A Donkey in the Meadow

by Derek Tangye

  Such thoughts, however, would not excuse damage to the crops of my neighbours, and the first time they disappeared I got into a panic when a passing hiker told me he had seen two galloping donkeys half a mile away over the opposite hill. There was, I knew, a field of broccoli in that direction, and another field of freshly planted potatoes; and I saw in my mind an enraged farmer striding towards me. And so Jeannie and I set off at the double, halters in our hands, praying silently that no neighbour would see us and that the capture would be quickly achieved, and that no damage had been done in the meantime. Ten minutes later we arrived panting at the open gate of a grass field, and in the far corner stood the donkeys. Even from that distance they gave the impression of solemnity. They were in a fix, they were far from home, and they were wishing they had never started on their escapade; and so when Jeannie called out, ‘Donkeys! Donkeys!’ they turned their heads in our direction, then meekly, thankfully trotted towards us.

  They disappeared for a second time three days later and the panic was repeated because the direction we guessed they had taken was towards Jack Cochram’s cliff potato meadows. He and Walter Grose had just completed the laborious task of planting them by shovel, the centuries-old method which could not be improved upon because no machine would work the small meadows which fell like stepping stones to the sea. And I knew that if the donkeys began prancing over the newly-turned earth, real damage would be done. Their hooves would crush the seed potatoes which were only a few inches beneath the surface.

  So once again Jeannie and I rushed off with the halters, this time with a certain impatience. We had thought the previous excursion had taught them a lesson, that they were ashamed of themselves, and that they would cling to Minack land in the future; and we were in part correct in our assumption. We did not find them among Jack and Walter’s cliff meadows. We found them among ours. I had left the gate open at the top of our cliff and I found them at the bottom, roaming contentedly in a splendid meadow of Magnificence daffodils which were waiting to be picked.

  They did not escape again. Instead, as the daffodil season increased its speed, leaving us no time to dally with them, they would stand and stare at us reproachfully. They could not understand why we were rushing about so fast. Neither did the gulls who cried from the roof for their bread, nor Boris who flapped his big wings in impatience as he waited at the door for his scraps. This was the time when every minute means money, and we could not break away from our routine to pander to them. Only Lama remained serene. She pottered about catching mice in the grass and the hedges, resting herself in the lane after a capture, silky black against grey chippings, paying us a call in the packing shed, jumping up on a bench, purring for a while among the daffodil pails, then off again on her business. She was as tired as we were when the day was ended.

  We began the season by bunching the daffodils in bud, the new method of bunching which means the daffodils last far longer after they have been bought in the shop. Formerly the markets insisted on the blooms being full out when they arrived in their boxes, and inevitably this usually meant that they were a few days old when they reached the customer. The new method is also far more convenient for the daffodil grower because he can pick the buds, put the stems in water for a couple of hours, then pack them and send them away the same day. Previously the daffodils had to linger in pails perhaps for two or three days before they were ready for market; and this resulted in valuable space being taken up in the packing shed. Buds, therefore, are an excellent idea both for grower and customer despite the fact they may not appear so attractive to buy. Unfortunately on this particular occasion in this particular season, Jeannie and I were faced with a snag. We could not pick the daffodils fast enough to stop them coming full out naturally in the meadows.

  It was a sweet spring. No gales seemed to threaten us, and following the bitter winter the various varieties leapt forward together as soon as the earth was warmed. It was a bumper crop, every bulb burst into bloom instead of the customary misses, and Minack meadows were covered with potential income. And when these meadows are yellow against the backdrop of a deep blue sea even the cynic will marvel, even the man whose salary is derived from destroying by words or by vision, even the devil would not deny it is one of the most beautiful sights in the world.

  My first job in the morning was to drain the pails of water so that the daffodils we had bunched the previous day had time to dry before Jeannie began packing them. She was a deft packer. I would help her by getting the boxes ready, cardboard-type boxes which arrived from the suppliers in large flat bundles, and I had to fold each one into shape; and into the boxes Jeannie would pack sometimes twelve bunches, sometimes fifteen, sometimes eighteen, depending upon the variety. Then I would tie the boxes in couples, label them, stack them in the Land Rover, and rush off to Penzance station to catch the flower train.

  All day we would bunch. It is one of the most soothing tasks you could wish for, and as each bunch is completed and you hold it up and look at it to make quite sure that each bloom is perfect, you experience the naïve pleasure that within forty-eight hours it will be lighting up a room; and you feel you are lucky indeed to be performing a task which earns such a reward.

  And while we bunched, the manager was conscientiously picking in the meadows. He would fill the baskets, carry them to the Land Rover, which I would leave in some convenient place, then report to me that all the baskets were full; and then, because he could not drive, I left my bunching and drove the Land Rover back to the packing shed.

  After he had gone home for the day, Jeannie and I would go out together to pick and as, bent double, we went up and down between the beds we would call out to each other inconsequential remarks.

  ‘Strange how the Mags never flower as well as California.’

  ‘Do you remember Jane in this meadow shaking a shovel above her head at an aeroplane because she’d read in the paper it was testing West Cornwall for uranium?’

  ‘And it was over there behind those elders that Shelagh hid to watch the cubs play.’

  ‘This basket is too heavy for me. Could you get me another one?’

  ‘Here comes the Scillonian. She’s done an extra trip today so that means the market will be flooded tomorrow.’

  ‘Damn, I’ve pricked my finger on a bracken stump.’

  ‘Look at this lovely rogue! What daffodil can it be?’

  ‘Silly name, rogue. Who gave it I wonder? And yet it’s graphic. A daffodil which doesn’t belong to the variety which one is picking.’

  ‘I wish Geoffrey was with us. We would have finished picking this meadow ages ago. The fastest picker I’ve ever known. I bet he’d prefer doing this to driving a lorry for a builder.’

  I wonder if he would.

  The shadows fall early on our cliff. The setting sun is still comparatively high behind the hill when the rocks begin to point their fingers towards the sea. It becomes cool when on the top of the hill it is still warm. You soon have a sense of impending sleep, a settling for the night as the confetti of gulls drift against the dying sky, floating to smooth rocks, calling from time to time. I would then carry the baskets we had filled up the steep path to the field, load them into the Land Rover, and the two of us would drive up the field and along the track to Minack. The same track, the same view awaiting us, as when years before, at a moment of despair, we looked ahead of us, and Jeannie called out as if our problems had been solved: ‘Look! There’s a gull on the roof!’

  Fred rolls in the snow

  17

  The daffodil season was over, and we were once again sitting on the white seat beside the bare verbena bush having our breakfast. Like the wink of an eyelid the year had gone.

  The familiar beds of green foliage, spattered by occasional leftover blooms, stretched side by side in the meadows of the cliff. Wasted flowers straddled the compost heap outside the packing shed. And in the shed itself there was the usual collection of cardboard flower boxes, half-torn pieces of packing paper, a ball of string
with a pair of scissors across the top of it, three bunching cradles, galvanised pails on the shelves, the odd crushed stem on the floor, invoice books and contents labels lying on the table, all waiting for the spring clean we would be giving the packing shed as soon as we had had a pause.

  ‘Well, the season’s over,’ I said, watching Boris waddling towards us, ‘and I’m sorry.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Now we have to face facts.’

  Lama was stalking past Boris. His friendliness towards her was often tinged with jealousy. He was now hissing away at her like an old steam engine, stretching out his neck and beak as if he would dearly like to take a bite out of her tail. She was, as usual, beatific in her indifference. She was immune from danger. She had a great love for everyone and everything around Minack, so why should she worry? She was not jealous of Boris. Her life was too idyllic for mean thoughts.

  ‘I told the man,’ I went on, breakfast over and fumbling for my pipe, ‘that his family can stay on in the cottage until the school term ends in July.’

  ‘I can’t see what else we could have done,’ said Jeannie, making a grab for Lama as she passed by but missing her, ‘but without a cottage we haven’t got a hope of replacing him.’

  At this moment a tremulous hoot, rapidly changing into a hiccuping, roaring bray echoed from the field above the cottage. A calculated thought behind the noise. A cunning knowledge of the power of such blackmail. A certainty that the summons would be answered.

  ‘Fred,’ I said solemnly, ‘is requiring attention.’ And we got up from the seat to go and talk to him.

  Our problem had the same common denominator of all people who work on their own. When everything goes smoothly one can rejoice that one is not answerable to any boss. One is independent in a regimented world, and one is inclined to believe that one is also independent of trouble. Unfortunately trouble when it comes is magnified; and a problem is more difficult to solve because there are no reserves to draw upon.

  In our case there was the inescapable fact that without reliable help I could not work the flower farm and at the same time cope with the sophisticated, other side of our life. There was so much heavy work to be done, tractor driving and ploughing, keeping the meadows in trim, all the slogging work of a skilled labourer. I had done all this in other years, and would have done it again if there had been time, but now there was no time. I had legions of letters to answer, people endlessly calling to see us, and there were too the painful, slow hours of writing. I had gained so much, but I had lost much too. And amidst all the kindness that Jeannie and I were receiving, there were signs of the same jarring influences which we had disliked so much before we came to Minack. The standards of the competitors in the rat race seemed more offensive than ever.

  Fred was in a thoughtful mood when we reached him. He stood on the edge of the field staring down into the small garden, a gentle, harmless little donkey who could not possibly have been responsible for the appalling noise of a few minutes before. Penny was a few yards away up the slope of the field, silhouetted against the sky and looking alertly in our direction, her coat now glistening black, her splendid head etched like a thoroughbred. Then, not wishing to miss any gifts which might be available, she trundled towards us. They stood together, nose beside nose.

  ‘Here you are, both of you,’ said Jeannie, and she gave them each a jam tart, ‘you can’t have any more because these are the last in the tin.’

  They ate the tarts, waited hopefully for more, then ambled away together into the field. We paused for a moment watching them, the blue sky as a backdrop, first nuzzling each other, then breaking away and racing each other at the gallop to the far end where the wood joins the field. Jeannie suddenly said: ‘I’ve got a wonderful idea. The donkeys have given me it!’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘A year ago we were about to have a holiday when Penny’s arrival stopped it.’

  ‘Needless to say I haven’t forgotten.’

  ‘We can’t possibly think of going away in the foreseeable future because there is no one to look after the animals.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘So why don’t we behave like the donkeys . . . and be idle?’

  I put my arm round her shoulders. I was laughing. ‘Such a suggestion,’ I said, ‘is amoral.’

  ‘We would be holidaymakers,’ she said, ignoring me, ‘like all those people who come to see us.’

  ‘And close our eyes to crops, weeds and the existence of greenhouses?’

  ‘Yes . . . and stop worrying about labour problems!’

  ‘You’re persuading me, Jeannie.’

  ‘We would have the time to watch the summer peacefully instead of fighting against it.’

  ‘Just laze on the rocks.’

  ‘And fish. I’ve always wanted a fishing rod.’

  ‘I can’t see you taking the fish off the hook once you’ve caught it.’

  ‘I’d have the leisure to work on the garden and experiment with all sorts of recipes.’

  ‘You’re making my mouth water.’

  ‘Don’t laugh at me.’

  ‘I’m not. I am thinking how strange it is that you should lead me astray.’

  ‘That’s not true. A time comes for everyone when they need a pause. And that’s what I’m suggesting.’

  ‘Isn’t this a surrender?’

  ‘Of course not, you idiot. I’m only saying that instead of struggling with the impossible we should have an interval.’

  ‘And be Micawbers during the course of it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘All right, I said, ‘you’ve convinced me. When shall we start this idleness?’

  ‘Why not this morning?’

  I was laughing again. ‘If that’s the case the donkeys deserve a reward. I’ll fetch them an apple each.’

  For a month we were as gay as could be. Jeannie had her fishing rod, dangled a line for hours into our teaspoon of a bay, and caught nothing. I pottered about, leant against rocks staring vacantly out to sea, pretending there never would be worries again. People called and instead of being as polite as was necessary before brushing them away, we indulged in their company. There was no cause for impatience. There was no tedious task niggling our minds, no weeding, no sense of duty to make us feel we were wasting time by talk. We were relaxed. We behaved as I would have expected two people to behave who had rented Minack for a holiday.

  But when the month had gone, there slowly began to build up an unexpected dimension in our lives. Our consciences started to prick. We found, for instance, that a greenhouse that is left empty when by natural right it should be occupied, develops an air of resentment; and we had six greenhouses. They stared at us day after day, huge canopies of glass, and although we tried to keep our eyes averted as we passed them, they forced us to look; and we shuddered increasingly at the sight of the weeds growing with lush abandon. At the end of the month the contents resembled a section of the South American jungle.

  A further discomfiture was not only did we feel guilty, but we were publicly proved guilty. When callers arrived we of course could not prevent them from observing what was happening, or coming to their own conclusions; and so we imagined their eyes became shifty, as if they believed they had discovered the skeleton in our cupboard; and that we were now playing at flower farming because we had been seduced by the shadowy rewards from the city. We became increasingly uncomfortable. We shuddered in guilty anticipation as soon as we saw a car coming down the lane. And every day the weeds prospered abundantly.

  Callers reserved their comments until they had left us. Friends didn’t. Sage advice has often been heaped upon us by friends enjoying a Cornish holiday. Normally the safety of an office protects one from the amateur, but in our case the office was there for all to see. Everyone could participate. And often we have been maddeningly irritated when friends, having absorbed our time, have innocently commented on some feature of the flower farm with which, in any case, we ourselves were dissatisfied. A question o
f rubbing salt in a wound.

  This time, however, our friends were blunt. And in the wake of their remarks, however unreasonable they may have been, we found ourselves wallowing in wordy explanations.

  ‘It is beyond me why you’ve left these greenhouses empty. They look a mess.’

  ‘What is in that meadow over there, the one with all the nettles in it?’

  ‘Surely you could find time to grow cucumbers. My aunt grows them and finds them very easy.’

  ‘I hope you realise that these greenhouses are depreciating all the time, and you’re not getting a penny interest on your capital.’

  In other years we would have loftily dismissed these strictures as an unasked-for interference, grumbled together privately, then forgotten them. This summer, however, with our consciences pricking, we were peculiarly sensitive to criticism and so sometimes we accompanied our wordy explanations with a dash of bad temper. The truth is that the honeymoon of doing nothing about the flower farm was soon over. Worry took its place again.

  I am among those who can be down in the depths one moment and up in the heights the next. I also wilt, my imagination becomes stifled, when faced by people who show no likelihood of ever sharing my wavelength; and the fact they so obviously believe in their superiority over me only increases my frustrated fury. But I take wings when I meet someone who possesses the gift of enthusiasm and who distributes it among those with whom he has dealings. My mind awakes. I am willing to climb Everest.