English Pastoral by James Rebanks (cat reading book .txt) 📗

free to play, but bereft of meaning in their lives and disconnected from the things that mattered. He had become stubborn in his old age and suspicious of change, and increasingly sentimental about his ragged old-fashioned fell farm.

My father didn’t have that luxury; faced with growing debt, he seemed trapped somewhere between the old farming values and the new economic realities. I felt the tension, but didn’t yet fully understand it. That would come later. By the end of that year, though, I had fallen in love with that old farming world. My grandfather had achieved what he had set out to do: I was no longer a boy hiding from the farm; I was a true believer.

~

One fine day, early the following spring, when the grass was a few inches deep and the land dry, the cows and their young calves were let out of their byres and barns. My grandfather untied them and they shook their heads free of their neck ropes, finding their legs again as they walked out of the stalls and byre into the blinding sunlight. Soon they were galloping about the yard and the fields, jumping and bellowing to each other. My grandfather called it ‘turning out day’. It was one of the most joyful days of the farming year. He and the cows were both glad to be largely rid of each other for the summer months. There was no more winter mucking out or twice-daily feeding needed, just checking on them grazing in the fields each day. His daily routine changed massively as those cows skipped away across the fields. The whole farm seemed to sigh with relief. We stood at the field gate and enjoyed them playing like children.

‘I reckon they’re glad to be getting some sunshine on their backs, and out of that old dark byre … Winter is long enough.’

~

With the cattle out in the fields for the summer months, the byres fell silent, except for the endless sky-chatter of swallows sitting on the stable door. The barns were transformed from places of noise, warmth and smells to the coolest, darkest and quietest places on the farm. My footsteps echoed off the bare stone floors and walls as I ran through them. Beneath the beams the farm cat, Tabby, sat staring upwards trying to work out how to kill the swallows. One day, my grandfather saw me looking up at them. He told me about their migration, how their cream chest feathers were still stained red with African dust. As we walked out of the byre, they swooped in and out through the half-open windows to the distant fields where the cows grazed, surrounded by flies.

On our way to the house for dinner, we spotted the birds diving in and out of the log shed. I went over and looked inside for the nest. There it was on a beam. Grandad lifted me up. His arms trembled as he pushed me up high enough to peer in. The mother was chattering angrily on the wires outside. The almost-fledged chicks, with their gaping orange mouths, filled the nest to bursting. They closed their beaks and stared back at me in confusion and wonder. Then Grandad said, with a little urgency, ‘Can you see them?’ and I said ‘Yes’ quietly and was lowered back down to the ground.

PROGRESS

Had life gone on like that, then all would have been well. But it was not to be. When all is said and done, our lives are like houses built on foundations of sand. One strong wind and all is gone.

Harakiri (1962)

Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species – man – acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world.

Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (1962)

Rising clouds of rust-red dust trail me through the night. The wheels of the tractor I am driving churn it up as I race along the dirt road. The steering wheel in my hands judders as I hit potholes. Wire fences and the night stretch out in front of me as far as I can see. A million stars twinkle, like cheap imitation diamonds. I am in Australia. I am twenty years old. I have run away from my home, thinly veiling it behind some words about ‘backpacking’. But whatever I had said I was doing, I am getting as far away from my dad, and our farm, as I could. My grandfather had died three years earlier. While he was alive, it felt as if the old man had cast a spell on us all, making our way of life feel hopeful, decent and strong, like it would last forever. His unshakeable belief in it all made me think we could defy the outside world. I wore that belief like a protective cloak. I was a proud little Spartan. But with his death that spell broke, and our whole world was suddenly exposed and fragile. I could see everything around me breaking and falling apart, and I could do nothing about it. I began to fear that we might be the last generation to work like we did on our hard, northern land.

~

I arrived on this Australian farm – that belonged to a friend of a friend – and was set to work. I was given the job of driving a tractor to some distant land to bale some ‘Lucerne’. I nodded, without actually knowing what Lucerne was. I was not used to working through the night in distant countries on a strange tractor. He explained that they worked through the night because the crop still had its moisture, and that in the baking heat of the day the crop would dry out and be thrashed to dust by the machinery.

~

The tractor headlights illuminate a deep red Martian landscape. Everything is straight. Straight lines. Squares. The