Out of the Ashes (4 page)

Praying doesn’t work. I bet Mr Bailey prayed, and I bet Terry Bolan prayed too. It didn’t help them, did it? I’ve put disinfectant all around Little Josh’s shippen like a
sort of protective shield, and I never let them out now in case they breathe in the disease. The less they’re outside in the fields the better. Dad’s brought the whole of his flock into
the lambing shed. Like he says, this virus can fly on the wind, it can come in on the birds, so he’s not letting them out again. And you don’t even know if sheep have got it, not for
three weeks. It takes three weeks for the disease to show itself. So I won’t let mine out either, no matter how much fuss Little Josh makes. I can hear him now, bleating to be let out.
I’ve told him why he’s got to stay in. I wish he could understand me as well as I understand him. I don’t pray any more. I just hope and hope and hope.

My nightmare began this morning. I went out for a ride, just to give Ruby some exercise. We rode down through Bluebell Wood to the river. The river was bank high again. Ruby
was drinking and I was looking up across the river at Mr Bailey’s farm. It was deserted, not an animal in sight, just crows cawing over the wood, cackling at me as if they knew something I
didn’t. Suddenly, I knew what it was. The last time I’d ridden Ruby down to the river was before we knew about the foot and mouth. I’d crossed over on to Mr Bailey’s farm.
I’d galloped up through his wood and out over his sheep field. I’d been in amongst his sheep, sheep that must already have been infected with foot and mouth disease. I’d come home
again bringing the foot and mouth with me on Ruby, on my clothes, in my hair. We’d come back through the river, but river water isn’t disinfectant. We’d carried the germs with us
back on to our farm. And I’d gone out with Dad checking the animals. I touched them. I helped him with the milking that evening. I milked Primrose myself. I fed Little Josh.

This is the worst feeling I’ve had in all my life. Ever since I first thought of what I might have done I’ve felt cold all over. I’ve been sick. All I know is that if it
happens now, if we get foot and mouth, then it’ll be all my fault.

(around 1.00 in the morning)

I can’t sleep, and not just because of the dreadful thing I might have done. They’ve lit the fire on Terry Bolan’s farm. I can see the sky glowing red from my
window and I can smell it. It’s the same smell the blacksmith makes when he comes to shoe Ruby, when he puts the hot-iron shoe up against Ruby’s hoof to see if it fits properly and the
whole stable fills with acrid smoke. I’ve already used up all that perfume Gran sent me for Christmas. I sprinkled it everywhere in my room so I couldn’t smell the smoke, so I
wouldn’t be reminded all the time of what was burning. I discovered that the smell of death is stronger than perfume, and lasts longer.

Dad couldn’t sleep either. I heard him going out every couple of hours to check the animals. Around midnight I decided to get up and follow him because I thought he’d like the
company. I found him in with his cows, just sitting there on the edge of the water trough, watching them lying in the straw all around him and chewing the cud. Then I saw that he was crying.
I’ve never in my life seen Dad cry before. I didn’t think he could cry. I felt like going to him and putting my arms around him, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t because I knew he
would hate me to see him like this.

And then, as I was walking away, I heard him talking, not to the cows, not to me, not to himself. He was talking to Grandad, his dad. And Grandad’s dead. He died a long time ago before I
was born. I know him just from photographs, from stories. He was talking to him as if he was there with him in the barn. ‘Don’t let it happen, Pop,’ he was saying. ‘Please
don’t let it happen. Tell me what I’ve got to do to stop it from happening.’ I felt as if I was prying, so I crept away and left him.

I looked in on Little Josh as I passed by the shippen. He was fine, so far as I could tell. Then I came back up to my room and wrote this. A deep sadness has settled in my heart. I think it will
never go away.

I’m not at home any more. I’m at Auntie Liz’s place in the village. When I woke up this morning the smell was worse than ever. It was like a fog all around
the house. This time it was from Mr Bailey’s farm where they started burning the animals last night. Mum said it wasn’t healthy for me to stay, not until the fire had burnt itself out.
I didn’t want to go, but she said it would only be for a few days, and that she’d look after Little Josh and Ruby for me. So I gave in. Anyway I like going to stay with Auntie Liz.

After breakfast I went to say goodbye to Dad. He was in the dairy cutting the curd when I found him. He came and put his arms around me and held me tight as if he never wanted to let go. At that
moment I wanted so much to come clean, to confess my guilty secret, that I’d ridden out on Mr Bailey’s farm and might have brought the foot and mouth home with me. I knew he
wouldn’t blame me, but I just could not bring myself to say the words. Then I said goodbye to Ruby and Little Josh and here I am.

They’re always really kind to me here. Auntie Liz fusses over me – a nice kind of fussing. But there are problems. She feeds me too much, calls me a ‘growing girl’. Not
what I want to hear. I don’t want to grow. I’m big enough, especially my bottom. I’ve been trying not to eat, but I can’t
not
eat at Auntie Liz’s, because I
love her food. Then there’s Big Josh who never leaves me alone. He’s sitting by me now watching me as I write. I’ve promised to read him a story when I’ve finished this.
When I read he sucks his thumb and looks up into my face, never at the book. I think he likes watching my lips move. Sometimes he’ll copy how I speak and break out in giggles.

You can’t smell the smoke of the fires here like you can at home. But the disease is here. I can feel it all around me and so can everyone. It’s like living in a ghost village, a
plague village. No cars go up and down. No one’s out in the street. They’re all hiding behind their doors. And the birds don’t sing.

There’s another reason I like Auntie Liz. She says what she really feels, and most people don’t. She says it’ll break Dad’s heart if we get foot and mouth. ‘Your
dad really loves his animals,’ she said. ‘I mean they’re not just a business to him like with some farmers. They’re like family to him.’ Uncle Mark said she was
upsetting me, but she wasn’t. She was only saying what I know already.

I rang home this evening and asked Mum how things were. She sounded strange, a bit distant. She said she was missing me, they both were, that Dad had just come in from checking the animals and
they were all fine. But the wind was still blowing the smoke from Mr Bailey’s farm all around the house. It was a good thing I was away, she said. Little Josh was fine. Ruby too. I
wasn’t to worry about anything.

I can’t put into words what I feel. There are no words black enough to say what I’ve got to say.

We were having supper when the phone rang. Auntie Liz answered it. I knew right away something was wrong, and I knew from the moment she looked at me exactly what it was. She handed me the
phone. Mum was trying not to cry as she told me. She hadn’t wanted to worry me about it yesterday, she said, but the vet had been called in yesterday morning. Dad had found blisters on the
feet of one of our sows, Jessica, and was worried about a couple of sheep that were limping badly. Tests had confirmed it. We had foot and mouth disease on the farm. There was an ‘A’
notice on the farm gate which meant no one was allowed in or out except the vets and the slaughterers. The animals would be put down tomorrow. So I’d have to stay with Auntie Liz until it was
all over. It would be the best place for me, she said.

When I asked how Dad was, she said he was very calm, as if he’d been expecting it all along. She said she’d phone again tomorrow, and that she loved me. I don’t remember the
last time she said that to me. She sounded almost like a different person.

I’ve been sitting here on the bed in a daze ever since. Not crying. I can’t cry. It’s me who’s done this, it must be. I brought the infection back with me from Mr
Bailey’s farm. Ruby or Bobs or me, but whichever of us it was, it had been my doing, my fault. I had sentenced our animals to death. Big Josh is sitting beside me holding my hand and
he’s looking so sad. I feel like he’s taking the sadness out of me and into himself, leaving me numb inside. They’re going to kill them all – Jemima, Jessica, Hector,
Primrose, all Dad’s cows, all his pigs, all his sheep, and Little Josh.

I want tomorrow never to come. But tomorrow always comes.

I’ll never be able to think of this date without thinking of the Angels of Death. So much has happened and all of it so fast and so final. Today began yesterday. Last
night after I’d finished writing my diary, I made a decision. I was lying in my bed at Auntie Liz’s and thinking about Little Josh, and home and Mum and Dad. I just decided I had to go
home, that I had caused this, that I had to be there with them.