He kicks up a small rough stone and uses it to saw some twine he can’t undo without his finger. His Leatherman, he can’t find. Emmy bought him the Leatherman on her own (her own choice), on the birthday after he lost the finger — saying it does lots so it can help be what your finger was. He loved his daughter for this — her way of making tragedies smaller, by finding answers, charmingly.
It takes something to break the twine and he thinks, gradually now, my strength will leave me. When he moves the gate it collapses and bends with a hard groan. He does not get angry with the gate and he looks out, over the sea.
That morning he had watched the dawn. The dawn coming up from the ground. A single bird was singing, like a child talking to itself as it plays. He had thought of the night that was ending, and of the quiet dead calf and the missing cow, of his father’s memoirs which he is reading to help him sleep or stop him thinking of the other things, like the land he wants to buy, and of his wife’s body; and he thought it was terrible how much he wanted her good body last night. Want will not diminish. It’s an odd thing to keep secret — how much we want each other’s bodies.
The harder mountains to the north stood out then, like knuckles at arm’s length in front of your eyes and the mist ran down from them, rolling onto the long sea until it turned to cloud and lifted into the sky. The sea was like wet glass in the sun.
For a brief moment, at this dawn, there was coldness — like a final rush of breath, then warmth came. It came slow and full and sure, like it had done for weeks.
Now, still early, he feels the warmth on his shoulders and starts down the sloping field. The cow is not here.
Swallows tuck and dive in the corner of the field where a natural spring has made the grass thick and full, taking the dew from the lush blades.
He cuts across the field and cuts under the ancient blackthorn, twisted and aubergine, clinging to the dry soil of the bank. The stream is dry. Here and there the water rises from the deep ground making patches of mud dotted with bright green weed and the footprints of birds, but the water does not run. There is a scattering of broken shells around a sharp stone where a thrush brings snails to feed on. He likes to hear this, the sharp clear tick of the shells being broken on the stone. It fascinates him, the tiny ingenuity of birds.
He follows the line of the stream down and ducks under the fence which hangs uselessly between the banks. In the next field, where the pond is, swallows drink from the water and take the small flies that buzz in crowds while it isn’t yet too hot. He remembers that he has forgotten that today he has to go and collect the duck. Perhaps he feels the breeze begin, a little. This year the swallows came early.
For a while the beauty of the pond and of the swallows holds him. Then, knowing the cow is not here either, he turns and starts back for the house.
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In the winter months the water runs down the lane, bringing with it the dirt and stones. And these and the fallen leaves fall into the ditches and the drains so that after a while they are blocked and the water runs in sheets across the fields, feeding the fine grass and sinking into the earth, which is rich and dark here.
Down the lanes and in the hedges there are always gorse flowers somewhere, but they come thickly in the Spring. First the yellow — the celandine and daffodils, dandelions and primroses, then white — star-gazed the anemones, clouds of snowdrops, may blossom and stitchwort — colour coming in schemes at first to the wide land, before other picks of colour — the dog violets, and the bluebells and campions, and, in the woods close to the stream, wild garlic. On a day like this — with the faintly lifting breeze shifting off the sea to the south-west, across the fields — the smell of garlic sharp and sour and wonderful would come across the farm, earlier in the summer. But the flowering is over now.
The dog, Gwalch, has followed him down the lane, and he stands lean and young by the gate. He is a sleek and ready and strong dog. Further up the lane, he’ll find Curly, the big old dog curled and resting in the sun on the path, half-way down, which is as far as he could go now. The dog had started happily and with hope and had gone down the track after the younger dog and then just got tired and lay down in the sun.
The old dog looks up as he hears the curl of a car engine shift quickly down the road across the valley. Gareth hears it too. There is a nice hunger in him, and he wants coffee now. The house is blinding on the hill.
He looks down at his feet and sees the lime gathered on his old leather shoes. The lime has not gone into the field because there has been no rain. He looks at the field and the hard earth and pads it under his foot. He’s worried about the grass; it’s not good to be feeding hay at this time of year, with the young lambs and the calves coming. The animals need fresh grass. He knows too, that when the first rain comes it will wash away the lime and run off the dry broken ground.
She drops the bacon into the hot pan and it snaps in the boiling grease and starts to curl. She puts the bacon she has already cooked on an old plate and puts it into the warm oven to keep warm. The bacon in the pan is spitting and cracking noisily and she turns the heat down. The kitchen starts to fill with a weak blue smoke.
They built the extension themselves, turning the old kitchen into a place to eat. Even now the walls are damp in the morning as the house sweats out the heat that comes into it in the day. The wallpaper lifts in chunks from the wall like bark coming off and there’s velvet-looking mildew here and there, all somehow unimportant and right and of no worry. They don’t notice now. The old house has these, like a tree does.
In the kitchen there is a stove with gas bottles illegally close to it. There’s a small window, thick with condensation, which is permanently open but still mists, and a calendar of farm scenes from a stockfeed manufacturer. There’s an old Belfast sink against the wall, and from this a pipe runs outside through the wall to an outside tap with half a foot of stiff green hose attached. Underneath the tap the moss and green mould grows thick and well.
The Formica units are always clean, so you can see the strange wary pattern on it, and above them, above the plastic pots of sugar and tea bags and constantly pilfered biscuits, chipboard cupboards hang somehow, heavy with half-used things and tins of beans and fruit that are never used.
She sweeps the tiled floor while she listens to the bacon snap.
The kitchen extension falls from the room where the food was originally made. They call this room the kitchen too, from habit, but everything happens here. Here is the settle and the family table, and the big window which looks back at the rough, secret half of the farm. Here the post is opened and the meals are eaten and, when it is done, the homework is done. All the talking.
The tiles on the floor are different from the tiles in the new part, which are red and made of brick. Here the tiles are old flags of stone which she loves secretly because of the colours they become under the careful wet care of her mop. Sometimes she likes to think that only she sees this, because they only show their colours when they’re very wet, and they quickly dry while she moves across the floor. This childish energy is still in her, somewhere; a glee she hides.
Here and there are piles of dirt. Little crowds of dust and dropped things, like the foil from pill packets and pennies and hairbands bright with dust. It’s a process she has while she waits for things or she talks worriedly. She takes the brush and moves the dirt around the floor, leaving it gathered here and there. Later, she will take the dustpan and clear them up; or the cat will come and attack them and fight them furiously. Depending on her mood, she will either laugh or shout at the cat.