Human, Animal

Father

The cow running loose in the orchard is my mother. A blur in the moonlit garden. I watch her from the bedroom window as the nightmare loosens its grip. The animal cry that woke me came from her throat. That streak of hide is her cotton gown. My skin is crawling, but the cows are safe. Locked up, where they belong. And Ma is an easier being to handle.

It's just gone two. I leave my wife in bed and feel my way downstairs. Hunched over, gripping the bannister. My chest is tight. I let out a shuddering breath and ache for sleep. What is Ma playing at? What could have possessed her, out there in the middle of the night? At the back door, I slip on my shoes without untying the laces, grab the heavy duffle coat. Then out onto the frozen path. Cold cuts through my pyjamas, ice crackling underfoot like bubble wrap. I prick up my ears, find the laurel with my fingertips. Let it lead me through the darkness.

Worry is a farmer's right. Live with cows for long enough, their lowing crowds your waking thoughts. Spills into your dreams.

And tonight my brother Mike had come home. Fifteen years my junior, six years dead. I saw him surrounded by the herd, greeting the animals he once called friends. His laughter lines, just the way he was when he was alive. I wanted to hand him the reins and run for the hills. Instead, I wisecracked about his scarecrow hat, lying trampled in the mud when I found him. He made a joke about a bovine revolution. What they might do, if ever they knew their own strength.

And then something knocked me to the ground, and there were hooves thudding over my head. Thundering, thrashing. I sat up, gasping.

The cows have got out!

But it is only my mother I must round up tonight. Closer now, mischievous as a child. Saying something.

You won't get me!

For god's sake, Ma. You'll catch your death.

I was just going to the privy.

There hasn't been a privy in twenty years, since she finally agreed that an indoor toilet was a modern luxury even we Calverts could afford. I put my coat around her narrow shoulders. Chilled to the bone. She doesn't resist as I shepherd her back towards the farmhouse.

There were no candles, Pop. I got lost.

I switch on the kitchen lights. Put her in the chair by the Aga. She blinks up at me, her eyes pink and wet.

The light, she whispers. Jerry will see. Jerry will get us.

I peer at the dark patch on the front of her nightgown, wrinkling my nose. That tart, animal smell. She has soiled herself.

I sigh, undress her in the chipped, porcelain tub in the downstairs bathroom. She sits there, trembling. Taking care of her, I feel my age, and she is just a girl. It's after four by the time I'm back in bed.

I reach for Sandra, but I am alone under the covers. There are clanging crockery sounds from the kitchen, and the cows are bellowing impatiently. They know the time as well as anyone. I roll out of bed. Late for the school bell, late for milking. Echoes of my childhood shame, only now I am seventy-one and my old man and his disappointment in me are six feet under.

I pull on two shirts and a fleece. Ache and fumble through my ablutions. Curse when my fingers catch in my sleeve and the toothpaste plops off my brush onto the yellowed enamel of the sink. I am dog-tired. Sometimes when I move it is the floorboards that creak. Sometimes it is my own body. Breath escapes me like air from a dead thing.

The kitchen is steamy. Sandra turns from the Aga with a pot of coffee and thrusts a mug into my hands. Look at her: my wife, still young. Her hair is glossy mahogany streaked with grey. Dark bags hang below her eyes. I try to touch her, but she twirls out of my reach to wipe a splash of milk on the counter. She's listening to the Today programme, which never fails to put me in a bad mood. Frankly, if you don't like big government, you're automatically very suspicious of Brussels, and I would never belong to a European union if I felt. I'd prefer to have a conversation than to listen to all that bickering. Or some good music. Or even silence, so early in the morning. But Sandra needs the news like it's insurance.

Hallo, Georgie, says my mother, sitting at the kitchen table, the brightest of all of us.

I tell her how she got me up in the night, my voice rough. Her eyes cloud over. Sandra shoots me a disapproving look.

Sleepwalking? says Ma. Was I?

There's colour in her cheeks now. I let it go. She is a force of nature, my mother, nimble and resourceful at ninety.

You better go and help Harry, Sandra reminds me, gesturing towards the farmyard.

Give me a second.

The cows are making a racket, Elder Son down in the cowshed already. But there's no sign of Younger Son. I hesitate.

Have you seen Tom?

He graduated from Glasgow last summer and announced he was going vegan. Branded the farm exploitative, dependent on the forced labour of the vulnerable. The cheek of him. They're bloody cows, and I pride myself on the way we treat our animals. Still, there's no arguing with the young, something I keep forgetting as quickly as Sandra can point it out to me.

In bed? she says, taking a seat, gazing into her coffee.

Lazy sod.

He stopped joining us at the dinner table after I cooked the wrong supper one evening. You'd think I'd served him a plate of veal, force-fed him like a foie-gras goose. But I made a special effort for the little prima donna. There was no meat in the dish, just curried aubergine and a heap of steamed greens, tossed in melted butter.

What's this cooked in? he said, a mouthful of mangetout at his lips. Is it butter?

For god's sake, Tom, just bloody eat it.

He was halfway through before he got up, red in the face. Shouted something about respect. He has stayed in his bedroom ever since, apparently applying for jobs. I bristle at the thought of him. Our new deal is that he must pull his weight on the farm. I won't allow him to fester, do god-knows-what up there. Not under my roof. Time he acted like part of the family. He'll never make it in life if he can't even stomach his own flesh and blood.

I turn for the sitting room and the inner staircase that leads to his hideaway. But Mother taps on the kitchen window and stops me.

Who's that coming up the path?

The back door opens with a bang. Speak of the devil: if it isn't Tom, blotchy-faced, eyes smudged - I hope just with tiredness - saying, Dad, come quick.

Before I can question him, he turns and runs. I pull on my boots in the utility room, Dusty the collie licking at my face. Then I'm out under a leaden sky, gasping the cold reek of morning - silage and manure. I lag behind Younger Son, follow him down the hill and across the farmyard. Not to the milking parlour, but to the cowshed.

Harry is there to meet us. Elder Son. Lips bloodless under his patchy moustache, gelled hair standing to attention.

What is it? I pant.

There's people, Dad. I've told them to clear off.

He steps aside and I enter the shed, swallowing a strange taste. Bitter sloes. I blink into the gloom.

There are crooked shapes among the cattle, picking through the straw like giant black crows. At least ten, even twenty people, all wearing hoodies and anoraks, brandishing protest signs. Who are these strangers? The ground begins to list. I set my feet apart, my boys by my side, ready for a fight. The intruders shout when they see us, and I raise my voice to meet theirs.

What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?

I take a step. If these folk were cows, I could drive them by breaching the outskirts of their personal space. Apply just the right pressure to direct them gently, no fuss. Through the gate and off my land. But I have no authority now; this herd stands its ground.

Stop mistreating these defenceless animals! cries a bullish woman, her hair scraped back and tucked into a woolly hat, a quivering nose ring in her septum. I'm sure I recognise her from somewhere.

You're trespassing, I tell her, as if she doesn't know. This is private property.

Murderer, she spits.

I have to laugh. I fold my arms over my chest.

I'm sorry, but I won't listen to this rubbish. You're going to have to leave.

Look at them, says another protester, a man hiding behind dark glasses. Lying in their own filth. They're sick.

They're not sick.

He points at Bea, heaped on a muddy rubber mat. She lets out a husky groan. That one! he shouts. She can hardly support her own head.

I just stare at him. What does he know? Then Elder Son steps in.

This is a family farm, he says. Do you even care about that? Why don't you go and bother one of the big factories? That's right: take your signs, take your cameras, and fuck off!

What cameras? I say.

A tall man emerges from the crowd, slinking like a cat. He's clutching a camcorder.

You're filming us? I snarl. How dare you?

We're not filming you, says the man, in a clipped transatlantic twang. We're just documenting the conditions on your farm. We want to put customers in touch with the food chain so that they can make more informed choices. That's all.

He comes closer, towering over us. He's what Sandra would call a pretty boy, dressed like a pantomime prince in a military coat, a lacy shirt, and tight blue trousers. I weigh him up, not...