Heartbreak and Happiness

by Rosie Harris

  ‘True, and those two girls are as close as peas in a pod. All to do with going to the same school, I suppose.’

  Rebecca’s friends were highly amused. Cindy thought that Moses was sweet, although not as cuddly as her pet lamb, Snowy. Over the next few weeks it became commonplace to see Cindy and Snowy along with Rebecca and Moses taking a stroll together in the village.

  Jake warned Rebecca that she shouldn’t bring Moses up to their farm on a lead, in case one of their dogs attacked him.

  Within a few weeks, Moses was so attached to Rebecca that he followed her everywhere, even if he wasn’t on the lead. When she was going out, she had to make sure he was safely in the pen with the others. Or else by the time she reached the High Street she would find he was scurrying down the side road behind her, desperate to keep up with her.

  Sometimes, even though she had made sure that Moses was safely penned, he would turn up at her side almost as if by magic. It made Rebecca smile, but she knew she ought to try to find out how he managed to escape.

  Lizzie was also the first with the news that some of the other piglets had managed to escape from their run.

  It seemed they had followed Moses, burrowing under the wire netting the same way he had done. Not only had they broken out, they had rooted up the vegetables in the Petersons’ garden and at another cottage a short distance away.

  ‘I did warn you both,’ Sandra said, a note of triumph in her voice, when Rebecca rushed into the shop to tell her father what had happened.

  ‘Can you hold the fort here while I go with Becky and sort things out?’ Bill Peterson asked his wife as he whipped off his striped apron ready to go with Rebecca.

  Tight-lipped, Sandra nodded in agreement.

  When they reached Woodside, Bill stared at the devastation the pigs had wrecked on his garden, as if he couldn’t believe his own eyes.

  ‘Becky, run up to the Masons’ farm and ask if anyone can come and help us round them up.’

  ‘I’m sure Cindy will if she’s at home,’ Rebecca told him.

  It was Jake who came to help and he brought two farmhands with him. Even so, it took them and Bill Peterson well over an hour to retrieve all the piglets and get them back inside the run.

  ‘They’ll be out again in next to no time unless you do something about that fencing,’ the older of the farmhands warned.

  ‘As far as I can see, there are no holes in the fence,’ Bill said, a worried frown creasing his brow.

  ‘The little varmints burrow underneath and squeeze through,’ the farmhand told him. ‘You have to bury the fencing three or four feet deep to stop them. They can squeeze through the smallest of holes and where one goes the others follow.’

  ‘It’ll be to the abattoir for the whole lot of them if they carry on like this,’ Bill Peterson said angrily.

  ‘Tidy while to go before ’tis worth doing that with ’em,’ the farmhand laughed. ‘No, best mend the fences and keep the little blighters in safe and sound. Give them something to play with like an old basket or bucket or summat. They love a toy or two, it keeps them amused for hours.’

  ‘Take no notice of what he says,’ Sandra intervened when Bill repeated their conversation over their evening meal. ‘Get rid of them all right now. Their grunting and squealing is driving me mad and the garden’s already ruined. Next thing they’ll be escaping into the woods. And then how will you round them up and get them back?’

  ‘We can’t get rid of Moses! You will let me keep Moses, Dad?’ Rebecca pleaded, her voice laced with concern.

  ‘Well, Becky, if the others have to go then—’

  ‘No, no, I won’t let you kill him. Moses is mine. He stays, please!’ Rebecca begged.

  ‘So who do you think is going to look after him when you go off to university?’ Sandra asked sharply.

  Rebecca looked at her blankly for a moment or two before saying in a pleading voice, ‘You will, won’t you, Dad? You’ll take care of Moses while I’m away?’

  ‘Well, Becky, I’m not too sure about that,’ Bill Peterson said hesitantly, looking across at his wife as he spoke.

  ‘No! You should never have made that pig into a pet. It will have to go when the rest of them do,’ Sandra said firmly.

  ‘I’m not going to let you take Moses to the abattoir!’ Rebecca’s voice rose to a shout. ‘If neither of you will take care of Moses, then … then I won’t go to university. I’ll do the same as Cindy is planning to do, only I’ll get a job where I can come home every night and look after Moses.’

  ‘Don’t talk so silly, you sound like a spoilt child,’ her mother told her angrily. ‘Give up the opportunity of going to university for the sake of a pig! I’ve never heard such nonsense in all my life.’

  ‘I mean it,’ Rebecca said through clenched teeth.

  Her mother sat tight-lipped, refusing to discuss the matter any further. Rebecca resolved to see if she could get her dad to change his mind as soon as she could get him on his own.

  She realized that at the moment he was angry about the devastation the piglets had created in the gardens, but it had been his idea to have them. Although he had only decided to raise the pigs in an attempt to overcome the fall in their trade since the supermarket opened, Rebecca was sure that he had grown as fond of them as she had.

  At the moment she knew he was looking for a quick solution because of what had happened, but she felt sure that once he had calmed down he would realize that in order to make money from the pigs he would have to wait until they were the right size and weight to be worth his while.

  She was also well aware that he was grateful for all the help she had given him looking after Molly and her litter, and was sure he would reconsider his decision and let her keep Moses. She couldn’t see him getting rid of Molly either, as she was already expecting another litter.

  This made her wonder if there was any other way the animosity that existed between her parents and the supermarket could be resolved. She wondered if Cindy might have some ideas. It might be worth mentioning it to her when they met up later on.

  She knew that both Cindy and her mother used the supermarket regularly. She would have liked to do the same, but her mother had forbidden it.

  ‘Having a supermarket in Shelston is progress,’ Cindy pointed out when they met up later that afternoon to take Moses and Snowy for their walk.

  ‘Shelston can hardly be classed as a town, yet in some ways it’s too big to be called a village. The High Street, which runs from the church down past the school to the Harpers’ farm on the outskirts, is the main road between Wincanton and Mere and then it carries on right into Salisbury, so we are on the map.’

  ‘Yes, and there are two pubs and both of them offer accommodation and we have six shops,’ Rebecca argued. ‘As well as our butcher’s shop, there’s a baker’s, a greengrocer’s, a post office, a newsagent that stocks cards, newspapers, magazines and stationery, and a haberdashery that sells everything from reels of cotton to wellington boots. So do we really need the new supermarket?’

  ‘Well, it replaces the general grocery store that was run by old Mr Greenslade. It was his son who sold it, he didn’t want anything to do with the business because he lives abroad somewhere.’

  ‘Dad said that he put the property in the hands of an estate agent in Salisbury for disposal and that was when the supermarket moved in.’

  ‘If someone had only taken over the existing shop and not extended it to three times its original size and not stocked so many lines that all the other shops in Shelston were affected, no one would have minded,’ Rebecca said gloomily.

  ‘I think your mum is making a fuss about nothing,’ Cindy told her. ‘We find it a boon, leastways my mum does. Now she doesn’t have to drive all the way into Wincanton or Gillingham for things she can’t buy in the village.’

  ‘My mum still does, or else she goes to Salisbury to buy her groceries. When the supermarket arrived, she vowed she would never go in there and she has forbidden me to go in there as
well,’ Rebecca sighed.

  ‘Well, most of the villagers think it’s progress, especially those who don’t own a car and had to take a bus to Mere or Wincanton.’

  As Cindy went on singing the praises of the supermarket and the fact that it carried toiletries and make-up and also some small fashion accessories and CDs, Rebecca was curious to know more.

  Up till now she had obeyed her mother and had not ventured across the threshold of the new supermarket. Now, though, she determined that before she left home for university she would see for herself if the supermarket was as great an opposition to their own shop as her parents seemed to think it was.

  She turned the idea over in her mind for a couple of days. Twice she went as far as the door, hesitated, and then turned away. She felt nervous about going in there on her own, so in the end she decided to ask Cindy if she would go with her.

  Six

  At breakfast in the Petersons’ house next morning, Rebecca’s forthcoming departure for Cardiff University was the main topic of conversation, as if they were all determined not to mention the pigs.

  ‘Our girl has done well, hasn’t she!’ Bill said proudly as his wife placed a bowl of porridge in front of him.

  ‘Much better than I expected,’ Sandra admitted grudgingly as she selected a piece of toast and began to butter it.

  ‘I knew she would with all her studying.’

  Rebecca frowned. ‘I was hoping to be going to university with Cindy.’ She pushed back her chair and stood up. ‘I think I’ll go up to the farm and see how she is, and see if I can find out what she’s planning to do.’

  ‘It will give that young Jake something to think about when you go off to university,’ Bill Peterson chuckled. ‘Make him realize what a young fool he was not to study harder when he had the chance.’

  ‘He’s only interested in the farm,’ Sandra stated. ‘Mavis says he couldn’t wait to leave school. He loves working with animals and he wouldn’t want to do anything else with his life.’

  ‘I wondered if he had ideas of having a farm with our Becky when he saw how much she cared about that runt in Molly’s litter,’ Bill murmured thoughtfully.

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense! Rebecca will never end up on a farm and certainly not a pig farm.’

  It sometimes seemed to Rebecca that apart from Cindy the only people who understood her interest in pigs, especially her devotion to Moses, were her father and Jake.

  Her father was delighted not only because they were a useful business proposition but because there was no one else at home he could talk to about them. Sandra still didn’t want to know what was going on and she couldn’t wait for him to get rid of them.

  Jake was the other person who seemed to understand, especially about Moses. He was very supportive, but then she reasoned he would approve of almost anything she did and would take an interest in it.

  At the moment, though, his chief topic of conversation was about his sister. Jake knew that she intended to leave Shelston as soon as she had saved up enough money to do so and he thought it was very foolish of her.

  ‘This idea of being a fashion model or becoming a television actress is silly,’ he said worriedly to Rebecca. ‘I’ve heard how young girls like Cindy go off to the city and end up ruining their lives. I really don’t see why she can’t settle down here.’

  ‘I think she wants to spread her wings, and meet new people and see what life is like outside Shelston,’ Rebecca told him.

  ‘There’s several friends of mine who are keen on her but she won’t have anything to do with them. Calls them country bumpkins because they’ve never left Shelston. If she came down off her high horse and went out with one or other of them, she’d find out how wrong she is. I bet you anything you like she’d end up marrying one of them and starting her own family here in the village.’

  ‘Perhaps if she finds a job locally that she enjoys then she’ll change her mind about leaving Shelston,’ Rebecca murmured.

  She knew that at the moment Cindy was banking on the fact that once she was earning money she would be able to save up towards a new life somewhere else, but she didn’t mention this to Jake.

  What worried Rebecca was that if Cindy was working full time it wouldn’t be quite as easy as she had hoped for her to take Moses for walks. Fortunately Jake had volunteered to take him out in the evenings and, to prove he meant it, had already started accompanying her when Cindy couldn’t do so.

  Rebecca wondered if this arrangement would last after she went to university. She suspected that he was only doing it because it gave him an opportunity to be on his own with her.

  She enjoyed Jake’s company and listened attentively as he told her everything he knew about raising pigs and farming in general. He had a great many ideas about the changes he would make when his father decided to retire and hand the running of the farm over to him.

  ‘The trouble is that won’t be for a long time,’ he sighed.

  ‘Why don’t you get your own farm then?’ Rebecca suggested. ‘You’ll be twenty-two next birthday. It’s time you stood on your own feet,’ she added teasingly.

  Jake laughed. ‘Do you have any idea how much it costs to set up in a business like farming?’

  ‘It need only be a small farm to start with and you would only have to buy a few animals, so you could run it yourself,’ Rebecca pointed out. ‘My dad started with just one pig and look how many he has now,’ she added with a laugh.

  ‘Yes, that’s true enough, but he’s had you to help him look after them. And look at all the trouble they caused when they escaped. He would never have managed to get them back single-handed, now would he?’

  ‘You know more about their habits than he did, and you would know about making sure they didn’t burrow underneath the fence round their run.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true. So what you’re saying is all I need is a big field and a pig and I would be in business as a farmer. Could I count on you to give me a hand?’

  ‘No,’ Rebecca shook her head. ‘I’m off to university in a week’s time and I won’t be home again until Christmas.’ She frowned. ‘Can I really rely on you and Cindy to take Moses out for his walk every evening?’

  Jake didn’t answer immediately. ‘It might be difficult,’ he said at last. ‘Talk to Cindy and see what she thinks.’

  Cindy was reluctant to make a commitment at first. ‘It might not be very easy when I find a job and start work. Soon the nights will be drawing in and it will probably be dark before I get home,’ she pointed out.

  ‘Please, Cindy. If you don’t then my mum will probably persuade my dad to send Moses to market.’

  ‘Oh no!’ Cindy looked shocked. ‘Tell you what, I won’t promise to take him out in the evenings but I will go up to your place once a day and either take him for a walk or talk to him and make sure he is being well looked after.’

  Rebecca looked round her bedroom to check if there was anything else she wanted to take with her when she left for Cardiff University next morning.

  She had no idea what to expect, as she would be living in the hall of residence provided by the university for first year students. In her second year, she would be expected to find her own accommodation and she hoped that by then she might have made friends with some of the other students and be able to share a house or flat.

  Satisfied that she had packed everything she would need, she went to collect Moses and go for a last walk with Cindy.

  He gave small grunts of pleasure as she fastened the lead on to his collar and set off up the village street for the Masons’ farm.

  As soon as Cindy joined them she handed over the lead to Cindy and explained to Moses that this would be the last time she’d be taking him out until Christmas, and that in the meantime Cindy would be taking him for a walk each day.

  Moses grunted as if he understood, then pulled on his lead as though eager to walk on.

  ‘Are you sure you are going to be able to take him out regularly?’ Rebecca asked anxiously.
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br />   ‘I promised that I would try, didn’t I!’

  ‘I know, but it will depend on what you are going to do. Are you going to be working on the farm all the time?’

  ‘No, I must get a job, but I don’t know what. I was counting on university,’ she admitted. ‘Now I suppose I will have to settle for something much further down the ladder. Well, as a start anyway, until I save up enough money to be able to live in London,’ she added with a grin.

  ‘There’s nowhere around here remotely connected with the fashion trade. It will mean travelling into Wincanton or Gillingham if you want to work in a dress shop even, because we haven’t got one in Shelston.’

  ‘They’re not the sort of places I have in mind,’ Cindy said quickly. ‘They’re far too small for the sort of job I want,’ she added dismissively. ‘My aim is for one of the big fashion houses in London or else to work in television.’

  ‘Surely you would need training of some kind before they would take you on?’

  ‘I know and that costs money. My plan is to save hard now, so I have enough to live on when I leave home and go for training.’

  ‘Where are you going to get money to save?’ Rebecca asked. ‘You’ll have to get a job of some kind.’

  ‘I know that and I was thinking I might take a job at the new supermarket.’

  ‘What!’ Rebecca’s eyes widened. ‘You can’t do that, Cindy! People would never forgive you.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, someone’s got to work there. They’re advertising for staff at the moment.’

  ‘But what would your family say?’

  Cindy shrugged. ‘I don’t think it would worry them. They know I’m not interested in working on the farm, and I’m sure Mum would rather I was there than up in Salisbury or London.’

  Rebecca shook her head. ‘I don’t see how that could be of any help if you want a career in fashion,’ she said thoughtfully.

  ‘It would mean that I’d had training in selling,’ Cindy argued. ‘I thought of asking for a job on their cosmetics counter.’

  ‘Surely it’s not big enough for them to have specialist staff? And anyway isn’t it all self-service in supermarkets?’