Ross Raisin - Gods Own Country

The man held Sal up to his face and shook her so as her haunches waggled.

Is it a boy or a girl, this one? he asked, rubbing the back of his finger up, down Sal’s cheek.

Mum glegged the underside Sal’s belly. Oh, she’s a girl, her.

Rub, rub, with the finger, you’d best watch yourself, feller, or she’ll have it — she’ll chew on anything these days, now the teeth have come through.

The giant tomatoes gave each other a look. We’ll take this one, the man said, holding Sal into his body. Then they chose a second, picking it out the box as I sloped out the kitchen and went upstairs.

♦

I traipsed further into the Moors. The cold weather had begun setting in, past week or two, and it was a brittle afternoon — all still, save for the heather crackling under my boots. Most folk, such as Father, weren’t partial on the darker months, but they suited me rightly. The heather had gone through pink and purple to russet, the blare of gorse quieted, and folk on the Moors scarcer than ever.

I drifted on, an hour, two, lost with myself — where was I, on the Moors? No, I was on some other planet, a vast of barren space all round and me the only person there. I stopped and viewed about.

Hello! I shouted. Hello! Any other bastard there?

Course, there wasn’t, and my voice belted over the Moors, nothing to echo it back. It’d reach Whitby in a minute or two, pricking up the ears of some grizzled old fisherman — ey up, bastard, what? Must be the sea playing tricks again.

I crackled onward. I was close by the border where Danby High Moor turned into Glaisdale Moor. There wasn’t a real border between, never had been, only the heather spreading on, but I knew the line of it sure as if there was a wall or a fence all along. Further on there was a slack in the ground — Tumbale’s Rest — called after a giant back in ancient times who sat his backside down there and sunk the ground in. Father had told me that story when I was a sprog, and I’d bricked it all the way home, thinking Tumbale was going to come and eat us, until Father said that he was a friendly giant most times, and only ate sheep, so I could shut up sniffling.

As I walked down into the slack I marked a Land Rover parked up past the lip of the other side. A body was moving about aside it. A man, fiddling round in a shooting butt, tending it. I kept on. I wasn’t capped to see that. This part the Moors was blotted all over with horseshoe-shaped walls, for the Trilbies to cower behind and slaughter grouse by the barrowful. They were out every weekend now, huddles of them knelt with their guns propped over the wall. Got one! How many’s that? Must be a hundred by now, some feast we’re going to have tonight, except we’re not going to eat them, we’re going to string them up a while then throw them out. Land management, the Trilbies called it. Seemed the grouse were on the wrong team, then.

Bugger if I knew how he’d pierce a bird from the air, if he couldn’t heed me from two hundred yards. Now then, Trilby, shall I cackle about like a grouse, would you notice me then? Cackle, cackle, that’s right, I’m a grouse — a big lanky one, why don’t you point your gun at me? I’ll fucking show you what we think of your land management. But he’d not spotted me, he was away in the Land Rover, belching off over the Moors.

There was still light left in the day when I got back to the farm, so I went for a sit on top my rock. They had a fire going again. I wasn’t mooded for looking that direction, mind. I looked otherways, and marked Father hadn’t took the sign down yet, though I didn’t much fancy gawping on that neither, so I hunched my knees into my belly and shut my lids. I could hear the sheep bleating down below, a couple of fields away, and Father bawling at Jess, Get by! Get by! I thought about the whelp that hadn’t been took away. Good luck, lad, I thought, some life you’ve got ahead — Father bawling himself ragged at you, until you die.

I fell asleep, but my brain was riddling with me, for the picture hadn’t changed. The valley was painted on the back my lids — the smoke slurping out the chimney, the sign jutted up next the road. There was no hiding from anything, not in my dreams or anyplace. I trailed up for the skyline, and that was more viewsome, a dark, clear line, it seemed all the world ended there. I rested my gaze on it, but it wouldn’t keep steady, it started fogging up, darkening, until I realized the whole skyline was turning red. A blood-coloured band was seeping over the top, moving down the valley side — it was like one of them films on Sundays where the villagers are working away building a wooden shack, all these women in loin cloths scrambling round after a chicken, until suddenly the barbarian army shadows over the hillside and they’re charging down to kill everyone and burn the village. These weren’t barbarians, mind. I could pick out the front ones before long — it was towns, in giant tomato coats.

Are you okay?

The tomato army reached the town, covering it until it disappeared in a sea of red, and they were still coming over the skyline, there must’ve been a million of them piling onward, filling the valley, moving toward me.

Hello, are you all right?

Her again. Mind, she made a gradlier dream than the giant tomatoes, so I looked her over. She wasn’t in her uniform this time, she had on jeans and Wellingtons and a mighty green jumper. You were…you were…but she didn’t finish, she stood back, fiddling the ends of her sleeves. I looked down at the valley. The tomato army had gone, retreated back over the skyline. You probably think I’ve eyes in the back of my head and all, do you? I said. She looked at me queer. I was on a walk, but I saw you on the rock, and…She went quiet. She looked like she was going to set flight. Even in my dreams I couldn’t make her stay put. I tried to remember the next part my conversation, something about mushrooms, but I couldn’t find it, so I said, you’re walking, are you? Yeah, I — there’s a path on the other side of that wall. It’s okay, isn’t it, like with the sheep and everything? I thought you might be hurt or something. Me? No, I’m fine, just being yonderly, is all. I was rolled over on my side, my knees still hunched into my belly, looking like a babby, so I sat up. She said, it’s a good view from up here. The town looks funny — it looks like a toy town or something. She looked out at the valley, fiddling still with the sleeve-ends.

She had a hair clasp on the side her head — a big yellow sun with a smiley face and firebrands twirling off losing themselves in her hair. Talk to her, you doylem, the smiley face was saying. She’ll bugger off, if you don’t. And another thing. If this is a dream, how is it your side’s aching from lying on the rock, eh? Do you think you’d feel that in a dream? I stood up, brushed myself off. He was right, that hair clasp, it did seem real. There was no telling, though, not for certain. He might’ve been codding me. Just bleeding talk to her, he said, a grum look on him now, replacing the smile.

We’ve a puppy, if you want to see it, I said.

She smiled. Okay.

Well done, lad, the hair clasp said. That’s more like it.

I was fair nervous, walking her to the farm, no matter I wasn’t certain yet she was real or not, I still had the collywobbles. I thought she’d be all talk about the puppy — how old is it? Why’s there only one? — and the rest, but she kept her peace. All you could hear was my breathing. I took her on the path round the fields toward the back the farm, as I didn’t want getting spotted. Mum was in the kitchen, and she’d certain come waddling out with a face on her, what’s our Sam up to, then? Hello, love, do you want a fatty cake?

Is that your dad down there in the tractor? she said.