Read Online A Donkey in the Meadow by Derek Tangye - Free Book Online Page B

daffodil time and potato time, Jeannie coming into the packing shed with baskets of flowers in either hand, Jeannie in shorts under a blazing sun grubbing through the soil quicker than anyone as she picked up the potatoes. Glorious moments of anticipation when arriving for Christmas, carefully thought-out presents in gaily coloured paper awaiting disclosure, champagne on the day – shall we have the turkey for lunch or for dinner? Times of disaster when gales and salt spray cut the potato tops like a scimitar, leaving a barren harvest in their wake; and a terrible spring when a disease attacked the daffodils, spotting the petals with a brown mould, making them useless for market so that the compost heap grew higher and higher with thrown-away stems. She had been at Minack when Lama was first seen, a black spot in a meadow, and when Monty died. She had known Jane and Shelagh of
A Drake at the Door
when each had first arrived, Jane with the corn-coloured hair touching her shoulders, Shelagh with the shy smile, both with the gift of making us feel happy that they were with us. Funny times . . . she was in the cottage on Jeannie’s birthday when, after a night of raging wind, I went out to find the cloches scattered across their field. I was fighting in the gale to save those which were left when suddenly I saw Jeannie, struggling towards me. ‘A cup of tea with Glucose,’ she shouted above the noise. I was grateful she had taken pity on me, and I seized the cup and took a gulp. It tasted like acid. ‘Hell,’ I shouted, ‘have you poisoned me?’ When I got back to the cottage her mother was waiting at the doorway. ‘Look dear,’ she said gently, ‘you opened the tin of Epsom salts.’ Quiet times, when there was the idleness of a deckchair in the wood, or a stroll to the cliff to watch the little fishing boats feathering for mackerel and the big ones on their way to and from Newlyn. Or just sitting on the white seat where Fred bashed the newspaper.
    A month after she had returned to London, and Jeannie was with her, I took a pair of scissors and cut a small piece of Fred’s mane and sent it to her tied with a pale blue ribbon. It was still in her handbag eight months later when she died.
    ‘Whatever else he does in his life,’ said Jeannie thoughtfully, ‘Fred has justified his existence.’

    Boris leads Fred .

    . . . to the door

10
    Fred now faced a glorious summer of adulation. Nobody could resist him. Children and grown-ups both uttered cries of delight as soon as they saw his gambolling fluffy figure, cameras were poised, small hands held out to stroke him, picnic baskets searched for sugar; and his response was to pander to his admirers in various fetching ways. Sometimes he would stand beside them soulfully staring into the distance as they stroked him, sometimes he would surprise a new admirer by a comical, harmless dance, sometimes he would show off his speed by sprinting across the meadow, sometimes he would hug close to Penny, but always sooner or later he would allow every admirer to fondle him.
    Jeannie and I soon found that his presence was exceedingly helpful. When one writes about the place where one lives, it is to be expected that strangers will call. Seldom a day passed in the summer without someone arriving at Minack; and as we were so far off the beaten track it was a feat of exploration to have found us.
    Visitors were of all ages and came from all parts of the country. The snag of these visits was that we were always caught by surprise. We would have to emerge from a greenhouse in which we had been tending tomatoes, and appear in the role of host and hostess with our hands and faces green with the juice of the leaves. Or we would be disturbed at some peak time when we were wanting to rush something into Penzance. One daffodil time a couple arrived as we were packing our flower boxes as fast as we could into the Land Rover so that we could catch the flower train to London. We also knew that