by David Park
The tractor trundled on to the lower fields. The cold air burnt their faces and they were glad when they had strewn the last of the fodder across the frozen ground. His father’s breathing was loud, and he laboured over the final few bales, his breath streaming in front of him. Two grey-backed crows watched them from the naked branches of an ash tree. His father caught them in the corner of his eye but looked away again, then walked casually to the trailer where he had stored the shotgun. Keeping the tractor between himself and the tree, he loaded the gun, his cold fingers fumbling with the cartridges, then stepped out into the open. But before he could shoulder it, the two crows had wheeled away, slicing the air as their mocking squawks broke the surface of the silence like stones dropped in water.
‘They’ve an eye in their head like a hawk,’ he mumbled to himself, feeling slightly foolish. ‘The worst creatures God ever made. If they’re not stripping the barley, they’re pecking the eyes out of newborn lambs.’
‘They’re ugly things, all right,’ he agreed. ‘But they’re too sharp to shoot out in the open at this distance.’
His father grunted non-committally and unloaded the gun. They continued on and did a check of all the stock, stopping to fix a broken gate by tying it up temporarily with wire. A weak, hazy sun was trying to emerge but it failed to bring any warmth to the morning. They didn’t talk much and the clatter of the tractor engine gave them an excuse for silence. As they headed back towards the farm a single swan lolloped overhead. He pointed it out to his father, but he acknowledged it only with a disinterested nod of his head.
When the tractor was making its way up the narrow lane to the farmyard, his father stopped suddenly and got down from the tractor. He bent over like a man searching for a lost coin, and moved along the verge, touching the snow occasionally with his hand.
‘It’s been here. Look!’
‘Are you sure? Could it not just be a dog?’
‘I know the marks of a fox when I see it,’ his father snapped, his voice barbed with irritation. ‘And it’ll be back up round those hens before too long. Mark my words!’
They put the tractor back into the shed and covered the engine with old sacking. In the house, his mother served up deep plates of freshly made vegetable soup, thick with barley and carrots, and the tops of potatoes sticking up like icebergs. She wore a pair of woollen socks over her tights and a pair of fur-lined ankle boots with a zip up the front. His father talked constantly of the fox.
After lunch, his father went into the yard to chop logs, and he offered to help him for an hour. They set up two chopping blocks and started into the pile. He could not help but admire the repetitive, mechanical accuracy with which his father quartered the logs, and knew his own efforts fell short of that standard. But he did his share and slowly the pile of uncut logs dwindled to nothing. They carried out the trunk of a tree they had felled the previous summer, and using a cross-cut saw, began to divide it into workable sections. He could feel his father’s strength as his shoulder pushed the saw towards him through the wood and he tried to match it as he pushed it back. The blade cut straight and deep, and as snow began to fall lightly, the push and pull bedded itself into a steady rhythm. Tiny chips of wood sprayed on to the snow. Backwards and forwards it cut, the blade never jumping or jerking. Then gradually, almost imperceptibly, he sensed that his father’s push towards him was weakening. He glanced up at his face and saw it tight and pained. Flakes of snow had whitened his hair. He looked suddenly old. His father was holding on grimly to the saw, determined to see the job finished. As his father pushed the saw once more towards him, he held it tightly and did not push it back. His father pulled, then looked up at him with confused, watery eyes. Neither of them spoke. His father pulled again, but he held the saw fast and did not let it move.
‘We’ve cut enough logs for one day, Da. We’ll go inside now,’ he said, his voice stronger and surer than he really felt.
His father said nothing, but straightened himself up and brushed snow off the front of his coat as if it was a stain. He seemed unsteady and uncertain of what direction to take. Leaving the saw embedded in the wood, he took his father by the arm, and, shoulder to shoulder, they walked slowly towards the house. His mother seemed to know what had happened before he had time to tell her. They helped him into his chair and she knelt at his feet and gently removed his boots.
‘No need for fussing, now. It’s just a wee tightness. In a few minutes I’ll be as right as rain,’ his father reassured her.
‘You’re stopping there the rest of the day,’ ordered his mother in a voice which brooked no argument.
She poked the fire to let air in underneath and then brushed flakes of snow off him with a towel from the pile of ironing she had stacked in the corner of the room.
‘I’m all right now, Cassie, no fussing,’ he said, looking with embarrassment towards his son. ‘I’ll just take one of those wee sweeties the doctor gave me and in a few minutes I’ll be up and running.’
He watched his mother scuttle into the kitchen and return with the tablet and a glass of water. His father swallowed the tablet, throwing his head back, and his mother held the glass to his mouth while he drank.
He went back out to the yard, cleaned the saw and stacked the logs, filling a bucket for the house. When he returned his father was sleeping, watched over by his mother as she did the ironing.
‘How long’s this been going on?’ he asked, conscious that things had been kept from him.
‘He first got a pain about a year ago – well, that’s when I found out about it. Dear knows how long he had it before then, and a right furore there was before I got him to go to the doctor’s. It’s his heart, but everything could be all right if he’s sensible and doesn’t overdo things.’
‘But why did you not tell me?’
She stretched a shirt over the ironing board.
‘We decided there wasn’t any point worrying you with something you couldn’t do anything about. And you’ve enough on your mind with your studies.’
‘But I could’ve come home more weekends than I did, and helped out more.’
‘It’s not the weekends he needs help – it’s the five days in between.’
She readjusted the shirt almost angrily.
‘What about Ivan? Isn’t he supposed to help about the place?’
She spat on the iron.
‘Your father let him go. He was no use, Samuel. There wasn’t any work in him, and if he’d been out gallivanting the night before, he wouldn’t turn up before lunchtime. He brought your father more aggravation than help.’
‘You’re going to have to get some decent permanent help. Things can’t go on like this.’
‘Easier said than done. Anybody able round here’s got their own place to look after, and your father’s not an easy man to work with. I don’t have to tell you that. He likes things done his way – always has and always will.’
They both glanced at the sleeping man. His passive tranquillity seemed at odds with the words she had just used. She continued ironing and as she smoothed invisible creases and wrinkles he knew that she was working up to saying something – something important. She hesitated, then set the iron on its heel, rubbing her hand along the ironing board.
‘Your father – well, both of us – have always hoped that after you got your education you’d come back and run the farm with him. In a few years, maybe, take it over. He’s a proud man, and he’ll never ask, but it’s what he’s always wanted. I suppose that’s what that site business was all about. One thing’s for sure – if he goes on like he is now, he’ll kill himself.’
There were tears in her eyes, and she tried to hide them by snatching a towel out of the basket and shooting the iron up and down it.
‘I’ve never asked you for anything before, Samuel, but I’m asking you now. Asking you just to think about it – even for a year or so, until we get something sorted out.’
‘My heart’s never been in farming, Ma – you know that. I
’ve never wanted to make it the rest of my life. I’ve always done my share, but … it’s not even as if we get on well together.’
‘Your father’s not a man who shows his feelings, and I know he hasn’t always been easy on you, but I know, deep down, he’s proud of you. When you got to university there wasn’t a body on the road he didn’t tell.’
‘He’d never be able to sit back and hand the running of the farm over to me. You know he’d –’
His mother motioned him to be quiet. His father was stirring in the chair and rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand, as if to get rid of some bad taste.
‘All I’m asking you to do is think about it. That’s all,’ she said softly, as she folded the towel and set it neatly on the top of the finished pile.
‘Boys-a-dear, I must’ve dropped off,’ his father said, stretching out his legs, as if nothing had happened. ‘It’s the heat of that fire brings it on. Is it still snowing outside?’
‘It is, and you’ll not be stirring over the door,’ asserted his mother with an intense quiver of feeling.
‘Will you stop fussing, woman. I’m right as rain.’
But for the rest of the afternoon, he pottered aimlessly about the house, listening to the radio and occasionally stopping to stare out of the window. After tea, his talk turned again to the fox.
‘Thon same boy’ll be back the night. I feel it. He’s got the scent of those hens and he won’t give up until he’s got a couple for his supper. I think we’ll have a wee surprise waiting for him.’
‘You’re not planning to be running about on a night like this, when anyone with the ounce of sense they were born with’ll be sitting by their firesides?’ his mother complained.
‘Hush, now, there’ll be no running around. I’m going to set the trap.’
His father must have caught the look on both their faces, because he tried to reassure them.
‘There’s no need for worry. I’ll be careful with it. The dog’ll be locked up and if it’ll keep everybody happy, we’ll shut all the cats in the barn until the morning.’
His father had used the illegal gin trap, a relic of days long gone, with a marked lack of success. Its rusty but lethal teeth had a tendency to snap shut on creatures other than those for which they were intended. Magpies, in particular, greedy for the bait, had a habit of losing a wing or even their heads in its undiscriminating jaws. Yet his father believed that it could be relied on in a time of crisis to tip the balance in his favour. When all his best efforts had failed, he turned to it with a persistent faith, ignoring its record of failure.
Later that evening, the trap was brought down from the high shelf of the barn, where it sat with the plastic container of paraquat, and the dust was blown off it. His father handled the trap with respect and, to check it was still working, set it on the barn floor, then poked a thin stick warily on to the release plate. The predatory teeth sprang shut with a shuddering clack, snapping it cleanly in two, and leaving a ringing silence in its train. He carried the trap out into the snow-blanched night, and after making sure dog and cats were safely locked up, set it close to the hen-run, baiting it with the remains of the chicken which had made lunchtime soup. He chained the trap to an old wheelbarrow, kicking snow over as many parts of it as he could. Watching his father at work pushed a sudden shiver through him, and he was glad when the job was finished. His father made no reference to the earlier events of the day, and now he slipped into that bantering tone which he liked to employ.
‘I take it you’ll not be going for any moonlit walks?’
‘No, I wouldn’t think so.’
‘Aye, it’d be a bad night for sleepwalking. Wouldn’t want you hopping round the halls of learning with one foot.’
They walked back quickly to the house, their footsteps crunching the freezing snow. Then, as the evening began to take its normal course, he told his parents he was going to have an early evening. It was true the extra work he had done for his father had left him tired, but he also needed an escape from the somnolent, stifling atmosphere of the room, to where he could work and think clearly.
He tried to study, but his mind was unable to concentrate for more than a few minutes, always returning to what his mother had said. He had never seen her cry before and it hurt him to think of it. Her tears fell in his memory like slow flakes of snow and piled up in deep drifts about his heart. All his own conviction faded away as they fell across his intended road, blanking and whitening out the landmarks he had set in his future, and leaving him unsure and confused about what direction to take. When, eventually, he fell asleep, his restless dreams were a web of fragmentary images in which he found himself lost in a tangle of tall hedgerows, whose thorns reached out to scratch his arms. As he struggled to escape he could feel the burning yellow eyes of the fox following and watching him through the chinks of the hedge. In his dream, he knew that somewhere sitting waiting was the cruel trap, its perfect teeth glinting in the moonlight. While he dreamed, snow continued to fall. It dropped steadily, filling up the laneways and silently layering the roof above his head.
In the morning his father rustled with impatience to inspect the trap. He blew on each spoonful of porridge to cool it, and then slurped it noisily. A tiny dribble of milk ran down his chin and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. The radio spoke of roads being closed and isolated communities cut off. Going to his armchair, his father warmed his stockinged feet, then struggled into the boots which he had cleaned the night before. He laced them carefully, jerking the laces tightly at each set of eyelets, then pulled up his heavy socks as far as they would stretch. He seemed anxious that his son should come with him, so, as his father stood fidgeting over him, he finished his tea and put on his coat. Snow had drifted against the kitchen door and when they opened it some fell across the mat. The familiar world they instinctively expected had vanished, to be replaced by a foreign world which swaddled their senses and dazzled their eyes. As he followed his father round the sheds to the hen-run, he felt suddenly frightened by what they might find.
The trap was closed – he could see it in the distance. He felt an inexplicable surge of relief. There was no fox in it. But, as they drew closer, they saw dark splashes of blood spotting the snow. His father ran, and kneeling over the trap, cleared away the snow with his hands, like a child digging in sand. Then he swore in a deep, fierce way, spitting the words out like they were bitter to his tongue, as with frightened eyes, he stood aside to show him the fox’s paw his hands had uncovered.
‘God in heaven, he’s eaten through his own paw to escape. He’s gnawed his own paw right off. I’ve heard of it, but I’d never have believed it, only I’m looking at it with my own eyes,’ his father said, his voice quiet but his hands shaking. ‘Go and get the gun and the dog. We’ll follow the trail back up to its den. We’ve got him now.’
Then he turned and knelt once more over the trap.
‘I’ll get no gun. I’ll take no part in this,’ he said, his voice cutting high and clear through the cold air. ‘I’ll have no hand in its killing.’
His father stood up, his eyes red and raw, his fists clenched by his sides as if he was going to strike him. Words started to his lips but melted away into nothingness. Suddenly, he turned and, without speaking, headed back the way he had come. For a second he watched his father’s heavy trudge across the snow as black shadows of crows circled overhead, and birch trees shivered on the skyline. He looked at the trap again. Then he turned and followed his father, leaving his own prints in the snow.
Killing a Brit
‘Kiernan Caffrey, this homework is a slovenly insult to your Maker. Stay in this afternoon and do it properly.’
Kiernan Caffrey did not lift his head but continued to stare blankly at his open jotter, determined not to let Father Brophy see his disappointment. He had known, however, that it was only a question of time before he received this sentence. He had managed to slip his homework into the bottom of the pile, but when they returned from lunc
h Father Brophy had set them a composition and settled himself comfortably behind his desk to mark them. From the start, he had known that his homework would not be acceptable, but he had scrawled a half-hearted attempt at the questions, only in order to avoid the cane. Now he felt it would have been better to have presented no homework and have taken the cane, than to sacrifice his afternoon. After all, unless he was angry, Father Brophy didn’t really cane that hard. His lack of judgment began to rankle.
He returned again to his composition. They had been given three titles to choose from, and he had chosen ‘Cruelty to Animals’. The other two were ‘My Favourite Television Programmes’ and ‘Old Age’. No thoughts at all came into his mind on old age, and although he wanted to write about his favourite television programmes, he knew it would be a mistake. Brophy only set titles like that to glean information from them. So by a process of elimination, he had decided upon ‘Cruelty to Animals’. This choice was also prompted by the fact that a week earlier they had listened to a tape on the subject. Much to his surprise, he remembered a good deal of it. He had written, Some sports are very cruel to animals. The sport of horse jumping has horses jumping very large fences. Sometimes the fence is so high that the horse can’t jump it and has to pull up quickly or else it might crash into the fence. Also sometimes the horse hits the fence with its leg and this might damage the horses leg and the horse might have to be put down.
Zoos are also very cruel to animals. Animals that are kept in the zoo are kept in very small cages and they can’t move around like they do in the wild. Some animals don’t mind being in cages but birds suffer the most because they can’t fly very far. Large cats suffer to because they can’t run very far in there cages.
Whales are killed to make fancy womens perfume. Animals which have a furry skin are killed to make fur coats. The fur costs a lot of money and only rich people can buy them. Elephants are killed for there tusks to make necklases and ornaments.
Lots of animals are killed in science experiments each year.