Ross Raisin - Gods Own Country

I thought I heard something, she whispered, but she must’ve changed her mind soon enough because then she was back at poking round, checking through a side door that went into a small bathroom. I was waiting by the entrance, listening for noises, when I saw the slippers. They were next the bed, two pairs, matching, fettled up in a line, perfect straight; Sal had learnt fast, then, how to carry slippers and pen them up. I went over and tried a pair. A snug fit, champion soft, I wouldn’t have minded some of these myself, it beat traipsing round the house in boots or holey socks the whole time. She came out the bathroom and walked past me out the door into the corridor, not marking the slippers. You don’t mind if I take these do you, Mr and Mrs Tomato? You’ll be missing a dog when you get back, a pair of slippers isn’t likely going to cap that. But I didn’t take them, I shook them off and lined them up with the others, careful I didn’t get them aslew.

I’ve found them, I heard from the corridor.

They were asleep in a little room full of towels. I went toward Sal and she woke up and looked at me with her head still rested on a towel. I thought I’d be filling my boots, seeing her again, but I wasn’t — it felt queer, like she didn’t want me to take her, she was happy here canying slippers, she didn’t much fancy going back to sleep in a damp stable and getting kicked for barking at cars. She gave a great yawn as I hunkered down to pick her up, and I marked how heavy she’d got. She was heavier than him we’d kept. Must’ve been the science diet. If I shook her she’d rattle like a tin of biscuits. All right there, lass — I squeezed her into my chest, all the while not looking at the pup we were dumping, which she was now setting down on the towels, to have a sniff at the other we’d sold.

It wasn’t anything to her, mind. Creeping round someone’s house, stealing a dog, you’d think she did it every week, to look at her, the mighty grin on her face. Come on, she said, and she was off. She picked a grape out the fruit bowl as we left the sitting room, and I glegged a last look at the breasts when she wasn’t watching.

We ran most the way back, trying to carry Sal and laughing and a thousand thoughts clattering about my skull, think about me, think about me.

Course, Father didn’t mark the dog had got a size bigger, and got brown cheeks, and become a female. All he saw was she had the right portion of legs and she was ready to be worked. I let her watch on, firstly, stood up top the field by my leg, viewing Jess as she moved to Father’s whistle. I didn’t know if she was learning or not, but she was all attention them occasions, watching the dart-halt-dart of her mother rounding the sheep. Afterward, I’d take her up the Moors and practise her to bide at heel, stalking slow beside me until I shouted, rabbits! and she could bolt off over the vast, no matter there was a real rabbit to chase or there wasn’t, and a moment later she’d come panting back to me, her great pink lollicker flapping out her mouth.

He’d taken bad, Father, maybe that explained for him not noticing her. He said he hadn’t, he was bruff as ever, but he only said that because he didn’t want Mum making a palaver. I’d heard him through the storehouse wall, coughing in judders like an engine that wouldn’t start. He was going in the storehouse regular, and between the bursts of coughing I heard him chuntering, fuck off, or something like, no matter there wasn’t person else in there with him — I figured he was talking to the ailment, as if it was a body lived in the storehouse Father went to fratchen with when he got angry.

It was likely on account of him taking bad that he had more work for me. I wasn’t fussed, mind. What do you want me to do today, Father? and he’d eyeball me all wary, thinking, is he being smart, shall I belt him? But I wasn’t being smart, I’d have mucked out the whole barn if he’d wanted, not a grumble. He didn’t want that, though, he just wanted help getting the sheep fit to see out winter.

Towns don’t have much idea, but there’s a mighty amount of work farming sheep. It’s not all fluffy lambs in blankets suckling milk from a bottle in front the fire, such as they think — it’s being a veterinary, a dentist, a knacker, mending ruptures and rotted teeth, cutting dags of shite off their backsides where it clumps in the wool. The maggot fly was still about, and Father had me dagging in the barn each morning soon as my tea was slurped, for he didn’t want his flock riddled with mawks, clogging their pipes and nibbling at their workings. Sal sat quiet in the corner, and I kept a watch on her as I snipped, so that she didn’t steal off with a dag from the floor — there’s nothing pleases a dog like chewing on a piece of sheep shit. Some are more partial on it than a fresh, juicy bone, but I wouldn’t let her, for I didn’t want her taking bad. The storehouse was full already.

After I dagged their backsides, Father dealt with the front end, dosing and vaccinating against ailments, parasites, the paste gun jammed in their mouths, aimed down the gullet. Forget ramblers, or Jack — a sheep’s the most half-baked article around, that has to have its feed put out, its arse cleaned, its feet trimmed, else it’ll get sick or go lame. Bugger knows how sheep got by before farmers came along. Not so gradely, certain.

It was owing to the daft nature of our sheep that we got another visit from Chickenhead. The afternoon was near sliding to dark by the time I’d done in the barn, and I was about to clear off on to the Moors with Sal, when I saw her marching into the yard.

Excuse me, she said, coming at me with a grum face on her. She must’ve found out about me and the girl, I thought.

Your sheep is blocking my car.

Ask it to move, I said, looking over her shoulder to see if she’d come on her own. She didn’t like me saying that, old Chickenhead, not a bit. She stepped forward and I thought she might clonk me one over the head, but she didn’t, she just stood rooted, the hair trembling in the breeze.

Your sheep is stuck in the cattle-grid, blocking my car. Kindly remove it, or I shall drive over the top.

I tweaked a smile. She thought I cared what she told the girl. Sour-faced cow, she could say what she liked, she could say I’d kicked her out the yard if she wanted, I knew what the girl thought about Chickenhead. I didn’t want her running over the sheep, mind, and she had a look in her eyes that said, I’m a loopy old spiceloaf, don’t think I won’t do it.

We walked through the fields toward the cattle-grid, and she didn’t speak a word to me. She thought I’d put the sheep there myself, probably, just to piss her off. I could see the car up ahead, but it was too far yet to gleg inside. She’d give me the smile, when she saw me, or a wink, that’d be enough. Course, Chickenhead wouldn’t see, it’d be too slight for her, but I’d know what it meant — sour-faced cow, she’s too busy getting riled to notice anything, she doesn’t have a clue about us.

When we got near, though, I could see she wasn’t in the car. Just the kid. He was fidgeting on the back seat, his snout squashed to the window.

Stupid animal, said Chickenhead, it would die there if no one pulled it out.

I couldn’t argue with her on that. It’d happened before. Poor beast was having a champion struggle against its plight, the great lump of its body pressed against the rusty bars of the cattle-grid, four matchstick legs kicking away underneath.

You could’ve tried giving it a shunt, I told her.

It’s your sheep, she said, not looking on me, you can pull it out yourself.

I wasn’t mighty upskittled to hear she wasn’t helping. Fetching sheep out of cattle-grids wasn’t on the adverts when they’d decided coming here. And it was midweek, anyhow, welly weekend was days off yet. I took a look at her, glowering on with her hands on her hips, as I balanced round behind the sheep. You know what your daughter was up to last week, do you? You know we’ve been meeting up in secret? Course she didn’t. She hadn’t forgotten the mushrooms, her anger was still glowing, stoked up each time she saw me, and she thought the girl felt the same.