‘Mind the cows,’ said Storme, pointing at the ground by George’s feet. The warning was only just in time and George managed to lengthen his stride and avoid the huge cowpat that was spread out at his feet. He looked at her and they both laughed together. Then a fly was after him, buzzing round his ears. He swiped at it, but that just seemed to encourage it.
Storme was prattling on. ‘Tom’s been chasing calves around all morning.’ She was chewing a long piece of yellow grass. ‘Last time I saw him, he was all hot and cross. He came back in for a drink just before you came – grumbling about the flies. And do you know? He said his favourite meat was veal. I don’t think that’s very funny, do you?’
George looked down at her and listened; she never gave him a glance. She could have been talking to herself, until she said suddenly, ‘The girl we had last year, she didn’t like it here very much.’
‘What girl?’ George asked.
‘Jenny. She was the one we had last time. Mrs Thomas brought her as well. She always brings them. Do you like her?’
‘Who?’
‘Mrs Thomas,’ Storme said, scuffing her feet in the ruts and creating a dust storm round her ankles.
‘She’s all right,’ George said. ‘You have someone every summer, do you?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she went on. ‘I don’t mind much, but Tom doesn’t like it.’ George shook his head against the fly and swiped at it again.
‘I hate flies,’ he said.
‘Lots of them here,’ said Storme. ‘They like the animals, see. You’ll get used to them.’ She pointed ahead of her and George followed her arm. ‘There he is,’ she said, and she ran down the track, leaping like a goat from rut to rut. George could see only the top half of Tom; the rest was hidden by the calves that were milling around him.
‘Tom! Tom!’ she shouted, leaning over the gate and cupping her hands to her mouth. ‘It’s George! He’s here!’ Tom waved back from the bottom of the field.
George looked at Storme standing on the bottom rung of the five-barred gate. This was something he had not met before: someone who was completely natural and open. She said just what came into her head; there were no pretensions, no inhibitions. He transferred his attention to the boy in dark jeans who was walking slowly towards them across the field followed closely by a small black and white calf.
‘Still looks cross,’ said Storme. ‘And that’s Jemima behind him. Only three months old she is, and she sucks anything she can get hold of.’ And she laughed as Tom slapped out behind him at the calf that was doing its best to suck the shirt out of his trousers.
Tom had seen them coming before Storme shouted to him. He’d been brooding about George all morning. His mind hadn’t been on the job. That was why he’d taken so long to bring the calves down into the water-meadows. Somehow Jemima had separated herself from the herd and skipped off before he could stop her. He’d herded the rest of them into the field and had to go back for Jemima. He’d found her munching away happily near the cattle grid at the top of the drive. All the way back down to the water-meadows he’d cursed Jemima and the heat and the flies, and particularly George.
And now here he was tramping reluctantly towards George and Storme, followed by the adoring Jemima who didn’t seem to understand that she wasn’t wanted. Tom hated meeting people anyway and by the time he got to the gate he still hadn’t thought of anything to say. But Storme solved that problem.
‘You caught her then?’ she grinned at him.
‘Yes,’ he said. The two boys looked briefly at each other, and then looked away. Neither could bring themselves to say anything.
Then Jemima was at his shirt again, and he turned and pushed her away. He was grateful for the intrusion – it gave him time to think of something to say.
‘Don’t do that,’ said Storme. ‘She loves you – you’ll hurt her feelings.’
‘She hasn’t got any,’ said Tom. ‘If she had, she wouldn’t have had me chasing up and down in the heat all morning, would she?’ He talked deliberately at Storme, but it was Jemima that finally forced the two boys to acknowledge each other. Repeatedly rejected, Jemima left Tom’s shirt and swayed towards George and before he could move, he felt a sharp tug at his trouser leg and looked down. He was being sucked at noisily. He pulled his leg away from the gate, but Jemima pushed her head further through the bars so that George had to step back quickly to avoid her. Storme leaned across offering her hand to Jemima who took it and sucked on it hungrily.
‘Like sandpaper, her tongue. Almost sucks your hand off,’ said Storme, pulling her hand away and wiping the saliva off on the grass.
‘I didn’t know they were so friendly,’ said George, now safely out of reach of the grey tongue that was still curling out like a tentacle in search of something or someone to suck.
‘They’re not,’ said Tom. ‘This one’s odd – doesn’t like cows at all, just people.’ They looked at each other as they spoke and then back at Jemima. Jemima pulled her tongue in and looked up at them with her great gentle eyes. ‘Do I look like your mother?’ Tom asked Jemima. ‘Is that it?’ They were all laughing now. Jemima blinked dreamily up at him, stretched her neck upwards and out came the tongue again, but Tom sidestepped her and climbed the gate. They left her forlorn and disappointed, her white head thrust through the gate.
By the time they reached the house, Mrs Thomas had gone. George half-expected it anyway – it was a favourite trick of hers that he knew well by now. She would leave without really saying goodbye, but this time it didn’t seem to matter to him that much.
After lunch Storme took him up the dark, narrow staircase to his room at the top of the house, and during the afternoon he helped to unload hay-bales from the trailer and stack them in the Dutch barn with Tom, Storme and Mr Dyer. Storme didn’t do much – she just talked. The sun shimmered hot behind a layer of cloud, and as the afternoon went on the air became heavy and the work more exhausting. Storme gave up her chatter and went inside; the hay was tickling her and she couldn’t stop coughing and spluttering in the dust thrown up by the bales as they hit the ground.
George worked on, the sweat trickling down into the corners of his eyes. Every time he picked up a bale he winced as the string bit into his fingers. But he was happy listening to Tom and his father chatting. They didn’t talk to him much. What he dreaded was when people forced themselves to talk to him – he could always tell. Once or twice he caught Tom looking at him strangely, but then he was doing the same to Tom – sizing him up.
The clouds built up above them as they worked and in the distance there was the rumble of thunder. Shortly after, the rain started, falling in huge drops, slowly at first. Mr Dyer drove the tractor and trailer under cover of the half-filled Dutch barn and they ran back to the house, closing their eyes against the rain that pounded down on them, plastering their hair down flat on to their heads. They burst in laughing through the kitchen door, the water pouring from their noses, their shirts clinging to their backs.
‘Not before time,’ said Tom’s father, shaking his arms. ‘We could do with it. First rain for over a month. Things never happen by halves, do they?’
‘We got most of it done, anyway,’ said Tom, and he grabbed some drying-up cloths from the rail by the stove. Mrs Dyer rescued them and handed out warm towels instead.
‘We should finish stacking next week,’ Tom’s father said, emerging from the folds of the towel that covered his head. ‘Got it done twice as fast with George here. I don’t suppose you’ve got much skin left on your fingers, eh? They’ll harden up, don’t you worry.’ George looked down at