Cowgirl (9 page)

Mam was quiet that evening as we sat at the table. She didn’t fuss about me not wanting a chicken Kiev, and gave me an extra dollop of mashed potatoes. Darren was quiet. I was quiet. Mam was quiet.

“Good day at school?” There was something about the way she asked that made me sit up. “Not bad,” I said. Darren nodded along with me.

“Funny. Cos the school phoned me asking where you both were. ‘Should be there,’ I said. ‘Well, they’re not,’ they said…”

I shuddered.

“I remembered how quiet you both were this
morning. Should I call the police? I thought. But then Billy Jones came in for the late shift at work and says, ‘Just saw your Gemma taking some cows across the High Street.’ Not one cow, but cows plural. So I headed to the Mawr in my break and I spotted you with that Kate girl, and three cows. Little Jamie Thorpe was with you too, so I figured Darren was on duty elsewhere.”

I glanced at Darren who was open-mouthed.

“That’s right, your mam’s a reg’lar Miss Marple. Now tell me, did you really think you could take a load of cows through town without me knowing about it? Because if you did you must be as stupid as you think
I
am!”

She stood up. Furious, she was.

“I said I didn’t want your gran getting another pet, you remember? Then the cow turns up and I tell her that I’m not happy, what with the strain and the extra costs and suchlike. But everyone tells me it’s fine cos it’s a cow and they’re useful. Then the next thing you help take another eleven down here. ELEVEN!”

“But they’re not all at Gran’s, Mam,” I said.

“That’s beside the point. And you!” she said to Darren. “Gone all cosy with your sister now, haven’t you?”

“How d’you mean, cosy?”

I knew exactly what she meant – she was annoyed that Darren was involved.

“Mam, it’s not like we brought one here, is it? They’re with other people.”

“But you didn’t tell me, did you? ‘Oh Mam, d’you mind if I help take some cows down on to the Mawr estate tomorrow?’ No. You did it behind my back. How d’you think that makes me feel? My mam and my own daughter in cahoots!”

“What’s cahoots?” asked Darren.

“And the sheer stupidity of it. How long d’you think you can keep eleven cows hushed up?”

“Twelve not eleven,” said Darren.

Mam glared at him.

“But they’ll be slaughtered.”

“Oh, really? And how many cows, d’you reckon, have been killed since you two were born?”

“Loads.”

“Loads. Right, and so what makes these ones so special?”

“Mam, they’re great,” said Darren. “Don’t diss ’em. They’re massive, useful and good, they are.”

“I don’t care about cows, Darren. I care about making ends meet, paying bills, getting the food in to feed us, making sure you’ve got clothes and … and Robbie’s back soon … the useless…” She started
crying. “Fed up, I am!”

Darren grinned. I glared at him. “Sorry, Mam,” I said. “We didn’t do it behind your back on purpose. Just didn’t think.”

I touched her arm.

“D’you realise I’m in every night?” she said. “Three hundred and sixty-five days a year? Every night!”

I’d never thought about it before. It was true.

“You read in the papers about women that leave their young children home alone…” She poked her chest. “I know why they do it, but I haven’t and I wouldn’t.”

“But Mam,” I said. “We could go to Gran’s if you fancied a bingo night.”

“Yeah, ’specially now you’ve got the cow to visit.” She was looking at me with tears in her eyes. “That cow gets more…”

I couldn’t help thinking she was jealous of Jane. Jealous of a cow. She turned and walked into the kitchen, then she spun around. “Tomorrow you’re both in school
all
day. Understood?”

I nodded.

“Promise me now.”

“Promise, Mam,” me and Darren said.

“And any bright ideas you get, like opening a zoo, you ask me first. Right?”

“Right.”

She went into the kitchen.

“Mam,” said Darren. “If there was a spare cow going…”

“NO!”

I lay in bed that night thinking about everything that had happened. I heard a moo in the distance. Lovely it was, as if I was in the countryside, in the peace and quiet, not on the noisy, ugly Mawr estate. Then another moo came from a different direction. I imagined the cows were talking.

“
It’s good here, isn’t it?”

“
Aye, better than that wet and windy field.”

“
Oh aye, miles better.”

I went to sleep and dreamed about cows. Running, they were, escaping. All the cows in all the fields all over the country mooing to each other and saying, “
Why should we stay in this field? They’ll take our calves, they’ll take our milk and then they’ll eat us for the trouble.”

“
Daft, we are.”

“
S’unfair!”

“
Yeah, let’s go. All we need is grass, nothing else. C’mon!”

Then they charged off together, strength in
numbers, and burst through wooden gates and hedges. The rebel cows were free. Free to keep their milk for their young and free to live until old age.

“GO GIRLS, GO!”

Everyone knew about the cows at school – no surprise after all the kids helping out.

These girls came up to me during break. I didn’t even know who they were. “Going round to Mrs Oleski’s at lunch, to see Rachel.”

Weird – a girl talking to me about a cow, like it was every day that cows were given out to look after. Then some boys came over – Simon Davis and David Moore – they never usually talk to me. “Gemma, my dad wants to know if there’s any chance of a cow?”

“Not at the moment,” I said, as if I was some sort of cow merchant.

Apparently, during lunch the canteen was virtually empty and so was the recreation area. The teachers were roaming around asking where the kids had gone.

There was no sign of Kate, and her mobile phone was switched off, so I went to Gran’s. I’d never seen the back lane of the terrace so full of people. There were kids in and out of the backyards, asking questions and wanting to feed the cows. At Morris’s, the kids stood in a group staring at him as he filled a trough he’d set up for Donna. He’d built a lovely shelter for her too.

“Go’way!” he shouted.

“We just wanna look,” a girl said.

“Looking’s no good,” he replied. “Get her some food!”

The four of them turned and went off like they’d been programmed.

When I got to Gran’s she was stood with the kids packed around her, talking to them like a class teacher. “One at a time now,” she said. “I don’t want her frightened.”

“How much she weigh, d’you reckon?” one boy asked.

“Enough to break your toe if she trod on your foot.”

“She’s not stopped eating.”

“Well, she’s got a lot of stomachs to fill,” said Gran.

“Four!” shouted Darren as he pushed through holding a bin bag. “Look, Gran, fresh grass off the caretaker. Loads more where that came from.”

“Kate came by,” Gran said to me.

“How was she?”

“Oh, she looked white as snow, Gemma. She’s fighting her dad, and I’m worried we’ve played the wrong hand. I mean, a dozen cows and on the Bryn Mawr of all places.”

“Well, they’re here now, Gran, and look, everyone’s into it and they’ll be well cared for. Just think of them sliced up in the butcher’s after Mostyn’s done with ’em.”

“Oh, Gemma!”

“Well, it’s true, Gran.”

She smiled at me and I knew she was back on track.

“I’ll go up to the farm and see her.”

“Good idea. Oh, she left a map for you. It’s indoors.”

I went inside. There was a map on the table – Ordnance Survey. I opened it. It was really big and covered the whole valley. I noticed Kate had drawn circles with little notes where she thought the waterfall might be. She’d done it just for me with
all that was going on with her. The map blurred as my eyes teared up. Gran was suddenly beside me. “What’s the map for, Gemma?”

“Nothing important. School.”

“Darren told me about your mam – how angry she was,” said Gran. “I’ll call her later, tell her you’re on an errand for me and I’ll invite her here for dinner. We’ll make peace.”

I gave Gran a hug and dashed out.

Before I went up to the farm I wanted to see Karuna, so I went into Mr Banerjee’s backyard. His family was there – must have been eight or nine of them. Mr Banerjee saw me and smiled.

“I’ll come another time.”

“Come, please,” he said. “We are celebrating.”

Peggy looked lovely. She had a colourful blanket over her and flowers in her hair. “I came to thank your grandson for the flute,” I said a bit nervously. “I should have been round before now, but with all that’s going on…”

“Karuna is not here,” he said. “How is your flute playing?”

“Not much good, to be honest. It’s difficult.”

“But if you keep practising you’ll soon have birds coming to your window to listen.” He turned to his family. “This is Gemma, a friend of Karuna.”

I liked him saying that. A woman smiled at me, Mr Banerjee’s daughter, I reckon. She was stunninglooking. “It is a very generous gift even on a temporary basis.”

“Oh yes,” I said. “I’ll take very good care of it.”

She looked confused. “I meant the cow.”

“Oh,” I said.

“My son told me about you,” she said with a smile.

I realised she was Karuna’s mam. My cheeks glowed, giving me away. “How’s Peggy doing?” I asked.

“Fine,” said Mr Banerjee. “She has a good heart and gives me much milk because she is free, like in India.”

“I’m on my way to find Kate. I’ll tell her Peggy is well settled.”

“Don’t forget your flute lesson with Karuna.”

“I won’t.” I felt embarrassed and wanted to get away. “Bye.”

The farmhouse was closed and there was no one in the milking shed. I wondered where Kate could be. On my way back I passed the field where the cows used to graze. The gate was wide open so I stopped and looked in. It was deserted. I was about to go when I noticed something on the ground.

“Kate!” I shouted.

I let my bike fall and ran. Her parents were probably looking for her, and there she was lying in the cows’ field, dead.

Her head snapped up. “What? What’s wrong?”

I stood over her, panting. “Nothing’s wrong, I just
thought… Are you all right?”

“Yes.”

She didn’t get up – just lay there, reminding me of the time I lay in the road.

“Haven’t seen you,” I said. “So I was worried, Gran too.” I was desperate to know what her dad and mam had said when they found the cows had gone.

“Thanks for the map. Going to start looking for that place.”

I wanted her to ask why I was so keen to find the waterfall, but I guess she had bigger stuff to think about.

“Everyone’s got loads of help with the cows,” I said. “Gran’s giving a butter and cheese-making workshop tomorrow morning. She was saying she was doing a swap with her cheese and butter for straw and grass and such … said it reminds her of the old days. Morris says Donna doesn’t give much milk, but he’s not bothered. Just likes having her, I reckon.”

Kate sat up and gazed across the field, empty of cows. I couldn’t wait any more so I sat down beside her. “What did your dad say?”

“He’s called Defra – told them the cows are gone.”

“Who’s Defra?”

“The government department that deals with farming and stuff. You have to tell them when cows
are moved, by law.” Kate shook her head. “Stupid.”

“Who? Your dad?”

“No!” she said with angry eyes. “Me! Me! This whole thing was stupid. Taking the cows on to the Mawr sorted nothing out. Nothing. My dad’s fuming. He’d already gone and put a deposit down on that tree shredder he was talking about.”

“So?”

“Think about it! Mostyn’s got his field back, but my dad still owes him. All he had to pay him with was the cows – the cows we’ve got. Mam and Dad can’t believe I did it, and nor can I.” Her head dropped. I was scared she was going to cry. Kate Thomas, the cowgirl, didn’t cry.

A car skidded to a halt, right in front of my bike in the lane. Mr Thomas got out of his truck and walked towards us. “Good fun, is it?”

I got up, but Kate stayed sitting.

“Where are they?”

He was asking
me.
I was terrified.

“What’s the point?” he said. “What are you going to solve doing this? When I told Mostyn I had no cows to sell him, he thought I was having a laugh. And the chap at Defra told me to call the police, so I said, ‘Well, they haven’t exactly been stolen.’ ‘How d’you mean?’ he says. ‘Kate, my daughter, took them.’
‘Where to?’ he asks. ‘I don’t know,’ I says. ‘This is very
irregular,’
he tells me. Irregular!” His eyes bulged wide. “What you’ve done is insane!”

“You didn’t try, Dad!”

Kate was standing now and pointing at him. “I understood when the cows were taken to slaughter. I felt sad but I knew it was the way. Then foot-an’-mouth came – ‘the plague’, you called it – but it was like you caught it instead of the cows. You gave in to Mostyn…”

“Gave in! Those cows are a liability – it’s nothing to do with Mostyn.”

“You stopped being a farmer, Dad, but I didn’t, and I
still
haven’t!” Tears were pouring down her face. “Granddad saw this coming.”

“When he was alive the herd was already running at a loss,” said Mr Thomas just as angrily. “That’s what you don’t see.”

“I don’t mean that. I mean you!” she shouted, stabbing a finger at him. “One day he was in the milking shed, talking to Granma about you – they didn’t know I was there. He said you didn’t have the stomach for farming. He called it right, didn’t he? You never had the stomach for it, Dad. But it’s not the cows’ fault, is it? They’ve done nothing wrong. Nothing.”

She sucked in her breath and sobbed, then she walked off into the field. I realised the cows were all Kate had and now they were gone.

“Where are the cows?” he asked me again.

I was shaking, not because I was scared – I was fuming. I turned and stared him in the eye. “What cows?”

He went back to his truck, looking angry enough to drive over my bike. I ran into the lane and pulled it out the way.

I watched him drive off. He’d have a job going down every street on the estate trying to find the cows, and no one on the Mawr was about to tell him where they were.