Cow Girl by Kirsty Eyre

Author:Kirsty Eyre [Eyre, Kirsty]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2020-03-31T17:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THE WOLF

From: Maria

Lesbian hen party conundrum #189. You would not believe the shit that’s out there, Bilbo. One girl has ordered Spot the Pussy, lesbi-hen tiaras and something that looks like roadkill but may be a prosthetic lady garden. I can’t bring myself to ask what you’re supposed to do with it.

To: Lorna Parsons

Parsnip update: she’s socializing again. Boom!

From: Lorna Parsons

Great! I know she’s not due for another few weeks, but we’ll move her into the barn soon so we can keep a close eye – she’s only a heifer.

The girls went back on Sunday night: Bev and Kat for work, and Maria for an Olivia Twist audition in which she’s hoping to play Fagana. Despite the eerie silence, a sense of warmth remains the next day. Laughter has permeated the cracked walls. It has seeped into old beams and floorboards, cupboards and furniture, the whole house reinvigorated and topped up with love. Kat’s perfume lingers in the bathroom, Bev’s chocolate sits in the fridge, Maria’s carnations hang out in the hallway like old friends: the world is an infinitely better place.

After morning milking, I catch Grandma squinting at a fragment of coconut shell next to the ditch where the tractor got stuck and I can’t stop laughing. Buoyed by the frivolity of the weekend, the four of us trying on jumpsuits in one cubicle in Sheffield’s Topshop, Maria reprising her Melania Trump role and teaching us the lyrics to ‘Fake Schmooze’, Bev and Kat squabbling over the details of their hen parties, I at least feel stronger when Dad’s scan results come back.

According to the surgeon’s report, they have succeeded in removing 90 per cent of the tumour and now need to blast the remaining 10 per cent using radiotherapy. He starts a six-week course next week as an outpatient and can come home today.

At half past two, we go to pick him up, only for a nurse we’ve not met before to tell us that his infection is too severe for him to be discharged. I panic until a few minutes later a different nurse confirms that he doesn’t have an infection and that his notes got mixed up with the lady in the next bed.

By four o’clock, Dad’s back in his armchair staring out at the empty fields. I haven’t let any of the cows into the upper field today. I don’t want them anywhere near that oak.

‘It’s good to be back.’ He stretches his legs out in front of him, a lopsided grin on his face, which hopefully doesn’t hurt, but looks like it might. His head is still bandaged and the area beneath his collarbone is dotted with circular plasters previously responsible for attaching tubes, cannulas and God knows what. He props himself up with a ‘Home Sweet Home’ pink patchwork cushion that Grandma won at a Farming Association raffle and declared ‘nauseatingly twee’ but hasn’t yet taken to the charity shop.

‘Tea?’ I say.

‘That’d be wonderful.’ He tries to get comfortable. ‘The tea was like piss in hospital.

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