by Nick Perry
‘Not hashish? You see, if it was, I couldn’t take your business, being a Calvinistic Methodist. We take every sin very seriously, you understand.’
‘No, no, Mr Evans,’ I reassured him.
‘Call me Evan, please. If it’s not convenient, I can come back some other time.’
Cledwyn, realising he had overstayed his welcome, handed me the delivery note for one freezer received in good condition, and turning to Rob said, ‘How much will you sell me one of those for?’
‘If they mean that much to you, take one.’
‘Why, thank you. A most interesting time I’ve had, very educational in some respects.’
I left Jack and Rob in the house and walked around the buildings with Evan Evans, telling him our plans. As all reps do, he ingratiated himself, complimenting me on what I had achieved. In reality he was securing a new account in a fiercely competitive market, especially here in North Wales, among the sceptical hard-up hill farmers. The nationwide feed suppliers, such as Spillers, BOCM Silcocks and Crosfields, employed every tactic they could think of to steal business from one another.
I gave the business to Evan Evans because of Josh Hummel. He assured me he would come by once a week and handed me his business card, with his home telephone number written on the back. ‘I’m on twenty-four hour call.’ I told him it was highly unlikely I’d need to ring him out of office hours. He patted my arm, saying softly, ‘For your own peace of mind.’
That evening Rob cooked us all an Indian supper. Dressed in a white linen shirt and baggy trousers, with shoulder-length hair and a bushy beard, he looked like the Maharishi. Lapis lazuli beads hung round his neck. We listened to Ravi Shankar as he told us stories of his travels around India.
As the room filled with exotic aromas, Ros, taken over by the atmosphere, performed a belly dance. Sam and Lysta were not impressed by their mother’s behaviour, and once Rob added the chilli they were evacuated to their bedroom.
The phone rang. It was Harry’s habit to make impromptu calls that seemed to coincide with his third pint down in the Quarryman’s. He always opened with the same line: ‘I’ve been thinking about things.’ We hadn’t even finished building the turkey run yet and he was already making plans for the next money-making enterprise.
‘Sausages,’ he said.
‘What about them?’
‘Do you know how many sausages were eaten last year? More to the point, pork sausages. Do you understand where I’m coming from?’
‘Yes. Millions.’
‘Exactly, and by a stroke of luck I know where I can lay my hands on a sausage-making machine.’
‘Harry, can we talk about it in the morning? We’re eating Indian food and belly dancing.’
‘It’ll never catch on. The Welsh aren’t ready for it.’
‘See you in the morning.’
So we sat around the table, Rob serving up a taste of India, a selection of small dishes with rich spicy sauces.
‘This one will burn your tonsils,’ he said, pointing to a vindaloo. ‘Help yourselves to chapattis.’
Today Josh Hummel was bringing the six gilts. I was up early walking around the farm clearing my lungs, breathing in the sea air, which over Dyffryn mixed with the mountain breezes. At this time of day there was a pleasing solitude, dew glistening in the grass. The remnants of a soft veil dissipated as the sun rose, mists floating skywards, like ghosts getting dressed. Often I was captured like this in the summer months when out alone. But never for long; my name being called, I made my way back to the house. Meg bounded towards me with an enthusiastic greeting. She hadn’t seen me since last night, a long time in a dog’s life.
Jack told me Josh Hummel would be with us in ten minutes. So we fetched the straw bales from the barn, broke them up and scattered the bedding through the building we had prepared for the gilts’ reception.
Josh brought them in a horse box towed by his Land Rover, reversing it to the gate. The cleanest pigs you’d ever see made their way down the ramp, sniffing the strange smells, snouts to the ground. I could hear them saying to themselves, ‘What the hell is this stuff?’ ‘It’s earth,’ I told them silently, ‘you’re smelling the earth.’
Yes, they would walk on a concrete floor, but they would have plenty of space to run around in. They could see the sky, feel the rain. They could lie on their backs at night and stargaze if they wanted to.
I watched Josh make his first assessment of the place. I could tell he wasn’t impressed by what he saw. I hadn’t expected him to be. He couldn’t hide that look; he didn’t need to say anything. This ramshackle set-up fell way short of his own standards.
‘It isn’t what I was expecting. Certainly different from anything else I’ve seen.’
I began to explain the layout to him, but he wasn’t interested. I could feel his disappointment.
‘I’d better be on my way.’
‘OK, Josh, but you’re welcome to a cup of tea, or breakfast if you like.’
‘No, things to do. I’ve got an article to write for the Pig Association. I’d better get on with it.’
Why did I feel a sense of regret? I’d never pretended to be Mr Modern Pig Farmer with air-conditioned buildings. I had no ground-breaking ideas; far from it. If anything, my thinking was regressive, wanting to get back to the land. But now we had our breeding stock and were only a month away from putting them to the boar.
Harry skidded his bike to a stop next to me, wearing a T-shirt embossed with the image of a sizzling sausage. Underneath it said I am a great British banger.
‘That’s me, you know,’ pointing at his T-shirt. ‘That’s what the girls around the village call me.’
‘Oh, I thought you were advertising the sausage-making idea,’ I said.
The pigs seemed at home immediately, turning over the loose straw, having fun, suddenly breaking into an excited run, enjoying the space.
Jack held Meg, showing her our new arrivals. Her eyes darted from one to the other; these were the first pigs she had seen. She followed every move they made. Whenever one came near and she heard them grunting, she growled.
‘Good God, what’s that?’ Harry gasped, clutching my shoulder, nearly losing his balance.
It was Rob walking up the drive. Dishevelled would be an understatement: he was smoking a beedi, while his baggy white linen suit, inflated by the breeze, seemed to puff out his figure. Wearing Jesus sandals, as they were called, he had the look of a holy man not out of place in India, but I suspected the ultraconservative people round here would feel threatened by such a strange intruder. This was the land of chapel-goers, Methodists with hard-held religious beliefs. I could imagine the dropped jaws in the Co-op when Rob queued to pay for his shopping. Harry did hesitantly shake his hand, but the expression on his face said it all. What on earth am I looking at?
Of course as soon as Dewi saw him, word of the second coming, and the news that Jesus resided at Dyffryn would be around in no time. We really did need to have a word with Rob about his appearance. What’s more, the previous night we had talked about his plans and he’d made it plain he would love to stay a while, working on the farm, for no more than his keep and tobacco. He was a friend, like-minded, and thought the possibility of becoming self-sufficient wasn’t a wild dream, but an idea to be pursued with enthusiasm. We had added one to our number.
It was unusual to see Harry so ruffled. He always took everything in his stride, being the playboy of Penygroes, but the arrival of Rob unnerved him. For Harry had slipped comfortably into his role at Dyffryn, offering advice, always having the final say on how we approached most of our projects. I reassured him that there was no need to feel threatened; everything would continue just as it had been. Thankfully it all settled down when Rob emerged two days later clean shaven and sporting a crew cut, a complete change in appearance from one extreme to the other. Sensitive Rob had taken a walk down to Penygroes and seen the looks of disbelief as the dour folk of the village watched this alien passing amongst them.
I had
been thinking for some time that we needed a house cow. It irked me that Ros’s regular shopping list included four bottles of milk from the Co-op. We could be making butter too, or cheese, although I couldn’t see us set up for that just yet. But in amongst my stack of booklets was one on butter making. As far as I could tell it required no more than a wooden churn, a strong arm and the patience to stand there and while away the time as the butterfat congealed into a bright yellow slab. Then it just needed patting into shape. ‘Surely we can do that,’ I said to Ros, adding, ‘How much time do you have on your hands?’, a remark that didn’t go down too well. But I was keen on the idea. It was another step on the road to becoming self-sufficient. Ros thought we could never achieve it completely, since we would always need to buy things such as razor blades, tobacco, tea and coffee, which was true, but we could reduce our purchases to the bare minimum. She suggested we should have a budget of no more than ten pounds a week.
I’d already had a word in several ears about a house cow that would suit us. I wanted something docile and friendly, that the children could get involved with. A cow that would have to grow accustomed to several different hands grabbing her udder, which I am sure is a very personal thing for a cow. Jack thought he should be excluded from the milking rota, because he was becoming a full-time shepherd and could not be relied upon to be available for domestic duties. Ros, Rob and I were more than happy to milk, we agreed, and the following Tuesday Rob and I would go to Bryncir market and see if we could buy a cow.
It was September, when dramatic sunsets filled the sky. Flocks of migrating birds spread across the evening, squadrons of winged shadows. All of them had gathered somewhere, synchronising their leaving to make the long journey; the wide open spaces were theirs now. Almost overnight the swallows had gone, once there was a hint of autumn in the air. The log fire was lit again and before supper we would walk in the last glow of day, when the horizon was on fire and the sea reflected the dying light. The bull calves were now being given hay. I would wander out to see them grazing quietly in the field. Then I’d shine a torch on the gilts, who slept in one pile of flesh, as if folded into each other, snoring loudly. And finally, my last job of the day, in those quiet moments when I was always alone, I watered the marijuana plants in the greenhouse, all of them strong and healthy. Just the smell of them now was almost enough to get me stoned. In a week we could harvest them, a crop that would last us several months. This was what it was all about: self-sufficiency in all our needs.
The freezer was now full of vegetables and there was a stack of logs in the hovel. The turkeys, which Rob locked up every night, were putting on weight, the chickens were still laying about three eggs a day. They too were part of my nightly routine of doing the rounds, making sure everything was secure. We had a fox prowling around, and in five minutes he could massacre the lot.
Back in the house after we had eaten I would spend some time upstairs with Sam and Lysta, letting my imagination run riot telling them stories I hoped wouldn’t disturb their sleep. Then, with the children settled and the day done, we would talk about our plans, listen to music, sometimes get stoned.
Another landmark day was approaching. Josh Hummel was bringing over our Large White boar, Rattlerow King David the Fifty-seventh. And Rose Tobias, after an emotional goodbye to Jack, was flying back to the Californian sun for the winter. Jack would move in and act as caretaker.
We had bought a young ram and soon the tupping season would be on us. Jack wanted lambs to be born in February, so from the beginning of October we would run the ram out with the flock, hoping he would do the business.
Every morning the calves gathered by the gate, a white mist rising from their nostrils into the crisp air. They bellowed impatiently, waiting for me to appear carrying a bale of hay on my back. They always knew the time of day, head-butting one another, following me across the field. They were a band of ruffians at feeding time, with their own pecking order. I scattered the hay in a long line to give them all a chance to get their fair share.
The pigs too knew I was up and about, and whined as if some traumatic event had befallen them. They rattled the steel-sheeted gate of their pen, putting their snouts under it and trying to lift it from its hinges, while the turkeys, not to be outdone, gobbled like an insane mob pursuing their leader, who was in fact Rob with a bucket of feed, attacking each other spitefully until he had filled the trough. It certainly was every turkey for himself.
Even Jack, with a sack of concentrates over his shoulder, did not escape an onslaught at feeding time. The ewes encircled him, bleating, and trapped him amongst them while he shook out the pellets. Meg lay some distance away, waiting for any command, always keen to play her part. But Jack never called her on these occasions and continued to wade through his charges dropping a trail of feed until they were all eating quietly, the melée over. This had become the morning routine before we grabbed breakfast ourselves.
It would have been fitting to mark the occasion with a crescendo of crashing drums, so grand was the arrival of Rattlerow King David the Fifty-seventh as he stepped down from Josh Hummel’s trailer with all the swank and confidence of a well-endowed male, sniffing the tantalising pheromones in the breeze. As if listening to the sound of his own fanfare, he was well aware he was in the spotlight. He was, after all, entering his harem. Certainly the gilts whining in the building nearby knew of his arrival.
Coming from a long line of potent beasts, he boasted a royal pedigree that had produced champions across the British Isles. Jack said he was overqualified; all we needed was a randy bugger who had an appetite for shagging. But as I watched him I knew we had a young boar who would stamp his bloodline on the pig herd at Dyffryn. He had that thing called ‘presence’, the look of a winner who wasn’t going to take no for an answer. I’m not overstating the impression he made on me. This was a day I had long awaited. We had been here nearly ten months, but for me the entrance of Rattlerow King David the Fifty-seventh marked the beginning of my own adventure.
He was in no hurry to enter his pen, and when Josh slapped his arse he turned sharply, giving out a series of short sharp snorts, as if to say, ‘I’ll do things in my own time.’
He was perfectly proportioned, walked like an athlete. His bollocks, well rounded and pink, but high up, not hanging between his legs, swayed gently. His flanks and shoulders were muscular, his trotters neat and clean. He raised his snout high in the air, catching another waft of the gilts’ female scent. This boar was my prize possession. I couldn’t wait to get to know him, his quirks, his habits.
‘So what are we going to call him? Surely not Rattlerow King David the Fifty-seventh?’ asked Rob.
‘Bit long-winded,’ added Jack.
‘What about King David?’
‘David?’
‘Let’s call him Dave,’ I suggested.
So Dave it was, a mate’s name if you like.
Again Josh Hummel refused to come to the house and join us for a cup of tea. After I handed over the cheque for £250 he gave me the documents concerning Dave’s family tree and left without any further conversation. How I had fallen in this man’s estimation. I’m sure he saw us as a group of young hippies playing games in a world he took so seriously.
That night I went up to Dave’s pen to make sure he was settling in. I’d given him a good bed of straw; when I shone the torchlight on him he was up in a flash. I’d brought some carrots, which I hand fed him, scratching behind his huge floppy ears, talking to him gently. It occurred to me that he might be homesick, like a boy on his first night at boarding school. Everybody who knew anything about pigs told me I was going to have to ring his snout like a bull, for there was no way to move him except to pull him on a rope. I didn’t like the idea, and believed I could train him to walk on a lead, become one man and his boar, rather than one man and his dog like Jack. After all, this was my new mate Dave.
It was a cold night as I walked back to the house, a sickle moon coming and going between passing clouds. I
could hear the stream pouring into the holding tank. The smell of the farm was in the breeze as I made my way down the drive and I lingered for a while, thinking about what our lives had become. All of us here farming in Wales, believing in what we were doing, making plans for things we hoped we could achieve. I wanted us to grow an acre of wheat, bake our own bread, make butter, cure bacon, and, as Harry had suggested, make sausages. All this I was determined to see happen soon. But we still hadn’t found a house cow. We had eaten far into our capital, and although we had reduced our shopping bills we still had no income. It came home to me then, as Ros called me from the garden, that I should pay a visit to our bank manager. I shivered at the thought of it, that this way of life was impossible to achieve unless we could survive in the material world. I had to face up to the economic truth: we were running out of money.
I walked into the house to Bob Dylan singing ‘Like A Rolling Stone’.
I wondered how long it would be before we were scrounging our next meal.
5
Radiohead
Ros was convinced, but Jack and I weren’t so sure, while Dewi, struggling with a parcel, remarked it was certainly different. Harry said it had altered the face of the landscape. Rob was of the opinion that it would mellow, blend back in with the surroundings. We stood in a huddle as if in a gallery looking at a work of art.
‘What colour did you say it was?’ asked Dewi.
‘Tuscan red,’ replied Ros, adding that we shouldn’t judge it now, before the paint had dried and the weather had got into it. But no matter what, the façade of our house glowed like a bright tomato. Hughie turned up, putting in his tuppence-worth.
‘Duw, Duw,’ he muttered, rubbing his hairless chin, ‘have you all been taking those transcendental drugs?’ Hughie, believing the youth of London were all on LSD having non-stop sex, from time to time dropped these misplaced observations, never quite hitting the mark. Dewi got into his van, suggesting we should photograph the house, get it on the front cover of one of those trendy magazines. In the weeks that followed, whoever called by was clearly taken aback. But Ros was pleased, saying it had warmth; and sure enough its garish overpowering redness did begin to fade.