Out of the Ashes (5 page)

I waited till everyone was in bed and asleep. I left a letter on my pillow explaining everything to Auntie Liz, telling her I was going home. Then I got dressed, packed my things, and crept
downstairs. I ran out of the village, up through the graveyard and on to the footpath – no one would see me if I went that way. I thought I’d find the way home easily – I’d
done it hundreds of times before – but never in the dark. As it turned out, it was a good thing that I lost my way. The footpath should have brought me out on to the road right opposite our
gate, but instead I came out on the road further up. I looked back down the road towards our farm gate and there was a police car parked right across the gateway, and a policeman standing by the
car smoking a cigarette. I waited until he got back in the car, then sprinted across the road and up through Front Field and home.

The lights were still on in the kitchen. Mum and Dad were sitting there at the table and talking over a cup of tea. I just walked in and told them everything. I told them that it was me
who’d brought back the foot and mouth after I’d been riding on Mr Bailey’s farm. I told them I was staying home no matter what. I don’t know how much they understood of what
I said because I was crying so much. But they under­stood enough. Dad held my hands and told me it was no one’s fault, not mine, not anyone’s. The foot and mouth disease could have
come on the wind, in the smoke, on bird droppings, car tyres – a hundred different ways, he said. And Mum said I shouldn’t have run away like I did, but I knew they were both really
pleased I had and that neither of them blamed me at all. I could tell that from the way they hugged me. It was a strange thing to be suddenly happy in the middle of all this, but I was.

Today began again this morning. I was up early and went off to feed Little Josh, while Dad did the milking. Mum let all the ewes and lambs out into Front Field. We stood and watched them as they
spread out over the field, the ewes at once busy at their grazing, the lambs springing and skipping, loving their sudden freedom, their last freedom. Neither of us said a word. We didn’t need
to because we were both thinking the same thoughts. Little Josh wouldn’t stay with the others. He followed me home into the kitchen. So I fed him.

But even when I’d fed him he wanted to stay by me.

We saw the men in white – the slaughterers and the vets – walking up the farm lane as we finished our breakfast. Dad got up, pulled on his overalls, and went out without a word. Mum
cried when he’d gone. I put my arms around her and tried to comfort her, but I didn’t cry. I didn’t cry because my mind was on other things and it was racing. I was looking down
at Little Josh lying at my feet, and I was thinking. I was thinking about how I was going to hide him away, so that the men in white would never find him. I didn’t know where I would hide
him, but I knew it had to be done. And it had to be soon, very soon. There wasn’t much time.

My chance came when Mum got up from the table and said she just couldn’t sit there and let Dad do it on his own, that she had to go with him. The moment she’d gone, I scooped Josh up
into my arms and ran upstairs. I cleared out everything I could from the bottom of my cupboard and laid down some newspaper.

I sat on my bed and fed him again until he couldn’t drink another drop. I told him that he must be quiet, that he must go to sleep and keep quiet. He seemed happy enough – until I
lifted him in and shut the cupboard door on him. Then he started, bleating on and on, like he’d never stop. It was muffled, but I could still hear him, and if I could hear him, so could they.
So I put on my CD just loud enough to drown out his bleating and left him there. All I had to do now was to be sure that I kept my CD going.

Later, more slaughtermen in white arrived – ‘Angels of Death’, Mum called them. She came in and told me the shooting would begin very soon, that I mustn’t on any account
go outside from now on. She didn’t have to tell me. Nothing and no one could have made me go out and watch what they’d be doing. Just thinking of it was more than I could bear. I stayed
in my room behind my closed curtains, cradled Little Josh on my lap, put on my earphones and turned up my CD so loud that I couldn’t hear the shooting, so that I couldn’t feel or know
anything except the thunder of the music in my head.

But then I had to change the CD. I took off my earphones without thinking. That was when I first heard the shooting, not loud, not near, but the crack of every shot told me that this was really
happening. They were killing out there, killing Dad’s family of animals.

Suddenly I thought of Ruby. She’d be fright­ened out of her mind at all the shooting. I put Little Josh back in the cupboard, turned up the CD, ran downstairs, and out across the yard
to her stable.

Ruby was in a real state by the time I got there, all lathered up and terrified. I went in with her, closed the top of the stable door and hugged her, smoothing her, calming her all I could.
After a while when the shooting stopped, she relaxed a little and rested her head on my shoulder. Even then I could hear her heart pounding as if she’d been galloping.

Then I opened the door. I wish I hadn’t. Dad was there. Mum was there, her arm round his shoulder. The men in white were there. There was blood on their overalls, blood on their boots. One
of them was holding a clipboard and he was the one doing the talking. ‘There’s no mistake, Mr Morley,’ he was saying. ‘I’ve checked this list a dozen times now and
we’ve counted the bodies. We’re one lamb missing, one ram lamb, a Suffolk.’

It’s not their fault, I know, but if Mum and Dad hadn’t seen me in the stable at that moment, if they hadn’t looked at me like they did, no one would ever have guessed. Even
Bobs was looking at me. Mum knew what I’d done the moment she caught my eye. She came over and explained that I had to give Little Josh up, had to say where he was, that every cloven-hoofed
animal on the farm had to be killed. There couldn’t be any exceptions. I buried my face in Ruby’s neck. I was sobbing too much to say anything. I knew it was over, that it was hopeless,
that sooner or later they would find him. So I told them I’d fetch him out myself. And that’s what I did. I carried him out. He didn’t struggle, just bleated a little as I handed
him over. The man in white who took him off me had a face. It was Brad and his eyes were full of tears. ‘It’ll be very quick,’ he said. ‘He won’t know anything. He
won’t feel anything.’ And he carried him away around the back of the shed. A few moments later there was a shot. I felt it like a knife in my heart.

This evening the farm is still, is silent. The fields are empty, and it’s raining.

Our farm isn’t ours any more. People I don’t even know come and go everywhere. They’re all over the place, like ants. There’s been lorries coming in and
out all day, bringing in railway sleepers and straw for the fire. And there’s diggers, two of them, digging the trench in Front Field. I can see them now from my window, waving their arms
about like great yellow monsters, doing a hideous dance of death to the thunderous music of their engines.

The phone rings all the time, but we don’t pick it up and we don’t answer messages unless we have to. Auntie Liz left a message, so did Jay, so did Gran, all saying how terrible it
is, how sorry they are, how they’re thinking of us. Auntie Liz was in tears, and Jay says it was horrible of her to have quarrelled with me like she did that day (I’d forgotten all
about it long ago) and she said how much she misses me. I miss her too – lots. Gran says she wishes she could be with us, to help us. But I’m glad she’s not. Three of us being
silent, being so full of sadness is enough. She’d only make it worse. Besides, we can manage on our own.

Mum sent me to the end of the lane to pick up the post and the milk this morning. The policeman was still there, still smoking. He said he was sorry too. Then he gave me a bit of a talking-to. I
don’t remember much of what he said, something about a light at the end of the tunnel. He was trying to be nice. And I could see he was upset for us, really upset, not pretending.

Mum says it’s the first time since she’s been married that she’s ever had to buy milk. The post is mostly cards, most with flowers on, the kind of cards people send when
someone in the family has died. The cremation will be in Front Field as soon as they’ve built the funeral pyre.

The burning can’t come too soon for any of us. There’s already a horrible stench about the place. Mum said I mustn’t go near the sheds where they killed the cows and the pigs,
nor out into the Front Field where the sheep are lying. She doesn’t want me to see them. And I don’t want to see them either. Imagining them is bad enough. Most of the day Dad sits at
his desk smoking and saying nothing. There’s no work for him to do any more. No milking. No feeding the animals. No cheesemaking. He hasn’t been back into his cheese store to check the
cheese. I don’t think he can bear to look at them.

Tonight when Dad didn’t come in for tea I was worried, and I went out to look for him. I heard him before I found him. He was in with the cows in the barn, sitting on a
bale of hay, with his head in his hands. Hector was lying at his feet. Dad was talking to Grandad just like he had before. I remember exactly the words he said: ‘Tell me why, Pop. Tell me
why. Will you tell me what I’ve done to deserve this?’

His cows lay all about him, with their eyes staring, stiffened and swollen in death, and everywhere a terrible stillness.

Mum was right. I shouldn’t have gone. I shouldn’t have seen what I’ve seen. It’ll be locked in my head for ever.

Monday, March 19th

Yesterday evening they lit the fire at last. I looked out of my window and remembered the last bonfire we’d had on the farm, on Front Field in about the same place. It
was Millennium night, and everyone had come and we’d had sausages and cake and cider. And Dad had sung ‘Danny Boy’, because everyone had asked him to. It’s his favourite
song in the world. This is a very different sort of a fire. This one belches out clouds of horrible stinking smoke, and it will burn for days, they tell us. But then it’ll all be over.
I’m longing for that, longing for the smoke and the smell to be gone, for us to be left alone, for the pain to be over.

On the television there are always more and more cases, two more in the village, Barrow Farm and Fursdon. If it goes on like this there’ll be no farm animals left.

It’s strange how you can get used to things though – even to a nightmare. We’ve been trapped on the farm, quarantined, forbidden to leave for nearly a week now, but I
wouldn’t want to leave even if I could. I spend my days mostly with Ruby and Bobs. Except for the hens and the ducks, they’re the only animals left alive on the farm. I go riding along
the water meadows as far as I can from the smoke, and from the men in white overalls.

This morning I saw Mr Bailey down there doing some fencing. We waved at each other. I couldn’t hear what he said at first, but then he shouted it again. ‘I said, don’t you
worry, girl. Things’ll look up, you’ll see.’ He’s been more friendly since foot and mouth than he ever was before. He’s sent a card, and he’s rung up too,
offering to come over and give a hand. I told Mum and Dad about what Mr Bailey had said because I thought it might cheer them up a bit – I don’t think either of them even heard me.
Living with Mum and Dad is like living with ghosts – sad, silent ghosts. Mum doesn’t cry any more. Dad does, not in front of me, but I hear him in the bedroom. I can hear him now as
I’m writing this.