Peaks and Troughs

by Nick Perry

  My mother’s skin never tanned, but reddened into a mass of freckles. She’d brought presents for the children, and from her saddlebag produced a bottle of Metaxa brandy. Jack came by with a bandaged hand, fingers crushed stonewalling. Meg and Moss adored each other, and sprinted joyfully up and down the drive. Rob was asleep in the caravan. There was enough noise being made to have woken him, so we sat down to lunch without him. We all thought he must have a hangover.

  Dinah was in a particularly happy mood, girlish in fact. Laughing at the most trivial things, even things that just weren’t funny.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Jack, ‘you’re behaving like a teenager.’

  ‘Am I?’ she said, pretending to be taken aback at the very suggestion of it. ‘What do you think?’ she asked, turning to Ros.

  ‘You do seem to be in an extremely good mood.’

  ‘One can surely be in a good mood, can’t one?’

  ‘It seems out of character,’ I said, ‘that’s all.’

  ‘Well, maybe I’m in character,’ putting her knife and fork firmly down on her plate. We sat in silence, waiting for my mother to gather herself.

  ‘I’ve met someone.’

  Through the rest of lunch we heard the story of her passionate holiday in Cyprus, spent in the arms of a fisherman called Stavros who took her out on his boat and threw his nets into the clear blue seas of the Mediterranean; of cooking barbounia over an open fire, drinking the local wine. He had proposed to her, and when she left had cried his eyes out. She passed round photographs of them together, this bearded man who looked like Anthony Quinn in Zorba the Greek.

  ‘I think we all need a brandy,’ I said, opening the Metaxa, raising my glass, proposing a toast. ‘To our mother!’

  Rob then appeared with a hangdog expression and slumped down in the chair at the end of the table, head in hands, apologising for his lateness.

  ‘Water, water,’ was all he said, and drank straight from the jug. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. Bad manners I know.’

  ‘So what happened last night?’ I asked. ‘Was there a girl involved? Was there any passion?’

  ‘I’m not sure, but I remember she couldn’t swim, and when I ran out into the waves to grab her she wasn’t there.’

  ‘Where was she?’ asked Jack.

  ‘Back on the beach.’

  So after my mother’s, we had to listen to Rob’s story. Saturday night on Dinas Dinlle beach, dancing in the moonlight with the hippies who had camped there for the summer. He could only tell us her name was Kate and that she came from Lancashire.

  Then from upstairs came the cry, bringing our lunch to an end. ‘Pig out, Dad.’

  And like firemen who scramble when the alarm bell sounds, we rushed from the house to deal with another marauding sow out for a Sunday walk.

  That evening Ros rubbed a soothing lotion into the back of my neck. I’d suffered two bee stings, even though I’d worn protective clothing. Every time I checked the hives I came away stung. Moss and I were pursued by our attackers and no matter how far we got from the hive they still followed, dive bombing us. In the end I stopped taking Moss with me, after picking several bees out of her coat.

  When Jim Best first spoke to me about the life of a bee it quite uplifted me. He told me I would discover some secret understanding of this highly evolved creature. I wasn’t so sure now. He was obviously a man at one with them, whereas I’m sure they saw me as an invading predator. Although I approached them calmly, something in me triggered off an aggressive response.

  I always lit the smoker and wafted it over the hives, but it never once sedated them. We had a lot of honey, but my only hope of extracting it was to ask Jim Best again for his help. The thought of it pained me, for his health had deteriorated; he could only walk with the aid of two sticks. I was telling Ros all this as she kissed my stings, stroking my hair.

  ‘What do you think your mother will do about her Cypriot lover?’

  I had no idea, thinking that although my mother was in her fifties it couldn’t be more than a holiday romance. Surely it would fade away after a few tearful love letters. Ros, with her feminine intuition, thought it went deeper than that.

  ‘Anyway, I have something to tell you. I nearly mentioned it at lunch.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re having an affair.’

  ‘I’m pregnant.’

  I’d only ever heard that once before in my life. On that occasion, a cold river of fear had swept through me, just as it did now. I lay on my back looking at the ceiling, mentally numb. So I lied, because it is best to lie rather than be dismissive or show little emotion on hearing something Ros was delighted about. And besides, just as before, the thought of it would eventually please me.

  ‘But I’ll be glad if it’s only one this time.’

  So we lay together, with bee stings throbbing in my neck, my thoughts hopping between my mother, my wife, and my two children lying next door with chickenpox. Seven years ago I was a free man without these responsibilities. But temptation is there for a bloody good reason. Without it the journey would never begin. Mind games. I was playing mind games with myself.

  ‘Do you want a boy or a girl?’

  ‘I don’t care. One or the other will do.’

  It was a blustery night, as I pulled up at the Nichollses’ bungalow in Bontnewydd. Gwenda Nicholls introduced me as a young man with alternative ideas concerning the future of farming. As luck would have it, I had developed a twitch in my left eye, a symptom of tiredness which unfortunately coincided with my standing up in front of the Caernarfon WI, a gathering of well-fronted women whose polite applause echoed around Gwenda’s conservatory. The flickering of my eyelid made reading my speech difficult, but I’d rehearsed it so many times I could almost remember it line for line. After starting at a gallop I settled into a calmer rhythm, managing to get the pauses between my words just long enough to add the impression of weight to what I was trying to say.

  ‘We cannot continue like this, using more and more nitrates. The earth is a living body, and the over-use of fertilisers will lead to a breakdown in the ecosystem. The delicate balance of Mother Nature will be tipped over the edge. We cannot go on taking, we have to start giving back.’

  I went on about pesticides, the damage being done to the micro-world.

  ‘Everything from earthworms to bees, all going about their work, suffering in silence. They need a voice!’

  I watered down the Armageddon bit, and the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Ros was right, I sounded too much like a religious fanatic. In the end, although they remained seated, they gave me quite an ovation. And Gwenda, as she passed me a cup of tea, whispered, ‘Usually half of them would have fallen asleep by now.’

  It had been a successful evening. I was quite pleased with myself. I whistled a lot on the drive home and felt relaxed. My eye settled down; maybe it had flared up because of all the tension I had been feeling.

  Frieda was bulling. Her whole behaviour had changed. Restless, flashing her tail, her milk yield had fallen off considerably. I got Barry Evans out and he artificially inseminated her back to a Friesian bull. Vida wasn’t sure how many calves she’d had, but we thought this would be her fourth. Now we’d have to start buying milk again down at the Co-op. Or maybe, as Ros suggested, get some from Hughie, who was milking every day. This could be my chance to do some bartering with a neighbour. What did we have that Hughie and Myfanwy needed? Well, meat for a start, and bread, and vegetables. They didn’t grow any.

  I went over early one morning, when Hughie was having his breakfast. I’d never been in their kitchen before, but there he was sitting over a bowl of cold mashed potatoes with a little pinch of salt added. That, and a mug of tea, was all he put in his belly before he went out and laboured in the fields. They only ate meat on a Sunday; the rest of the week they fed themselves on a stew, kept warm on the old black-painted cast iron range.

  Hughie wasn’t prepared for
my approach. He had no tactics, as Gethin would say. He was sitting down for a start, putting a spoon in his mouth. I was standing up and, besides, Myfanwy would hear every word and hill farmers don’t do deals in front of their wives.

  I suggested two pints of milk for a loaf of bread, three pints for a pound of potatoes. ‘Myfanwy can come over and pick vegetables, if you’d rather, or of course there’s the meat. A Sunday joint’s got to be six pints, depending on the cut.’

  ‘Duw, boy, I’ve got gallons of bloody milk . . . she can come over and sort it out with you.’

  ‘It’s a deal, then, Hughie?’

  ‘It’s woman’s stuff,’ he said. ‘I want nothing to do with it.’

  England were playing Australia in the first test at Lord’s, so I had a portable radio strapped to my belt as I walked around with Rob doing what we always did: mucking out pigs, emptying wheelbarrows, making a huge manure pile. We moved pigs from their pens, got Dave out on the lead to stretch his legs and changed the bedding, carrying bales of straw over our shoulders.

  Moss had taken to nipping at Dave’s trotters and stalking the chickens, rounding them up into the corners of buildings. We would find them huddled together in little groups, Moss lying down watching them. It was Harry who first noticed it, that natural instinct in a collie to work, to round up anything that moves. What he said was plain to see, if I’d paid more attention. She was ready now, needed training as a proper working dog. So Jack said let’s take her out with Meg tomorrow, up to Cesarea, and see what she can do.

  It was late summer, when the grass has slowed and hazy evenings filter the light over the Irish Sea. The combine harvesters were far below us, crawling along in dust clouds across the lowlands. There was a hum at this time of day, when the tiniest things come out to dance. Around us swallows fizzed through the air picking them off, speeding past in the blink of an eye.

  Ros, I knew, would be in the kitchen cleaning earth from vegetables, preparing supper. That’s when Rob and I liked a quiet smoke. Still warm, in our shirtsleeves, talking about whatever came into our heads. Absorbing the last heat of the sun’s rays, pointing out to each other the wisped clouds, the reflecting light on a patch of sea. These moments were never arranged, we just seemed to end up there after the evening feed, leaning over a gate, quiet and contemplative.

  When Jack sent Meg off to gather the ewes and lambs up at Cesarea, I kept Moss on a lead. She was keen, pulling hard, wanting to follow Meg, who went off in a wide sweep, lying down behind the flock, watching them run, before Jack moved her nearer on the whistle.

  ‘Slowly, slowly, lie down now,’ he shouted at her.

  Whenever I watched Jack working Meg it put me on edge: tense, as if witnessing an unfolding drama. There was an unpredictability about it. Sheep live close to a panic button, can scatter easily. A man and his dog are only ever a split second away from losing control. But Meg moved with assurance, reacting to every command in an instant, for she and Jack had trust in each other. I realised Jack had discovered who he was, what he wanted to do with his life out here, in the remoteness of wild places, not needing to be with his fellow men. My brother, happy in a landscape of rock and grass, where the wind has swept back the trees with their branches like witches’ fingers, tangled up by the north-westerly gales. The gorse bushes swaying, their yellow flowers iridescent under the racing clouds; a half moon appearing in momentary gaps to be swallowed up in the gloom.

  Jack grabbed my arm, drawing my attention to Meg, how far she had hung back from the flock, now gathered up and moving towards us. ‘You can’t teach a dog that,’ he said. ‘She just knows it.’

  Moss was sitting at my side, her head still, concentrating hard, watching every movement, looking up at me as if to say, ‘When is it my turn?’

  Then Jack said, ‘Let her go.’

  I undid her lead. ‘You tell her, give her the command.’

  ‘Get away,’ and she was gone in a moment, speeding across the field, black and white, curving through greenness, lying down just inches from Meg. Jack on the whistle, edging the two of them forward with short sharp blasts, bringing the flock closer and penning them. He went amongst the sheep, checking the mouths of some, turning over others, shouting to me things that hardly reached my ears in the incessant wind.

  Afterwards we sat in the Land Rover smoking, Moss and Meg between us, and talked about how far Moss had come. Jack could tell she was ready by her behaviour today, attentive and keen, and said I should spend time with her now, half an hour a day, bringing her along step by step.

  Vida Koeffman, who had become a friend and ordered a box of vegetables every week, suggested we exhibit at the Caernarfon flower and vegetable show next year. She thought it the best way to reach a wider audience, knew of no one who entered organic produce. We were building a reputation, thanks mainly to Gwyn and Eryl’s friends. And now, following my successful speech to the WI, we were making inroads into the middle classes of Caernarfonshire.

  But the villagers were on low incomes, struggling to make ends meet, and found Dyffryn’s organic vegetables too expensive. Sales were stagnant, but meat sales, on the other hand, went on expanding. We were competitive with the local butchers, had the edge on quality and freshness. Eventually I stopped putting vegetables in the van, filling the space instead with mince and sausages.

  Occasionally Vida brought up the idea of keeping goats, selling the milk to people who suffered from skin problems. At one time I would have been tempted, but not now. There was enough to do. My days were full, and I could see no return in milking a few goats. Harry gave the idea a big no-no, because goats love to hop over walls and would certainly find their way amongst the vegetables, cleaning us out of everything as we lay asleep in our beds. ‘As for those billy goats, they piss all over themselves.’ I dropped any idea of it. But we did have some newcomers: four geese who patrolled the farm, letting out a racket when anyone approached. Instead of a turkey we could kill one for Christmas.

  ‘Can’t beat a goose on the Lord’s birthday,’ was how Harry saw it.

  As Ros left to drive to Gwyn’s farewell do at the Royal Hotel, I watched the thunderstorm over Dinas Dinlle lighting up the sea; those first gusts do not give a clue as to what will follow. Soon the strengthening wind was cracking branches in the larch trees; I could see their roots being lifted out of the ground. It was the increasing force that scared me. I was used to storms but not ones of this intensity. I thought of Ros driving on the Caernarfon road. We were in for a battering, no doubt about it.

  Harry rang, warning me we would be blown away that night.

  I gave Rob the news and we decided he should sleep in the house. Maybe Jack would come down, I didn’t know. Things were already rolling around. Sheets of corrugated roofing that we kept at hand to turn back loose pigs were tossed up by the wind and disappeared over walls. Sam and Lysta were at their bedroom window watching the lightning, counting the seconds before the thunder. It wasn’t dark yet, but under the passing gloom of heavy clouds, the whole landscape suddenly lit up. I knew the crash that followed would have terrified the animals out in the fields. I put on a raincoat and ran up to check on the pigs, asking Rob to stay with the children. The infrared lights still glowed over the litters, but I wondered for how much longer. I knew we’d lose some piglets tonight. The wind wasn’t constant, but came in ferocious gusts. Doors banged; rain swept into the hay barn, soaking the bales. This was the worst storm we’d had.

  I saw car lights turning into Dyffryn, hoped it was Ros coming back. I looked in on Dave, who stood in his run letting the rain lash him. Manly, I thought, but stupid.

  I fetched Frieda from the field, moving her into the old milking parlour. It was impossible for me to carry a bale of hay for her; I couldn’t walk into the wind. I looked into each farrowing pen, shining my torch. The lights were flickering. There was nothing more I could do, just wait for the storm to blow itself out. And count the cost.

  Jack’s van was parked outside the house. He too had
heard we were in for trouble, with eighty-m.p.h. gusts expected. I rang Eryl; Ros had made it to Trefanai. Gwyn’s farewell evening was still going ahead. It was raining in Caernarfon, but there were no strong winds. Ros was going to stay the night at Trefanai.

  While we cooked supper the lights dimmed. We lit candles, and as we sat down to eat we lost our electricity. It was eight o’clock, and I wondered what damage was being done outside. We certainly did not go gentle into that night.

  After we’d eaten, Jack and I ventured out. We climbed over the larch trees that now blocked the drive. Only my torch guided us, a single beam of light through an impenetrable darkness. Water flowed at least two inches over our boots. When we managed to reach the farrowing pens I yelled to Jack that we needed to get more bedding for the piglets. We broke up fresh bales of straw, building a protective wall around the litters in an attempt to keep some of the warmth from escaping. We did it with faint hope that it would work. Wanting to feed from their mother, they would wander off to look for her in the cold and damp. Restless, knowing they were scurrying around, the sow could lie down, crushing her own offspring. We had done everything we could; it would be the weakest who would perish.

  In the morning the storm had passed. We were still without power, but remarkably the telephone was working. Ros rang, telling me the road from Caernarfon was impassable because of flooding in Groeslon. Gwyn’s farewell gathering had gone ahead, although some guests couldn’t make it from the outlying areas. Caernarfon had not borne the brunt of the storm.

  Gwyn had given an emotional speech and had been presented with a carriage clock in recognition of his thirty years of heroic work for the people of Caernarfonshire. He opened the dancing with Eryl, gliding across the floor to the accompaniment of Percy Faith’s well-known adagio ‘A Summer Place’.

  Sam and Lysta told Ros of the most exciting night of their lives while I went up to inspect the carnage from the night before. This was going to be one of those days when the hard reality of farming delivers a heavy blow to the heart.