Hens Dancing by Raffaella Barker

Author:Raffaella Barker [Barker, Raffaella]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: Fiction, General
ISBN: 0747262217
Google: yFJNAgAAQBAJ
Amazon: B00H5MRM3E
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2013-12-25T00:00:00+00:00

August 28th

We love the piglets so much that Giles and Felix are moving in with them. They have cooked supper, sausages unfortunately, on a little fire just outside the electric fence, and are now snuggled down in a row with the ginger piglet and two pinks in the pig shack. Giles and Felix have sleeping bags, but are sprawled on top of them, sound asleep. Dusk is giving way to a hot, still night, and I hover with Rags between the house where The Beauty slumbers and the pig shack, unsure as to whether I should sleep out with the boys. Golden harvest moonlight glimmers on the pond, and, inhaling deep calm, I smell the nicotianas I planted rather late on and hear distant squawk of a tawny owl. Wonder if I might be nervous with just a few pigs and a tiny terrier to protect me and my children from spooks and worse. Distant squawk comes closer and up the drive, apparently preceded by Salvation Army tambourine. Out of the shadows cast by trees at the gate steps David, rattling a biscuit tin and followed closely by three piglets.

‘I found this lot on the green, and I thought I’d better get them back to you before anyone saw them. They aren’t allowed to go anywhere without a licence, you know.’

The three piglets are grinding their teeth and salivating expectantly at our feet. I chuck the biscuits into their corral and they spring over the fence in pursuit. This must be how they escaped, but cannot imagine how I failed to notice their absence; anyway, am delighted to see David.

‘Thank God you saw them. Would you like to stay the night now you’re here?’

David’s face is black and white like an old movie in the moonlight; he laughs.

‘Why?’

I point to snoring boys and piglets.

‘I wondered if you might sleep out here with them because I can’t make up my mind whether I should be here or inside with The Beauty.’ As the words leave me I realise that the request is ambiguous and that I may have propositioned him. Blush scarlet, but probably appear grey in moonlit night. David does not seem enthusiastic or eager. I make it all worse.

‘If you stayed, I wouldn’t have to sleep outside.’

‘No, you wouldn’t.’ He glowers through the dusk at me, then capitulates. ‘Oh, all right then. Have you got another sleeping bag and a tent, or do I have to go in the pigsty as well?’

Fall over biscuit tin in hopping excitement and grovel happily. ‘No, no, I’ll get you some stuff. Would you like a camp bed and a pillow as well?’

Withering glare, and David mutters, ‘Don’t push it, Venetia, just give me the pillow and forget the bloody camp bed.’ I run to the scullery to unearth the tent, congratulating myself on my good fortune. Now that I do not have to do it, can acknowledge sensation of utter terror at prospect of spending night outside and in charge. Pimple tent

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