Cow Girl

  Beatrice looks baffled. ‘Since when have cows been religious?’

  Dad grabs my hand. ‘It’s obviously yours if you want it, Bilberry. You’ve done a brilliant job, but I don’t expect you to stay. You’ve got dreams of your own and that’s the way it should be.’

  ‘I’d stay for longer only Lorna’s not speaking to me,’ I say, aware that I sound like a child.

  Grandma slings another Yorkshire pudding on my plate. ‘Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s fixable.’

  ‘I’m not so sure.’ I push broccoli around my plate with my fork.

  ‘She’ll be at the carol thing this afternoon,’ Grandma says. ‘Why don’t you catch her there and talk to her?’

  ‘What carol thing?’ I say.

  She gets up, reaches behind the toaster and passes me a flyer for the Agricultural Society’s Camp Christmas Carol Concert at Ridgecroft, a handwritten footnote apologizing for the printing error in omitting ‘fire’. It starts in half an hour.

  ‘Can I borrow the car?’ I say.

  Ridgecroft is like something out of a Christmas Brit-flick; a stately home illuminated by dots of gold and silver. Neon reindeer gallop across each turret of the house, its doors decorated with a thick wreath of winter greens and scarlet berries. A handsome fir tree bedecked with red ribbons and fairy lights stands proudly in the courtyard. The smell of cinnamon and cloves carries on the air. A brass band in white tuxedos trumpets ‘Hark! the Herald Angels Sing’, whilst people full of festive cheer huddle, their breath laced with mince pies and mulled wine. I look around for Lorna.

  Thanks to the printing faux pas, a whole new demographic has been introduced, and it appears that Lorna and I are in no way, shape or form, the only gays in the village; far from it. There are homosexuals from Hathersage, Hope and Harewood Hall. Two butcher-than-butch butchers from Bamford have arrived in matching Christmas jumpers and are flirting outrageously with five jolly gents from St Mildred’s choir, who are not shy of a sausage pun.

  Doreen and Tazzy make their way over.

  ‘Mince pie?’ Doreen offers me a warm, greasy paper bag.

  ‘I’m full, thanks,’ I say, becoming conscious that she’s not so much wanting me to sample her patisserie but take notice of the writing on the paper bag, which reads ‘Peterson’s Pastries’.

  ‘Thanks for being the only one with the gumption to tell me,’ she says.

  I crack a smile. ‘Though Buns and Baps did have a ring to it!’

  More men in tuxedos spill out of a minibus, slipping and sliding over the path with tubas and trombones. ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ gets underway as the first proper snowflakes fall.

  There’s still no sign of Lorna.

  A smaller version of the Wolf, his younger brother perhaps, takes to the microphone in a tartan kilt, knee-length socks and a cropped black jacket, his arms wrapped round a spindly lady with ash-blonde hair and a soft grey coat. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.’ He smiles. ‘Jemima and I would like to wish everyone a healthy and hearty, Happy Christmas! Help yourselves to refreshments. Be jolly, be merry, have a great evening. And, in keeping with tradition, may I hand you over to my father, Wolfgang Huxley-Lipyeat, better known to some of you as the Wolf.’

  Muffled applause comes from the crowd. It’s hard to clap in gloves.

  A voice shouts from the back. ‘He’s in the cowshed! Bit of an emergency!’

  It occurs to me that Lorna might be in the cowshed too, if it’s a cow emergency. I weave my way through the crowd, pardoning and excusing as I pass the fairy-lit fir trees and the wreath-bearing outhouse. Past a security guard who stands, arms folded, in front of a huge log cabin, but there’s no sign of a cowshed. Unless the guarded log cabin is the cowshed, on account of its pedigree bovine inhabitants? I double back.

  ‘I’m here to see the Wolf,’ I say to the security guard.

  He looks me up and down. ‘The cow girl?’

  ‘Yeee-es,’ I say. Technically, it’s the truth.

  ‘Calf’s on your left. Mademoiselle’s at the back.’ He stands aside.

  The barn is heated and smells of freshly chopped pinewood. It takes my eyes a few moments to adjust to the glare of the strip lights rigged under the roof. A girl with a face full of cold sores feeds the calf; a tiny creature with evenly spaced markings: ‘Mademoiselle V’, according to the sign. At the far end of the barn, the Wolf and his wife stand knee-deep in straw at the side of Mademoiselle. There’s no sign of Lorna.

  I walk towards them. ‘Congratu—’

  Their faces are sunken and solemn. Mademoiselle twitches, her neck collapsed in an S shape. She fights to straighten the kink, but the weight of her head is too heavy and crashes downwards. Her wide, dilated pupils stare trancelike at nothing.

  The Wolf looks up. ‘Is the vet with you?’

  ‘No.’

  Penelope feeds a tea towel repeatedly through her tiny fingers. ‘She was on fine form yesterday. Excited to be a mother again, dancing about like a wind-up toy, and now she’s got nothing left. Won’t even feed her calf.’

  The Wolf eyes me angrily. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, now is not a good time.’

  Mademoiselle’s muscles spasm. She grinds her teeth, jerking this way and that, shuffling her back hooves under her bulk, and I’m reminded of the countless videos of women with post-natal eclampsia I’ve watched; muscles flinching, limbs jerking. I’ve read hundreds of case studies, including my mother’s, and if I know one thing, I know this: Mademoiselle has eclampsia, milk fever in cows. Unless treated, she’s about to slide into a phase of hypocalcaemia, which is a lot more serious. Seizure-serious. Deadly serious.

  I look at the Wolf. ‘You say you’ve called the vet?’

  ‘Several,’ Penelope’s voice wobbles. ‘But being Christmas Eve …’

  I call Lorna, but of course there’s no answer. Unauthorized, I walk over and touch Mademoiselle’s ears. They’re stone cold and her legs aren’t much warmer.

  ‘She needs calcium, fast,’ I say.

  ‘There should be nothing wrong with her calcium levels,’ the Wolf barks. ‘We’ve been supplementing her calcium all the way through her pregnancy.’

  I want to tell him that this is the exact opposite of what he should have done. That by upping her calcium levels, her body will only dispose of it. A divine paradox. But that’s not going to help right now. ‘Where’s your first-aid kit?’

  Penelope lifts a small bony finger towards a hook on the wall. I open it up and rummage through the contents for calcium gluconate or magnesium sulphate, but there’s nothing. And then I remember the stash of KSG samples in the boot of the Land Rover.

  ‘Back in one sec!’

  I stumble through the snow to the car. I can’t let Mademoiselle down. The world can’t lose another mother. My feet are wet, and I’ve lost all feeling in my little toes. A ridge of white powder falls to the ground as I open the car boot and reach for the cardboard box stamped with ‘Queen’s College’ in red ink. Inside, boxes and boxes of liquid calcium gluconate in KSG packaging sit one on top of the other. Dozens of ready-made solutions. I pick out twelve packets. The average cow weighs in at ten times the average woman, so it’s going to take a mega-dose. I hug it all to my chest while shutting the boot and slip and slide back to the cow shed. The security guard acknowledges me with a dip of the head. I throw the boxes down onto a hay bale and look at the Wolf. ‘Can you get me a sterilized needle?’

  ‘Oh no, you don’t!’ he growls. ‘You’re not going anywhere near her with a needle.’

  I look to Penelope. ‘This is what I specialize in: eclampsia. She’s got eclampsia. We need to act fast.’ I run my fingers over Mademoiselle’s back. ‘I won’t go in intravenously. You’d need a vet to do that. It’ll need to be subcutaneous.’

  ‘Get her the needle!’ Penelope finds her voice.

  Reluctantly, the Wolf grapples for the first-aid kit, tossing everything out until he finds a needle in a sterilized pouch. ‘Here!’ he says, presenting me
with a needle so big, I don’t trust myself.

  ‘Is there a smaller one?’

  He hands me a smaller package.

  ‘How much does she weigh?’ I try to calculate how many sachets I need.

  ‘1,550 pounds,’ the Wolf says.

  Of course, she does – optimal weight, statistical perfection. I empty out sachet after sachet of KSG product. Mademoiselle slumps further, her head now resting on the ground. She starts to fit, her head vibrating in one enormous shudder, nostrils flaring, tongue hanging out.

  ‘Can you get a bucket of hot water?’ I say. ‘I need to get the solution to body temperature.’ I get out my phone and surf the internet for ‘subcutaneous injections in cattle’.

  Penelope and the Wolf share a look of concern, but she hurries off and is back in barely a minute with a full bucket.

  ‘Thank you. We need to prop her up, too, so she doesn’t collapse. They’ll do!’ I point to the hay bales in the corner of the barn.

  ‘You’d better know what you’re doing, missy,’ the Wolf growls, as he heaves them into position.

  We arrange the other hay bales around Mademoiselle like blocks of Lego, bolstering her stooped shoulders, her crooked neck, her sloping backside, until the needle is warm enough.

  Nervous as hell, I place my hand on the skin of her shoulder, spread my fingers out wide, and move down Mademoiselle’s backbone by a further spread hand’s width.

  ‘Here we go!’ I say, holding the needle at a 45-degree angle whilst feeling for the layer of skin above her fat. I need to avoid her muscle.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Penelope bites her lip.

  My hand jitters and my mouth dries. If I screw this up, I cost the Wolf a smooth million and unquantifiable heartbreak. What would Lorna do in this situation? Cool, calm, collected Lorna. The internet is telling me to hold the skin in one hand and push the needle hard with the other. Instinct is telling me to go to the toilet. Without thinking, I press the needle through her skin. ‘Yes.’

  Mademoiselle shudders and tries to stand on her front legs, which can’t quite support her weight, her backside sliding back down again.

  ‘Come on, come on, come on, lassie!’ the Wolf shouts, at Mademoiselle, rather than me, presumably.

  I waggle the needle to ensure it hasn’t gone through to the muscle. Then, placing the rubber cap of the flutter valve over the bottle, I tilt it upside down in the air, the orange brown fluid bubbling and sliding down the tube, into the needle.

  I massage the skin downward and away from the needle to disperse the liquid – something I’ve seen both Dad and Lorna do countless times to speed things up and make sure it doesn’t get pocketed in the tissues, but I can’t articulate this. I can either talk, or continue with what I know needs to be done, but somehow can’t manage both simultaneously.

  ‘What are you doing now?’ the Wolf barks. ‘Billie?’ he says forcefully as the fluid drains away.

  I pull out the needle, sticky with dextrose, and rub her skin. Mademoiselle shudders and I quietly crap myself that she’s about to drop like a stone. I’ve read that if she’s going to recover, it should be pretty fast. She should stand within twenty minutes.

  ‘Talk to me, lassie!’ the Wolf says crossly. ‘What happens now?’

  My heart beats violently. I look down at my sticky, torn, grime-infested fingers. Her life is in my hands. ‘I …’ If she dies, I’ll be guilty of cow-slaughter and no doubt named and shamed in the national press, which will mean it’s all over for our farm – the Wolf will make sure of that. ‘We have to wait.’

  There I am, crouched in the corner of the pen, eyes closed, trying to think reassuring thoughts and stop that fucking ‘Lightning Tree’ song playing over and over in my head. And there the Wolf is, looming above me with a bucket of water, sponging Mademoiselle’s neck. The clock is ticking.

  ‘Wait for what?’ Penelope’s voice trembles.

  ‘Just give it a minute,’ I say, unable to look at her.

  The Wolf paces up and down through the straw, fists clenched. ‘Come on, come on, come on,’ he mutters under his breath.

  Two minutes later, Mademoiselle struggles to her feet and stands unaided. Her eyes regain focus, and although she stumbles at first, she stands.

  The Wolf throws his arms around her neck. ‘You fucking champion!’ He presses his nose against her cheek and I would swear he is nearly crying. Penelope definitely is, having sat down heavily on a hay bale as Mademoiselle found her feet. She now has her head in her hands, sobbing loudly, while murmuring ‘oh, thank God’ over and over again.

  Mademoiselle plods over to the water trough and I become aware of a pulse in my ears, blood pumping loudly. My skin tingles and the scent of fresh pine smells stronger than ever. It’s only now that I realize that I’m shaking like a leaf, tiny tears of relief escaping from the corners of my eyes. A feeling I haven’t experienced since the march surges through my veins: pride.

  ‘Come here!’ The Wolf throws his arms open to me. ‘Well done, lassie. Well done!’ He pats my back over and over, and I try not to notice his dandruff on my sleeve.

  ‘Thank you,’ Penelope squeaks through cupped hands.

  The Wolf picks up Penelope as you might carry a small child to bed. ‘She’s alive! Alive!’ He twirls her around, kicking up straw in celebration, as she grips his shoulders and laughs through her tears.

  Mademoiselle swings her head round from the trough and looks at me with doleful eyes. Eyes that don’t blink or flicker, waiver or stray. Rock-steady, grateful eyes. She takes two steps towards me and bows her head without breaking her gaze. I hold my hand out to her and she snorts, sweat glistening on her nostrils. She plods over and presses her wet nose on my neck, cow dribble matted in my hair.

  The Wolf chuckles. ‘You’ve got a friend for life there!’ He watches me for a moment, Penelope sitting next to him, before dragging out a silver hip flask from the inside of his jacket and unscrewing the lid. ‘A toast!’ He holds up the hip flask and thrusts it in my direction. ‘To the Cow Girl.’

  ‘Hear, hear!’ Penelope claps her hands together.

  I raise the silver flask to my nose and am met with the strong, oaky smell of hardened spirit. Whiskey, or brandy perhaps. I take a swig, the taste of burned rubber lingering as I swallow, my throat feeling on fire. Bourbon.

  The Wolf laughs as I fold at the waist, shielding my mouth with my forearm.

  ‘Got a bit of a kick, hasn’t it, lassie?’

  He takes back the flask and offers it to Penelope, who politely declines. Three gulps later, he screws the top back on and looks at me. ‘You wanted to negotiate on the freehold?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Out of the question.’ His jowls shake.

  It’s all I can do not to jab the needle repeatedly into his small, piggy eyes. After everything I’ve done. After everything that’s just happened. I feel cheated. Hollow. Wronged.

  ‘Consider it yours. You’ve earned it, lassie!’ He extends his hand to me, his enormous sausage fingers squeezing mine.

  ‘Thank you.’ My voice shakes with giddiness.

  ‘No. Thank you, Billie.’ He squeezes my shoulder. ‘You’ll have confirmation in writing by the time you get home.’

  I’m so pumped with adrenaline I swear I could burst. It’s a weird sensation – I feel empty yet replete. Weightless yet complete. I want to tell Lorna everything.

  I place my hand on Mademoiselle’s neck. ‘Well done, lady,’ I whisper.

  I gather my things with shaky hands and, as I make my way out of the barn, I hear the Wolf say, ‘Who’d have thought it? A biochemist from London.’

  It’s snowing heavily outside. I trudge through the soft white powder back to the carol concert in pursuit of Lorna, but no matter how many huddled groups of duffel coats and bobble hats I infiltrate, she’s nowhere to be seen. Reluctantly, I leave, ‘The Holly and the Ivy’ chiming in the distance.

  The Land Rover takes a couple of attempts to choke to life. I crunch my way through
the gears, windscreen wipers going like billy-o against the flurry of snow. I could go straight back to the farm, but I need to find Lorna. The clock on the dashboard suggests it is eight o’clock on Christmas Eve. She’s possibly on her way here, but fuck it, if you don’t try, you don’t get, you’ve got to be in it to win it, and all those other clichés.

  I trundle along at twenty miles an hour behind a gritter. It’s no longer snowing by the time I reach Blackamoor, and the cold night air hangs black and silent. I somehow miss the turn to Marstone Crescent and have to double back on myself, eventually pulling up outside Lorna and Guy’s flat, which pays homage to Christmas with a simple wreath of twisted evergreens.

  I get out of the car. Lorna’s bedroom light is on. Snow creaks under my boots as I make my way up their path. I ring the Parsons-Bonneville buzzer and take a step back.

  Guy comes to the door in a Christmas jumper, jodhpurs and odd socks. He holds a miniature Christmas microwavable pudding pot in one hand and a teaspoon in the other.

  ‘She’s out, I’m afraid.’ He smiles aggressively.

  ‘I really need to see her,’ I say, eyeing up the stairs and wondering whether I can rugby-tackle him and gallop up them. I can hear her hairdryer going. She must be ten metres away from me at the most.

  He plunges his spoon into his pudding and takes a mouthful. ‘Sorry,’ he says, dribbling suet over himself. ‘Have a Happy Christmas!’

  The door closes and that sky-high feeling of euphoric elation drains away, lead-heavy dejection setting in.

  Everyone’s already in bed by the time I get home. Even Speedo’s bark is only half-hearted when he hears my key in the door. I pluck a foil-wrapped chocolate decoration from the Christmas tree and mull over the thing with Mademoiselle. If that isn’t ‘thinking out of the box’, then I don’t know what is. I turn on the Christmas lights, pour myself an amaretto, grab my laptop and don’t stop writing. Once I’ve finished, I have one final email to send before bed.

  Subj: ‘Thinking Outside the Box’ for PhD in Eclampsia Research

  Dear Professor Williams,

  I had the pleasure of meeting you earlier this year at the KSG Obstetric Abnormalities Conference. You kindly gave me a lift to the station and advised me to apply my research to real life and ‘think outside the box’ before applying for a scholarship for the PhD in Eclampsia Research. It’s taken me a while, but I believe I’ve now achieved that.