It didn't snow
straight away but she knew it wouldn't be long.
She'd woken in the
morning to an unfamiliar metal squealing as the weather vane on the
barn swung round to the North. And to the sound of banging. But she
didn't think. Patrick would have known to go and close the barn
doors but Patrick was gone. There were so many things he used to do
of which she was simply unaware. They'd made a good team. But now,
alone, she was a novice again, and she cursed herself for the things
she didn't do until it was too late.
Coombe Farm nestled
in the rounded belly of the valley end and usually benefited from the
shelter of the rolling hills that cradled it. The fields on the
northerly side bathed in generous sunlight and the wooded slopes of
the hills opposite softened the breath of the warmer winds from the
south. But at this time of year, the wind swung around and sharpened
its edges. It smelled of frost and peat and smoke and damp. It
seeped through the cracks in the door and rattled the glass in the
windows.
The wind wrapped
itself round the back of the house and found the year's gathered
detritus – old sacks, leaves, straw – and scattered it back
across the yard. She felt as if she'd been found out. Everything
the wind said was cruel. A judgement. The songs it sang were bitter
and grating. It found her flesh between her clothes and dragged its
sinister blade across her skin. There was no getting warm. The smoke backed down the chimney and smutted the clothes on the dryer in front
of the hearth.
She cursed the wind
every moment she had to venture outside. She cursed Patrick too for
leaving her to this, this bitter solitude. She stayed in as long as
she dared, putting off the tedious tasks she knew she must perform.
She went to the back bedroom and opened the blanket box, cursed the
moths that had evidently been feasting on the blankets and garments
within. At last she found it Patrick's old Guernsey and the
looseknit shawl her mother had worn. She wrapped herself against the
oncoming grief of the wind.
She battled across
the muddy yard and opened the henhouse. The five were hunkered on
the lowest perch, their heads pulled down into the shoulders of their
wings, feathers ruffled up such that she could see the purple grey
roots of their plumage. She tipped grain into the feeders and cracked
the ice in the water trough but the birds remained in their maudlin
meditations, sullenly blinking at her for disturbing them. She could
feel their annoyance. Should she leave the flaps open? They showed no
inclination to venture out into the gritty wind.
'You've got drink.
You've got scran. You'll survive a day,' she said.
It was only after
she had lowered the flaps again that she heard the beating of wings
come from inside,
'Ah, bugger you,'
she said. 'Bugger the lot of you! You'll stay in there now and like
it!'
Now the snow had
started, thick and fast. It had plastered itself across her back
much more thickly than she had realised as she tended to the chickens.
She turned her head as if to challenge the beast wind but was forced
to squint her eyes against the icy blasts. Snow crystals stung her
cheeks. Head down, and pulling the shawl tighter around her, she set
off across the yard to the barn.
And now she saw her
mistake, the barn door had been flung open before the wind. She
should have come here straight away – as soon as she had caught the
sound of the weather cock grinding its unfamiliar wail. The barn had
shuddered and swallowed gust after gust of the shouting wind.
During the night
the milker had given birth. She had heard the animal lowing, a dark
rich guttural moan. Patrick would have recognised
the signs and she would have left her bed and followed him to the
barn, lantern in hand, to see to the animal. She knew how to follow
him. She knew how to be at his right hand. She knew what he would
need before he knew himself. But with Patrick gone, the rhythm was
upset. The natural order was in chaos. The sound and sights that
were language to him, cues and clues as to what he needed to do, now
went untranslated for her. She was alone and the wind sharpened her
aloneness, tattering the memories of their life together, ripping
their story from the landscape and leaving her with broken words,
fragments of their togetherness that no longer meant anything but
just hung like brittle flags, dissolving under the acid breath of the
North wind.
The milker lay on
her side. A black motionless mound was spilled in the straw beside
her.
Snow still gusted
in through the open barn door. It had been closed the previous night
as usual. She had made sure of that. But as had so often happened
before, the wind change had challenged the latch and caught the great timber panel full force, splintering the wooden closure like
kindling. Patrick had had to repair it many times, had often said he
should get an iron fixing from Howlett the farrier, but had never got
round to it.
She cursed him
again, this man whom she had loved so deeply, relied on so completely
and who had left her so suddenly.
It was her grief at
losing him that was transfigured into this anger at him and now, as
she stooped to test the little corpse for any vestige of life left,
she cursed Patrick until the tears ran. She held the head of the
calf in her lap, pulled at the mucus that still clung to its muzzle.
But nothing. The animal's eyes were half open but glazed and dim.
The neck was stiff and cold.
The milker turned
her head towards the woman and a deep rolling growl rippled in her
throat.
'Tis too bad, old
girl. Too bad. I'm sorry.'
She stood up.
Pushed the tears from her eyes with the back of her wrist. She bent
and found the calf's front hoofs and, holding them together in one
hand dragged it out of the barn. The umbilical cord trailed after
it, terminating in a massed clamp of blood and slime and mucilage.
She would figure out what to do later. It would come to no
harm now, no greater harm anyway, and the cold wind would slow the rotting.
She left it around the side of the barn and covered it over with some
old sacking.
The snow was
falling thicker still and no sooner had she pulled the sack over the
little corpse, than the flakes began to blanket it.
She rubbed her
hands on her skirt, cupped them together and blew into the opening
between her thumbs. As she stood and looked down the valley, into
the very throat of the wind, she saw a dark smudge among the falling
snow, moving vaguely, slowly, towards her. The smudge moved in the
rhythm of a person walking, head down, trudging through the
thickening quilt of powder.
She saw the body
opening and closing with each heavy step.
A person, a woman, coming
towards her – a dark, hooded figure looming out of the snow towards
her...
19.02.2019
