by Kirsty Eyre
Silence ensues. I’m just building up to saying ‘sorry’ but can’t quite grasp the appropriate words. Should I refer to kissing her? Or snogging her? Or …
‘And sorry I made you feel like “a dick”. That wasn’t my intention,’ she says almost aggressively, the inference being that I was more out of order for saying I felt like a dick than she was for cheating on Guy!
And now I don’t want to say sorry – not now she’s being mega-arsy about it. Besides, ‘sorry’ would suggest I regretted it and, truth be told, I don’t regret it at all – it felt amazing. She can pretend all she wants that it never happened, but I’ve banked the memory, and nothing can erase it. One thing’s for sure, though: the ice queen has frozen over again, and a repeat thaw is entirely out of the question.
‘I’m guessing you need to check out the calf?’ I gibber. ‘Not that I’m forcing you to come and check her out against your will, I just thought—’
‘I’ll send someone over.’
Someone? Is it really that bad that she can’t see me?
Lorna only goes and sends Guy! I hide in the milking shed and let Grandma deal with him. I watch them chat in the barn. Guy gives Allie and her calf a quick once-over, glancing across the yard every now and again, presumably for me, in order to launch something at my head.
I wish I could turn back time. Not so we didn’t kiss, just so that Guy didn’t turn up.
An hour later, I’m in the cereal aisle of the village store grabbing bread when Guy appears. This time, I have nowhere to hide. He has orange zinc sun block plastered across his nose, the Daily Telegraph under one arm and a bottle of Badoit in the other. I keep my eyes fixed on the shelf of Kellogg’s miniature multipacks, the clacking of his cycling shoes on the floor tiles getting louder as he advances, counting out change.
‘Belinda!’ He’s all elbows and bluster, knocking a string of freeze-dried beef stroganoff packets to the ground.
With no other option available to me, I slowly avert my gaze from the friendly faces of Snap, Crackle and Pop to meet his glare. Though when I do, he’s actually beaming at me, chest puffed out in a garish lime-green cycling top with shouty logos.
‘I was hoping I might bump into you,’ he says, ignoring the rock climbers grouped up behind him, their harnesses jangling with metal carabiners and fluorescent ropes.
‘Guy,’ I murmur, glancing around the shop with unease.
‘I’ve been wanting to ask you about your straw supplier, but thought we both might feel a little awkward, given the last time we met you had your tongue down Lorn’s throat!’
Heat travels to my neck, my face, my ears. ‘Guy, I’m sorry, I—’
‘On the contrary, any time!’ he says, letting out a belly laugh. ‘Quite got off on it, truth be told!’
‘LMT Supplies! Very reliable,’ I say, scuttling out of the shop and retrieving Speedo, who is sniffing the wheels of Guy’s Parsons-Bonneville hybrid bike and contemplating which spoke to piss on.
I walk home at pace, trying to digest the fact that Lorna and Guy are swingers. They say it all goes on in small villages, and indeed it does! Thank God for Maria keeping me on the straight and narrow with online dating. Life is so much easier behind a screen.
Later, I log onto Licker for a bit of escapism and see that Angel3 is online. Is it normal to be this excited about talking to someone I’ve never met?
‘Hi Angel3.’
‘Hi Angel6. Ready for Saturday?’
‘The ball?’ I type. ‘I guess so.’
‘Do you have a mask?’
‘Not yet, but I remember learning how to make one out of papier-mâché at school.’
‘I look forward to that. Are you arty?’
‘Definitely not.’
‘I look forward to it even more then.’
‘I’m guessing you probably are arty, what with your studies, and will have hand-sculpted a postmodern facial masterpiece for the occasion?’
‘I’ll be more likely wearing my flatmate’s Darth Vader mask.’
‘At least I’ll be able to recognize you!’
‘How will I recognize you?’
‘I’ll probably have cowpat in my hair from working on the farm all day.’
Angel3 is typing. Angel3 is deleting. Angel3 is typing. Angel3 is deleting.
‘But I’ll be wearing Issey Miyake,’ I add, trying to sound alluring and sophisticated.
‘Back in a sec. My flatmate has set the smoke alarm off!’
Angel3 is offline.
Farming: an aphrodisiac’s antidote.
I take her abrupt departure as an omen that I should be listening to Professor Carmody’s podcast on ‘Toxaemia Prevention in Pregnancy.’ The first three minutes are excellent, but I’m asleep by the fourth.
PART THREE
COWGIRLS AND ANGELS
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
#COWGIRL
Dairy farmers march on Sheffield
Milk! Milk! They’re milking our Milk!
The British Dairy Farming Association will hold a #SaveOurDairy demonstration on Saturday 30 October where farmers will march their herds in their largest campaign to date.
The march is a protest against the decision by co-operative giant, Premier Milk, to drop its ‘A’ milk prices for producers across Northern England due to increased pressure from supermarkets. Milk producers in South Yorkshire and Derbyshire will see milk prices fall by 0.62p/litre. The dairy farming sector has seen profits fall by 50 per cent over recent years and is on the brink of collapse.
‘My family has been in the dairy business for ninety-three years and we’ve never known things so bleak,’ says Billie Oliver, a local Derbyshire dairy farmer. ‘Further cuts in profit mean it’s impossible to make a living.’
Supporters joining the march at the bottom of The Moor and making their way to Sheffield Peace Gardens are urged to do so responsibly and use public transport where possible.
On the morning of the march, Dad is downstairs at 5 a.m. This is the first time he’s been up early since he got out of hospital. He stands at the window and threads Grandma’s soft leather tape measure through his fingers. In spite of it being October, it’s so misty outside you can barely see the cowshed.
‘Let’s hope it doesn’t affect their milk supply,’ I say, reaching for the kettle.
He puts down the tape measure. ‘Milk them before you go, and they’ll be fine. It’s hardly the end of the world if they’re a few minutes late back.’
I hand him a mug of tea, aware of our role reversal. He puts his arm around my shoulder, and we stand like that for a while, enveloped in nervous tension.
Three days before, Dad had his fourth round of radiotherapy. At the end of the session, he walked out of the treatment room without the aid of a stick. Neither of us spoke. I knew he felt sick – his skin was the same pebble grey it was every time he left that room and he was sucking on his cheeks to combat the nausea.
He made it all the way to the car and climbed into the passenger seat rather than collapsing into it. ‘I’ve got this, Bilberry,’ he said, to himself as much as to me.
We drove home listening to his Queen CD. The evening sky was the same metallic rose as Maria’s Reeboks. He tapped his thigh to ‘Radio Gaga’ and I knew he was going to be all right. The nurse called him a ‘legend’ that morning and, at the time, I thought that Dad is not the sort of man you’d describe as a legend. Sporting heroes are legends. Space crusaders are legends. Men who derive more satisfaction from growing beetroots than driving Ferraris and are not swayed by charisma, influence or power, tend not to be legends. But as he tapped to the beat, silently battling radiotherapeutic waves of nausea, Dad was nothing short of a legend.
By 8 a.m., an enormous Cattle Cruiser beeps and flashes through the mist, its monstrous engine rumbling. A demonic energy spreads across the yard. Hydraulic floors lower and a metal ramp slides out, scraping across the gravel. Charlie jumps down from the driver’s cabin wearing a box-fresh #SaveOurDairy T-shirt.
I fill the truck with hay while Charlie plays with the temperature control panel. Satisfied that everything is as it should be, he helps me cajole seven tons of cow out of the pen and up the ramp. Hooves slip and slide as the cows scramble up the metal slope, grunting and bellowing with uncertainty. Heather falls to her knees and drags herself back up again. Inside the trailer, they jostle for position, all vying for space next to the window, where they can slide their noses between the open bars and sniff fresh air. Those not so quick off the mark huddle in the middle, resting their chins on each other, whites of eyes showing as the gate clangs shut.
Dad appears in his #SaveOurDairy T-shirt and eyes the steep steps to the Cattle Cruiser cabin.
‘Shouldn’t you come in the car?’ I say.
‘Not on your nelly. I want to be with my girls!’ he says, hoisting himself onto the first step, his arm trembling.
Charlie helps him into the cabin whilst I lug the rest of the stuff into the Land Rover.
I run back upstairs to get the rest of the T-shirts, which are dumped in a box at the bottom of Dad’s wardrobe. Above the box, hanging between a shirt and a scratchy old tuxedo, is the black halter-neck dress that belonged to Mum, which Dad can’t bear to chuck out on account of having the best night of his life with her at an agricultural gala where I suspect I was conceived. Go Dad! (And Mum!) Although I’m in a rush, I can’t help but touch the soft silk of Mum’s dress. It smells overpoweringly of mothballs. I run my fingers over the brittle lace around the neckline, pricking my finger on the pin of a brooch attached to the bust, lost in the folds of the dress. Bloody thing! I unclip it, and there in the palm of my hand is an ornate glass ladybird the size of a ten-pence piece, its red wings symmetrically dotted; the very same ladybird Mum was wearing in the home video. Truth be told, I’m a bit freaked out. I’ve been telling myself I made that shit up to give myself comfort; a set of simple, explicable coincidences. Carefully, I attach it to my T-shirt, grab the box and head downstairs.
Grandma sits in the passenger seat, studying a ‘Milk for Farmers’ leaflet. She wears a utility flannelette frock with a #SaveOurDairy T-shirt pulled over the top.
‘Nice brooch.’
I run my fingers over it. ‘It was my mum’s.’
‘I know. Her mother gave it to her. She used to call it her lucky ladybird.’
I smile, but before I can get too caught in the moment, I need to send Maria a quick message to tell her we’re on our way. The girls must be somewhere between Chesterfield and Sheffield on the train by now.
The fog is thick and dense. I start up the engine and follow the blurry rear lights of the Cattle Cruiser through the mist, along narrow village lanes and up the steep, windy road to Sheffield. It takes a few minutes to get used to driving the Land Rover, having been at the helm of the tractor for the best part of a week. The windscreen wipers seem to turn on every time I want to indicate, and third gear is sticky. Grandma chatters away. All about the goings-on in Bakewell and the woman in the pie shop who wears too much pink. I can’t join in. I’m too nervous. Every time I glance in the rear-view mirror, I catch a glimpse of the handle of the wheelchair I’ve put in the back for Dad, should it all get too much.
Fifty minutes later, we’re in Sheffield city centre. The Cattle Cruiser pulls into a parking bay dotted with policemen and -women awaiting our arrival. Three other cattle lorries are already parked up, so I make a left turn into the Pay and Display at the bottom of The Moor and trudge over.
Charlie opens the back of the Cattle Cruiser and lowers the ramp. Rain drums on the tin roof. The cows are reluctant to leave the dry trailer, their hooves planted firmly on the hay-padded floor. I heave out Patty, who slides out on locked limbs, refusing to comply. It takes all my strength to pull her into the layby, the rope burning the palms of my hands. She bucks and kicks, sending a litter bin flying.
The police want the cows herded into a pen they’ve created with flimsy barriers used to control marathon crowds. Within seconds, the barriers have been kicked to the kerb and scattered over the pavement, cows pulling in different directions. Rosie, a small feisty heifer with a mind of her own, heads for a patch of dandelions on the grass verge, trampling traffic cones and knocking over a bicycle.
Farmers, families and friends mingle, trying to keep order as more and more cows are unleashed. We’re causing quite a stir, what with herdsmen barking orders over groaning cattle and manure splattering onto the tarmac of the A61. A cow from a different herd has backed into a police car and dented its boot. Another has bolted into the central reservation and the police have had to stop traffic while three lads lure her back with hay.
Maria, Kat and Bev arrive. They’ve really gone for it – Bev has sprayed her Mohican in black and white stripes and looks more like a skunk than a Friesian. She and Kat wear cow-print onesies and Maria is dressed in a sequined version of the #SaveOurDairy T-shirt, complementing it with a mini-skirt and stiletto ankle boots.
‘Really?’ I laugh, gesturing at her apparel.
She squeezes me into her earring. ‘You never know when you might find yourself on a podium, Bilbo!’
I swear Maria is a gay man trapped inside the body of a heterosexual female.
‘Nobody told me it was fancy dress,’ Grandma says, giving Bev’s Mohican the once-over.
‘Hi, Mrs O.’ Bev gives Grandma a hug.
‘Nice to see you again, Beverley.’
‘You remember Kat, my girlfriend?’ Bev says, gesturing for Kat to come over.
‘Fiancée,’ Kat counters.
Rosie takes a dislike to Maria’s Chanel glazed hobo satchel and buffets at it with her nose. Maria looks up at Rosie. ‘Bloody hell, I didn’t realize cows were that big!’
Beatrice joins us with a placard asking people to support our ‘Diary Framers’. She’s been in firm denial of dyslexia for a good few decades now. Today, she wears a cow-print raincoat and black gumboots.
‘Everyone, this is my good friend, Beatrice.’ Grandma introduces her to the girls.
Beatrice smiles. ‘Are they all lesbians?’
‘Everyone but me,’ Maria says heartily. ‘I’m the queer one.’
‘Very well,’ Beatrice says, stopping short of her usual diatribe.
I assign each person a cow, offsetting temperaments and matching personalities in the way an online dating algorithm might work. Maria takes Louise, the most easy-going and least likely to trample her ankle boots. I give Sally to Kat, knowing that she’ll follow Louise. Bev, a pro with animals, can handle Beryl while I take Rosie.
Dad clambers down from the cabin. He looks fragile and hollow, and a few years older than he looked a couple of months ago. Like a plaster cast of my dad without the blood, guts and everything that makes him him. I offer him the wheelchair, which he pooh-poohs with a shake of the head.
Several farmers amble over, bombarding me with questions. Will there be hay and water at the destination? Do the trucks need a permit to pull up next to the cathedral? Will the press be at the town hall? Will there be a photoshoot? I feel very responsible and a little bit sick. I run my fingers over my mum’s glass ladybird, reattach the rope to Rosie’s head harness and take a step forward.
‘Milk! Milk! They’re milking our milk!’ I chant, hoping that everyone will join in.
Thankfully they do.
Maria picks up her phone.
@MilkforFarmers
And we’re off! Heifer great day. #SaveOurDairy
We must be about six hundred people and three hundred cows by the time we reach our official starting point at the bottom of The Moor. Mr Craggs from Birchover Hall Farm has kept his promise. The one thing I realiz
e I failed to specify is that there should be a 1:1 cow-to-handler ratio. He, however, has single-handedly brought fifty, which are running amok, ploughing down everything in their path: market stalls, litter bins, signage. And even though there are hundreds of people here to support us, it appears that not many of them are hands-on when it comes to managing cows. Three heifers charge towards a cosmetics market stall. Lipsticks skitter across paving slabs and tubes of mascara roll into the gutter. Shop assistants pop their heads out of doors to see what the commotion is all about. An ice-cream van removes itself from our path, and a man selling knock-off designer sunglasses reassembles his Bay-Rans on the other side of the walkway.
‘Milk! Milk! They’re milking our milk!’
Saturday shoppers flee into Argos for shelter. A West Highland terrier chained to a post outside Costa Coffee barks and growls. Charlie’s not only pushing a wheelbarrow of manure up The Moor, which is getting heavier by the minute, he’s also tethered to a cow. Marjorie and Graham have agreed to each lead three of Mr Craggs’s cows.
@MilkforFarmers
On the mooooove. Udder chaos! #SaveOurDairy
There must be about a thousand of us at Poundland, and our numbers have doubled by the time we reach Poundstretcher, thanks to the insurgence of farmers from Lancashire, North Yorkshire, Cheshire and Nottinghamshire, who have all joined forces thanks to social media.
‘Milk! Milk! They’re milking our milk!’
We pass an amusement arcade, where a toddler is having a screaming fit in a ride-on fire engine. Lights flash. Gunshots fire. Psychedelic music plays over the monstrous glare of computer screens whilst finger-sized aliens zap and zoom. Sally bolts in the opposite direction, dragging Kat into Dorothy Perkins and setting off the anti-theft alarm. Shoppers depart as Sally heads straight for a bargain rail of ‘£20 and under’ clothing. Gold-flecked jumper dresses and black sequined halter-necks fall to the floor, a sparkly cardigan getting caught over Sally’s hoof.
‘Bill!’ Kat yells, Sally’s rump appearing in the shop window alongside a faceless mannequin dressed in autumnal burgundy.