Torn (22 page)

There were heaters on inside the large, echoing space, but the stone walled barn could not be described as warm. James took off his fleece. Underneath it he was wearing a denim shirt with the sleeves rolled back. He returned to the ewe's side. It took only one look to send him back outside the barn at a run, shouting for his shepherd. Up near the mother's head the first new-born was lying dozily, legs folded neatly beneath it. The ewe nuzzled it from time to time. But protruding from her vulva were the two tiny feet of its twin. Jessica got out of the way as James returned to the ewe. Danny loped in after him. If her presence there, standing beside the lambing pen, fazed him at all he didn't show it, but immediately joined James Warwick inside the pen and crouched down at the tail end of the sheep. The ewe was lying on her right side; she bleated and twisted her head round as if in an attempt to see what the new man was doing.

Outside the pen, on a fold out table, were a couple of thermos flasks and a mug, a heat lamp, and the kind of plastic, compartmentalised carrying box Jess used in her cottage. This one was not filled with polishes and dusters like hers, but a variety of items including syringes, scissors, short lengths of cord, aerosol cans, and a rubber tube, plus a lidded beaker and funnel, and several other less identifiable pots and bottles and boxes. A spring balance hung from a beam. And just inside the pen was a bucket of water. A couple of towels were flung over the top of the hurdle above it. There was also a plastic bottle – like a milk container – on the straw-covered ground.

‘It's all right,' James Warwick murmured to the ewe from time to time, patting her flank, while Danny grabbed this plastic bottle and smeared some of the contents, a gel like substance, over his right hand and up his arm. If Jessica had not already realised why he only wore a T shirt for this job, she understood now. Without any further preamble he eased his lubricated hand up inside the animal's birth canal. Appalled and fascinated she could not drag her eyes away. She had seen this done on the television – vet dramas had been required viewing on a Sunday night when she was young – but she'd never watched it in the flesh before. The two men were talking quietly.

‘Hind legs?' James asked, as Danny gently probed.

‘Yeah, I've got the knee joints … and there's the tail.' The scene was only dimly illuminated; the lights in the barn were powered by a generator which hummed in counterpoint to the bleating of the other ewes in their straw quilted pens. Some were still awaiting their time, some already with new-borns, and a group of others with lambs only a day or so old, in a mothering pen.

With one hand still inside the animal, Danny stroked firmly down over the ewe's side and hip, as if to calm and soothe her, then held his hand out. James helped his shepherd by smoothing extra lubricant over his left hand and up his arm. So intimate a gesture from one man to another was oddly moving.

‘This is it then, girl. Sorry, but it's for your own good,' Danny said, more loudly. The ewe raised her head again and looked at him as if she understood every word; his lubricated left hand slid up inside her. He crouched even lower, head arched back as if studying the beamed rafters, while his hands manoeuvred for a secure hold. Jess held her breath; the flexibility of Danny's hips was impressive – she was not at all sure she could get down so low, in that position – and she winced in instinctive empathy for the poor ewe, whose body was being so summarily rummaged. Danny too had been holding his breath. He let it out with a gasp.

‘OK,' he muttered; he pulled gently. Nothing. He drew in his breath and pulled again, this time bracing one of his feet further back. Gradually the hind legs of the lamb began to emerge, with the tell-tale backward pointing knee joint. As the tail appeared Danny turned the lamb while continuing to pull, this time with more urgency. When the lamb abruptly slithered out, he fell backwards. A flow of blood and fluid spilled out after the blood-slimed creature onto the straw.

‘Well done, mate,' James Warwick said.

‘And you did well too, Mum,' Jessica said. The ewe gave an affronted bleat, looked crossly at Danny – now crouching by the tiny new-born – and then at James, as if to say, what took you so long? Abruptly she staggered up onto her feet, and a sudden, final spurt of blood sprayed a mist of droplets into Danny's face. James held out a towel, but Danny, too busy examining the bloodied and membrane-smeared lamb which had just entered the world in such a rush, ignored it and simply wiped his face against the shoulder of his T-shirt.

‘Is it alive?' the farmer asked. Danny looked dubious; he cleared the membrane which clung over its face.

‘There is a heartbeat, but …' He shrugged. ‘It's very small … half the size of the twin.' He massaged the tiny rib cage for a few moments, then, to Jessica's shock he picked it up by its hind legs above the hocks and rising to his feet, abruptly swung it.

‘Isn't it breathing?' James asked.

‘It is now.'

He crouched back down and rubbed the lamb briskly with a handful of the bedding straw. The ewe, still with the bloody remnants of the placenta hanging from her, had turned and briefly nosed the little body she had given birth to. But then, as if making a point, turned away again and nuzzled her firstborn.

‘He's a ram lamb,' Danny said, after further investigation. Then he stood and fetched the heat lamp, pulling the extension cable round to plug it in.

James shook his head and as if talking to himself, said, ‘Even if it survives, which looks unlikely … from such a low starting weight it's never going to make anything at market as a breeding tup. Nor will it finish for the table.' Even to Jessica's untutored eye the new-born creature looked pitifully tiny but the warmth from the infra-red lamp was having an immediate effect. The undersized lamb raised its head and sneezed weakly, and now was apparently struggling to stand. The ewe continued to ignore it. Danny lifted it to set it on its feet but its legs buckled. He laid it down again then went over to the table.

‘Hand me the penicillin,' James said.

Danny returned to the pen with a syringe and an aerosol spray can. James injected into the ewe's rump.

‘And it doesn't look like Mum is going to take much interest. I wouldn't bother spraying the umbilicus, Dan. Looks a gonner to me. Let it die.'

Jessica looked at Danny, who was stroking the small creature. She saw the tightening in his face. ‘It's still too early to say whether she'll accept him. Let's just see if he'll suckle.' He lifted the lamb again, holding it up to the mother's head but the ewe side-stepped then turned and butted it.

‘Let it die,' James Warwick repeated. ‘Even if it survives the next few hours … if the mother rejects it?'

‘I can wrap him up, keep him warm, tube feed colostrum direct into his stomach, then we can try him with another ewe. One who's lost a lamb. I can skin it, drape the skin over this one –'

‘That's supposing we get another dead ‘un this evening. Look at it! Face facts. It's not going to make it, Dan. It's a runt. It can't even stand up. I don't want an argument about it.'

‘I can't let him die, not without trying to give him some kind of chance.'

‘And how are you going to do that,' Both men had stood and were facing one another, ‘if we don't have a dead lamb to skin in the next half hour or so?'

‘I can bottle rear him.'

‘In the caravan?' James Warwick uttered, with a half laugh. ‘Or are you thinking you can leave it by the farmhouse Aga for Gilda to nursemaid? Forget it. My mother won't bottle feed it every half hour!'

‘I'll manage something.'

‘Even if it survives tonight, have you the time to bottle feed it all day, all night? I need you in here for a few days yet. Let's concentrate on the lambs who've more than half a chance. I'm not allowing any distractions. Leave it to die. Better still knock it on the head.'

‘No.'

‘If I said that was an order?'

Danny shook his head.

‘Do your job, Daniel. You're a farmer, not some soppy, faint-hearted pansy at an orphan animal sanctuary!' Danny shook his head again. ‘Even if I said your job was on the line? You either do as you're told or you're no good to me.' He didn't seem angry – Jessica had seen James Warwick angry – just determined to have his own way. But she'd never seen Danny look so severe; his mouth compressed, every line of his body taut, angled, mulish. Surely his boss didn't mean it. He wouldn't fire him for refusing to kill the lamb? Surely Danny couldn't allow himself be fired for such a reason. Why didn't James Warwick do it himself if he was so set on it? If it came to the point she reckoned she could finish off the creature, it wouldn't take much, but she doubted her interference would be welcomed. This was more than a tiff about the life or death of one lamb. This was a stand-off between the two men; one of them had to win.

‘So what's it to be, your job or that?' he nodded towards the ground where the bloodied little scrap of life still lay on its side under the heat lamp.

‘Do what you like, I can't kill him,' Danny repeated, staring unflinchingly into the other man's eyes. They were so different. One dark, swarthy, strongly built – his hair a mass of snake-like tendrils; the other, taller, slimmer and as much as fifteen years younger – his springy fair hair standing on end.

‘Danny,' Jess interjected, careless now of how her contribution might be interpreted, but desperate that he should not sacrifice his livelihood to his principles. ‘You can't lose your job over this! It's ridiculous! For God's sake, give me the lamb! I can keep it by my wood-burning stove, I've still got some baby bottles and teats somewhere, just tell me what kind of milk to use.'

James Warwick turned to look at Jessica now, eyebrows raised. He turned back to his employee.

‘Sounds like a fair offer, Sideshow. What d'you think?'

The lamb had made no further attempt to stand, its head flat against the straw. Danny squatted down beside it. He slid his finger and thumb around its rib cage behind the forelegs, then looked up at Jessica. At that moment there was more warmth in his expression than she'd seen that day.

‘Thanks Jess, but your help won't be needed. He's dead.'

Chapter Fourteen

An hour later Jessica was sitting opposite Sheila Jordan in the busy pizza restaurant.

‘I thought you weren't going to make it,' Sheila said as the waiter departed with their orders.

‘I'm sorry! I got caught up at the farm.'

‘Sounds intriguing? Hoisted up like a bale of hay?'

Jess smiled. ‘It was kind of magical and sad. I watched a ewe giving birth … or rather, being assisted to give birth. It was amazing. The dimly lit barn, the straw spread floor, the ewes bleating. It was almost like a nativity scene.'

‘It
was
a nativity scene.'

‘Except the lamb died. It was a twin. The first twin was fine, a good size, the mother accepted it. The second, the birth was protracted, it was weak … and so unbelievably tiny … and the ewe rejected it.'

‘Didn't have much going for it then? Were you there with your young friend?'

‘Danny? Yes. But the boss was there too.'

‘What, James “How dare you let the boys play in my Wendy house” Warwick? He gets his hands dirty too, does he?'

‘Seems to. I've never seen anyone else working there and Danny can't do it all. Although they've another guy going in to help with the lambing tonight, because they're both coming to the meeting.'

‘Both? I'm surprised he's giving Danny the evening off for that.'

‘Why shouldn't he? He's probably owed the time.'

‘But they're hardly likely to be on the same side of the debate, are they?'

‘Diametrically opposed, I should think.'

‘Odd man. Still, I suppose he's not had it all easy.'

‘He's told me about his in-laws dying, how he came to take on the farm but … What happened to his wife, do you remember?'

Sheila took a breath. ‘Oh yes, I remember.' When she spoke again her tone was quiet, reflective. ‘Serena was a real beauty. One of those women who lights up a room. She was a model before she had Sasha, editorial more than catwalk, and was planning to go back to it. It was a tragedy. She was in a car smash on the M40. Serena was driving. The car was totalled. She was pronounced dead at the scene. There was a weird coincidence. It happened near the time that reality star died in a crash on the M1. The TV and tabloids were full of it. There were all those messages, flowers, and stuffed toys left at the scene of her accident, at the hospital, outside her home in London. When all I could think about … grieve for … was Serena.'

‘Anyone else hurt in the accident? Passengers? Other vehicles involved?'

‘There were other vehicles and I'm fairly sure there were other fatalities. But in Serena's car there was only Sasha, less than eighteen months old, without a scratch.'

‘That must have seemed like a miracle for her father.'

‘I'm not sure it did. Ambivalent I think the word is. According to what I heard he found it hard to celebrate the fact that it was the child, not her mother, who had survived. Serena had put Sasha's name down for Cherubs shortly before the smash, and James honoured the arrangement … somewhat against his better judgement I feel.'

The remark hovered in the air. I was not the first time Sheila had hinted at some fundamental hostility between them. Jess changed the subject.

‘So, how did you get into the nursery business in the first place? You've never seemed the kind of woman one would expect to run a nursery.'

‘Not mumsy enough, you mean? I used to work for GCHQ, other side of Cheltenham. I eventually got to a point in my life when I thought,
why am I doing this?
It was no longer exciting or even fun any more. And it was a time, too, when I'd faced up to the fact I wasn't going to marry and have my own children. With more mothers going back to work there was only one way the demand for nursery places would be going. I'd just inherited the house; it already had the granny-flat extension which, with a few modifications, I knew could be converted. I went to the bank and the project was launched.'