A Donkey in the Meadow (6 page)

Then, if we continued to walk on towards the cliff, there would be snorts and bellows, such a hullabaloo that we would be forced to turn back to talk to them. Often, in fact, we found it simpler to avoid the path and go across a field out of sight when we wanted to go down to the sea.

Here was Penny seeing the meadow for the first time and when I unfastened the halter, letting her be free, she looked around her for a moment, placidly without fear; and then began ravenously to eat the grass at her feet.

‘That is the Dr Green Roy Teague talked about,’ I murmured.

‘We must get the vet as well,’ said Jeannie.

There were bare patches on Penny, like moth-eaten patches on a discarded fur, and her coat was dull, like old silver waiting to be polished.

‘No wonder she might have gone to the knacker’s yard after the foal is born,’ I said, ‘she’s scraggy, despite the foal.’

‘I’ll go and ‘phone the vet straightaway.’

We had no telephone at the cottage, sure that by being without one we were spared complications that we could gladly do without. Thus, when we wanted to telephone, we either went to a call box two miles away or, when it was particularly urgent, asked permission to use the phone of our neighbour, Jack Cochram.

The vet was a Scotsman whom we had known for many years. A shy, polite man, he had the combined gifts of compassion and zeal which knighted his technical experience with a special quality. He was ready to make his skill available at any hour, there was never any suggestion that one might be wasting his time; and this attitude, together with that of his staff, induced many people to wish they were an animal instead of a human being.

The treatment he prescribed was simple if unpleasant. We had to rub her coat every other day for a fortnight with a delousing powder.

‘Do this,’ he grinned, ‘and let her eat as much grass as she wants. Then you’ll find she’ll be as right as rain when His Nibs arrives.’

He was always to call the foal ‘His Nibs’.

‘And when can we expect him?’

‘In about three weeks. You’ll go out into the field one day and find him beside her.’

‘It seems very casual.’

‘She’ll prefer it that way.’

During the following fortnight we conscientiously carried out our instructions, helped by Penny, who displayed no objection to the smelly powder with which we dusted her; and at the fortnight’s end a stubble of hair had begun to cover the bare patches. But her coat was still dull, and her feet were awful. We were, in fact, filled with embarrassment when anyone asked to see her.

Her feet, particularly the two front ones, had the shape of Dutch clogs; and they were so long that she gave the impression that she walked on her heels. The cause of this was that the hooves of a donkey grow fast if they are not subjected to the wear of a hard surface; and so a donkey which does nothing else but graze all day requires a regular pedicure, performed by a blacksmith with a large file, a pair of clippers, and a strong arm with which to check any protest that the donkey concerned might try to make. It was the fear of this protest, and the fierce struggle that might ensue, which decided us to postpone Penny’s pedicure until after the foal was born.

Penny, meanwhile, was oblivious there was anything in her appearance of which to be ashamed. It was clear by her gentle manner that she was exceedingly content. Here was grass galore, titbits which included carrots, apples, currant cakes and homemade bread, and a pair of humans who fussed over her as if she were a queen. There was also a cat.

Lama’s attitude was one of benign approval from her first sight of Penny. One might have expected upright fur and an arched back, a mood of anger or terror, when Penny, like a moving mountain, advanced towards her, a black cat so small that some people still mistook her for a kitten. Not a bit of it. There was not a quiver of a whisker nor a twitch of the tail. She was serenely confident that Penny threatened no harm.

This belief of Lama that nothing, not even a motor car, possessed any evil intentions towards her, frequently caused us alarm. How was it possible that the character of a cat could so change? Only three years before she was wild, and now nothing scared her. If a car came down the lane she lay in the middle until the car had to stop. If a dog lunged from a lead and barked insults, she complacently stared back, a Gandhi policy of non-violence. If a cat hater tried to avoid her, she pursued him with purrs. Once I saw a fox cub taking a look at her from a few yards off as she lay, a miniature Trafalgar lion, in the grass. When she became aware of his attention she got up, stretched, and walked peacefully towards him. What does one do with a cat so trusting?

Soothing as it is to watch a creature so happy in its surroundings, there are some moments when the onlooker is scared stiff by its amiable antics. Penny was one day in the middle of the stable meadow munching away at the grass when I saw from the window the silky black figure of Lama advancing towards her. It was a deliberate, thoughtful advance because the grass was cat high, not high enough to advance in secret, nor short enough to walk briskly through; indeed the grass was at that particular stage of growth when an intuitive, experienced cat leaps at one moment, then crawls at another. These alternative gestures brought her in due course to Penny’s hind legs. They were powerful legs. They looked so powerful to me that, despite the nonchalant contentment Penny so apparently displayed, I quickly skirted them whenever I was having the fun of making a fuss of her. I respected the potential kick. I was not going to risk a sudden outburst of unreasonable, donkey temper. But Lama!

I watched her reach Penny, then frantically I called out to Jeannie. Lama, at that particular moment, was reaching a peak of her amiable confidence. And when Jeannie joined me I pointed to what was happening.

Lama was gently rubbing her head against one of Penny’s hind legs; the loving, the embracing, the idiotic gesture of an idealist who had never been shocked into realism.

We held our breath as Penny continued to munch. Rub, rub, rub. First the head and the ears, then the cheek and the chin, even from a distance we could sense the ecstasy that Lama was enjoying.

‘Shall I shout a warning?’

‘Better not,’ said Jeannie, ‘or Penny might be startled into realising what is happening.’

But Penny knew all the time who was there, and she didn’t care. We saw her glance round, observe Lama for a second, then back again to her munching. And Lama continued her display of affection until suddenly she heard a rustle in the grass a little way off. Penny’s hind leg was forgotten. A mouse was on the move. A more important task lay ahead than displaying her trust in a donkey.

We never tethered Penny again after her first night at Minack. We also learnt that it was even safe to take her for walks without a halter; and she would solemnly walk up the lane with us when we fetched the milk from the farm, requiring watchfulness on our part only when she passed a flower bed. Flowers, especially roses, had an irresistible attraction for her.

The third week went by without any hint of the foal and, as the news had now circulated that we possessed a donkey which was expecting, we were subjected to an endless number of solicitous enquiries: ‘Any news yet?’

In the middle of the fourth week we had taken Penny for a stroll before breakfast along one of the paths, and on returning to the cottage had put her in a small meadow nearby. We then went in for our breakfast.

An hour or so later Jeannie went outside while I was at my desk writing a letter. Suddenly I heard her excited voice calling me. I dashed out of the door murmuring to myself: ‘It’s arrived!’

I nearly trod on Lama on the way, came face to face with a hissing Boris waddling up the path, and then in amazement saw why it was that Jeannie was calling for me.

A huge horse was standing in the small meadow with the donkey beside it.

‘Good God,’ I said, ‘where has it come from?’

‘Not the faintest idea.’

Our reaction was a mixture of merriment, irritation and concern. It was absurdly incongruous standing there, a giant of a horse, a chestnut, and it glared at us; while we in the meantime were smiling to ourselves at its funny little ears.

‘What is it?’ I asked cautiously, ‘male or female?’

‘A mare.’

‘I’ll dash up to the farm. Jack will know where she comes from.’

In due course the owner arrived, a very old man with watery eyes and a squeaky voice and no hat covering his bald head. I recognised him as a new arrival to the district, and owner of the cottages in one of which Jane Wyllie, the young girl who used to work for us, once lived with her mother.

The mare took no notice of him except to edge away when he approached.

‘Judy, Judy,’ he coaxed on a high-pitched note.

The mare replied by dashing through a gap in the hedge which surrounded the meadow. She was out on her own now and into another. The old man was already out of breath but he bravely followed her.

‘Judy, Judy.’

When the mare ignored him again, he turned to me.

‘Bring the donkey out. It will quieten her down if she has the donkey with her.’

‘Hell, I won’t,’ I said, ‘that donkey is going to foal any time, any
moment
. I’m not going to bring her out within kicking distance of
your
monster.’

It was perhaps the harshness of this sentence that inspired the mare to take the violent action which now took place. She ignored the old man, thundered past him, then over a hedge and into the stable meadow. Over another hedge which I had thought unjumpable and then a dash down the lane. To my horror Jeannie was in her way. As soon as she had sensed there was going to be more trouble than we had expected, she had hastened to look for Lama. There she was, without having found Lama, bang in the way of the mare.

As if it were a circus trick, the mare jumped over her. And a few minutes later we watched the back of the old man panting up the lane, a galloping mare far far ahead and out of sight.

He caught her, we heard later, three miles away.

On the following Monday Jeannie and I and her mother, who was staying with us, went out for the day. When we returned to Minack, we met Jack Cochram, who had been digging potatoes in his cliff which lies beyond the cottage. He had to pass the field in which we had left Penny.

He grinned when he saw us, a gay, amused grin.

‘It’s arrived!’ he said happily, ‘it’s waiting for you!’

I have never gone down the lane so fast.

They were standing in the big field below the stable meadow, and beyond them the sun glinted on a still sea, disturbed only by the Stevenson fishing fleet out of Newlyn, their engines thumping, sailing like an Armada to distant fishing grounds.

Penny paused in her munching, strands of grass hanging out of her mouth, a proud mother no doubt, but still looking careworn, bare patches still on her back and her coat dull in the sunlight. The toy donkey huddled close to her, looking up at us inquisitively but without fear.

‘It’s so pretty I can’t believe it’s true!’ laughed Jeannie.

‘To think it might have gone to a circus!’

‘Oh, Penny, you’re a clever girl!’

We heard later from Jack Cochram that he had passed through the field at half past eleven with his little girl, Janet, and Penny was on her own. There was a cloudburst shortly afterwards which continued for half an hour; and he came back across the field with a load of potatoes at half past twelve. He looked towards Penny, and there was the foal.

‘Look out,’ I said, ‘it’s wobbling.’

It wobbled, lost its balance, and collapsed on the grass. A ridiculous sight. All legs and fluffy brown coat, huge ears like old-fashioned motoring gloves, a tail like a fly whisk. I saw a comic eye, staring at me in surprise, and I had a feeling which made me smile, that it was furious. The indignity and the stupidity, just as it was introducing itself! It struggled, tiny hooves trying to get a grip on the grass, then a lurch, and it was upright again.

‘What do you think it is? I asked, ‘boy or girl?’

‘Shall we find out?’

‘Well,’ I said cautiously, ‘it’s a bit of a risk, isn’t it? We haven’t had any experience of this kind of thing.’

The little toy donkey now moved unsteadily under Penny who lifted her head from the grass and waited patiently while it had a drink of milk. The legs were like four matchsticks propping a matchbox.

‘I think it would be wiser,’ I went on, ‘if we asked Jack Cochram to investigate. Foals and calves are his business after all.’

‘Seems a funny thing to have to ask him to do.’

‘Might be funnier if we tried to find out ourselves.’

‘I think you’re a coward!’

‘You said the other day if it were a girl you’d like to call her Marigold. You never mentioned what you’d call it if it were a boy.’

‘Yes, I did,’ said Jeannie, ‘I thought we might call him Fred.’

Marigold or Fred. I looked at the unchristened creature who was now gazing thoughtfully back at me. Its nose was white like its mother’s, and I noticed for the first time it had eyelashes which were absurdly long. As I watched it took a few uncertain steps towards me, pushed its head forward, and gently nuzzled its nose in my hand. A sweet moment of trust.

‘I think we had better get them up to the stables,’ I said, ‘the hay is spread on the floor.’

‘Shall I carry the foal or will you?’

Jeannie was always so firm and yet so gentle when handling birds or animals. When she was a child she had wanted to be a vet; she had the patience and the quiet courage and the intuition to have made a successful one.

‘You, of course,’ I said, ‘if it’s not too heavy.’

Too heavy! She picked up Marigold or Fred as easily as if it had been an Alsatian puppy, holding it in her arms with its head drooping over her shoulder, and off we went across the field, then up the path to the stables. It was a gay procession. Jeannie leading the way murmuring sweet nothings to the foal, Penny in the middle snatching at succulent grasses as she passed them, exuding pride in her achievement, supremely confident that Jeannie ahead of her was taking her foal to safety. Here was her home. Nothing to fear now. Here at last was the foal she had carried with her on her journeys from Ireland, there in front of her, on the way to a warm stable, and time lay ahead together.