Ross Raisin - Gods Own Country

Hi, Sam, she said as she got to a few steps away.

All right? Fine day.

She stooped to where the pup was laying between my boots, and fussed him up some, ruffling his coat so as it stood all ends and he play-growled back at her through his fangs.

Are you ready? She looked up at me.

Yes, I am, I said, stepping back.

The way she had it planned out, you’d think she was military, not a schoolgirl — this is who they are, this is where they live, this is when they’ll be out. It wasn’t even her dog. She said her dad had known right away when she’d asked who it was that wears the matching Puffa jackets. Emily and Ian Rea. Sounded like an ailment, to me. More on, it wasn’t careful, asking her dad, as he’d certain snout us out if the tomatoes started investigating, but I didn’t say that to her.

We set off toward the far side of town, for that was where they lived. We’d be there by five, she said, which would give us an hourish to find a hidey-hole and suss the house out.

How do you know when they’ll go out, I asked, all curled eyebrows like Watson with Mr Holmes.

It’s Friday night, she said, early doors in the Fleece. All the snobs go there tonight. Even Mum and Dad have been a couple of times.

The Fleece. Ramblers’ pub other side of Felton Top, I should’ve known that was where all these new towns met up. The type of pub with brass pots hung off the ceiling and foxes’ heads growing out the walls — my stats, that looks like a tasty dinner you’ve got down there, I’d be after a bite of that, if they hadn’t nailed my head on the wall and stuck a fish tank round it.

We walked down the hillside toward the town, and once we got there we sided round it, past the back the store, where there wasn’t anything save for a few old beer cans and an army of brown thistles busting out the tarmac. We didn’t talk much, we just carried on, all business, taking turns carrying the pup, then letting him down to scuttle ahead when he got too heavy.

Your dad friendly with them, is he? I said, after we’d not spoke for a time.

What? No, well, he knows them. They all know each other, of course. They’re like, proper ex-pats round here, aren’t they?

They are that, I said, turning to look at the hills so she couldn’t see by my face I’d not understood.

She bent to pick up the whelp.

You must really hate us, mustn’t you?

No, I said, flowtered, I don’t hate you. She was silent. I don’t hate you , I should’ve said, but I’d missed it now, she wasn’t answering, and we carried on walking. We were on a lane, minding boggy pools left over from the rain, and we trod upward as the hill bent steeper up the other side the valley.

Further on, there were two old cottages to one side, both of them mighty postcard, with red tiled roofs and iron lattice criss-crossed over the windows. Indoors they were empty and dark. I could see from the bare grate in one of them that no fire had been lit recent. They were second homes, these, the owners still in London or York or wherever, jam jar shopping. They’d sit empty most the year, except for a couple of months in the summer, and Christmas, when the whole area started teeming with towns, bumping into each other in the store buying firelighters, yammering two hours about swallows’ nests, without marking the shopkeeper chuntering to some old cloth-head at the counter, glowering over at them.

I think it’s awful the Fat Betty’s closed down, she said.

It final, is it? I’d not heard. I followed her over a stile. They’d be riled in town, then, proper upshelled, for at least as long as it took until the new place opened.

I put my name on the petition, she said, and I made Mum and Dad sign it. It’s stupid, anyway. They think they’re moving with the times, but they’ve got it wrong, because the snobs won’t go there. Those bars are so for the Pinot Grigio crowd.

Right.

It’s killing the local culture. I think it’s awful.

I kept shut. I couldn’t likely tell her I didn’t give a stuff about the Betty, or that these new towns weren’t any worse than the tosspots that lived here in the first place. They could all get leathered together for all I cared. She let the pup down, and we walked on in quiet.

The house was set a way off from any other, in a knobble of small hills. I’d not seen it before, but this wasn’t my side the valley, mind. We put usselves down behind the top of one of the hills, bellied on the grass with the pup ligged out between, powfagged and sleepy-eyed from the walk, not knowing what we were about to do to him. We had a decent view of the house from there, and the valley past it — the mirror of my own view from the rock — with the fringe of moor up top in the distance. I had a spy for the farm, but I couldn’t see it, owing to the glower of dark getting in.

This house had been a barn once, but now it was all roof-windows and a curved glass outhouse stuck on the side. There were lights on in most the upstairs windows, but nobody in sight.

I bet they’re getting changed, she said, hushed.

What for? They’re off down the pub.

She laughed, for I’d said something daft, but it gave me chance to snatch a look at the soft lump of her backside.

Look, quick. She pointed at the house. The female walked past a window. She hadn’t the coat on, but it was her, certain.

That’s them, I said, and we kept still, waiting, near on ten minutes probably, until the little feller between us woke up from his dog dream with a yap and scuttled forward toward the house. We dived for him, same time, and I caught hold his leg, dragging him back. I propped my elbows and snugged him under my chest, stroking the top his head until he quieted. I wondered if maybe he’d seen Sal.

I don’t think they heard, she said, as we scanned the windows, halfways expecting one of them to appear with a pair of binoculars, but nobody showing. She was closer now, it felt like she was whispering in my ear. We might have to wait here the night, Sam, at this rate, do you mind if we cosy up? That wasn’t what she said, what she said was — brr, it’s chilly — and I was fain glad, for she’d flinch off if she cosied up to me, unless she liked umpteen bones jutting at her, it’d be like cuddling a sack of firewood, holding my body. She was closer, though, certain. I could feel the warmth off her, muddling my sides and my legs so as I hadn’t the knowing of my borders and I wasn’t sure if we were touching or not. I had a bell-ringer of a stalk on and all.

Next thing, the tomatoes were at a downstairs window, coats on, talking. I shifted forward an inch.

Careful, don’t move, she said, thinking I was after a better look, though I wasn’t, I just needed to budge my stalk because it was jipping like hell, rooted in the ground like that — bloody hell, the worms were saying, what the fuck sort of plant is that?

They disappeared again, but a moment later they were opening the front door and she was pressed up even closer. They were on their way out, the front door shutting and the man putting a key under a plant pot, the gawby. When they’d drove off, she stood up and lifted the pup. Easy peasy, she said, and I followed crooked after her toward the house, my joints all crammocky from lying still so long and my stalk only half bated.

♦

The house was sorted neat and tidy inside. It wasn’t like our house, with mould sneaking up the walls and raggy cloths laying about the place that’d been there fifty years. Here it was racks of newspapers and the carpet all fluffed up like they’d gone over it with a brush. What undid me, though, was the pictures. Everyplace I turned there were breasts — in the hallway, the front room, rising up the stairs, all these naked lasses flumped over settles or hiding in a flower bed. I couldn’t take much of a look, mind, in case she caught me gawping. She didn’t seem to think it was queer, all these pictures, she was moving on ahead, going between rooms with the pup under her arm, mighty casual as if she was in her own house. We went up the stairs and I tantled behind while she looked in a room on the left, came straight out and went other side into another. After a moment, when she’d not come out, I followed in. The bedroom. She was stood next the window, spying out.