THE COW
You want to know what happened? I’ll tell you what happened. Bloody stupid police, that’s what happened. Tosspots. That do you?
Course not. All right, sorry. Holding my hands up. Okay? It’s just, even after all this time… Okay, where do you want me to start? Yeah, you’re right, the beginning’s often a good place. The full version, not the highlights. Some folk say I am cynical, some say I’m a sarcastic sod and if I come over like that, well, you’ll have to understand sometimes, cynicism and sarcasm are just
other ways of looking at the truth. Ready?
First off, we live in an ordinary semi-detached, the sort everyone still describes as new, even though it is well over twenty-years-old. An estate that was once spot-on is now a little rough round the edges, not every neighbour exactly house proud. You know the sort of place. Nice though, still nice and we keep ours lovely. Small gardens front and back, just the right size at my age and I keep them neat, not a daisy or dandelion to be seen.
Em – Emily, that’s the wife – she was in the kitchen getting breakfast, it was first thing in the morning you see, and I was in the dining room, back room, call it what you will. We were up early, going out for the day, that was the plan, day at the seaside. I pulled open the curtains and there it was on the lawn: a bloody great cow. God it was big, I never realised. You see them in fields when you’re driving down the motorway or wherever, but they’re just scenery, you don’t really take any notice and you only appreciate the size of when one is right in front you. I mean, it was outside the bloody window, a few feet away. I was gobsmacked. This was Runcorn and cows don’t belong, let alone on your back lawn, but there it was. Big black and white bugger, udders on it like a Spacehopper, standing on the lawn like it had every right, eating my grass. Carried on chewing when it lifted its head and saw me. Had a way of looking as if it was expecting to see me. Not bothered by me. It was July, the sun was out and it was going to be a scorcher, you could tell that right off. We thought we’d nip to Llandudno: M56, A55, there in an hour. Then there’s this cow.
I shouted Em and she said what? and I said there’s a ruddy cow on the back lawn and she said, well whose is it? How the bloody hell am I supposed to know, I shouts back. I mean, a cow on the lawn and she doesn’t come running to look, she wants to know who owned it. I said come and see: it’s a cow.
“Are you sure?” she asked. I said, of course I’m bloody sure, it’s three feet away from me, come and see. It’s a cow. And I could hear her rattling of cups and what have you. She wasn’t going to be put off what she was doing.
“How big is it?” she shouts. For crying out loud, I haven’t got my tape measure handy, I said. It’s big. Big. Just come and see and she come in then saying, now then what are you on about? I waved my hand like I was introducing the next act, sarcastic like I suppose. It proper shook her when she looked. She put the tea and toast down, to steady herself and she said: “It’s a cow.”
I said: “Getaway.“
And then she said: “Go and lock the back door.”
What? I said. Doors don’t mean anything to cows, they can’t open them. Not like it’s a bear, though to be honest I’ve no idea whether bears are any better equipped to deal with doors, but you see them in houses don’t you, on Youtube and You’ve Been Framed.
Well, how’d it get in the garden then? she said looking at the gate meaningfully, like it had clicked open the latch. I suppose I hadn’t shut it properly the night before and I could see the look on her face so I went and locked the back door. We’d better ring the police, I said, and picked up the phone. I hesitated. Was it an emergency? I’d no idea, but we could hardly go for a run out and with a cow in the garden. So I dialled 999. I looked at Em and could see it has shaken her, shewas trembling. But I’d got over the shock of it and was at the stage where it just seemed crazy, proper daft, and when this woman’s voice asked me which emergency service I required I nearly said milkman. But I didn’t, I asked for the police and Em put on her special shouting-whisper voice: “And the fire brigade.” What do we want them for, I said, the bloody thing’s not on fire. They get cats from trees, she pointed out, like that qualified them for handling cows.
“Sergeant Dooley, Warrington Police,” said a voice.
Warrington? I thought. That’s miles away, I want a Runcorn policeman.
“Sergeant, my name is Tom Massey, I live at 34 Sycamore Drive, Runcorn and there’s a cow on my back lawn.”
“Postcode?”
What?
“Satnav, sir. So we can find you.”
I thought, a policeman from Runcorn would have bloody known how to find us without a postcode. But I just said: “WA4 7QT.”
“Now then, do you mean a real cow, sir?”
“Yes, of course, I’m hardly likely to call you if someone had left a cuddly toy in the garden.”
“You’d be surprised, sir. We get all sorts. Now, whose cow is it?”
Not another one, I thought.
“I’m sorry I really have no idea. It’s just there. It hasn’t got a label round its neck like Paddington Bear.”
Had it? I looked again. No it hadn’t.
The sergeant was not convinced. You could tell in his experience, cows were never just there.
“So you don’t know who the cow belongs to?
“No.”
I could hear him sigh.
“Well, how big is it, sir?”
Ye Gods!
“I dunno, eight foot, nine, seven. Standard cow size, I suppose. I’m not Buffalo Bill. It’s a fully grown female cow.”
“All cows are female sir,” said the sergeant. “What is it doing?”
Doing? I thought. Doing?
“It’s yodelling, of course! What do you think it’s doing? It’s just standing there like cows do, chewing my grass.”
“Where precisely?”
Precisely?
“Between my chrysants and the roses,” I said.
“No, front or back?” asked the sergeant, sighing. I tell you, this fella spoke in sighs, like I was thick or something. “I need to ascertain if there’s any immediate danger to the public.”
“Sorry, sorry. It’s at the back,” I said.
“Do you know how it got there?’
“Nope. I drew back the curtains five minutes ago and it was just there.”
“And it’s not doing anything?”
“No, it’s enjoying the sunshine. No, hang on, it’s getting a deck chair out of the shed.”
“This isn’t a hoax is it?” asked the Sergeant, suspicious.
“No, it’s not a hoax. I’m fifty-five. Look I’m sorry if I’m sarky, but I am a bit old for practical jokes and you don’t seem to grasp the situation. There’s a fully grown cow here,” I said, getting all insistent. “Moo,” I added, though I can’t say as I know why.
“And you’ve no idea how it happens to be there, sir?” he said.
Coppers! Once they’ve got something in their head… Let go of it man, I thought. But it wasn’t what I said. I calmed down a bit and just said it must have wandered in somehow.
“Right, sir,” he said with another sigh and I think he’d just run out of questions. I mean, he must have taken some calls in his time, but a renegade cow in Runcorn? It was like the front page of the Sunday Sport that time, when they reckon they’d found a double-decker bus at the North Pole. I bet he looked forward to telling his missus.
Then came the excuses. “Firstly, we are a bit shorthanded at the moment, but I shall alert the armed response team…”
I tell you, I was alarmed straight off. “You’re going to shoot it?”
“Not unless we have to, sir. But believe or not cows are the eighth most dangerous animal in the world, in terms of killing people. You’re more likely to be killed by a cow than a shark,” he added.
Well, I couldn’t argue with that, could I? We might not many cows in Runcorn, but we get even fewer bloody sharks.
A joke about Knowsley Safari Park jumped into my head. The one where a lion had escaped from Knowsley and was roaming around the council estate… and the kids ate it. Well, a cow might not last long round here either.
Dooley said he’d do some checking around, see who’d lost a cow. “Someone must have and you sit tight. If the cow does anything you get straight back on to us,” he said.
“Does anything? Like what?”
“You know, anything untoward,” he said.
“Untoward? It’s a bleedin’ cow.”
I got another Dooley sigh, but I’d set my heart on Llandudno and I could tell the day had just been taken from me and he was getting to me an’ all.
“You’re not sending anyone?” I asked.
“There’s no-one I can send, not straightaway. Stay inside – and lock the door.”
Em was tugging at my arm all this time. “Fire brigade,” she whispered urgently.
“Sergeant!” I caught him just as he was putting the phone down.
“Yes, Mr Massey.”
“Do you think you had better call the fire brigade?”
I could tell this hadn’t occurred to him and he needed a minute to think. “I expect so. The lads wouldn’t want to miss out on this one.”
And that was where I made my mistake. Not the fire brigade – they were useful as it happened – I meant ringing the bloody police.
They’re not sending anyone, I told the wife. Not yet. Officers with rifles sometime. Oh, we don’t want them to kill it, she said getting concerned and I said, don’t worry, they’re checking whose it is, valuable things cows. Someone’ll miss it. Half a chance, people round will have it on the barbecue by teatime. Aye, she said, you’re right there.
Funny. We were due a day out and that was buggered and there was a cow ruining my garden, but what was really getting under my skin was speaking to a copper in Warrington. Why couldn’t I speak to someone in Runcorn? Why’s everyone somewhere else nowadays?
We stared at the cow for a bit and it stared back at us, chewing grass and all nonchalant. Where we live is probably the same as a lot of places, back gardens all backing on to each other and surrounded by the houses. Our estate is next to another estate and there’s one the other way, all similar. There’s a huge chemical works up the road. There’s not much countryside round here and the nearest the kids ever get to a cow is when they go to McDonald’s. Curtains were swishing and windows and back doors were being opened as everyone caught on to the cow; it wass like an alien from outer space had landed in their midst. There’s a bloody great cow in the Masseys’ garden, come and look!
There was a knock at the front door and Em scuttled along the hall and let in a community bobby, a plastic copper, young and fresh faced, wearing a hi-viz vest over his tunic, presumably in case anyone had trouble seeing him on a sunny July morning. He was Tim Shaw, he said, and he’d got a report of a cow, and he curled up the last word like a pig’s tail the way some people do at the end of a sentence, like he didn’t quite believe he was using the word. He probably thought it might be a wind-up and didn’t want to make a fool of himself.
Clearly introductions were called for: CSO Shaw, cow; cow CSO Shaw, I said. “Tom!” said Em in that thin lipped away women have of bringing you to order.
“It’s big,” said Tim impressed. “Whose is it?”
We admitted we hadn’t got a clue and he said: “Are your doors locked?”
I realised then Sergeant Dooley hadn’t completely ruled me out being a nutter and had sent a CPSO along to check.
“Yes, but it has a key,” I said.
“Still best,” he said and I don’t know if he got the joke or not.
The phone rang. It was Marjorie next door to tell us there was a cow on our lawn.
“Tell her to check her doors are locked,” said Tim.
“It’s dead exciting,” said Marjorie and just then the cow twitched and straightened its tail, so that it rose like a car park barrier, though obviously not straight up and, I kid you not, the conversation stopped as we all watched great splodges of shit drop from tis arse and flies instantly turned up from nowhere. You could see ‘em riding the updraft of methane and then landing on it like jump jets on an aircraft carrier.
Just then there was a dull rumble at the front of the house – it was a fire engine pulling up and there were shouts and doors slamming and a knock at the front and Em came back with a trail of firemen, eight of them, all big boots and helmets, behind her. Helmets, I ask you. Sunny day in July and they’ve come to shift a cow and they needed helmets.
“They’ve come to have a look,” said Em.
Have a look? Not come to take it away then, I thought. My heart sank.
I think she regretted mentioning the fire brigade now. They seemed to be on an outing. No doubt passing cars would be slowing down and drivers looking for signs of smoke.
The Chief Fire Officer, bloke called Smedley, introduced himself. “Whose cow is it?” he asked.
“We don’t know,” said CSO Shaw, and I thought, ay up, he wants to take over. It’s his bloody cow now.
“It’s a big bugger,” observed one of the firemen.
“Right, Danny,” said Smedley, all brisk and efficient, wanting to get the job done. “Risk assessment.”
The man – Danny – took out a notepad and pen.
It’s a cow and I reckoned you could be pretty certain of the risks, which were pretty much non-existent unless it forced its way into the house and rampaged around the kitchen looking for our supplies of clover. Or it could continue doing was it was doing now which was eating the ruddy marigolds. The fireman began to write.
“Anyone want tea?” said Em pleasantly, like she was glad of the company. “I’m just putting the kettle on,” she trilled. I thought, she’s beginning to enjoy herself.
“Wow,” said a young fireman, staring wide-eyed through the window at the cow. “I never realised they were so, so…” He struggled for the right word. I knew the feeling.
“Big,” I suggested.
“So full,” he said. “Do they smell?”
Oh, for heaven’s sake, I thought. But you can’t describe smells, just like you can’t describe taste and to be honest I didn’t know as I’d ever smelled a cow, never having been on a farm, but I wasn’t going to let some whippersnapper know that.
“It’s a farm animal,” I said and left hime to make his own mind up.
Em ferried in tea and toast and the firemen took off their helmets. Laid them right across our table, they did. Proper teak; only just bought it; it was still shiny. They passed around cups of steaming tea. Fireman Danny had stopped writing; I took a peek.
Small garden, BIG COW! he’d written, which was a fair assessment. Taxpayers would approve. I could see other neighbours in surrounding houses at their bedroom windows, pointing and laughing.
“They can pick up scents from five miles away and can hear low and high frequency sounds beyond human capability,” said one of the firemen. Smedley explained the bloke knew things about animals.
The telephone rang.
“Sergeant Dooley here Mr Massey. Have all the marksmen arrived yet?”
All the marksmen? I asked.
“They’ll come to you first, then they’ll deploy to surrounding houses,” he said.
Deploy, for God’s sake.
“How many? It’s only one cow. Unarmed. It’s not a bloody terrorist.”
“They come by mini-bus, so between six and ten.”
I began to feel sorry for the cow.
“What about a farmer with a dog or a piece of rope?”
“We’re having trouble locating him,” said Sergeant Dooley.
“What about someone with a tranquilliser gun?”
“We’re having trouble locating him, too. The Safari Park has put a call out.”
“Haven’t your men got anything to knock it out?” I said.
“Can’t use truncheons on a cow,” said Dooley, with humour in his voice.
It must be against the rules.
“Don’t worry, sir, I’m sure they’ll leave it, er, very tranquil, if need be.”
If ever there were words to make your heart sink Sergeant Dooley was picking them like bloody big luscious strawberries.
“Well, it’s still pretty tranquil, Sergeant,” I protested. “It’s eaten my marigolds, but that’s the extent of enemy action.”
Police, councils, anyone with a bit of authority, they’ll make mountains out of molehills, Here was a molehill being made into bloody Everest.
There was another knock on the front door. Firm, it was, not hammering, but with some authority. Funny how the police can do that and Em was already on her way – God she was loving it – until she returned with three policemen each of ’em carrying a semi-automatic rifle. She disappeared into the kitchen. She doesn’t like guns.
The coppers looked just like these SWAT teams you see on the telly. They were steel-helmeted and wore all manner of protective clothing, bullet-proof most likely. Two – get this – wore ski masks. Ski-soddin’-masks! – like the IRA. Well, it was best the cow didn’t recognise them, there might be reprisals. And they’re big fellas you know. Even if they’re not that tall they are bulky with all the paraphernalia they’ve got attached to them. Made me realise it was getting ludicrous, getting out of hand – and it was getting crowded in our dining room. Everybody started shuffling round to make room, like a train at rush hour. And I’m not kidding about the vests. Tossers.
The situation was so daft I almost laughed. But it makes you nervous, having them there, all gunned-up and super-serious in your house
“I’ve come for a reccy, if I may sir,” said the boss and I think he was probably an Inspector. I also reckon he was the biggest tosser of the lot. Inspector Tosser. Reccy indeed. The cow, bang outside the window and he wanted a reccy. Turned out he wanted to weigh up the area, the gardens, the houses for safe firing lines. He didn’t pay much attention to the cow. Must have seen them before.
“You’re not really going to just shoot it, are you?” I asked.
“Only if we have to, sir,” he replied and he had that manner about him, you know, that he was willing to do what a man has to do.
He turned to his men. “Right, you two, next door each side and spread the others out at these other houses,” and was pointed this way and that like Lee Marvin in the Dirty Dozen.
He turned to me and said: “You’re dead lucky. Big drug raid cancelled. The mark wasn’t in. So you’ve got the whole squad,” he explained.
Yeah, I was really lucky. I’d got police marksmen, the fire brigade and a plastic copper to protect me from a cow that was eating flowers and didn’t seem to care what was going on around it. However the poor thing had got into our garden she was surrounded and trapped.
“If it tries to make a break for it will be like the last bit in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” said one of the firemen with a grin.
It made me wince. “It’s a cow, not a wild animal,” I protested, loud enough for the Inspector to hear me, but no one paid much attention.
Outside the cow inched forward to be able to reach my asters.
“Quick, to your posts,” shouted the Inspector and a marksman who must have strayed into our hall dashed up our stairs without asking and there was a clatter as he knocked a picture off the wall. I wanted to go and see what damage he’d done, but I didn’t because that would have meant giving up my spec right in front of the window. Sod that, it was my house.
“I haven’t had the chance to tidy the back bedroom,” said Em, who had burrowed her way through the throng to get by my side.
I knew the marksman now in the back bedroom would be taking aim taking aim and I could see other helmet and rifles appear in bedroom windows in the adjoining houses. The cow just carried on chewing and it looked around but they don’t show any emotion do they, animals? Least of all cows. You can’t tell what’s in their heads. There couldn’t have sensed any danger because she began to piss on my geraniums. It was like turning a tap full on, a proper waterfall that lifted a geranium out of the ground.
“Wonder how much beef there is on that?” said one of the firemen behind me.
His mate, the one that knew things about animals, said: “They’re inquisitive and will investigate anything. They like solving problems. They’ve even been known to jump if they solve a problem. Celebrating sort of, like a cheer. Pleased with themselves.”
Well this one certainly had a problem to solve, I thought, being surrounded by eight or nine armed coppers all alerted to possible action by it having a pee and Em said, the cow had reminded her, she needed to go to the toilet.
I could see the helicopter approaching before I heard it. A black dot in the sky getting bigger. You’ve got to be joking I thought and then I could hear the thrum of its engines and I just knew it was coming to our house.
“You’ve got to be fucking joking,” I said out loud.
“Tom!” said Em, because I don’t normally swear in the house.
“Well,” I said.
It got bigger and nearer making its dugga-dugga-dugga noise until it slowed down to hover above our garden, curiously losing a lot of the din it had been making and we all stared up in the way you do at helicopters. The police and their toys, eh. What were they planning to do, airlift it back to the herd? All eyes went back to the cow, which hadn’t been spooked by all the clamour and wasn’t bothered at all. All the neighbours were out now, even those who couldn’t see the cow because of fences and whatnot were staring the helicopter and wondering what was going on and the kids were getting excited
“They could come in low, but wouldn’t want to frighten the cow,” said the CPSO. “It costs over a thousand pounds just to get that up in the air. It’ll have come from Chester,” he added.
A grand to look at a cow. And they they’re strapped for cash, budget cutbacks and all that. Bollocks.
Like I say, it didn’t bother the cow, it just looked up as if it were trying to remember something, they have that sort of look about them. But then it went back to eating my grass, which was short enough as it was, I’d cut it only a few days ago. The helicopter dropped vertically a few feet but in a sort of gentle easy way to get a better view. Pilot showing off.
“They’ll be filming. It’ll be on YouTube by dinnertime,” said the Fire Officer Smedley, nodding towards the helicopter.
The Inspector’s radio crackled. It was one of his men. “This is Oscar Romeo Six.”
“Come in Oscar Romeo Six,” said the Inspector.
“We have locked the back gate. Repeat we have locked the back gate,” said Oscar Romeo Six.
“Very good,” said the Inspector. He turned to me: “You didn’t shut your back gate last night, sir,” as if it amounted to an open invitation to farmyard animals everywhere.
Jesus, I thought, and they let these buggers have guns.
Yet still I found myself saying I was careless and I was sorry.
“Charlie One,” the Inspector spoke into the radio on his lapel. “You can get the traffic moving again.”
“You stopped the traffic?” I said and, yes, I was incredulous.
“Public safety, sir. If the cow had darted out of your open gate and into the road it might have caused an accident.”
Tosser, I thought. Not the cow.
“Now we have it trapped,” said the Inspector and he sounded victorious, narrowing his eyes like Clint Eastwood.
“It’s a Holstein Friesian,” said the fireman who knew about these things.
Em started to find a way through all the bodies to pick up cups and saucers. We never use saucers normally, unless there’s company.
“The most common cow in the world and the biggest milk producer. But they can be dangerous. On average they kill one person a year in the UK.”
He made it sound like a commitment.
“See,” said the Inspector.
I watched the CSO edge nearer the Inspector. “How many rounds a minute do they fire?” he asked, looking at the gun.
But the Inspector wasn’t listening. You could see he was constantly assessing and reassessing the situation, processing tiny pieces of data. What a tit.
The fireman making his risk assessment had written: “Armed police present. Cow to be killed by pigs?” He was smirking, quite pleased with himself and had followed the thought with a row of question marks.
There was no way out of my twenty foot by twelve foot garden for the cow. Although it had started pulling chunks of privet from the hedge – no doubt all in the sights of half-a-dozen guns or more, it was unlikely to make a hole big enough for a quick escape. It would have to come out with its hands up soon or risk being gunned down. But then I realised, you know, just then, I didn’t want the cow shot. I mean definitely Everybody – everything – was getting under my skin. The situation was absurd. The garden’s only tiny but our dining room’s about half the size and there was about fifteen of us in there. I didn’t want to see her shot, not there, not anywhere and not because of the mess it’d make either.
The cow mooed then. Well, more of a bellow, starting deep and rising impressively to a crescendo. It was very loud and I’ve got double glazing. It sounded desperate to me. Kids giggled and nudged each other.
Then the telephone rang.
“It’s got a name,” shouted Sergeant Dooley down the line.
“Pardon?” I shouted.
“It is called Ermintrude, you know, like on the Magic Roundabout,” said Dooley.
“Oh good,” I said, “we’ll be able to reason it with it now. It might leave my roses alone.”
“There’s no need to be like that, sir,” Sgt Dooley chided me like a schoolteacher. “I know the situation must be tense, but we are doing our best. Point is I’ve found out who it belongs and he says someone stole it last night – it still happens out in the country apparently,” he said, saying it so he left the sentence open as if the countryside was another world entirely, and in a way, I suppose it is.
“They probably had second thoughts and dumped it, let it loose. You can’t drive round with a cow in the back of your van without it being noticed. It probably wandered off and ended up at your place, sir. The farmer will be there in an hour or two.”
“An hour or two! Where’s he coming from?
“Just outside Shrewsbury, sir.”
“Shrewsbury!” I repeated, “Bloody hell.”
“Precisely, sir,” said Sgt Dooley, as if he had located Satan himself.
“Shrewsbury?” questioned Em. “So it’s not even a Cheshire cow?”
Em had missed the expert fireman’s discourse on Fresians and he was now chatting to a mate. They agreed there was a far greater chance of being killed by the police than attacked by the cow and they should stay where they were. The molehill was mountainous and it getting out of hand, if you see what I mean. It was a cow – a cow! – though the closest personal experience I’d had of cattle was watching the one on Babe that kept saying, “The way things are, are the way things are”.
I don’t think my cow, I mean the one on the lawn, would have subscribed to that philosophy, not right then, because she lifted her head and mooed, louder and real desperate-like.
The doorbell rang. Em gave me a look that said it was my turn but I was staying put. She bustled off and came back with a reporter who’d had a tip off, he said and a BBC North West cameraman, who had pulled up on the front at the same time, followed them in carrying his camera on his shoulder.
Some children had gathered by a neighbour’s fence. The moo had shown the cow had possibilities but needed a bit more stimulus so they started throwing stones at it.
“Stop that,” boomed a voice from the helicopter. “Someone get those children inside,” ordered the same voice. Startled by the sudden authority from above and its all seeing eye, the children switched targets and started throwing stones at the helicopter.
“Shut yer face,” one shouted. Cheeky buggers, kids, nowadays. His mum rounded on him though.
“Gerrin ’ere. They’ve got guns,” she shouted.
The cow at last showed some concern. It was just as if she had taken her warning and figured: “Hang on, something’s not right here.”
She started walking round the garden and seemed nervous. Daft, but you know what I noticed? Its ears, they’re not on top of their head, but sticking out the side, like Shrek’s. I’d never noticed that before. It had a blue tag with a number on it stapled to one. I hadn’t notice that either. I was surprised the helicopter didn’t spook her, but then perhaps to a cow overhead was just a place where sometimes noise came from and had nothing to do with them.
The cameraman thrutched and jostled his way through the room, his camera acting as a warning for firemen to get out of the way. He wanted a good shot through the window, which he began to open and the smell of warm air and warm cow wafted into the room. It wasn’t that bad. Seems daft, but it was the first time I’d smelled a cow. It look up then, at the room full of people staring at her and I started feeling sorry for her, proper I mean, sorry and curious. She’d been disturbed in the middle of the night, probably poked with a sharp stick or something, rounded up, shouted at, bundled, slapped, kicked – who knows – transported and set free in a place where she shouldn’t rightly be with whirring overhead and people staring. Lots of strange smells. Under those circumstances she seemed incredibly adaptable. The way things are, are the way things are.
Every now and then giving a great bellow, getting agitated. Bit startling at first but all the kids loved it like she might not need stoning after all.
“Get those fucking kids in,” said the Inspector Charlie One Tosser into his radio.
She mooed again, this time with even more urgency, as if in some pain, which I was sure now she actually was.
“Milking time been and gone and her udders are swollen and tight,” said our expert and I could see what he meant. They were like Katie Price’s tits, except not as big of course. Joke. She mooed again and again and it made me nervous just to see her. A look of concern came over Em’s face. She remembered what mastitis felt like.
I glanced up at the bedroom windows where the police marksmen made no attempt to hide themselves, but then, why should they? The situation wasn’t getting out of hand, it had long since lost all sanity.
Inside our group of firemen, policemen, reporters and us continued to huddle around the window and stare at the cow. It was like being in a crowded lift. Did I get a sense of a catastrophe approaching? Only when Inspector Tosser muttered: “Steady lads,” as if he was Rorke’s Drift and was waiting to see the whites of the Zulus’ eyes. CPSO Shaw stroked the rifle stock like a pet as it hung on the Inspector’s shoulder.
Em was talking to the reporter and the cameraman. Giving them the low-down, that’s what she likes to tell people now. I was giving them the low-down. The reporter just had enough elbow room to write.
Meanwhile Ermintrude’s pain was getting worse and she let out her feelings in a one long bellow, a moo with more oos than portholes on a ruddy ship. Neighbours who had not been able to see clearly appeared in new vantage points in the gardens of friends. There was a sense that something was about to happen.
I felt it. I hadn’t budged though. Centre window, I wasn’t going to give up the best spec in my own house. But I kept looking at the cow and thinking: you poor bugger. Then it came to me: why not go out and milk it? Can’t be that much to it. Hold a teat in turn and squeeze and when I thought that I also wondered what a cow would feel like. I don’t mind you knowing I had a sudden fancy to touch it, smell it, talk to it. Why not? Any farmer that bothered to call it Ermintrude would have talked to it. I didn’t think I was going to be the cow whisperer or anything like that. Suppose you think I’m mad, but why not? I didn’t know anything about cows and this might be my only chance to meet one.
The firemen and police were chatting, waiting for something to happen; bored, though not enough to climb back on their engine and trundle back to the station, I noticed. Had they nothing to do? No practice towers to climb? No game of snooker to play? They were talking of football and holidays and Strictly Come Dancing. They weren’t going to take Ermintrude in hand and they weren’t going to leave either.
The reporters and Em had run out of things to say to each other and shared the view together and the BBC man said he was thinking of angles. Later he’d probably go for a close up of the cow pat or something arty like they always do. How did a cow manage to become news?
Question was, how could I get the bucket from under the sink without arousing suspicion and go outside without causing panic. Panic? Good God. It was a farm animal, used to human contact. But these humans weren’t used to animal contact. I wasn’t used to them either, but that was before one turned up in my back garden.
Most important right now was how did I leave the house and execute my milking plan without being shot by the police? Stupid buggers that they were, they possessed guns and were pointing them right where I wanted to be, at the cow.
It was time to stop all this nonsense. The situation needed taking back in hand.
“Excuse me,” I said turning from the window and edging through the throng, “toilet.” I squeezed my way into the kitchen where Em had left tea cups piled up by the sink and unlocked the back door to venture outside, to say hello to the cow and to see if I could milk the bloody thing. Can’t be that much to it, I kept telling myself. Once I’d got the idea in my head it made more and more sense. It was obviously in discomfort and was making a noise now as if a gale had got into the pipes of a church organ.
I pulled the kitchen door to behind me, looked in the cupboard under the sink, got a red plastic bucket, removed a scrubbing brush and bottle of Flash and turned the key in the back door. I’d stepped into my own back garden and suddenly I felt free. That was how it felt, free, almost heroic because I realised I was the only one acting sensibly.
I could hear Em: “Tom!” she shouted in a panic. “He’s gone outside!” she screamed and I almost laughed. Nerves like.
I could see all these faces of surprise and concern at my window, as if I had suddenly fallen into a bear pit at the zoo.
Inspector Tosser was angry and waving for me to get back inside. I held up my bucket and smiled. I saw Em’s face and I knew I’d be in for a bollocking off her, but I hoped she’d figure things out from the sight of the bucket.
I was close to the cow now. There was a smell of shit in the air. There’s something healthier about it, not as bad as dog shit any road. Ermintrude wasn’t frightened. She was curious about me, maybe she thought relief was at hand. I could feel her warmth and do you know they’re covered in dead short hair, cows. I just thought it was black and white leather, but it’s hair very short and very tight and I felt stupid for not knowing such a simple thing like that. As if they were leather jackets on legs. I must have been giving off some kind of signal somehow, that I didn’t know what I was doing and I could see an edge come about her. Steady on girl, that was what I said, but she threw herself into a turn, her udders swinging heavy like a demolition ball. She was ready to run, a one-cow stampede. Shit, and it was my fault, but she had nowhere to stampede to. So she stopped and took a second look at me and I wondered if the red bucket to a cow was like a red rag to a bull or was that just an old wives’ tale.
“Hello Ermintrude,” I said and I realised with delight I’d done the right thing. I think she sensed relief might be at hand. She wasn’t frightened any road.
I touched her on the nose and it was soft and damp, not that snotty and she didn’t flinch and I stepped back trying to decide how I’d get the bucket under her and she sort of threw her head upwards and gave a great foghorn of a bellow like a ship on the Mersey. The moo stopped just as if a radio had been switched off because suddenly and there was the crack from a gun being fired. Thinking about it it must have been the copper at Marjorie’s bedroom window. There was echo as it ricocheted around the houses followed by a thick silence.
A red spot appeared on Ermintrude’s head. Exactly where I’d been stroking her. She crumpled.
“Move back,” came a tannoyed voice from above.
“What?” I said. I was in shock.
“Get out of the way,” shouted the Inspector’s voice from the back door. “It’s going to fall.” But she’d already fallen. It all happened in a second. I sort of staggered backward, into my border of flower stems and the cow – Ermintrude – dead before she hit the ground, sort of folded up heavily and crashed to the floor. Her eyes stared at me like she was asking why.
I’m not joking she look bewildered, betrayed. Or maybe it was just me thinking that.
“I didn’t do it,” I said to her, which was stupid because for one thing she was already dead and for another she wouldn’t have understood me anyway. But I told her again: “It wasn’t me. I’m sorry.” I’m not ashamed of it, there were tears in my eyes.
It wasn’t me Ermintrude, it was them. My senses returned and I was full of disgust and anger boiled up inside me and it turned to fury and burning tears.
I was aware of people pouring through my back door and neighbours appearing on the edge of my vision and them and their kids were silent, stunned.
“Why’d you shoot her?” I screamed and the little square of gardens, surrounded by houses was suddenly deathly quiet. Even the helicopter seemed muted.
“Why? Why’d do you do it? Why’d you shoot her?” I was probably ranting.
Em suddenly appeared at my side and said thank God I was all right and then the Inspector was in front of me. He was angry, but you could tell he was making sure his anger trumped mine. “Sir, you were interfering with a police operation. What the hell did you think you were doing?”
I looked him in the eye. “Tosser,” I said.
I bet he already knew how his report would read. How one of his men reacted coolly and clinically, recognising a window of opportunity that opened up for him in a fraught situation when he believed a member of the public was under threat, possibly even saving his life. I reckon he’d already decided that and those were the words that were reported on the telly later and in the papers.
I began to shout and I was conscious of tears of my eyes, “It was a cow, for God’s sake. Her name was Ermintrude. She just wanted milking.”
“It would still be alive if you hadn’t tried to play the hero.”
“Hero? Hero. I was going to milk it, not wrestle it to the floor. Stupid bloody copper. Stupid bloody copper, stupid bloody copper.” I was losing it.
Inspector Tosser had turned on his heels and was already making his way back inside, to stand down his men and to get the hell out of the there. Job done, operation over. Bet he hoped the lads in the ’copter didn’t give the video to the television people.
Overhead, the helicopter whirred away as if were trying to quickly put some distance between itself and what had gone on.
“Inspector, can we have a word,” said the reporter, notebook in one hand, his pen indicating the TV cameraman from the BBC made up the ‘we’. The Inspector spotted the telly camera and I could tell what he was thinking: did he get everything. Shit!
But then his manner changed to so-what-if-he-did. Maybe the film would show the cow was getting ready to attack a completely irrational man who only had a plastic bucket to defend himself with.
“You’ll be issued with a statement by the press office in due course,” said the Inspector.
“But we are all here in the same room,” pointed out the reporter.
“I’m sorry that’s the way things are dealt with.”
“I have you on film. I have it all on film. Aren’t you worried what ‘no comment’ might look like?” asked the TV cameraman.
“I’m sorry,” the Inspector said again as his men began to appear by the dining room door. “But we may be needed elsewhere urgently.”
“What, some hens escaped down the park have they?” Em suddenly demanded. It was unlike her, but she’d lost it too. “Better get down there and annihilate them quick. Go on, get out of our house. Take your stupid guns and get out. Out.”
Wow, I thought and she took a step forward and started pushing the Inspector towards the front door. Wow. I was dead proud of her.
“What am I supposed to do with a dead cow?” I shouted up the hallway.
But the police were already clattering out of the front door. Their mini-bus was now the getaway vehicle, engine running.
“Stupid, stupid bloody coppers,” I shouted. I still hadn’t got over it proper.
“We’ll get the cow round the front, ready for the farmer,” said Chief Fire Officer Smedley to me, his voice subdued and understanding. “Ropes and harnesses lads,” he shouted.
I’m not sure it was their duty but I was grateful. What was I going to do with a whopping great cow? Ermintrude’s owner would arrive soon and I’d have to explain everything. Somebody would. The firemen picked their helmets off the table and made their way out of the front door.
“C’mon lads, good practice for the county tug o’war,” said Smedley, leading the way. I could see Em give the top a quick once-over for scratches.
“A cow like that will be about 1,500lb,” said the knowledgeable fireman.
“Dead weight?” asked a colleague, ever so dry.
Something must have shown on my face, because he looked at me and said, “Sorry, sir.”
“Not my cow,” I said.
Some children had appeared at the back gate, “Ay, mister, can we look at your dead cow?” they shouted and were too eager to wait for a reply. They grouped around the cow.
“It smells,” one complained.
“Look at the size of its nips,” said another.
“I’ll kick it,” said a one boy and he did and then he kicked it again.
“Oy, stop that!” I shouted, disgusted, but really, what did it matter?
The firemen let the children watch while they worked.
The TV cameraman duly filmed the scene. He got his cowpat shot, but the humour had gone and it wasn’t used. I watched his report at lunchtime. It’s strange seeing your own house on the telly. There was a few seconds of Em wagging her finger in the Inspector’s face. The reporter and the CPSO watched the firemen from the back gate. Me and Em watched from the window.
“Oh Tom,’ she said, “I thought it was going to kill you.”
“It just wanted milking, Em. It was in pain.”
“Well, its out of its misery now, Tom.”
“It wasn’t in misery, it just needed milking.”
“All right, it wasn’t me that shot it,” she said.
“Well they didn’t have to kill it. There was no need.”
“I know,” she said, going into the kitchen to put the kettle on.
“There was no need,” I said. Talk about exasperated.
I watched the cow being dragged towards the gate, a trail of bloody left dark smears on the lawn, it wasn’t pumping out or anything. The firemen had rolled it on its back to get it through the gate, like removal men manoeuvring an awkward sofa. Ermintrude’s head fell to the side. Daft bugger me, I told her I was sorry, silently like, to myself but I meant it too. Why couldn’t I have stopped it from happening?
Em came back into the room.
“I’ll just nip to the shop,” she said, rolling her eyes. “We’re out of milk.”
Recent Comments