Ross Raisin - Gods Own Country

They giggled. One of them jumped up at another lass, pawing at her shoulder. Woof! Woof! Her skirt flapped up as she jumped, and I stooped for a snatch underside of it. Woof, woof, my eyes swarmed up the flesh of her thighs, busting for the soft curve of her backside. She stood laughing a moment, clearing the hair off her face, where it had stuck to her cheek with damp. Then they were all at it, woof, woof, their feet padding up, down on the marbled floor. Do you want to stroke my beard? Woof! Go on, give it a stroke, just a little one. They were all shivers, arms folded, rubbing the goosebumps on the backs their arms. Then one of them turns and dives in. Come on, she waves, bobbing up and down, and then they’re all in, the splash of water jinnying round the walls with their laughter. Beardie beardie weirdie, beardie, beardie weirdie. I watch the glimmer of their swimming costumes slipping through the surface of the water as they chase up the pool.

One of them gets out. Her feet squilch-squelch on the tiles as she walks off, the sound of the others swimming and giggling fading away behind. Aye now, where are you off, then? She’s going at a fair crack, and I lose her behind a pillar. Hello, where’ve you gone? Time to switch on the X-ray eyes, lad, she’s smart is this one. Then I realise she must’ve gone in the changing rooms, and I go toward the entrance, pausing outside a moment as I feel queer going in, no matter I know it’s only her inside, it still feels queer, like going in Father’s bedroom.

I go in the entrance, a proper soaking for my feet in a footbath, but when I turn the corner it’s not all ties and bras hung from pegs and her stood naked in front of me — it’s a car park, and she’s walking through it, singing to herself. I steal between two lines of cars as she reaches the open portion in the middle. She stops, looks ahead both sides, hmm, which way shall I go, and I gain on her, silent as Mr Fox after his chicken dinner. At the end of the line of cars I bide a second before moving into the open space, and copping that I’ve lost her. She’s disappeared from sight, and the singing has stopped. Well now, you’re a crafty one, I’ll give you that, I say, looking about the place for where she’s gone. It’s quiet this side of town, just a few grey houses round the car park, and I still my parts, listening. I can feel the sting of blood racing through me. I follow on, same direction she’d been headed, toward a narrow street leading out the car park, but she’s tricked me, the bumblekite. I turn round and see her stand up behind a car. Then she runs off back toward the high street, a proper flight she gets on, I don’t bother going after her. I stand flat-backed against a vehicle and listen to the sound of her feet on the road, dying eventually to a patter.

We sat quiet round the table, chewing our tea. I was thinking to myself, the garage days were over — there wasn’t use trying to talk with a girl just because of something she’d said to me in a dream. She didn’t come past that way, it was clear enough now, that proved I’d imagined it up. I was thinking on all this, when Father spoke, talking through his food.

Aye. We’ll sell them pups to any as’ll take ‘em.

The way he said it was like him and his brain were having a discussion inside his head, but the last part had spilt out.

We’ll keep one to work t’ form wi’ Jess.

There was a glob of gravy on his chin, slipping down a cleft toward his gullet. He didn’t notice it, kept on eating, silent. He’d said his piece.

I bided a moment, until it was right to speak.

Which’ll we keep, Father?

They’re all t’ same size. I aren’t bothered.

Can I pick one, then?

No. Buyers’ll take what ones they want.

It went quiet again while we mopped up our food. After we’d done, Mum stacked the plates and took them to the sink. He took his sleeve to his chin and wiped it, the skin scraping against his cuff. I studied out the window.

Tha’s lucky they’re too old for t’ bucket, lad, he said, and he pissed off out the room.

I kept my glare on the window. It was beede-black outdoors already, and I watched Mum in the glass, washing pots at the sink. He was right, course. If Jess had dropped a bigger litter, we’d have drowned most straight off. We hadn’t need for the spares. Every summer started with that bucket, stood in the yard, brimful with cold water. Normaltimes it was kittens, as we hadn’t need of any — they were all spares. Mum would bring them out in a cardboard box, and I’d fetch a dinner plate, and a log from next the fire, before Father pulled them out the box two or three a time and floated them gentle in the water, like a bairn with a toy boat. I’d be on plate duty, resting it over their heads with the log weighted on top, pushing down until their lungs filled with water.

Father would go off then, see on his other jobs. I’d put the log and the plate back, and Mum would chuck the bodies, picking them from the bucket like wet socks out the washer.

♦

He put a sign up soon after, down by the road turning at the end of the track, dogs for sale, three months, working or pet. There was a smear of paint at the bottom where he’d wrote £15, then his brain had ticked over and he’d blotted it out, scheming that towns would likely pay daft prices. They’d pay a fair pocket for Sal, I knew. Father was right about the others catching her up for size but he knew sod-all about the nature of awther one and Sal was easy the conniest. She had a fluff of brown, both cheeks, that was how to tell her apart, and that was what’d make her the most saleable, unless it was a farmer came buying — what did it matter to them the colour of cheeks? They’d not give a shite if she had two heads and a hump so long as she could work a flock.

The first buyers weren’t farmers, though, they were towns. They were leaving by the time I bolted in from the fields, the car trembling off down the tractor-path avoiding the potholes. I shot a look over the stable door, but it was empty so I went in the kitchen, where Mum was shushing five-pound notes between her fingers. The whelps were scratching at the insides of a wooden box. Sal was still there. They were down to three, mind, one of them took off to become a town dog — a life of slipper-carrying and dried-up biscuit food.

Mum slapped the notes on the tabletop. Thirty pound, she said. Then she picked them up and counted again, all concentration, the one eye squeezed tight as a Scot’s arsehole.

Thirty, it is. She laughed. And they chose the runt, they did.

I was in next day when another pair came round. I stepped down from my room and the first I saw of them they were inside the kitchen door, wiping their feet on the mat. I wouldn’t fuss with that, I thought, you’re best doing it on the way out, the state of our floor.

Oh, what a homely kitchen, the female was saying to Mum, but that wasn’t what she meant — what a muck-hole, she was thinking. There were two of them, a young couple, in matching coats — these mighty, blown-up, red affairs. They couldn’t walk through side by side, they’d have knocked all the trunklements off the walls, you go first, no you, oh, will you look? Little sweethearts. Look at them. They’re gorgeous. I stood by the fire watching on, burning the backs my legs. They both knelt down aside the box and the whelps scraffled up the side to have a study what was going on, three small heads peeping over the top — fucking hell, have you seen this? There’s two giant tomatoes here, blathering at us. Mum stood over them, her brass-counting face on her. She was chuntering. Oh, it’s a bonny one, that. What the hummer did she know? She thought her budgerigars were bonny and all. Right characters, she always said about them, and she was right, if humping yourself in the mirror all day told for character.