Peaks and Troughs

by Nick Perry

  ‘Dad, don’t be silly.’

  ‘Sam, walk properly. Don’t shuffle your feet,’ said Ros as Sam paraded before us in a dark tan jacket with silver buttons.

  ‘Now this one has no breast pocket but . . . Sam, could you open the jacket for us? It has an inside pocket sewn into it. I think this style will appeal to the children of rock stars. It’s very show businessy.’

  Meanwhile Rob had been ushered out, returning in a tight-fitting waistcoat, jet black with three white buttons. He wiggled his petite little bottom and ran his hands up the inside of his thighs. ‘I feel so liberated.’

  ‘Rob, please take it seriously,’ said Ros, not amused in the slightest.

  ‘This is very casual,’ went on Celia. ‘It’s really best suited to be worn over a T-shirt. I’ve aimed this at the young dudes market. I can see it being sold in the Portobello Road or Carnaby Street.’

  Then Jack, with some reluctance, was pushed in by Ros wearing a dark green three-quarter length coat, with deep side pockets and a hood.

  ‘Now this is my particular favourite,’ said Celia. ‘It really is for the outdoor masculine type. I was actually thinking of Jack when I designed it. Out there in those cold blasting winds, exposed to the elements. As you can see, I’ve trimmed the cuffs, finishing them with a leather band.’

  ‘How does it feel, Jack?’

  ‘Can’t see myself wearing it, but I’m sure somebody will.’

  ‘You’ll be the best-dressed shepherd in North Wales,’ said Ros. ‘It really does suit you.’

  ‘We’d sell this coat to ramblers and hill-walkers. Also I can see it being worn at outdoor concerts and football matches.’

  That completed the fashion show. ‘I wanted to model something,’ I said, peeved not to have had the chance to strut my stuff.

  ‘They will come in a range of different colours and sizes,’ continued Celia, lighting up a Sobranie cigarette with a gold filter. ‘So what do you think?’

  ‘Very impressive,’ said Ros. ‘I’m so pleased; it’s been so long in the making.’

  ‘When are we going to talk money?’ I said, at which point Ros dived in.

  ‘It has nothing to do with you. Celia and I are coming to our own arrangement.’

  I don’t know why but I’d completely forgotten that Ivan Treadgold was coming to value Dyffryn. When I heard his Lancia scraping over the stony track I had no idea who he was. Thinking he must be a salesman turning up without an appointment, I went and hid in the farrowing building. You’d be surprised how many reps had driven into Dyffryn in unsuitable cars, always hoping to make a sale, leaving with their exhausts hanging off. Ivan’s arrival certainly exceeded the legal decibel limit. But I came out to meet him when I heard him calling my name.

  ‘That’s going to cost a few quid,’ he said, peering under the car. ‘I was hoping I might get away with it. It’s my son’s. Mine’s in the garage.’

  As we walked around the farm we talked about the drought, what hay would be fetching soon on the open market. He knew his stuff, advising me to sell our surplus lambs now, saying that prices would continue to fall until the rain came and the grass grew once more. I told him the story of Dyffryn, that we were an organic farm free of chemicals. But he already knew about us, and without any sales talk from me said he would be keen to try a lamb; his wife believed in buying local produce. We walked and talked for an hour, and when we got back to his car he told me he thought the place was worth £30,000.

  That evening, as the single stars appeared one by one in the darkening sky, with Moss by my side I walked the lower fields, subdued and silent, listening to the thinning song of invisible birds settling down for the night. Changes and decisions took up all my thinking. I knew I had to face up to them, but no matter how hard I searched within myself, I found no answers. Only the twilight and the glowing horizon that lit the distant sea offered any comfort.

  When I returned to the house, I could hear Ros upstairs with the children. I went and turned on the record player and watched the black vinyl spin. It was Led Zeppelin climbing a stairway to heaven, something we certainly weren’t doing.

  13

  Decisions Reached

  Jack and I had never sat down together and talked about money. We just got on with farming; neither of us had ever been interested in building up a stash. Everything we made went back into the farm. Over a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich in the Beach Café I told him the valuation Ivan Treadgold had put on Dyffryn. He raised his eyebrows when I said £30,000, looked away across the beach, where a lilo carried by the wind somersaulted through the sunbathers. An Irish setter retrieving sticks from the sea shook out its coat over an old lady trying to snooze in her deck chair.

  ‘Do you want to sell up?’

  ‘No, I just thought it was time to have it valued.’

  I tried to explain the whole Tom and Agnetta community idea in more detail, but the more I spoke the more complicated it sounded. Meanwhile, Gwyneth Thomas had brought over a bowl of water for Moss and Meg, both lying under the table. She was on all fours beneath us, tempting them with treats. ‘Give me a paw . . . give me a paw . . .’

  ‘Ros wants to get involved, but I’ve told them I don’t want to be a part of it.’

  ‘Where does that leave you and Ros?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. I’m a bit uneasy about it.’

  ‘I do see a problem coming.’

  ‘What’s that?’ I said.

  ‘We need to find someone when Rob leaves.’

  ‘Any ideas?’

  ‘Harry seems the obvious person.’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ and I told Jack all the reasons why. That it worked well for Harry to come and go as he pleased. He would want to keep his freedom, be paid in cash.

  ‘Maybe not any longer, now he’s getting married, with the weight of a mortgage on his shoulders. I think you should put it to him. He could well be interested in taking a flat wage, rather than keep chasing a pound.’

  ‘I’ll sound him out,’ I said. ‘But I’m not keen. I’d be his boss. Can you see Harry doing a forty-hour week?’

  ‘Think of the mortgage, with a baby on the way. Bronwyn’ll want to know where the money’s coming from.’

  We walked the dogs along the beach amongst the holidaymakers. You could hear the Brummie accents, some Liverpudlians too, no doubt renting the caravans on the farms that bordered the sand dunes. Children held on to kites, grandfathers paddled with knotted handkerchiefs on their heads. Working-class families from the north of England, who brought black inner tubes with them rather than buying rubber rings. Fish and chips, hot dogs and a bottle of Vimto were the holiday treat.

  We skimmed stones, talked some more; it was easier than doing it face to face. At the far end of Dinas, where the sea flattens and the wind drops, Jack told me he had met someone. It was often only here, in this particular spot, that you could hear yourself speak. Elsewhere the wind was always a tiresome element, forever fighting conversation, buffeting the senses.

  ‘Sorry, Jack, did you say what I think I heard you say?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘But you haven’t had a girlfriend for years.’

  ‘Well, nothing may come of it.’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Corinna.’

  ‘How did you meet?’

  ‘She was hitching, making her way to Glynllifon to start an agricultural course.’

  ‘Rose Tobias won’t be pleased; the spurned lover.’

  ‘Ha, ha!’

  August, and still the long hot summer continued. On my Friday meat round it required all my ingenuity to get anyone to open their purses. People wanted light meals in these sweltering days, not the traditional Sunday lunch. I offered discounts at what I called ‘drought rates’ to those who would buy now to put away in the freezer. Some took me up on it, but most were buying cold meats from the Co-op to go with their salads. I told Harry it was hardly worth coming up on a Thursday to butcher the meat, that maybe we should
not bother until the weather broke, or get going again in September when the kids were back at school and the temperature had dropped a few degrees.

  ‘I took eighty quid last week. There’s no profit in that.’

  Hughie appeared at the door shirtless, wearing a pair of trousers held up by braces, his fly half open, his body glistening with sweat.

  ‘You’re flying at half-mast,’ I said, but he completely ignored me.

  ‘Have you got five minutes?’

  His sheep had broken out and were grazing in the cemetery. Jobber was walking on only three legs. Could I come with Moss and bring them back? There was a burial in half an hour; we needed to move quickly. By the time we got down there the hearse was already parked outside, minus the coffin. The sheep were grazing between the headstones, while in the far corner a group of mourners stood in a quiet circle. I knew this was going to be tricky with the sheep scattered all over the place.

  Before I let her go, I warned Hughie that Moss was keen, but did not have Meg’s experience.

  ‘Duw, boy, get on, be damned with it.’

  Not appropriate language for a cemetery. So with a hushed voice I sent Moss with a ‘Get away, girl’, hoping that she would sweep round behind them and lie down without my needing to shout and disturb the mourners, who as yet were unaware of us. So far, so good: as she crept forward the sheep, now alert to her presence, gathered together with an urgency that hadn’t spilled over into the panic that an over-zealous dog can cause. Moss was showing a maturity I hadn’t seen before, as if she were involved in her own game of grandmother’s footsteps. Every time they turned she froze; they turned again, and she froze.

  Hughie patted me on the shoulder, in acknowledgement of what a good job she was doing. They were lowering the coffin into the grave as the sheep formed into a tight group. I wished Jack had been here watching her. I’d given her no commands, but as the ewes moved forward she raised herself, stalking them, holding back far enough to let them come quietly between the gravestones. It was wonderful to see her like this, controlling the flock as a real working dog. She completed the job perfectly, steering them out through the cemetery gates onto the road. Only one renegade put a slight blemish on the whole operation by jumping into the hearse. On such a sweltering day, the back had been left open.

  I scooped Moss up into my arms as we walked behind the flock, hugging and praising her all the way back to Dyffryn. After Hughie had turned down the track to Llwyndu Canol, I rolled around in the grass with her. I’d never felt so close to her. The trauma of that terrible beating that had so damaged her confidence was behind her now. Later Hughie came over to show his gratitude with a bottle of whisky.

  ‘You did well.’

  ‘Not me,’ I said. ‘She did it all on her own.’

  I telephoned Harry and we arranged to meet in the Quarryman’s at six. When he asked me why, I told him to discuss the future. He immediately became nervous, as if he suspected I would be bringing bad news.

  ‘Can’t we talk about it now?’

  ‘No, it’s best face to face.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ he said. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Nothing. What are you worried about?’

  ‘It’s in the tone of your voice. You’re serious, man. I know that serious voice.’

  ‘I’ve got to go. There’s a bloody pig out.’

  There wasn’t, but there was a farm auction I wanted to go to. We needed to buy some fencing posts, to replace those rotting along the lower boundary.

  Later that afternoon, as I was driving back to Dyffryn, the weather broke at last, a steady persistent rain soaking into the scorched earth, getting beneath the surface, where gnarled roots could drink again.

  It was remarkable how quickly the parched land recovered, lifting the drooping heads of the barley, bringing a fresh greenness to the dry leaves. All that had withered and looked so forlorn revived, strengthening in both stem and root. It had been the longest dry period since records began. My windscreen was smudged with dead insects and I had to pull over, unable to see the road ahead. I took off my T-shirt to wipe the glass clean. The air was full of the smell of vegetation; a cooling breeze swayed through the crops. Birds flicked their feathers as water droplets ran down their backs. For this year’s fledglings it must have been the first time they had felt this curious stuff falling on them. Moss too enjoyed herself, her head out of the window, biting at the rain, quenching her thirst.

  I met Hughie at the gate carrying an empty churn in each hand, raindrops bouncing like little silver ball bearings on his bald head.

  ‘Duw, boy, at last,’ he said. ‘It’s behind us now.’

  When I walked into the house Sam was feeding Seth at the kitchen table. They were both wearing Red Indian headdresses full of brightly coloured feathers.

  ‘Dad, I’m Big Chief Running Water, and this is my brother Little Drip.’

  ‘How! Pleased to meet you.’

  Lysta came running into the room dressed as a squaw. ‘How, Dad. We are Red Indians.’

  ‘I can see that. What’s your name?’

  ‘Red Dove.’

  ‘You didn’t happen to do an Indian rain dance?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s pouring outside.’

  ‘Dad, help us put up our tent in the sitting room?’

  ‘OK, but where’s your mother?’

  ‘She’s outside in the garden.’

  In the back bedroom I opened the window and watched Ros standing with her arms outstretched, her head back to feel the rain on her face, her mouth open to taste the wetness on her tongue.

  After putting up a wigwam for the young tribe who now inhabited the house, I tied Red Dove to a standard lamp. Big Chief Running Water and Little Drip were going to rescue her. I drove to the Quarryman’s Arms to meet Harry.

  With the rain still falling under heavy grey clouds I turned on the headlights. Pools of water flooded the roads and round tight bends I could feel the Land Rover sliding on the greasy surface. With no grip, cars were skidding. No doubt there would be accidents on the winding roads of North Wales. Already, as I passed down Penygroes high street, the council workers were lifting the covers from blocked drains. Tom ’Tatoes was unloading his lorry, throwing sacks of potatoes to a line of people, carrying them over their shoulders into the shop. Outside the Paragon garage Trevor Ellis, undeterred, shouted, ‘Hey! Perry, I’ve got the very car for you.’

  Harry was finishing a pint when I walked into the saloon bar, his face anxious, his hair wet and combed. He was chewing on his favourite snack of pork scratchings. ‘What are you having?’

  ‘Just a lemonade, thanks.’

  We sat at a table in the corner, waiting for him to finish his mouthful.

  ‘You sound like a cement mixer.’

  ‘What’s all the trouble, then?’ he said.

  ‘Why do you think there should be trouble?’

  ‘I’ve known you long enough, that tone in your voice.’

  ‘You make us sound like an old married couple.’

  ‘Duw, God! Is that what it’s come to?’

  ‘Harry, let me explain.’

  So I began, not even certain myself that I was selling him a good idea. I told him about all the changes we were facing, Rob’s imminent departure, the need to replace him. ‘And you getting married with a baby on the way, needing to buy a place, taking on a mortgage.’

  ‘To be fair to you, man,’ he said, ‘I thought you were coming here to tell me it was the end. But you’re not. You’re offering me a job.’

  ‘I suppose I am. What do you think of that?’

  ‘I’ve never been employed. It’s too close to the taxman.’

  ‘I don’t think it would work, you working for me full time on the PAYE.’

  ‘I don’t do nine to five.’

  ‘Harry, we feed the pigs at seven.’

  ‘Well, seven till three. I need another pint.’

  We talked through a maze of possibilities, ha
ggling over money, Harry wanting sixty pounds clear every Friday.

  ‘I need you to work Sundays, which means you can’t get pissed on Saturday nights.’

  We went on and on, didn’t give up. We talked about the perks of the job, Harry to take some of his wage in meat and vegetables. ‘Even milk, man, and that bread of yours, you can chuck that in.’

  We seemed to be getting closer, within a whisker of agreeing a six-day week, including working some Sundays, fifty pounds in his back pocket, and two joints of meat, either pork or lamb; Harry didn’t eat beef. Three loaves of bread a week, two pints of milk a day, a box of vegetables as and when.

  ‘Agreed, man,’ he said, walking to the bar to get his fourth pint. But when he returned he said, ‘What about sick pay and holidays?’

  ‘Of course you’ll get sick pay, and two weeks’ paid holiday. And a free packet of tissues if you want.’

  At last the deal was done and we shook on it.

  I went and rang Ros, telling her to start supper without me. She wasn’t pleased, saying it had taken an age to release Red Dove.

  ‘Sorry.’

  I made my way back to Dyffryn through the rain, the worn windscreen wipers scraping over the glass, streetlights glowing in auras of mist. The chemist was still open for late-night prescriptions; the fish and chip shop oozed a cloud of steam. A soaked bale of hay fallen from a trailer lay in the gutter. Peculiar feelings passed through me. There were a lot of changes coming; not of my doing, but outer events breaking in on my life. I thought of my mother, wondering whether she would be coming back. Gwyn gone, Rob on his way. And what was going on with Jack, now he had met Corinna? Then there was Tom and Agnetta; the split that was happening between me and Ros. We were in a state of flux.

  The time finally arrived for Rob to leave us. He’d been at Dyffryn more than five years. Jack turned up with Corinna for the ‘Last Supper’ as I called it. She was not what I had been expecting, having imagined her well built with short hair; she was, after all, going to agricultural college. How wrong I was. She was slim with shoulder-length dark hair, as tall as Jack. She had beautiful green eyes, and a smile that lit up her whole face. She immediately hit it off with Rob, for she too had travelled through India. Ros soon discovered a shared interest too, growing organic vegetables, living off the land. We still had half a bottle of Metaxa brandy, Rob’s favourite tipple, left over from my mother’s Cypriot holiday. Harry joined us, carrying a sleeping bag under his arm, ‘Just in case I don’t make it home tonight.’ Brandy before a meal on an empty stomach is never a good idea, but we drank a toast to Rob and put on the Lovin’ Spoonful. What a day for a daydream.