The Treacherous Heart

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  Now it was Anne’s turn to be embarrassed. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I hadn’t thought about it.’

  ‘Joe has,’ the boy said cryptically. ‘He’s always talking about you—’

  ‘I’d better be getting on,’ Anne said hastily, making her retreat. ‘Bye!’

  The boy merely grunted and turned his head away again, and Anne passed on, noting with an absent curse the dirt under her nails where she had been scratching the bull. They hadn’t bothered to groom him for the sale, that was obvious.

  Even apart from the smell, you could tell when you were coming to the pig section of the market by the noise. All pigs screamed on principle whenever they were touched, and once they’d started, they would scream even before they were touched simply whenever anyone came near them. To the uninitiated, it would have seemed from a distance that they were being butchered there and then, by the noise they were making, whereas in fact they were only being driven from one pen to another.

  The trouble was that three of the smaller pig-farms shared a lorry. The pigs from each farm were daubed with a different colour – red, green, and blue – and by the dab of colour on their rumps they could be identified. They were all unloaded together into one large pen, and from this pen they had to be rounded up and driven into separate pens according to colour. It was a system that saved the farmers a lot of money on transport, but it was heavy on labour. The obstinate, panicking pigs were the hardest things on earth to handle, and usually all the stockmen and boys ended up giving a hand, whatever farm they belonged to.

  Here Anne found Joe, taking his turn at trying to corner the last few red weaners from among the greens and blues and drive them through the gate. A boy was stationed at the gate, ready to slip it open at the right moment, and shut it before all the others dashed through as well, while Joe, with a large piece of cardboard in his left hand, did the cutting-out.

  There was a ring of spectators round the outside of the pen, and Anne joined them. Some of them were shoppers and trippers, but most of them were stockmen and farmers, come to watch the fun – it was a kind of local rodeo. The boys were sent in first, when there were still so many pigs in the enclosure that they couldn’t move about much, but as the pen emptied and the pigs had more room to manoeuvre, the more experienced handlers tried their luck. It was a sign of Joe’s status among his fellows that he was in there now trying to get the last two out.

  Anne slipped quietly into a place on the rails and watched. Joe looked the part all right, she thought, broad and powerful with his suntanned face and arms, his shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbow, his corduroy working pants tucked into heavy dunlops and secured round the middle with binder-twine. His eyes were bright with humour, his mouth firm with concentration; his big hands looked capable but kind. Anne felt a surge of affection for him as she watched.

  The little red pig he was after had run himself into a corner and had burrowed his head in among the other pigs in the manner of an ostrich. Joe stalked forward, and as the other pigs shifted uneasily away, the red pig looked over his shoulder and rolled his eyes with alarm, keeping his behind towards the enemy as if it were a sure defence.

  ‘Go on, Joe!’ ‘You got ’im Joe!’ the onlookers cried. Joe stalked the pig carefully, and then slid the cardboard sheet between its body and the railings and reached with his right hand for its ear. His fingers were within a hair’s breadth of the ear when the little pig made a bolt for it, straight between Joe’s legs, sending him flying over backwards to land sitting in the mud. The onlookers roared delightedly, and Joe grinned aimiably and shrugged his shoulders. He would never lose his temper with a pig, no matter how infuriating it was. That was why he was such a good pigman.

  Patiently he got up and began to stalk his quarry all over again, following it calmly until he had driven it into a corner for the final grab. The stockmen were cheering him wildly now, and laying odds on the pig for another escape. Joe made his cutting-out movement again, and again the desperate and perverse animal flung himself at Joe’s legs for the break-out. This time Joe was quicker. Grinning broadly he abandoned his cardboard and grabbed the pig with both arms, and, before it had time to wriggle free, he had taken its tail in one hand and one of its ears in the other, and was running it on three legs towards the gate.

  The pig squealed hysterically as if it were being murdered, and Anne heard a woman in a smart hat murmur something about cruelty to animals. As soon as the creature was through the gate, however, Joe released it, and it stopped screaming at once and began snuffling around the mud like the others, looking for something to eat.

  ‘Well done, Joe,’ Anne called with the others, and he must have picked out her voice, for he turned his head and smiled, then came over to her, calling over his shoulder,

  ‘All right, Tom, I’ve done my bit. You can sort the rest of your blessed pigs out yourself.’

  Then, smiling broadly, he climbed out of the pen to greet Anne.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘You’re looking very beautiful, as usual.’

  ‘Hello, Joe. You’re looking very muddy as usual,’ she replied.

  ‘Well, I can’t help it,’ he began, and she patted his shoulder.

  ‘I’m joking. Listen, are you ready to come for a cup of tea and a sandwich? I’m starving, and I know you must be.’

  ‘Yes, O.K., but you must come and see Rosemary first. She’s here with her litter, and you’ve never actually seen her, have you?’

  ‘Not in the flesh,’ Anne said. ‘Though I saw a photo of her in the paper at the County Show. And you never stop talking about her.’

  ‘She’s wonderful,’ Joe said, his eyes shining with pleasure. ‘Come and see.’

  In comparative quiet the sows stood in private pens under cover a little way from the other pigs, and it was evident even at first glance that Rosemary was the biggest sow of the lot. It always amazed Anne how big a pig could be. Rosemary was huge, and filled her pen entirely, so that she couldn’t have turned round if she wanted, though it was difficult imagining this massive mountain of pink flesh wanting anything other than to step out of the weight of flesh and be a slender young pigling again.

  Around her her large family minced and teetered on their tiny pointed feet, like fat ladies on very high heels. The young of almost every species has its charm, and Anne thought the piglets were adorable.

  ‘So small and pink,’ she said. ‘Really quite huggable.’

  ‘Isn’t she lovely,’ Joe said, scarcely aware of what she had said. Rosemary snuffled at his foot with her wet snout, and peered up at him from under her shady ears, looking almost coy about it. ‘What a specimen! What a breeder! And not a runt among them. She’s a queen – aren’t you, old lady?’

  ‘She’s certainly big,’ Anne said, not wanting to be ungenerous. Joe scratched Rosemary’s back with an iron gate-pin, and Rosemary sighed happily and grunted as the dried mud flaked off. Her numerous offspring seethed along her side, suckling, lined up like people in a canteen queue.

  ‘Anyone can see,’ Anne said, ‘why piglets are narrower at the front than at the back. It’s the only way they’d all fit in. Anyway, watching them is making me hungry. If I agree she’s the most remarkable pig in the world, can we go and get a sandwich?’

  ‘Of course, I’m sorry. I should have thought. You’ve been working all morning,’ Joe said, starting back to reality. ‘Come on then, we’ll see what we can get. Did you have a nice day?’

  He was all attention at once, and escorted her in a courtly manner towards Ted’s Teas and Snacks, the tea-hut the stockmen favoured. It was a wooden hut on a raised floor – raised above possible flooding, Anne had always supposed – with wooden benches and tables like a school refectory, and a counter at the far end. They sold tea and coffee, sandwiches and snacks, and the best sausage rolls in Dorset. Anne slipped into a place on the end of a bench while Joe went up to order, and the eight old farm-hands seated along the bench all slid up silently to make room for her.

  Joe came
back with their order on a battered tin tray – two hot sausage rolls and baked beans, and tea in huge white mugs that looked like shaving mugs – and edged in on the end of the bench with a cordial smile at the old men.

  ‘There you are, my duck,’ he said, serving Anne. ‘I can’t stay long, but I ought to be able to get off a bit early today, once I’ve seen Rosemary off.’ He looked a bit bleak. ‘I don’t know what the place is going to be like without her. It’ll seem bare, somehow.’

  ‘You’ll miss her,’ Anne said. ‘I must try somehow to make up to you for her.’

  ‘You couldn’t replace her,’ Joe said, and for the life of her, Anne couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. ‘Anyway, what would you like to do this evening? Say I get through about half past four, have a bit of a wash, I could be ready around five.’

  ‘How about getting something to eat, and then going to the fair,’ Anne suggested. Joe looked doubtful.

  ‘Is that really what you want to do?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it,’ Anne said. ‘Why not, anyway?’

  ‘It’s a bit rough and noisy, isn’t it? People shoving you around, and picking your pockets, and swearing and all that sort of thing. Wouldn’t you like to go somewhere a bit quieter?’

  ‘No,’ Anne said firmly. ‘I’ve had a quiet week. I’d like to go somewhere a bit noisy.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Joe, I’m not made of cotton wool,’ she said crossly. ‘I can stand a bit of shoving as well as the next person. If you had your way I’d be locked up in a tower somewhere with a spinning wheel.’

  Joe looked hurt. ‘I don’t mean to stop you enjoying yourself,’ he said. ‘It’s just that I always think of you as – well, something a bit precious, to be cared for. You’re not like the other girls, rushing round in trousers and leather jackets and smoking and swearing like men. You’re – a lady.’

  Anne felt ashamed of her ill temper, and reached out to touch his hand. ‘I’m sorry Joe, I shouldn’t snap at you. Of course I love to be treated as a lady. It’s just that – well, I want some fun, sometimes, too.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said miserably. ‘I know I’m a bit dull. I don’t know why you bother with me, really. I’ve often wondered—’

  From anyone else it would have been self-pity, and worthy of a kick in the pants, but Anne knew that Joe meant it, that he really didn’t know why she bothered with him. He thought she was too good for him, whereas, if he knew what she was really like, he would know he was a whole lot too good for her.

  ‘Don’t,’ she said, and he stopped obediently. ‘Can we go to the fair tonight, Joe? I’ve a childish liking for fairgrounds. I grew out of circuses, but I never quite grew out of fairs.’

  ‘Of course we can,’ he said. ‘Anything you like.’

  ‘And Wendy will be there – she said to tell you that there’s bowling for a pig—’

  She had meant it as a joke, but when she saw him smile with pleasure at the thought, she hadn’t the heart to go on. Wendy was a little too close to being right and Anne was a little too close to feeling superior to Joe. It wouldn’t do.

  While Joe went back to work, Anne spent a happy afternoon wandering about the market. She had one or two bits of shopping to do for herself and for Dad, but for the rest she was content just to browse, to observe, and to bargain-hunt. There were still stalls where you could bargain for goods, and things like pairs of tights and face-cream never came amiss. There was the ‘deadstock’ auction, where you could buy a chest of drawers or a wheelbarrow or a cast-iron mangle or 150 feet of hosepipe; the provisions section, where the fruit and vegetables and eggs and meat were sold, and where towards the end of the day odd ‘mixed lots’ were sold and you might end up with five stone of potatoes, three dozen eggs, four boiling fowls, and a huge box of winter store-apples, all for a fiver.

  Out of duty to Dad she paid a visit to the small livestock market, where they sold pigeons and chickens and goats and cagebirds and, inevitably, rabbits. Greys and albinos and long-haired blacks; ruby eyes and brown eyes and thousands of whiffling noses. She had to admit that the baby rabbits were sweet, but then, so were the baby pigs. What with Dad and his rabbits and Joe and his pigs – it was no wonder they got on so well together, she thought. She had read somewhere that women always chose men who remind them of their fathers. Was that why she had chosen Joe? Strange though. But then, she had not chosen Joe; he had chosen her, if anyone other than Fate could have been said to have had a hand in it.

  At the edge of the area a coster’s cart was piled high with chicken coops, and a goat and two kids – obviously a purchase – were tethered to its wheel, waiting for their owner to come back. A smartly dressed man was sitting on one of the shafts, evidently a town visitor taking a rest. His back was to Anne, and also to the goats – a fatal mistake, for the adult goat had enough slack on the rope to reach him, and was thoughfully nibbling at the tail of his jacket.

  He hadn’t noticed yet, and nor had anyone else, Anne saw, looking round. Serve him right, she thought, and was about to pass on when the man turned his head slightly, and she saw from the three-quarters profile that it was the handsome stranger she and Wendy had noticed that morning. Hardly knowing why that made any difference, she changed tack and walked across to him, calling.

  ‘Hi, look out! You’re being eaten.’

  It was a moment before the man realised she was addressing him, and then he glanced back, saw the goat, and jumped up with a muffled curse. One or two people caught the tail end of the drama and laughed, while the man twisted round, trying to inspect the damage. Anne reassured him.

  ‘It’s all right, you caught it in time – it’s only sucked, not chewed.’

  ‘Thank heavens for that,’ he said, but he smiled and made light of it. ‘Next time I will know better than to sit near a goat. Thanks for warning me.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ Anne said. Close to she saw that his face was not really handsome: his nose was not straight, and his mouth curled up one side more than the other, and his chin was the wrong shape – but it was strangely attractive, and his eyes – level grey eyes under dark brows – were certainly striking. It was a face you couldn’t help but be interested in. ‘Goats will eat anything, and they don’t distinguish between old rope and gents’ natty suiting. But it should clean all right.’

  ‘Oh, no damage done, not to worry,’ he said. He was taking it very calmly, she thought, considering what that suit must have cost him. Then, as if he had divined her thought, he said, ‘Serve me right for wearing this here, anyway.’ The goat stared up at him with her strange yellow eyes and then lifted her lip in a contemptuous expression. ‘Sorry to interrupt your dinner, old man,’ he said.

  ‘Actually, it’s a female,’ Anne said, and then, since there didn’t seem to be anything else to say, she nodded a brief goodbye and walked on. Wait until I tell Wendy, she thought, that I’ve actually spoken to her Martini advert, not to mention saved him from a dreadful fate!

  At five Anne went to meet Joe outside the Black Bear, the large AA hotel on the corner of the market square. Joe was as punctual as ever, and she saw his familiar figure waiting for her on the steps from across the road. Not tall, but broad-set, strong shoulders and arms, his fair hair thick and ruffled, his face firm and tanned – he was good looking enough to please any girl; but with the image of the handsome stranger fresh in her mind, Anne gave an inward sigh at the sight of that same old shapeless check jacket, the plain white shirt, open at the neck, and the grey flannel trousers. She knew them all so well!

  Anne tried to keep herself smartly dressed, though there was not an enormous selection in Market Winton. There were the usual chain stores, and one or two small boutiques, and by ringing the changes between the two sources, she managed to look not only smart, but individual. Joe, to do him justice, always noticed her clothes, and complimented her on her appearance, but it never seemed to occur to him to do anything about his.

  No, that was hardly
fair; he was saving up for the day when he’d be able to buy his own place, and in any case, a stockman’s wage was not of the highest. But it was true that he didn’t see any point in spending money on clothes. He had one suit, for weddings and funerals, as the local saying was, and his ‘good’ trousers and jacket, and as long as he looked clean and well-pressed, he didn’t see the point in having a choice of clothes. With another small sigh, Anne crossed the road to meet him.

  ‘Hello, there you are,’ he greeted her, and his face lit up with a smile. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Anne, slipping her hand through his arm. ‘Where shall we go to eat?’

  Joe squeezed her hand against his ribs and they started down the street. ‘Well, what about the Forum? I don’t think you can do better, really,’ he said. Anne made a face.

  ‘You always say that. And we always eat there. Couldn’t we go somewhere else?’

  ‘Well, like where for instance?’ Joe asked. ‘There’s only the Wimpy Bar apart from that, and I don’t think you get such good value there.’

  ‘Well, what about a restaurant for a change? What about that Italian place down in Castle Street? It looks awfully nice from the outside.’

  Joe shook his head. ‘Well, I don’t know,’ he said slowly. ‘I know it looks smart, but you have to pay for that sort of thing. The prices are bound to be higher, and Italian food is cheap stuff sold dear.’

  ‘But just for a change!’ Anne cried.

  ‘I think we’d better stick to the good old Forum,’ Joe said, nodding. ‘I know it’s not much to look at, but the food’s all right and you get good big portions there – much better value really.’

  ‘Oh, is that all you think about?’ Anne cried. ‘The Forum’s no better than a transport café!’

  ‘Well what’s wrong with a transport café?’ Joe asked, puzzled. ‘You just pay fancy prices in other places for the same food.’

  ‘Just for once you could splash out,’ Anne said. ‘Just for once you could live a little!’