The First Lambs of Spring

‘Mon so, get uppa that with yeh, I says to him as the dogs yelp and whine in the yard, and to be fair to him, he rises from his divot on the sofa. He’s not a bad lad by any stretch, I know of a fair few worse than him. But I want him to up himself, see the work that’s to be done and do it. Said as much to the wife yesterday.
He’s only a boy, she said. She always did take it easy on him, the boy, the baby. His three sisters got it harder, we gave them smacks when they needed them and sure lookit, didn’t they turn out well. An accountant, a teacher and a soon-to-be solicitor. All up and away, flew the nest as they say. Christ, if only my mammy had the mind to see it, she’d be well proud. But she doesn’t know who we even are anymore, lies curled up in the bed, and the rasps of her. If God were good He’d take her. But He doesn’t, and only He knows why. He didn’t give the old man much a chance though; heart attack in the middle of Mass. Keeled over with the communion wafer still stuck to his tongue. Don’t really remember him, was too young to know much then. But he made me the man I am; a farmer.
Is there one lambing, the boy says to me.
Aye, think she’s doubles, I says and hand him his coat that was my coat once. It hangs off him like loose skin, flapping as he walks to the back door, smothering his white t-shirt beneath. He slides into his wellies, dark green like my own, but cleaner. I tap my pocket to make sure I have all I need; my phone, the keys and the spray the doctor gave me for the pains. They’re not bad pains or nothing, and they don’t come on too often. But he warned me good and proper to always keep it on me, and I worry that he'll know if I leave it in the top drawer. Says I’m to take it easy, whatever that’s suppose to mean. The dogs are leaping, going wild on their chains, knowing there’s work on. I call them to wheist and they obey, falling to the ground on their paws, and the boy goes and pats them on the head. He’s good with them, feeds them at night, and was awful upset when we had to put the eldest down at Christmas. Was too weak, the dog, fourteen years of working, legs had gone and the thing was in pain. Was hard to see it suffering, rasping.
Leave them there, I says. They’ll only agitate her.
Ok, Dad, he says like those American shows he watches, God-awful things. He follows me down across the yard to the shed, and I have to bend as I enter. The shed is centuries old, and the ceiling is low, and purpled with damp. The ewe in question is couped in the corner, in the shadows that hang there where the sun can’t get her. She panting, close to pushing. And even though it’s bright, it’s still February, and the day holds no heat. The ewe steams where she lies, and every breath expels a ghost out in front of her.
Easy girl, I says as I move closer, watching her dissent as she grunts. The boy nestles in behind me, hidden, like he knows to do.
She is close? He’s barely whispering.
Aye, I says. ‘Mere.
He moves to my side, my shoulder, and I shock myself at how tall he seems, stooped beneath the low ceiling, almost looks like a man.
She’s showing, see? I says, pointing to the rear of her.
Her vulva? he says.
A flush washes over me and it seems like the rooms got warmer, stuffier, smaller too. Never heard that word uttered by any man, and I wonder if it’s a sin and whether I should be scolding him for it. Probably learnt it off that internet he bes on, or from a teacher in school. Alls I can do is grunt in reply. The dogs start to yelp again from the yard, and the ewe snorts her nose into the ground.
Right, ‘mon, I’ll show yeh, I says taking a knee by the ewe’s back end, or vulva as he says. Yeh might need to be doing this someday yerself.
I try to catch a look at him as he hunkers down aside me, but his mop fringe dangles across his face. Would love to take the shearers to it, but the wife would have me kilt.
I hike up the tail and see a snout staring back at me, wrinkled nose twitching.
Ah Jaysus, I says and go to reach up. The boy moves beside me, shifting weight.
Now looky here, I says, pointing. See the nose? What do yeh not see? A foot is right. So she’d be getting herself into diffs if we weren’t here. So what yeh want to do is push the head back in. Go on now.
He doesn’t hesitate, to be fair to him, goes with his hand and I have to stop him and tell him to take off the coat first. His arms are scrawny things, like the legs of a bird, and he doesn’t even look to have the strength to push a pencil nevermind the head of a lamb back into a contracting mother. But he does. Slow, careful, but firm, and I thinks to tell him that he did well but can’t find the right words, so I decides against it.
Now yeh want to reach in, go on, and feel for the legs.
He goes slower this time, and I can’t even blame him because it’s a strange place to be putting an arm. The spindly limb just sort of disappears, like a magic trick. He was all into magic at a time—he’d be that sort. Never held an interest in the football, not matter how many trainings and matches I dragged him to. The wife eventually had words with me to stop torturing the boy. So then we tried basketball, but sure he was only a little lad then and the boys of the team were nearly stepping over him at times. He might make a better go of it now though, the sprout he’s taken, but I’d say that boat is long sailed and long sunk. He did take a notion of the karate when he was about twelve, probably from going to the pictures or the likes. Loved yer man Jackie Chan, so he did. Think the wife left the white uniform into the charity shop before he was thirteen.
Have yeh found them? I says and he says he thinks so, and retracts, and by Christ he has the two legs out with him. I almost tell him he’s a great lad, but then the ewe lets out an awful groan, and I can see her push and strain, so I move him aside and watch for the contraction, and out slide the lamb with a wet slop to the floor. Half a sac is slathered across its back, slimy and unnatural, and the poor thing is shivering. I drag it round to the mothers snout, and leave her to sniff and lick the young lamb into the world.
There’s a twinge of pain across my chest, nothing bad, but I reach for my spray, just to be sure. Two puffs beneath the tongue and it feels like my head is splitting open, but the chest pain is easing.
You alright? he says somewhere across from me, ‘cause I’ve my eyes shut tight against the headache.
Am, I says and nod. Grand. Just a touch of the vagina.
Christ, I splutter and stutter and spit until I get the word angina out, and I repeats it half a dozen times as the cheeks scald off me, but it’s too late and the boy’s leaning against the wall for support laughing; laughing at his old man and the dirty word.
I meant angina, I says again as he starts to sober and he wipes his eye, and I don’t know where to look or what to look at, so I heads over to the door and swing it shut, muttering about keeping the heat in the place or something.
Dad, I think she’s going again, he says, and I grunt at him saying ‘dad’.
Is surely, look at her, I says as her sides collapse like an accordion, and I hope to God the last minute will never be spoken of again. The ewe stops licking her newborn, and her breathing goes ragged again. The second one’s in the sac still and it bulges out first, but moves the way it should, and after a few moments there’s a wetter slop and it’s out.
Take it outta that, I says to him, meaning for him to open up the sac, and his fingers slip with it a bit but he manages. The lamb lies lifeless, a ragged doll of a thing, smaller than its sibling who’s already making goes at trying to stand.
Dad? he says looking at me, and he pushes that mane of a fringe outta his face and I can see his eyes, scared for the poor thing. The lamb’s wheeze fills the air between us.
Just needs a wakening is all, I says and I lift a stalk of hay from the floor and rinse the lamb’s nose with it. The thought of it makes my own nose twitch and the urge to sneeze comes on me. Below me the little weakling stutters and fights against me, and I know it’ll do alright for now.
There we are now, I says as I stand up, the ewe doing likewise and busying herself with her two babies. Wasn’t too bad in the end up. That wee’un will need an eye on it, and if she’s starting to fail we can bring her in by the Aga.
Can we bottle feed her? he asks, all hopeful and all.
Might come to that, I says. ‘Mon and see what yer ma has on for tea.
I pull back the shed door, and the light comes streaming in, and with it a brown blur, a flash of fur and the short snarl of one of the dogs. Before I have time to move, to think, to call the dog back, the boy has leapt, grabbing the dog by the neck, and the jaws snap shut a foot to so from the mother and her babies. The dog squeals and makes a go to get free but the boy holds firm, and maybe I think some of that karate nonsense has stood to him.
Yeh alright? I ask and he tells me he’s grand, but I can see his teeth showing. I take another puff of the spray to settle the pain the shock has brung and the boy drags the pup away without instruction and secures the chain to the gatepost, pulling twice to make sure it can’t come loose. Then he waits for me, wordless, in his white t-shirt that’ll need a hot wash with suds to be clean again.
I slip the spray back into my pocket and head towards him.
Your vagina again? he says.
Wheist, less of that in case yer mother hears yeh.
And he smiles the way I smile as we walk back towards the house.
‘Mon so, I say, let’s get yeh fed.