoed down the stairs and quietly pushed open the door. There was a mound of duvet and sticking out from it were two heads on the pillow – Sam and Chester. My boy had his arm folded over his micro pig.
I caught Sam blinking – he was pretending to be asleep.
‘Sam, no!’ I told him firmly. ‘Chester is not allowed in the bedrooms.’
It was hard to keep a straight face, though; they looked so adorable together. But Chester wasn’t yet toilet-trained so some rules simply had to stay in place.
‘You can play with him tomorrow.’ I prised the piglet from his arms. ‘And it’s time for you to go to your own bed,’ I said to Chester as I held him up to my face.
He twitched his pink nose and blinked a few times too – the picture of innocence.
Is he putting on a performance just like Sam? I caught myself thinking. Then I shook the thought away. He’s just a piglet. How could he be that cunning?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Squealing with Laughter
DRIP, DRIP, DRIP.
Something was splashing on to our duvet. And not just dripping – pouring.
‘Darren.’ I shook him awake, pointing to a stream of liquid that was cascading from the ceiling on to our bed below.
‘What time is it?’ He rubbed his bleary eyes.
It was 6 a.m. and it took Darren several minutes to come round and absorb what was happening. Because our house was inverted, i.e. the bedrooms were on the ground floor, the first thing we thought was that there must be a burst pipe or a leaking radiator. But then another thought occurred to us. We looked at each other and screamed in unison: ‘Chester!’
I’d never seen Darren move so quickly. He threw back the sodden
duvet and raced up the staircase. Then all I heard was a string of expletives. Chester had let out such an enormous pee that it had leaked through the floor of the snug into our bedroom below.
‘Oh my God, it’s pig wee.’ I jumped out of bed hurriedly, quickly grabbing some towels and placing them on the bed underneath the leak.
Our screaming had woken the boys. They stumbled into our bedroom in their PJs, rubbing the sleep from their eyes.
‘Mummy, what’s wrong?’ Will asked.
‘Chester’s weeing on the bed, stay back!’
‘Yuck!’ Will yelled.
Sam was more concerned about Chester’s wellbeing and scrambled up the stairs to check on him.
I was feeling quite put out, I will admit. He’d ruined our nice clean white sheets, not to mention the ceiling paintwork. I told the boys that there would be no more playing with Chester until we’d house-trained him and we would start as soon as I had picked them up from school later that day.
I was reluctant to go upstairs – if the mess in our room was anything to go by, then heaven only knew what the study looked like. Luckily it only had floorboards in it so we didn’t have a soaked carpet to contend with, but nonetheless I braced myself for the worst.
As I climbed the stairs, I found the family outside on the decking, circled around our micro pig. Chester was sitting on his haunches, staring up at them and grinning innocently, as if to say, ‘Me? What did I do wrong?’
It was hard to be cross with Chester when he looked so cute. Plus it wasn’t his fault; it was ours for not starting house-training earlier. Also, he was only a ‘puppy’ so accidents were to be expected.
‘Right, boys, time to get ready for school.’ It was easy to while away the hours with Chester – he was such a distraction – but Monday morning meant school, even if there was now a pig in the house.
While Darren cleaned up the mess in the snug, I followed Sam to his bedroom to help him put on his school uniform. Even though Sam’s gross motor skills weren’t likely to improve any time soon, I always talked him through what order I was dressing him in, in the hope that one day he might get the hang of it himself. Routine was critical for his wellbeing.
‘So next we put your shoes on,’ I instructed, wiggling his black lace-ups on to his feet while he sat on the bed. It was very hard to keep Sam’s attention. He was either obsessively into something or couldn’t concentrate at all. All he cared about at this particular moment was getting back to Chester, so I had a real job on my hands to get him dressed.
This particular day at school was set to be a big day for Sam, as it was his first day back since taking ownership of Chester and he would be able to share his Chester stories with the children at the CAIRB – with the help of Lynda Russell. Lynda had established a system of communication called a ‘home link diary’. This was simply a ruled exercise book we both wrote in that Sam carried back and forth in his book bag. In it, Lynda would describe what Sam had been up to during the day at school and what his behaviour had been like, and I would report back on how Sam had behaved at home. It was quite an old-fashioned system when you think about it, but very effective. It filled in the blanks for me and for her and, more importantly, provided continuity for Sam. The home link diary would enable Lynda to prompt Sam to discuss Chester at school and allow her to start conversations with Sam and the other children about the pig.
It also gave me ideas of what I could say to Sam in the evenings. For example, if Sam had spent the morning in the sensory garden I could ask him about the water features he had played with. If Sam became obsessive with his drawing at home, the diary was a way of helping me break his thoughts with conversation. I didn’t need these tools at the moment, though – I had Chester. I wondered if Lynda would notice any change in Sam’s behaviour, as I had even in the short time the micro pig had been one of the family.
I struggled to get Sam into the car that day – he didn’t want to leave Chester. He stood by his pig’s side like a bodyguard, arms crossed in protest.
‘Sam, get in the car now.’ I pointed to the silver Land Rover.
‘Sam does not want to go,’ he snapped. His body was rigid with tension, his eyes glistening with tears. I prayed that a meltdown wouldn’t follow.
‘Sam, if you are a good boy and go to school now, you can help train Chester tonight.’ I reminded him of what a special treat lay ahead.
He looked down at Chester, his bottom lip quivering with sadness.
‘Chester needs you to be a good boy and go to school.’ I tried to use his friend’s needs to persuade him.
Sam tilted his head as he digested the deal.
‘All right,’ he sighed, a little huffily, but nonetheless in agreement with my request.
That had been a little easier than usual.
I’d told Lynda Russell we were getting a pet pig, so that wasn’t news as such, but Sam’s transformation over the weekend was. At the school gates I excitedly shared with her Sam’s progress in just a few days, in particular the story of my boy giggling and laughing as he played with the pig. It was such a contrast to the frightened, anxious little boy who had started at Manor Primary. I told Lynda how my son was filled with joy to be with Chester.
Lynda was clearly moved as she heard about Sam’s experiences over the weekend. Parents were coming and going around us as they dropped their children off and there we were, excitedly exclaiming about Sam’s achievements in the midst of the morning rush.
‘Bye, sweetie,’ I said eventually, kissing Sam on his forehead. As I walked away, I hoped the weekend’s positivity would permeate through to Sam’s daily routine at school too.
In the meantime, I had a lot to keep myself busy with – mostly working out which techniques I could use to train Chester. Darren had grown up with dogs so had a few ideas of his own. He wanted to make sure his approach married up with the micro-pig skills handbook, though, so he gave Pennywell Farm another call.
Katie teased us for being back in touch – the second time in twenty-four hours. She then revealed a tip I would never have thought of – toilet training using grapes. Apparently micro pigs can’t get enough of the sweet fruit so if you want to bribe them into performing – just hold out a grape or two!
Darren and I headed into Totnes to do a supermarket shop. I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself as I watched Darren rummaging through the fruit and veg – here was a tough man who regularly dealt with fires breaking out on oil rigs, now deciding whether to buy white or red grapes for our miniature pig. We settled for a punnet of white. Now we had everything we needed for Chester’s toilet-training session later that day.
When the time came to collect the boys from school, I couldn’t wait to tell them what we had in store. I was also eager to find out if Sam had mentioned Chester in class. Sadly, that was a little too much to wish for. It reminded me that there was still so much to learn about his condition.
The confusing thing about autism was that although I was learning how to read Sam’s behaviour, I could never predict it. His mind was a law unto itself. The smallest thing that might go unnoticed by you or I could trigger a strong reaction in Sam. Something as minor as sitting in a different seat than usual could upset him for the rest of the day.
Nothing had upset Sam at school – but nothing much had changed either. Lynda reported that Sam had spent a while soothing himself with the spaghetti lights in the sensory room and then spent a lot of time drawing.
‘He did start drawing something new, though,’ she said.
My heart leapt – Chester?
‘Ben 10.’
I sighed. Ben Tennyson was a cartoon character – a ten-year-old boy who discovers a magical device that can turn him into ten different alien heroes, each with its own unique abilities. At least he’d moved on from planes. Maybe Chester had affected him in some way.
Lynda had told all the children in the CAIRB about Chester, though, and they had shown such interest. Although Sam shunned the spotlight and hated anyone looking d
irectly at him, Lynda had caught him smiling as she spoke – a ‘that’s my pig’ moment.
‘Chester’s missed you very much today,’ I said to Sam as we made our way home.
Sam was lost in his own world, staring out of the car window and ignoring me. I knew better than to allow his lack of communication to upset me, though. His behaviour was like the weather: some days it was sunny, other days it was rainy and every now and then you got turbulent storms. We just had to take each day as it came.
And on this day, Chester was waiting by the front door for Sam when we got home. As soon as we pushed open the big green front door, our pet pig mauled us with the exuberant happiness of his greeting.
‘Oh, look, he’s wagging his tail!’ I squealed in delight. Pennywell hadn’t told us about that quirk – he really was like a dog. It was all that was needed to snap Sam out of his daydream and bring him back to us.
He crouched down to Chester’s height and opened his arms as wide as he could stretch them, embracing his friend. Chester butted his snout against Sam’s face – they had clearly missed each other.
As touching as the reunion was, I knew I couldn’t let them spend all evening catching up: there was a plan we needed to execute.
‘Right, boys!’ I clapped my hands, getting everyone’s attention. Darren was already standing behind me, armed with the punnet of grapes. ‘Every time Chester starts weeing,’ I instructed, ‘we have to take him outside and give him a grape.’ The aim was that Chester would soon come to associate going to the loo outside with food, and be so desiring of said food that he would eventually always go to the loo outside. The boys nodded: everyone knew what they had to do.
Half an hour later, the boys were playing with Chester on the rug and there was still no sign of him needing a ‘comfort break’. We couldn’t get him to stop peeing earlier – but now the thing wouldn’t wee. Darren was sitting on the sofa, tapping his foot impatiently. I was analysing every move and squeak Chester made for signs of him needing to go.
Of course, we had lift-off the moment my back was turned.
