by Ross Raisin
Next thing, the tomatoes were at a downstairs window, coats on, talking. I shifted forward an inch.
Careful, don’t move, she said, thinking I was after a better look, though I wasn’t, I just needed to budge my stalk because it was jipping like hell, rooted in the ground like that–bloody hell, the worms were saying, what the fuck sort of plant is that?
They disappeared again, but a moment later they were opening the front door and she was pressed up even closer. They were on their way out, the front door shutting and the man putting a key under a plant pot, the gawby. When they’d drove off, she stood up and lifted the pup. Easy peasy, she said, and I followed crooked after her toward the house, my joints all crammocky from lying still so long and my stalk only half bated.
The house was sorted neat and tidy inside. It wasn’t like our house, with mould sneaking up the walls and raggy cloths laying about the place that’d been there fifty years. Here it was racks of newspapers and the carpet all fluffed up like they’d gone over it with a brush. What undid me, though, was the pictures. Everyplace I turned there were breasts–in the hallway, the front room, rising up the stairs, all these naked lasses flumped over settles or hiding in a flower bed. I couldn’t take much of a look, mind, in case she caught me gawping. She didn’t seem to think it was queer, all these pictures, she was moving on ahead, going between rooms with the pup under her arm, mighty casual as if she was in her own house.
We went up the stairs and I tantled behind while she looked in a room on the left, came straight out and went other side into another. After a moment, when she’d not come out, I followed in. The bedroom. She was stood next the window, spying out.
I thought I heard something, she whispered, but she must’ve changed her mind soon enough because then she was back at poking round, checking through a side door that went into a small bathroom. I was waiting by the entrance, listening for noises, when I saw the slippers. They were next the bed, two pairs, matching, fettled up in a line, perfect straight. Sal had learnt fast, then, how to carry slippers and pen them up. I went over and tried a pair. A snug fit, champion soft, I wouldn’t have minded some of these myself, it beat traipsing round the house in boots or holey socks the whole time. She came out the bathroom and walked past me out the door into the corridor, not marking the slippers. You don’t mind if I take these do you, Mr and Mrs Tomato? You’ll be missing a dog when you get back, a pair of slippers isn’t likely going to cap that. But I didn’t take them, I shook them off and lined them up with the others, careful I didn’t get them aslew.
I’ve found them, I heard from the corridor.
They were asleep in a little room full of towels. I went toward Sal and she woke up and looked at me with her head still rested on a towel. I thought I’d be filling my boots, seeing her again, but I wasn’t–it felt queer, like she didn’t want me to take her, she was happy here carrying slippers, she didn’t much fancy going back to sleep in a damp stable and getting kicked for barking at cars. She gave a great yawn as I hunkered down to pick her up, and I marked how heavy she’d got. She was heavier than him we’d kept. Must’ve been the science diet. If I shook her she’d rattle like a tin of biscuits. All right there, lass–I squeezed her into my chest, all the while not looking at the pup we were dumping, which she was now setting down on the towels, to have a sniff at the other we’d sold.
It wasn’t anything to her, mind. Creeping round someone’s house, stealing a dog, you’d think she did it every week, to look at her, the mighty grin on her face. Come on, she said, and she was off. She picked a grape out the fruit bowl as we left the sitting room, and I glegged a last look at the breasts when she wasn’t watching.
We ran most the way back, trying to carry Sal and laughing and a thousand thoughts clattering about my skull, think about me, think about me.
9
Course, Father didn’t mark the dog had got a size bigger, and got brown cheeks, and become a female. All he saw was she had the right portion of legs and she was ready to be worked. I let her watch on, firstly, stood up top the field by my leg, viewing Jess as she moved to Father’s whistle. I didn’t know if she was learning or not, but she was all attention them occasions, watching the dart-halt-dart of her mother rounding the sheep. Afterward, I’d take her up the Moors and practise her to bide at heel, stalking slow beside me until I shouted, rabbits! and she could bolt off over the vast, no matter there was a real rabbit to chase or there wasn’t, and a moment later she’d come panting back to me, her great pink lollicker flapping out her mouth.
He’d taken bad, Father, maybe that explained for him not noticing her. He said he hadn’t, he was bruff as ever, but he only said that because he didn’t want Mum making a palaver. I’d heard him through the storehouse wall, coughing in judders like an engine that wouldn’t start. He was going in the storehouse regular, and between the bursts of coughing I heard him chuntering, fuck off, or something like, no matter there wasn’t person else in there with him–I figured he was talking to the ailment, as if it was a body lived in the storehouse Father went to fratchen with when he got angry.
It was likely on account of him taking bad that he had more work for me. I wasn’t fussed, mind. What do you want me to do today, Father? and he’d eyeball me all wary, thinking, is he being smart, shall I belt him? But I wasn’t being smart, I’d have mucked out the whole barn if he’d wanted, not a grumble. He didn’t want that, though, he just wanted help getting the sheep fit to see out winter.
Towns don’t have much idea, but there’s a mighty amount of work farming sheep. It’s not all fluffy lambs in blankets suckling milk from a bottle in front the fire, such as they think–it’s being a veterinary, a dentist, a knacker, mending ruptures and rotted teeth, cutting dags of shite off their backsides where it clumps in the wool. The maggot fly was still about, and Father had me dagging in the barn each morning soon as my tea was slurped, for he didn’t want his flock riddled with mawks, clogging their pipes and nibbling at their workings. Sal sat quiet in the corner, and I kept a watch on her as I snipped, so that she didn’t steal off with a dag from the floor–there’s nothing pleases a dog like chewing on a piece of sheep shit. Some are more partial on it than a fresh, juicy bone, but I wouldn’t let her, for I didn’t want her taking bad. The storehouse was full already.
After I dagged their backsides, Father dealt with the front end, dosing and vaccinating against ailments, parasites, the paste gun jammed in their mouths, aimed down the gullet. Forget ramblers, or Jack–a sheep’s the most half-baked article around, that has to have its feed put out, its arse cleaned, its feet trimmed, else it’ll get sick or go lame. Bugger knows how sheep got by before farmers came along. Not so gradely, certain.
It was owing to the daft nature of our sheep that we got another visit from Chickenhead. The afternoon was near sliding to dark by the time I’d done in the barn, and I was about to clear off on to the Moors with Sal, when I saw her marching into the yard.
Excuse me, she said, coming at me with a grum face on her. She must’ve found out about me and the girl, I thought.
Your sheep is blocking my car.
Ask it to move, I said, looking over her shoulder to see if she’d come on her own. She didn’t like me saying that, old Chickenhead, not a bit. She stepped forward and I thought she might clonk me one over the head, but she didn’t, she just stood rooted, the hair trembling in the breeze.
Your sheep is stuck in the cattle-grid, blocking my car. Kindly remove it, or I shall drive over the top.
I tweaked a smile. She thought I cared what she told the girl. Sour-faced cow, she could say what she liked, she could say I’d kicked her out the yard if she wanted, I knew what the girl thought about Chickenhead. I didn’t want her running over the sheep, mind, and she had a look in her eyes that said, I’m a loopy old spiceloaf, don’t think I won’t do it.
We walked through the fields toward the cattle-grid, and she didn’t speak a word to me. She thought I’d put the sheep there myself, probably, just to p
iss her off. I could see the car up ahead, but it was too far yet to gleg inside. She’d give me the smile, when she saw me, or a wink, that’d be enough. Course, Chickenhead wouldn’t see, it’d be too slight for her, but I’d know what it meant–sour-faced cow, she’s too busy getting riled to notice anything, she doesn’t have a clue about us.
When we got near, though, I could see she wasn’t in the car. Just the kid. He was fidgeting on the back seat, his snout squashed to the window.
Stupid animal, said Chickenhead, it would die there if no one pulled it out.
I couldn’t argue with her on that. It’d happened before. Poor beast was having a champion struggle against its plight, the great lump of its body pressed against the rusty bars of the cattle-grid, four matchstick legs kicking away underneath.
You could’ve tried giving it a shunt, I told her.
It’s your sheep, she said, not looking on me, you can pull it out yourself.
I wasn’t mighty upskittled to hear she wasn’t helping. Fetching sheep out of cattle-grids wasn’t on the adverts when they’d decided coming here. And it was midweek, anyhow, welly weekend was days off yet. I took a look at her, glowering on with her hands on her hips, as I balanced round behind the sheep. You know what your daughter was up to last week, do you? You know we’ve been meeting up in secret? Course she didn’t. She hadn’t forgotten the mushrooms, her anger was still glowing, stoked up each time she saw me, and she thought the girl felt the same.
The sheep gave out a weak noise as I straddled over her. All the struggling had taken the banter out the old lass–a rannock, I knew, for she hadn’t more than a couple of teeth left. Her time was mostly counted. I took hold her haunches and hefted her up, but she was too heavy, she wouldn’t lift. I hardly shifted her, and she wriggled out my grip. It wasn’t so easy as all that, lifting an old rannock like her while you’re balancing on slippery poles and there’s a grum-looking female giving you the death eyes. I stood straight and had a think what to do.
Perhaps you should get your dad, said Chickenhead.
I looked at her, and saw behind that the simple article in the car was goating about, knelt on the seat, singing, his hand shaped into a big nose pressed on his face. I couldn’t hear him–the glass was eight foot thick, to protect from all the robbers there were round these parts–but I knew what he was saying. Bogeyman! Bogeyman! Bogeyman!
Will you get him, then. She still had her hands on her hips. Your dad, will you go and find him?
I’ll manage myself.
I took another hold the back-end, facing otherways this time, looking away from them two staring at me. She’s a bonny one, you know, your daughter, she doesn’t much take after you. You wouldn’t picture her with me, would you? Wouldn’t picture her with the Bogeyman, with a bastard-looking rapist farmer, shows what you know, eh?
Go on, you almost had it then.
My forearms were smeared with muck, and I’d done my back. I decided to try the head-end.
You’ll have to help me here, old girl, I cuttered soft into the sheep’s ear as I bent down to her head, fixing a look ahead of me. Bogeyman! Bogeyman! I heaved her up by the neck, and it seemed she’d understood me because she started scrabbling her front legs and one of them popped out. Bogeyman! Bogeyman! I pulled at the other leg, and when that came free I shunted her forward and she clambered off the cattle-grid, hobbling into the field.
Finally, said Chickenhead. Thank you, and she turned off to get in the car. Thank you, now I can get home and put tea on, and blatherskite about that rude Marsdyke boy. As they drove off, the kid upped his Bogeyman dance, braver now the vehicle was too far away for me to do anything to him. Oh, you’ll never believe what he said to me, that boy. Ask it to move, he said. I’ve never known anything like it, can you believe that? No, Mum, he’s awful–shaking her head, a great frown on her–you must be very upset, Mummy, you sour-faced cow.
The ram arrived not long after, ready to tup our ewes. Me and Sal watched on while the truck parked up, and he stepped on to the walkway Father had made, leading to a holding pen in the field. He paraded down it like a boxer, all eyes on him. Hello, I’m here to rut the women, so of course I’ll be needing my supper soon, I’ve a big week ahead.
It was Norman’s animal. Each winter, he got hired out a week each to Turnbull, then usselves, then Deltons, so we had him a week early this year, on account of Turnbull clogging it. Deltons always got him last, after us, when he’d passed his fettle and was lagged and spent. It was a fair champion job he had, mind, that tup, rutting all the females in the area, and you could tell it’d got to his head. He was always scratching his great curly horns on walls and fenceposts–look at me, look how fine I am, no wonder I have such a way with the ladies. You could be certain he didn’t need the shite cutting off his arse.
Father had built a small house out of old wood and tarpaulin for the tup to sleep in, with a holding pen all round that took up half the first field. We always kept him there a few days before letting him into the flock, to get him mooded right. And we always kept him company with No Bollocks, the wether, for he got too frothed up if he was left alone. He steadied up when he was with the wether–poor castrated sod who kept himself pot-of-one the rest the year waiting for his charver the tup to come and stay, though I didn’t know what the bugger it was them two had to talk about. Been up to much lately, oh, you’ve been rutting have you, that’s nice, I don’t much go in for that myself these days, not since my knackers were sliced off.
Sometimes I went to the pen and watched him. He took no notice of me, even as he stepped through my shadow, he just paced round the rim of the pen, while the wether stayed indoors tidying the hayrack. After a few minutes of pacing he’d stop, sniff the air, figuring where the ewes were. Then he’d belt his head against a post and glare at the barn, as he knew they were other side that wall, going about their business without heeding he was outside and they were all about to be bred–them that wanted to, and them that didn’t, it didn’t much matter to him.
I stood leant over the pen one afternoon, long enough I had pink grooves on my elbows. I was watching him pound at the turf with his front hooves. He’d made a small hole by the fence, trying to dig his way out, or bating his lust.
Come on, Sal, I said, nudging the warm lump by my feet, and when she’d shook herself ready we set off on a wander.
A few months later these fields would be full of lambs pestering at their mothers’ teats, a hubbleshoo of bleats filling the air mixed in with the cuckoo and the chack-chack of fieldfares. Now, though, everywhere was hushed and cold. Not an item of life anyplace save for me and Sal, and a mawngy crow sat in a tree gawping into space. We kept on until we reached the new fence, and I framed up the house. She’d got back from school a half hour before, I’d seen the car. I bided at the fence, watching for when she’d come out with the coal scuttle and walk to the outhouse.
We’d be back with the secret meetings soon. She wasn’t daft. She knew it’d look aslew, the two of us together right after we’d stole Sal back, specially as her parents were friendly with the tomatoes. She was waiting until it was safe again, so I was fair content to know her from a distance, for the moment.
I stared at the spot of wall that was her bedroom, the small black square of window too far out of range, and I pictured her inside, going about her business, changing out of her school clothes. Music playing, singing along to it, looking at herself in the mirror, a fug of soaps and sprays and the smell of her body floating through the room.
I was so lost in her bedroom it was a few seconds before I heard the sound, the coal scuttle clanking as she came outdoors and walked round the front of the house, until she came into view, with a boy. He had the school uniform on. They went into the outhouse together, and even from inside there, where I couldn’t see them, that laugh of hers came dancing up the hill toward me, jinnying and teasing round my ears–you again is it, still watching her, are you? Anyway I must get on, oh it was a funny one, that, a real funny one�
��and it danced off over the Moors.
10
We stood watching through the trees. The curtains were shut, course, but I didn’t move my eye off that top window. Sometimes I thought I could hear voices laughing, but it was likely just the leaves chuntering with the wind. I couldn’t tell anything from the outside, the curtain kept shut, nobody coming outdoors except Chickenhead, once, to fetch something out the car. She had a blue apron on, she’d been scouring the cookbooks, well now, what shall I cook them? Best wait till they come down, I wonder if he’s heard the one about the cattle-grid yet?
We fucked off from there before long. Ran down the hillside chasing rabbits and kicking at thistles all the way down until we got to the river. It was low again, since the rains had left, rocks poking out all the way across. Well, Sal, looks like we’re done for now. Only thing for it is to swim across, the tomato army’s gaining on us, they’re not far behind now. I threw a stick in the water and she jumped after, splashing across with it clenched in her mouth until she got over and looked back, the head cocked, befuddled. You aren’t coming too? Course I am, I said, and I stepped my way over the rocks, slipping a few times into the water and wetting my kecks up to the knee. There was a glishy blue stone near the other bank, and I picked it up and rubbed it between my fingers. I’ll be having that, thanks, and I snuck it in my pocket. Then we made our way up the other hillside, an itch creeping up my thigh from the sog in my kecks. We kept upward, passing near the House of Breasts, but Sal didn’t notice, she was too busy jamming her head down rabbit holes to care about that.
It was back-end the afternoon when we got to the top, peeping over the other side at all these cars parked up and chimney smoke curling out the pub, come in, come in, warm your bones by the fire, why don’t you?
