Dairy Cows

I was on the platform when Ant phoned me. He was supposed to pick me up from the station. We would then drive to Nutton Farm for the story. I’d never met Ant before. Not properly. He was rarely in the newsroom. He tended to film feature pieces. When I pitched the farm story, the bosses roped him in as well: I would write the article, he would film for the website. There would be a photographer there as well, apparently. I was quite pleased with myself. I had found a story as an intern that was important enough to involve journalists twice my age. I had taken the early train down from Manchester that morning; I should have been sleepier after my five o’clock start, but the excitement of my second story had me buzzing.

‘Would you mind buying me a coffee, mate?’ Ant said down the phone. ‘I’m actually running a little late, I couldn’t start the car this morning.’

‘Yeah, of course,’ I said as I reached the car park. ‘No worries.’

‘Thanks. Black Americano. I’ll pay you back.’

I repeated the order in my head.

‘I’ll pick you up in fifteen, OK?’

Half an hour later, Ant pulled up in the station car park. The coffee was just about warm. October was giving us an early dose of winter and I was quick into the warm car. I held out the coffee.

‘In the holder please, buddy,’ Ant said, looking ahead and tapping on the phone mounted above the steering wheel. I slotted the cup between our seats just as Ant whipped the car out of the station.

‘So sorry I’m late, man,’ he said, one eye on the rush hour traffic, the other on the map on his phone. ‘Had to jump start the car this morning. Lucky the hotel had the cables. Would have been screwed otherwise.’

We turned onto a main road and the map started speaking. It was a thirty-minute drive with traffic. Our ETA meant we would be fifteen minutes late. It also meant a long time in the car. 

After ten minutes of driving, I had learned plenty about Ant. He had been in Liverpool the day before. The week prior there was a shoot on the Isle of Man. And not long ago he had finalised a divorce with his wife, who was also a journalist.

We turned onto a country lane and I decided I liked Ant. He was open. He talked about real life. There was no small talk. He had left the coffee in the cup holder.

‘We still get on, you see,’ he said as we tore down a narrow track. ‘She might even phone now. She usually does, first thing in the morning.’

‘Oh. That’s nice.’

Ant shrugged. ‘We still like each other. We’re just too different, you know.’ 

Maybe he wanted to talk about it, I thought.

‘How so?’

He had the answer ready. ‘I think I needed to be more serious,’ he said, looking ahead and beeping the horn at a blind bend. ‘She’s a bit OCD and more of a planner; I’m more chilled out, you know.’

I got that impression. His hair was messy and there were stains on his jumper. And there was a general air of ‘dishevelled’ about him. It was calming.

‘I should have been more like her.’

I nodded, unsure what to say. 

‘Do you guys have kids?’ I tried, as we pulled into a muddy lay-by to let a car pass.

Ant shook his head. ‘Never really happened for us. Would have liked kids. Think it would have been good for us.’

I nodded and said I agreed.

‘You want kids?’ Ant asked.

I smiled. ‘Maybe. One day. My girlfriend and I have only been together for a year, so there’s time yet. We’re still young.’

‘What does she do, your lady?’

‘She’s a student. Business. Yeah, she’s doing really well.’

Ant nodded his approval. ‘Dude, get a ring on her finger! Before someone else, you know.’

I laughed and he nudged me in the ribs. 

‘We got married after a month, you know, me and my wife,’ he said after a hairpin bend.

I gaped.

‘You got it, man,’ he said, nodding. ‘Just the right thing to do. We were working together.’ He paused. ‘Maybe it was too fast looking back.’

I cleared my throat. The air con was blowing hot and dry.

‘Are you seeing anyone else?’

Ant nodded. ‘Yeah. She’s thirty. French. Also divorced. Two kids. Girls. Twelve and fourteen.’

‘That sounds tricky,’ I said.

Ant laughed ruefully. ‘It’s tricky, you know. You feel a bit of an idiot sometimes – they just ignore you. Well, the older one does; the younger one’s more keen. She’ll let me in the room to watch TV, at least. Yeah, a few months in and it’s still difficult to… you know, get some points on the board with them.’

‘Hmm, I imagine it’s difficult with girls that age,’ I said.

Ant nodded. He was about to reply when the map spoke again.

‘Right then, here we are, buddy.’

Ant turned off the lane and into a yard with stables and a stone cottage. We rolled past the cottage and a woman waved at us from a gate. Ant put down his window and I recognised her voice when she spoke. We had talked on the phone. She was Sally, the owner of the farm. I introduced myself and Ant gave her an awkward handshake through the window.

‘Parking’s up there,’ she said, pointing beyond the gate.

Ant gave her a thumbs up and drove through to the gravelled area. We parked in front of green fields that vanished into the breaking sky on the horizon. Ant grabbed his camera from the back seat; I checked I had my phone. We stepped out into the weak morning sunshine and choked on the smell of manure. 

I shut the car door and was about to comment on the stench, but Ant was already walking across the gravel, where another car had just pulled up.

A man about Ant’s age got out. Ant gave the man’s arm a squeeze and beckoned me over. I half-jogged to the car and shook the man’s hand. Even a bulky winter coat couldn’t disguise his thin frame. There were dark rings under his eyes and his hair was grey. But he smiled and introduced himself as Chris. The photographer. The paper’s favourite. Ant had told me he was the best in the business. Renowned.

Chris locked the car and the three of us headed to the cottage. The gravel crunched under our feet and more smells filled our sinuses. Straw and grass. It felt good.

‘Yeah, just down from Glasgow this morning,’ Chris was telling Ant. ‘Barely slept. The week before I was down in –’

Sally the farm owner clapped her hands. I jumped. Chris sneezed. She smiled at us.

‘Hullo,’ she said. ‘Welcome, welcome. You’re the crew from Manchester, yes? Good, good.’

She was short and sunny. Her skin was wrinkled and ruddy from a life in the wind and the dirt. She reminded me of a sparrow.

‘Cows are this way. Tea? I’ll get my husband to bring some over in a minute.’

We followed her to the shed. The sun over the road was low and we brought a hand to our eyes as if in salute to Sally as she opened the shed door.

I had found the story online. The farm had posted a picture of a black and white cow with the caption ‘Last of a dying breed.’ The farm was due to be sold, and the cows were for the butcher. Derby’s oldest dairy farm shutting up shop: it was a good story. The bosses liked it. 

The shed door hit the latch and blocked out the sun. Sally wriggled past us and led us into a bed of hay. Light peeped through the cracks in the shed’s wooden walls. It was dim and the place hummed with cow smells. Chris coughed over my shoulder as we crossed the hay to a fence. Sally led us through to a brighter part of the shed and there, sprawled like seals in a sunny patch of hay, were five dairy cows.

‘Beautiful,’ said Ant.

‘Yes. They are lovely,’ Sally said, smiling over her shoulder.  

The cows were impressive: great hunks of black and white, steam rising from their sides and white breath escaping their wet noses. Sally went around smacking them on the rear and calling them by their names. The beasts looked up with guileless eyes, turning straw in their mouths.

‘They’re cudding,’ called Sally from the corner of the shed. ‘So lots of chewing and a little bit of vomit and then a little more chewing.’

I smiled and nodded, not sure if I had heard the word right. I could look it up later.

Ant and Chris set off with their cameras, pointing their lenses at the cows. I started taking notes on my phone.

‘All named after the cows my grandfather had. Same names, different cows,’ Sally said, weaving between the cows and standing by my side. ‘So they’re actually more like Daisy the ninth and Dreidel the eighth.’

Sally told me more. This band of five old girls were the last of what was once a two-hundred strong herd. Before the economy and the weather took a miserable turn a few years back.

‘We’re all getting on a bit now, aren’t we, ladies?’ she said.

Chris and Ant were roaming around the cows. Chris was crouched behind one, out of sight. I asked Sally another question.

‘Close to a ton, most of them,’ she replied. ‘Maybe a little more after lunch. Daisy here’s the fattest.’ 

She bent down and slapped the nearest cow on the rump. A deep cough came from behind me. We turned around.

‘Thank you, dear,’ Sally said, stepping around Daisy and taking the mugs from a man in rubber boots.

Ant, Chris and I joined Sally at the fence and thanked the man for the tea. He nodded and left.

‘Got terrible anxiety, poor thing,’ Sally told us, leaning against the fence. ‘Cows really calm him down though. Sometimes he just comes in and sits with them.’ She nodded to herself. ‘Sounds bonkers but it works for him.’

We nodded and drank our tea. A cow shifted beside me. 

Chris choked and spluttered.

‘Oh,’ said Sally.

We looked over. Chris was panting. He dropped his tea and his hands flew to his throat. He was gasping for air. 

Sally stared. ‘Oh God!’

Chris was on the move. He crashed past me and I fell to the floor. When I looked up, Chris and Sally were gone. Ant dropped his tea, helped me up and we ran outside.

Chris was doubled over, retching. Sally was shouting at the cottage. Ant ran over and took the camera from his friend’s neck. Sally’s husband burst from the cottage with a phone to his cheek.

‘Ambulance, please. Ambulance.’ 

Chris was shaking. His tongue was erect and his eyes were on sticks. His lips were blue and great gulping gasps were escaping his throat like he was drowning. Tears were dropping down his cheeks. Sally screeched. Ant was slapping him on the back. Chris fell to the hard stone yard. Sally’s husband burst out the cottage with a silver blister pack. He pushed his fingers into Chris’s mouth and rubbed his voicebox. I looked on, numb, useless. 

‘Jesus.’ 

Ant and I were in the cottage, at the kitchen table. Ant sipped his coffee and shook his head.

‘He’s been working like a horse for weeks,’ Ant said. ‘Gets paid good money. That’s the bloody problem. A grand a shoot because he’s the best in the country. And he’s everywhere. Wants to risk his bloody lungs to retire early.’

The paramedics had appeared just in time. 

‘Not the best place for an asthmatic, a cow shed,’ Ant said.

I nodded. I was still shaken. Sally came in from the yard. 

‘He’s alright,’ she said.

We already knew this. She went to the sink and filled a glass.

‘Don’t worry about him, he’s a moron,’ Ant said.

Sally drained the water and opened a biscuit tin. ‘Paramedics say it was close. Didn’t even have his puffer with him.’

Ant cleared his throat.  ‘I see more of him than his wife,’ he went on. ‘Seriously. Maybe this’ll teach him.’

I drained my coffee. Ant nudged me.

‘Come on. I’ll drive you to the station. No use you sticking around. Get yourself back to the office. No, don’t worry, I’ll come back for Chris. He’ll be a while yet and I need more footage anyway.’

‘Take a biscuit.’ Sally put one in my hand. ‘For the sugar.’

She looked older when she wasn’t smiling. I stood from the table and thanked her. 

‘The article will be out soon,’ I said.

It was warmer out in the yard and I no longer noticed the smell. The ambulance was parked in the road. The back doors were open. The bottom of Chris’s boots were poking out. They were matted with straw. Ant called in. ‘I’ll be back in a minute, Chris.’

Chris gave a small groan from inside the vehicle. Ant shook his head again and we walked back to the car.

I gave Sally a small wave as we drove past the cottage and turned right at the ambulance, down the lane and back towards the main road.

We mostly stayed quiet in the car. Occasionally Ant would say something about Chris and the job, but my responses were brief. The adrenaline was gone and I felt rinsed out. I ate the biscuit Sally had given me. Ant’s cold Americano was still in the cup holder. I jumped when the phone rang. 

‘Ah sorry,’ Ant said, tapping his phone, ‘just my wife.’

‘That’s alright.’ 

‘Hiya, Sandy.’

I sat back in my chair to let Ant check the traffic.

‘What a morning. Sand. Let me tell you.’

We got to the station five minutes before the next train to Manchester. I shook Ant’s hand and told him to let me know about Chris. He said he would see me at work and wished me luck with the article. 

On the train, I dropped into a window seat and swore with exhaustion. The carriage was empty. I pulled out my phone. My notes page was open. There was just enough there for the article, but the morning had hardly gone well. I scrolled to my contacts and found my girlfriend’s name. I checked the time. She would be heading to a lecture but she’d told me to ring her once I finished at the farm. And I wanted to hear her voice.

She picked up as the train pulled away from the platform and started gathering speed for the journey north.