Sam and Chester

by Jo Bailey

  ‘No, honey, the foxes won’t get to Chester because he’ll be safe in his Wendy house.’ I put my arms around the boys and pulled them close for a cuddle, planting a dozen kisses on both their foreheads. ‘We will check on Chester every day on the way home from school,’ I promised them.

  Sam took the reassurance well; much better than he would have done a year previously. There had been so many wonderful changes in my boy. Not only was his vocabulary really coming along – now he’d just turned seven he was stringing more words together in succession – but he had also recently been integrated into three mainstream classes outside of the CAIRB: art, PE and music.

  But while Sam took the news well, his fears for Chester had affected me more than I’d realised. That evening I had a bad night’s sleep dreaming about the foxes and pondering how we were going to move Chester safely.

  The next morning, Richard reassured me that it would be a piece of cake.

  ‘We just need to get him up the ramp and into here,’ he said as he opened up the double doors at the back of his van. You could tell by looking inside that he was a gardener – it was plastered with mud and dirt. But there also wasn’t that much room for a full-size pig; I wondered if he had any idea just how big Chester was. I didn’t say anything about it just yet. I thought I would leave that surprise for when I opened the gate.

  ‘Chester! Here, boy!’ I shouted out his name. Chesty shot across the mud as fast as a bullet. He was so excited to have attention that he lifted himself up on to his hind legs, using the gate for leverage.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Richard spluttered, taking a step back.

  I guess to an outsider Chester could look quite intimidating – to me, though, no matter how large he got, he would always just be our little micro pig.

  ‘He’s harmless,’ I said protectively. ‘Just a little stubborn at times.’

  I could tell Chester was being protective of me too as he gave Richard a good old sniff. I have to admit, it warmed my heart to see him behave in that way – just as we had all grown to love Chester, he’d grown to love all of us.

  Even Darren at times too, I was sure.

  We decided to tie a rope around Chester’s neck and lead him up the ramp and into the back of Richard’s van. Chester didn’t mind the rope, in fact he wagged his tail at that part, but as soon as Richard started tugging, Chester literally dug his trotters in. He would not budge. He was squealing and oinking and telling us in no uncertain terms to leave him where he was. I couldn’t even persuade him with pignuts.

  Then I had an idea. ‘What about sticking a sack over his head, like they do with horses to get them in a box?’ I suggested.

  To try that, we needed to lock Chester in his Wendy house first so he wouldn’t run off anywhere while we sorted out the sack. That part I could do without too much trouble. While Richard located a handy sack, I escorted Chester to his house and then carefully threaded the rope that was still around his neck through the window, so I could hold him in place from the outside – now it was my turn to dig my heels in. The plan was for Richard to open the front door of Chester’s house and put the sack over his head, while I held Chester steady.

  Richard was braced like a rugby player about to dive into a tackle as we counted down: ‘Three, two, one!’

  But the second Richard opened the door, Chester charged out, almost knocking the gardener face down into the mud as he went. Chester knew what we were trying to do and he didn’t want any part in it.

  The rope burned through my hands and trailed off behind Chester into the mud. Oh, Chester, I thought. If only he knew we were doing this for his own good, to take him somewhere safe while we returfed the lawn.

  By now, two hours had passed. I was so stuck for ideas that I even turned to Facebook for help.

  ‘How does one get a 15-stone pig into the back of a Ford Transit van?’ I posted on my page.

  I should have expected the sort of answers I received, such as, ‘Open the door for him.’

  Great advice. As the hours crept past and Richard and I gave up on the idea of leading our recalcitrant pig into the van, I could see no alternative but to ring the vet. It pained me to say the words: ‘Could you please sedate my pig?’

  The vet asked where I wanted to take him. I explained about the field being fifteen minutes away. But the vet told me he was unable to help; I think because it was such a short journey and Chester would need another dose of drugs to wake him up when we got to the field, the sedation was too dangerous. I can’t recall the exact details now but the short answer was, ‘No.’

  It was at moments like this that I wished there wasn’t a time zone and thousands of miles between Darren and me because I knew he would have been able to calm me down and think of a solution. Luckily, the vet came up trumps.

  ‘I do have another idea,’ he told me on the phone.

  He said he knew a local pig farmer who was retired but might be able to come up with a solution for transporting Chester. It gave me a glimmer of hope.

  It turned out that the farmer lived very close to our barn. He had handled pigs for twenty years before he switched to lambing. He drove into our yard in his big red tractor the very next day, shortly after I’d picked the boys up from school. He took one look at Chester and wasn’t the least bit fazed by his size or bolshiness.

  ‘This is easy,’ he said, unpacking a stack of wood better known in farming language as ‘pig boards’. He slotted them together, building a walkway directly from Chester’s Wendy house into the rectangular metal container hooked on the back of his tractor. The walkway was like a giant rat run. I sprinkled a trail of pignuts along it just in case Chester needed some encouragement.

  Sam and Will helped me count down this time.

  ‘Three, two, one . . .’

  I opened the Wendy house door and once more Chester shot out. He ran all the way into the metal box, which had a door you could open, close and lock shut. The whole thing was over in minutes.

  ‘Oh, thank God.’ I breathed a sigh of relief as the farmer locked Chester in. I’d thought we were never going to be able to transport him. I felt like doing a victory dance – but we still had to get Chester and his Wendy house to the field safely.

  I’ll never forget the sight of Chester’s half-chewed Wendy house being spiked on to the front of the tractor (the farmer used the two huge spikes normally used for picking up hay bales to scoop up Chester’s house), while Chester sat in the metal box attached to the back, his cheeky orange face peeping over the top. Sam was insistent that we drive behind the tractor so we could keep a watchful eye on Chester. I gave the farmer directions to the field and off we all went.

  How ridiculous we must have looked, driving in convoy up and down the country lanes with a battered Wendy house wobbling along on the front of the tractor, straw flying from the holes where its windows used to be, and a big ginger pig suspended in a metal box at the back. Chester looked the picture of happiness, though. He was sitting on his haunches, grinning from ear to ear, the wind sweeping through the ginger tufts of fur on the top of his head. His head was in fact the only bit of him we could see, just poking over the side of the box: his big, ginger head and his smiley face.

  I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw that Sam was laughing, real belly laughs, at the ridiculousness of his pig. Sam’s happiness was contagious, and pretty soon all three of us were in fits of laughter.

  At the top of the hill Richard was waiting to let us into his field. The Wendy house was lowered to the ground and put into position. The sight of Chester’s battered house plonked in the middle of a huge circular field that overlooked half of Devon was so incongruous I couldn’t help but laugh.

  ‘Aren’t you a lucky pig, Chesty!’ I exclaimed as the farmer let our happy-go-lucky pig out of the metal box.

  I expected Chester to run around as soon as he was out, relishing the fact he had a whole field of grass he could turf up; the field was covered in the stuff, some of it waist-high. But no: he casually strol
led around, sniffing the air, and then headed into his house for a snooze. The boys followed him into the Wendy house to check he was tucked up in bed, and gave him a kiss goodnight.

  ‘How much do I owe you?’ I asked the farmer who had saved our bacon.

  He was such a lovely man that at first he said we owed him nothing, and even after much cajoling by me said just something to cover his petrol costs.

  I handed him five times that amount, as I really wouldn’t have known what to do if he hadn’t come to the rescue.

  ‘Bye, Chester!’ We all waved from the gate.

  It felt strange driving off and leaving him there. I hoped he would be OK all alone in that huge field and that no harm would come to him. I couldn’t explain why, but I just had this niggling feeling that something awful was about to happen.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Poorly Pig

  AN EAR-PIERCING SCREAM cut right through me. I didn’t have to see Chester to know he was in trouble.

  ‘Hang on, I’m coming!’ I shouted as I bounded out of the Land Rover towards the field. He’d only been in his new home for a few days but it seemed we had already hit a crisis. Luckily I’d just dropped the boys off at school before coming to check on Chester, so they weren’t around to hear his cries.

  As I ran full pelt into the field I saw what the trouble was at once. Chester’s mouth was hooked on some barbed wire. The poor thing had somehow managed to get it trapped between his bottom front two teeth. He was screaming and wriggling, caught on the fence, desperately trying to set himself free.

  I didn’t know how long he’d been suffering for – possibly all night. I didn’t know if the barbs had cut through his tongue. I didn’t know what to do.

  I tried pulling the wire free – but Chester was so agitated that he fought back. Every time I tugged, he pulled backwards, the wire becoming even more embedded between his teeth with every movement he made. It was simply awful to see him so distressed.

  ‘Come on, Chester.’ I tried to get him to move forward to loosen the wire, as his backwards motion was pulling it taut, but he was tugging too much in the opposite direction and all the time the wire was slicing deeper. I didn’t have anything to hand with which I could cut him free. I had no choice but to get behind Chester and push his rump forward to create some slack.

  I squatted into a scrum position and bulldozed with all my might. Chester screamed, trampling further backwards, knocking me to the ground. I felt helpless, the two of us all alone in the field, and me unable to cut him free.

  But I couldn’t give up. I had to save Chester.

  I tried pushing him again, and again, and forty minutes later I was still pushing. Every muscle in my body was burning under his 15-stone weight.

  ‘Come on, Chester!’ I shouted for the umpteenth time.

  Suddenly, he lurched forward and I grabbed the loosening wire. I tugged, he pulled, and somehow, between us, it became dislodged from his mouth. I fell backwards into the grass, exhausted.

  I looked over at Chester – to see him bouncing in the air: he was literally jumping for joy. He rushed over to me and smothered my face in pig kisses. His oinking was deeper and more breathless than usual, like he couldn’t thank me enough for helping him.

  I lay like a starfish in the middle of the huge field, staring up at Chester’s big orange face. I gently stroked the fur on his cheeks, telling him how happy I was that he was OK.

  The whole incident really shook me up, though. It was the first time I’d had a real scare about Chester. It made me realise how vulnerable our enormous pig actually was and that I would have to keep a closer eye on him. It made me realise just how much I loved him.

  ‘What if something happens to him again and I’m not there?’ I asked Darren when I called him later that day.

  ‘He’ll be fine; he’s as tough as anything.’

  Rational as ever, Darren reminded me that Chester would only be in the field for one or two weeks. We would soon have him back under our watchful eyes again and everything would be fine.

  Unfortunately, things didn’t go quite according to plan.

  A few days later, we found out that there were some problems with the sale of my house in Spain. The paperwork needed to be redone – and it would take time. Chester was going to have to remain where he was for months rather than weeks.

  This news meant that I wasn’t now just anxious about Chester, but about Sam too. How was I going to break this news to him? A couple of months didn’t seem like a lot in the grand scheme of things, but it could tip the balance in terms of Sam’s progress. I had told him that he and Chester would only be apart for a few weeks. How would he cope not only with the change of plan, but with not having Chester around all the time?

  Darren gave me another pep talk. He told me Chester was happy because he had a big field to roam around in and Sam would rise up to the challenge rather than melt down. And Darren was right. Sam more than coped with the long-distance relationship – he actually flourished with the additional responsibilities that Chester’s new location brought. For he was determined to carry on caring for his pig.

  Sam took great pride in lifting the straw bales over the fence; he delighted in carting the bags of pignuts and buckets of water through the field to Chester’s house. All this physical work had a positive effect on Sam’s strength, too – every time he heaved, lifted, carried and climbed, he was working out his upper body and arm muscles, helping him build strength in those particular areas.

  Lynda Russell was quick to remark on the changes. She noted how much more energy Sam had at school. Typically, he would have been slumped in his chair by the end of the day because he was so tired from holding himself up. But in just a few weeks Sam had gone from lethargic to full of beans.

  His caretaking responsibilities had also given him another surge of confidence. He was talking even more about Chester at school, proudly telling the other children on the CAIRB about Chester’s new home and how he had to look after him.

  As the spring days changed into the summer of 2010, I now looked forward to our early-morning rises. Not only were our pre-school visits to Chester precious bonding time with the boys for me, but it was also a magical time in the countryside. Chester’s field was an oasis of calm away from the rest of the world. The musical chatter of the birds, the dew on the cobwebs, the smell of the wild flowers and grass – it was divine. On a clear day you could see for miles below.

  In those moments, it felt like we were the only people on the planet: me, Sam, Will and, of course, Chester.

  Every morning without fail, Chester would belt towards the gate to greet us. His tail would be wagging and his nose twitching as he got a whiff of Sam’s bag of pignuts.

  ‘We’ll bring him some apples on the way back from school,’ I told the boys one morning as I leant on the gate, breathing in the fresh country air. Sam flapped with excitement at the thought of treating Chester.

  We all climbed back into the Land Rover, and I dropped the boys off at school as usual. I had a lot to get on with that morning: I had to speak to my lawyer in Spain about finalising the deal on the house, I had to organise a removal van to move our things from the rented barn to our new house, plus there were still some outstanding bits of damage to fix in the barn.

  The day was going really well until Richard, the gardener who’d returfed our lawn and owned the field that Chester was staying in, called me partway through the afternoon.

  ‘There’s something not right with your pig,’ he announced.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Chester had seemed fine that morning.

  Richard, who lived only a few hundred metres from the field, said he’d just stuck his head over the gate and seen Chester lying motionless in his Wendy house.

  ‘He was probably just snoozing,’ I said. Our pig did that a lot, so I dismissed Richard’s worry at first.

  ‘No, Jo, he couldn’t get up, something is wrong with him,’ he said gravely.

  I fell silent. I could hear Ri
chard breathing on the other end of the line, waiting for me to say something. But I didn’t know what to say. I imagined Chester lying helplessly in his home. Maybe a fox had attacked him and left him for dead? Had he somehow hurt himself? My mind was conjuring up all sorts of dreadful images. I suddenly felt sick with anxiety.

  ‘I’m on my way.’ I hung up and raced to the car.

  I didn’t want to take the boys to see Chester without finding out what was wrong with him first, but I didn’t have any choice. They needed collecting from school. I picked the boys up and then headed straight to the field. I forced myself to take some deep breaths, as I didn’t want to alarm Will and Sam.

  ‘Mummy, did you get apples for Chester?’ was the first thing Will asked as we drove, a little faster than usual, towards Chester’s field.

  Damn. In my panic I’d forgotten to swing past the shop to pick them up. I looked in the rear-view mirror – Sam looked upset at the news he wouldn’t be able to treat his friend, as had been timetabled in his ordered day.

  ‘We’ll feed him apples and carrots next time, I promise,’ I said, in an attempt to salvage the situation. Thankfully, it worked. I checked again in the mirror and Sam was now smiling at the thought of bringing Chester extra treats.

  I weighed up in my mind whether I should warn the boys about Chester. Sam couldn’t handle surprises at the best of times, let alone the news that his best friend might not be well. I decided that I had to bite the bullet.

  ‘Listen to me, Sam and Will, Chester might not be feeling very well, so we need to check if he’s OK,’ I said carefully.

  As I spoke, I was glancing in the rear-view mirror, waiting for Sam to explode. But he didn’t. In fact, Sam stayed perfectly calm. As we pulled off the lane and on to the grassy verge by the field, Sam grabbed the bag of pignuts, ready to carry out his usual duties. If I hadn’t been so worried about what state we’d find Chester in I would have praised Sam for how well he’d taken the news. My boy was learning how to deal with stressful situations.