I Told A Farmer's Wife Her Prize Bull Was "A Big Lad" And Then Fell In The Slurry

The shoes were brown brogues. I had polished them the night before, in my flat, for a farm visit. That is the level of stupidity we are working with.

The bull was in a pen. He was enormous. I said, because I had read a leaflet on the train, "He's a big lad."

The farmer's wife — seventy, four foot eleven, forearms — said, "He's a Charolais."

I said, "Yes."

She said, "You said he. That's something, at least."

I laughed the laugh of a man who has been told something and does not know what.

Then I walked backwards, to get a photograph for my report, which is a thing I had also read about, and I walked backwards across a yard I did not know, on a farm I had never visited, in brogues.

The slurry channel is covered. Mostly.

I went in to the waist.

There is a specific silence that follows a young man in a suit going into slurry. It is not silence, actually. It is the sound of two farm dogs deciding whether this is a game.

She did not laugh. That is the thing that has kept me warm for eleven years. She did not laugh. She put down her bucket, walked over, held out an arm like a girder, and hauled me out, and then she said: "Boots by the door. Suit in the bin. Tea in the kitchen."

Her husband came in halfway through the tea, looked at me in a borrowed jumper, looked at his wife, and said one word: "Brogues?"

She said, "Brogues."

He nodded slowly, the way you nod at weather.

I have been their agronomist for eleven years. I have wellingtons in the boot of my car at all times. On my third visit she handed me a pair of second-hand boots and said, "These were Dennis's. He's dead. He won't mind."

I still have them. I have never once mentioned the bull.

And every single time I arrive, she looks at my feet first, and then at my face, and she says: "Good lad."