Isabella: A sort of romance

by R. A. Bentley

  "What are we going to do, exactly?" she asks. "I don't know anything about this sort of thing."

  "Try to engage them in reasoned argument and make clear our disapproval," says Martin.

  "Wave placards about and chant slogans," translates Nick.

  "Preferably in front of the media," says Martin.

  "There's someone coming from the Bugle, we hope," says Nick, "and just maybe the BBC."

  Bella's heart sinks. She hadn't thought of that. Someone is bound to see it on the news and recognise her. She wonders what she could use as a disguise. If only she were wearing a hooded anorak instead of her Benetton jacket. Perhaps she could swap with someone.

  Martin half turns to Simon, who is kneeling behind him. "This is where we show you two how it's done: a hard-hitting campaign with maximum publicity. Worth any number of tuppenny ha'penny petitions, eh Nick?"

  Bella almost reminds him that the petition was his idea, but decides she can't be bothered. She wishes she'd never clapped eyes on him, frankly. She's achieved far more with a piece of Plasticine and a few spells.

  Leaving the main road, they plunge into a region of small farms and patches of heathy woodland, not unlike home, with glimpses of the great, open expanse of the New Forest in the distance. There is little other traffic until, rounding a corner, they catch up with the rest of the Bradport contingent; two minibuses, a Morris Traveller and a 2CV with its top rolled down, all equally crammed with enthusiastic demonstrators. Progress slows to a crawl as the lead vehicle looks for the farm entrance.

  "Flash him if he misses it," advises Nick.

  "It's a good mile yet," says Martin, drumming his fingers on the wheel. "They should have waited for us."

  "You've been here before then?" says Simon.

  "We've . . . driven by," agrees Nick, with the ghost of a smile, and he and Martin exchange hooded glances.

  Bella looks suspiciously from one to the other. Listening, rather belatedly, to her adept's intuition she is suddenly certain that they are here to do more than just protest. How on earth can she avoid getting mixed up in it?

  They are now joined by a fretting milk tanker which unable to overtake is obliged to trail along behind them, constantly changing gear.

  "They take the little calves away from their mummies," says Jacqui. "And they castrate the little boy calves and keep them in pens where they can't lie down and send them abroad in lorries with no food or water and they breed the little girl calves with great big udders so they can hardly walk, and then they get mastitis. And they feed them chopped-up other animals, which is horrible."

  "Bastard!" cries Jo, shaking her fist at the tanker.

  "Bastard!" cry the teachers and social workers, shaking their fists also.

  The driver looks impassively down at them. Perhaps he cannot see them properly through the van's rear windows.

  Moments later Martin pulls off the road onto the grass verge. Nick opens the doors and everyone climbs stiffly out. The milk tanker grumbles by, leaving them in leafy silence, but for a distant bleating of sheep.

  A little way up a concrete drive is a scattering of agricultural buildings and a small dormer bungalow. It all looks very peaceful and ordinary and inoffensive. Half hidden in the hedge and worn to near invisibility – correct practice in the countryside – is the name of the place: Woodpeckers. It sounds familiar, somehow.

  "Right, placards," says Martin, briskly clapping his hands. The teachers and social workers dutifully produce hand-lettered pieces of cardboard attached to broom handles. They bear slogans like 'Stop this bloody trade' and 'Nobody needs a fur coat' and 'Speciesism is fascism.' Thus armed, the company makes its way to the farm gate and joins the gaily chattering crowd standing there. Most of the demonstrators are of roughly student age but there are a few in their fifties and even sixties, including the man who appears to be their leader, a cadaverous looking individual with a white goatee beard and a badly stretched crew-neck sweater.

  "Isn't it exciting!" gushes Jacqui, squeezing Bella's arm. "Did you bring any lunch? I didn't think you would so I brought extra. I've got your favourite: McVitie's Chocolate Digestives."

  "Where's that bloody journo?" demands Martin, looking suddenly rather keyed up and edgy.

  "There, I should imagine," says Nick, pointing.

  A new Fiesta pulls up beside them and a young woman lowers the window. "Is this the demo? Oh good. I was afraid we'd be late." She has a T-shirted photographer with her, festooned with cameras.

  With Whitebeard leading, they march in a body up the drive. The bungalow has a patch of garden around it. There is a neat lawn, beds of marigolds and fuchsias, and a small pond with a plastic heron gazing beadily into it. Here they stop. "Those'll be the sheds," says someone.

  Beyond the bungalow, half hidden by a Dutch barn, are two long wooden buildings surrounded by chain-link fencing about eight feet high. It is just possible to descry rows of cages through their semi-open sides.

  "Looks like a bloody concentration camp," growls Jo.

  Bella notices that both Nick and Martin are hanging back a little. Indeed, there is a general disinclination to be at the front of the now rather subdued crowd until, at what might have been a small nod from Martin, Jo pushes her way through and turns to face them. "What do we want?" she roars, pointing to her placard.

  "Justice for animals!" shouts everyone.

  "When do we want it?"

  "Now!"

  "Free the mink!" roars Jo.

  "Free the mink!" they all cry, glad to have properly begun. "Free the mink! Free the mink! Free the mink!"

  "Free the mink!" cries Jacqui, in her small, shrill voice, and smiling up at Bella tugs at her sleeve encouragingly. Bella refuses to join in. She feels deeply embarrassed and for once in her life wishes she were not five foot eleven and three quarter inches tall.

  "No more cages, no more traps, no more fur on rich bitches' backs," chant the teachers and social workers, but perhaps with less enthusiasm now, for as yet there is no response from the opposing side, and one cannot go on forever shouting at a plastic heron.

  At last, the bungalow door opens, and a frightened-looking middle-aged woman with red-dyed hair, steps half out of it.

  "You have been targeted. Your violence will be turned back on you," roars Jo, going puce with effort and passion.

  "Free the mink!" yells Jacqui. "Free them now!"

  "Free the mink! Free the mink! Free the mink!" cries everyone, with renewed vigour.

  "My husband's not here," protests the woman, as if to suggest that play cannot commence without him.

  "Murdering bitch!" cries a stout, pop-eyed woman.

  "I bet it's her that gases them," cries someone.

  "Gestapo!" cries someone else.

  "I bet it's her that skins them alive," cries another

  "We ought to skin her alive," cries the pop-eyed woman.

  "Skin her alive. Skin her alive," chant the teachers and social workers, pushing eagerly forward.

  Just then there is a commotion at the back of the crowd, which reluctantly parts to let through a police car. Two uniformed officers get out in a leisurely manner and position themselves between the demonstrators and the beleaguered farmer's wife. Although they look relaxed enough, Bella can tell from their auras that they are almost as nervous as she is.

  "Who's in charge here?" says the more burly of the two.

  There is a pause. Whitebeard begins to raise a diffident hand but Jo pushes him roughly behind her. "I am," she says. "We are here to exercise our right of legitimate protest. I must ask you to respect that."

  The crowd murmurs its approval. The policeman listens patiently, then says: "I'm sorry, sir, but this is private property and you are trespassing. I must ask you to proceed back to the road. You can make your protest there." There is a growing ripple of laughter. "Er, madam, I should say," he adds, blushing.

  "Stay where you are," cries Jo, apparently unfazed. She puts her hands on her hips and glares at him. "Fur farm
ing is wicked and immoral. Fur farming is murder. Would you sanction murder?"

  "I can't comment on that, madam, but I must warn you —"

  However, his warning is drowned by much excited shouting and whistling from the back of the crowd and the blue roof of a pick-up truck can be seen, trying to get through.

  "That's him!" cries someone.

  "Let's get 'im," cries someone else.

  There is a general movement towards the pick-up which is quickly surrounded by baying demonstrators. "Murdering bastard!" cries Jo, and once again taking the lead she brings the handle of her placard crashing down on the bonnet.

  "Murdering bastard!" cry the teachers and social workers, and gaily set about chastising the old and already somewhat battered vehicle.

  The two policemen now abandon the farmer's wife and elbow their way into the crowd to rescue her unfortunate spouse. One has his hat knocked off while trying to radio for backup. The farmer, desperate to break through, runs over the pop-eyed woman's foot, setting her screaming in anguish. All the while, the young journalist is scribbling furiously in her notebook while the photographer dodges back and forth, now on tiptoe, now crouching down, recording the protest for posterity, or at any rate tomorrow's Bugle.

  Bella also ducks and weaves, trying simultaneously to extricate herself from the now angry crowd and keep out of his line of sight. Thank God the BBC hasn't turned up yet. She finds her hand grabbed by Simon and they are running, not back towards the road but in the direction of the farm buildings. In a moment, they are in the mink compound itself.

  "We can't hide here," protests Bella. "They'll find us!"

  But now Nick and Martin appear. Nick, who is wearing a rucksack, takes from it a large pair of bolt-croppers and applies them to the padlocked doors of the nearest shed. Simon takes Bella's hand again and they all tumble in.

  The shed appears much larger from the inside and, after the sunshine, rather dark. Double rows of wire cages stretch away into perspective. Despite the open, louvred sides it smells not unlike the rat room at home. Striding to the nearest cage Nick pulls a pin and opens the side of it. "Come on old chap," he says, encouragingly. "This is your lucky day." For a moment the cage's inmate, a small, dishevelled, somewhat otter-like creature – or one fiftieth of a mink coat, depending on one's point of view – seems reluctant to embrace freedom. Then it drops to the floor, glances at them suspiciously, and scuttles off.

  "Right, what are you waiting for?" cries Martin. "Let's get these cages open," He and Nick set swiftly to work, and soon the floor is a sea of confusedly milling animals.

  "Come on," says Simon. "You take this side and I'll take the other." Without waiting for a reply, he begins to work his way down the row as if to the manner born.

  Bella regards him in amazement. She stands and watches the others, already several yards away. Something is nagging at her — the name of the place. Of course! It's the farm John Rook is negotiating to buy. Would he still be interested if he knew his future stock-in-trade was scampering gaily about the countryside? Probably not! She begins eagerly to open cages.

  A shadow appears at the shed door. It is Jacqui. "Jo says to get out. More police have come."

  "Hurry up!" cries Martin. "We've only done half of them. Come on Jacqui."

  Jacqui shakes her head. "She says to get out now."

  "This'll have to do," says Nick, grabbing Martin's arm.

  "But they may not find their way out without help," protests Martin.

  "Couldn't you just drive them out at the other end?" asks Bella.

  "There isn't time," says Nick. "We've got to go."

  "Yes there is," says Bella. "Leave it to me." Throwing Simon her jacket she grabs an empty pail and saunters out into the compound, closing the door behind her.

  A solitary policeman is even at that moment coming in the gate. "Hello," says Bella. "You're not going to let them in here are you? I'm worried about the kits."

  "Kits?" enquires the policeman.

  "It's what we call the babies. They have a habit of eating them if they're disturbed. Horrible, isn't it?"

  "And your name is?"

  "Eileen. I work here," says Bella, mentally crossing her fingers. She raises her pail and smiles. "Well, obviously."

  The policeman smiles back. "You're remarkably calm, Eileen, if I may say so."

  "Oh I'm sure we can put our faith in the constabulary," says Bella flirtatiously. He's quite pretty, fortunately.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  "Can you get the door, one of you?" calls Julius from the top of the stairs.

  "You go," Bella tells Simon. "I'm all messy." The voices from the hall tell her that Martin et al have arrived, mob-handed as usual. Stabbing the last cocktail stick into the pineapple hedgehog, she rinses her hands, takes off Julius's apron, and ferries the remaining plates of food (tapas, olives, Battenburg cake) through to the dining room, arranging them with professional artistry on the long, mahogany table.

  Considerable effort has been expended to turn the dark and dismal rectory into a suitable venue for a party. The double doors between the drawing and dining rooms have been opened to enhance 'circulation,' several dozen balloons – left over from St. Ethelfreda's Young Wives' Christmas Cabaret – have been hung in bunches from the picture rails, and all fifty yards of the red, white and blue parish bunting are festooned gaily between them. Chairs have been banished to the walls, rugs rolled back, and all breakables moved upstairs; or in the case of Julius's ever-growing stuffed menagerie, to the study. Only a startled-looking owl remains, gazing down from its perch on top of a bookcase. In its broad purview the teachers and social workers 'interact in small groups,' some still clutching the bottles they brought with them. Someone has found Julius's antediluvian record collection and 'A Whiter Shade of Pale' is playing, rather too loudly, on the hi-fi.

  "Bella, there you are!" cries Jacqui, rushing over. "Gosh, you look fantastic!" She turns to Julius, who has reappeared, sans dog-collar, in a rather horrible red sweater. "Doesn't she look fantastic? Just like a model."

  "Yes, and so do you, my dear," says Julius. "Doesn't she, Simon?"

  "I say!" exclaims Simon, examining her from all angles. "That is one amazing outfit, young Jacqui. Your hair's different too, isn't it? Nick, come and look at this."

  "I know, I've seen it," says Nick, casually leafing through Julius's albums, "I'm still palpitating."

  "In fact," gushes Julius, blinking massively, "I think she qualifies as the Belle of the Ball, eh Bella?"

  Bella feels an intense rush of annoyance. Not jealousy of course, which would be beneath her, but certainly annoyance. It's a bit rich having to watch both your lovers slavering shamelessly over some half-naked bimbo; besides which she is not accustomed to being upstaged at parties. She is therefore extremely surprised to hear herself agreeing wholeheartedly, going so far as to say that Jacqui looks stunning. Not just nice, or even very nice, but stunning! A word she simply never uses.

  Visibly glowing at this unexpected compliment, Jacqui takes hold of Bella's arm and wraps it in her own. "Aren't we a pretty pair then!"

  "Drinks for two lovely ladies?" offers Julius.

  "I brought this," says Jacqui, handing him a bottle of Martini.

  "Okay, and you Bella?"

  "I don't know," shrugs Bella grumpily. "Anything."

  Tarty, is more like it, she broods. What's it all for anyway? There is definitely something different about her tonight, a certain confidence, not previously seen. Even her aura seems to have developed an extra richness and maturity. Bella's centuries of observation of human nature immediately tell her there can be only one explanation: the creature is in love! But with whom? Turning, she scrutinises the faces of the men. Not Julius, surely? There she descries only common lust, albeit a lust normally directed at herself. Nick is clearly not interested. He has taken off the Procol Harum and is now munching a purloined sausage-roll to the strains of 'Nights in White Satin.' Please not Simon, she prays. But just one look
at his stupid, besotted expression tells her the worst. The bastard! She thinks. After all he said! The absolute bastard!

  Even while she inwardly seethes, she is aware of something else, something at once familiar and deeply disturbing, something that she realises has happened to her once or twice before and is happening now. She observes Jacqui obliquely, trying not to be seen looking, trying to analyse the feeling. Surely it can't be the way her green eyes sparkle or her ruby lips glisten? Nor, obviously, can it be those improbably cantilevered young breasts, shamelessly revealed by the plunge-fronted silver-lamé. Nor, again, can it be the way her naked shoulder blades move so smoothly under the firm, young flesh, can it? Because if it is . . . "Just stop that!" she mutters. "You're disgusting!"

  "Pardon?" says Jacqui.

  "Sorry," says Bella, awkwardly. "I was thinking about the buffet. People keep pinching stuff. What were you saying?"

  "I said, Jo can't come tonight. Isn't that a shame?"

  Bella stands by the open French window, clutching her glass and swaying slightly. Someone has found, appropriately, some ancient Stones and the teachers and social workers are all up and dancing to 'Jumpin' Jack Flash,' jerkily strutting and punching the air and bumping into each other.

  "All alone?" says Nick, appearing at her side.

  "I was feeling a bit hot."

  "So am I. It must be about ninety in here. Fancy a turn round the garden?"

  "Just let me finish my drink."

  They wander slowly round the outside of the house, enjoying the cool night air. Bella is inclined to stumble on the narrow path and needs to be steered a little.

  "Are you sure you're all right?" asks Nick solicitously. "Wouldn't you rather be sitting down? Hey, look at that moon!"

  "Lets go and sit in the churchyard," says Bella. "We can see it better there."