Out Backward

by Ross Raisin

  At the start the next week, the help left. Most the flock were lambed, so he packed up his sleeping bag from where he’d been camped in the sitting room, and went off back to his band-end canteen dinners. Mum looked like her world had fell through, kissing him goodbye–you’ll be back next year, I hope–but me and Father were glad to see the back of him, and start on six hours a turn.

  Now I wasn’t with them two the whole time, it meant we could start with the meetings again. She hadn’t been in her spot since the lambing began. The first couple of times I was on my afternoon shift I looked out to see if she might be back, or if she’d moved to a different place, but I couldn’t sight her. It seemed she’d stopped wagging, for the time–but then I started thinking, maybe she was just coming mornings now, and I was missing her because I was in my bed from six until midday. I couldn’t be sure of it, so I decided I’d leave her a message for if she did show up. I wrote it in paint on a piece of wood, so it wouldn’t dribble off in the rain:

  IF YOU WANT TO HELP WITH LAMBING THEN COME ROUND THE BARN BETWEEN HALF MIDNIGHT AND HALF FIVE.

  I ran out to the hollow when I was on a night shift and I knew Father was asleep, and I wedged it under a stone.

  She didn’t come. I left the message there two nights, then I thought I’d fetch it back, for she clear wasn’t wagging school any more, and I was worried someone else might gleg the message. A rambler, likely, getting the time wrong and showing up when Father was there–hello, we’re here for the lambing demonstration, are you Mr Greengrass? Before I had chance to get it back, though, she appeared.

  Hi, Sam. She stepped in the barn, looking round because she couldn’t see me. She’d picked a champion moment. My head was behind a ewe’s backside, slopping her vulva with lubricant because the lamb was jammed. She sighted me, and walked over.

  Can I help?

  No, it’ll be right.

  She stood near and watched on. I had my hand indoors of the womb, slubbering for a handle on the lamb. The ewe was bleating with pain, stamping her front feet. This wasn’t how I’d pictured it. The way I had it, the ewe was licking straw off the lamb’s back and I was explaining her how it was important the lamb started suckling straight off. But she’d been there five minutes without us speaking, and when finally I did pull the lamb out it didn’t start suckling, it lay on the floor with a film of fluid clung round it, dead. I stood up and we both looked down at the body.

  Is it all right? she said.

  No. It’s dead.

  Oh. She bent for a closer look, like she didn’t believe me. Is that normal?

  Happens that way, sometimes.

  The ewe was licking at her babby, clearing off the birth fluid. She was a one-shear, so this was her first, and she didn’t understand yet it wasn’t alive. I hunkered down and picked up the sticky body, the one side of it matted with straw, and the mother bleated at me, confused.

  What are you going to do with it?

  I couldn’t likely tell her that normaltimes we took the skin off and bagged the body in the rubbish. Bury it, I said. I left her in the barn while I went out for a shovel, then we buried the poor little bugger quiet by a wall in the corner of the field.

  I thought she’d not want to be coming back after that, but I was wrong–it was like I’d told Father, she’s not like you’d think, I’d said, and it was true, a dead lamb wasn’t going to stop her visiting me.

  It wasn’t the change in the temperature, or the heather spreading pink, that told me the calendar was turning, so much as the sound of it. Spring belted out everyplace. All manner of creatures were waking up, dropping young, returning home–the lot of them yammering at each other. Hello, here I am, been asleep this past few months and, by, I’m hungry. These towns, they moved up fancying the peace and quiet, the stillness of things, but you’d have to bury your head in the ground if you wanted some quiet round here, and even then you’d hear the moles chuntering.

  The best of it was the birds. Swallows, wheatears, snipe–great flocks of them flying back from Africa or someplace a million miles off they’d been since back-end, and fetching up to their old nest the same week they had the year before. Same day, sometimes. Sod knows how they did that–it wasn’t like they had an alarm clock to remind them, ee, that the time is it, we’d best be off, then, leave all this sunshine behind and fly a million miles back to the Moors. They just shared a gumption it was time to go. Some viewsome sights on that journey. Vasts of desert, and mountains, and great forests too dark and grum for folk to live, save for the tribes, spearing fish out a river. They passed over the cities and all, viewing down on swarms of people maggoting about like they had been the last year, and the year before that.

  They’d have passed over the girl, last year. Crossing London looking down on all these houses big as barns and someplace amongst it all a small green hump that was Muswell Hill. That was back in the days when she was happy, and she didn’t hate everything, and she was probably sat on top the hill next to some great muscle of a lad–you can see the whole world from here, he was saying. What was he talking? The whole world? All they could see was streets of barn-sized houses and a mighty clock next the river. She didn’t know anything else in them days, she had no choice but to follow Muscle down the hill holding his hand until they came on to a street thronged both sides with people, it’s this way, he was saying. Then he was taking her into a house, and upstairs to a door with a picture of a flash red car. It was fast as anything, no doubting, but you could tell no one ever used it in case it got a scratch or stopped being so shiny. The door was shutting and all I could see was the car and the door closed in front of me, and through it I could hear the steady rocking of the bed as he held her into the pillow and bred her.

  The swallows had missed her this year, mind, for she was in our barn helping with the lambing, listening to me. She came up regular, she was there almost every night since the help had gone. I learnt her about foot rot, roundworm, fly strike; and most times she listened in close and I stared at the floor, but sometimes she was more interested in talking about this bitch and that bitch at school, who’d put her bag on the bus seat so that there was nowhere left to sit.

  Mum knew about her visits. I didn’t know how she’d found out, as I’d been mindful we were quiet, but she’d learnt it somehow. She came in my room one morning when I’d just gone to bed after my shift, and she started jabbering about it being a good year for the lambing this time, and how Father was pleased at me for I’d been working hard, staying up these nights. She’d marked the girl from down Turnbull’s up here a couple times, she said. You’re friendly on her, are you? That’s fine, it’s time for that, she said, it’s long enough now. She stayed sat on the bed a while, smoothing the spread with the back her hand. She was thinking how to say it, but she couldn’t shape the words. Then she looked at me–Sam, you’ll be careful of yourself, won’t you? It can’t happen like the other time again. I will, I told her. I’m learning her about the farm, is all. She kept looking at me, like she was testing if I was glibbing her or not, but then she patted the bed, smiled, and left out. Fine, that’s fine, that.

  She’d sat there before, something similar, after I was thrown out the school, only there’d been no smiling and bed-patting then, her eyes all puffed up, set on the window, like she couldn’t bear sight of me. You’ve to promise me, Sam, it’ll never happen again. Your Father’ll have shut of you. You’ve to promise me, Sam, you hear? She was proper choiled up a long while, after the school. She wouldn’t go into town, them days, for she thought the whole valley was chelping on about it–eh, you hear what the Marsdyke boy’s done this time? Fair luck the teacher came back when he did, then, hell knows what he’d have done else. I didn’t much go into town, neither, because I knew they were all on at it, aside from Father had banned me anyhow. I had the Moors, though, but Mum wouldn’t much even leave the house, because she’d have to go past Deltons’. She stayed indoors most the time, on the phone to Janet each five minutes–hadn’t I always spoke up
for him, Janet? How many times? Them cats of Delton’s he killed, and each time I’d spoke up for him till I was blue in t’ face. Codded meself it couldn’t have been him done it. Codding meself now he’d not rape a girl. But the bruises–there were bruises all up her arm, Janet, how’m I to speak up for him with that?

  It was one of them days, when I was getting back in from the tops, sneaking through the house up to my room, I heard her in their bedroom, sobbing. Father was far off in the fields so I stopped outside the door and listened. I could hear her shutting drawers, each while a quiet settling, until it’d come again, a faint, jolting sob. I stood there a long time, and I knew it was best leaving her peaceful, but she didn’t stop, she’d probably been on at it all afternoon, and eventually I went in and sat on the end the bed. She just carried on with what she was doing, putting socks away. We didn’t neither of us say anything, but she wouldn’t stop her crying, she was doing it worse now, fixed concentrating putting the socks away. I’d never known Father had so many socks, I remembered thinking, all of them brown. I didn’t plan doing it, I told her. But she wouldn’t look on me. She finished doing the socks and put the empty basket under her arm and I knew I should’ve let her be, but I didn’t, I just stayed put. Then she did look on me, and I saw she’d stopped crying. If a person’s got bad in ’em, she said, it’ll leach its way out, no matter if they plan it or other. She picked up a sock that’d dropped on the floor, tidying it away with the others, and went toward the door. Janet says I’m not to blame meself. I couldn’t have done different. You must’ve came out backward. Then she left out the room and went downstairs to the kitchen.

  I still kept her visits to the night shift, never mind Mum’d said it was fine. Father wasn’t so freethinking, I knew. It suited her, too, she said, because she couldn’t risk skipping school any more, and it was easiest waiting until her parents were asleep, so they wouldn’t find out where she was going and give her a load of grief. She stayed about an hour, most nights, though sometimes she stayed until two or three o’clock, then we’d say goodbye and she sneaked off down the fields to let herself quiet back into her house. One of them nights, when she’d stayed late, she stopped before she went out the barn door and said, Sam, we should go for a drink sometime, you know, in the town or somewhere.

  17

  People were looking at us. There were a fair few about as we walked down the high street together, and they all made sure they got a good stare before we went past. She wasn’t bothered, though, she didn’t even mark any of it, she was occupied with talking to me.

  My parents pretty much freaked, they were so pleased I was going out, she said, as we got nearer the pub. They think I’ve made a friend at school, called Catherine, and I’m going round to her house–which is pretty funny really, seeing as Catherine’s a complete bitch.

  I smiled at her, and watched ahead at a couple of towns going in the pub. I’d not seen Mum or Father as I’d left. Father was in the barn, and Mum likely thought I was out walking, so they’d not eyed me dressed in my good shirt and my old school shoes when I slipped out. It was her idea to come to Betty’s Sister–it would be funny, she said. We could go snob-watching. I didn’t feel right comfortable going into the place, mind. I kept thinking, they’d know me from before when they wouldn’t let me in, and I’d have to take her down the Tup, or worse, she’d want to know why I was barred and then she’d find out everything.

  There were round wooden tables outside, each spiked with a furled-up red umbrella, and either side the door were two great metal furnaces on poles, for heating the outdoors. A blast of noise escaped from the door as we went in–not the woollen muffle of conversation like normaltimes when a pub was busy, but a hard, bouncing sound, jarping off the walls and the planed-down floorboards.

  Come on, she said, going ahead of me, I’ll find a corner. They won’t serve us if they see me, because I’m under age. I trailed after, looking downward at my school shoes. Most the drinkers were crowded in groups near the bar, stood in circles yammering at each other–the men laughing, slapping each other’s backs, and the females all lipstick and shiny belts and a smog of perfume as we pushed our way through. I touched her on the arm, in front of me. What do you want to drink? I asked her. Bacardi and Coke, she said, and she disappeared through the crowd. As I approached the bar I started to feel easier, because no one seemed to be looking at me, and I didn’t recognise the barmen or any of the drinkers thronged round the bar. Except for one. When I got to the counter, sat next me, hunkered over on a metal buffit, old Jack was staring grimly into his pint. A calf-lick of hair was stood proud above his forehead.

  Jack, I said, and he looked up, daffed, squeezing his eyes to see who it was.

  Oh, he said. He gawped at me a moment and I thought he was about to say some more–hast-ta seen t’ place, lad? I can’t understand they done it. I took meself two lines on t’ petition, you know. But he didn’t say anything, he turned back to watching his pint. The barman gave me a queer look when I ordered the drinks, but that was owing to I looked a sight in my good shirt and my hair brushed–he didn’t know me, so he couldn’t refuse serving me. He poured my pint and I marked the tops the pumps were shaped into the head of a smiling female–Betty’s sister, no doubting. I took the drinks when he’d done and went to find her, without speaking again to Jack, still staring into his glass.

  She was parked on a mighty, brown leather settle in an empty corner of the pub. I set the drinks on the table and sat opposite, on a low seat about two miles away from her.

  You can come sit here, you know, she said, smiling. There’s a better view.

  What of?

  The snobs, she said.

  I shifted over and lowered myself on to the other end the settle. I couldn’t likely turn to face her while we weren’t talking so I looked out at the crowd, same as she was doing. Sometimes I’d snatch a piece of talk from the noise–a man beldering something out and the circle busting with laughter. It was too noisy to hear what they were laughing about.

  They’re repulsive, aren’t they? she said.

  Least they’re kept to themselves in here, mind.

  She turned to me and frowned, as though she’d just caught me having away with a cow.

  Sam, they shouldn’t be here in the first place. This pub used to be the heart of this town.

  For some, it was, the heart, I said. I left it at that, and she didn’t ask what I meant, she went quiet again and I stared at the chalkboard on the wall aside us. Soft and luscious, with characteristics of elegant strawberry, it said on it, about a wine, like that might make you want to drink it. She’d curled up into her side the settle, her knees drawn up on the cushion.

  What do you think that is, then–an elegant strawberry? I said.

  She didn’t know what I meant firstly, but I nodded at the sign, and she laughed.

  You see her over there? she said. The fat tart in the red top–I’d say she was one, if it wasn’t for the fact she’s about as elegant as a pig on ice.

  We both laughed at that, then she said, we’re being watched, look.

  I looked out, but I couldn’t see anyone watching, they were all too busy at their yammering.

  It’s the Burridges. They’re friends of Mum and Dad.

  Should we leave, then? I said, no matter I still couldn’t see them.

  No. I don’t care.

  I’d near finished my drink. There were rings of froth dried down the insides of the glass. I glegged the board again, for something else funny.

  They’re going to come over. Look, they’re coming.

  She was right. A pair of them were shuffling to the edge of the crowd. They stopped there, talking with their heads close together, twice giving the eye over in our direction, then they started toward us with big blank smiles.

  Jo, the female said, how are you getting on? Are your mum and dad here? They both had smiles fastened on, and I thought they were going to sit down on the seats opposite, but they didn’t, they stood next each other
smiling down at us.

  Mum and Dad are at home, she said.

  Oh, right. Do tell them we said hi.

  I could tell she didn’t want a palaver, she wanted to get back to her yammering, she could blatherskite about this later. But the husband wasn’t going to let it by so easy. He supped his drink and leant forward. He had a pewter tankard–it was one of them that never got used before the place was done over, they were all hung off the roof back then.

  Just a Coke in there, I hope, he said, laughing.

  She didn’t answer him. She took up the glass and drank a slow glug of it, the white of her throat coursing up, down.

  Coke, and rum, she said, setting the glass down.

  He didn’t know what to do about that. We all watched him, waiting for what he’d say, but all he did was he laughed again. He was making like he thought she was joking about the rum, but he knew she wasn’t–he kept darting his eyes at the glass, as if the rum might show itself if he looked at it enough.