by Kirsty Eyre
She walks over to me and cradles me to her bosom. ‘You poor, poor thing.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean what I said earlier.’
She clasps her arms around my neck. ‘You’re doing a great job, Billie Goat.’ Her skin is conker-smooth and dappled with freckles. A soft pinch of skin hangs at her elbows. I look into her face. A face which has never worn make-up or pretended to be anything that it isn’t. A face that has never lied or betrayed. A face that understands on every level. ‘Beatrice has had me for long enough,’ she says. ‘I’ll get my things this evening.’ An honest face that smells of cooking apples and talcum powder.
Grandma is back.
Re: Parsnip
Sadly, it’s totally normal cow behaviour. I dare say she’s probably depressed. Cows are deeply emotional animals and it’ll take her a while to accept her loss. Maybe take a bag of apples up to her. The important thing is to keep an eye on her weight and food intake, which you are. Try not to worry and she should gradually come around. How’s about I pop over tomorrow and take a look?
L
At 7 p.m., my phone jingles, with the girls coming to me live from Pride. ‘Keep Calm and Come Out’ is projected onto the walls of Whitehall Place, in rainbow font just like it was last year, the same silver raindrops and magenta umbrella icons cascading across the screen. Below, a crowd of thousands await The Weather Girls, who are headlining for a second year running. Watching it on screen feels like déjà vu; a re-enactment of last year’s event, only at arm’s length.
While I’m sure the atmosphere is electric there in the flesh, seeing it on video is like peering into a sweet shop when you’re penniless. It kind of hurts. The Two Tonnes O’Fun take the stage, one in a blood-orange tunic and another in a hot pink sundress. I frown. Surely budgets haven’t been slashed so much that they have to wear the same outfits as last year. This is Pride, after all.
The rainbow face-paint on Kat’s cheeks has rubbed off and she looks worse for wear, her eyes sunken with inebriation. Maria’s forehead lunges into the foreground. Her hair has been cut since this morning, back to the bob with a heavy fringe she’d had last year until the maintenance got too much. God knows how or why she got that done during Pride, but that’s Maria for you. She’s the only person I know who can nip to the shops for milk and come back in a whole new outfit including accessories. ‘Hi.’ She snaps her head to one side. ‘Help me out here, Bilbo!’
I suffer an out-of-body experience when my head pops up on screen. ‘Ah-huh.’ I’m wearing a cowboy hat with ‘Closets are for Clothes’ written on a ribbon running around it. It takes me a few seconds to realize this is the video Kat took at last year’s Pride. Although it’s only twelve months ago, I look significantly younger: my skin fresher; the lines around my eyes not so gully-deep.
My heads snaps up as a knock on the door brings me back to the here and now. Back to the primrose-yellow-painted kitchen, the rough oak table and the smell of furniture polish, Speedo barking frenziedly.
‘One sec!’ I press pause, grab him by the collar and open the door.
Standing before me is a lilac mermaid shimmering from head to tail in sequins. Long red locks cascade in ringlets to her waist, her chest is strapped into two Hawaiian coconut shells held together with string, her lips are silver and her eyelashes pink.
‘Surprise!’ She thrusts a bunch of pink carnations at me. ‘Sorry, they’re the only thing I could find at the petrol station.’
‘Maria!’ I shriek, tearing her off the doorstep and squeezing her so tightly that sequins flutter to the ground. It feels so good to see her in 3D and feel the warm hulk of a friend.
Speedo is more interested in barking at the hire car. Maria holds on to her red nylon wig and shuffles backwards. ‘Well, we thought if Muhammad won’t come to the mountain …’
‘We?’
‘Surprise!’ Kat and Bev jump out from behind the car and run towards me, smeared in face-paint and joie de vivre. Speedo seems to understand and adopts the barking whine he reserves for chasing rabbits.
I’m rooted to the spot. ‘What about Pride?’
Kat pulls the knot out of her T-shirt and flattens the creased cotton over her lipstick-daubed stomach. She passes me a chilly bottle of Pol Roger Brut Vintage champagne and a bag of Marks & Spencer’s sea salt and cider vinegar kettle chips. ‘We couldn’t have Pride without you, Bill!’ She studies me. ‘Look at you! You look so …’
‘Frazzled? Grubby? Unkempt?’ I laugh.
‘Tiny,’ she says. ‘There’s nothing of you.’
‘Good to see you, buddy.’ Bev gives me a bear hug. Her Mohican is festooned with glitter, which has made its way across the two peacocks on her chest. ‘I hope we’ve not come at a bad time?’
‘You’ve come at a bloody brilliant time!’ I squeak.
‘Sorry about the outfit.’ Maria jumps across the yard to get her handbag. ‘I did a costume swap with a girl in Piccadilly and can’t get the bloody thing off!’
Two hours later, after I’ve given them a guided tour of the yard, the milking shed, the various barns and our crooked little farmhouse, we’re strewn over the lounge floor drinking champagne and playing Boggle, the salt making its descent through the egg-timer.
‘How’s the hen party planning coming along?’ I say, topping up our drinks.
Kat and Bev share a steely glare.
‘It wasn’t my idea!’ Maria holds her hands up.
‘I don’t mind a bit of clitter, but I draw the line at pussy whistles,’ Kat says.
‘It’s Coleen from the meerkat enclosure at work,’ Bev explains. ‘It’s her first lesbian hen party and she gets a bit excitable.’
‘I don’t want her at my hen party,’ Kat snarls.
‘She’s harmless,’ Bev says. ‘You’re always going to get someone bringing tat on a hen do.’
‘Not on my hen do, you don’t. If anyone turns up wearing plastic boob earrings, they can fuck off home!’
Maria’s eyes widen at me in a ‘see what it’s been like?’ way. ‘I thought we agreed not to talk about the hen party this weekend?’
‘Deal!’ Kat throws down her pen and opens the kettle chips. ‘So, what happened with Joely, Bill?’
Just hearing Joely’s name is like having a pin pressed into my skin. I jot down ‘bit, bait, bat, tab’. ‘She lost interest the moment I became a dairy farmer.’
Bev rotates the Boggle grid. ‘Shame.’
‘Not really.’ Maria frowns. ‘Billie can do better.’
I put down my glass, my head heavy. ‘I can’t begin to tell you how difficult it’s been.’
‘Forget her, Bill. She’s not worth it,’ Kat rants. ‘You’re fabulous. She isn’t. You’re the real deal. She’s a fucking control freak. You’re …’
‘Not Joely,’ I say. ‘The farm.’
‘Right,’ Kat recalibrates.
‘The price of milk is at an all-time low.’ I know I sound like Grandma, but I can’t stop myself. ‘We make half the profit we did seven years ago.’ As I’m saying the words, I’m also thinking about Joely and whether all my friends think she’s a control freak. ‘And I feel guilty.’ I lurch between streams of consciousness. ‘I feel guilty for not trying enough on the PhD front.’
‘I think you’ve got enough on your plate,’ Bev says.
‘And then I feel guilty for feeling guilty, because obviously Dad is the priority right now,’ I continue. ‘And I miss Joely.’
‘Shit,’ Kat says. ‘We really need to get you out.’ She looks to Maria.
Maria wears this gawky grin. ‘Billabong Oliver, would you care to step this way?’
Joely’s not a control freak. Far from it. She’s just an independent lady, who knows what she wants and how she wants it.
I follow Maria into the hallway, out of the front door and across the yard to the dilapidated old barn, where my Dad’s Ford New Holland 8340 Turbo usually stands caked in dry mud, next to a defunct hoof-trimming machine, but is now decorated with st
reamers, feather boas, tinsel and feathers, masquerading as a carnival float. A giant inflatable rainbow-coloured cow buffets in the breeze, its hooves anchored by string to the tractor cabin.
‘Your Pride chariot awaits!’ Kat says, the three of them grinning from ear to ear and curtseying in a row.
‘So that’s why you were so interested in the tractor earlier!’ I say.
‘Can you start her up?’ Bev dangles the keys in front of me.
I grab at the cold, rusty handrail and clamber in, the smell of wet dog and cattle wormer infusing the cabin. Sponge prolapses from the upholstery, and grains of chicken feed have made their way into every groove, cavity and crack. Speedo bounds in with a heavy thud. He licks my face, thwacking his tail against a small metal butter churn. Maria and Kat stand on the ledge on one side, whilst Bev balances on the other. I turn on the headlights, illuminating the blurry cowshed, and can’t work out whether bats are swooping and diving in my peripheral vision or whether I’m just too drunk.
‘Where are we heading?’ I say.
‘Nowhere. Anywhere.’ Kat removes tinsel from the gearstick. ‘We just wanted you to get a taste of Pride.’
It takes three or four goes before the tractor comes to life, engine shuddering and bonnet rattling. My legs are barely long enough to reach the pedals, so I’m forced to perch on the edge of the springy seat to peer over the steering wheel as the tractor inches forward. We bounce over the yard, the girls wobbling and whooping. My arms judder as the pull of 20,000 pounds of metalwork ripples through my core. It’s like trying to hold back the tide: I’m standing on the pedals trying to counterbalance the weight of the tractor as the bonnet swings around more slowly than I’d bargained for and undershoots the lane. Elderberry branches crackle and snap as we lurch forward, holly clawing at the paintwork and the front wheels planting themselves and Maria in the hedgerow.
‘Way to go, Bill!’ Kat cries as Bev pulls Maria out of the undergrowth minus the wig and minus one of the Hawaiian mermaid coconut-shell cups.
I hear laughter and it takes me a few moments to realize it is mine.
A loud guttural moo makes me jump as Buttercup’s colossal head swings over the hedge. She looks at us like we’re aliens and calls her family over. Within seconds, four Holstein Friesians are staring at us. Fizz grunts loudly, nostrils flaring, her maternal instinct inciting her to shield Holly and Hazel from this enormous metal beast and all its roaring.
I manage to reverse the tractor out of the hedge and embark on a three-point turn, which results in Bev having to open the gate to the field of cows to give me more space and the tractor somehow free-wheeling into a ditch. Fizz stands and stares. Bev wipes mud out of a cracked coconut shell with her sleeve and hands it to Maria, who is groping under the hedgerow for her earring, cupping one bare breast in her hand.
Buttercup lets out another deep, guttural groan. Her head pivots around as a Land Rover approaches along the lane, sloshing and crunching through puddles and grit, Grandma at the wheel. My heart sinks. I’m reminded of the time I drove Grandma’s Mini Cooper to Graves Park aged seventeen, and naively drained the car battery listening to The White Stripes with Bev. Dad had to come out in his pyjamas with a pair of jump-leads to rescue us. It was pretty cringeworthy. Only this time, I feel more humiliated because it’s Grandma and she will not find the fact that I’ve driven the tractor amusing in the slightest.
Kat grabs the dog blanket from the seat and wraps Maria in it.
Grandma gets out of the Land Rover, looking like she’s been stung in the bits by a bee. ‘Keys?’
‘They’re in the ignition,’ I say.
‘Sorry, Mrs O,’ Bev says. ‘It was our fault.’
‘I’ll need the four of you to push.’ Grandma gets into the tractor and slides the gearstick into reverse.
Fizz, Holly and Hazel stare at the four of us as we enter their field and line up against the bonnet, Maria rearranging the blanket every few seconds. When Grandma signals, we push with all our might but can’t get the tractor over the lip of the ditch, it’s so damned heavy.
Grandma turns off the engine at which point Fizz wanders over, followed by Buttercup. They stare at the tractor a while.
Fizz looks at me and moos. It’s like she wants to help me.
‘Stand back a sec,’ I say to the girls. ‘Grandma, can you take the handbrake off?’
For a moment, I delude myself into thinking I’m some sort of cow-whisperer and that I can coax Fizz and Buttercup into pushing the tractor out by adopting a husky yet sympathetic tone akin to that of David Attenborough. My on-the-job understanding of bovine psychology can overcome practical obstacles, such as the weight of a nigh-on nine-tonne tractor, and as long as I talk to them softly and mimic their body language, mind will prevail over matter. They’ll simply comply, backing their haunches into the bonnet with synchronized precision and lever it out like some sort of cowdozer.
Instead, Fizz and Buttercup stand there staring me down as if I’m insane. Neither of them blinks. Neither of them moves a muscle. A Friesian jury silenced by curiosity. It reminds me of the time they first came face to face with a horse when the equestrian centre down the road had problems with their fencing. The whole herd stood statue-still, like cardboard cut-outs, heads angled to get a better view of this braying intruder. They may have a foreboding presence but, being prey animals, cows will retreat if attacked, despite it being their pasture, their home, their territory, and I know Fizz is contemplating bolting right now.
Grandma sticks her head out of the tractor. ‘For Pete’s sake, what are you faffing about at?’
An hour later, the five of us have filled the ditch with pieces of wood and levered out the tractor. As I’m reversing, I can see that Parsnip is lying next to Hyacinth and Petunia, part of the herd again, and I feel all warm inside.
Grandma retires to bed muttering something about girl power. Determined not to give up on their idea of a Pride float, the girls reattach the inflatable cow to a wheelbarrow, throw me into it and charge around the yard singing the lyrics to ‘It’s a Sin’, as the Pet Shop Boys blare out of Kat’s iPhone, including a moo intermission by Buttercup. We don’t even get to the end of the song before the three of them are out of puff and I feel like throwing up. Like a child’s first homemade birthday card to their parent, it’s both shit and awesome. This is our Pride, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.
Who needs romance when you’ve got friends? You can look online for love. You can trawl bars for sex. But friendship is a damned sight harder to recruit. How often in life do you find an enduring, rock-steady, die-on-the-sword faithful friend who makes you laugh your arse off and isn’t afraid to call you out for being a dick? I’m so lucky to have three of them. A team of friends. For life.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE WOLF
From: Maria
Lesbian hen party conundrum #189. You would not believe the shit that’s out there, Bilbo. One girl has ordered Spot the Pussy, lesbi-hen tiaras and something that looks like roadkill but may be a prosthetic lady garden. I can’t bring myself to ask what you’re supposed to do with it.
To: Lorna Parsons
Parsnip update: she’s socializing again. Boom!
From: Lorna Parsons
Great! I know she’s not due for another few weeks, but we’ll move her into the barn soon so we can keep a close eye – she’s only a heifer.
The girls went back on Sunday night: Bev and Kat for work, and Maria for an Olivia Twist audition in which she’s hoping to play Fagana. Despite the eerie silence, a sense of warmth remains the next day. Laughter has permeated the cracked walls. It has seeped into old beams and floorboards, cupboards and furniture, the whole house reinvigorated and topped up with love. Kat’s perfume lingers in the bathroom, Bev’s chocolate sits in the fridge, Maria’s carnations hang out in the hallway like old friends: the world is an infinitely better place.
After morning milking, I catch Grandma squinting at a fragment of coconut shell n
ext to the ditch where the tractor got stuck and I can’t stop laughing. Buoyed by the frivolity of the weekend, the four of us trying on jumpsuits in one cubicle in Sheffield’s Topshop, Maria reprising her Melania Trump role and teaching us the lyrics to ‘Fake Schmooze’, Bev and Kat squabbling over the details of their hen parties, I at least feel stronger when Dad’s scan results come back.
According to the surgeon’s report, they have succeeded in removing 90 per cent of the tumour and now need to blast the remaining 10 per cent using radiotherapy. He starts a six-week course next week as an outpatient and can come home today.
At half past two, we go to pick him up, only for a nurse we’ve not met before to tell us that his infection is too severe for him to be discharged. I panic until a few minutes later a different nurse confirms that he doesn’t have an infection and that his notes got mixed up with the lady in the next bed.
By four o’clock, Dad’s back in his armchair staring out at the empty fields. I haven’t let any of the cows into the upper field today. I don’t want them anywhere near that oak.
‘It’s good to be back.’ He stretches his legs out in front of him, a lopsided grin on his face, which hopefully doesn’t hurt, but looks like it might. His head is still bandaged and the area beneath his collarbone is dotted with circular plasters previously responsible for attaching tubes, cannulas and God knows what. He props himself up with a ‘Home Sweet Home’ pink patchwork cushion that Grandma won at a Farming Association raffle and declared ‘nauseatingly twee’ but hasn’t yet taken to the charity shop.
‘Tea?’ I say.
‘That’d be wonderful.’ He tries to get comfortable. ‘The tea was like piss in hospital.’
I potter into the kitchen, smiling. It feels so good to make his rancid brew again: ‘Strong, builder’s, like treacle so you can stand your spoon up in it.’ I bury my hand in the Charles and Diana biscuit barrel, which is full again, and drag out four chocolate digestives. Two each. It’s good to have him home. I grab a couple of back copies of the Dairy Farmer and stick them on the tray next to his tea.