She walks down the track and climbs the first gate. Her legs ache. They are heavy as wet bales. She’s been walking for a long time, although she can’t remember how long exactly. Her jeans are soaked to the knees; there’s a bramble hooked on the back of her shirt and another around her foot. Her grey hair is damp, brittle, and there’s a moth caught in it. There’s a scratch along the bottom of her jaw.
She climbs the first gate. She’s been walking for a long time. She doesn’t have anything with her unless you count the brambles or the moth. She walks over the field, which is bare and dewy. The barley has just been cut back to stubble. It’s early and the air is wet – damp gusts blow in like smoke before the fire’s got going properly. It will be hot later; the sun will break through and parch everything. She walks faster. A gunshot goes off in the distance. All she wants to do is get back. There is the constant sound of hammering from somewhere, and chainsaws, and the terrible screech of an angle grinder.
She crosses the field and comes to the next gate. There are cows standing on the other side of it. She stops for a moment in the churned, hoofy mud. The tree next to her is bent at the hips, staring at the ground. There’s a line of ants down there, carrying a green dragonfly. She goes over to the gate and climbs the first rung. The cows huddle together and press against the bars. They are a dark brown mass. She claps her hands but they don’t move. She rattles the gate but they don’t move. She climbs down. The cows’ skin twitches, as if something has run over it.
She crosses the field and goes into the next one. There is the constant sound of hammering from somewhere. The gate is in the far corner and she walks over to it. A gunshot goes off in the distance. There is a drinking trough in front of the gate. She’s suddenly thirsty. It feels like a long time since she’s eaten or had a drink of anything. She goes over to the trough and dips her hands in. The water is dark and cold. There are flies stuck on the creased surface. She dips her hands in and cups some water and splashes it over her face and down her throat. The water is so cold she almost can’t feel it. She splashes some more. Her hands and throat are numb. She still feels thirsty.
When she looks up there’s a herd in front of her, pressing against the other side of the gate. They are pressed silently, tensely, as if they are waiting for something. She doesn’t know if they’re the same cows or not. They are a dark brown mass. A cow leans its head over the top bar and rubs its jaw along the metal. One eye watches her while the other rolls.
‘What are you doing?’ she says. ‘Get away.’ She climbs the gate and bangs her hands on the bar. The cows don’t move. Their breath comes in thick shapes on the air.
She waits a moment. All she wants to do is get back. She’s been walking a long time and her legs ache. But the cows still don’t move. Only their tails flick. She turns and looks back at the way she’s come. There is a chainsaw somewhere, and the terrible screech of an angle grinder. The gates through the fields are the quickest way of crossing down, she remembers that much, even though she hasn’t been back for a long time. Otherwise she’d have to loop right up to the main road, hike along for a few miles, then come down that way. She doesn’t want to go up to the main road. What she needs to do is cross the fields, get onto the lane, aim for the slope, then cut across the trees from there.
She follows the edge of the field until she finds a gap in the hedge. She pushes through it. Brambles catch at her clothes. The sleeve of her shirt tears. She gets a scratch across the wrist. Finally she is out and in the lane. The lane is narrow and stony. The nettles on the banks are taller than her and there’s cow parsley with stems as thick as fingers. She keeps going. Her legs ache and her hair is damp. The potholes are filled with oily water. A jackdaw is splayed on the ground.
There’s a low noise ahead but she keeps going. The nettles thicken on either side until she’s brushing past them with both shoulders. Flies knock into her. The nettles lean. There’s a sort of clopping noise coming from somewhere. A gunshot goes off in the distance. The lane dips downwards. She turns a corner and the cows are coming up the lane in front of her, three abreast, walking slowly and looking straight at her.
She raises her arms. ‘Get away,’ she says. ‘Get away.’
The cows come forwards slowly. They’re pressed into each other, their flanks are rasping, and the cows at each edge push into the nettles, bending and trampling them.
She waves her arms. They don’t stop. She stamps her feet and shouts but they keep coming. She turns and walks back to the hedge and goes along it, looking for the gap. The cows are closer now. She walks quickly along the hedge. There’s no gap. The cows are right behind her. They’re walking slowly and steadily. She pushes her hands into the hedge. It’s too thick to get through. She pushes again. Something cuts her hand. A nettle loops over her foot. She pushes harder. There’s the gap. She stumbles in and crouches on the ground. The cows walk carefully, pressing into the hedge. When they reach the gap they slow down and then stop. They smell of old grass and dry skin and the sticky mud around their feet. They stand in the lane and shift their weight from side to side. She stays crouched. Her legs ache. There is a small bone and some fur on the ground by her foot. Whenever she moves the cows’ skin twitches.
She backs out of the hedge and into the field on the other side. She looks once more through the gap. The cows snort. One of them stamps. She walks back through the empty field. There’s only one way left to go – over to the main road and across from there. All she wants to do is get back. She can’t remember how long she’s been walking. It must be a long time. There is the constant sound of hammering from somewhere. She crosses the first field and enters the second. A gunshot goes off in the distance. This field has long wet grass that sticks to her legs. It tangles in clumps and trips her up. It’s tough and doesn’t snap across her boots. She keeps going. There isn’t far to go. She can’t remember exactly, but surely there isn’t far to go.
The next field is wide and open and more land, more fields, stretch in front of her, strung with telegraph poles and bending trees. The road is in the distance – it thrums with tractors and brewery lorries and lorries delivering frozen food. They flash on the horizon – red, blue, red, blue. They seem very far away.
The gate she needs is ahead, in the opposite corner of the field. There is the sound of a chainsaw somewhere. She starts to cross the field. As soon as she starts crossing, she sees the cows. They are on the far side, walking towards the gate. She walks faster. The cows seem to quicken their pace. She keeps walking. The cows will reach the gate first, she knows it, they are closer than she is. She walks faster. The cows are in a line, now they are in a group, pushing against each other. Her legs ache. She doesn’t want to run but she starts running. The cows start running.
All she sees is the gate. The cows’ hooves strike at the ground. A gunshot goes off in the distance. The cows’ bodies send out a wave of heat and it is behind her as she runs. She stumbles in the mud. Her foot sticks. She gets to the gate. Her foot is on the rung. She slips. A cow thuds against the gate and it shakes on its hinges. She slips again, then she is up and over and on the other side.
She doesn’t turn around until she’s almost across the field. All she wants to do is get back. Then she makes herself turn. The cows have gone. The fields are empty all around her. Below there is a dark line of trees. She hobbles down, mud on her legs, grass on her legs, brambles hooked to the back of her shirt. A crow circles.
Her foot catches on a stone and she stumbles and almost falls. Her nose is raw and the numb feeling has spread up her hands and into her arms. The mist is pushing in thicker now, dropping down so that everything is swathed up to knee height. She can’t see the ground, or her feet. Her feet are very cold. There is the constant sound of hammering from somewhere, and chainsaws, and the terrible screech of an angle grinder.
She makes her way down the slope and towards the trees. Once she is on the other side of the trees she will almost be back. There is a sound ahead of her and at first she thinks it must be her boots hitting the stones in the grass. She keeps going. The crow is still circling. A gunshot goes off in the distance.
The first cow comes up the slope towards her. There are two more behind it. They come in ones and twos, slowly, with their heads down, pushing closer. The whole herd is there, coming up the slope about twenty yards ahead, wading through the mist, and spreading out in a semicircle around her.
She stops. The fields are dark and empty for miles in all directions.
The cows don’t run, they don’t stamp, they just press slowly forwards.
She stays where she is. Her legs ache. She’s been walking for a long time. She can’t remember how long exactly. All she wants to do is get back. There is the constant sound of hammering from somewhere.
She takes a step backwards, and then another, until she’s up the slope and across the field, one slow step at a time. The cows don’t move. She doesn’t take her eyes off them. Their tails flick. Their breath comes out in thick shapes on the air.
She reaches the gate. She climbs back over it. What she needs to do is circle around another way. She needs to go back to the first field and start again. She needs to climb the gate, and then the next one, and then she will be back. She hasn’t been back for a long time – she can’t remember how long, exactly.
She crosses into the first field. The nettles along the edges are taller than she is. She doesn’t have anything with her unless you count the brambles or the moth in her hair. The field is bare and dewy. The barley has just been cut back to stubble. It will be very hot later; the sun will break through and parch everything. She walks faster. She sees the gate. There is the terrible sound of an angle grinder somewhere. Damp gusts blow in like smoke before the fire’s got going properly.