Town and Country by Wendy Lewis

Author:Wendy Lewis [Lewis, Wendy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lume Books
Published: 2013-07-15T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

Gerald's bedside table began to groan under the weight of books on parturition - the cow variety - collected from Foyles book shop in London, by the ever-helpful Hazel. Then one Saturday he returned from a shopping trip to the local agricultural merchants’, carrying bags of antiseptic spray, lubricating jelly, calving ropes, a calving jack and a block and tackle.

As a female who has actually given birth, I was horrified by this array. The idea of having a baby hauled out of one with a jack, or, worse still, winched out using a block and tackle, smacked of medieval cruelty.

“Whatever happened to natural birth?” I asked.

“It's not always easy with these exotic breeds. They have huge calves.”

I recalled a conversation in the pub a few months ago with the local vet. It was he who had referred to the South Devons as an exotic breed, but somehow the description didn't fit the enormous brainless Hippo, or her sister with the vacant stare, whom I had secretly named Gormless.

Gerald didn't know this and usually referred to the cows by their numbers; though, apart from resorting to the toothbrush and scrubbing out their ears to decipher them, I didn't really know whether he was putting the right number to the right cow.

He read books on calving every night, then had nightmares and talked in his sleep about neo-natal diseases, while I seriously considered a temporary move into the spare room before we both became nervous wrecks.

Hippo continued her unhurried round of daily existence unaware of the awful fate that could await her. She grazed, lay in the sun chewing cud, then, hauling her bulk up with an unattractive grunt, she grazed again. She showed no signs of imminent birth and Gerald and I relaxed a little.

He even spent two nights away at a conference in Harrogate. Although he rang both evenings to enquire after Hippo, it wasn't until I had put the phone down on the second call that I realised he hadn't asked me how I was.

That evening I stood in front of the full length mirror in the bedroom, and studied the country version of me. In London I had managed to look reasonably smart, not as smart as Hazel, but then she was younger and slimmer, but I had certainly looked a whole lot better than the creature I now confronted.

The once carefully dressed long hair which I had worn in a 'french pleat', was now pulled back into a scruffy pony tail, secured by a thick elastic band courtesy of the post office - it had arrived round a bundle of letters. This elastic band was actually an emergency measure as the marginally more attractive black velvet one I usually wore had been eaten by one of Nasty's babies during a cuddling session.

Below the untidy hair were eyebrows which had grown straggly, above eyelids which could really do with at least a hint of shadow. I had gone past the age when I could get away without using make up.

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