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“Trust me, mate, it’s not intentional. I’m just glad it was only your shoulder and not an eye problem, or like, one of those fractures when the arm bends the wrong way and looks as if it’s developed a spare elbow joint.”
I shuddered again, trying to push the vivid images away. Still holding onto his side—because obviously my squeamishness was that fucking funny—Evan took a sip of coffee. “I’m sure you have better things to do, Rob, than wait around for the RAC man. You need me out of your hair. I’ll phone my friend Jay, who lives in the village, and see if he can come and get me. He drives a Land Rover. That might be able to get through.”
I frowned. I was acquainted with every living soul in Rossingley. I might not have been on speaking terms with all of them, though. I had a knack of pissing off the women, for example. Something to do with pretending to be straight, acting interested for the sake of appearances, and then giving them the whole ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ spiel. Which, in my humble opinion, no woman entirely believed ever. Long story short: the RAC man from Cardiff knew I was gay, as did a few random strangers in Bristol who’d sucked my knob. And Toby the manny, and Freddie Avery, of course. But my family and friends, a.k.a people who mattered? A resounding no.
“Do you mean Jay, as in Jay married to the earl?” And by the earl, I meant Lucien Avery, also known as my boss. Which made sense; Evan looked comfortable hobnobbing with the landed gentry.
He nodded. “Yeah. I was staying with them for Christmas Day. When I had the accident, I was driving home from their place, hoping to escape the worst of the snow.”
He elaborated, which was good, because I was nosy as hell. “Jay’s my oldest friend. We met on the first day of medical school. We…uh…don’t see each other as much as we did, not since he married Lucien, but yeah. I…erm…yeah. He’s a great guy.”
His face reddened, as if he’d said too much. I didn’t know the earl’s husband that well—he and Lucien Avery didn’t grace the Rossingley Arms very frequently—but no one would be ashamed to call him a mate. I’d never heard a bad word said against him, and believe me, country folk could dig up the dirt on Jesus if they put their collective minds to it.
Maybe it was a gayness thing. Maybe Evan didn’t want an obviously heterosexual guy like me thinking he was gay too. Gay and vegan. Next, he’d be confessing a love for jazz. God help me if he was also one of those Sunday-morning cyclists careering down the village lanes at fifty miles an hour; I might have to show him the door and make him hobble home.
Evan phoned Jay. No answer. He left a message, asking him to call back, light on detail. He finished his black coffee, and I offered him some toast, which he swallowed down dry, seeing as butter was off his menu. My TripAdvisor rating hovered around one star. While watching him fiddle with his phone, drum on the table, and readjust his sling was no hardship, I had a farm to run. “Mind if I do a bit of work?”
“God, no, go ahead. I’m in your way, ruining your Christmas probably.” He glanced out of the window. I’d visited less snowy ski resorts in January. The thermometer outside the milking parlour had registered minus two, and the leaden grey clouds, hanging heavy and scudding in from the west, strongly hinted at more to come.
“It looks like it’s clearing up.” Gotta love a townie optimist. “I don’t envy you having to go outside again, though.”
I retrieved my laptop, across the kitchen table. “I wasn’t planning on it, mate. Not just yet.”
Cows didn’t magically produce milk. Well, they did, but not in optimum quantities to keep a moderately sized dairy farm in profit. They had to be nurtured, loved, cooed over, and petted. And sure, I did all that when no one was looking. Especially with my favourites. But mostly, in order to produce an average of twenty-eight litres per day, per cow, across the entire herd, a few of them had to be regularly up the duff.
A couple of years ago, one of my mates down the pub went through the whole IVF thing with his wife. They endured three angst-ridden cycles and a hefty bank loan before success brought a shine to his eyes, a spring to his walk and sleepless nights. The rest of us had suffered too, having been there every maudlin, tipsy step of the way as he poured out his woes about his wife’s unpredictable ovulatory cycles and the arduous trials of sex on demand.
With a harem of three hundred girls, I liked to think I could relate better than most. But whereas my mate’s wife had to take regular temperatures, plot charts, pray to the fertility gods, and slurp raw oysters for breakfast, I merely had to sit at the kitchen table, coffee in hand, and navigate my handy computer programme. Each of my girls had a collar around her neck monitoring for tell-tale fertility signs and which of them was ripe for insemination.
Bingo. Two of them were up for fun this morning.
My companion eyed me curiously. A bit of fresh air might do him good, and there was fuck-all else to occupy him until Jay or the breakdown team came to the rescue. More importantly, after last night’s embarrassment, I needed to re-exert my capable manly credentials in front of him. “Fancy making some babies?”
I didn’t have a pair of crutches lying about, but an upturned broom with an old tea towel cushioning the bristles served a purpose. Evan’s feet were the same size as mine, so sorting a pair of wellies was easy enough, and I had sufficient old, waxed jackets stashed in the cupboard under the stairs to open a market stall. Seeing his new bestie Evan getting his clobber on, Zeus trotted after him, looking livelier than he’d done for weeks. A fickler creature I had yet to meet.
As Evan hobbled along next to me, across the short stretch of cleared farmyard to the cowsheds, I explained the process. “Most farmers around here call up a breeding technician to inseminate the cows. But when my dad ran the place and we were expanding, he sent me up to a farm near Perth, in Scotland, for six months, and I learned to do it myself. Some of those places are so remote they have to be self-sufficient. Saves money, and on a day like today, I wouldn’t get a technician to drive out to me anyhow, and so I’d lose my optimal fertility window.”
The route took us past my handsome bull, who would be staying in his pen for a few more days to come if the weather didn’t improve. He didn’t mind. I’d built him a palace, at least triple the minimum recommended size. Leaning across the gate, I gave him a friendly slap on his impressive black rump, which he ignored, like the pampered prince he was. “Another hard day at the office, old boy?”
“Wow. He’s…um… a big lad.” Evan eyed him with healthy suspicion.
“One thousand kilos, give or take,” I answered proudly. “About a ton. Or two grand pianos.”
Impressed, he nodded. “I’m glad I’m this side of the gate.”
“Oh, you’re fine. He’s chilled. Out in the field, he wouldn’t hurt anyone unless calves or a dog were around to antagonise him. Never wise to turn your back, mind. Any bull can be unpredictable. But most of the time, he’s daft as a brush.” I stepped onto the first rung of the pen, leaned in, and tickled his ears. I swear my bull rolled his eyes. Maybe I was showing off.
“Er…there is a dog?”
Zeus sat obediently at Evan’s heels, which was kind of hurtful, to be honest.
“Zeus doesn’t count. He learned years ago not to stray too close. Not if he wants to avoid a kicking.”
“Does your bull have a name?” Evan asked politely.
I smiled inwardly. Time for some fun at the townie’s expense. “His official pedigree title is Annaheim Third of Oriana. Very regal, isn’t it?”
“It suits him,” Evan agreed. “Like the valiant leader of a Viking longboat.”
