Cow Girl

by Kirsty Eyre

  ‘You OK?’ I say, stifling a laugh.

  She nods, grimacing as she lowers her muddy foot into her wellington.

  Once we’re both in the costume, I obviously have to bend over and hold her waist. It’s only uncomfortable because I know that she’s uncomfortable with it, and I don’t want to weird her out, so instead of properly grabbing onto her waist, I grasp her polo shirt on either side. Grandma fastens us together with Velcro and leads us to the start line. We haven’t yet started, and I feel like I’m going to pass out. It’s not so much the damp smell or the non-breathable velour. It’s not even the bending forward while digesting roast duck; it’s the fact that no matter how many of these awareness campaigns we manage, nothing ever changes. People still drink milk. Supermarkets still undercut each other. Dairy profits continue to plummet. A pantomime cow race witnessed by those who have planned it and a couple of hangers-on won’t make a scrap of difference.

  ‘All right back there?’ Lorna says brightly.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, trying not to faint.

  The starter pistol fires and Lorna lurches forward, my fingers losing their grip and sliding down her hips, which causes her to stop abruptly, my head slamming into her buttocks. She stumbles forward, her hands trying to locate my hands through the costume, which after grabbing my right shoulder and my left breast, she finally finds and places firmly on her waist.

  ‘Hold on tight this time!’ she commands.

  Pain shoots down my back as we jolt this way and that, the cow suit feeling snugger and snugger. I’ve never considered myself claustrophobic, but I’ve not felt this boxed-in panic since getting stuck, aged eight, in the Alton Towers adventure tunnel, where I had to be escorted out by first-aiders.

  ‘First jump coming up!’ she alerts me before bounding into the air.

  I follow, the sound of Guy’s booming voice awarding points for cadence, traversing, tempo and schwung, whatever the fuck that is.

  ‘And another!’ she shouts.

  I tighten my grasp around her small waist. She doesn’t have an inch of fat on her.

  ‘Coming up to the seesaw!’ she says. ‘Ready?’

  I can’t speak. I’m too busy clinging on for dear life.

  ‘Toe, heel. Toe, heel!’ She shuffles along.

  The ramp tilts beneath me and it’s all I can do not to catapult forward and crush her.

  ‘And back down again. Heel, toe. Heel, toe!’

  Sweat trickles down my face and pools in the bottom of my spine.

  ‘Coming up to the slalom,’ she announces. ‘Six high poles. Ready to zigzag?’

  I try to catch my breath but there’s not enough oxygen in this suit.

  ‘And zig, and zag.’

  ‘Lorna?’ I say, trying to get her to stop for a second.

  ‘And zig and zag.’

  ‘Lorna?’ I’ve no idea whether I’m zigging or zagging. I just need air.

  ‘And zig and zag.’

  ‘Lorn—’

  ‘Approaching the beam.’ She drags me upwards. ‘OK and sashay, sashay, sashay, stop! Sashay, stop! Sashay, stop!’

  I swear this is worse than step aerobics.

  ‘Sashay, sashay, sashay, stop! Sashay, stop! Sashay, stop!’

  ‘Lorn—’

  ‘Hold it!’

  ‘I need to—’

  ‘Go!’

  ‘I need to stop!’

  ‘Go, go, go! As fast as we can!’

  Thwack! My shin hits something hard and I fall backwards. A moment later, Lorna is lying on top of me, her buttocks in my face, and I’m pinned to the ground, cold mud seeping through the velour into my hair, skin and ear. One of the underwires has escaped from my bra and is spearing me in the sternum. I can barely breathe so have no choice but to push her arse out of my face, which entails grabbing her buttocks, one in each hand, and thrusting them away as you might a medicine ball mid-squat. She squirms, trying to leverage herself off me but, in doing so, the costume gets twisted at the waist, which only serves to slingshot her back on top of me.

  This time, we’re stomach to stomach, though I can’t see her face and she can’t see mine. It’s like being stuck inside a duvet cover, both of us scrambling in different directions for the opening. This time I really do feel short on oxygen and have no choice but to roll her off me, but not knowing which way is up, I only go and roll on top of her. Now, I’m lying on her chest, our breasts squashed together until she wriggles sideways, sending something crashing onto my knee. Pain screams throughout my leg. Instinctively, I go to curl up in a ball but can’t. It’s like trying to make a cup of tea in a straitjacket.

  ‘Are you OK, love?’ Grandma’s voice accompanies the squelching of footsteps.

  A moment later, I hear the sound of Velcro ripping above my head. Bright light. The smack of fresh air against my face. Rain on my cheeks. I can breathe again.

  Lorna rips off her cow head and throws it to Guy, then looks down at me, hands on hips. ‘What were you doing back there?’ she laughs.

  ‘I’ve no idea!’ My hair is matted with mud and the taste of soil lingers in my mouth, my teeth and tongue gritty, but it somehow feels quite cathartic; momentary respite from the burden of responsibility. Lying in the mud, I pluck the sopping cow-print velour away from my thighs. ‘Do you think we raised any awareness?’

  Lorna looks over at Guy, who is frantically crossing his arms in the air above his head. ‘I think we’ve been disqualified.’

  He flips our score to zero on the chalkboard.

  ‘Boo!’ Lorna shouts at Guy, giving him the double thumbs down.

  ‘Rules are rules!’ he shouts.

  She helps me up and for a moment, it feels like we’re on the same team. Like she’s not judging me for being inadequate or incompetent. Like the bull sperm incident never happened. Like we just shared a small, surreal moment in a muddy field in Derbyshire. A barrier removed.

  ‘Joely’s been trying to get hold of you!’ Grandma says, handing me my phone as Guy trudges over with a packet of homemade fudge.

  ‘Better luck next time!’ he says.

  I scroll through the list of missed calls and text messages, all from Joely.

  ‘There won’t be a next time.’ Lorna peels off the rest of the cow costume, holding onto Guy as she manoeuvres herself out of her wellies. She thrusts the sopping, muddy suit into my hands, gives me a snooty look and disappears with Guy. Just like that, it’s as if our ‘moment’ had never happened. What is it with her?

  ‘I’m heading off, too.’ Grandma hugs me goodbye. ‘My knees are playing up and we’ve been out in the drizzle for long enough.’ The truth is, it’s got nothing to do with her knees or the rain and everything to do with her gooseberry jelly not selling. ‘You’d better call her back.’

  ‘Lorna?’ I say, watching the Parsons-Bonneville duo retreat to a hot-dog van.

  ‘No, you daft apeth. Joely. She’s been very persistent.’

  I wipe raindrops off my phone screen and mentally prepare myself to be all zen about Christophe. As Kat would say, he is a risk I can’t mitigate, and jealousy is wasted emotional energy.

  ‘Ma petite Anglaise!’ A pair of chocolate-brown sparkly eyes come into focus as FaceTime loads.

  ‘How are you?’ I feel giddy looking at her. Like I’ve just been hooked up to some battery charger, my body alive with electricity.

  A small crease forms above her nose. ‘What happened to your face and your hair? It’s …’

  ‘Like I’ve been rolling around a muddy field in a cow costume?’

  ‘Sorry?’ she says. ‘I think the line must be bad.’

  She holds her phone further away, presumably to gauge how strong her signal is, and in doing so reveals a neon-lit pedestrianized shopping street, bursting with life. Steaming pans of dumplings. A pyramid of what look to be doughnut balls piled high under low-slung bunting. The fluttering of flags from all around the world. Trays of exotic vegetables, fresh fruit, a flower stall. Roll upon roll of vibrant silk every colour o
f the rainbow – from gold-embroidered fuchsia to plain pastel blue.

  ‘Wow, it looks amazing there!’ I drink it all in.

  ‘We went here this morning.’ She holds up a postcard featuring ornate pavilions and sun-soaked lotus ponds. Life and Seoul. It’s a far cry from the muddy paddock I have just been lying in.

  ‘You and Christophe?’ I say too quickly.

  ‘No. He’s sightseeing with his girlfriend,’ she says, matter-of-factly.

  Christophe has a girlfriend! This is music to my ears. Chocolate to my taste buds. Silk to my touch. This shouldn’t make a difference, but it somehow does.

  Her face lights up. ‘How did your cow race go?’

  ‘Good!’ I chuckle. ‘Messy but good.’

  ‘Great. I’m sending you a big kiss.’ She smacks her lips against the glossy Life and Seoul postcard. ‘Well, once I’ve worked out the word for “stamp”!’

  We may be on the other side of the world from each other, but we’re in synch again. I’m just taking time out and I’ll be back soon, better and stronger. This is just a temporary diversion. It’s not so much that I believe that true love conquers all. It’s more about finding your equal and knowing that, with the right person, you’ll get through things together. Joely and I complement each other. I feel indestructible knowing that we’re a team. Her yin to my yang; a counterbalancing partnership. A partnership I’m proud to be part of. Two strong females allowing each other their independence. The way things should be. She’s perfect. Intelligent, thoughtful, beautiful. Driven, determined, divine.

  ‘I love you,’ I blurt.

  Her face freezes and, for a moment, I think I’ve lost my internet connection, until I notice her top teeth raking her bottom lip.

  My emotions feel like the milk in our outhouse tank once the agitation button’s been pressed – a swirling, gurgling, tempestuous torrent gushing out. I just need the world to stand still for a moment. For my nerves to shut the fuck up and calm the hell down. I want to hold my breath underwater until the only thing I can hear is my heart.

  ‘I love you,’ I say again. This time it’s clear, considered and unquestionable.

  And in letting go, I feel free. Light. Indestructible. Like I have birthed a newer, better me. The new me. And I’m ready for anything.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  BULLSHIT

  From: Maria

  Lesbian hen party conundrum #129. Is a ‘Yay! Same vagina forever!’ T-shirt too much?

  From: Dad

  You might want to try Florence with aloe vera as well as the antibiotics. Very good for mastitis.

  Rachel is waiting in the yard when I get back from the Country Show. Her legs are splattered in mud and her face is red and blotchy. I look around for Nathan’s Mondeo but it’s not in its usual spot.

  ‘Are you with your dad?’ I say, knowing that she lives seven miles away.

  She shakes her head. ‘I’m sorry I let you down at the show. Dad wouldn’t give me a lift.’

  ‘How did you get here?’ I open the porch door.

  She nods at a muddy mountain bike leaning against the wall and follows me into the kitchen. I throw the car keys into the fruit bowl and put on the kettle.

  She sits down at the big pine table, looking lost and unsure. ‘It’s about my dad.’

  ‘Does he know you’re here?’

  She shakes her head. ‘You won’t tell him, will you?’

  ‘Not if you don’t want me to.’ I offer her a custard cream from the Charles and Diana biscuit tin, which she dismisses with a shake of her head.

  ‘I just …’ She dips her chin and bites on her tracksuit zip. ‘I really want to carry on working on the farm, but my dad says I can’t.’ She lifts her head and looks me in the eye. ‘In case you crack on to me.’

  Time slows. Blurred digits on the kitchen clock pulse. My heart beats louder and louder even though it feels as though I’ve stopped breathing. I dig my fingernails into the palms of my hands in the hope of diverting the pain, but how does anything else stand a chance of hurting when you’ve just been punched in the guts like that? White-hot anger builds in my glands.

  ‘I’m a lesbian, not a paedophile,’ I say quietly.

  ‘I know!’ she says. ‘And I like working here. It’s the only thing I really love at the moment, and he won’t let me do it. He thinks you’ll put ideas in my head.’

  I bite angrily into my custard cream, the biscuit splintering in my mouth. I feel poisoned.

  Desperation pools in her eyes. ‘You won’t tell my dad I told you, will you?’

  I chew at a raggedy piece of skin next to my thumbnail. ‘No.’

  ‘Only he’s right screwed up. Ever since my mum left him for—’

  The porch judders, Rachel’s eyes darting to the hallway in trepidation. Floorboards creak, the door bangs back on itself and, a moment later, Nathan is standing in our kitchen, hands on hips like some sort of wronged Hobbit, here to reclaim his lost ring.

  ‘I thought I’d find you here.’ His eyes bore into Rachel before turning to me. ‘Listen, I can just about put up with it, but I don’t want you going anywhere near my daughter.’

  ‘Sorry?’ I reach for the back of my chair, feeling the urgent need to hold onto something solid and reassuring.

  ‘You may not have done anything yet, but it’s what you’re thinking of doing.’ He tugs on the leather toolbelt strapped around his waist.

  ‘Nathan, I’m a gay woman, not a fucking paedophile.’

  ‘Call it what you want. I find it offensive.’

  My face burns with shame and fury. Buried moments come flooding back. Painful memories I’ve locked away. I think about the names I got called at school, after I’d come out and everyone had moved on from the now unlikely sounding jizz story. ‘Carpet muncher.’ ‘Rug rat.’ ‘Muff diver.’ The casual homophobia at sixth-form college. ‘Getting on the bus the wrong way.’ ‘Licking the wrong side of the stamp.’ Having to wait until the other girls finished their showers and got changed before I could take mine, to avoid the humiliation of everyone fleeing upon my arrival lest I see them naked and want to shag them all. I think about Graham and his ‘what a waste’ comment. I think about Andy Pickering and his interpretation of lesbianism, thinking he’s got the all-clear to tell me tit jokes. I think about the documentary that Joely and I watched about violent, knife-slashing, head-smashing homophobia in Russia, until I’m practically vibrating with rage, my teeth aching from being clamped together so tightly.

  I want to explode into tiny pieces. And then I remember something Bev once said at sixth-form college and, suddenly, I’m sixteen all over again.

  I remember the smell of sweat and cheap deodorant lingering in the corridor outside the sports changing rooms. I’d just finished playing football and was feeling quite good about the final winning goal I’d scored. Further down the corridor, Rebecca Needham, Claire Reading and Fiona Cobb were huddled next to the window. Whispers. Sideways glances. Fake laughter. I didn’t need to hear them to know that they were bitching about me.

  When I reached my locker, there was something not quite right. The key wouldn’t turn in the lock. Upon closer inspection, the lock was bunged up with bubble gum and the locker itself was actually open and had just been wedged shut with one of my notebooks. I removed the book, the door swinging open, and there it was in thick, black marker:

  DIRTY LEZZA. On the inside of the door.

  DIRTY LEZZA. On my bag.

  DIRTY LEZZA. On my textbooks.

  DIRTY LEZZA. On my coat.

  DIRTY LEZZA. On my ring binders.

  DIRTY LEZZA. On my pencil case.

  DIRTY LEZZA. DIRTY LEZZA. DIRTY LEZZA. They may just as well have written it on me. Taken the pen and vandalized me.

  ‘It wasn’t us!’ Claire shouted from the safe sanctuary of their mini clique.

  I closed the locker, my belongings sullied with shame. It creaked open again. And no matter how many times I tried to wedge it shut, it was intent on gaping wide
enough for everyone to see that Belinda Oliver was a DIRTY LEZZA.

  I wanted to die. It felt like I’d swallowed a razor blade and my throat was being slashed to ribbons.

  I turned to the girls. It’s not like I didn’t know them – I sat next to them in biology twice a week. ‘Do you know who did this?’

  Their eyes darted between each other, Claire taking a step forward and, for a moment, I thought she was going to ask me if I was OK. Sling an arm around me in an act of sisterly solidarity. Offer to get me a sweet tea. Tell me I’m not a ‘dirty lezza’ and that nobody deserves to be treated like this. And that I, who have been nothing but friendly to everyone, will rise above all of this like a phoenix from the ashes, and that justice will be served.

  ‘I’d prefer not to take sides,’ she said.

  It felt like the razor blade was making its descent down my windpipe, slicing through the lining of my trachea and splicing through my lungs. Breathing normally was like trying to blow up a burst balloon.

  ‘Fiona?’ I said, hopefully – I’d let her copy my phototropism notes the previous week so she kind of owed me.

  ‘I’m sorry, Billie. I don’t know,’ she said.

  ‘Me neither.’ Rebecca shrugged.

  And it was at that moment in time that I lost faith in mankind. To not have an opinion on something so disgusting. To not take sides between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. To have no backbone. No moral compass. No sense of sisterhood. Happy to sit back and be the reader of a script that desperately needs writing. To not reach out and help a fellow human being in case you lose a few street credibility points. Everything in my head went black until Bev appeared down the corridor.

  ‘Hey, buddy!’ she shouted. ‘Coffee on the way home?’

  I couldn’t speak. It was all I could do not to cry. I had that pins-and-needles feeling in my nose and the tears were already on their way.

  ‘Here, do you reckon I could pull off a Mohican?’ Bev brushed the sides of her hair into a shark’s fin with the palms of her hands, her expression transforming into a look of concern. ‘Billie?’ She walked up to me, the other girls scuttling off. ‘Holy fuck!’ she said, assessing the damage, DIRTY LEZZA screaming at us. She wrapped her big bear arms around me. ‘OK, Billie, we’ve got this.’ It was the way she said ‘we’, adopting the problem as hers as well as mine. Making me feel like I had a team behind me. Removing the feeling of being ostracized. ‘Firstly, I’ve been here. I know what it’s like and you are not alone.’