They were simple words but they were all deeply affected by them and as they drank the wine and considered them they each became lost in their own thoughts. For Nab, the pain of thinking was almost too much to bear. He thought of all the animals he had seen mutilated and ripped apart because of the Urkku and then into his mind, slowly and clearly, appeared pictures of Rufus, Bruin, Tara and lastly Sam. He saw them as if they were there beside him and he felt a flood of tears begin to well up inside. But then his sorrow turned to anger and his anger into resolve and an iron certainty such as he had never felt before. He lifted his glass again and said quietly to himself:
‘For you. We shall succeed for you,’ and took another mouthful of the wine.
Jim and Ivy thought not only of all the animals they had seen abused and tortured by man but also of all the hungry and the poor and the oppressed of their own race. They thought of those who were dying of illnesses which could be cured but were not and they thought of the stupidity of war and the misery and suffering of its casualties. They thought until they could think no more and then suddenly Jim spoke and his voice trembled slightly with emotion.
‘Nab. Come and give me a hand to milk the goats and get the eggs if in.’
The boy was glad of the opportunity to break free of the cloud of depression which had filled his mind and he got up and followed Jim through the front door and into the dark wet evening.
‘Here; put this over your shoulders,’ said the old man and handed Nab a big blue tattered greatcoat. ‘And put these on your feet,’ he said, handing him a pair of wellingtons. The rain spotted against their faces as they walked along the path at the front of the house until they came to the door into the goats’ shed. Inside it was warm and smelt of hay and Jessie and Amy came rushing across and began nibbling and snuffling at Jim’s hands.
‘Give these to them,’ Jim said to Nab and handed him three thick crusts of bread. The goats immediately turned their attention to him and Nab broke the crusts up and tried to share them equally between the two as they pushed against him and jostled him in their anxiety to get more than their fair share. The bread was gone in an instant, wolfed down greedily, but still they nuzzled and pulled at the pockets of the coat which Jim usually wore.
‘Show them your hands; like this,’ he said, and opened his hands so that the palms were flat to indicate to Nab what he meant. The goats sniffed disconsolately at Nab’s empty hands and then, with a look of crushing disappointment, they turned away and went over to the buckets of bran which Jim had ready for them. As they ate, he milked them and Nab watched fascinated as the old man squeezed the frothy white liquid rhythmically out of the two teats; first one, then the other, then back to the first and so on, and the jets of milk splashed into the bucket underneath. Amy was milked first and then, as Jim moved round to Jessie, he beckoned to Nab to come over and tried to show him how to milk her. It took a little while and a lot of fumbling but eventually the boy succeeded in getting a thin stream of milk out of one of the teats into the bucket. Jim shouted ‘Hooray’ and clapped his hands in applause while Nab laughed.
The old man then took over as it would have taken too long if Nab had carried on and soon he had finished.
‘We’ll take this back to the house,’ he said, picking up the buckets of milk, ‘and then we’ll go and get the eggs in and feed the hens. Goodnight, you two,’ he said to the goats and Nab gave them a stroke and a pat but they were too concerned with finishing off the bran in the bottom of their buckets to pay much attention and they only looked up when the door closed, whereupon they gave a little bleat of farewell and carried on eating.
They dropped the milk off at the house, leaving it just inside the front door, and then, pausing only to get some corn out of a little stone lean-to, they made their way around to the back and walked over to a large hencote which nestled at the side of a stone wall. The rain was still pouring down and the high craggy mountains behind them were shrouded in low cloud. It was too wet for any of the hens to be out and as they opened the door of the shed and went in there was much squawking and fluttering.
‘They’re not used to strangers. That’s why they’re making more noise than usual,’ said Jim as he went round the boxes, carefully picking up the eggs and putting them in a little brown wicker basket which he had brought from the house. ‘Put the corn in the bucket into that trough in the middle, could you,’ he said to Nab and, as he did so, the hens all flew down off their perches around the shed and began pecking away furiously. The rain pelting down on the roof sounded very loud in contrast to the muffled quietness inside as the hens concentrated on eating and Jim looked for eggs.
‘Well,’ he said, when he had walked all round and come back to the door where Nab was standing, ‘I don’t think I’m going to find any more. They’ve done well though; we’ve got plenty. I’ll just fill up their water trough and then we’ll go.’
They walked back round the other end of the house and Nab looked at the neat little vegetable patch around which Jim had put a tall fence to keep the goats and the sheep out. It was a mass of green; the fern-like tops of the potatoes, not yet dug up for the winter, rows of broccoli and sprouts and curly kale to see them through the long cold days ahead; smaller rows of autumn and winter cabbage and then at the end the high stakes on which the runner beans climbed. Jim had taken the onions in only yesterday and they were.drying in one of the outbuildings.
When they got back in through the front door Nab took off his dripping coat and passed it to J im who shook it outside and then hung it on a peg alongside his own on the back of the door. They left their muddy wellingtons on a mat at the side.
‘You’re just in time,’ Ivy called out. ‘I’m putting the soup on the table.’
‘Come on,’ Jim said to Nab. ‘I’ll bet you’re starving.’
Four steaming bowls of vegetable soup had been laid out on the kitchen table and Beth and Ivy were just about to start. Nab sat down on the chair next to Beth and she showed him how to use a spoon to drink his soup. He remembered, with a shiver of fear, the last time he had done this, so long ago. They all laughed as the soup dripped from his spoon over the table or else dribbled down his chin but he soon learnt the knack of it and began to enjoy the delicious flavour. On a plate beside the bowl, Ivy had given him a thick slice of freshly made brown bread which was still warm and he copied the others who were breaking chunks'of it off and eating it between spoonfuls of soup. Soon he had reached the bottom of the bowl and was spooning up all the pieces of vegetable that were left; cubes of tender young carrot and potatoes and turnip, peas and beans and barley. He and Beth had another bowlful and then Ivy went over to the range and fetched out of the oven four plates, on each of which stood a golden yellow green pea omelette garnished with sprigs of parsley and tomatoes.
‘Jim,’ she said. ‘Can you get the fried potatoes and the vegetables.’ The old man got up and brought across a huge bowl full of crinkly fried potatoes and another bowl, in one half of which was a heap of french beans and in the other a little mound of green sprouting broccoli spears.
‘Help yourselves,’ said Ivy. ‘I hope I’ve done enough. Anyway, have as much as you want. I’m sure you’d like some more wine. I’ll go and get the glasses and fill them up.’
Nab found handling a knife and fork a lot more difficult than a spoon so after a few awkward attempts Ivy fetched another spoon and he used that. He savoured and enjoyed every single mouthful, as did Beth, who could never remember a meal tasting so wonderful before. Jim kept topping up their wine glasses as they became empty until by the time they had finished eating they not only felt gloriously satisfied but also rather lightheaded so that they found themselves laughing with each other and with Jim and Ivy at all sorts of little things which they found inexplicably and hilariously funny. For that short magic spell of time they forgot the horrors of the past and the frightening uncertainty of the future and were suspended in the present; totally carefree and living only for the joy and happiness of those moments of laughter.
