Homecoming by Susie Steiner Read Free Book Online Page B

tupping yet,’ he says.
    ‘It is, it is,’ says Joe. ‘You’re a good lad, Max. I always knew you’d land on your feet. When will it come?’
    ‘May the twentieth or thereabouts. We’ll know more at the scan.’
    ‘And Prim? She alright?’
    ‘She’s grand,’ says Max. ‘Might even pull back on the wiring now there’s something else to occupy her.’
    ‘Don’t bank on it,’ says Joe, laughing.
    Max closes his eyes, lays his head back on the headrest. ‘Might need a pay rise,’ he says, ‘if I’m to have a bairn in the house.’
    Joe starts the car.

November
    — Tupping, and the feeling of looking forward —
    ‘Look at ’im,’ says Max. ‘He’s a look on his face like he’s off to creosote a fence, not sow his wild oats.’
    ‘Less of the wild,’ says Joe. ‘Good tup is that – I’ve paperwork to prove it.’
    They are leaning on a gate, taking a break after a period of hard work. They have driven the ewes down off the fell to the in-bye, dipped them and chosen the right ones for each tup. Joe maintains he has an eye for it – putting himself into the mind of the ram and what he might fancy. Max thinks it’s mostly guesswork but he’d never say as much. They have marshalled the ewes into pens of fifty apiece. Most of them – three-hundred-odd – are being put to the Blue-Faced Leicester rams.
    Max watches one now as he mounts a ewe and begins thrusting into her. Something about his blinking eyes, looking out to the side, gives him a dogged expression.
    ‘Any road,’ Joe is saying, ‘if you had to serve fifty-odd ladies in a fortnight, you might look a bit world-weary an’ all.’
    ‘I’d be ready for action, me,’ says Max. ‘Prepared to answer me calling.’
    ‘How very manly of ye.’
    ‘She doesn’t look like she’s having much fun either,’ says Max.
    ‘Fun doesn’t come into it. How many’s he done?’
    They look at the ewes’ backs. The tup has paint on his chest and his raddle marks are left on the ewes he’s served.
    ‘About five,’ says Max. ‘He’s not letting up. Look at that – he’s a good tup this one.’
    Max looks out across the in-bye. A faint mist swirls around the wintry trees which have only a fluttering of leaves left on them. The bracken is crisp and brown and thick with pheasant. Nowhere in the world, he thinks, more beautiful than this place.
    ‘I’ve been thinking,’ says Joe. ‘What you said, about a pay rise.’
    ‘Arh, I didn’t mean it, dad.’
    ‘No, no, it’s your time. Anyway, I’ve been thinking on, with you having a bairn an’ all. It’ll be the making of you, son. I think we should look at you taking over the farm – proper like. Build it up for you and for your son to take over.’
    Max hangs his head low, between his shoulders.
    ‘It’s what I’ve always wanted,’ says Joe looking into the field. ‘To feel the place will be passed on – that it won’t come to nothing. All that work – dad sweating his heart out – well, he’d be right pleased.’
    Max says what he feels he ought to say: ‘I didn’t mean . . . I know how tight things are.’ His words hang in the air like wet washing.
    ‘It’s your time,’ says Joe. ‘I’m getting too old for this game. I’ve not got the fight in me. But you – this’ll be the making of you. Children make it all . . . Give you a purpose.’
    Max feels the pleasure run through him again – that ahead of him, out of the ether, would come his agency in life. He just has to wait for it to happen. He wonders why he didn’t do this sooner.
    ‘How d’ye think Bartholomew’ll take it?’ he says to Joe, his concern a show.
    ‘Ah, Bartholomew expects it,’ says Joe. ‘He’ll have to take it on the chin. He chose to leave. And that’s fine. But you can’t have both. And another thing. I think we should replace the John Deere. I was going to wait till times were better, but a new tractor ’d set you up, wouldn’t ye say?’
    ‘It would. If there’s money for