Ross Raisin - Gods Own Country

Likely they were in their beds. All I heard for five minutes was the echo of blood pumping in my ear, so I turned and looked again through the snicket. My lugs needed a clean, it seemed, for I’d not heard the dog come in. He was stood with his paws on the table, snouting at the mushrooms. Sniff, sniff, what’s this? Drool all over them. Lionel! came a voice dim through the window. Naughty Lionel! The kid brother ran in. He flung himself on to the dog and lolled over its back while Lionel lurched up the shreds of a mushroom he’d knocked on the floor. Then the kid flopped off and ran for the table to dump his hand in the basket, and a load of mushrooms spilt out. He tossed one in the air for the dog to catch. Gulp, down the gullet before his paws hit the floor. Again! he squealed. But the next mushroom bust apart in the air, befuddling Lionel, who pushed a splinter of it behind a box, scratch scratch, where’s it gone? I was near ready to bang on the window, distract them, but I stopped myself straight off when the girl walked in.

She clapped the dog away. Her hair was dark with wet, but I could still mark that I’d been right, up on the hill, she was a blondie. She turned to the kid. What are you doing, Oliver, you little shit? Uh-oh, I’m telling Mum, you said shit. Shut up. Little shit. She came to the table and looked at the basket. Her face was near enough I could see the little brown ferntickles speckling her nose and the tops of her cheeks. I had to move aside, in case she saw me over the top the books. Where did these come from? Me, I almost spoke out, but I kept it in my pipes. The dad stepped in the frame, dressed now. Ah, now that I can’t tell you, he said, tapping twice on his nose, like he was trying to wake it up. It’s secret information. The kid clomped and squawked, Dad, Dad, where they from? But the dad just smiled and touched his nose again.

She sat down, opened a magazine. She’d lost interest who gave the mushrooms. A sliver of skin was showing under her shirt-tail, the flesh furrowed at the base of her spine, delving into her jeans.

The kid squawked again, where they from, Dad, where they from? He looked down at the kid. The Bogeyman gave them to me. The mum came into the room then. Graham, she said, don’t tease them, and she stooped for a box by the table, pulling out a frying pan. Her hair didn’t move a twitch as she bent, it was set in a sleeky-soft ginger mould, as if her head was jammed inside a chicken. The mushrooms are a present, she said, but I missed the next piece because she walked off toward the sideboard…one of the local farmers.

One of the local farmers? Might as well have been Norman collected them, for all the girl knew. Chickenhead thought we’d had a get-together, planned the bleeding thing.

The girl slipped her forefinger over her tongue, and flicked the page of her magazine. See, Mum, her eyes still on the magazine, told you they’d be friendly, didn’t I?

Yes, oh, I’m sure they are, I just think we should be careful not to antagonise them, that’s all, make sure Lionel doesn’t run amok with the sheep, that sort of thing. Lionel was slumped against the table leg, licking his knackers. They’re not exactly known for their patience, are they? And they carry guns, she said, turning on the tap. The dad piped up — do give the mushrooms a good wash, there’s droppings on some of them. What’s droppings? the kid said from underside the table, where I couldn’t get a fix on him. The girl ducked her head toward him. Shit, she said, too soft for me to hear, but I traced the lines of her lips. It’s plops, Oliver, said the dad, sheep plops. Yuck. I’m not having any. Chickenhead clobbered a clove of garlic with the stump of a knife.

Who was the farmer, Dad? She looked up from her magazine, stroking a tress of hair behind her ear to expose her throat, smooth and white. Sam Marsdyke, he said. You said it was the Bogeyman, squawked under the table. Well, Oliver, perhaps he is the Bogeyman, said the dad. Who is he, Dad? she asked. A page of her magazine flipped over, but she didn’t notice. A young chap, bit older than you, the dad said. Mind you, it is hard to tell sometimes with these farmers, they are rather grizzly-looking. Bogeyman! Bogeyman! under the table. The dad laughed, yes, he’s no oil painting. All arms and legs, and a nose like — her lips puckered, waiting — an old tree stump! She smiled. A knurl of butter slid in the pan. This won’t be long, said Chickenhead, and the dad fumbled in the boxes until he pulled out a fist of cutlery. The girl flicked through her magazine, each while a little smile.

♦

They were sat so near I had to squinny through the crook of the dad’s pit to get a look at her, other side the table. Behind them, the pan steamed curls into the air from the juice sweated out of the mushrooms. Well, said the dad, you’ve got to hand it to the Bogeyman. I thought we might saunter up to their farm after breakfast, drop off the basket, then we can kick on with the lounge. I was rubbing my brain trying to think was it today Mum was going into town for her hair, when the kid’s plate smashed on the floor. Lionel was whipped up, woof, woof, what’s this, why’s the boy screaming like a throat-slit pig? Oliver, what on earth? He was on the flagstones wriggling and retching up his breakfast, Oliver! Shut up, Lionel! He retched again and they fussed around him, what’s wrong with him, what’s wrong, Oliver? The dog was nosing in the slop the kid gipped up. Chickenhead flashed a look at the dad, I told you he hated mushrooms, she said. The girl knelt down. It’s all right, Oliver, it’s all right. Her shirt rode up her back far enough to see the ridge of her backbone. Ugh, fuck, she sprang up slipping on a patch of slop. Maggots! she hollered, there’s maggots in the mushrooms!

I felt my guts wither up. I’d forgot about that.

He’s given us maggoty ones, Chickenhead shouted, and the girl ran for the sink to gush the tap on and swill her mouth out, water running down her neck. I’d have told him if it wasn’t for that sodding dog. Check for maggots, some of them’ll likely be mawky. Cut through the stem and look for riddle-holes — those are maggots, chuck them ones out. But I’d forgot, and now they were turn-taking waterfalls in the sink, all owing to me, the Bogeyman, local farmer.

Course, they thought the whole lot was rotted, that I’d picked them specially. The maggots were dead before they ate them anyhow, but they weren’t thinking about that, they all had sodding foot and mouth now.

♦

She sat down and the kid parked himself, quiet, in front her chair. She stroked his hair and I tried to see what her face was showing, but I couldn’t tell. Her collar was wet with water. It glimmered on her neck.

I slunk off. My eye glanced past the cookbooks and a smear-stain on the glass I must’ve made with my hair. You’ve buggered it now, the onion man grinned at me in his stripy apron. Oh yes, you’ve buggered it now.

She’d find out soon enough. If I’d not been such a gawby forgetting about maggots she might not’ve believed them, but she’d believe them now, certain. And it’d be Delton that told her. Katie Carmichael. How I had to quit my schooling when I was sixteen on account of trying to rape her in Wetherill’s formroom.

She never pressed charges. A court case would’ve messed up her exams, poor girl, though bugger knows why her exams were so important, she was only third year, and I didn’t know why there should’ve been a court case anyhow because I didn’t rape her, as it happened, and even if Wetherill hadn’t come back for his fags I wouldn’t have done, neither. We won’t press charges so long as that monster is taken out of school, was the trade. And they said I was lucky, because I’d forced her against her will, but I didn’t know what was lucky about missing my GCSEs and having to work the farm with Father. I’d have bobby-dazzled them and all — I got the best marks in class for the mock exams, not far off. There were some proper nimrods in my class, mind.