Cold in the Earth (44 page)

But there in the pastures, when you looked closer, were rank grasses, nettles, docks and sorrel, the ungrazed land rapidly succumbing to the stranglehold of weeds. It was happening in every field, on every hillside: the pretty, ‘natural’ landscape with its velvet-soft green contours, so beloved of visiting town-dwellers, was produced by its flocks of sheep and no more natural than a shed of battery chickens. She was reminded of the old gardener’s reply to the minister who had congratulated him on what a good job he and the Almighty together had made of his garden: ‘Aye, but you should have just seen it when the Almighty had it to himsel’!’

It could all be reclaimed in time, of course, just as their community life could be. It wouldn’t be easy for these wounds to heal and there would, even years later, be areas which hurt when you touched on them. Marjory sighed. She was sadder and wiser, certainly: that was always talked up as being a good thing, though she wasn’t convinced.

A thin, demanding bleating suddenly made itself heard, a sound once so familiar that she would barely have noticed it. Now she smiled; she had shamelessly used her contacts to have Mains of Craigie chosen as one of the farms to host ‘sentinel’ animals – sheep which would be regularly monitored to ensure that pastures were clean of the foot-and-mouth virus – and had even managed to find a black lamb for Bill, an engaging, leggy replacement for the one they hadn’t saved.

The children idolised Hope, as they had christened it, and it was rapidly becoming thoroughly above itself. Silence had fallen again so it must be getting its bottle now; she’d better get back and tell the kids to hurry up. Even the conscientious Cat was inclined to be offhand about schooltimes when there was a lamb to play with.

They’d settled back with surprisingly few complaints about not having their friends round the corner and being offered Mum’s cooking instead of Granny’s. Her father, on the other hand . . . When she had phoned, after the high drama of Laura’s rescue and Max Mason’s arrest, to apologise for her non-arrival, he had said harshly, ‘Oh, no doubt it’s fine for you. But Cammie missed his rugby, with you being too busy strutting round being the big shot – what sort of mother does that make you?’

Foolishly, she had allowed her anger to speak for her. ‘And you think I was happy, every time your work made you let me down? What sort of father did that make you? That was different, somehow?’

He hung up on her. Despite Janet’s best efforts the atmosphere was still frosty and the GameBoy she had given him remained untouched. The television, to his wife’s distress, was once more permanently switched on, to the accompaniment of his endless complaints.

It was time she wasn’t here. She picked up the empty mash pail and the bowl of eggs and walked to the gate, then stopped for an affectionate look at her chookies. It was good to hear that warm, comforting clucking and crooning again.

And perhaps it was childish to wish that Bill had thought of buying her the replacements. Laura had warned her she’d have to be patient, and patient she would just have to be.

About the Author

Aline Templeton has worked in education and broadcasting. She grew up in Scotland, read English at Girton College, Cambridge, and now lives in Edinburgh. She has a grown-up son and daughter.