‘Sheep,’ she says, ‘are so underrated. That one’s Tess …of the D’Urbervilles, you know?’
‘Ha ha,’ I say. Tess stares. I stare back.
‘Yes…,’ she says, ‘we have three sheep, lawn-mowers, you know, for the grounds?’
‘What else could they be for?’ I think, ‘the carpets?’ But I say nothing and she babbles, she is brittle, social, unable to let dislike have its silent way.
‘It’s our little bit of heritage,’ she says, ‘preserving rural ways.’
I look back at the ranch-style house, double-garage and pool.
‘Of course,’ I say.
I grew up here, within ten miles of the “little bit of heritage”. It was just a field on a farm, unnamed except by whatever the farmer called it to distinguish from all the fields. Now there are six ranches (double-garage and pool) where one farmer, his family and two labourers wrestled with the seasons. My dad worked on the farm: I remember silage clamps and the farmer’s new Land Rover next to our collapsing Morris Minor.
I went into electronics.
‘Claggy bottom,’ I say.
‘Sorry?’ she says. She’s not apologising, just regretting that I’m here. Bizarrely, she sees me as an urban creature, unable to ‘do’ rural. She’s half right.
Her husband’s business and mine are linked. It’s like Tess and the ‘grounds,’ we’re mutually necessary, but we don’t bother having feelings for each other. That’s her department, establishing the right feelings to have about me. They’ll be something like, “ … such a deep young man, hard to get close to, but brilliant,” or “He’s a wonderful businessman but he needs to focus on something cultural, he’s rather … well … socially inept.” Whatever she decides, it will settle me in my place, like Tess, who must on the right side of the fence, in the grounds, not on the manicured garden or in the chemical blue pond.
‘If blowflies lay eggs around sheep’s arses, they develop claggy bottom. Best to find out now who’ll come in and deal with it.’
‘The vet, of course,’ she snaps. She’s reconsidering my urban status, but downgrading me in her social standings. I try to conceal a smirk.
‘Doubt it,’ I say, ‘there’s no farm vets left around here, only small animal practices.’ I should know, my sister works in one. ‘You could put her in the MPV and take her to town, but the maggots drop everywhere. You’d have to valet it afterwards: the car, not the sheep.’
We stare at Tess.
‘You can do it yourself,’ I suggest. ‘You just need shears, dip, gloves and some tweezers for the deep burrowers.’ I lean towards her, watching her head retract. She hates me, and Tess is heading down the popularity stakes too. I offer her my wisdom, hard-earned. ‘After the first couple, it’s routine, like knitting.’
She turns and goes back into the house. Tess and I stare at each other.
§ § §
