Part 10 (1/2)
Ellis shrugged nonchalantly. ”It doesn't bother me if you do.”
Denny's secretary found him sitting with his back to his desk, gazing out at the pedestrians on Jermyn Street. He heard the teacup rattle and said, without turning, ”Do you know what I had for breakfast this morning?”
She replied, of course, that she didn't.
”I had fresh wild mushrooms on b.u.t.tery toast. They were picked for me by my son and cooked for me by my daughter. Can you imagine a more marvellous breakfast for a man to have?”
And she thought to herself, Yes, I can. One shared with your wife. But she smiled kindly at his back and said, ”There couldn't be one.”
And then she left him and returned to her desk in the entrance hall, moved, because Mr O'Rourke never spoke like that. He was genial but private. He was kind to his staff but they felt they didn't know him. He could name their children but rarely spoke of his own, fearing that to admit how much he loved them would be to risk losing them too.
On Sunday evenings, Denny would sit with Mafi in her living room. They smoked and talked about the children, the village, the state of things. Occasionally, perhaps two or three times a year, when she was feeling bullish, Mafi would tell her nephew to find himself a girlfriend and he would ignore her. From time to time, in the silences they were happy to share, Denny had said, ”I'm so glad you're here with us, Mafi.” She respected him more than any man she'd known. And she loved him dearly.
”All of this is a bonus,” she would tell her friends in the village. ”A life I hardly deserve.”
Ellis would join Denny and Mafi and tell them what was going on at Longspring. It was the only subject he talked about and Denny loved to listen.
”Did you know that you get paid more money for the milk in winter than in summer?”
”No ...”
”Well, you do, so that's why they had the calves last month so that there's tons of milk now.”
”That's good ...”
”And do you know why we didn't let any of the herd into the east fields in July?”
”No, I don't ...”
”Because we were letting the gra.s.s grow for hay and if the cows had been in there they'd have eaten the gra.s.s.”
”I see ...”
”You can't put them in and just ask them not to graze.”
”No, I suppose you can't.”
”Guess why there's some ploughed fields at Longspring even though we do milk?”
”Fodder?”
”How did you know that?”
”Just a guess ... what are you and Reardon growing for fodder?”
”And Tim and Michael Finsey,” Ellis reminded him. ”Turnips and maize for silage. Do you know what silage is?”
”I do, yes.”
”Mafi?”
”I do, too.”
”Oh. Do you have to be born on a farm to run one or can you save up and buy one?” Ellis asked.
”You'd need to go to agricultural college before you do anything,” Denny said. ”You could go to Wye or Hadlow. They're nearby.”
”When could I go?”
”After your A levels.”
”Not after my O levels?”
”They'll expect good A levels.”
Ellis slumped and sighed. ”Even with all the work I'm doing on the farm?”
”Yes,” his dad confirmed, ”even with.”
”You might want to try other things out, or see the world first, before you decide,” Mafi said.
Her words hung in the room without finding a comfortable place to sit. Denny O'Rourke stood up. ”I've things to do,” he said, and left, with an expression which resembled a smile without amounting to one.
”In next to no time you'll be a teenager,” Mafi said, as if shocked by the fact.
”I'm in love with Chloe Purcell,” Ellis responded.
”And I bet she's in love with you, too.”
”No way,” Ellis fired back. ”Fat chance. Girls don't go for me.”
”Well,” Mafi sympathised, ”you're only young.”
”But so are they,” Ellis said helplessly.
They brought the dairy herd in at the beginning of November. A sea of breathing Jersey brown flooded the yard and a steam cloud levitated above it. The willow lines were pollarded and Tim and Ellis saw a fox jump from a hiding place inside the rotten middle of one of the trunks. They bundled up the branches and watched Terry Jay split them into three-sided stakes for hedge laying. Terry showed the boys how to set the stakes out an elbow-arm's length apart through the hedge line. He pleached the hedges through the winter. The game crops were well out of sight of the farm and Tim and Ellis ran amok there amongst the kale and root artichoke, scaring straggling pheasant into flight and throwing stones at them once they were airborne.
The calves were released from their weaning pens into pasture to be fattened as steers. Bullfinches gathered on the phone lines without ever venturing too near to the farm. The boys were allowed into the milking shed for the first time and given the job of hosing down the udders prior to milking. Afterwards, Michael Finsey ordered the boys to wait for him in the yard where three heifers stood in pens. The pens had staggered brick walls on each side, which Tim and Ellis climbed like steps until they were standing on the back wall above the heifers. Michael and Reardon pulled a hired mating bull into the yard using poles hooked to the ring in the bull's nose. Climbing the staggered walls of the pen, they hauled the bull up on to the first heifer's back.
”You lucky lady, you lucky little thing!” Michael Finsey cackled.
Steam poured from the bull's nose as it arched its huge bulk and pumped in and out of the beast beneath it. The expression on the heifer's face turned from alarm to indifference.
”She looks bored stiff!” Michael shouted. ”Better get used to that look, boys!” He roared with laughter.
Ellis was open-mouthed. As the bull was manoeuvred from one heifer to the next, pints of s.e.m.e.n poured from its gross member on to the yard.
”Oh my giddy aunt,” Tim muttered, incredulous.
The bull rammed itself into the second heifer.