Ross Raisin - Gods Own Country

Fucking town. How many jaws had the story passed through that the mushrooms had turned to eggs?

Yeah, right nice. Lay ‘em yerself, did you?

They liked that one. They jerked with laughter, so as the car shook. Slap — the one in the back swung his body out the window and smacked the roof.

Fuck off back t’ Moors, you inbred.

My skin tightened. I watched them, silent, while they laughed at me. I clammed my fingers round the arse of my glass.

Rapist.

My blood bolted and I stood up stumbling off the bench, he had a mighty grin on him, it was the funniest thing he ever said. But whatever I was going to do to him I never got the chance, for they sped off then. Ta, ta, Lankenstein, spinning in the air. I just stood there, blood racing jenny-wheels around my bones as the noise of the car faded away. I was still stood, watching a slant of light shrink on the road as the sun dipped behind the Moors, when I heard her voice behind me.

You’re Sam, aren’t you?

I turned round, she was on the pavement two yards off, looking at me stood like a proper plank.

I am, I said, thinking that she must’ve seen the lads in the car.

I thought it was, she said. I’ve seen you about. I live in the farmhouse close to yours.

Oh, hello.

She shuffled some, not saying anything, and course I didn’t speak, I was still trying to understand if she was real or not. I thought she’d take off, but she didn’t, she stayed put and said, sorry about the mushrooms. I just stood there, still red from before with the gommerils. She must’ve thought it was from talking to her. Gawky fool, she was thinking.

She said, Mum can be a real sour-faced cow sometimes. I know you didn’t do it on purpose — unless you’ve got X-ray eyes, or something. And she smiled, so I smiled back, my lumpy old smile. She stared down at her feet. I only marked then, she’d been at school, for she was wearing the uniform from the private down the valley.

I have to go, she said. My dad’s picking me up. See you later.

I watched her walk off down the street, as the sun closed shop and the valley fell to shadow. Crease, crease, went her buttocks under the skirt.

♦

Fuck you, town. Fuck you and your rotten eggs.

Iglugged up my tea and followed Father out the kitchen. He went in the storehouse, fetching his toolbox and the battering hammer, and made for the fields. He didn’t wait on me, so I tailed after, picking up the roll of fencing on my way. The fields were sogged, for it had rained in the night, and by the time I reached the bottom fence my boots were black-bright with mud.

It’s fair buggered, he said when I came aside him.

The middle portion the fence was sagging to the ground, and the wire was all mangled and torn with a great hole gaping wide enough a Barnsley midget might’ve stepped through and not brushed a hair on his head. Father took hold the wire and wrenched it up. A shimmer of raindrops sprung out, arching a rainbow an instant, till they fell to the sod and he began pulling the wire off the posts with his hands. I joined him at it, starting other end the fence. The wire came off easy, for it was rotted with rust and snapped apart most the time, so we worked quickly and it wasn’t long before Father had done his half. He took up the battering hammer and went at loosening the posts that were skewed all angles, clouting their sides until they were slack enough he could uproot them and dump them on the ground. I upped my pace, pulling off the last the old wire.

A group of sheep had crept down the field, noseying on at us like a bunch of schoolgirls, tell him, go on, tell him, until one of them pushed forward and stood looking at me. Excuse me, but what is all this racket about? We were eating in peace up there until you came. I ignored her and loosened the fenceposts aside Father. As I was doing it, a smile wriggled out the back my mind and on to my lips. I lowered my face so as Father wouldn’t see it. Unless you’ve got X-ray eyes, or something. I had the voice fixed now, it wasn’t muddled with any girl else. I could play it over, often as I liked.

Come here and hold this post, he said. I haunched down and gripped it steady while Father, taking a wide swing with the hammer, clobbered on top the post so it sank into the ground with a sludge. My hands jarped off from the vibration.

That too hard? he said.

Fine, I told him, never mind a wagonload of pain was juddering up my arm.

We carried on like that — me bent down holding the posts as he battered them in — and no matter he was right up close, near enough his smell clung on me, there was nothing I could do to stop that smile coming out again. I tried to think of something else, because if he saw me smiling like that he’d likely hammer me in the ground instead. I thought about the chicken. I pictured it in the mud, rotting, a gleam of bone showing through the damp leg feathers and maggots crawling out its beak. That pulled the smile off.

He had a sweat on, Father. His forehead was gleaming, but he’d not take his jacket off, or his cap. The cap never came off, not until the day was out and he came in the kitchen, set it on the back the door, and parked himself in front the fire with a circle on top his head like a patch of flattened grass.

He didn’t let up until the last post was beaten in. I fetched the roll of fencing and unwound it a few curls, then held it against the first post while he hammered in the hook-nails. He seemed pleased, but it was hard to tell with him. You needed them X-ray eyes to know what was going on in his head, half the time, unless he was stewing over the subsidy cheques drying out, or — what’d I told you, Nimrod, what’d I told you? We had something in common there, me and her. A right pair they made, Father and Chickenhead. Mum can be a real sour-faced cow sometimes, she’d said, and I wasn’t going to argue her on that. I looked over at their house, poking through the trees.

I saw Norman in town, yesterday, I said.

Father went on with his hammering.

Saw him on the high street after I’d got the fencing.

We finished the post. I’d pushed him far enough with my talk, so I lipped up as we moved to the next, but when he started hammering again he spoke, his eyes fixed on the nail. D’you speak?

We did. He sends his best.

Does he? He said it quiet, out the side his mouth, like he was gobbing out a piece of gristle.

That was it for the time, and I thought on telling him about the butcher’s, or the crowd outdoors the Betty, seeing as he was in a fair mood, but I thought better of it and we went silent again.

D’you see his motor? he said after a while.

I did. Must’ve cost him, eh?

Father banged at a nail. He’d never been as friendly with Norman as he had with Turnbull, but that was owing to distance, much as anything else, Norman’s being three mile off round the hillside, Deltons’ wedged between. They spoke to each other, though. They’d pass on the road to town, and shout conversations from their tractor seats. Blashy fuckin’ weather, eh! Hast-ta the footrot yet? They passed the time like that, and it wasn’t all gritted teeth. It’d been a while, mind, since I’d seen Norman in his tractor, and them high-up conversations aren’t so easy if one of you’s in a car.

We stood and looked at the fence. It was a champion job. The sheep trundled off up the field, happy we’d finished our banging and they could chew in peace again. I collected up the tools and we trod for home.

♦

He had me on all manner of jobs after that — go see i’ they want more feed mixin’…go fetch that old rannock ‘as got herself split off…them stalls need muckin’ out. Me and Sal were so busy going round seeing to the sheep we hadn’t time for the Moors, or the town, the next few days. I tried to learn her about rounding the flock, but she wasn’t much use, she was too young yet, she got panicked and buried herself in the grass yapping at them with her hind in the air.