Cowgirl (10 page)

I was late going back, but I got a message from Gran that Mam was on her way to hers for dinner.

It was dark by the time I turned into the alley. I heard a moo and stopped. For a moment I wondered what it was – like I’d forgotten about the cows dotted around the place. I smiled and got off my bike. As I reached Gran’s back gate I saw a glint of silver on the ground.

“Karuna!”

He was lying face down and his hand was gripping the flute. I got down and turned him over. His eye was badly swollen and blood was coming out of his
mouth. He smiled. “They didn’t get my flute.”

I heard footsteps and stood up, braced for trouble.

“Gemma?”

“Mam! He’s been beaten up.”

She helped me get Karuna to his feet and we took him into Mr Banerjee’s backyard. His cow was lying on her bed of straw. She glanced at us nervously.

“It’s OK, Peggy,” I said.

Mr Banerjee was usually relaxed and smiling, but when he saw the state of Karuna his face went hard.

“We should call the police,” Mam said.

“No,” said Mr Banerjee. “I call his father and mother first.”

“Well, let’s clean him up,” said Mam. “I wouldn’t want to see my boy in this state.”

She helped take him inside, then went straight to the kitchen like it was our house. Within a few minutes she was cleaning Karuna’s face.

I’d never been inside Mr Banerjee’s home. It was so clean. There was a statue of a boy with a blue face playing the flute, and there were paintings of other people with swords and elephant heads, like they were out of a fairy tale.

“Ow!” Karuna winced with pain.

“No broken bones,” said Mam.

“Who was it, Karuna?” I asked.

“No idea. They came from behind and grabbed my flute.”

He was still holding it tightly. I could see it was scratched and damaged.

“Why do people do this?” said Mr Banerjee. “We are a peace-loving family and would not harm the smallest creature.”

“This is not the sort of welcome we want the Bryn Mawr giving newcomers,” Mam said. “There
is
no reason for it. It makes me ashamed.”

“We can stop it!” I said. It came out a bit loud. “I’m fed up of it, Mam. We can stop it, if we want.”

“I’m fed up of it too,” she said. “It’s not everyone, just a few that don’t understand what they do, or even why they do it.”

“Your daughter is right,” said Mr Banerjee. “We
can
stop it, if we want.”

We’d never taken the trouble to get to know Mr Banerjee and yet he’s lived next door to Gran for years. He’s a lovely man, but it’s funny how you can decide you don’t like someone for no reason, and then you change – a bit like me and cows.

Karuna brought the flute to his mouth and blew into it. The sound filled the room. It was so clear and bright. I watched the way his lips rested over the hole and his fingers touched the keys. It was lovely, but I
was embarrassed at the same time because I realised I’d been blowing into the wrong hole.

“Sounds OK,” he said with a smile. “We could have that lesson tomorrow.”

I nodded, but didn’t look at Mam.

We made our way to Gran’s next door in silence, then Mam said, “Now I know what the hooting noise was.” I didn’t want to tell her I was blowing in the wrong hole; not that it would have sounded much better if I’d got it right. “Why didn’t you tell me he loaned you a flute?” she asked.

“Thought you might laugh.”

“Who’s laughing? Very nice of him.”

I’d expected a sarky remark, I suppose.

All through dinner Mam was quiet, apart from saying that me and Darren should have told her about what we were doing. Gran was upset by what happened to Karuna. It made her sad after all the nice things that were going on with the cows and everything.

That night, when we went to bed, I came out of the bathroom and stopped on the landing. I could just see Mam’s legs stretched out as she watched TV downstairs. There was a pile of laundry on the settee beside her. She was on her own.

Dad should be with her,
I thought,
keeping her company.

I felt this flurry of anger rise up in me.

“What you doing?” Darren whispered from his bedroom doorway.

“Nothing.”

“Who d’you reckon beat up him next door then?”

He smirked. I went up to him, trying to control my temper.

“Think it’s funny do you, Darren?”

He shrugged.

“Shall I tell Gran you think it’s funny Karuna got beaten up?
Him
next door!”

The smirk quickly vanished.

“Maybe I’ll tell her to ban you from going near any of the cows. I reckon she’ll be up for it, an’ all.”

“All right, sorry.”

That was a first for me – Darren apologising. I went into my room and closed the door. I thought of all the times I’d said “
them
next door”. And all the things Sian had done in front of me, including calling people horrible names, and I’d said nothing. I was no saint.

There was a knock. “What?”

“Gary Tobin nicked your bike.”

I opened the door. Darren backed away. “I didn’t
know he was going to do it, Gemma, honest. And when I saw him take it I got scared of what he might do if I grassed on him – nasty, he is.”

I realised he was stuck with the bad of the Mawr just like me, but I saw that he was scared too and my anger melted away. “S’all right,” I said. “Got it back now.”

“
You two!”
yelled Mam from downstairs. “
Go to bed!”

“Yes, Mam,” Darren and me shouted back.

“I’ll try and find out who beat up Karuna,” he whispered.

I nodded and went back into my room.

The last of the three circles Kate had drawn on the map was the furthest from the Bryn Mawr. I was getting tired, as I was already about fifteen miles from home. I began to wonder if Dad had taken us further than I’d thought. For all I knew it was a hundred miles away, or over to England, even.

“No,” I said out loud. “It was a Welsh waterfall.”

I coasted downhill towards the last place marked on the map. I saw a small car park with a sign that said Maes-glas Forest. It was deserted. There was a path that led into some woods. I got off my bike and walked with it.

It was a bit spooky and, to be honest, I was scared, ’specially when I checked my mobile and saw there was no signal. I was miles from home and hadn’t told Mam. She would have asked questions about where I was going and might have said, “No. It’s silly.” I just wanted to get there and see it. The wind was rustling the trees as I walked through the woods, which made it even more creepy. Nothing seemed familiar, but I’d only been that one time, years before. The breeze picked up again, but I heard something else – it was water. There had to be a river or stream nearby otherwise Kate wouldn’t have marked it on the map.

I came to a gate but I couldn’t get the bike through, so I locked it and carried on.

The path became steep, almost like steps, and the noise of the water got louder. When I got to the bottom I walked under some low branches, and then I saw the waterfall. It was the same one, all right. The one Dad and Darren had stuck their heads under. I was there. It seemed smaller, somehow – I remembered it bigger and louder.

But where was the massive tree and the meadow? As I looked around I realised we’d been there in the summer time – the meadow was completely overgrown. I turned and saw that I’d walked right under the big tree. It had no leaves
so I hadn’t noticed it.

I put my hand in the water. It was ice cold.

I watched the waterfall tumbling and sloshing, going on forever, and I had the feeling I was in a trance again.

“
Where’s the water come from, Mam?”
I heard myself ask back then.

“
Rain,”
she said.

“
But when it stops raining the water would stop.”

“
It never stops raining in Wales.”

It seemed impossible to me standing there and watching it pouring down, almost as if it would stop once I’d walked away.

“Mam!” I called out. “MAM! DAD!” I shouted as if I was in trouble.

No answer, except the sound of the water falling and falling. I felt the anger rise up in me. I don’t know why – this place wasn’t to blame for anything.

I took out the jewellery box and opened it. I gazed around the meadow where me and Darren had explored and Mam and Dad had dozed. It was overgrown. A different place. I tipped out the dried grass and leaves, back from where they came.

I’d come all the way here, but it wasn’t the same.

Why did I think it would be?

The Mawr was different. The cows made it different, according to Gran, and I reckon she was right. Loads of people went round for her butter and cheese classes. People were chatting about the cows everywhere you went. They came to offer hay or grass or a blanket, and in return they’d get fresh milk or some butter or cheese. I noticed that the cows were getting more and more pampered as the days went by: fresh hay was put down so that the ground was soft; they were groomed and cleaned, and the backyards were washed and scrubbed. Morris had even painted a mural of trees and grass on his back wall – said he
wanted to give Donna something to look at.

People said their cows had their own personalities: some were restless and some were cool; some mooed a lot, others didn’t. Mave’s cow was nosy and stuck her head in through the back window, like she wanted to go into the house. I heard Roger make out that his cow, Rhiannon, preferred opera music.

Mam was curious, like everyone else, and went to Gran’s to see what was going on. I’m glad she did. She joked about the cows getting more attention than a dozen new babies.

People talked about how bad it was that Karuna was attacked.

“Terrible about Mr Banerjee’s grandson. They’re evil, people that did that.”

“Aye, the dregs of the sewers, they are.”

“Scum,” said Darren, with a glance at me.

It was like they were wishing away the bad from the Mawr.

One afternoon a reporter was snooping around and asking questions, but all he got was, “Cows? What cows?”

The biggest change was the kids. People like Roger were saying they’d lose interest, but they didn’t. They kept going round after school.

I once saw Sian having a go at her brother for
helping Morris out with Donna.

“What’s it to you?” Ryan said to her.

“Wait till Mam hears you’re helping Mad Morris,” she said.

Ryan shrugged. “Tell her. I don’t mind. And anyway, he’s not mad.”

Sian saw me watching. “What you looking at?”

I stared right back. “Nothing,” I said to her. “I’m looking at nothing.”

She stood there, with Karen, Tracy and Jo, and everything going on around them – kids rushing in and out of the yards and mucking in. They were left out and they weren’t used to it. I saw the same look on the faces of the Tobin brothers too. It was like they couldn’t take everyone mingling together. That was it – there was no “them and us”, it was just everyone.

I realised the Tobins and the Sians all wanted to keep fighting, like they depended on it. They were angry at something and I knew what that was like, but I didn’t want to feel it any more.

Saraswati is the Hindu Goddess of energy and creativity. That’s what Karuna told me. Goddess, mind you, not a bloke – well powerful, she is. Interesting how many Gods and Goddesses the Hindus have. Durga was my favourite. She was a slayer of demons, rode on a lion and had ten arms – useful or what?

I found out that the statue in Mr Banerjee’s house of the blue boy was Krishna. He’s a God and a cow shepherd. All the cow maids fancied him, apparently. Mr Banerjee told me about cows roaming free in the streets in India because they’re respected over there. I think Peggy was more than a cow to him; he even
said she was sent to him from God.

Mr Banerjee made us tea and sandwiches while Karuna finally gave me my flute lesson. At first he had me blowing across the top of a bottle, which was embarrassing. Karuna was so patient, like he
wanted
to teach me, which made him even more gorgeous.

“Play me something,” I asked.

“What would you like me to play?”

“Anything.”

He thought for a moment and talked about this flute music he was studying, by someone called Bark. I nodded as if I knew what he was on about.

He closed his eyes as he played. His head rocked gently but the flute seemed to stay in the same position the whole time, as if his body moved to the flute and not the other way around. I regretted asking him to play, because after about ten seconds I started to cry. I don’t mean bawling away, but tears started falling down my cheeks.

That music made me think of everything. It was sad, but warm and cosy too. Everything was squashed into that couple of minutes of him playing. I thought how different me and Karuna were, like we were from different planets. As soon as he finished I stood up. “I got to go.”

“Are you all right?”

I nodded. “Thank you,” I said. “That was…” The only word I could think of was a word I couldn’t ever remember saying. “That was beautiful.”

Mr Banerjee smiled at me, like he understood.

When I was outside I rubbed my cheeks dry, and breathed deeply. I could smell cow poo, but it’s not a bad smell – it just smells of countryside.

Peggy eyeballed me. I touched her and realised again how soft cows feel, like velvet. I stroked her and stroked her.

Who could be scared of cows? They’re beautiful.

I felt good, like everything was going to be all right. Then Morris went and took Donna on to the Common.

By the time I got down to the Common there was a small crowd around Morris, who had Donna on a tether. My heart was banging in my chest, as I was expecting the police to show up any second.

“What you doing, Morris?”

“Getting frustrated, she was,” he said. “Needed a walk. Loads of fresh grass here doing nothing.”

“Is this one of the Bryn Mawr dozen?” a woman in the crowd asked.

“Aye, that’s right,” said Morris. “Done her a power of good, this did. Maybe she misses being with the others too, don’t you think?”

“Maybe,” I said. “But let’s get her back now, Morris.”

Everyone was looking grim at Gran’s house. Kate had come down, and there was Mr Banerjee, Roger, Polly and a few others.

“It might only be a matter of time now before they’re found,” said Gran.

“Bloody Morris!” muttered Roger. “I’m going to give him a piece of my mind.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” snapped Gran. “He was thinking about Donna. Those cows are doing us a service, and we owe them a lot. It’s been lovely having Jane, but I’ve been guilty of thinking of myself.” She looked at Kate. “You say the word and they can all go back up to that field of theirs.”

“Oh Lil, no!” said Mave. “My Maisy’s settled in lovely now.”

Everyone started chipping in.

“They’re not ours to decide,” shouted Gran. “Those cows belong to Kate and Mr Thomas, and if the best thing for them is to take ’em back, then that’s what we’ll do.”

“No, Gran!”

Darren ran in from the backyard. “Don’t give ’em back, please. They’ll be killed.”

That did it for me – the last time I saw Darren that upset it was because Mam had banned him from his video games for an evening.

“Shush now, Darren,” said Gran. “I’ve been pleased as punch the way you’ve taken to that cow – you’ve been a different boy – but this can’t go on forever.”

“Why don’t you speak to that reporter, Gran?” I said. “The one that was hanging around.”

“Why?”

“Well, maybe it would help if more people knew about the cows … ’specially if they knew they’d be killed?”

“I don’t know, Gemma. It might rub people up the wrong way. Shall I have a word with your father, Kate?”

She shook her head. “He’s too angry,” she said. “He’s not even talking to me at the moment. Besides, the cows are here now. We won’t do them any favours moving them again.”

“But they’re still yours, Kate,” said Gran. “We haven’t forgotten that.”

We went out into the alley. Me and Kate stood watching everyone going in and out of the backyards. She looked lost.

“D’you want to borrow my bike to get back up?” I asked.

“No.”

“It’ll take you ages to get home.”

“No!” she snapped.

I was going to snap back, but as I watched her plod off up the alley I realised we had her cows and she was just left with a bad atmosphere at home. I wanted to help her and then I remembered what that woman had called the cows.

“The Bryn Mawr dozen,” I said out loud.

It was like they were famous.