Ross Raisin - Gods Own Country

You’re Sam Marsdyke, aren’t you? she said to me. That set it off, her speaking to me, for I’d have sloped past otherwise, just a quick gleg at her, sat on the window sill in her skirt. I am, aye. I scanned up the corridor to see if there was a bunch of them round the corner, all giggles. I’ve been sent out of class, she says. That right? I say, fumbling in my pockets, what’s she doing talking to me, is she pulling my string? Do I stand here like a doylem or do I get on? But I stay put because she chelps away, all she did was she drew a picture of a cat in her textbook, it wasn’t even in pen, that’s hardly a crime is it? I don’t know why she’s telling me this. Probably thinks I’m right impressed at her getting sent out. I don’t mind, though, for next thing I’m sitting down with her on the sill close enough I can feel her leg touching against my own.

She talks on at me, this, that, the other, it’s not the first time I’ve been sent out of class. Isn’t it? I say, and then I tell her about how the first time I was sent out was for throwing four pencil cases out the music-room window and she thinks that’s proper funny, she does, and I knew that we were going to kiss because we’d moved closer and my leg was getting warm where it was pushed up. We talk some more or she talks, anyhow, as I’m not sure what to say, but it doesn’t matter for next thing I’m pressing up on her and her neck smells of soap and I’m kissing her and our teeth clank together because I’m not in the knowledge of how to kiss a girl proper. Wait on, I tell her, Wetherill’s out his room, let’s go there. No, she says. Don’t worry, it’s all right, and I’m holding her by the forearm, it’s only the next corridor. We go in the room shut the door it’s cold inside someone’s left a window open, but we’re not bothered about that. I kiss her on the neck, soap gusting up my nostrils, a proper stalk I’ve got on now kissing her like that and her spread on the table. But then Wetherill comes in, he’s left his fags in the desk. What’s this? Marsdyke! and he’s reaching for the blackboard eraser so I step back and he puts it down.

♦

If Wetherill hadn’t bust in when he did everything would have gone different, it wouldn’t have looked so bad as it did, they wouldn’t have said I planned raping her. You forced her against her will. Sod off, against her will. Yes you did, they said, and you’re lucky she’s not pressing charges because there are bruises all up her arm, what more proof do we need?

Any as had half a brain could’ve told Chickenhead was angry. She didn’t say anything at first, just stood quiet on the doorstep while the dad gibbered on, we’ve brought your basket back, delicious mushrooms, and the like. They’d waited a day to frame themselves up before coming, but that hadn’t bated her anger none, it bred in the quiet, and when finally she did speak I could hear it grating at the underside of her words. And so could Father. He was sat in his chair, the telly burbling away, but I knew he had an ear on the doorway.

Actually, she said, they were riddled with maggots.

I played with the whelps under the table, where she couldn’t see me.

Well, that couldn’t be helped could it, Helen? said the dad. Fact of Nature.

Oh, Nature, of course. It’s Nature’s fault my little boy hasn’t eaten a jot in twenty-four hours, is it?

Mum was stood at the door with them. Our Sam didn’t tell you to check for mawk-holes?

No. He didn’t.

Play with the whelps. That was what filled my head. Just keep on playing with the whelps. Father was looking at me. I gripped Sal into my belly and thumbed her big ears over her eyes until she squirmed to get out, and I let her go, sniffling and shaking her head.

Well, said Mum, you’ll know for next time, then.

All I heard after was the dad chuntering his goodbyes and the door closing shut.

♦

Father sat stewing in his chair, silent. Mum went out to put the basket in the storehouse. And this is Laura, said the telly, doesn’t she look stunning in this twelve-pound top from New Look? She looked half-decent, fair enough. My legs ached from being sat under the table so long. I could see the top of Mum’s head out the window, she was fussing about in the yard because she didn’t want to come back indoors. What can I do now? Ah, I know, I’ll take this washing down off the line, it’s a bit damp but no matter. He stood up then and came toward me. I didn’t flinch, it was daft flinching, I just waited for it. He took his time, sod knows what he was waiting for, he was probably listening to the telly or something, then — clout — the back of his hand against my cheek. The whelps were scarpering, I fell to the floor and scrabbled up against the table leg.

What’d I told you, Nimrod? The tip of his boot was next my face. It was caked with shit. I could smell it. Eh, Nimrod, what’d I told you? I didn’t answer him. I stayed there with my cheek flat on the carpet where I had an upskittled frame of the whelps cowering under Father’s chair, chins hid between their paws. So it needn’t cost you the earth to look a million dollars, but it wasn’t Father said that, it was the telly. Father said, I’ll smash your top, you goat with them again. Then he buggered off out the room.

I lay there a time looking at the whelps, a humdinger of a throbbing in my ear. There were small feathers and bits of hair matted into the carpet, too worn in for the vacuum to suck up.

She’d not come up with them — there was that, at least.

♦

I was penning sheep in the top field when I heard the cattle-grid rattling. They were going out. Father was off in the tractor so I left the sheep half-penned and hoofed it round the hill to track where they went. Their vehicle was parked out front of Deltons’. I squinted to get a look inside the car but it was empty, far as I could tell, though it jipped to focus proper owing to the beltenger Father had gave me earlier. They were in the kitchen, listening to Delton. Devilry, that’s what it was, nobbut devilry, but I can tell you worse. That’s not the worst of it with him. Is it, Arnold? and she’d turn round to old Arnie Delton like he might say a piece himself, but he was taking no notice, sat farting in his chair with his eyes goggled on Countdown . Devilry. You poor dears.

They’d been parked up ten minutes. The engine still chugging away. A nip in, hello, we’re the towns, is all they’d reckoned on but Delton had them hooked with her cats and grim mumblings. Mushrooms! Ee, you should’ve seen what he did to my poor little car, that’d mark you the nature of the boy. Daft old trull — I’d done nothing to her car, it was her own fault driving so slow. She’d been crunching along the track going who knows where, probably off to buy cat food, so course when I came round the corner I fucked into her back-end. Only a small dint in the tractor, mind, and Father never noticed. She had a whole load of stories like that she could tell them. Like the time she said I’d shot her cat, left it dead in a field someplace — only it turned up again the week after, she’d not had it neutered and it’d been copping off with every bitch between there and Whitby.

Chickenhead came out, then the girl, only the two of them. When they got to the car, the girl looked back and gave a little wave. The side of the house blocked my view of Delton waving back on the step, that gnarly smile on her, now just you remember what I told you, and don’t think he wouldn’t do it again in a flash.

I lay down with my hands behind my head and stared into the sky. I stayed like that till it was nearing dark, and the sky was bare save for Mr Moon and every while a bird flying home for bed. I shut my lids and fell asleep.