Cold Enough to Freeze Cows

by Lorraine Jenkin

  It was, of course, Paul. He had almost jogged up to her. A good suit; nice cut and a good fit. Unlike the ones that he used to wear, shiny, off the peg, chosen by his mother.

  “Nothing much. You know, the usual.” Menna was cool and still very much on the way to the toilet, but just gave him enough time for a chat. “Nice to be back?”

  “Yes, well, OK I s’pose. Don’t come back too often. Busy – you know? Up in Manchester?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well…”

  “Right, if you’ll excuse me…”

  “Menna…” Suddenly he had a purpose. “I’ve written you a note. I hoped I’d see you here. Maybe. Well…I…you know… Sheep Breeders’ and all that? Menna – I’ve written you a note.” He fumbled in his pocket, looking over his shoulder back to the party as he did so, as if wanting to be sure that no one else saw him. One more check and he pulled out an envelope. “Look, it explains everything. Everything. I’m so sorry, Menna, I’m really so sorry…”

  He thrust it into her hand and clutched it for a moment. For a while, Menna just stared into eyes that drilled into her soul, deep with meaning – one she couldn’t comprehend. He held the envelope in both her hands, his eyes imploring that she got it this time – was it pain? Remorse? Guilt? Or convenience? She simply didn’t know.

  He looked over his shoulder again, then once more. Then he grabbed her shoulders and kissed her full on the lips. Then he pulled away, another of those fathomless looks in his eyes. He shook his head, “I have to go. I’m sorry, Menna, but I have to go.” Menna watched him walk away, then looked at the envelope in her hands. It had obviously started off as big and expensive, but was now crumpled and greasy from uneasy fingers. She held her dignity until she saw him halted by another crony and then she dived into the Ladies. As she sought the doorknob, she realised that her hand was shaking.

  She sat on the loo for support as her legs felt like they might give way. She took a few deep breaths and turned the envelope back and fore. It was quite bulky, so obviously it wasn’t just a short note inside. It felt like a lengthy and, having seen his face, perhaps tortuous ramble. There was no name on the front, presumably so that if his wife had seen it, it wouldn’t require an explanation – not good to be writing notes to an ex-girlfriend when you’re about to have a baby with your wife, especially if it were a tortuous ramble. Why had he waited until now, she thought as she picked tentatively at the sealed flap. Why, if he wasn’t going to talk her through it, hadn’t he just posted it? Mind, knowing Paul, it could still yet be a newspaper cutting about a nutritional supplement for a bull or a way of reducing foot rot in hill sheep…

  Menna listened as a crowd of women crashed laughing into the toilets. Stuff them, she thought, there are two more cubicles, they’ll just have to wait: this is important.

  She could feel her heart thumping hard; she wished she were at home now, in the privacy of her own lounge, not sitting on a loo listening to women talking about how Johnny Brechdan was still lush, even though he had a girlfriend with a baby. Maybe she should go to her truck and read it? But what if he were lurking outside, waiting for her reaction? Well, it was a little late to be worrying about her feelings…

  On the Thursday night after the fateful altercation in the Neuadd’s cowshed and in accordance with her usual habit, Menna had skipped dinner with her parents in readiness for her curry with Paul. That night, however, she had been more than glad to; lamb chops…even the smell of them cooking made her stomach churn.

  She’d sat on her bed and prepared to pull off her work trousers – shapeless jeans with a saggy arse and a low crotch. She felt exhausted and even the thought of taking off her trainers was tiring. She’d never felt fatigue like it and it was all consuming. The pains in her stomach were getting worse and she really hoped that it wasn’t going to be like this for the next six and a half months. She’d read that it was an uncomfortable time, but she could really do with someone to talk to, someone who could explain it all to her – someone who didn’t want to be an estate agent…

  She felt her insides gurgle and she was relieved to undo the button of her jeans. The pains must be being heightened by the unforgiving denim. She’d dragged her jeans down and then cursed as she realised that she still had her trainers on. She’d tried to tug the trouser legs over the top of the shoes, but they got stuck. She’d wrenched at them, getting hotter and more frustrated. Trying to stand, she’d tripped and then slid to the floor, landing awkwardly on her ankle. Pain had washed over her and she’d burst into tears, tears of frustration, anger and hormones.

  She’d slumped against her bed, sitting on a rag rug that she’d made for her mother’s Christmas present fifteen years before, but which had somehow found its way back into her bedroom.

  As the tears flowed and her mind had darted from one futile scenario to another, her body seemed to make up its own mind and with one huge cramping pain, it expelled the tiny form from her body, wrapped in a cushion of blood.

  And so the little life that had begun on a careless night, oiled by a little too much Tiger beer, had ended in a puddle on a badly-made rag rug. Paul never arrived that night and nor did he come again for Sunday lunch. He’d never come back for his post-thumper, either, nor did he bring back the newly-greased crankshaft.

  Menna hadn’t spent the evening watching at the window for her beau, instead she’d spent it sat in a state of shock on her rag rug, watching as the blood seeped from her.

  She’d waited until her parents had gone to bed, exhausted with debate about what could possibly have happened to Paul the Neuadd. She’d ignored their calls from the bottom of the stairs and mumbled about being tired in reply to her dad’s knock on her door. She’d drunk the cup of tea that was left outside her door, but not until it was lukewarm. She had then replaced the cup outside the door, as empty as she felt.

  When all the lights had been switched off and her father had done a last check of the stock, Menna had crept out in a pair of navy tracksuit bottoms and her boots, clutching a bloody hanky rolled into a towel.

  She’d taken the torch and tip-toed out of the back door, whispering loudly to the dogs, so as to stop them barking. She’d walked across two fields and climbed over the fence into the woods and then tripped and stumbled down through the trees until she’d reached her favourite childhood spot.

  Menna had found a stick and foraged about amongst the tree roots until she found a small gap. Sobbing, she’d dropped to her knees in the mud, unrolled the towel and pushed the damp parcel into the hole and then back-filled it with moss and leaves. As she’d stood up, she’d nudged the torch with the back of her foot and it had rolled off down the hill. She’d left it shining a beam into space and then stumbled back up the hill in darkness, tears dripping from her face. They weren’t tears from broken dreams of romantic happiness, but the tears of empty plans and the realisation of how much she’d come to love something so small in just a matter of weeks.

  Somehow, Jean had managed not to berate Menna as it became apparent that Paul was going to eat his Sunday lunch on his own from then on. She’d obviously seen how upset Menna was by the split and therefore she hadn’t had the heart to express her annoyance about her daughter blowing a fantastic opportunity both for herself as an individual and for the family in terms of the future success of their farm and their standing in the community. Unfortunately, she hadn’t had the soul to comfort her daughter either, or make sure that she was all right.

  As time had worn on, Menna had slowly recovered: physically quicker than mentally, but she had been left with a hollow spot… A sense of unfairness and an emptiness in her soul, and she couldn’t really work out why.

  She’d desperately wanted to see Paul, to tell him what had happened, to scream at him that he was a wanker, to sob on his shoulder, to tell him coldly that he need not worry about her or the baby. However, she’d felt washed out, exhausted and tearful: when she confronted him, she wanted to be in control and on fighting form. She hadn’t wanted t
o be sobbing about the loss of something that he’d never wanted; she needed to be calm inside, even if on the outside she was a screaming banshee. But the time had never felt right. She’d never felt calm and strong enough for such an altercation. It was hard to plan how you could make someone else feel worse than you did by giving them the information that you knew they craved.

  A week had passed, then two. His silence strengthened Menna – at least he would be worrying about what was happening. Her only power had been in knowing the truth: he must have been terrified that the next time he saw her, she would be sitting at his kitchen table chatting to his mother and rubbing her hands over a large bump. Let him think the worst is yet to come, she’d decided. Don’t let him off the hook that easily…

  As the years had rolled by, Menna had come to know herself better and she’d concluded that her emptiness was more to do with the weight of the responsibility that she and Paul had taken so lightly, than the sadness at the loss of a child. It seemed wrong that an extra bottle of Tiger had resulted in a fumbling with a condom and that had resulted in a life. A life that, had it not failed, would now be a little child asking non-stop questions around its mother’s knees. It may have grown up to find the cure for cancer, or discovered a new breed of fish, but one little blip in the building blocks and – phut – nothing. It seemed to Menna that she should be ashamed of her lack of responsibility, her previous sense of fun and light-heartedness should be gone forever.

  Menna had buckled down to work, as much to avoid her mother’s disappointed glances as to embrace an honest toil. She checked the animals, she scraped up shite, she mended fences and pleached hedges. She got cold, wet, sunburnt and sunstroke. She trimmed feet, removed bollocks, lanced boils and wanked off a bull. She got tired, exhausted, strained and kicked. She started to spurn the fripperies and fancies that she’d enjoyed as a teenager, thinking them wasteful and unnecessary. Instead, she became well known in her community as a hard worker and a great stockwoman.

  She’d started entering her stock into competitions and she’d begun to win. Paul may have been a git, but she had picked up many tips from him and they’d started to pay dividends. Her father struggled with his health and had been happy to relinquish more and more responsibility to Menna and instead toiled on the more predictable elements of the farm – the buildings and the land.

  As Menna’s reputation and autonomy had grown, she’d begun to enjoy her work again, but this time with a pride and a determination to succeed. Glascwm had grown more successful financially and through competitions, and it began to be the place that neighbours would drop in for a bit of advice or to borrow a more modern bit of machinery.

  Menna had heard that Paul had gone away to university early and that it had devastated his parents. They had apparently been getting ready to hand over the reins and had been shocked to the core by his revelation. He’d rarely come home, apparently throwing his energies into his studies, but Menna had known that it was also due to guilt. Not just for the way he treated her, but also for his parents who had been relying on him. It wasn’t his fault that they had always assumed that he wanted to take over the farm without actually asking him, but it might have been fairer if he’d not waited until his bags were packed to give them the first clue…

  Back in the toilets in the Lamp, she turned the envelope over and over in her hands. Half of her was desperate to see what he had to say, the other half felt like flushing the whole thing down the toilet and pretending that whatever Paul had to say didn’t matter one jot, so there was no point in reading it.

  Eventually, the desperate half won. She tore the envelope open and peered inside. There was money, lots of money. She took the wad out and fanned the fifty-pound notes in her hand. They were clean and new with successive serial numbers – had he really stopped at the cash point on the way here, with the wife in the car thinking he was going to get enough for a few drinks and a loaf of bread in the morning? There must be a couple of thousand pounds in her hand!

  Menna stuffed the money back into the envelope and pulled out the letter and unfolded it. She remembered Paul’s writing well and the familiarity struck her as odd after all this time. Although he’d never been one for letters or poems or indeed anything sentimental, she remembered how he used to write – spidery writing creeping slowly across the page. He must have copied it from a draft, as there were no mistakes or crossings outs. His handwriting had always been slow and painful to watch; this must have taken him hours!

  The door of the Ladies squeaked open and then was slammed shut to the sound of, “and if that bitch whispers at me to fuck off because Brechdan’s taken again, I’ll cut her tits off…” and the girls’ chatter subsided to a distant shrieking. At last Menna had the peace to read what Paul the Neuadd had to say to her.

  Dear Menna,

  I trust his letter finds you well? I’ve always felt that we separated after difficult times and perhaps we have a little unfinished business to attend to?

  Menna blew out a breath of amazement at the understatement.

  I’ve wanted to contact you for all this time, but haven’t had the chance and now it’s more difficult, what with being married and expecting our first baby.

  I felt that, when you got yourself pregnant, we were very young and probably didn’t handle it very well, which sort of shows how we would have been as parents?

  I admit I was relieved when I found out that you must have had yourself a termination and I have always wanted to thank you for making that decision and going through with it You could have told me at the time and I would have stood by you and helped out

  I’ve always wanted to put things right by you and I hope that we can let the past be the past and all of us concentrate on our futures. I have since looked into it and I hadn’t realised how expensive such treatments are, so I would like to start by making amends in a financial way – therefore I have enclosed £3,000 for your costs.

  I hope that there are no hard feelings between us and I wish you well. I heard that you’d got Best in Breed for your bull at the show last year, so well done.

  Yours sincerely,

  Paul

  Menna sat back, stunned. She shook her head in confusion and then read it again. It was like a cross between a standard business letter and one from a fourteen-year-old boy. Yours sincerely? I would have stood by you? Got yourself pregnant?

  Menna felt the rage well up inside her. Rage that should probably have exploded five years ago, but had not had the chance. How dare he? Termination? Helped out? Was he mad? He’d walked away from the girlfriend that he’d impregnated – and you couldn’t get much more shitty than that – but then to have his conscience pricked into paying for it five years later, via a note, when his own bride was sitting twenty yards away swollen with child? Could he get anymore insulting?

  She got to her feet and slammed open the bolt on the door, catching her knuckle in the lock. She saw her reflection in the mirror opposite and she barely recognised herself, her eyes were dark with rage and her cheeks white, aside from her new blusher, and her orangey-red lips were pursed near to extinction.

  She tucked an escaped curl behind her ear and swung out of the Ladies’ and back into the corridor.

  As she stalked the fifteen yards down the corridor, she had no idea what she was going to do. She could hear her heels clattering on the tiles, but she didn’t associate the noise with herself. All she was aware of was the rage and anger within her, knowing that it was about to blow and hang the bloody consequences…

  Sima was listening to the speeches with glazed eyes and a fixed smile on her face. Funny how so many women were wearing black and gold blouses, she mused, it would have been nice to have a little more of a splash of colour around.

  The speaker was a dull old fart. He had already apologised twice for not being able to read his own handwriting and here he was fumbling again with his glasses, trying to remind himself what twaddle he was supposed to say next; Sima wished that she’d had an hour with h
im beforehand and pushed him through her intensive Public Speaking With Confidence course.

  The audience waited with baited breath. The only sound was that of high heels approaching down the corridor. Sima turned – oh, good, it was Menna on her way back. Someone to giggle with through the rest of this guy’s tedious announcements would be good.

  Strange, Menna had stopped half way back, she was standing over a man perched on a chair. It was that Paul bloke, the one with the very-pregnant wife. Joe had been starting to tell her something about him, but had been distracted by one of his old fishing buddies. Hang on, Menna looked absolutely fuming…what was that about?

  The crowd was beginning to turn away from the mutterings on the top table and look towards Menna and the visitor, nudging each other and raising their eyebrows, as if they had been waiting for something to happen.

  Eventually the man must have sensed that something was up and he turned from whispering to the guy next to him to face the thunderous eyes behind him.

  “You bastard!” Menna shouted as soon as she had his attention. “You BASTARD!” Her voice was high and full of emotion and Sima could see that she was shaking. “Firstly, you got me pregnant – I did not get myself pregnant. We did it. Between us. Then you wouldn’t let me see anyone, not even a bloody midwife. Then—”

  People were beginning to stand so that they could get a better view. The guy on the top table put down his notes, aware that he had lost his flock to more interesting pastures.

  “you dump me. Without even telling me. Then…nothing for five years and then this?” Menna shook an envelope around Paul’s face and he squinted away from it as if it were tainted. “Money for an abortion? Was that supposed to make up for dumping me?”