Lettuces and Cream

by John Evans

  ‘Bloody hell, I might have a go at that. We could do with some spuds for the winter, and it would save us some money.’

  ‘I think you’ve got enough to do, Mike’

  ‘Yeah well, we’ll see. Mind you, I’m a bit disappointed – no dancing naked around a potato at midnight.’

  Jan gave a polite little laugh at his joke, and then changed the subject. ‘Talking about Ann, she called here the other day wanting to know if I wanted to go to the W. I., on Thursday night, down in the village. I said I might, if I have time. It‘s only once a month, unless there’s something special going on. At least I would get to know more people.’

  ‘At this rate you’ll have to start a social diary, love,’ Mike grinned.

  ‘Ha, bloomin ha,’ Jan retorted and gave the bacon a vigorous prodding, sending sizzling fat sparking and splattering over the stove. Sometimes she didn’t know whether Mike was getting at her, or only joking, which added to his fun. Perhaps she was being rather over sensitive on this particular day. Mind you, on the odd occasion Jan tried a new recipe for something or other, and it didn’t turn out quite right, the children would follow Mike’s lead and join in with the food ‘disaster’ jokes. Jan would eventually see the funny side of it and join in the mirth. The chilli and rice had been an especially classic disaster, in which she had put far to much chilli and every one had dashed for water.

  ‘What’s on the cards for today Mike?’

  ‘Well I had thought of going to look at that van Keith told us about. Then I could finish the pig pen floors. But I think I had better go the bank first, see what they have to say about a loan or something. It’s going to be a bit of a waste of the morning but it has to be done. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.’

  ‘No, okay, I’ll finish off sanding the stairs and you can get some varnish when you are in town. In fact love; if I give you a list can you pick up a few groceries for me while you’re there, it would save another trip out in the week.’

  ‘Good idea. Right, where’s this breakfast you promised me?’

  Their bank was situated in the market town of Llanbed, bigger than Porth and about eight miles away. Mike wasn’t used to dealing with banks so he was more than a little apprehensive, and smoked far too many fags on his drive into town. But much to Mikes surprise an overdraft was agreed there and then, and the manger said he would call and have a look at the place. More out of curiosity than anything else really, because he wanted to see the poly-tunnels. Mike left the bank bursting with renewed energy and enthusiasm for their new life. He could hardly believe how easy it had been, and he did his shopping with a happy skip in his step. But perhaps it had all been just a little bit too easy.

  With the Bank and Jan’s shopping complete, he was back in the house by midday telling Jan the news, and with yet another coffee and a cigarette in his hand. She said she was pleased, but on the inside, she was worried; the idea of debts frightened her. They hadn’t ever been in big debt, apart from a mortgage, but that was just like paying rent so not a problem. She was missing the steady planned income they once enjoyed and nervous about owing a bank money. She couldn’t really see what could go wrong but nevertheless her unease remained. They hadn’t moved here to be a big business, in fact neither of them had thought of them as being ‘in business’ at all. But they had to have money; they couldn’t live on fresh air and lovely scenic views.

  ‘So, we can go and buy the van now, and the pigs,’ Mike said, puffing on his cigarette.

  ‘He also said that bed and breakfast is a growing trade around here and he wants us to do the house up as soon as possible so we can get the summer visitors. He even suggested extending the house to give us another bedroom, and a bathroom of course, above the new kitchen. Good idea really, people will come to us, instead of me going out to work.’

  ‘Seems a big step, Mike.’

  ‘He said it would make the place worth a lot more.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Jan could have done without this stress. She didn’t want to have these complications, and she was still trying to come to terms with the Chris business. She had thought that by moving away from town to the country they were going to have a very peaceful existence. It didn’t seem that was going to be the case. For the last few years she and Mike had got along just fine, not perfect, but okay. But this experience with Chris, so different, so exciting, and not at all like the adventures she had had back in town a couple of years ago. The event itself had been a bit like doing it herself, but without the fine tuning and control of her excitement that she could achieve on her own. But then, didn’t a famous person once say that the best sex they ever had was with themselves? But being a woman Chris had known all the right things to do and Jan was now thinking more avidly than ever what it would be like to touch Chris in the same way-maybe see her naked; touch her all over her body. This wasn’t like thinking of being with a man. It was so odd; she just couldn’t describe why she was now so fascinated by a woman’s body, nor why it had happened in the first place. Good God, I hardly know her. Jan liked men, and certainly loved Mike, and sometimes in that hinterland between sleep and wakefulness, she would be brought to tears at the thought of anything nasty happening to him and of being left, alone, and without him in her life. And unbeknown to her, Mike, in his own time and place, experienced similar anxieties. So she was adamant in her own mind that she wasn’t one of those lesbian people, so how was it she was in this situation? Maybe those seeds of adventure sown way back in Barey, made her vulnerable to experiences such as this. Or perhaps it was the fear of being discovered and labelled as something she wasn’t that was worrying her most. ‘Bloody, damn and shit,’ she silently swore – swearing in the head was okay, she was feeling so angry with herself for being so weak and indecisive, thinking that she could have stopped Chris at any time. She decided that she would avoid being alone with her in the future, which now they were ‘friends,’ would be tricky. She also wondered what Chris had got from the event, Jan hadn’t reciprocated in any way. Surely Chris had been aroused by it all, so how did she get her pleasure and satisfaction? All she knew for certain was that just thinking about what had happened was arousing her immensely -humans are such complicated animals…

  ‘What do think then, Jan, shall we go and get the van tomorrow, and then see about the pigs?’

  ‘Yes, okay, you know best love.’

  He sincerely hoped that he did.

  ‘What time did you leave home this morning, son?’ Keith’s father lit up his first cigarette of the day.

  ‘About six.’

  ‘You did well, you’re earlier than usual.’

  ‘Aye, roads were empty. I’ll finish this breakfast and then I’ll get that ploughing done for you. Are you okay with the milking today?’ Keith dipped his piece of bread into the rich yellow yolk of his farm fresh fried egg as he spoke.

  ‘Aye, I’m feeling so much better, I’ll soon be able to manage on my own, but I’ve been thinking of retiring - selling up.’

  ‘Oh, listen to him; he’ll never give up, Keith. Can you image him in a little house in town? As soon as your father is really well we must come down – we haven’t seen the girls for ages. I expect they are young women now.’

  ‘Yeah, they’re growing up fast, Ma. Alison will be twelve in March.’

  ‘You’ve been a blessing, Keith, I don’t know what we would have done without you.’

  ‘It’s okay, Ma,’ Keith replied, embarrassed by his mothers gratitude.

  ‘I expect Christine will be pleased when you don’t have to come up here to help,’ his father added.

  Keith’s parents always called her by her full name. They hadn’t approved of the marriage, she was a city girl that Keith had met at a New Years do in Newcastle. They never really liked her, and in private his father called her a tart.

  ‘Aye, but she manages well enough,’ Keith said somewhat disparagingly Keith continued eating, his thoughts turning back home to Chris. He had been cheated into marriage. C
hris told him that she couldn’t have babies – hence Alison their eldest and marriage. Initially he had accepted the situation and they were happy enough. But after the early rosy days of the marriage he had become more resentful of the ‘miracle.’ With their busy life style and their independent natures they had never really known each other and were now even further apart mentally, but not physically, Chris’s appetite saw to that and he had never been short of sex. But he had suspected for a long time that she had been with other men when they lived close to Newcastle and perhaps even now, out in wild Wales. He even believed that her evening out at the drama group was an excuse for meeting someone. Particularly as she had of late, been later than usual returning home. The idea of her being with other men made his head pound with anger, it bruised his ego, yet mixed with this was an element of sexual excitement. He would like to watch them without them knowing- it would give him a kick -but in this case knowing would also give him back his feeling of masculinity, of being in control. He didn’t like anyone trying to put one over on him –no one did that to Keith. He wanted to have something on her – and whom ever she was with. And he had a plan –a very crafty plan.

  ‘More coffee Keith? And there’s some bacon left.’

  ‘No thanks Ma, and no more coffee.’

  His Dad lit up another cigarette and took a drink of his breakfast cup of tea, ‘Do you do much competition rifle shooting nowadays, son?’

  Before his marriage Keith had been in the Territorial Army, and although he had never seen any action, he still liked to imagine himself as a super ex-commando. Though in reality he was a bit of a softie.

  ‘Haven’t done any for a couple of years or so, but I still do a bit with the shotgun.’

  ‘You’ve still got all your cups and shields though?’ Ma said, with a hint of pride in her voice for her little boy.

  ‘Oh, Aye, but Chris has put ‘em away, to much cleaning she says.’

  Ma and Pa looked at each other and raised their eyebrows as though to say, how typical of Christine.

  EIGHT

  ‘This map Keith gave us isn’t much use, is it? He said it was only two miles outside Llanddewi Brefi, we’ve done four already. The kids will be back from school if we don’t hurry up,’ Mike said irritably.

  ‘I think it’s up here, on the right. This track is awful rough, it’s worst than the one to our place,’ Jan remarked.

  ‘Yeah this could be the place, there is some sort of building up ahead, and you’re right, this track is bloody awful. Steep too, the house must be on top of a bloomin’ mountain. I bet they grow that wacky baccy stuff that Keith told us about up here, its remote enough.’

  The newly acquired van bounced and banged its way over the pot-holed road getting ever closer to the ramshackle collection of buildings.

  ‘Huh, we thought our place was a mess, but this is bloody disgusting.’ To their left was the simple two stories, two up, two down stone built house, just like the kiddies draw, four windows and a door in the middle. It even had a childlike plume of smoke curling from the chimney. It stood on the higher part of what was just an open gently sloping field, no yard boundaries, just a few broken bits of fencing dotted here and there, everywhere covered with cow-pats. How or why the mixture of stock stayed where it was supposed to be, was a mystery. To the right, were three bent, buckled and rusty corrugated iron sheds and strewn all over the ‘yard’ were bits of trees branches, dirty plastic buckets and broken bits of machinery. The whole vista topped off with an old fridge and the remains of an electric cooker. And the dull grey afternoon added to the dismal scene, as pigs, hens, and a couple of geese and some Jersey cattle roamed amongst the junk trying to find a blade of grass.

  As Mike opened the van door, one of the cows wandered over to investigate the visitors, perhaps hoping to be fed. Then, two collie dogs, with tails wagging in a friendly manner came to greet them.

  ‘Are you sure this is the place, Mike?’

  ‘No I’m not but I’ll get out and see if anyone is about. Huh, the place is a dump’ He found it hard to believe such places existed. As he tiptoed his way through the mud and muck towards the house, a figure came from the house and headed towards him. It was difficult to know whether it was male or female, until the apparition spoke.

  ‘Yes, what do you want,’ she said curtly and with a very English accent.

  ‘I’m looking for Mary - Keith Bowen sent me.’

  Her manner changed in an instant, probably at the thought of some money changing hands. Seeing that there was life, albeit alien looking, Jan got out of the van and began her approach, staring at the woman with utter fascination.

  Mary was wearing a filthy, nineteen forties man’s raincoat tied with baling string at the waist. On her head she had an old trilby, from which bits of dirty straggly hair were trying to escape. Her skin looked yellowish and dirty and her teeth not much better. With her sharp long nose –she was a witch. At first glance Jan thought the woman was wearing Wellingtons. But on closer inspection, she was wearing dung encrusted shoes, no socks, and the ‘welly’ illusion was created by a line of dirt to knee height. Jan was astounded. Mary wasn’t old, only in her late thirties, but looked older. She was well spoken, very English, and Jan wondered how she had come to be living like this.

  ‘I’m in the middle of mucking out, come up to the house.’

  When they got to the house they were in for another shock. The mucking out wasn’t taking place in one of the sheds - but in the house. The room to the left of the front door, housed pigs and Mary had been throwing the straw and pig muck through the open sash window. The room to the right was her ‘living room.’ A table, a single bed with dirty bedding, a tatty easy chair, upon which a unhealthy looking black cat was asleep – perhaps she really was a witch. Anything seemed possible in such a place. The house was as dirty and scruffy as the outside and they both silently prayed she wouldn’t offer them a cup of tea - and God knows what she kept upstairs.

  ‘This is the sow for sale, I did have two but one’s sold, this is Pinky come on Pinky.’ Mucky Mary’s countenance changed to one of happy adoration as the beast waddled over to her. It grunted happily as Mary dropped some kitchen scraps over the four-foot high barrier across the doorway to the room.

  ‘She’s in-pig and due in a couple of weeks. I want sixty pounds for her. She’s a good pig, she had thirteen in her first litter. Have you got somewhere nice to keep her?’

  Mike and Jan looked at each other, somewhere nice, what a cheek, and thought, oh yes we have, and it’s a palace compared to this place.

  ‘Oh yes, I’ve just built some new pens, she’ll be fine,’ Mike replied, taking out a wad of pound notes from a pocket, the last of their own money, soon they would be using the Banks.

  ‘Well, I’ll still have to look at her pen when I bring her over. Won’t be until Thursday midday though, I’m busy,’ her eyes glinted hungrily as he saw the wad of money being counted and added, ‘and do you want to buy a nice Jersey house cow?’

  ‘Um, not really,’ Mike said hesitantly, ‘not just at the moment.’

  ‘No, we really can’t afford it just now,’ Jan reinforced.

  ‘Come and take a look at her, she’s in calf – due about three weeks after Pinky she’s a good milker - hundred quid to you,’ she grinned showing her glorious yellow and rotting teeth.

  She led them outside and pointed to one of the wandering beasts. Upon seeing Mary the young Jersey cow sauntered over to her. It was certainly very tame, and Mike could tell that Jan had already taken a liking to it. It was a very pretty animal, not overpoweringly big, and Jan quickly noted the large brown eyes and the long black eye lashes that any glamour girl would die for. The fur was short, glossy and brownish beige in colour. All together, with her shiny, moist black nose, she was, in their eyes, beautiful.

  ‘Yes she is lovely, but we really can’t afford her at the moment,’ Jan said in rather a sad tone…

  Thursday midday, and the inspection by Mucky Mary, as to whet
her or not they were suitable ‘parents,’ and that the housing was top class, came and went. And at three thirty when the children returned from school they were ushered into the barn.

  ‘This is Pinky, what do you think kids?’ Pinky the pig grunted happily in her new pen and at the attention that she was getting.

  ‘Cor, dad it’s really big, but it doesn’t smell much.’ Mandy took a huge sniff of the air.

  ‘It’s a she, not an it,’ David corrected, ‘and I can smell something.’

  ‘Oh, that could be your mother,’ Mike joked, his humour was getting earthier by the day - and he mildly swore more often. Jan thought it must be the local influence.’Mike, behave,’ Jan scolded light heartedly.

  ‘And, come outside to the field for a minute.’ The children had only just walked home from school and were still carrying their satchels, but dutifully followed their mother and father out of the barn and to the field gate and peered into the field.

  ‘Oo, a cow,’ said Mandy enthusiastically, ‘has she got a name. Will she have a baby cow?’ Even though Mandy was a very young female, reproduction was already of enormous interest to her.

  ‘Yes she’s having a calf soon, and the woman we bought her from calls her Primrose. But we could change it if you like.’

  ‘I like Primrose. Will I be able to ride on her, Mum?’

  David gave a sigh of total disgust, ‘Cows, pigs, huh, I want a dog, you promised,’ and headed back to the house.