Gods Own Country

by Ross Raisin

  I stared into the fire with Father, picturing builders working all round the hillside below us, clouds of dust and lugger-buggers losing their tea about the place, and slow, steady, the dust creeping uphill choking everything until all that was left was our farmstead peeping out the top, with me sat on the rock, watching.

  ∨ Gods Own Country ∧

  15

  It was always the times I wasn’t watching for her, she appeared. I wasn’t even thinking about her, I was too busy studying at a sheep’s foot. It was a fine day, so I’d took a batch of two-shears into the first field to get started on the foot-trimming, and I was knelt examining inside a hoof when I heard her calling at me.

  Hi, Sam. Her face showed itself over the wall, smiling. What you doing?

  Foot-trimming, I said, and I carried on looking at the hoof, I couldn’t likely just stop and kneel there staring at her. I took hold the paring knife and started carving off the rough overgrow of the hoof, and a quiet settled. I glegged an eye up and she was stood watching, all interested. I finished the one foot, letting the horny cutting drop on the ground, then I rested the leg down and lifted the other front foot.

  It’s so they don’t get clogged with muck between the sole and the horn, I said. Else they’d go lame.

  Looks like she’s enjoying it, she said.

  The sheep was propped on its arse, pregnant belly rested on the ground, and she was right, I wasn’t struggling for a steady hold, which was something queer, for normaltimes they struggled like bastards.

  I’ll do yours too if you like, I said, and straight away I wished I hadn’t, but when I darted a look she was laughing, I’d made her laugh. Next thing she was climbing over the wall. She mounted up until she was stood near the top, scouring for the best way down. I searched up her legs as she came down the near side, testing for footholds in the stone joints, but she kept one hand pressing the skirt against the back her thighs, guarding. She lowered herself slow to the ground, without jumping, and I fixed my lookback on the foot as she turned round and knelt down other side the sheep from me.

  How long before they give birth? she said, looking at the sheep’s belly.

  A month yet, first of them.

  She hitched up her sleeve cuffs, keeping them from getting mucky resting on the ground.

  You finish school early, did you? I said, because I thought she must’ve, I didn’t say it to nettle her, they probably ended early for orchestra or something.

  After a time she said, I didn’t go.

  The final hoof was trimmed enough now, but I kept on paring it finer so as my hands were busy. After a while of her staring off someplace and me paring so far I’d have half the leg off if I didn’t stop, she looked at me and said, I hate it, Sam.

  What, school?

  Yeah, school, everything.

  I didn’t know what to say to that. The sheep righted itself and walked off, so for a moment we were knelt there looking at each other, or, more rightly, I was looking at her and she was looking blank at the place the sheep had just left.

  I hated it and all, I said.

  I near told her I got thrown out, until I thought better on it. She lifted her head, looking at me in the face, smiling. I turned away, and as I did I marked a body, stock-still, spying down at us from the farm. Father. He stayed put a moment, then he went into the yard.

  I should get about it, I said, standing up.

  Of course, sorry, you’re working. She got up and brushed at her knees. Sam, I’m sorry, you know, about before. For a second I didn’t know what she meant but then I remembered the track and me the pond skater.

  We split up after that, she said. She looked daffled then, she’d told more than she’d wanted, so I said, I’ll be off, then, and we left away.

  ♦

  He copped on to me the same afternoon. I finished trimming the rest the sheep I’d took in the field, and when I brought them back to the barn he was there, up the ladder, fixing sacking over the holes in the roof. He didn’t say anything right off, he made like he’d not marked me, and when he did start, he still had his attention on the roof.

  What’s that girl want, coming up ‘ere, then?

  I was learning her about foot-trimming.

  He hammered a nail through the sacking into a wood joist. What’s she care about that?

  Don’t know, I said, which wasn’t glibbing. She’s not like you’d think.

  He hammered in another nail, so as the sacking hung down limp, like something strangled.

  What I think is you’re not to be mixin’ wi’ her.

  He nailed in the other side the sacking and came down off the ladder. He must’ve had other things on his brain, he’d normaltimes be sharper than this. Probably it was the Single Payment – he still hadn’t got it. He came toward me, but I could see I wasn’t in for, what’d I told you, Nimrod? What’d I told you? He didn’t look angry, so I didn’t back off.

  She shouldn’t be coming up ‘ere. Then he said, remember, lad, you’ve not always t’ owerance over your doings, and he went to put the hammer away and write another letter.

  Course, I didn’t take Father’s heed – I heeled to her closer than ever.

  She was wagging school plenty often. What I didn’t understand was why it was only me knew it. Type of school she went to, they likely wrote a letter or they telephoned up soon as you weren’t there – Chickenhead, your daughter wasn’t at orchestra today and, quite honestly, we’re all worried. It wasn’t the same as for me. No one telephoned when I wagged, fortunate enough, though I never did it so often as all that, mind, and most times I did I was in the building already, tantling along the corridors, or in the bog, because I couldn’t be fussed going into class. Wetherill drating on about clouds feeling sympathetic and a pair of girls behind me wafting their hands in front their noses, making all these puffing noises as if someone had stepped in a bucket of shite.

  She was wagging most days, though. She had a routine – half seven, she’d leave in the car with Chickenhead and the brother, but an hour later and there she’d be, end of the track, walking back. Then she’d go straight for her spot – a hollow in the ground a mile up the hillside, next the forest, and she’d stay reading books until she had to go home, before Chickenhead got back.

  ♦

  Men started coming to Norman’s. It wasn’t builders, not yet, it was men with clipboards and Wellingtons and a big wheel on a stick they went round measuring the fields with. Most times there were three cars, arrived same time, and the men would stand about in the yard, Norman with them, then they’d go in the house a while before they came out and examined round the land. They walked about the fields in a group, each while stopping to prod the ground and scribble on the clipboards. The cows had all gone now, I marked. Norman strutted round with the men, big-headed as his ram, he was that pleased with himself. Let me show you this, let me show you this, have you seen this molehill yet? Let me show you. I wondered where the ram was now. Sold off someplace, a new hillside of females to tup.

  They spotted me one time, and they stopped their examinations to stare up at me and Sal, so I gave them a wave. Hmm, who’s that up there, Norman? It’s not Greengrass, is it? We’ll need to make sure the angel’s secure in the fountain, then – and up come the clipboards, all the men scribbling away. They took no more bother of me after that, they were more interested in how deep the stream was and what the view looked like otherways over the valley. After they’d done with their measurements and scribbles they’d gather in the yard again, and set off all together, the line of cars worming off toward town.

  ♦

  She’d been in her spot a couple of hours, sitting mainly, except sometimes she got up and walked around, or she went in the forest, disappearing a few minutes, until she reappeared and sat down again, back at the magazines. I checked round the yard wall that Father was occupied with sheeting the hay bales, then I went to fetch Sal. We kept along the walls, so we couldn’t be sighted that easy. Sal wasn’t partial on walking so st
raight, she’d rather be off thundering over the fields, and I had a job keeping her to heel until I tricked her mere might be rabbits living in the walls. She couldn’t get close enough after that, stalking the foundation stones for the smallest sign of movement. She didn’t find any rabbits, course, though she did snout a tiny skull hidden in one of the joints that I had to pull her away from in case she tried to eat it. I picked it out the wall – it was smooth and clean, unharmed, and shaped like a funnel, with miniature eye sockets either side the size of raindrop spots in the snow. A mole, far as I could tell, though bugger knows how he’d got there, halfway up a wall. Took a wrong turning someplace, else a bird had got him, plucked him out the turf soon as he’d surfaced and flown for a perch in the wall to have a feed. I thought on it as we walked toward her, rubbing the top of the skull with my thumb before storing it in my pocket.

  We came into the field other end from where she was, ligged out on the slope of the hollow. Sal clocked her and sprang off to say hello, not fussed about rabbits any more. She didn’t know who it was, probably, she was just friendly-minded. Other side the field, I could see her skiffling for her bag, but she must’ve recognised Sal then, for she stay sat and started patting the ground. I bulled myself up, and walked over. When I got near, Sal was bellied in front of her, frozen, chin on the ground. The girl was feeding her bits of scran from her lunch box.

  Stay…Stay…I could hear her now, she must’ve seen me. Sal stayed like she was told, until the scran was tossed up and she caught it out the air.

  All right, I said.

  Hi, Sam.

  I sat myself next to Sal, who was poised flat to the floor, waiting on more titbits. I could tell it wasn’t just Sal was enjoying the game – she had a great smile on her, dangling a half sarnie. You couldn’t picture old Lionel staying put like that. He’d have ate the lunch box by now.

  You wagging school again, then, I said.

  She didn’t say anything, just looked away. I gave Sal a firm stroke, from the top her head to her back-end. Sorry, I said, I meant…

  It’s all right. What about you, anyway? Shouldn’t you be farming?

  I’m done for the morning. Not much work till they lamb.

  She threw another piece of sarnie. Sal left it where it fell, not sure if she was allowed to get it.

  Good girl, she said, and Sal slotched it up. We went quiet, and I started the stroking again, ruffing the thick hair around her neck. She was having a champion time of it, Sal was, all this stroking and titbits.

  Mum’ll freak when she finds out.

  I nodded. She had that right.

  What’s she going to do, though? she said. Move me to another school? Send me back to London? In my dreams, she will.

  You from London, then?

  Yes, Muswell Hill. She looked for some other food, as the sarnie had finished. Where did you think I was from?

  Don’t know. South someplace.

  She smiled.

  We sat looking over the valley for a long time. I wanted to tell her she could read her books if she wanted, for she was glegging at them where they lay on top her bag – I wouldn’t have minded, I was peaceable just sitting quiet with her looking out. Sal didn’t understand the game had finished, she still had her eyes locked on the lunch box.

  Why’d you move up to the Moors? I said.

  She paused a second. Because Devon’s reached saturation point, she said in a queer voice. She was taking off Chickenhead, I thought. And because the Lawrences have had such a hard-on since they moved to the Dales. Mum and Dad are probably too stupid to know that the Moors and the Dales are different places.

  The Dales aren’t so rough as here, was all I could think to say. It’s more postcard-looking over that way.

  Yeah, that’s why there’s even more snobs there than there are here.

  We stopped our chatting for the time, and Sal gave up waiting for food and went on a wander. She had that blank look on her, when I couldn’t rightly tell what she was thinking, though likely now she was thinking about Chickenhead, or school, and how she hated everything.

  Here, I said, I found this. I took the skull out my pocket and held it toward her with my hands flattened like a plate.

  She jerked backward. What the hell’s that?

  A mole’s head.

  She laughed. You’re a strange guy, Sam. She didn’t mean it unkind, though.

  I started to put it back in my pocket, but she reached forward and took it from me, bringing it near her face to look inside the cavities.

  They’ve wanted to move to the country for ages, she said, but they didn’t because I was at a crucial age, apparently. Like, as though once you get to fifteen, you’re not crucial any more.

  I nodded, watching her study the skull.

  You can help with lambing, if you want, I said. I’ll show you.

  She smiled. Thanks.

  We walked off together, when it was time, and I told her we should keep tight to the walls, but I didn’t tell her it was so Father couldn’t spy us, and she didn’t ask why, she probably thought it was something to do with farming, and not damaging the land. Mum and Father were in the kitchen when I got back, and I knew from Mum looking at me queer they’d been talking about me, but they didn’t say anything on it.

  ∨ Gods Own Country ∧

  16

  It was mighty early, before the sun was all risen, when the first ewe dropped her young. We’d been up hours already, waiting for the start – me, Father and the help, sat lined up on the kitchen chairs against the barn wall, passing a flask of tea as we watched over the bloated articles pacing their pens.

  Course, Deltons had the whole family round to help with the lambing, but we just had the one same help as we’d got last year – a lad from down the valley, had his own vehicle. Mum thought he was something special, for he was training to be a veterinary, and he was always thank you this, thank you that with her, but all I saw was he wasn’t much use for anything but tidying the racks and cleaning out pens. If there was a proper job to be done, Father had me on it. When it started to get light outdoors, we herded them into the field so as they’d have plenty enough room, and soon after we’d done that there was one ewe took herself off to a corner and began to paw the ground and gurn her lip, showing the teeth. Tha’s first, Father said, and we stood a respecting distance off to watch the babby drop, a steaming bundle on the grass.

  By midday we had six, all settled in snugs of straw in the barn. Most of them came natural, only two needed assisting – me steadying the front end while Father coaxed the lamb out with his hand and the help dawdled round the field yammering, she’s ready, this one, I’m sure this one’s ready. We just ignored him. Father hadn’t time for paying heed to him, or for gristling about Norman, or subsidies, or the weather, with all the work needed doing. He didn’t ease up until evening, though he let me and the help take us lunch in the kitchen. I ate mine quick, not bothering to listen as the help blathered on at Mum about his college and how many years he’d got left and what they got fed in the canteen. I was straight out to help Father – assisting the breached births, persuading the stubborn ewes to nurse, housing them with their lambs once they’d dropped.

  In the afternoon I went round the field, with the help, collecting up afterbirth into buckets. We walked opposite ends, shovelling up the sluthery piles before they started attracting any scavengers who might get their jaws on them, such as the crows, or Mr Fox, or Sal. I’d half-filled my second bucketload before he’d done his first. He was more interested gawping at the Moors. I wasn’t fussed, though, he could idle all he liked as far as I cared, until I marked he was looking over toward the forest, and even though her spot was empty that day, I didn’t feel comfortable with him looking there, so I told him he’d better go back in the barn and see if Father wanted anything doing, I’d finish up with the afterbirth.

  Father stopped at tea, and after that we took it in shifts so that there were two of us minding the flock any particular time, day and nig
ht. That went on the rest the week. A hubbleshoo of activity, it was, the flock growing and the sound of bleating ringing in your ears, chasing all else out your brain so as all you could think was lambs. And centre of it all was Mum, cooking up endless plates in the kitchen. Every time I went in, there were pots hissing and bubbling on the stove, or a growler of a pork pie on the sideboard. Here, she’d say, onions and bacon and potato razzling in a skillet behind her, stop five minutes, will you, I’ve panacalty on the go. The smell of food got everywhere – the barn, the fields, my room – so as it drafted into my head while I was asleep and I’d wake up with my mouth juicing because I’d been dreaming dumplings.

  Things got better yet for Father. No deaths the first week and then his Single Payment came. Soon as he got it he went in the tractor to put it in the bank, then he came back and ordered cladding. I heard him on the telephone, talking to the man about how the spring was come early this year and it was welcome, for it’d been biting cold that winter, eh? I’d not heard him like this for a fair time. The gram days were certain over, for now, he was like a pig in trough. One afternoon, I was on with the help, and when I came inside for a piss there was a rocking sound coming from upstairs someplace. I went up to the landing and I could hear him with Mum, not a noise from either of them, only the bed creaking and the frame knocking against the wall. I listened for a time, then I went to piss and returned out to the barn. Father didn’t keep indoors much, though, not to start with. Even when it wasn’t his shift, he was too het up checking and double-checking the babbies, and wandering about the field like a travelling quack, the insides of his jacket stuffed with syringes, tongs and lubricating fluids.