Ross Raisin - Gods Own Country

Ramblers. Daft sods in pink and green hats. It wasn’t even cold. They moved down the field swing-swaying like a line of drunks, addled with the air and the land, and the smell of manure. I watched them from up top, their bright heads peeping through the fog.

Sat on my rock there I let the world busy itself below, all manner of creatures going about their backwards-forwards same as always, never mind the fog had them half-sighted. But I could see above the fog. It bided under my feet, settled in the valley like a sump-pool spreading three miles over to the hills at Felton.

The ramblers hadn’t marked me. They’d walked past the farm without taking notice, of me or of Father rounding up the flock from the moor. Oi there ramblers, I’d a mind for shouting, what the bugger are you doing, talking to that sheep? Do you think she fancies a natter, eh? And they’d have bowed down royal for me then, no doubt. So sorry, Mr Farmer, we won’t do it again, I hope we haven’t upset her. For that was the way with these — so respect-minded they wouldn’t dare even look on myself for fear of crapping up Nature’s balance. The laws of the countryside. And me, I was real, living, farting Nature to their brain of things, part of the scenery same as a tree or a tractor. I watched as the last one over the stile fiddled with a rock on top the wall, for he thought he’d knocked it out of place weighting himself over. Daft sods these ramblers. I went toward them.

Halfway down the field the fog got hold of me, feeling round my face so as I had to stop a minute and tune my eyes, though I still had sight of the hats, no bother. They were only a short way into the next field, moving on like a line of chickens, their heads twitching side to side. What a lovely molehill. Look, Bob, a cuckoo behind the drystone wall. Only it wasn’t a cuckoo, I knew, it was a bloody pigeon. I hadn’t the hearing of them just yet, mind, but I knew their talk.

I followed on, quick down to the field bottom and straight over the wall. Tumbled a couple of headstones to the ground as I heaved myself up, but no matter. Part of Nature me, I’d a licence for that. They couldn’t hear me anyhow, their ears were full of fog. I was in the field aside theirs and I slunk along the wall between, until they were near enough I could see them through the stone-cracks, bobbing along. I listened to them breathing, heavy, like towns always breathe when they’re on farmland. Weekend exercise for them, this was, like sex. Course they were going to buy a pink hat to mark the occasion.

A middle of the way down the field and they stopped. They parked down in a circle like they fancied a campfire but instead they whipped out foil parcels and a Thermos and started blathering.

I’ve got ham. Who wants ham?

I’ll have ham.

Oh, wait a moment. Pink Hat inspected the sarnies. We have a choice — ham and tomato, or ham and Red Leicester?

He gave them each a parcel, then stood the Thermos in the middle of the circle.

Nasty old day still, he said. Wish it would perk up a little.

Doesn’t look too promising, though, said one of me females.

I teased a small stone out the wall and plastered it in sheep shit.

That is such nice ham.

Isn’t it? Tesco, you know.

Crack. I hit the Thermos bang centre, tea and shit splashing up the fog.

They hadn’t a clue. It was a job to keep from laughing as they skitded about and scanned the sky as if they were being bombed. Or maybe they feared they’d pissed the cuckoo off — upset Nature’s balance, sitting in a field. Didn’t think to look over at me crouching behind the wall. So down I went for the shit pile and I threw another stone, but it missed and hit a female on her foot. I might’ve flung a headstone at her and she’d not have felt it through them walking boots but that wasn’t going to stop her screaming her lungs out her windpipe. Behind the wall, there’s someone behind the wall, quickly let’s go. Quickly! They were all on their feet soon enough, grabbing up the picnic and escaping down the field. Run for your lives, towns, run for your lives. When they were out of range, Pink Hat turned and blabbed something about a peaceful day out, they meant no harm please leave them alone.

But I couldn’t be fussed with them any more. I waited for them to scarper then I started back to the farm. The pups would be needing a feed and I was rumbling for a bite myself.

Near the top the field I looked round to see how far they’d got, likely they were halfway to Felton by now, they were that upshelled. So I was fair capped when I saw they’d come back. I couldn’t rightly make out what they were up to at first, all I could see was their heads huddled behind a wall and Pink Hat galloping up the hillside. He snatched something up off the ground and it glinted an instant before he put it in his rucksack. They’d left the tin foil behind.

♦

In the old stable the pups were asleep, the four of them piled up snuffling against Jess’s side. She had an eye awake, looking on while I took a plate of chopped liver off the shelf and lay it by for when they were ready. Then I went in the kitchen, and there was a smell drufting about that got in my nostrils and reached down my gullet. Biscuits. I opened the oven, but it was empty. Door was warmish, mind, like a cow’s underbelly, and I pressed my hand against it a time, letting the heat slug up my arm before I stood up and went for the cupboards. No biscuits in any of them, so I sat down by the fire.

Mum was in the other room, and she was all I could hear but for the fire and the honeysuckle flapping against the window. She was on the phone to Janet. That, or she was talking to the budgerigars. Fat little fuckers, up to nothing all day but rubbing their heads together and gawping in the mirror. I got up and pushed the door to the other room, just a nudge, to poke my eye in. She was on the phone, and she had the biscuits. She was gobbing them whole while she yammered on to Janet.

Happy as a pig in trough he were, Janet, happy as a pig in trough…

I went for a gleg in the freezer to see if she’d done another batch, but it was just bags of sprouts and vaccination packs like always, so I gave up the biscuits and stood by the window, where just a chunter of talk came through the door-crack with the scratch of fingernails on the tin. The fog had cleared some and I could see the lump of Felton Top other side the valley. I knew them ramblers were headed for the Top, filing downriver till the path jutted left up the hillside. Blimey, it’s a fair old climb, but not to worry, there’s a pint waiting for us on the other side.

I settled into the chair by the fire and let my body go to rest. The pub round the Top would be thronged today, full of ramblers. I didn’t think on it much longer, mind, for I dropped off soon enough, I was that snug, only the tap of honeysuckle on the window to listen to. Mum had quieted — Janet was on one — so I drowsied on, my head bare of thought until the wind got up and the tapping hardened. Is there no peace round here? I said, the one eye open. The honeysuckle wasn’t moving, though, and I knew right away that sound, it was Father’s boots on the path, and I straightened up.

He came in, didn’t speak. In his left hand he had a dead rabbit. I could see by his face something was nettling him. He strew about the letters and papers on the tabletop, turning them over and knocking the salt so as it sprayed on the cloth. Then he was in the cupboards, leaving them all open before he turned back and the rabbit’s head banged, on a chair. He had it by the legs and there were spots of red on the floor where he’d walked through the kitchen. He took the cushion out the armchair aside me and jammed his hand down the back of it. He wasn’t after the biscuits, then. I kept lipped up while he frisked the inside of the chair, dangling the rabbit by my feet, and Mum came in, the tin in her hands.