Out of the Ashes Read online

  Saturday, February 24th

  Today I introduced Little Josh to Big Josh. Auntie Liz came for lunch along with all her family – first visitors we’ve had for a long time. I can’t help it. I just look from Mum’s face to Auntie Liz’s and back again, looking for any differences. I’ve always done it. Identical twins, very identical. Identical to look at, but not in any other way. Auntie Liz is so quiet, and easygoing. I’ve felt bad about it all my life, but ever since I can remember I’ve wanted her to be my mother.

  Uncle Mark and Dad get on really well together, like a couple of kids. They always go off shooting together or fishing, or maybe just down to the pub. Shooting today. Crows. They got eight. There’s thousands of crows on the farm, and I hate them. They kill lambs. They’ll even kill a sheep if they find one on its back. They peck out their eyes. No such thing as a nice crow.

  Big Josh is six years old and he makes me laugh because he adores me. He wants to be with me all the time, holding my hand, sitting on my lap. And he’s always asking if he can marry me. He asked me why I’d called him Little Josh. So I told him it was because Little Josh was cute and had curly black hair just like he did. He squealed with laughter and then picked Little Josh up in his arms and carried him everywhere. When Big Josh got tired he led him around on a piece of string like a puppy. Little Josh put up with it all, but he was as happy to see Molly again as Molly was to see him. Big Josh is lovely, but I was quite relieved to have the place to ourselves again when they all went off after tea.

  I decided I’d waited long enough for Ruby’s foot to heal, and that it was time to try her out again, gently. I had just about enough time to groom her, saddle her up, go for a short ride and get back before dark. Bobs came along with us and we went down to the river and crossed over. The river was still high after all the rain but we managed. She went like a train up through Mr Bailey’s woods and it was all I could do to rein her in at the top. She was puffing and blowing a bit, but I could tell there was nothing wrong with her foot. I was in amongst Mr Bailey’s sheep and lambs before I knew it. They panicked and scattered everywhere. I just hoped Mr Bailey hadn’t seen us.

  By the time I’d got home, rubbed her down and fed her, it was dark. I kicked off my boots and called out that I was back. But no one said anything, and I thought that was strange because I knew they were in – I’d seen them through the window as I came past. When I went into the sitting room Mum and Dad were both sitting there just staring at a blank television screen. Neither of them even turned to look at me. I knew they were upset about something. Then I thought that Mr Bailey must have rung up to complain about me scattering his sheep, that they were furious with me. But they said nothing, just sat there. I asked what the matter was. Dad said it very quietly: ‘Foot and mouth disease. Some pig farmer up north has got foot and mouth on his farm. It was on the news. They’ve had to kill thousands of pigs.’

  I didn’t know what he was on about. So Mum told me. It’s a sort of virus that attacks farm animals – pigs, sheep, cows, and it spreads like wildfire. If you get it on your farm, then every animal has to be killed immediately to stop the disease from spreading. But it was nothing to worry about, she said, because the outbreak was over three hundred miles away and there was no way it could spread all the way down to us in Devon.

  But I caught Dad’s eye as she said that, and I could see he was worried. He tried to smile at me. ‘We’ll be all right, Becky,’ he said, ‘but all the same, I’m not taking any chances.’

  From now on Dad says we’ve got to dip our wellies in disinfectant every time we come in and out of the house, and first thing tomorrow he’s putting down a barrier of straw soaked in disinfectant at the farm gate, and a sign up saying ‘Keep Out’. And we can’t have any more visitors, not until the scare is over. Worst of all, he says I can’t ride Ruby off the farm, just in case. He didn’t say just in case of what and I didn’t ask, because I didn’t want it to sound like I was arguing. I don’t like arguing with Dad because I know it hurts him when I do. So now I can’t take Ruby galloping up in Mr Bailey’s wood.

  I’m writing this sitting in my bed, and I can hear them talking downstairs. I don’t know why, because usually I love listening in to their conversations, but for some reason I just don’t want to hear what they’re saying.

  P.S. Just after I finished writing this I suddenly thought of something dreadful. Ruby might get this foot and mouth thing. And Bobs. I ran downstairs and asked them straight out. Not possible, Mum said. The virus only attacks cloven-hoofed animals – pigs, cows and sheep. So Ruby’s all right, and Bobs. But Little Josh isn’t. Nor is Molly, nor Hector, nor Primrose.

  Wednesday, February 28th

  Molly doesn’t seem to have much milk of her own, just enough, Dad says, to feed one lamb, not two. So we’ve been feeding Little Josh on the bottle four times a day. I do it before school. Dad does it at lunchtime, because he’s the only one at home, and I do it at teatime and then last thing before I go to bed. It’s great, because Little Josh treats me like his mum now and follows me everywhere.

  He followed me into the stable yesterday, and Ruby didn’t like it at all. She put her ears back and tossed her head at him. Dad said I’d better shut Little Josh up, else the pigs might eat him. I can never be sure with Dad whether he’s joking or not. But he’s not been joking much recently. He’s still worried sick about the case of foot and mouth disease on that farm up north.

  There were pictures on the telly today of dead pigs being picked up by machines and laid on top of a great funeral pyre of railway sleepers and straw. It was horrible. They’re burning them tomorrow. Mum keeps telling him there’s no way that foot and mouth disease can spread all those hundreds of miles down to us. But Dad says you can never be sure of anything, not with foot and mouth disease, that it can spread on the wind, that it can get carried by people, by cars.

  Internet, radio, television – he always wants to find out the latest news about it. And he’s started smoking again. He gave up last year, for good he said. I went to help him in the dairy this evening, just to be with him. We milled the cheese together in silence. He didn’t say so, but I knew he liked me being with him.

  Thursday, March 1st

  Some good news. Some bad news. The good news first. At school today Mrs Merton talked about foot and mouth disease. She said what Mum said, that foot and mouth isn’t likely to find its way down here to us in Devon. Last time there was an outbreak, all the cases were clustered together in Shropshire. I told Dad when I came home, but I don’t think he was even listening. And there’s other farmers worried like he is. On the school bus, I’ve seen quite a few farms with disinfected straw mats across their farm gates, and there are more and more ‘Keep Out’ signs. Everywhere you go now the air stinks of disinfectant. Ruby really hates it. She wrinkles up her nose whenever she smells it.

  Now the bad news. I had a bust-up with Jay. I was just telling her how worried Dad was about the farm, and then she says that farmers are always moaning about something. And for no reason she goes on and on about how I had this and I had that and how I had a horse, and how I was spoilt – in front of everyone. And she’s supposed to be my best friend. So I said she was spoilt because she’s got the latest Imac computer – she’s always showing it off to me when I go over to her place. Then she says if I feel like that she won’t ever invite me over again. Well, who cares? God, she can be a right cow sometimes.

  Monday, March 5th

  Up until teatime it was a great day. At school Jay came and made it up. She said she’d been a real cow, and I said I liked cows. So we’re best friends again.

  Then I was sitting in the kitchen having my tea when Mum came in from work. She was white in the face and I soon knew why. They’ve discovered foot and mouth on a farm less than two miles away – on Speke Farm, Terry Bolan’s place. She heard it on the radio in the car.

  I’d never seen her so upset, and it wasn’t just because of the foot and mouth. It was because she was going to have to t
ell Dad. He was still out on the farm somewhere. When we heard him coming she took my hand under the table and held it tight. Then she told him. It was like the life had suddenly gone out of him. All he said was: ‘You sure?’ Then, when Mum nodded, he just turned round and went out again. Mum went after him.

  I haven’t said a prayer since I gave up Sunday school a couple of years ago, until today. I sat at the kitchen table and prayed. I prayed that this foot and mouth wouldn’t come to us, that our animals wouldn’t catch it, that Little Josh wouldn’t catch it, that everything would turn out all right. But then as I was praying I got angry, angry with God. Why did he let it happen? Why had he made it come here?

  At supper I found out it wasn’t God at all. Terry Bolan had bought in hundreds of sheep from a market up north, where that same pig farmer had sold his infected pigs before he knew they were infected. And the pigs had infected the sheep. Terry didn’t know it. No one did. It wasn’t his fault, Mum said. So God wasn’t to blame, and nor was Terry. But the disease was here anyway, and now only two miles away from us.

  Dad hardly ate anything at supper. He just sat there smoking and staring ahead of him. When I kissed him goodnight and hugged him just now, he hardly knew I’d done it. I’m going to pray again when I’ve finished writing this and I’m going to keep praying every night until I’m sure we won’t get it.

  Usually I do a drawing, but I can’t, not tonight. I’m too sad.

  Tuesday, March 6th

  Everything’s still all right. So far. I didn’t go to school today and Mum stayed at home too. No one in the village went to school in case we accidentally spread the foot and mouth infection. Mum says you can carry it in your hair and on your clothes, in your ears even and up your nose.

  So I spent most of the morning out on the farm with Dad. I milked the cows with him, and then went off with him on the tractor checking every animal on the farm for any tell-tale sign of the disease. We were looking for any cow or pig or sheep with blisters or sores around the mouth, or in the feet. Dad said that I had to keep an eye out for any animal on its own, or limping, or that didn’t look right in itself, and in particular any animal that was standing unnaturally still. When they’ve got blisters in the feet they don’t like moving about because it hurts them, so they just stand still.

  I must have been into the shippen and checked Little Josh and the others a dozen times today. Sometimes I just sat in the straw with them and watched them. I felt like a shepherd trying to keep a wolf away from my flock, except that this wolf is silent and invisible, and I can’t frighten him off.

  Dad has hardly said a word all day, and he didn’t eat lunch and hardly any supper either. Mum is doing her best to cheer him up, and so am I, but foot and mouth is hanging over him like a dark shadow, and he hardly hears us. It’s like he’s cut himself off from us completely, like he’s locked inside himself somehow and can’t get out. I’ve never seen him like this before, and it frightens me.

  Wednesday, March 7th

  It’s bad news, not the worst, but nearly. The disease has come closer, much closer. We had a phone call at breakfast. Mr Bailey’s sheep have caught foot and mouth, so all the animals on his farm will have to be slaughtered – his whole herd of lovely ruby-red Devon cows and their calves, all those sheep and lambs I saw only a couple of weeks ago. All of them are sentenced to die. It’s terrible, horrible.

  From my bedroom window I could see what was going on across the river. There were men in white overalls rounding up the sheep. When Mum told me they were probably the slaughterers, I closed my curtains. I won’t look again. I don’t want to see what happens. I don’t want even to think about it. I don’t want to write about it. But what else is there to think about? What else can I write about? It’s in my head all the time, on the telly every time we turn it on. It’s in the air I’m breathing.

  Praying doesn’t work. I bet Mr Bailey prayed, and I bet Terry Bolan prayed too. It didn’t help them, did it? I’ve put disinfectant all around Little Josh’s shippen like a sort of protective shield, and I never let them out now in case they breathe in the disease. The less they’re outside in the fields the better. Dad’s brought the whole of his flock into the lambing shed. Like he says, this virus can fly on the wind, it can come in on the birds, so he’s not letting them out again. And you don’t even know if sheep have got it, not for three weeks. It takes three weeks for the disease to show itself. So I won’t let mine out either, no matter how much fuss Little Josh makes. I can hear him now, bleating to be let out. I’ve told him why he’s got to stay in. I wish he could understand me as well as I understand him. I don’t pray any more. I just hope and hope and hope.

  Thursday, March 8th

  My nightmare began this morning. I went out for a ride, just to give Ruby some exercise. We rode down through Bluebell Wood to the river. The river was bank high again. Ruby was drinking and I was looking up across the river at Mr Bailey’s farm. It was deserted, not an animal in sight, just crows cawing over the wood, cackling at me as if they knew something I didn’t. Suddenly, I knew what it was. The last time I’d ridden Ruby down to the river was before we knew about the foot and mouth. I’d crossed over on to Mr Bailey’s farm. I’d galloped up through his wood and out over his sheep field. I’d been in amongst his sheep, sheep that must already have been infected with foot and mouth disease. I’d come home again bringing the foot and mouth with me on Ruby, on my clothes, in my hair. We’d come back through the river, but river water isn’t disinfectant. We’d carried the germs with us back on to our farm. And I’d gone out with Dad checking the animals. I touched them. I helped him with the milking that evening. I milked Primrose myself. I fed Little Josh.

  This is the worst feeling I’ve had in all my life. Ever since I first thought of what I might have done I’ve felt cold all over. I’ve been sick. All I know is that if it happens now, if we get foot and mouth, then it’ll be all my fault.

  Friday, March 9th

  (around 1.00 in the morning)

  I can’t sleep, and not just because of the dreadful thing I might have done. They’ve lit the fire on Terry Bolan’s farm. I can see the sky glowing red from my window and I can smell it. It’s the same smell the blacksmith makes when he comes to shoe Ruby, when he puts the hot-iron shoe up against Ruby’s hoof to see if it fits properly and the whole stable fills with acrid smoke. I’ve already used up all that perfume Gran sent me for Christmas. I sprinkled it everywhere in my room so I couldn’t smell the smoke, so I wouldn’t be reminded all the time of what was burning. I discovered that the smell of death is stronger than perfume, and lasts longer.

  Dad couldn’t sleep either. I heard him going out every couple of hours to check the animals. Around midnight I decided to get up and follow him because I thought he’d like the company. I found him in with his cows, just sitting there on the edge of the water trough, watching them lying in the straw all around him and chewing the cud. Then I saw that he was crying. I’ve never in my life seen Dad cry before. I didn’t think he could cry. I felt like going to him and putting my arms around him, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t because I knew he would hate me to see him like this.

  And then, as I was walking away, I heard him talking, not to the cows, not to me, not to himself. He was talking to Grandad, his dad. And Grandad’s dead. He died a long time ago before I was born. I know him just from photographs, from stories. He was talking to him as if he was there with him in the barn. ‘Don’t let it happen, Pop,’ he was saying. ‘Please don’t let it happen. Tell me what I’ve got to do to stop it from happening.’ I felt as if I was prying, so I crept away and left him.

  I looked in on Little Josh as I passed by the shippen. He was fine, so far as I could tell. Then I came back up to my room and wrote this. A deep sadness has settled in my heart. I think it will never go away.

  Saturday, March 10th

  I’m not at home any more. I’m at Auntie Liz’s place in the village. When I woke up this morning the smell was worse than ever. It was li
ke a fog all around the house. This time it was from Mr Bailey’s farm where they started burning the animals last night. Mum said it wasn’t healthy for me to stay, not until the fire had burnt itself out. I didn’t want to go, but she said it would only be for a few days, and that she’d look after Little Josh and Ruby for me. So I gave in. Anyway I like going to stay with Auntie Liz.

  After breakfast I went to say goodbye to Dad. He was in the dairy cutting the curd when I found him. He came and put his arms around me and held me tight as if he never wanted to let go. At that moment I wanted so much to come clean, to confess my guilty secret, that I’d ridden out on Mr Bailey’s farm and might have brought the foot and mouth home with me. I knew he wouldn’t blame me, but I just could not bring myself to say the words. Then I said goodbye to Ruby and Little Josh and here I am.

  They’re always really kind to me here. Auntie Liz fusses over me – a nice kind of fussing. But there are problems. She feeds me too much, calls me a ‘growing girl’. Not what I want to hear. I don’t want to grow. I’m big enough, especially my bottom. I’ve been trying not to eat, but I can’t not eat at Auntie Liz’s, because I love her food. Then there’s Big Josh who never leaves me alone. He’s sitting by me now watching me as I write. I’ve promised to read him a story when I’ve finished this. When I read he sucks his thumb and looks up into my face, never at the book. I think he likes watching my lips move. Sometimes he’ll copy how I speak and break out in giggles.