Haweswater by Sarah Hall Page B

after a disastrous fishing trip last year when he was using the Langdale boathouse. Crooked-nosedy fella, aye. He confirmed that the Mardale tenancies were under review. Relating to a private business endeavour with aManchester corporation. She was assured by him that they would all be informed, by letter and within a month, of the estate’s decision.
    Murmurs went through the crowd, a comment or two about a woman’s place, very quietly. Basically, that means yer all fuckin’ out, she said, and slammed a hand hard down on to a table. And if Teddy Hindmarsh was so convinced this was horse shite, and that a lassie couldn’t understand grass for grain, she suggested he make a call himself and try his hand with that wan bastard who’d be better off drowned.
    Behind her the tall figure of Paul Levell had entered the bar and was nodding slightly. Janet Lightburn stepped between broad unwashed bodies to the bar and ordered an ale from Jake McGill.

    Sometime after midnight of the following week, Janet and her father walk into the farm kitchen, which still has warm air from the glowing cinders of the range. Their hands are frozen and bloody. Janet moves to the sink and soaps her wrists in cold water. The water tank is not hot at this time of night and she has to work the blood off without the aid of dissolving heat. It sets under her nails as she scrubs, blackens. There is a numb buzzing in her head from the strong wind on the fells, where she has been braced on the ground with her father for over an hour. Her eyes are weary. Lambing season means little sleep for Westmorland farmers, but within days their bodies have adjusted to the new routine, finding a strange and fraught level of energy that comes in the wake of sleep-deficiency. It is a difficult time, when winter can sweep down into the valley just as the village is beginning to see the crests of snowdrops and crocuses budding through the earth. Snow buries and camouflages labouring sheep and only the stray sound of a bleat will indicate the hole into which the animals have headed.
    If they can find the animals due to birth, and bring them into the safety of the farm sheds or a sheltered corner field, it is a far easier task. There is steady light from the hurricane lamps and the ewes can be positioned and helped, the sticky lambs kept warm. But predictions are seldom accurate, and it is bleak searching the fells for a twisting ewe in early labour. These births are almost impossible to assist in the black cold. The bark of the dog, frantic over a fallen animal. A wet lamb, rocking in the savage wind, often has to be shown how to live and move or it will not survive a single, tenuous night. There is precious little on the side of a farmer during this time of year.
    Even later in the lambing season the spring weather brings its share of problems. Treacherous mud and constant rain churn the ground and there is no firm outside surface offering traction and stability, a table upon which to drag still-borns from their mothers. Dejected, the sheep often cry over their listless lambs, refusing to eat in the coming days, the loss double for the farm. Panicked by imminent delivery, a sheep might stumble off its heft, up into the crags where it cannot be reached. Silly season, Samuel calls it, though his daughter is all earnestness during these weeks, mirthless, and more driven than even her father.
    Samuel Lightburn scuttles coal into the oven. He fills the kettle with water and places it on the hotplate. Ella has left out some biscuits and cheese on a plate, covered with a cloth. The two eat ravenously while moving about in the room, unbuttoning coats, wrenching off wet boots and setting them against the range. The house is quiet above them and a carriage clock ticks on the shelf. Two-fifteen.
    Father and daughter sit at the table with their hands wrapped around mugs of hot, sweet tea. There is no point in climbing the stairs to bed at this hour. At four another shift of lambing