Out Backward

by Ross Raisin

  I bolted another piece of parkin. Then I picked out another for Sal and let her scraffle a feed out my hand. She was partial to sweetmeats, cakes and the like, toffees–she’d eat the wrapper and all if she snatched one up Mum had let fall on the settle. We sat on the rock there, the tin between, eating their parkin.

  Eleven o’clock he always came, when the house was certain empty. Mind, I didn’t know why they had to keep it secret–Chickenhead would likely fall over her arse to know her daughter had copped on with a boy from the school. A decent sort of boy, all shiny teeth and rugby muscles. Why keep that hid? She had a lust for secrets, was why.

  He cycled on, steady, closer. No head down, arse in the air today–here I come! Here I come! Hope you’ve got the fire ready–he got off by the trees and walked the bike the rest the way. She didn’t come out. He cocked it on the wall, usual place, and went round the front the house, bold as brass, like he’d been coming round for years and not just this past week. Nothing happened then for a while, except for Sal was sick off the edge the rock, until a half hour later smoke started spilling out the chimney.

  They kept the fire going into the afternoon, a smudgy coal-cloud seeping around the house as I finished off the parkin, then finally he strode out to the bike, still I couldn’t see her, and he stole off before Chickenhead got back with the kid brother.

  I left then, fettling Sal up comfortable in the stable, for she had the collywobbles, and I took the empty tin up to my room and hid it under the bed for safe keeping until after Christmas.

  12

  The ram was fit for tupping. Next morning, Father opened the barn and let the sheep in the field, and they soon enough got wind of where he was, frothing and stamping behind the fence of the holding pen. Some of them walked close past, brushing up to the fence, letting him get the smell of them, sidling for his attention, and he heeded each one go by, a mad glare on him and the foam building round his mouth. Sackless article the wether kept indoors, as Father went in the pen and fastened the tupping harness round the ram’s neck, and the gate was unsnecked. He didn’t bolt out for them, mind, he trod slow and steady into the field, looking round, now, who’s the first?

  Father stayed for two breedings then he pissed off someplace, satisfied his hired goods were in decent order. I didn’t shift. I watched him climb a third, and a fourth, without letting up, he certain wasn’t fussed about a nice cosy fire to fuddle up aside–nithering cold in a shite-filled field and all the rest looking on was fine with him. After he’d done a fourth he took himself off to the side the field for a munch of hay, and the sheep bunched up in groups around the place to chelp about him, what a man he is, that was the best yet, don’t worry, it’ll be your turn soon.

  Hi, Sam.

  I looked round and saw her other side the wall but I stared off otherways pretending I’d not seen her.

  Just thought I’d come up and see how you and Sal were getting on, she called out. I’m on holidays.

  I glegged at her then–she was in her wellingtons and a tattered coat. She let herself through the top gate without asking and came toward me.

  We’re fine, I said, no matter Sal was ligged out retching in the stable.

  I’ve not seen you about much, she said. What you been up to?

  Working. I didn’t look at her, I watched the ram, to show I was working still. It’s tupping week, I said.

  She laughed. That was mighty funny. Course, I wasn’t going to let on I knew why she was laughing.

  Tupping? Is that what you…

  Sex, I said. She went quiet and I got a fair tingling through me, saying that to her, and I thought she might get gone, maybe he was at the house, waiting for her. That’s the ram, there, I said, and I pointed him out. He was prowling about, choosing his next.

  What on earth’s that thing round his neck?

  A tupping harness.

  He’s that big, is he?

  I knew she was smiling, but I didn’t look on her.

  It’s for marking off them he’s bred, I said.

  How do you mean?

  The red part on his chest is chalk. It marks off the ewes when he rubs on them.

  That’s romantic.

  Just then, like he was listening in, the ram mounted another and went at her while we watched on, silent. After a time, she stopped looking, and gawped at her feet, then off toward her house. I studied her a moment, then I turned back to the ram tupping the ewe, hefting the whole of her body forward with each welt he gave her. The ewe just let him, not a sound, not a sign she was liking it or not. I knew she was, mind–no matter she was sore from his clobbers, or that he was bruising on top her neck. She’d have tried to move off if she didn’t like it, she’d have struggled at least–she didn’t do anything, though, except one point she gave out a small noise, quiet, but enough, and I knew she was liking it because her hand tightened into a fist, not gripping anything, just closing tight on itself so as the flesh went white round the knuckles and there was a chain of half moons across her palm when he’d finished and the hand went limp.

  I should get going.

  Next thing she was halfway down the field, the top of her head bobbing up, down over the wall, she didn’t look back, far as I could tell. The ram had wandered off for the hay tab, and the ewe was still stood same place as the breeding, nosing at the dead, brown grass, bored-looking, stalled. You’d think nothing had happened, but for the dark, red stain in the middle of her back, small and neat like it’d been marked on with a stamp.

  I watched until she got to the field bottom, then I went up to the rock for a better sight, watching her go in the chicken coop a few minutes–egg-collecting, from the seems of it, for she was holding something when she came out. She walked round the side the house, past the back wall, and disappeared. There was no bike there today, I marked. She’d come up to see how me and Sal were getting on, had she? Had she, shite.

  The sun was belting, it had cleared the last the snow and slush, and he was cycling off at a fair crack through the trees away from the house. I had to get a shift on else he’d be gone, racing down the hillside back to wherever it was he lived–some old farmhouse, likely, same as her, unless he was a boarder, going home to a room full of rugby muscles arm-wrestling in dressing gowns and making mucky words on a Scrabble board, gosh, you’ve trumped, you rotter, no, you’ve trumped, anyway listen up boys, I’ve got one for you–tupping–she heard Lankenstein say it yesterday. I came down the field and over the stile. There was a muck-lather of sweat on my forehead that I wiped off with my finger. I took the paste gun out my pocket and tested my thumb on the plunger again, so it spat a tiny splurt in the air. The Cyclist went out of sight behind a hump of ground the track coiled round, then he appeared other side, stood on his pedals, face lifted to the sun.

  Further below, the Christmas decorations in the town were glimmering all down the high street. Proper sparkly it was, this year. Most years they had mangled wirings of blue and red light bulbs and a half-dozen grubby Santas that spent the rest the year in the storekeepers’ office, hid with toilet rolls and tins of beef, and got fetched out for Christmas and strung off the lamp posts–by gow, it’s a fair view from up here, you can see the whole world, v what a muck-hole. Not any more, mind. There was brass about the place these days, and the rambling class went in mighty for Christmas. So it was lanterns the sun was reflecting off now, and small, glittery lights round most the pub signs, and baubles on the miniature Christmas trees that were pinned on the walls above each shopfront–save for the gaps where they’d been stolen off by tosspots.

  Even from where I was I could tell he was pleased with himself. Couldn’t wait to get back and fill his boots telling what he’d been up to–how they always got a fire going first, to make the place nice and snug, then they had all the afternoon for it and the best thing was, there was no one around to bother them. Fifty mills of blowfly vaccine and he’d be telling a different story. The shits, sweating, sped up heart rate, not so snug and cosy now, eh?

&nb
sp; I was breathing heavy coming down the last field, and I near tripped over a stub of rock jutting out the ground, stumbling forward all over the shop until I righted myself. They’d have liked that, Lankenstein flat on his face and the paste gun all smashed up under him, they’d have liked that just gradely.

  He didn’t mark me, stood on the thin belt of grass that ran down the middle the track, he was too busy sunning himself when he came round the corner. He near clattered into me, swerving off last moment and braking to a halt with one wheel on the field. He looked at me, riled I’d got in his way.

  You all right? he said. His face was brown from being cocked at the sun the whole time.

  Lovely day for it, I said.

  Right.

  We’ve had snow up here till just recent.

  Yeah, I know.

  He was big, like I’d thought–broad shouldered, with thick, strong forearms that tensed and corded as he clenched on the handlebars. I could see the chimney puffing away behind him, though it was too far off to see the smoke cloud moving, it looked perfect stilled, like a photograph. It was so peaceful everywhere it didn’t feel real, like the world had stopped, except for a faint hissing noise that sounded like the rasp of a goose someplace in the distance telling someone to fuck off, this is my patch, this is. I knew it wasn’t a goose, mind, it was the Cyclist spinning his pedals backward. He was looking past me–can I get round him? Is there room enough? I don’t want to stand round yammering about the weather all day.

  You’ve had snow in town, then, have you? I said.

  What town?

  That one, down there, I said, pointing down the valley, with the Christmas trees growing off the walls.

  He spun his pedals some more. I don’t live there, he said.

  Right. Where you from?

  Ampleforth.

  Fair ride from here, that.

  It’s only half an hour. He toed his pedal into position, straightening the front wheel.

  Know her from school, do you?

  What?

  The girl. She goes to Ampleforth. That where you know her from?

  He looked at me in the face then, instead of looking off past me.

  Do you know her? he said.

  Yes. I’m learning her about farming.

  A smile tweaked on to his big, square face. Right. He spun the pedals again. She never said. What’s your name?

  Sam Marsdyke.

  No. Never mentioned you. Then he trapped a pedal with the flat of his foot and pushed off. I stepped aside as he came level with me–see you later–he didn’t even look at me when he said it, but that was fine with me, I was taking the paste gun out my pocket at the time. He was moving past me and I kicked at the front wheel, but he’d set off too quick and I missed, and my foot jammed under a pedal, sending a great welt of pain up my shin. The bike keeled to the ground with him falling on top of it and me somewhere underside the both. The pedals were at their hissing again, louder now, as they were next my ear, and somewhere up the tops I could hear a tractor chugging along–likely Father filling the troughs, fuck this, fuck that, oi sheep, get out the way, you fuckers. I felt a wallop then, as the Cyclist kicked me in the kidneys. He was stood over me, looking down. There was a scrape of skin ripped red out of his suntan.

  What the hell’s your problem?

  I fumbled about on the track for where I’d dropped the paste gun. What was I going to do, stab it in his foot? I cracked up at that, the picture of him stood there with a mighty syringe sticking out his trainer, agh, my foot, my foot, now I’m going to get the shits. Course, he didn’t think it was so funny, and he kicked my hand away like it was some rat scuttering at the rubbish bags. What did you do that for, you bloody inbred? I laughed more, I couldn’t stop it by then, a gaspy, spluttering laugh, for I couldn’t breathe right well owing to the kick. Fancy her, do you? There was a dribble of blood on the end of his nose, jiggling each time he breathed out. Lucky for you, she’s well into whack-job farmers, she told me. I just lay on the floor, laughing. Lovely day for it–who’d have thought we had snow until yesterday? But tell me–are sheepdogs more intelligent than other dogs? He smiled, his lips snarling up as he tightened his eyes, like there was a pulley-string between. You’re fucking psychotic. That just got me going again with the laughing, the tears running sideways down my cheek. You show symptoms, Sam, of a clinical psychosis–perhaps some schizotypal form of personality disorder. I recommend a period of rest and recuperation and ten apples a day. That wasn’t what she’d said, sod knows what she did say, I was too busy gawping round the room at all these mighty-sized books and a wall full of certificates in gold frames, as if she had a prize herd of Wensleydales she showed at weekends. Dr M. Neeves MDF, winner of the North Yorkshire mental bastard fair, November.

  Yeah, she’s crazy about you, you know. I should give in now, really. Beauty and the freak. We were both laughing now. The dribble on his nose stretched and quivered, I’m going to fall, I’m going to fall–and it dropped to the ground. He picked up his bike and brushed a hand over the seat, then he swung his leg over the saddle and turned round to look past me back toward the house, and I marked his face freeze up, like he’d spotted the barbarian army coming over the horizon. His leg hung suspended over the bike an instant as though he was going to piss on it.

  What the fuck’s going on?

  The first I saw of her she was knelt aside me with her face right up next my own, and I closed my lids, for I didn’t want to gleg the look in her eyes. Jesus, Sam, are you all right? I wanted to get up, I’m grand, thanks, pick something up off the floor–the paste gun–oh, there it is, I knew it was someplace round here. But I couldn’t move. I just lay there like a babby with my lids shut. Why are you laughing? What is it? What are you laughing at? He’s a psycho, that’s why. He fucking attacked me. I heard her get up and crunch toward him. No, he didn’t. I saw what happened. She’d seen, then–watched me pinned to the ground gibbering into the grass. I pictured her up, looking out her window like the girl from the fairy story, watching after him until he was a tidgy pip in the distance. Just because you’re pissed off with me, it doesn’t mean you can take it out on just anyone. I’m not pissed off with you, I told you. You so are. I opened my eyes and watched a wisp of cloud druft behind a tree. Yeah, well, I’m hardly going to Whitby with you now, anyway. He attacked me. He’s a psycho. Oh, shut up. I was watching, remember? You rode into him then you kicked the shit out of him. I should’ve told her that if I’d not caught my leg under the pedal it’d have turned out different, he’d not have been able to do it to me. He’d be having the shits all night and I’d not be a half-baked lump blithering on the floor.

  It went quiet then, and the cloud came out the other side the tree. I thought a moment, maybe I can crawl off round the corner without her noticing. I bellied along the belt of grass using my arms and legs to push me along, like a giant pond skater. I’d not got more than a yard or two when there was a hand on my shoulder and she said, Sam, what are you doing? I sat up and she was bent toward me. He’d buggered off. I couldn’t even see him.

  I’m fine, I said, never mind my leg ached and my senses were daffled and out of kilter like when the power’s back on after a shut-out and all the articles in the house are spinning and beeping, boiler lighting up, alarm clock flashing midnight, the freezer whirring.

  You’re not hurt that badly, are you?

  No, I said. I got up, and even though she was looking off down the track now, I could mark she was crying. I put my hand toward her, to touch her on the shoulder. Sorry, I said, then I backed off without touching her.

  What do you have to be sorry about? She said it so quiet it didn’t seem like a question. It’s me who should be sorry. She walked off without saying anything else, or looking at me, which was probably a gradely piece of luck, owing as I looked like I’d been dragged arse-uppards through a badger set. I stood a time and watched her disappear round the corner, then I picked up the paste gun from where it was hid in the grass, put it bac
k in my pocket, and trod for home. It must’ve broke, because the blowfly vaccine, all warm and syrupy, started leaking through my fingers, pooling and seeping into all the other stains rotted into the cloth.

  13

  Mum was twined at me spending so much time holed up in my room, because Sal was always up there with me and she wasn’t fond on dogs in the house. They trod muck and hairs through the place, was her opinion, which was a daft rule, to my mind, considering the other stinking articles she allowed indoors, such as Father and the cat. She didn’t bother us, mind, so we kept up there hours each day, just staring out the window or flipping, blank-eyed, through the farming magazines that’d been piled up next the kitchen fire. European subsidy cuts, supermarket margin increases, liver fluke risks–none of it was any interest to me, except sometimes for the pictures of walloping new tractors I’d never get the use of. Sal just kipped aside the bed, fain pleased to be out the cold.

  I still had the sheep to see to in the afternoons, housed up now in the barn until they lambed. Sometimes, while I was checking on them and sorting their feed, I went out to slip a look down the hill, but I never saw her, I didn’t even know if she was there or not. Didn’t see the bike neither, mind.

  Christmas came. A proper belly laugh, like always–the three of us clinking and scraping dry humps of turkey around us plates, each while Mum making conversation. Janet has family come by this year, I hear tell, not brought a scrap wi’ ’em for to help her with t’ meal, miserly tykes. We’d not had anyone round usselves since Pa Leggott died, except for Janet, when she didn’t have family to cook for and she came up ours to moan about how they’d been previous year. Father’s brother lived in Helmsley, so we didn’t much see their lot, and Mum had a cousin, moved south years ago, who I’d not seen since I was a babby. We never made much of a fuss over Christmas anyhow, for the farm still needed working same as normal, so there wasn’t time for trees and holly and decorations and the like. I did get a present, though, off Mum–Concise Encyclopaedia of the World. She always got me something like that since I was thrown out the school, and she’d marked me collecting up the newspapers from the garage, she said, she could see I was taking interest of what went on in the world.