by Kirsty Eyre
‘Thirtieth of October,’ I say.
‘This year or next? Only I’ve forecasted a timeline for you and, given the various milestones on the critical path, the lead time needed to get people involved, and the hours available to you with a farm to run, your “go live” date is August next year.’
‘That’s not an option.’
‘I thought you might say that,’ she says. ‘In which case, we have to implement Plan B.’
‘Which is?’
‘We go Agile,’ she says decisively. ‘Small manageable chunks. Lots of parallel working. Forget the traditional waterfall methodology and just farm it out to small teams.’
‘Oh yes, because I’ve got hundreds of small teams available to me,’ I harrumph.
‘You may not have hundreds, but you’ve got one, which just so happens to be a dream team.’
‘I have?’
‘OK, so you make Bev the lead on anything to do with the animals. Insurance, transportation. She’s got contacts through ZSL who’ll probably do you a discount. If she can transport Mongolian camels down the motorway, what’s a few cows across town?’
‘Good point,’ I say, wishing I’d thought of this earlier.
‘I’ll take over planning,’ she says. ‘No offence, Bill, but your spreadsheets suck. I’ll project manage the lot for you. I’ll be the task-master and make sure everything runs to plan, which leaves Maria, arguably the most prolific person on social media in the world, doing your PR. You know what she’s like for all that shit. We may be a bunch of “gossip girls”, Bill, but between us, we might just have the magic ingredients.’
We end the conversation, agreeing to have a daily conference call on Kat’s bridge. It’s my job to carry on running the farm, attend committee meetings and get the farming community signed up. I allow myself a cheese toastie, a cuddle with Parsnip and a sob of happiness. Thank God I called Kat and not Joely.
From: Lorna Parsons
Paul (Pickering, not the lad from the chippy) said you’re organizing a Save Our Dairy march. Guy and I would love to help x
I don’t know whether I’m more blown away by the offer of help, the kiss at the end of the text or the suggestion that there’s a local chippy. I figure I should strike while the iron’s hot.
From: Lorna Parsons
Also, let me know if you want me to hook you up with Guy’s lovely friend, who has his own textiles company.
I should have known there’d be some sort of agenda.
To: Lorna Parsons
Urm. Sorry but I’m not that into guys or textiles!
From: Lorna Parsons
I don’t mean like that! I mean for printing banners. He’d do them for free. His dad was a lamb farmer, so he understands how difficult things are.
To: Lorna Parsons
Ah. Sorry. Yes, please
Je suis une veritable knobhead.
*
Our conference calls become the highlight of my day. Just hearing the girls chattering away makes me feel closer to them. The idea was to run the meetings in the evening, but this only resulted in a virtual drinking session, talking shit and gossiping about the hen party. There’s talk of Neve coming on the hen-do and would I mind? And I say, ‘Of course not’, even though it’s a bit like swallowing a knife. Ex-girlfriends don’t mix with the present tense as far as I’m concerned, and I’m not the type who can do the whole dinner-party thing with the ex. Not that I’m a dinner-party type anyway. Neve’s not in my life any more, and although I never thought I’d say this when she ran off with Nic a couple of years ago, I’d prefer to keep it that way. The whole thing’s cringe. It wouldn’t be so bad if I hadn’t spent a year in denial, phoning her, texting her, throwing a pain au chocolat at her head in a Starbucks on the Holloway Road.
‘Does that mean Nic’s coming too?’ I say, plucking at my eyebrow with my thumb and forefinger. I can handle my friends still being friends with Neve – that in itself is OK – but I can’t bear the thought of having to hang out with her and Nic as a couple, everyone observing me observing them. It’ll overshadow the whole event.
‘You don’t mind, do you, Bill?’ Kat says.
‘No.’
God knows why I care this much. I haven’t even thought about Neve in months.
In the end, we reschedule our daily ‘scrums’ for 7.30 a.m. This suits Bev and Kat as we’re done in time for them to get to work and suits me as I’ve finished early milking by then. It does not, however, suit Maria, who is a nocturnal animal at the best of times but is finding it almost impossible to get out of bed before 10 a.m. since her swimwear model boyfriend has moved in and works only one day in twenty.
‘It’s approved!’ Kat yells out of a window on my laptop screen.
‘Can you not shout?’ Maria pulls out her hearing aid in another window.
‘Sheffield City council have signed the paperwork.’ She holds up an envelope. ‘Can you believe they’re still paper-based?’
‘The T-shirts have arrived!’ Maria stands up, #SaveOurDairy emblazoned across her chest. ‘They’re not too bad. Bit too polyester, but with a bit of customization, they’ll be fine.’
Another window pops up and Guy Bonneville’s sweaty face comes into view. He wipes it with a flannel, which somehow makes it look even sweatier.
Kat cocks her head like a disgruntled peahen. ‘Whoever’s just joined the call, I’m afraid this is a private conference.’
‘Hi!’ Lorna’s head appears next to Guy’s. ‘Sorry we’re a couple of minutes late. Guy’s just delivered a foal!’
‘Bill?’ Kat frowns.
‘You remember Lorna and Guy? They’re heading up operations,’ I say.
‘What does that mean exactly?’ Kat squints.
‘Deploying the troops on the day and mobilizing people, cows and kit,’ Guy says with confidence. ‘Though I’m not sure how much good the march will actually do.’
Lorna looks at him. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘It’s the bureaucrats and politicians you’ve got to convince. Not the general public of Sheffield,’ he says.
‘Hi, I’m Bev.’ Bev waves. ‘Isn’t it about educating the general public and persuading them to pay an extra ten pence for the Milk for Farmers brand?’
‘Educating them, Ben?’
‘It’s Bev,’ Lorna says firmly.
‘You can take a horse to the water, Ben. You can take a horse to the water,’ Guy continues, oblivious. ‘You know the average IQ of a Sheffield dweller is lower than the average IQ of a horse?’
‘Just ignore him,’ Lorna says.
‘Never underestimate the brain under the mane,’ he goes on. ‘It’s all there on my equine intelligence blog, Lorn.’ He nudges her with his elbow. ‘The one you’ve still not got around to reading!’
‘Surely IQ is irrelevant?’ Kat says. ‘Everyone drinks milk whether they’re thick as a brick or not.’
‘Thuck as a bruck! Isn’t that wonderful?’ Guy says. ‘God love the Aussies!’
‘She’s a Kiwi,’ Lorna snaps.
‘Moving swiftly on.’ Kat raises an eyebrow.
‘Swuftly!’ Guy mimics. ‘Wonderful!’
Lorna swivels her back towards him. ‘I do apologize.’
The Romeo and Juliet of farming sit in silence while the four of us brainstorm slogans. ‘Moo-ve over for dairy’; ‘They’re Friesian our salaries’; ‘We are not a-moo-sed!’; ‘Seen but not herd!’; ‘Udderly ridiculous!’; ‘Milked dry!’; ‘Déjà Moo’? We go full circle and back to the existing slogan, #SaveOurDairy.
‘What the fuck?’ Maria shrieks as soon as Lorna and Guy drop off the call. ‘I thought you hated them, Bilbo?’
‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ I say, hearing the rumble and beep of the Wincanton milk tanker backing into the yard.
Kat looks at her watch. ‘OK. South Yorkshire Police notice forms are done. Cattle transportation and animal insurance policies are done. The Press release, I’m working on. You’ll have that close of play today.’<
br />
‘Close of play, Kathryn Mellor?’ Bev teases her.
Just as I’m scribbling down my ‘follow-on action items’, Charlie sticks his head through the kitchen window.
‘You look like you’re in the middle of something important,’ he says.
‘Planning meeting for the farmers’ march,’ I say. ‘Ladies, this is Charlie from the co-operative.’ I turn my laptop round until his face looms into view.
‘Hi, Charlie from the co-operative,’ Kat says. ‘Do you drive?’
‘I most certainly do.’ He grins. ‘If Billie here turns her screen around, you should be able to see my tanker in the yard.’
‘Excellent,’ Kat says. ‘How do you fancy transporting twelve cattle in a … what’s it called again, Bev?’
‘Cattle Cruiser,’ Bev says, running the palms of her hand over the bristles of her Mohican. ‘It’s coming to you for eight a.m. the day of the march so you’ve got plenty of time to load it with straw, get some hay nets up and make it comfy.’
‘Happy to help,’ Charlie says, leaning on the windowsill.
A Mediterranean-looking man walks behind Maria in nothing but a towel. He opens the kitchen cupboard and helps himself to my Shreddies and I feel nostalgic for London. I want my bedroom back; I want Maria’s singing, Dolly Parton on the record player and dreams of a PhD.
Kat glances at the agenda. ‘Great. I’ve got to shoot to work now. Same again tomorrow, ladies. Nice to meet you, Charlie.’
‘You too.’ Charlie waves from the window.
Bev and Kat’s windows disappear, and I’m left staring at my flat as Maria has tottered into the kitchen. Where’d You Go, Bernadette, a paperback I bought myself last Christmas, lies open on the coffee table next to a plate of toast, half-read by somebody else. Steam rises from my KSG ‘Healthier, Happier’ campaign mug. The fairy lights that Maria and I bought from the Khao San road on our backpacking trip around Thailand surround the window. The rectangular bottle of Disaronno sits on the shelf behind the sofa, a lot emptier than it was when I last held it. A window to my former life. I leave the chat.
‘Seem like a very nice group of young ladies.’ Charlie appears beside me in the kitchen.
‘They’re the best,’ I say.
‘I was wondering …’ He strokes the soft fluff on his chin. ‘If you fancied going out for some breakfast?’
I’m desperate for breakfast but I want to be able to wear my fleece-lined jogging bottoms and watch shit TV in the lounge with a plate of scrambled egg on toast, Speedo at my side. I don’t want company, but I owe him the courtesy. ‘I’ve got plenty in if you fancy staying for something?’
Ten minutes later and the whole house smells of burned pork and sage. The smoke alarm wails as I pluck charred sausages from under the grill, Charlie heroically stretching up to press the ‘stop’ button to quiet the siren.
A dopey smile spreads across his face. ‘Not much of a domestic goddess, are we?’
‘Nope,’ I concur. ‘Though in fairness, it’s never been an ambition of mine.’
He raises an eyebrow. ‘How’s about I give you a hand while you go and freshen up?’
Cheeky fucker – I’ve already ‘freshened up’ and, if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be ‘freshening up’ for him. And what exactly does he expect? Am I to reappear all fluffed and buffed, waxed and exfoliated in some sort of pristine white doily?
‘I’m fresh enough, thank you,’ I say, grabbing a bowl and cracking eggs into it with aggression.
‘Right you are,’ he says.
We sit side by side at the kitchen table and make our way through scrambled eggs, neither of us speaking for a while.
‘Makes a change to be having breakfast with an attractive young lady,’ he eventually says.
I grab the peppermill and grind cracked peppercorns over the remainder of my egg with more force than is necessary. ‘Charlie, I don’t want you to get the wrong impression about me,’ I say, running amok with ketchup.
‘In what way?’
‘No offence, but I’m probably not your type.’
‘You most definitely are!’ He puts a hand on my thigh.
‘Let me rephrase that.’ I remove his hand and place it back on his own leg. ‘No offence, but you’re not my type.’
‘You haven’t given me a chance yet,’ he says, picking eggshell out of his teeth. ‘I’m a decent guy. I know how to cook. I know how to—’
‘I’m attracted to women rather than men.’
He holds a forkful of breakfast mid-air and looks at me. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure, thanks.’
He straightens himself out and looks at me as though I’ve just transformed into a chicken.
‘So, if you’re going to help out, it needs to be for the right reasons,’ I say.
‘I should probably make a move.’ He pushes his plate away, gets up and heads for the door. ‘Thanks for breakfast.’
The porch door clunks behind him and I’m left feeling amused, annoyed, but most of all relieved that I can slip into my fleece-lined jogging bottoms and grab the remote control. Fuck him. Speedo jumps onto the sofa beside me and, for the first time since I’ve been up here, I actually feel content. Surely, this is the start of a slippery slope to spinsterhood and can only result in me living here solo, hair unbrushed, surrounded by animals.
Onboarding cows is not easy. It’s not like you can just pop them in the back of your car at the last minute; it requires a shedload of planning and isn’t cheap. Don’t get me wrong, Bev has sorted out a brilliant deal with a Cattle Cruiser company who’ll go out to any farm across England, Scotland or Wales, but farmers are understandably reluctant.
I’ve got two hundred cows committed so far and, although this was my target, Kat is insistent that I hit a ‘stretch target’ of two hundred and fifty. This has pretty much involved a road-trip between milking each day, to visit dairy farms and recruit support. According to the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers, the final dairy farm on my list, Birchover Hall Farm, is owned by a Mr Craggs. It takes me a good while to find the farm as the entrance is hidden behind a pub. When I do eventually spot it, a rodent-like man totters out, looking as though he’s spent the last decade living in a field, the outdoor elements whipping and pinching at his skin.
‘Hi,’ I say. ‘I’m after Mr Craggs.’
He holds a bony finger up to me. ‘I’ve got it ready somewhere. One tick.’
Legs bowed, he hobbles slowly across the yard to an outhouse and backs out, pulling something heavy.
‘Here you go!’ he says.
A dead sheep lies in his wheelbarrow, flies invading its eyes, its woollen coat matted and soiled.
‘I think you might have mixed me up with someone,’ I say, trying not to vomit. ‘I’m here about the dairy farmers’ march.’
He scrunches up his face. ‘I were expecting a lad. Billy, they called him.’
‘I’m Billie,’ I say. ‘A female Billie.’
He looks at me like I’m an undiscovered species. A spirited Border collie comes flying round the corner, growling at me, teeth bared. I’m willing to compromise a lot of things for this campaign, but losing a leg is not one of them.
‘Sorry,’ Mr Craggs says. ‘He’s doesn’t see many women. He’s a man’s man, aren’t you, Jack?’
Jack’s bark becomes a whine. He pants excitedly then clambers up my leg, his red-raw lipstick popping out like a finger puppet. I try to shake him off, but his front paws are now welded around my kneecap as he vigorously humps me.
The farmer chuckles. ‘Told you he were a man’s man!’
‘I should probably get going.’ I try to peel myself away.
Mr Craggs clears his throat. ‘I can bring fifty if that helps.’
‘Fifty cows?’
‘I’ll not have the manpower to handle more than fifty.’
‘Fifty’s great.’
I may have effectively prostituted my leg, but I have hit my stretch target.
From:
Kat
Hey Bill, we’ve cancelled the hen party as Bev was getting totally unreasonable about everything and the whole thing became one big ball of stress x
From: Bev
Kat’s cancelled the hen party. Quite relieved TBH. She was getting way too Bridezilla about it x
From: Maria
Lesbian hen party conundrum #999 HALLELUJAH! THE HEN PARTY IS CANCELLED. What am I going to do with my life now?
@SCIENCEMATTERS
Biochemist, Brian Dywer, wins The Edinburgh Excellence in Science Award for his contribution towards eclampsia research in spite of losing both arms earlier this year.
Enough. I delete the Twitter app.
Although I’ve written to the Wolf to confirm that we’re all set for the #SaveOurDairy march, he doesn’t reply, so I have no choice but to track him down at the next committee meeting. The prospect is about as appealing as injecting heroin into my eyeballs but, as my namesake, Billie Jean King, once said, ‘Pressure is a privilege.’
I pull on the cheap polyester #SaveOurDairy T-shirt that’s arrived in the post and drive over to the Bakewell Community Centre, expecting the committee meeting to be a similar affair to the previous one. When I get there, the car park is full, and every side road is lined with cars parked bumper to bumper. By the time I’ve found a space half a mile away, I’m five minutes late and caught up in a mass of bodies trying to get in at the main door. I check that I’ve got the right date and haven’t inadvertently turned up to a popular Zumba class, but am reassured when an agenda gets thrust into my hand.
Dairy Farming Advisory Committee: Public meeting no. 18
Agenda
1. Call to order and opening remarks.
2. #SaveOurDairy march.
3. Baslow to Curbar thoroughfare proposal.
4. Any other business.
Inside, every chair is occupied. There must be another fifty or so people standing around the sides and up the back, plus the backlog in the foyer. I can’t see Nathan, but I’m sure he’s here somewhere.
‘Quiet, please!’ the Wolf orders. ‘We’ll make a start once everybody’s in. We’re out of printed agendas, so latecomers will have to share.’ He’s flanked by a grubby-looking man and a small woman, who I recognize as the lady in bottle-green tights from the Ridgecroft Country Fair. Tonight, she favours burgundy.