Wyld Dreamers

posh. Don’t trust them.’
Mrs Morle cleans the plates into the scraps bucket and opens a tin of pineapple. ‘Serve this out, will you, Lynn dear. Here’s some custard.’
‘We celebrating, Mum?’
‘No, love, just fancied a change. Everyone else seems to be doing it.’

10
When she touches Daisy’s calf, Amy’s fingers recall that her mother’s forehead felt the same: like linoleum, resistant and stiff. It is unnerving to know with utter certainty that the cells of the skin beneath her fingers no longer hold the magic ingredient that is life. It’s not the lack of warmth or pulse but an indefinable change to the texture and quality of skin. Death is not knowable. But it is touchable.
Like melting wax, she slithers to the barn’s earth-beaten floor. For the first time since she’s come back, the tears flow, proper tears that run down her cheek. There’s a relief and a comfort in her anguish. She gathers scattered pieces of hay into a pile and lays her head upon it, watering the dry stalks of grass. They soften. They absorb the moisture. They release the sweet smell of summer.
Daisy chews stolidly at the sinewy afterbirth that had slipped from between her hind legs. Her head hangs low as though in contemplation, the odd moan escaping her swinging jaw. Occasionally her long, rough tongue explores the body of her dead calf, tidying up the remnants of blood and gore on its coat. A fleck of blood sticks to Daisy’s nostril. Her tongue darts out to lick it away.
If only Shirley had been laid to rest in such a place. Rolling on to her back, Amy surveys the massive wooden beams which span the ancient barn. Against the eaves lodge bird’s nests and spiders webs. The slate walls are pocketed with dirt in every shades of brown and grey forming intricate patterns that make her gaze chase this way and that. Moss and mould bloom in muted greens and ochres. It is quietly beautiful.
By contrast, her mother lay in a glorified shed. Cheap carpeting and curtains with prints of mountain lakes could not disguise its origins. The sounds of the town leaked through the flimsy walls. It was soul destroying.
‘I’m not sure you should see your mother, that’s how you’ll remember her,’ her father had said not unkindly, but she had insisted. He arranged for them to visit.
After they had breakfasted, showered and dressed, he drove them the short distance into town. He parked the car near the library. A girl she’d been at school with walking along the pavement. The girl saw Amy too but flinched and hurried away without saying anything.
‘I will see her alone,’ Amy hissed in her father’s ear as they entered the undertaker’s shop.
‘Mr Taylor, Miss Taylor, good morning, I am Mr Robinson of Robinson and Sons. Once again my condolences on the death of your wife and mother. Please sit here while I make sure things are ready for you.’
The undertaker indicated two chairs by a low table on which sat a bowl of fake flowers on a doily and a Bible. He disappeared behind a thin curtain.
‘Was that Mr Robinson senior or junior?’ Her father whispered. The man was so bleached of colour, his manner so devoid of affect, that his age was impossible to discern. It struck Amy as funny that neither she nor her father had any idea of the man’s age. She began to giggle. Before she could stop herself, her shoulders were shaking, more with the effort of concealment than the humour. She was horrified to find she couldn’t stop.
‘Oh for goodness’ sake, Amy!’ her father hissed.
Mr Robinson appeared from behind the curtain. ‘We are prepared.’
‘I’m seeing my mother on my own.’ As Amy stood, her laughter drained away. Stony-faced, she followed the man into the garden shed. With each step, her mood darkened.
Shirley was sheeted so tightly in the casket that Amy had to fight the impulse to loosen the bedding. Her mother looked unlike herself. There were slight bulges below her mouth and her fringe was combed straight rather than swept to the side. Why had they changed her hairstyle? Sounds of a car horn and on the street outside, cat calls. Her mother might be disturbed, she worried, before remembering that Shirley was not sleeping. She was frightened to touch her mother but if she did not, she might regret forever not saying a proper goodbye. The pale lips might feel rubbery or worse, solid. Instead she put her fingers on Shirley’s forehead and felt the unforgettable sensation of dead flesh. How do fingers know that the body they touch is no longer thymeliving? The question hangs but the answer is irrefutable; they know.
‘Hi Amy,’ Simon’s voice brings her back to the present.
The man is standing in the barn entrance but it’s hard to make out his expression; the fading autumn light casts shadows. A bird swoops in over his head.
She searches in her pocket for a tissue. She cannot do what the farm workers do; shoot the snot from one nostril while holding the other tight-shut.
‘The calf is dead,’ she gulps.
‘Yeah, I h-h-heard.’ Simon looks around. ‘Do you think we could eat it? Seems a shame to w-w-waste the meat. Wouldn’t it t-t-taste like veal?’
When she doesn’t reply, he adds. ‘Hey, Amy, anything wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ she says, wiping her nose on her sleeve. ‘It’s just sad when something dies.’
‘Yeah, it is, poor little thing,’ Simon says sympathetically. He crouches down and holds out a crumpled tissue. ‘Clean-ish.’
She wishes fiercely he would disappear. ‘Well, I’m not tempted to eat it,’ she snaps.
Simon waves a book at her. ‘It’s all about s-s-self-sufficiency. But it only talks about killing c-c-cows, not eating the ones that die of d-d-death, if you see what I mean. ’
Simon nudges the calf ’s body gently with the toe of his boot. ‘Rigor m-m-mortis has already set in, that’s quick. I’ve read you’re meant to gut the animal and then hang it for a few d-d-days before it can be