Every Living Thing Read online

  “By gaw, you’re right, Mr. Herriot, and I can’t thank ye enough. I really thought I had a dead ’un on me hands this time.” When I bent over the bucket he gave me a friendly thump on the back.

  As I dried my arms I looked round the byre with its row of well-kept cows. Over some months Ted had gutted the place completely, hacking out the ancient wooden partitions and replacing them with tubular metal, plastering the walls, digging up the cobbled floor and laying down concrete. He had done all the work himself.

  He followed my gaze. “What d’you think of me little place now?”

  “It’s great, you’ve done wonders, Ted. And you’ve built a nice little dairy, too.”

  “Aye, ah’ve got to get that T.T. licence somehow.” He rubbed his chin. “But there’s a few things that don’t come up to standard. Like not enough space between the channel and the back wall. There’s nowt I can do about that and one or two other points. But if the Ministry’ll grant me a licence I’ll get another fourpence on every gallon of milk and it’ll make all the difference in the world to me.”

  He laughed, as though reading my thoughts. “Maybe you don’t think fourpence is much, but you know, we don’t need a lot o’ money. We never go out at night—we’re quite happy playin’ cards and Ludo and dominoes with the kids, and with these cows to milk and feed and muck out twice a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year, I’m tied to the spot.” He laughed again. “Ah can’t remember when I even went into Darrowby. No, we don’t want much money, but right now I’m just hanging on—only keepin’ my head above water. Any road, I’ll know after next Thursday. They’re having a meeting to decide.”

  I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t tell him that I was the one who had to make a confidential report to the Milk Committee on that day about him and his farm and it all rested on whether I could convince them. Ted’s fourpence a gallon was in my hands and it frightened me a bit, because if the T.T. licence didn’t go through I dared not think how much longer he could carry on his struggle to make a go of this wind-blown farm with its sparse pastures.

  I packed up my gear and we went outside. Breathing in the cold, clean air I looked at the cloud shadows chasing across the tumbled miles of green hills, and at the few acres that were Ted’s world. They made a little wall-girt island lapped around by the tufted grass of the moorland, which was always trying to flow over and swamp it. Those fields had to be fed and fertilised to keep them from returning to their wild state, and the walls, twisted and bent by the centuries, kept shedding their stones—another job to be done by that one man. I recalled a time when Ted told me that one of his luxuries was to wake up in the middle of the night so that he could turn over and go to sleep again.

  As I started the engine he waved, raising a huge, work-callused hand. Bumping down the hillside I looked back at the thin, slightly stooping figure standing by the house with its fringe of stunted trees, and an awareness of his situation welled in me as it had done so often before. Compared to his, my life was a picnic.

  Chapter 6

  THE FOLLOWING THURSDAY I awoke with the words of my appeal for Ted spinning around in my head and I kept mouthing a few phrases in the car as I did a couple of early calls. I was due in the Ministry Office at 11:00 A.M. and by ten o’clock I was back home ready to change.

  I was about to go upstairs when Helen came in.

  “You’ll never believe this,” she said breathlessly. “But Mr. Bendelow saw me as I passed his window and gave me the suit.”

  “Mr. Pumphrey’s suit?”

  “Yes, it’s all altered and ready for you to wear.” She stared at me, wide-eyed.

  I looked at the parcel in amazement. “Well, that’s never happened before. We asked for a miracle and got one.”

  “That’s right,” Helen said. “And another thing, I feel sure it’s a happy omen.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You can wear it when you speak to the Milk Committee. You’ll really impress them in a suit like that.”

  Her words struck home. As an orator I was no Winston Churchill and I needed any help that was going. In the bedroom I tore off my clothes and climbed into the refurbished trousers. They were now exactly the right length but there was something else, something I hadn’t noticed when I had tried them on before. The waistband came right up over my chest until it was almost tucked under my arms. Those were the days of high waistbands that rested comfortably well above the hips, but Mr. Pumphrey’s stature had vastly accentuated this. I was beaten again. I turned and faced Helen and her mouth began to twitch. Then she lowered her head and her body shook with repressed giggles.

  “Don’t start that again!” I cried. “They’re nearly as funny as last time. You don’t have to tell me. Anyway, I can’t wear these damned things, that’s all there is to it. I’m just a walking pair of trousers with a head and shoulders poking out at the top.” I was about to pull off the maddening garments when Helen held up a hand.

  “Wait…wait…” she said. “Put on the jacket.”

  “What good will that do?”

  “The lapels are very high, just put it on.”

  With a feeling of hopelessness I shrugged myself into the jacket and turned towards her.

  Helen was looking at me with something like awe. “It’s wonderful,” she whispered. “Incredible.”

  “What is?”

  “Look at yourself.”

  I looked into the mirror and Lord Herriot of Darrowby looked out at me. The waistband was quite hidden and the suit was there in all its glory of rich material and superb tailoring, draped on me elegantly as if it had been made for me.

  “My God,” I breathed. “I never knew clothes could make all that difference. I’m like another person.”

  “Yes, you are,” agreed Helen eagerly. “You’re like an important, prestigious person. You must wear it for the committee—you’ll knock them cold!”

  While I washed and combed my hair I had the warm sense of everything slotting into place when all had seemed lost, and as I left after a final admiring glance at myself in the mirror I was filled with an airy confidence.

  Outside, a bitter wind swept over the fields but I couldn’t feel it. Nothing could penetrate my apparel; in fact I felt sure that, dressed like this, I could walk in comfort to the North Pole without changing.

  In the car my body heat rose rapidly and I had to open the windows. I was glad when I reached my destination and was able to take a few breaths of the cold air. My relief, however, was short-lived because as soon as the swing doors of the Ministry Office closed behind me a stifling heat hit me. On all my previous visits I had wondered how people could work in this atmosphere with the central heating going full blast, and as I walked along the corridor looking through the glass at the typists and technicians and Ministry officials apparently going about their business, quite happily I marvelled anew. Only this time it was worse. Much, much worse. This time I was cocooned almost up to my chin in two layers of carpet-like material.

  It was the waistband, of course, that was the trouble, clamped round my entire rib-cage like a great constricting hand; and I had the silly feeling that the suit itself was carrying me along to the double doors of the conference room at the end of the corridor. In the big room it was hotter than ever and I had a moment of panic when I thought I wouldn’t be able to breathe, but I settled down as the committee members welcomed me in their usual friendly way and the chairman ushered me to my seat at the long table.

  There were about twenty people in the Milk Committee: big farmers, technical officers of the Ministry, two of the great landowners of the district in Lord Darbrough and Sir Henry Brookly, a physician and one practising veterinary surgeon, me. I had felt honoured when I was invited to join and had tried to fulfil my duties to the best of my ability, but this morning was something special.

  Sir Henry was chairman and as he started the proceedings I prayed that it would be a short session. I knew I couldn’t stand it for long, tightly muffled in this