A Likely Tale, Lad

by Mike Pannett

  Once I was outside I started to calm down. The sun was shining, a warm breeze was blowing, and an old grey tractor was coming down the road pulling a cartload of straw bales. Seeing who it was perched on the seat and bouncing along with his pipe nodding up and down, I ran after him. I’d been hanging around Swales’ farm in my spare time ever since we moved out to Crayke, and I’d got to know the farmer. Sometimes on a Saturday he’d give me odd jobs to do – sweeping up the yard, mucking out the cowshed and so on for a few coins. When Old Man Swales got out of the cab and saw me he beckoned me across the yard to a pen he’d set up in one corner.

  Looking back, I doubt that he was much more than forty-five years old, but he had the portly outline of a prosperous farmer, his hair was going grey, he smoked a pipe with a curved stem and he always carried a stick, limping a bit as he walked – the result, he liked to say, of an argument with a bull, which he lost. To us lads he seemed absolutely ancient, and Old Man Swales he was.

  He leaned on the horizontal scaffold-pole that formed the top rung of the enclosure, nodded at me and took his pipe from his mouth. He pointed into the pen. ‘What d’you reckon, lad?’ Inside was a fat sow lying on her side while a swarm of little pink piglets scrambled over each other, looking for the best source of milk.

  At first I didn’t say anything. A thought had occurred to me, and I couldn’t resist sharing it. ‘A piglet,’ I said, ‘a piglet has four legs and a tail.’

  Old Man Swales grunted, puffed on his pipe and said, ‘You’re a bright lad, young Michael, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Them little pigs are indeed quadrupeds.’

  ‘Aye. I’ve always wanted one of them,’ I said. ‘You know, a piglet.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Mister Swales puffed on his pipe. Otherwise there was no response. I looked at the piglets and started counting out loud. ‘Eight … ten … twelve …’ That’s when I had the brainwave. Not just any old brainwave, but the best brainwave I’d had since I pulled the weathervane stunt. I carefully counted the litter once more. ‘That’s bad luck, that,’ I said, pointing at the piglets.

  He frowned. ‘I don’t follow you, lad. They all look healthy enough to me. What are you getting at?’

  I didn’t answer at once, I was busy re-counting them. Then I said, ‘Having thirteen in the litter. Thirteen’s unlucky, isn’t it? Maybe you should … you know, give one away.’

  At that Old Man Swales leaned back and laughed so hard that he let his pipe drop to the ground. He picked it up, wiped the stem on his trousers and popped it back in his mouth. Then he looked into the pen. Most of the litter were sucking away, their little legs scrabbling for a foothold, but there was one, a bit smaller than the rest, which was running up and down looking for a free teat – and not finding one. Old Man Swales stepped over the railing, grabbed hold of it in one broad hand, and passed it to me.

  ‘Go on, lad. That’s for your cheek. But you’ll have to look after it, mind. It’s only a little runt of a thing.’

  At first I was lost for words. He’d called my bluff. I stood there as the little porker wriggled around in my arms, pressing his snout into my stomach and looking for – well, I soon realised what he was after.

  ‘What do I do?’ I asked, looking down at the piglet, which had already clamped his jaws around my T-shirt and was sucking in more and more of it.

  Old Man Swales’ jowls quivered. ‘That’s for you to decide,’ he chuckled. ‘She’s all yours now, lad.’

  ‘She?’ It hadn’t occurred to me to think about boy piglets and girl piglets, but now that I knew I’d got a little sow I couldn’t help wishing I’d picked a hog.

  Farmer Swales had stopped laughing and was looking serious. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘you want to tek her home quick as you can, find her a nice warm bed and’ – he paused and asked, ‘any baby brothers or sisters in your house?’

  I shook my head and grunted as the piglet wriggled around in my arms and did a little poo down my trousers.

  ‘Hm.’ He took his pipe from his mouth and looked me up and down. ‘You’d best ask your mother. See if she’s got one of them feeding bottles wi’ a – ’ He checked himself once more. ‘Tell you what, I reckon I might have a spare. Follow me, lad.’ With that he tapped his pipe on the wall of the pen and set off to the back door of the farmhouse. I followed, struggling to keep hold of my new pet.

  In the kitchen was a big wooden table, and on the table was a big old roasting dish, and in the roasting dish was a plump hen. He lifted her out and took her to the door. ‘I’ve told this bugger before. You live outside!’ he shouted. ‘Go on wi’ you!’ Then he picked two eggs from the tin. ‘Here, you may as well put them in your pocket,’ he said, handing them to me. But I had my hands full, so he put them back where he found them.

  Then he opened a drawer, pulled out a baby’s feeding-bottle and handed it to me.

  ‘Here’s what you need, lad.’ Just keep her fed with lots of warm milk and she’ll be fine.’ He took a last look at her and nodded. ‘Aye, you feed her up and she’ll soon have some meat on her bones.’

  I hurried home, trying to think of a suitable name. Piglet? No. Percy? Not that either. Maybe Fatty? No, that wouldn’t be kind.

  Back at the house everybody was still in the kitchen, the girls helping Mum with the dishes, Dad measuring a length of copper pipe, and Phil standing by the back door polishing his shoes. I brushed past him. Mum looked up from the sink. The plate she was holding plopped back into the washing-up bowl.

  ‘Michael Richard Pannett.’

  ‘Yes, Mum?’

  ‘What is that you are holding in your hands?’

  ‘Whatever it is it doesn’t half honk,’ Phil said, holding his nose.

  I looked down at the piglet, who had nuzzled her snout into the crook of my arm and fallen asleep. ‘This is … Honk,’ I said. ‘She’s a baby pig and she’s called Honk.’

  ‘Where on earth did you get her from – and what is that mess down those clean trousers I put out for you this morning?’

  ‘Mr Swales gave her to me. He had thirteen, you see, and that’s unlucky, and I said I wanted a pet and it had to have four legs and a tail, and he said – ’

  ‘You are not having a pig as a pet, do you hear me?’

  Before I could protest, Christine joined in. ‘You can’t be having a nasty stinky pig as a pet,’ she said, screwing up her face.

  ‘Great fat ugly things,’ said Gillian.

  ‘All that rolling around in the mud,’ Christine added.

  I wasn’t having that. I came back at them, all guns blazing. ‘You shut up,’ I said. ‘They’re only mucky if you let ’em get mucky. And they’re as intelligent as – as … ’

  Christine was laughing. ‘Yeah, as what?’

  ‘As you for a start. And anyway, they’re more use than a stupid old horse.’

  ‘Oh they are, are they?’

  ‘Aye, ’cos at least when it gets big and fat you can …’

  ‘You can what?’

  That’s where Dad stepped in. ‘You know, Michael has a point.’ Everyone was silent. They usually were when Dad spoke. ‘Give the boy his due,’ he said. ‘We did stipulate four legs and a tail.’

  Mum sighed and rolled her eyes. She was about to lose the argument, and she knew it. Dad looked at me and said, ‘If you’re willing to look after the pig – and I mean every day, rain or shine, not just when you feel like it – if you’re willing to take it seriously, you can have one, so long as you understand …’

  He paused. I knew what was coming – or thought I did, but I never expected Dad, of all people, to gloss over it. ‘So long as you understand that you don’t keep a pig forever.’ He gave me a meaningful look and left it at that.

  ‘Well, just because your father says you can keep it, doesn’t mean you can keep it in the house,’ Mum said. ‘Come on, outside with you – and I’ll have those trousers off you if you don’t mind.’

  I took Honk outside and Dad followed me.

  ‘This way,�
�� he said, and led me to one of the disused outhouses that adjoined his workshop. ‘She can live in here to start with. Then we’ll have to build her a proper pen. A sty, I should say. A proper little pig-sty.’

  We put down some clean straw, found an old enamelled baking tin and filled it with water, then laid Honk in her bed.

  ‘She’ll be hungry,’ I said. ‘Old Man Sw–, Mister Swales I mean, gave me a bottle, look.’ I took it out of my pocket.

  ‘Well, go and fill it up then,’ Dad said.

  Honk was already waking up and trying to get to her feet. I ran to the house, went to the refrigerator and filled the bottle, then dashed back. She wasn’t having it at first – even when I squeezed the milk out of the teat and into her mouth.

  ‘She doesn’t like it,’ I said. We were both crouched down beside the little crib we’d rigged up.

  ‘No, she won’t,’ Dad said. He reached out and felt the bottle, then got to his feet. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

  When he returned the bottle was warm. ‘Dunked it in a bowl of hot water,’ he said. ‘Cold milk’s not good for them. They want it at body temperature. That’s how it comes from their mother.’ He prodded the piglet’s snout with the rubber teat. She opened her mouth and started sucking. ‘I’ve put a bit of sugar in too. See, she’s loving it now.’

  She certainly was. From then on, the only problem we had in feeding her was in finding enough to satisfy her amazing appetite. She simply loved eating.

  Getting her to love her new home, however, was a different matter. I spent the rest of the day with her, arranging and re-arranging the bedding, building a miniature pen of old bricks around her, and pestering Dad for a sheet of plywood to make a lid. At midday I took my sandwich out to eat with her, but when it came to teatime and Mum’s announcement that it was a special treat, fishfingers, I tucked her into her bed of straw, gave her one last feed and made my way to the back door. As I arrived there and kicked off my wellies, there was Honk, right beside me, nosing her way inside.

  Mum was standing in the doorway trying to block her path. She might as well have been a York City defender trying to impede Johann Cruyff’s progress into the penalty area. Honk skipped past her and trotted across the kitchen with her little pink snout in the air, pausing every so often to sniff the air.

  Mum turned and looked at her, then sighed and said, ‘Well, I have to admit it. She’s very cute, isn’t she?’

  And from that day on, until she was almost fully grown, Honk was a house pig, a true domestic pet. The theory was that she lived in the outhouse; the reality was that she spent her days around the kitchen – when she wasn’t sunning herself on the back step, that is. Feeding her and mucking out was up to me, but all of us shared the responsibility for making sure that the door that led into the rest of the house was kept firmly closed. We were good at that – at first. We were, to use Dad’s word, vigilant. We had to be. We knew full well that if we let her escape there would be trouble. Big trouble.

  I think it was a school day. In fact, I’m sure it was. I remember rushing home, bursting through the back door, grabbing a couple of ginger nuts and making a mad dash for the living room. Not only was there the usual competition for a seat on the sofa, rather than the floor, but today was Mister Benn, one of my favourite programmes, and I was determined to watch it in comfort. I hadn’t been sitting there for more than a few minutes when I felt a cool moist snout nuzzling my bare leg. Honk had grown at an amazing rate over the previous few weeks. She was now on a solid diet and was about the same size as Petra, only much fatter.

  ‘Good girl,’ I said, and carried on gazing at the screen while Honk nosed around me.

  Once she realised that I’d nothing more than the biscuit-crumbs from my lap to offer her she snuggled down next to Petra, and the pair of them were soon snoring in perfect harmony.

  ‘Michael!’

  Turning around, I saw Mum at the door. She had a frying pan in one hand and a wooden spoon in the other, and she looked very, very cross. Beside me, I could feel Honk wriggling as she nestled between my leg and Petra’s haunch.

  ‘What did we agree about that animal?’

  Whoops, I thought.

  ‘Michael, I’m waiting for an answer.’

  ‘Er – we agreed that she wasn’t to …’ Honk was awake now, quivering slightly, as if she too felt the fear. ‘Did someone leave the door open?’

  ‘Yes, Michael, they most certainly did. And would I be right in thinking that somebody might have been Michael Richard Pannett?’

  There was no point denying it, not with Mum in that mood. On the other hand, there was no harm in trying.

  ‘It was Gillian,’ I said.

  Gillian didn’t hear my accusation. She’d taken advantage of the interruption to change channels and was already glued to her beloved Clangers.

  Mum strode towards me. I could feel the rickety old floorboards shake under her angry tread, but mostly I was focused on the frying-pan, which she held at shoulder height.

  ‘When I tell you that that animal is not allowed beyond the kitchen, I mean it. Do you hear me?’

  I could hear her okay, and so could Honk. If Mum had unnerved me, she’d panicked the poor little piglet. Honk relieved herself – half on the rug, the rest on Petra – and shot off into the hallway.

  ‘Now look what you’ve done,’ I said.

  ‘Never mind that. Get after it!’ Mum shouted. ‘If that little … thing gets into the bedrooms there’ll be no pocket money for you until – until …’

  I didn’t wait for her to select a random date. Whatever she decided on wasn’t going to be good news for me. I set off into the hallway and galloped up the stairs just as Honk’s plump bottom slid around the corner of the landing and out of sight. I had no trouble plotting her course, however: she’d laid a trail of evidence at intervals of about six feet – all the way to Mum and Dad’s bedroom door, which was wide open.

  It hardly needs saying that I was getting into more trouble by the minute. After I’d caught Honk and persuaded her back down the stairs I was given a shovel, a mop, a bucket and a bottle of disinfectant – but no instructions as to how much to use. Looking back, I can only imagine that I overdid it. I got rid of all the mess, but the sickly smell of piggy-poo was replaced by an overpowering stench of Dettol, which lingered for days and days and days. On top of all that there was, as I feared, no pocket money for four weeks.

  Honk now lived outside, permanently. And, being almost full-grown, she had a proper sty, which Dad built of breeze-blocks. It had a stout wooden gate and a little sort of house she could sleep in. Then the day came, as we knew, deep down, that it must, when she stopped gaining in weight. Not that we were weighing her, of course. It was Old Man Swales who pointed it out when he came by to drop off some spuds that Mum had ordered.

  ‘Now then, lad.’ He feigned to hand me the fifty-six-pound sack, and laughed as I tried to grab it and, naturally enough, staggered back under its weight. ‘How’s that little runty thing I gave you?’

  ‘She’s over here,’ I said, and led the way to the sty at the bottom of the yard. Dad came out of his workshop and joined us.

  Old Man Swales peered over the wall. Honk was on her feet attacking a couple of huge swedes we’d put in for her. ‘By heck,’ he said, ‘she’s grown.’ Then he turned to Dad. ‘Tell you the truth, Jeff, I never expected her to last.’ And with that he patted me on the head. ‘You’ve done a wonderful job, lad. I hope you Mum and Dad go halves wi’ you when they ship her off to market.’

  ‘Market?’ I didn’t like the sound of that, at all.

  Old Man Swales looked at Dad, and raised his eyebrows. Dad looked at me. ‘Well yes,’ he said, ‘I think we agreed that she wouldn’t be around forever. That was part of the agreement, remember?’

  I don’t know whether I was a tough kid, or an unfeeling one. I remember the day, not much later – it was a Saturday – when Dad borrowed a trailer from Mr Swales and took her to the abattoir. Over the next we
ek or two I saw the weeds start to sprout around the edge of her little run, and then one day Dad helped me shovel it clean and hose it down.

  Some time after that we sat down to Sunday dinner and there on the table were two roasting dishes. On one was a piece of beef, on the other a huge leg of pork all covered in crackling. I remember Phil sitting down and going, ‘Wow! Look at that’, and Mum explaining that she and the girls were eating the beef, and it was up to us three to decide whether we really wanted to eat meat from a pig who not so long ago had been a household pet.

  I looked at Dad, who shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘Well, we gave Honk a better life than she would’ve had if she’d been raised on the farm, so speaking for myself …’

  And that was that. He carved, and we three tucked in.

  Grandpa

  When Dad explained that we could afford to move out to Crayke because of his promotion, he could have added that the move was in part due to Grandpa.

  Whenever I think of Grandpa I think of the Blacksmiths Arms in Huntington. It was run by a fellow they called Smudge. Maybe he was a Smith, but I can’t be certain.

  Before we made the move out to Crayke I spent a lot of time there – sitting outside, of course, with a bottle of pop and a bag of crisps. In those days a child wasn’t welcomed in a pub. You might go to the door and peek inside, but all you’d get was a view of a row of men at the bar with their backs to you, maybe a few more at a table – one of whom would be sure to turn around and tell you to clear off. Sometimes a kid’s mother might send him down to get his Dad home for Sunday lunch – and the mere sight of his youngster at the door would generally have the embarrassed fellow downing his pint and getting out as fast as he could while his mates took the mickey. But, as a rule, in those days the pub was for adults only.

  Sometimes my mates and I would go down there to see whether we could find a discarded beer or pop bottle, which we’d take to the shop to reclaim the deposit. We’d rummage through the waste bins too and maybe add to our collection. The return wasn’t much – something like two or three pence per bottle, as I recall – but on a good day you’d gather up enough empties to treat yourself to a tube of Smarties or, if you’d done really well, an ice-cream cone with a chocolate flake in it.