Ross Raisin - Gods Own Country

I fetched a basket, cloth and some other trunklements, then I set off down the hillside. It didn’t take much searching before a small circle of mushrooms came into view, four perfect ones down the bottom the first field. I plucked them out the ground, laying them in the basket before I made for my next sighting.

It was the calendar for picking, arse-end of summer, and there were plenty of sproutings. They were most fertile around the borders of the fields, as the grass grew clumpy by the walls where the sheep hadn’t mown it up. There, and through dung piles. That was where I found the biggest mushrooms, groups of them sharing the shit, slurping up the goodness through their lime-white stalks. The stalk-ends were clung with muck after I picked them, so I rubbed them down with the cloth. I knew towns. I knew how they were mooded toward muck. I carried on down the fields and my sight of the valley floor sharpened to take in the groups of houses patching the land, bunched in villages along the river’s side. The biggest patch was the town, stretching out to the base of the hills either side. It was early yet but vehicles were moving through it, so folk were up and about already, going about their business.

These who’d moved into Turnbull’s were a different sort to the folk from town. They had brass, and folk with brass always wanted to keep themselves separate, not have their snouts in other people’s doings the whole time like them lot down there. But they were still towns, mind. They knew sod-all about mushrooms, or much else besides. The country was a Sunday garden to them, Wellingtons and four-by-fours and glishy magazines of horse arses jumping over a fence.

And here was me fetching their breakfast. A girl shows up and I’d turned into a half-brain.

My basket was filling nicely, but I kept on, starting a second layer. Mushroom breakfast for a week, and each time they sat down to eat they’d remember who gave it them and Delton could say what she pleased, she’d have to scratch the polish off my arse.

I walked round the fields until the basket was brimful, but I wasn’t sure they’d be up and I didn’t want to wake them, so I sat up against a tree to wait a while. It was a champion collection, all different sizes of plump, dew-damp mushrooms. I took one out the basket and held it in the nubs of my fingers. A babby little feller, perfect round and white, no older than an hour or two. He’d poked his head out the ground same time I was getting from my bed. I turned him stump-up and felt along the pink fronds, fine and delicate like the gills of a fish. It was a gradely welcome. Delton wasn’t going to match this.

I got up and trod for Turnbull’s farmstead. The towns’ farmstead, as was fitting to name it now, daft as that was, when the only livestock they’d be keeping was cats and dogs and Fluffykins the rabbit. The kitchen light was on. I stood by the gate a moment then unsnecked the chain, but soon as it clinked off some great barking article came lolloping out the garage and near caused me to flip the basket over. Hello boy, shush up now. Woof, Marsdyke’s here! A Labrador. He jumped up to the gate and jowled the top of it with drool.

Lionel, come here! The dad was at the back door in his pyjamas, stumbling into a pair of Wellingtons.

Lionel!

Lionel kept slopping up the gate.

He came toward me. Proper smart pyjamas, probably went to work in them.

I do apologise for him, he’s dreadful with strangers. He bent down to quieten the dog and I saw the top of his head shining under scrags of hair. Especially with the move…he shot his eyes up at me. He hasn’t been bothering your animals, has he? I mean, your cattle, with his barking?

No. They’re grand.

Oh, good. I’m Graham Reeves. We’ve just moved in. They were southern, clear enough, from the sound of him. He held a wobbling hand out to me.

I know, I said. Sam Marsdyke. Guy’s son.

He spotted the basket.

They’re for you, I said, you and your family.

Gosh, thank you, wild mushrooms. There’s so many, blimey, thank you. He stood up straight to take the basket, the dog butting at his legs. There was a dark blotch of wet damped in the groin of his pyjamas. I must’ve got him off the bog.

Well then. I stepped back from the gate. We’re up the hill, if you need something doing. I turned to leave, a quick gleg past him at the back door, but he’d not done talking yet.

Are you the local farmers, you and your dad?

Us and Deltons. And Norman other side.

I see. He looked up toward our farm. Lionel was eyeing the mushrooms.

I’ll be going, I said.

Right, okay, thank you again. Hope to see you around.

I made off and started back up the track, but after a few steps I stopped, and watched through the trees. He was taking his Wellingtons off, fending the dog from the mushrooms. Then the both of them went in. Don’t worry, darling, it was just our new neighbours, the Marsdykes. Look what they gave us. She’d bust her eyelids, the mum, when he showed her the basket, she’s never seen so many mushrooms. Oh, my word, mushrooms on toast, don’t you just fancy that? He kisses her on the cheek as he hands over the basket. Don’t you see, he tells her, I told you it would be wonderful, it’s God’s own country here. They go into the kitchen together, and it’s quiet a moment until, hello, who’s this padding down the stairs? It’s the girl. What’s going on? she says. She rubs sleep-dust from her eyes and two small swellings push against the cotton of her pyjamas. Mushrooms, they cry together, from Sam Marsdyke!

I pressed up against the back the house, checking I’d not been seen, and snuck round, nice and quiet.

Cluck, went a chicken that was scrabbling away outside the coop in the backyard. They’d taken a fancy to Turnbull’s poultry, then — ducks, geese and all judging from the sounds inside the coop. The chicken came toward me, she thought I had a feed for her. Sorry, old lass, I gave it all to them in there, and I’d get back in that coop if I were you, there’s a fox about this past couple of weeks who’d love to get his chops round you. I knew when I was outdoors of the kitchen because it was the only room that side the house. I’d been in it, plenty enough. Turnbull and Father had been a right pair, always helping the other and getting leathered down the Grouse together. Father had been a miserable old bastard since Turnbull died, owing as he had no one to go down the Grouse with to get leathered.

I hunched down and shuffle-stepped till I was underside of the kitchen window. It was open a little way, but there wasn’t a sound. I eased upward to slip an eye over the sill, but there was a wall of books blocking. They were stood paper-end to me, though two of the flat ones sat on top had their spines showing. The Good Barbecue Chef and Indian Adventure: All Things Spice . Some prize reading there. They’d have an adventure if they went to the Indian down the valley, certain, but I didn’t likely think they’d be doing much of their eating down there, not with all these cookbooks. That was their sort for you — the sun hadn’t done a lap round their house yet, but the cookbooks were fettled up. I was about to creep higher, till I saw a thin snicket between two books cocked against each other. I looked through. The mushrooms were on the table, and I could see most the middle part the kitchen. There were cardboard boxes piled up on the floor, and a big gap in the sideboard where the washer had been took out, but not a body in view.

I sided my head to the glass to get a listen. Nothing, so I pressed my ear harder, with my eyes straining sideways to get a squint on them if they came in. My eyeballs were tether-end of their range and all I had proper in my focus was the front of the cocked book, some grinning prat in a stripy apron holding up an onion. Just wait and see what I can do with this onion, he was smiling, but I couldn’t give a toss what he could do with onions, I just didn’t want to get spotted and everything to bugger up.