tufted vetch, with sprawling beds of fumitory. The field then seemed to stick to its scheme as ragged robin appeared and isolated cuckoo flowers, and shyly, in the damper corner a rarity of orchids. Into this they even let the thistles come, their stiff, pinnate leaves turning brittle in the sun as they cut them down before their buzz-cut pink crowns turned to seed.
Naturally, as the months wore on, the grass outgrew the flowers and it was into September before they cut the hay, when she lost the piece of cloth, as if the field had takenback this piece of pinkness into itself in return for what was cut. And there it was, as if she had only just dropped it, stiffened and bleached with hay dust, as if she had left it on the radiator as she always did and it had slipped quietly down.
For a while he could not touch it. The sheep pushed in against his legs and he braced them, like being in a strong current, and held on to the bar of the trough. It was impossible that she was dead because his feelings for her had not diminished at all. It is the ability of a person to bring a reaction in us that gives us a relationship with them, and for the time they do that they have a livingness to them.
He remembered the sight of her in the cab of the tractor while she drove along the rows of bales and he stacked them on the trailer as the boys threw them up. He remembered the sweat and the itch of seed, the burn of the baling twine inside his fingers, the bales grazing his knuckles, the diesel air about the tractor. He remembered her with the bright splash of color of the cloth worn on her head, how they had joked that she looked girlish and Alpine. Heidi they had called her that day, and how he had wanted her in the rich way we can want a woman we physically work with, and how he was glad it was his wife he wanted this way.
How many reminders will there be? he asked. How many times will this happen to me? There is so much of herabout. He was on the verge of anger, but then he had this sad, hopeless glow of warmth for her. I can hold on to her, he thought. I can hold on to her inside.
chapter two
T HE BIG MAN drove off his place just before dark. In the back of the van heâd built a kind of keep with the straw bales and palettes and the badger was hidden amongst it. From the outside it looked like the van was filled with bales. The policeman had unnerved him and he could not shake the thought that they would come back as they had last time.
He had the six-month-old Staffy in for the ride. He needed a more stubborn dog and the Staffies were a good breed for that and were powerfully strong and he hoped to make a good tool of her to pull out the badgers and foxes. He thought about crossing the Staffy with something more mobile. Like Messie. He wanted to begin a breed of very sought-after and envied dogs.
He took it steady. The road was relatively easy, and he was pleased to be going south, the other carriageway filling and thickening with weekend traffic coming out to the second homes and caravans on the coast.
Two hours down the road he pulled into the lay-by theyâd told him about and a while later another car pulled up.
It flashed its lights twice, turned in the lay-by and he followed. After a while, they turned off the main road.
The track seemed unnaturally wide for just a farm track and you could tell it had been tarmacked a long time ago and then it widened out further into a concrete road which met the yard. A number of cars were parked.
Where you would expect a farmhouse and outbuildings there was just yard and to one side a huge tin barn more like a hangar. You could see all this in the floodlights that lit the place off the big barn.
He got out of the van and could see two old buses to the side of the barn, their windows gone and the bonnets off and in the silver light that caught them there was something about them as of gutted big fish. He left the pup in the seat. He could see the faded paint of a sign that said
Naturally, as the months wore on, the grass outgrew the flowers and it was into September before they cut the hay, when she lost the piece of cloth, as if the field had takenback this piece of pinkness into itself in return for what was cut. And there it was, as if she had only just dropped it, stiffened and bleached with hay dust, as if she had left it on the radiator as she always did and it had slipped quietly down.
For a while he could not touch it. The sheep pushed in against his legs and he braced them, like being in a strong current, and held on to the bar of the trough. It was impossible that she was dead because his feelings for her had not diminished at all. It is the ability of a person to bring a reaction in us that gives us a relationship with them, and for the time they do that they have a livingness to them.
He remembered the sight of her in the cab of the tractor while she drove along the rows of bales and he stacked them on the trailer as the boys threw them up. He remembered the sweat and the itch of seed, the burn of the baling twine inside his fingers, the bales grazing his knuckles, the diesel air about the tractor. He remembered her with the bright splash of color of the cloth worn on her head, how they had joked that she looked girlish and Alpine. Heidi they had called her that day, and how he had wanted her in the rich way we can want a woman we physically work with, and how he was glad it was his wife he wanted this way.
How many reminders will there be? he asked. How many times will this happen to me? There is so much of herabout. He was on the verge of anger, but then he had this sad, hopeless glow of warmth for her. I can hold on to her, he thought. I can hold on to her inside.
chapter two
T HE BIG MAN drove off his place just before dark. In the back of the van heâd built a kind of keep with the straw bales and palettes and the badger was hidden amongst it. From the outside it looked like the van was filled with bales. The policeman had unnerved him and he could not shake the thought that they would come back as they had last time.
He had the six-month-old Staffy in for the ride. He needed a more stubborn dog and the Staffies were a good breed for that and were powerfully strong and he hoped to make a good tool of her to pull out the badgers and foxes. He thought about crossing the Staffy with something more mobile. Like Messie. He wanted to begin a breed of very sought-after and envied dogs.
He took it steady. The road was relatively easy, and he was pleased to be going south, the other carriageway filling and thickening with weekend traffic coming out to the second homes and caravans on the coast.
Two hours down the road he pulled into the lay-by theyâd told him about and a while later another car pulled up.
It flashed its lights twice, turned in the lay-by and he followed. After a while, they turned off the main road.
The track seemed unnaturally wide for just a farm track and you could tell it had been tarmacked a long time ago and then it widened out further into a concrete road which met the yard. A number of cars were parked.
Where you would expect a farmhouse and outbuildings there was just yard and to one side a huge tin barn more like a hangar. You could see all this in the floodlights that lit the place off the big barn.
He got out of the van and could see two old buses to the side of the barn, their windows gone and the bonnets off and in the silver light that caught them there was something about them as of gutted big fish. He left the pup in the seat. He could see the faded paint of a sign that said
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