‘He has half a face,’ Jack reminds me. ‘He looks awful.’
‘I meant did he seem to be healthy?’
‘I don’t know,’ Jack says and I realise that will perplex him for the rest of the day.
Needless to say, Little Dog and Big Dog come along to help with the chickens too.
‘How many eggs do you think there’ll be today, Molly?’ Jack asks, slightly anxious at the unknown.
‘A dozen,’ I guess. ‘What do you think?’
Jack ponders for a while as we walk through the yard in the sunshine. ‘Ten,’ he says eventually. ‘Is that less than a dozen?’
‘Two less.’
He nods, happy with that information.
‘I’m going to leave you to collect the eggs by yourself, while I go and check on the alpacas. Are you OK with that today?’
He nods again that he is.
‘Don’t forget to put the net over the door before you go in.’ In fairness, Jack very rarely slips up, but we’ve had so many chickens bolt for freedom when one or more of our students have left the door to the coop open that it’s worth repeating myself. Though we now have so many security measures that our chicken run is more like an escape room.
‘I’ll be back in five minutes, Jack. Just shout out if you need me.’
I see him check his watch.
‘I might be ten minutes,’ I correct. ‘I’m only in the next paddock. Don’t worry if I’m a little bit longer.’
‘I won’t worry,’ he says with a worried frown and I wait and watch him until he’s safely inside the chicken run with his favourite girls.
Chapter Eight
The dogs and I reach the alpacas. ‘Hello, lovelies,’ I shout out as I dig a handful of pellets out of their feed bucket. ‘Here’s your breakfast.’
They trot over, always eager to see me if there’s food on offer. I hold out a hand and they jostle each other out of the way to have a nibble on the food and, where possible, my fingers.
‘Don’t nip,’ I admonish. ‘Play nicely.’
Alpacas will get away with blue murder if you let them. We have three here, and they are all total divas. I’d never intended to keep alpacas. I inherited them from a couple whose work was taking them abroad for a few years and, having got them as rather high-maintenance ornaments for their fields, had no further use for them. I got a phone call out of the blue – they knew someone who knew someone else who knew me through someone in the village, something like that. They thought I’d be ideal to take them on. Or a mug.
I suspect that they’d previously tried many other places but with no luck. Both with students and with animals, we are so often the last resort.
I said yes. Of course I did. What else was I to do?
The three of them stay together in one field and share the same stable. Rarely are they pleased about that. Tina Turner likes to be the boss. She’s brown all over and has by far the most lavish chocolate-coloured pom-pom hair tipped with black, which she loves to flick about. Rod Stewart is white, with skinny legs and knobbly knees. Mostly, he sits there humming happily to himself on one note – the sound that alpacas make when they’re content – and gazing blissfully into middle distance. Johnny Rotten is our most troubled alpaca – our post-punk bad boy. He’ll nip your elbow if you’re foolish enough to turn your back on him. As his name suggests, his hair is more Mohican than pom-pom and where his body is generally a tan colour, his top-knot is borderline orange. He’s also pretty vacant.
Alpacas are herd animals and really, we should have more of them. They’re supposed to thrive much better when they’re surrounded by company. No one has told Johnny Rotten this. He, more than the other two, hates his fellow field-dwellers and will also hiss at you as soon as look at you. Our fluffy friends may look cute and have endearingly smiley faces but they are a skittish and temperamental bunch who need careful handling. Upset them and they’ll give you a sharp back-heel with a hoof given half the chance. Technically, they don’t spit, but they hiss if they’re pissed off and it’s pretty much the same thing. Tina is also prone to hold a grudge.
The upside is that their droppings – of which there are many – are a useful sideline. Bags of Alpaca Gold sell to keen gardeners for a small fortune. It’s a hundred per cent organic and all the rage among the local allotment glitterati. We don’t advertise it widely, but we’re open every day to the public to sell our surplus eggs and alpaca manure. I don’t like doing it, as anyone can come through the gate and my social skills when it comes to dealing with the general public I’m sure leave a lot to be desired. But we need the money and that’s all there is to it. However, it is a great learning opportunity for the kids, so I try to focus on the positive aspects of it. If they’re able to, the young people serve the sporadic customers, count out the eggs into our recycled boxes, haul the bags of Alpaca Gold to 4x4s and are responsible for giving change, then writing up the transaction into our Egg and Poo Ledger. Learning by stealth.
‘How are we doing today, Tina?’ Our diva waggles her head at me. I don’t usually stroke the alpacas as they’re not that fond of being touched. Much like myself. When you don’t have much human contact, you kind of forget what it’s like and tend to shy away from it. When I go to the supermarket now – if I’ve failed in my quest to make Bev do it instead – I’m aware that people don’t respect your personal space any more. Half of the women still seem to be in their pyjamas and they’re forever pushing past or bumping into you. Perhaps that’s why I have an affinity with the alpacas. They’re pretty aloof too.
We give the kids jobs to do every day like feeding the animals or grooming them, maybe some small maintenance jobs like mucking out or, if they’re safe to handle tools, mending a fence. Each according to their abilities. Some of our students stay for as little as a week, a couple have been here since we began.
Bev helps me out permanently now and frankly, I don’t think I could cope without her. A few years ago, her husband left her for a younger model and, to help her get over the pain, she threw herself into the farm in the same way that I have. She spent a lot of time kicking buckets around the farmyard or crying into the shoulder of a Shetland pony until she was over him. For me, she’s invaluable. While I hide away here, Bev’s the public face of the farm. She’s the one who goes to meetings with the council, as required. She’s the one who deals with our inspections. I’m the coward who lurks in the background messing about with chicken feed and pony tack, exuding anxiety. She’s my rock, my friend, the closest thing I have to family and I love her to bits.
So that’s us. Pretty much. Hope Farm for bewildered, damaged and troubled animals and humans. I think Hettie would have approved.
Chapter Nine
When I’ve dealt with the alpacas and the three of them are reasonably happy, I go back to see how Jack’s getting on with the chickens.
He’s busy changing the water in their drinkers and I smile when I see the meticulous care that he’s lavishing onto this small task.
‘How are you doing?’
Jack stands up, careful not to spill a precious drop of water. ‘Ten eggs,’ he says proudly. ‘I thought so. One of them has laid a giant egg.’ He comes to the bucket and shows me.
‘Wow. That is a whopper.’ We examine the egg together. It’s an egg that looks as if it’s on steroids. ‘I bet that made her eyes pop out of her head.’
Jack looks at the hen in question. ‘I don’t think it did.’
‘You remember what we discussed about people not meaning exactly what they say? Sometimes they try to be a bit funny?’
‘Ah,’ Jack says. ‘That was you being funny.’
‘Kind of,’ I agree.
‘What’s funny about a chicken’s eyes popping out?’
‘Not much,’ I have to concede.
‘People are strange,’ Jack concludes.
They are, indeed. That’s why I stick mainly to animals.
All our hens are ex-battery and tend to have shorter lifespans than your regul
ar chicken. So, unfortunately, it means that our students also get fairly regular lessons on what death means. I try to make the time that our all poultry visitors have here as happy as possible. They usually arrive looking truly terrible, in an ‘oven-ready’ state with no feathers or with floppy combs. They’re often weak too as they’ve had no exercise at all, but it’s good to see them strengthen and thrive with a bit of tender, loving care.
A big brown one struts over to see us. She’s called Bouncer and is the doorlady of the hen house. No one gets past Bouncer if she doesn’t want them in there. Then there’s our survivor, Gloria Gaynor, who’s been attacked three times by the fox and yet is still here to tell the tale. We’ve got a blind chicken, Mrs Magoo, and Peg is our one-legged chicken. We’ve got featherless chickens, anxious chickens and even one or two with all their limbs, feathers and faculties. I love chickens. I’m sure there are a lot of the world’s ills that could be cured by cuddling a chicken.
Our only cockerel has become known as Dick the Cock – thanks for that, Bev – and it’s a good job we haven’t got any neighbours as he makes an almighty racket cock-a-doodle-doing throughout the day. But he’s a very fine specimen and likes everyone to know it.
‘Do you want to take the eggs and wash them so they’re ready to sell?’ I ask Jack.
‘Yes.’
‘How many eggs did we have yesterday?’
Jack thinks. ‘Twelve.’ He thinks again. ‘A dozen.’
‘Good. So how many eggs altogether?’
‘Twenty-two.’
‘Egg-cellent,’ I quip.
He frowns at me. ‘That’s a joke too, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah. But a bad one.’ Jack picks up the egg bucket and I link my arm through his. ‘I’ll walk you back to the yard.’
‘That was an easy sum, Molly,’ he mutters at me. ‘A child could have done that.’
Chapter Ten
I should tell you about the rest of the gang. Time’s pressing on and we have a lot to get through this morning before our communal get-together at lunchtime. If I miss that I have Bev to answer to. Sometimes, I get caught up in other things but Bev’s right, it’s another useful time to chat to the kids about their day and their concerns or worries if I’ve missed them when they arrive. So I try hard not to skip it no matter how busy I am.
Leaving Jack in Alan’s care in the barn, I wander up to the big field at the top of the hill. Bev’s up here with Lottie and Erin, two more of our regular students. Lottie and Erin are eleven and twelve, respectively, but are both going on thirty-five. There’s nothing that you can tell them that they don’t already know. They’re in their usual uniform of neon leggings with matching neon nail polish. Lottie has been with us for about a year now, but Erin is fairly new. They’ve both come to us with challenging behaviour that often excludes them from mainstream schooling and their home lives are complicated and chaotic. If you could see them now, petting the goats and giggling with each other, you would never think it. When they want to, they can look angelic, but looks can be deceiving. When they kick off, they go big time and both swear like troopers. I’ve not been bitten by either of my dogs, but these two have both taken lumps out of me in the past. When Bev is fed up with them she calls them The Biters. Still, you know the saying about two equal and opposite forces cancelling each other out? I think that’s what’s going on here. Lottie and Erin have met their match in each other and when they’re together, their challenging behaviour has been largely negated. It doesn’t stop them trying it on with other people though.
‘How’s it going, ladies?’ I ask them.
‘OK,’ Erin examines her nail polish and shrugs.
Lottie just does an echoing shrug.
‘We’re all good,’ Bev says. ‘When we’re done up here, we’ll come back to the yard and do some weeding in the herb garden.’
It’s a little optimistic to call it a garden yet, but we’ve made a start on it. We have a couple of old feed troughs that have been planted up with herbs – thyme, rosemary, mint – and some salad leaves. Bev does most of the cooking and we try to use our own herbs when we can. I have plans to turn that part of the farm into a vegetable garden. If I’m honest, I’ve had those plans for some time now, but I never have the time or the money to see them into fruition. There’s always something that needs repairing and the cash gets diverted. Wouldn’t it be great, though, to see if we could grow all our own veg and add another strand of learning for the kids? One day.
Lottie and Erin don’t really like doing much in the way of hard work, so we find them lighter jobs to do. They’ll fiddle about with the herbs when pushed or will groom the ponies and do a stint collecting eggs. If we left them to their own devices they’d be happier sitting doing each other’s hair all day or playing games on their phones. To give them a more structured day, the kids also have a couple of hours tutoring during the afternoon when they’re here – which, of course, they resent bitterly and never fail to show it. We have an informal classroom set up inside one of the outbuildings by the tea room and have a raft of supply teachers who come in to conduct their lessons and I don’t envy them their job. I’ve been there, done that, bought the T-shirt and so try to give them all the support that I can. We do all we can to keep regulars as that helps the kids too – many of them don’t cope well with change – but that’s easier said than done.
After I’ve chatted to the girls, I call the dogs to heel and they’re already eager to move on. We walk along the path back towards the yard. My earlier Tunnock’s Teacake breakfast didn’t quite hit the spot and my tummy grumbles with hunger, so I leave the dogs mooching about in the yard for a minute and swerve into the caravan. Quickly, I grab a bowl of muesli to keep me going until lunchtime, making a mental note to add it to the next shopping list as I’m running low. I’m always running low on everything. Funds particularly. I only charge a modest sum for kids to come here and it really isn’t enough. Bev’s always nagging me to put the prices up, but I’m reluctant. A handful of students get council funding, but most of the parents have to pay for it themselves and, call me a fool, but I really don’t want to cane it. The parents generally need respite, not more pressure – especially financial. I know all about that. As a result, I do struggle to meet overheads and the price of things seems to rise at an alarming rate – feed, utilities, vet bills, all of that.
We’re quiet today, but some days we have a stream of vehicles coming and going. Several of our students come in taxis paid for by the local authority; one student we occasionally have comes in a minibus with armed security as he’s had a troubled past involving knife crime; some are brought by frazzled parents in ageing Ford Fiestas with dented panels and they’re the ones that my heart goes out to. As I finish my cereal, I hear the crunch of tyres on gravel and look out of the window to see if Bev is back in the yard and can open the gate. She’s nowhere in sight, so I lob the bowl into the sink to be dealt with later and dash out to open it. A great big posh Bentley sweeps past me.
Wow. That’s pretty impressive. Our kids might come in all forms of transport but I can safely say that I’ve never seen anything anywhere near as flashy as this in my farmyard.
Chapter Eleven
The shiny red car is incongruous against all the dirt and slightly rusty farm equipment. I stand and gape at it for a moment before mobilising myself to go and find out who it is.
As I approach, a well-groomed and devastatingly handsome man gets out. He’s just as immaculate as his swanky car and has film-star looks the like of which we’ve never quite seen before at Hope Farm. Not when I’ve been awake, anyway.
Our unexpected visitor is tall, quite muscular. The jeans and dark jacket he’s wearing suit his frame. His hair is fair, wavy and swept back. His skin is tanned but smooth rather than weathered and I speak as someone who is used to wind-burned cheeks. As he comes to greet me, I wish that I wasn’t sporting an extra layer of mud this morning courtesy of Anthony and, as you have probably gathered by now, I’m not generall
y that worried about how I look. I even wonder if I’ve remembered to comb my hair this week.
In the passenger seat is the figure of a slight teenage boy, arms folded, jaw rigid. Even from this distance, I can tell that he’s oozing hostility. He’s staring fixedly out of the window in the direction of the sheep, but I know that he’s not seeing them.
The man holds out his hand and, after I’ve given my palms a quick wipe on my jeans, he grips my fingers firmly as he says, ‘Shelby Dacre.’
I recognise the name, but I’m not sure why. ‘Molly Baker.’
‘Sorry to turn up unannounced,’ he adds in a voice that’s strong, confident. A voice that sounds like it’s used to public speaking, every syllable clearly enunciated.
‘It’s not a problem,’ I assure him. Despite his dashing good looks, I can tell when he’s closer that he looks tired, worn out. His eyes say that he’s weary of the world. ‘What can I do for you?’
He glances back at the boy in the passenger seat nervously. ‘A friend told me about you. She said that you do good work here.’
‘I like to think so.’
He lowers his voice. ‘I’ve been having trouble with my son. They said you’d be able to help. I didn’t know what I had to do. Whether we need to be referred or … ’ His voice tails away.
‘To be honest, most people just turn up,’ I tell him. ‘We take it from there. What kind of problems is your son facing?’
‘He’s been excluded from school for anti-social behaviour,’ he confides. ‘Pretty serious stuff.’
‘Such as?’
‘Lucas has been caught setting fires at the school. This time to rubbish in the grounds behind the sports block.’ Mr Dacre shakes his head, bewildered. ‘It’s not the first occasion. Lucas has a bit of history.’
Happiness for Beginners Page 4