Short Story - His Grandparents' House

The wind whistles through Tammy’s hair as he runs. He laughs, hearing the roar of the ocean, feeling the smack of his feet on wet sand. As he splashes into the water, he closes his eyes and dives beneath the cool Atlantic surf. Swimming rapidly through the waves, he feels his skin tingle with cold, and then he turns and swims upwards toward a blur of light. The sunlight is dancing above him.

But when he surfaces, he opens his eyes into darkness. He was a boy again in the night; he has woken up old.

He shuffles into a half-sitting position. His body has made a cocoon of warmth, and now his feet slide onto a cold bit of sheet. He lies still for a moment, trying to warm up, and then he slides his legs out. Since he’s awake he might as well head for the fields.

Pain lances through his spine and into his neck when he stands.

‘Aeya.’ He turns. Faintly he makes out a mound of duvet on the far side of the bed. The mound doesn’t move, didn’t hear him yelp.

He reaches for his glasses, but they make no difference to the darkness. He moves towards where the door should be, feeling ahead with his hands. Elsie snores. Tammy opens the door slowly, quietly. Closes the door, tight. Then, only then, he switches on the light.

In the bathroom he takes off a warm pyjama jacket, and puts on a cold shirt. The wallpaper in here could do with replacing; it looks tatty, old fashioned. Elsie has been saying so for a while. ‘I want something bright and modern. This looks like the stuff in old peoples’ houses.’ Tammy wonders what she thinks of as old.

He takes off warm pyjama bottoms, and puts on cold trousers. Pine fittings would be nice, warmer than the grey. They could get a bright rug for the floor. When the lambing is over they can think about it.

Dim light cuts a slice into the dark kitchen. He opens the curtains to let morning inside.

Snow whirls onto the window pane and melts.

Tammy sweeps a few white hairs over the crown of his head, smoothing, flattening. They spring back.

Snow. Falling in spurts, just a few flakes, but definitely snow.

It is May.

Tiredness hovers around his temples. He runs his fingers up the sides of his nose, lifts his glasses, and circles his eyes. It’s four in the morning, and there could be a lamb outside, too weak to feed or stand. The lambs won’t wait, snow or no snow.

He steps out. His slippers slap on the cold wet concrete. Round the end of the house he opens the shed door.

‘Morning Lad.’

The dog turns cataracted eyes on Tammy, and wags his tail.

‘Come on boy, time to go round the sheep.’

Lad staggers to his feet and hobbles forwards. Tammy pats matted fur. It seems a sin to take the dog out in this cold. They need a new dog, but Lad would take badly to a pup. It would be like telling him he’s useless; he might as well be put to sleep. Tammy couldn’t do that either, not to Lad. After fourteen years service it would be like murder. Maybe it’s time they sold the croft anyway; seventy-five would be a fine age to retire. Only a few days ago Tammy said as much to Elsie. ‘Imagine,’ he’d said, ‘next year instead of trailing through fields in the middle of the night, we could be basking on a Mediterranean cruise.’

‘Aye,’ she said. ‘We could do that all right. And you’d have a fine time, spewing over the railings.

‘I don’t get seasick.’

‘Humph.’

Maybe not a cruise then, but they could do something.

Tammy pats Lad’s head again. ‘Come on then, some breakfast before we go.’

Lad eats dog biscuits while Tammy kits out in a nylon jacket with threads hanging loose, oilskin trousers and thick woollen socks both patched and darned by Elsie, rubber boots, and an oilskin jacket.

He gets penicillin and a needle from the fridge, hoping he won’t have to use them.

‘Ready Lad?’

Lad looks up, wags his tail.

‘No more. That’s enough biscuits for now.’

When Tammy opens the door snow swirls in. He pulls his hood tight.

Next year they could go to Australia and visit relatives he hasn’t seen in fifty, sixty years or more. They’d have plenty to talk about. It would be warm this time of year, maybe coming into winter but Australian winters aren’t bad. They could start by visiting Uncle Wilbert in Perth, and then go travelling.

Tammy is a boy again, Wilbert a young man waiting at the bottom of the gangway, ready to board the steamer. He is heading for the New World, where everything is bigger and better. Bigger sheep with thicker fleeces, which always struck Tammy as daft, what with the heat in Australia. Tammy, at eleven, imagined Australia as endless cracked earth. He couldn’t imagine why anyone wanted to go there, but since Uncle Wilbert was going, he wanted to go too.

‘When I’ve made my fortune, I’ll send for you.’ Wilbert’s face is still laughing, he is still tweaking Tammy’s chin.

Wilbert will be eighty-six now, if he’s a day.

Tammy opens the back door of his van, and Lad struggles in, a paw at a time.

Maybe Australia would be a bit hot.

When Tammy starts the engine, Lad sidles into the passenger seat.

Elsie has always wanted to see Canada, another vast country, filled with fields of wheat instead of cracked earth. You could get lost there, walk for days, weeks even, and never get back to the start. A bit different from Shetland. Funny how folk that emigrated chose these endless places. Just driving round your farm would take hours, whereas within minutes Tammy is at the first field.

‘Come on Lad, let’s go see the sheep.’

Lad follows him out the driver’s door.

The cold bites under Tammy’s fingernails, and he wishes he’d brought gloves. He wonders what the weather is like in Canada now. He knows the summers are hot and winters bitterly cold, he has no idea when it changes. All their relatives live in Toronto or Montreal, so they wouldn’t see much countryside if they went over.

‘We’d not be much use in a city, would we Lad?’

Snow gathers on the dog’s eyelids, dissolving to leave his face damp. This is the worst May Tammy can remember, and he can remember a few. He should have left Lad in the shed, it’s not as if he’s up to much these days, keeps letting sheep straggle off.

‘A terrible day, eh Lad? Your feet must be frozen.’

Lad wags his tail.

Tammy scans the field. In a hollow near the gate are six ewes; four have already lambed, the other two show no signs. He tramps up the hill, his boots slipping on the damp grass. Elsie will still be sleeping, warm. Next year he could have a lie-in too, if they give up the sheep. They don’t need to bother going anywhere, just stay home and sleep.

He sees twelve sheep and eight lambs, all doing fine.

It would be fine to waken about four, knowing it was lambing time, and knowing he could go back to sleep.

He counts five sheep by the dyke, resting.

It would be fine to be warm in bed right now.

Nine are sheltering around a ruined croft house; one of them might lamb soon. Tammy’s mother grew up in this house, as did Uncle Wilbert, with seven sisters and brothers in between. The house roof went forty years ago, and now there’s nothing left but the tumbling stone walls. The snow has stopped; dawn is making a clean sweep of the sky.

‘Alright Lad?’ He strokes the dog’s head. Lad nuzzles into the oilskin trousers, wags his tail. Stepping back through the doorway of the old house, Tammy puts a hand up to shade his eyes from the sun. There is no warmth getting through, but under his layers he is sweating from exertion. The wind is in his back going down the hill, and he reaches the van still warm.

The next field seems to have grown a few acres overnight. Tammy’s mind works its way round, seeing lambs being born effortlessly on a bright warm morning. His body drags behind, finding a dead lamb in the snow.

Maybe he could leave it this once, come back later.

The ewe licks her dead baby.

Tammy picks up the lamb and carries it into a small pen by the gate. The ewe follows, and Tammy fastens the pen.

At the far side of the field he finds twins and a mother with barely enough milk for one. She bleats half-heartedly, but doesn’t move, as he lifts a lamb and heads back to the pen. He takes out the dead lamb and rubs it over the living, transferring blood and mucous. The ewe stamps, maaing. Tammy lifts the living, wriggling lamb into the pen beside her. She sniffs, and licks its coat. ‘Maa, maa,’ she bleats softly. The lamb sucks.

Tammy puts the dead lamb in the van. Lad flops down in the back, had enough.

‘Aye Lad, it’s been a hard morning.’ Bed seems forever away, the effort to drive home too much. He starts the engine. His bed is getting nearer, and the thought of it is pressing on his eyelids. He turns the heater down to stop the tiredness. Lad whimpers from the back, dreaming. At a bend in the road, the sun shines into the van. Tammy raises a hand from the wheel to shade his eyes, and the action reminds him of the old house, and the ewe close to lambing.

If he’d given up when he got his pension, like he’d always said he would, he could be in Australia now, or in bed. Instead, he’s trudging back up the hill, Lad plodding behind him. The sun gives up, sleet falls. Seven sheep are by the house, but not the one he wants. He finds her inside, lying down, heaving. A lamb lies beside her, its head on the ground, its belly moving slowly out and in with each breath. Otherwise it is still. Inside the grunting ewe another lamb struggles, only its swollen head visible. Its legs are bent back, and spread like wings inside the ewe when she gives another exhausted push.

‘Good job we came back Lad.’ Tammy is wide awake now. The first time he saw a sheep like this he panicked, and could only watch helplessly as Uncle Wilbert felt for the lamb, and eased it out. Now Tammy kneels down, and in moments the lamb is lying by its mother. He gives the ewe a shot of penicillin, and then he picks up both lambs. The ewe bleats quietly and staggers to her feet. Lad, who has been lying with his head on his forepaws, leaps up too. Tammy starts down the hill with a lamb under each arm and the ewe totters after him, with Lad following behind. Tammy opens the back doors of the van and lays the lambs on some empty bags. He heaves the sheep in beside them.

When Tammy opens the driver’s door Lad jumps in and pads over to the passenger seat. Tammy sits down and pats Lad’s head. ‘We might not be so young any more Lad, but we’re far from useless yet, eh boy?’ He starts the engine.

Back at the house, Tammy puts the sheep in the shed. He takes the lambs into the kitchen where he lays them on an old towel before a fan heater. Kneeling down, he bathes the sickly lamb’s swollen head with warm water. He fills the kettle, and while it boils he puts two scoops of dried ewe’s-milk into a bottle. When he puts the teat to the older lamb’s mouth it drinks the lot.

‘Aye you’ll be okay,’ Tammy says, and fills the bottle again. The younger lamb doesn’t raise its head. Tammy lowers the bottle and eases the teat into its mouth. No response. He raises the lamb’s head a little. It sucks.

Tammy makes a cup of tea and takes to Elsie.

‘What time is it?’ she asks when he pushes open the bedroom door.

Tammy shrugs. ‘I think maybe we should have the lambing later next year,’ he says. ‘This is the worst May I can remember.’

‘Half past six,’ Elsie says, looking at the clock. Tammy hands her a mug, and sits on the bed.

‘There was a lamb stuck,’ he says. ‘Good job I went back to check.’

‘How is it?’ she asks. She sips her tea, and stares ahead, still half asleep.

‘It’ll survive. I tried it with some milk, and it took a little. I’ll see if it’ll take some more in a minute.’

‘Are you not coming back to bed?’

‘Maybe later,’ Tammy says. ‘I’m not tired right now.’ He goes out, and down the passage towards the sound of bleating.

The spring after Uncle Wilbert left Tammy helped his grandfather with the lambing. Going off on his own one day, he found a lamb and a dead mother. He scooped up the lamb, still covered in blood, and took it back to his grandparents’ house, the same house he was in today. It was the first time he saved a life.

This story was originally published in Shetland Life. Shetland has a population of around 20,000, and although it’s not common for it to snow in May, it does happen. The story was inspired by my father who was still crofting into his eighties.