About Last Night . . .

by Catherine Alliott

  I was bent double now, scooping up pizza boxes, crisp packets and other detritus such as fetid yoghurt pots, mugs and spoons which decorated the carpet. The dogs, who’d initially thought an enthusiastic waggy-tailed greeting in order, had slunk back to the kitchen to their baskets, sensing the mood.

  ‘Yes, and you bloody well left the rat up there too! In the tank! That won’t add to the ambience, will it?’

  ‘It was gross. Enormous. Sort of … bloated. You’d be better. I don’t do dead things. Oh, speaking of which, Rita took a turn for the worse so Minna rang Paddy again. He’s out there now. Oh – epic.’ These last words addressed, not to me, but to Jeremy Clarkson, leaping a ravine in a white van.

  ‘Paddy? Is he? Where? Help me, please, Nico, why the bloody hell should I pick up your lemonade cans? In the field?’ I paused to glare at him, mid-stoop, guiltily aware that I’d rather blithely assumed Rita was better; she’d been on her feet and drinking, after all.

  ‘No, he drove out there in his pickup and brought her back to the barn. That one’s still live.’ Nico reached down to retrieve a can with lily-white, consumptive-looking fingers. ‘Minna’s out there too, bawling her eyes out.’

  ‘Dear God, she’s hopeless with sick animals, why didn’t you go?’ I staggered to the kitchen, arms full of rubbish, to the bin, which naturally was overflowing. Seething, I dumped it all on the table instead, picked out the yoghurty spoons, shook out a new black sack and swept it in.

  ‘Nah, it’s not that. It’s Toxic Ted.’

  I turned. ‘I thought that was over?’

  ‘Well, if you believe that …’

  But I was already on my way outside, through the back door, pausing only to kick off my shoes and plunge my feet into wellies, experiencing yet more guilt. A bit of me had known Minna had her own problems before I left. I’d heard her on the phone to a girlfriend. But I’d shimmied off to London nonetheless to conduct my own romantic liaison knowing, from experience, that talks about Ted Forrester could be endless, tortuous and circuitous. But she didn’t need Rita on top of that. I cursed Ted under my breath and his predilection for, when he felt like it, taking sabbaticals from their see-sawing relationship in order to connect socially with other girls.

  ‘Nothing sexual,’ Minna would assure me, eyes wide. ‘Just having a break.’ I’d nod, keeping my counsel. Knowing, again from experience, it was wise to say nothing. ‘He says we’re too young to have a long-term relationship,’ she’d say, blinking away – unlike her sister, tears were never far from the surface. ‘And also, that being apart makes us appreciate each other more when we get back together.’

  ‘Ah. Right.’

  Currently there’d been just such a hiatus; however, no obvious local diversion had materialized – and Minna was forensic in her enquiries. Perhaps she’d unearthed one while I’d been away? Perhaps Ted was back with – who was it last time? Round-the-Block Becky? I shuddered. I could see that Ted was a very fine specimen – tall, blond, broad-shouldered and extremely fit in both the modern and traditional sense of the word – but the trouble was, everyone else could see it too. He was a farm labourer who did a lot of ditch-digging and hedge-laying in various states of undress. Stripped to the waist in the summer I could understand, but I’d once driven past him dredging a river in wet boxer shorts, everything rippling and flexing away to the obvious delight of a gaggle of girls, hiding behind a drystone wall. Biddy at the livery yard, who was also his aunt and lived next door, told me local girls took convoluted routes past her house just to catch a glimpse and she was thinking of selling tickets in the summer to view him sunbathing over the garden fence.

  ‘It’s Minna’s fault, she’s punching.’ Nico would tell me when I canvassed his opinion.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I’d say doubtfully. Loyally.

  ‘She is. He’s way out of her league.’

  I wanted to say not socially, Nico, but knew this would land me in trouble of the most heinous kind.

  ‘Perhaps he likes a bit of posh.’ Ah. OK from his mouth, then. But he didn’t seem incensed by such behaviour towards his sister when pressed.

  ‘What does she expect? He’s young. He’s a player. And don’t say “your sister” like you’re expecting me to run off for some bare-knuckled, eighteenth-century fight.’

  Lucy, though, agreed with me. ‘Just tell him to fuck off!’ she’d roar down the phone to Minna when her sister rang her in tears.

  ‘You didn’t say that to Robin.’

  ‘Oh yes I did. For a good six months. And Robin got with a girl in a club, Minna. Toxic Ted is laying more girls than he is hedges.’

  ‘Don’t say that!’ Minna would gasp, flinging the phone down and then flouncing hysterically from the room. Minna could be very eighteenth century herself when she felt like it.

  If we were in the midst of such a drama now, I thought nervously as I hurried across the yard and round the back of the stables to the barn, we were in for a protracted period of histrionics. A season of emotional discontent. I wasn’t sure my nerves could stand it. At least Ted always had the decency to suspend relations when he was playing away, I reflected grudgingly, which exhibited a degree of decorum, but I had to encourage her to finally end it this time. I flew into the barn, shutting the bottom half of the stable door behind me, and, once my eyes had adjusted to the gloom, found her and Paddy in the straw, a moribund Rita between them, two lambs bleating piteously at her side. Rita was horribly bloated and her fleecy sides heaved gastrically as she struggled for breath. Minna stood sobbing with the third lamb in her arms, shaking piteously, tears pouring down her cheeks, whilst Paddy, crouching, removed his stethoscope from his ears, his bag open beside him.

  I hastened across. ‘Oh Minna, darling. I’m so sorry you had to deal with all this. Go in.’

  ‘She’s dying,’ sobbed Minna as Paddy shot me an incredulous look, clearly having been party to this for some time. ‘She’s literally taking her last breaths, Mum, with her three darling babies watching. It’s tragic!’

  ‘Minna, I’ve told you, the lambs are bleating because they’re hungry, they couldn’t care less,’ said Paddy. ‘And she’s not taking her last gasp, but she is in a lot of discomfort. I seriously think we need to put her out of her misery, Molly. This is terminal anyway, but she could be in agony for days.’

  Minna’s wail filled the barn as she dropped to her knees, abandoning the lamb, hugging the smelly sheep fiercely to her E cup breasts, which made Rita’s already bulbous eyes pop further. ‘There must be something we can do!’

  ‘Minna, go inside,’ I commanded crisply, the cacophony of wailing and bleating really too much now. ‘Blow your nose and have a cup of tea and calm down.’

  She shot me a tortured look but released the sheep and fled, her shoulders shaking as she went.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ I said, crouching down opposite Paddy. ‘She’s quite emotional.’

  ‘Can’t think where she gets that from.’

  ‘Plus she’s got boyfriend problems.’

  ‘Ah yes. Ted Forrester. Well, she needs to get rid of him. He’s shagging his way round the county as we speak. Sheep shearing’s come early this year with the hot weather and he’s helping Freddie Fallon. They’re going from farm to farm stripping the ewes and then the daughters. Wives too, sometimes.’

  ‘Oh dear God,’ I said faintly, putting a hand to my heart. ‘I didn’t know it was that bad. You mean … famous Freddie Fallon?’ I breathed in horror.

  ‘The very same. A legend in his own shearing leathers. He can’t keep it in his trousers any more than Ted. You need to tell her.’

  ‘How?’ I yelped. ‘She’ll dissolve!’

  ‘What, more than that?’ He jerked his head house-wards.

  ‘Much. She won’t come out of her room for days.’

  ‘Well, you still need to address it. She’ll be a laughing stock. Quite apart from anything else, she’ll catch something.’

  ‘Do you mind!’

  He shrugged. �
��You need to hear it.’

  ‘Not from you I don’t, you’re – you’re my vet, for God’s sake, not my – my – I don’t know – my – whatever!’ I blustered as Paddy calmly filled a large syringe.

  It hadn’t escaped my notice, though, that this sort of straight talking was possibly what my children needed. I was all too aware that often I fell into the classic single parent trap of being a bit too easy on them because they’d had a tough time. But someone surely needed to tell Minna to find some steel, Nico not to be so lazy, and Lucy to be softer sometimes? David would have done that. He hadn’t always been perfect, but he’d been a brilliant father. I wondered how Felix had brought up his two. Rather well, I imagined, since both seemed to be thriving, with good jobs, and he spoke fondly of them. How old would he have been when he had them? How old was Felix? Five, ten years older than me? Ten would be good. Eleven or twelve even better. I was conscious, like Minna, that I was not necessarily fighting my weight bracket, and a bigger age gap would play to my advantage. I remembered his face gazing down at mine in concern in the Savoy and felt a frisson of excitement. I imagined us there again, in the future, for dinner this time or – no, somewhere a bit trendier – mustn’t say that … cooler. Covent Garden, perhaps. A buzzing, happening place, like that club where all the stars went – um – yes, the Groucho. He was probably a member. And I’d get the look right this time: be much thinner, too. Sexier. Head to toe in black, which was hard on a woman of a certain age in daylight, but fine at night in a place like that, in a dimly lit corner, drinking champagne, heads close, all snuggly and giggly on a leather couch, as a waiter leaned over and said: ‘Shall we get this effing show on the road?’

  I blinked. ‘What?’ Paddy’s cross face was in mine.

  ‘I said, shall we get this over and done with?’

  I swallowed. Gazed down at Rita. ‘You’re going to do it now?’

  ‘Well, I’m not going to come back tomorrow and mop her brow again, am I? There’s no point.’

  ‘Oh, Paddy, wait. Rita’s so special, couldn’t we try stronger antibiotics?’

  ‘No, we couldn’t. She’s in great discomfort.’

  ‘Oh, my poor girl!’

  I laid my cheek on her smelly fleece, which was heaving horribly. ‘Wait,’ I instructed. I shuffled around and positioned myself at her head: picked it up and laid it gently in my lap. Bowing my own head I said a silent prayer, lips moving, then I crossed myself. Finally I looked up at him gravely. Nodded. ‘OK. Go on then.’

  Paddy picked up a hind leg, found a vein, administered the syringe swiftly, and in moments Rita’s tortured eyes had shut and her laboured breathing stopped. Her sides collapsed right into her ribs. I lowered my head in sorrow and felt tears well, but managed, heroically, not to spill them.

  ‘Well, that’s the first time I’ve had to do that.’ Paddy packed the syringe away in his black leather bag with a snap.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Put down a sheep. I told you, any normal farmer would have slotted it.’

  ‘Yes, well I’m not normal, am I? And I don’t have the wherewithal for slotting.’

  ‘Nico’s got a gun, and a licence. Hopefully.’

  ‘For rabbits!’

  ‘Which he leaves in the field. I’ve seen him, lamping at dusk with those scruffy mates of his, then leaving the rabbits all scattered about. It’s disgraceful. If you kill an animal for sport you skin it and eat it. Make a stew.’

  ‘Who says?’

  ‘The unwritten law of the countryside says.’

  ‘And since when did you become such an oracle for the countryside? Just because you were born and bred in a barn – and what gives you the right to be such a vociferous judge of my children?’

  ‘Since it seems to me that every time I come here they could do with it. Now help me put this ewe back in the barrow and I’ll take it to the kennels on the way back.’

  ‘You will not!’ I gasped. ‘I will not have her eaten. I shall bury her.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be pathetic, Molly. You’ll need a hole as big as a trench and the foxes will dig her up. It’s not even legal.’

  ‘So report me,’ I spat across the dead sheep’s carcass as we crouched opposite one another, nose to nose. ‘This one’s special. Report me to Defra if you like.’

  ‘I don’t like, but I will. I’m not having my professional reputation sullied by your sentimentality.’

  I affected a mincey voice: ‘I’m not having my professional reputation – bollocks,’ I roared. ‘You don’t give a stuff, you’re just picking on me. You’re a sanctimonious, holier-than-thou, small-minded, egotistical—’

  ‘Everything all right in here?’ Nico’s head appeared over the stable door, eyes wide. He blinked. ‘What’s this, some funky, postmodern nativity scene? Not pregnant, are you, Mum?’ He spotted Rita. ‘Ah. Right. She’s a goner then.’

  ‘Nico.’ I stood up: realized I was shaking. ‘Dig a trench,’ I commanded.

  ‘What?’

  ‘A hole. A big one. Under the oak tree at the top of the hill. Beside Jeremy.’

  ‘Shit, Mum, that’s got to be huge. Jeremy was a hamster.’

  ‘Just do it,’ I seethed. ‘It will do you good. Stop you lazing around guzzling lemonade and eating pizza in front of the television. Now get dressed, dig a trench, and stop killing poor, defenceless rabbits for fun!’

  He blanched, taken aback. ‘Christing fuck. Keep your wig on.’

  ‘And stop swearing so much!’ I roared as he turned and sauntered away, albeit plucking a spade up as he went.

  ‘Right.’ I turned back to Paddy, chin raised, still trembling. ‘Now, if you would be so kind as to help me put her in the barrow, I will take her up the hill for a proper Christian burial.’

  ‘Sorry. No can do. I told you, it’s illegal to bury fallen stock.’

  ‘You know as well as I do Clive Burns gets his digger out and buries sodding great cows! He’s got mass graves up there!’ I pointed a quivering finger up the valley.

  ‘Yes, but I’m not party to it and neither do I care about Clive Burns’s reputation. The man’s a charlatan.’

  ‘Right. Well if you won’t help me, I’ll do it myself.’

  An unseemly struggle ensued. Between a huge woolly sheep, a small, inappropriately dressed woman and a wobbly barrow. My long dangly necklace didn’t help and somehow, Rita got her head stuck in it, which forced our faces cheek to cheek. I tried to pull away and naturally it broke – no matter, it was only River Island – and I would not be beaten. Snaking out a foot I tipped the wheelbarrow up on its prow and dragged Rita panting and heaving – me, obviously – head lolling, tongue hanging out – both of us – into it, then set it upright.

  ‘There,’ I panted, victorious. ‘But that was very undignified for her,’ I gasped as Rita lay flat on her back, legs in the air.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think it’s Rita’s dignity you should be worried about. Here, you dropped some beads.’

  ‘Stuff the beads,’ I snapped, tossing his offering in the straw. I felt a bit like that girl who takes over the farm in Far from the Madding Crowd, Bathsheba whatnot, all feisty and blazing. ‘Open the door for me, please.’ I was poised with the barrow now, flicking hair from my eyes, a triumphant gleam to them hopefully.

  There was more of a quizzical gleam to his dark, faintly amused ones. He raised his eyebrows, mouth twitching. I waited. He clearly wasn’t going to move. Wasn’t going to help me one iota.

  ‘Oh, you wretched man!’ I roared. Incensed, I ran and flung the stable door wide. I ran back and, trying not to look as if she weighed a ton, which she flaming did, I wheeled her, unsteadily and wobbling, through the straw and out, staggering a bit and flinging a haughty ‘send me the bill!’ over my shoulder as I went.

  I heard him laugh but I didn’t look back.

  A few minutes later, after I’d trundled through the yard and down the track, and as I began pushing her up the grassy hill, crouching very low, almost to my knees under the weight
, I heard the welcome roar of his pickup as he drove away.

  In the event, we didn’t bury her. When I finally reached Nico at the top, he’d dug a hole about the size of a packet of fags, and was sitting down beside his handiwork, smoking a roll-up.

  ‘It’s hopeless, Mum. The ground’s like concrete. You try.’

  ‘Why do I always have to do everything myself? Didn’t you see me struggling up here?’

  ‘Oh no, sorry. I was on the phone.’

  I seized the spade and made a sterling effort but, naturally, I couldn’t do it either. It hadn’t rained for weeks, and the ground was solid. I sat down exhausted beside him and smoked one of his roll-ups which he’d thoughtfully made for me. We sat there, with our dead sheep in the barrow, puffing away and mulling over the predicament. Eventually we settled on snipping off a chunk of her fleece, emptying out the last grains of tobacco from his Golden Virginia packet, and stuffing the wool inside. Then we popped it in the hole and covered it over again. I said a little prayer as Nico looked bored. Then I found a couple of sticks, bound them together in a cross with what remained of my string of beads – it looked like a rosary actually, gave a rather pleasing, devotional look – and stuck it in the ground over the grave.

  We turned and headed for home. Nico, at least, carted Rita down the hill, but it was quite a steep hill, and she was heavy. The barrow began to run away with him, until they were racing down. I followed, shouting, ‘Nico! Careful!’ as he shrieked with laughter. ‘Can’t stop, Mum!’ he shouted back when, all at once, the barrow overturned. Rita fell out, Nico fell headlong on top of her and, unable to stop, I fell on him, unable to keep from shaking with laughter too. Weeping, actually.

  Ultimately, too, of course, we had to do exactly what Paddy had instructed, and Nico took Rita off to the kennels. Naturally it was humiliating, but Paddy would never know.

  ‘Let him report me to Defra,’ I told Nico when he came back with the receipt and handed it to me in the kitchen. ‘I almost hope he does. Then I’ll wave this in his face and have the last laugh.’

  ‘Yeah, whatever,’ Nico said wearily. He plucked a lemonade from the fridge and headed on through to the sitting room to adopt the position again: the horizontal one, tin can balanced on his chest. ‘Whatever presses those neurotic old buttons of yours.’