Ross Raisin - Gods Own Country

You’ve to promise me, Sam, it’ll never happen again. You’ve to promise me, you hear? But it was too late for all that now. I’d broke the promise and she’d never be able to leave the house again, Delton and the town and The Blatherskites’ News , there was no escaping from them now, she couldn’t even look at me, sat stone-still next to Father, she had her eyes in the roof-beams the whole time.

You ran away together, but it was your premeditated aim to abduct her, and when she tried to escape from you, you took your opportunity. It was your intention to rape her, wasn’t it? Objection! Objection? I didn’t see what he had to object about. What he really objected about was he had to defend me in the first place, that he was the unlucky sod got pulled out the hat by the court. We were like them twins that get born fastened together, so there’s no choice but going round with the other, no matter he hated me and wished the whole time I wasn’t joined on to him. Hello, ladies, you’re looking elegant tonight, I must say, can I buy you a drink? You can, yes, but what’s that thing stuck on your back? Oh, that’s Lankenstein, just pretend he’s not there. Did you know there were caves in the cliff? How did you know where to find a rope? Was it the first time you’d visited the caves, or had you been there before? Yes, I admit it — sheepdogs are more intelligent than other dogs.

There, I said it. Lock me up, Your Honour. Lock me up and throw away the key. And by the way, tell me, why’ve you got a Wensleydale on your head? That’s what they’re kept for, is it? I should’ve known, such a meadow-munching breed as that. Coats? Hats? Not good enough for us, I’m afraid, we’re going to be turned into judges’ wigs. It all fit in place now, you had to laugh. Unless you were Chickenhead, course. She’s not laughing. She never is, Your Honour, she’s the grummest creature you’ll ever meet. She’s sitting there, quiet, with the dad holding on her arm, but she’s ignoring him — she’s only interested looking this way, her eyes boring holes through me until I have to gleg away. The dad’s proper befuddled, stood in the crowd outside as the lugger-buggers barge me through, all these cameras clicking away, you have acted in a cruel and pitiless manner and your sentence must reflect the particularly frightening nature of your crime. I catch the dad’s eye a second through the crowd, he doesn’t know where to look, his face all sorrowful. Thank you ever so for the mushrooms — it wasn’t your fault they were mawky, I knew that all along, but then Chickenhead’s pulling him away and I lose them in the throng and I try to sight the girl but they’ve smuggled her off already.

♦

Old people are the most difficult, it says. Least likely to accept it’s a Fresh Start and change their mind about you. She’s not interested in that, though. She just looks out at me, same as ever, them big eyes piercing right into me. It’s all right, there isn’t anyone to bother us, it’s just us here. I meet her eyes, touching round the outline of her, mighty finger-worn now. It’s all right, she is smiling, there isn’t anyone to bother us here.

♦

After the court I got shifted down south, further from home than I’d ever been before. Carted five hours in a cage like a two-shear off to market, stopping to pick up other mawngy sods on the way, all this orchestra music drufting about the van the whole journey, the drivers whistling away in the front. I was fain pleased, mind, they took me so far away. For one thing, I knew Mum and Father wouldn’t visit me. I hadn’t liked it when they’d come to see me in the first prison. We’d never had a mighty amount to talk about before, so we certain didn’t now. Hello, Mum, Father, anyhow you’ll never guess what I’ve been up to. Getting belted in the knackers, that’s what, oh, and I’m a pitiless abductor. The couple times they’d come, Mum just twittered away, filling up the time slot, and I knew she felt it was her fault at root, no matter what Janet told her, if she’d brought me up different I wouldn’t haye turned out half-baked. I couldn’t say anything to her, not with him sat there. She was thinking it was the same as budgerigars and she could’ve cared for me better, changed how I was kept, given me a mirror and a bell I could balance on my head, then I would’ve been different. I didn’t want to see her. Both times she just sat there blathering about the weather and Janet’s new hair but all the while I knew that was what she was thinking; and I didn’t want to see Father because he was a grum bastard wouldn’t once look at me, I didn’t know why he even came anyhow.

The other reason I was glad to move so far away was I didn’t think I’d be known. It wouldn’t be like down the valley, where they’d read about me in the newspaper and I had to stay in the library the whole time, I’d be able to go about unnoticed now. I was green as cabbage-looking, though, if I thought that. Prisons are worse than any town or school you can think of — all any prisoner is fussed about is fags and gossip. They knew who I was before I even stepped on the wing. Fashioned up a name for me and all. Ripper. Sometimes it was Pete, or Yorkshire, but most times it was Ripper. I should’ve been chuffed, rightly, for most the perverts were just Beast, or Nonce, but I was pissing blood again soon enough. There were others got it worse, as this was a Category B and some of them were in for fouler than I’d done. Near all the perverts ended up on the Rule, sided off out of harm’s way in the Vulnerable Prisoner Unit, and I could’ve asked to join them, said I was in danger out on the wing, but I didn’t fancy getting cosy with them lot. I just wanted to be left on my tod. I could frame myself for the clobberings — it was the noise of the place that undid me.

The shouting, clanking echoes that never stopped. They rang in my ears, addling my brain, everyplace I went I felt penned in by them until I could hardly move. I riddled the answer soon enough, mind — if I wanted to be left peaceable, I’d have to stir up some bother first. That was when I started my attacks. They were small at first, throwing pens or cups, and always at band-end weaklings I knew wouldn’t do me over. That would get me a couple of days of quiet in segregation. Then I upped it. I clouted an officer on the shoulder. Belted another weakling until he was senseless with the battery out the video projector, wrapped in a sock. They were never interested why I’d done it — they couldn’t shut me away quick enough, twenty-eight days a stretch. And that was gradely by me. Peace. Nothing but the white wall glaring back at me, and my thoughts to turn over, and every now and then, hello, a dollop of feed on a tray sliding under the door. There was a cost for it, course. Another year inside, at least.

♦

He’s on his way, not long now. He’ll sit on the bed next me, blathering on, now, let’s have another practice shall we? Can you tell me a time when you’ve succeeded in a challenging situation? They’re bound to ask you that, any job you go for. Well, let’s think, there’s the time the ewe was stuck in the cattle-grid and Chickenhead was stood over me with her pipes steaming until I got it out. That count, does it? Does it! It’s perfect, Sam, you’ll knock their socks off. She just smiles. There you go, then, it’s as easy as that. Obviously that’s the first thing your father will ask if you go back to the farm — when have you succeeded in a challenging situation? — but she’s smiling still, because she knows I’m not ever going back there again.

I flatten out the picture, and feel down the length of her back, over the smooth white skin and the fragile curve of her spine, and I remember for a moment the mole’s skull, perfect delicate and unharmed. She just smiles, her head turned round to look at me, them big eyes and the little tweak of the mouth. Here’s one for you, a challenging situation — Wetherill coming back into the classroom, picking up the blackboard eraser, What’s this? Marsdyke! You forced me against my will, you can’t really deny it now, can you? Can you? There were bruises all up my arm, after all, what more proof do I need?