by Tom Phelan
When we arrived in Marbra, the animals jogged down the main street and the shrill whinny of the unseen stallion blanketed the town as he caught scent of the approaching mare. The mare jerked her head up, cocked her ears, and she answered the stallion with a lip-flapping love call of her own.
By the time Dad wheeled in under the arch leading to Ramsbottom’s yard, the entire town knew from the urgent whinnying that the equine couple would soon behave like animals.
To save the stable door from destruction by furious hooves, the stallion’s handler had already brought him out into the yard. When the stallion saw the mare, he shot up onto the rims of his hooves and danced in the gravel; his tail lashed his body, the air swishing through the coarse hairs sounding like the swish of my teacher’s punishing cane. Through his nostrils his breath came out in loud, wet snorts; he trembled violently; he whinnied shrilly; he shot out a handful of steaming dung; he frothed at the mouth; his ears were erect; his eyes bulged and flamed; and his black pizzle telescoped and threatened to touch the ground two feet beneath his belly.
Quickly, Dad and I exchanged animals. I leaped out of the cart and led the pony over behind a high wooden fence. Then to keep the stallion from galloping through and mounting the wrong animal, I hasped the heavy gate.
Dad unknotted the reins and held the mare by the winkers. The mare drooled, trembled all over, danced her rear end at the stallion, and lashed herself with her tail like a Spanish penitent in a Lenten procession. With almost inaudible sighs, so high was the register, she answered her lover’s whinnies and dangled her rear end toward his face. Still separated by about thirty feet the two animals drove each other to the edge of solitary release.
“Now, JohnJoe!” the handler called.
Each man freed his animal and fled to safety. The stallion was a runaway train. Shrieking and head tossing, eye-bulging and frothing, spittling and bare-toothed, with mane and tail flouncing, he galloped to the mare and bit her in the right flank with his long grassy teeth and sped on his way, his huge scrotum swinging.
His bite was rewarded with a two-hoofed kick that would have permanently maimed him if it hadn’t missed. Both animals screamed. The stallion made a short turn, came back with a nip to the mare’s left flank. This time the mare made only a halfhearted buck while keeping her rear hooves on the ground. By the time the galloping stallion had made a quick turnaround, the mare had spread her legs. With his tail stiff behind him, the stallion charged back to his prize.
The instant the stallion’s front hooves landed on the mare’s back, the handler ran across the yard and pulled the mare’s tail aside. Then the stallion pushed, and the tips of his rear hooves dug into the yard’s graveled surface. When every shred of his body came together to blast forth his essence, the mare anchored herself against the ferocious, primal lunging that was about to assail her.
Lunge, lunge, lunge, lunge. And then the stallion fell asleep. His head dropped down onto the mare’s neck; his tail collapsed. Eventually the mare moved forward and the stallion’s front hooves hit the ground. He jerked awake, looked around as if he’d just been whacked between the eyes with a sledgehammer.
Dad paid the handler half a crown, but we had to wait for an hour before setting off for home. Before her six-mile trot back to Laragh, the mare’s body would have to absorb her sire’s love offering. So Dad and I walked into the town, where he bought a half pound of sugar-coated cashews the size of crows’ eggs, but colored like small birds’ eggs—speckled blues, browns, and brown-speckled whites. He gave me four.
“Don’t gobble them, Tom. That’s all you’re getting.”
But on the way home, before we came to the Fairy Tree near Whelans of the Bog Road, Dad nudged me in the back. He handed me two more sweets.
By the time Whiteface’s foal was born I was a year older and had put two and two together. But I couldn’t imagine how a man and woman managed to mate, especially if the man kept biting the woman and the woman kept trying to kick the man.
30
THE BULL ON THE FARM
Dad always kept a bull on the farm. Long before the bull became too infirm to mount a cow, Dad chose a likely replacement from among his calves. For a couple of years, in preparation for licensing by the Department of Agriculture, he took special care of the lucky animal, feeding him a concoction of bone meal, milk, eggs, and oats, and taming him with regular handling and currycombing.
The language surrounding the love lives of cattle was colloquial. A cow in heat was “bulling” and she was brought to the bull to be “bulled.” Neighbors drove their bulling cows to our bull, and Dad charged them half a crown for the service. If a cow would not “stand”—if she had not fully reached the state of estrus—she was left in one of our sheds overnight in the hope that by morning she would be ready for romance.
When I was eleven, Dad told me to drive one of these lodgers across the pasture to the Bog Field, where our bull was kept. “Keep a close eye on them, Tom,” he said, “and be sure the bull does the job.”
I trapped the cow in a corner of the field and soon the bull came trotting and lowing in anticipation. Dad said a bull could smell a bulling cow from three miles away.
When he reached the cow, the bull sniffed and snorted and poked. He raised his nose and twitched it until his nose ring was standing above his nostrils; he was like a circus seal balancing a ball. The cow played her game by lashing her tail, by shooting estrogenic perfume in his face, and by shuffling her pelvis.
Bored with watching the same old dance, I picked up three stones, and by the time the bull had done his duty I had taught myself how to juggle.
When I brought the cow home to the farmyard Dad said, “Did the bull lunge and grunt and moan when he was up on her?” This was Dad’s way of asking if the bull had done his duty.
The Department of Agriculture had to examine and approve any new bull before he could be assigned to insemination duty. If the bull passed the test, Dad was instructed to put a ring in its nose before letting it loose in the fields. He was then given a license for which he paid fifteen shillings. But if the bull failed, he could not be let loose among other cattle until he’d been castrated.
There was always tension in our house on the day the inspector was to come to the farmyard. Dad knew that the careful feeding and special care he had bestowed upon the candidate could be negated with the stroke of a pen.
When the Department man arrived in his spotless overalls he poked the young bull in the ribs, looked at its eyes and teeth and ears, felt the testicles, and slapped the animal on the back several times. During the inspection Dad had his forefinger and thumb in the snorting nostrils, squeezing the nasal cartilage. Uncle Jack kept the bull’s tail twisted with sufficient torque to keep its owner aware that if he moved at all, real pain was just a fraction of an inch away.
Only once did our bull fail the test. When the inspector had departed, Dad said, “Bastard! Ribs too close, and he measuring with a bloody ruler. Feckin’ college man! What does he know about bulls?”
The bull had to be castrated. Fresh straw was spread on the middle house floor and the unfortunate animal was driven in. It was here he would lose his brief and never-used manhood.
With the official naysayer’s rejection flaming in his brain, Dad fiercely sharpened a cut-throat razor on a piece of oiled roofing slate in the boiler house. Meanwhile Uncle Jack made a clamp by splitting a short piece of ash stick and notching the pieces to keep the tying string from falling off. Eddie was sent to the car shed for the Jeyes Fluid. I was sent to the stable to unknot the reins from the rings of a horse’s winkers.
When all the tools were assembled for the removal of the testicles, Uncle Jack, like a hero of old, went into the middle house by himself. The door was hasped on the outside. Scuffling and grunting were heard until Uncle Jack finally called, “All right, JohnJoe.” When Dad and Eddie and I cautiously entered, the patient was on the floor on its side, Uncle Jack was lying across its neck, his fingers in its nose. The bul
l’s snorts were threatening, and its eyes were popping. Dad tied the rope around the front and rear legs, then pulled both sets together and secured them on the animal’s belly.
“All right, Tom . . . when Jack twists him onto his back, lie across his neck. Eddie, you hold the rope between the feet and don’t let him turn onto his side.”
I carefully changed places with Uncle Jack, and he stepped to the rear of the bull to assist Dad.
“Get ready now, lads,” Dad said. “I’m going to cut the bag.”
The bull didn’t react much nor did it respond to Dad’s tying on the clamps that would stop the bleeding after the next wield of the razor. But when he severed the testicles from their anchors, the bull groaned like a footballer kicked between the legs. As he lifted his head off the floor, he made a sound like “Ooof!”
“Careful now, lads! When I splash on the Jeyes Fluid he’s going to plunge.”
The bull roared a bawl of anguish. As the stinging and burning disinfectant assailed his raw wounds, he violently strained against the ropes. But Eddie and I held our positions until the animal gave a full-bodied shudder and relaxed.
Later, as we drove the new bullock out of the middle house to the pasture, its lowing had a different timbre than before.
When I returned to the farmyard, Dad called me to the middle house. He pointed to the bovine jewels lying in the straw. Then he said, “Bury them yokes deep in the dunghill so the sows don’t root them up and eat them.”
* * *
ONE SPRING WHEN our bull qualified for insemination duty, the inspector reminded Dad that a nose ring had to be inserted before the bull would be allowed in the fields. The ring is a safety device. Once the nose ring is grabbed, even the most antisocial bull can be led by the nose, even by a child.
Dad considered the nose piercing a do-it-yourself job; a visit from the vet was costly. So the animal was driven into the middle house where a small window in the back wall would play a role in the insertion. The window was normally used for flinging used straw bedding out onto the dunghill in the haggard. At this time of year, the evenly spread-out manure was three feet deep and not far from the bottom of the middle house window.
Dad had a plan. Uncle Jack would fit a halter over the bull’s head, tie a rope to the halter, and then throw it through the window, where Dad and I would be waiting outside. We would pull and Uncle Jack would shove until the bull’s head was resting on the windowsill. Then Uncle Jack would come outside to help us keep the head steady. Meanwhile, Eddie would be in the kitchen reddening the lone tine of a broken pitchfork. He would come running out to the haggard with the tine and jump up on the dunghill when Uncle Jack gave his fierce whistle through his teeth.
So with the bull positioned for the surgeon, Eddie came galloping. He handed the fork to Dad. While directing the tine toward the cartilage in the bull’s nose, Dad accidentally touched the edge of the nostril. The bull snorted and snotted, his eyes bulged, and he jerked on the rope. We pulled back. I wasn’t afraid though, because Dad and Uncle Jack were there. Again, Dad tried to pierce the cartilage, but this time the bull plunged foward.
“Let go of the rope!” Dad yelled. The bull reared up and put his front hooves on the windowsill. Then he launched himself off the middle house floor. The four of us stumbled backward and into each other and we all fell.
“Run! Run away,” Dad shouted and we took off in four different directions.
From my hiding place at the corner of the hayrick, I saw the bull lunging forward until he could grab onto the dunghill with his front hooves. Then he dragged his body through the window, fell on his face, jumped up, curled his tail over his back, swung his scrotum, and gave several murderous snorts.
Dad was now standing beside the Lady’s Finger apple tree, waving and shouting to distract the bull and give us time to escape into the farmyard. There Uncle Jack, Eddie, and I began to laugh, and Dad smiled the smile of the naked man impaled on a cactus who said, “I thought it was a good idea at the time.”
Dad sent me on my bike to get the vet. After two failed attempts to put in the nose ring, the vet had to tranquilize the bull.
31
ACCIDENT NEAR TULLAMORE
When I was twelve, Eddie and I went with Dad to Tullamore in the pony’s cart, the three of us sitting on the cross-board that acted as the seat. I sat in the middle. Red, the pony, was between the shafts. Even though Tullamore, in County Offaly, was only twelve miles from Laragh, I had never been there, and I was looking forward to seeing its canal with streets and houses on each side; the canal in Mountmellick ended just outside the town and was surrounded by fields. There was even a lock in the Tullamore waterway and I hoped we would see a barge going through it. But I don’t remember if we ever got there.
Somewhere during the journey we felt a tiny hesitation in Red’s onward charge, and the pony’s ears swiveled forward like weathercocks sensing a new and startling breeze. I had been around horses and ponies long enough to know that when the ears went on alert, it was a signal to the driver to tighten his grip on the reins.
“There’s something . . . ,” Dad said, and then we heard the faraway hum of a sawmill’s blade. Every time a new piece of timber passed through the mill, the unburdened blade sped up and whined to a pitch beyond the range of the human ear. By the time Dad brought Red down to a trot, the pony was trembling. We drove around a corner on the deserted, high-hedged road, and about half a mile away we could see men working around a mobile mill, the smoke from the tractor’s engine chugging into the air. Red came to a halt and began a nervous dance on the tarmac.
“Hold that tight,” Dad said, passing the reins to Eddie. Then he jumped out of the cart and strode to the pony’s head. He stood in front of Red, stroking his neck and muttering sounds of assurance.
“They see us, Dad,” Eddie said. “They’re waving.” As he spoke the sound of the spinning blade sank into the countryside and became silent. The tractor’s engine had been turned off.
“Wave to them, Tom. Take off your cap and wave it to make sure they see you.”
Dad stayed with Red. With the ring at one end of the bit in his firm grasp he had more control over the pony.
In the distance, we could see the cigarette smoke rising from the workers at the mill. As we passed them, Dad called out, “Thanks for stopping the machine, men. The pony’s a bit flighty.”
“No bother, mister,” one of them said. “You gave us an excuse to have a smoke. We’ll wait till you’re out of sight.”
With Red finally calmed down, Dad climbed back into the cart and sent him into a fast trot. Then, without warning, Red took off as if he’d heard a squadron of botflies coming in for an attack; the saw had started up again.
Dad tried to bring Red under control. But the pony swerved to the right, the wheel went up onto the foot-high bank, the cart turned over, and the three of us went flying out onto the tarmac, Dad still holding the reins.
I was lying on my back on a grassy bank beside the road when I woke up. I don’t remember anything else about that day except Dad was so upset at having lost control of the pony that he gave Eddie and me a half-crown each not to tell anyone about the mishap.
Long after Dad died, I asked Eddie what he remembered about the accident. He said, “That never happened. You must have dreamed it.”
Dad has now been dead for forty years. I don’t believe he would mind me writing about our Tullamore trip. He might just say, “That Red! He was a great pony, but it’s a wonder he didn’t kill us all that day.”
32
ISAAC’S TREE
Dad often referred to Isaac Thompson’s farm as Brodie’s because Isaac’s aunt, an elderly spinster named Belle Brodie, had lived there all her life. She bequeathed the farm to her nephew on condition that he come and live with her until she died. But shortly after he took up domesticity, Isaac indicated sourness had entered the relationship between himself and his aunt. One day he and Dad were chatting over a hedge when Isaac said, “I was my ow
n man before I came here; now I’m as independent as a pig on ice.” When Isaac came home late on Saturday nights with a bellyful of beer, he slept in the hay shed to avoid Belle’s scolding. “There’s nothing as bad as having the face et off ya when you’re happy on a few pints,” he said.
Old Belle eventually died and when Isaac got married, Mam became friendly with his new wife. Farm machinery was loaned between the two farms, and at harvest time Dad, Eddie, and I worked in Isaac’s hayfields. He always gave us boys ten shillings each, and we were brought into his house at the end of the day for a feed of ham, mustard, brown bread, and tea. Dad did not stay for the meal. “I’ve the cows to milk,” he’d say.
Whenever Eddie and I sat at Missus Thompson’s table, a fat grey cat roamed the tabletop, its tail pointing at the ceiling and its anus on full display. In Dad’s world, cats lived outside and kept the mouse population down. Besides giving our three farmyard felines a bowl of milk in the cow house each morning and evening, Dad had no love for cats. When I got older, I realized it was the shameless cat on the Thompsons’ table that had sent Dad home to the cows.
Eddie and I also helped Isaac with cutting his turf. Turf was also called peat, but none of us used that word lest we be accused of being posh and “having notions.”
On the bog, Isaac cut the sods of turf and slung them to me. I clamped my hands on each end of the sod to keep it from breaking in the middle and I built a twenty-five-sod pyramid on one of the side-less wheelbarrows. Meanwhile, Eddie wheeled the other full barrow out onto the bottom.
When Isaac was aboveground and needed to do his water, he went to the end of the bank and relieved himself over the side. When he was six feet belowground and had to do his water, he turned his back and peed in the corner of the bog hole he was creating. When he cut the turf in that urine-soaked area, he didn’t hesitate to sling the drenched sods up to me.