The Last Thing
By hadrian_ellory-van_dekker
- 213 reads
The Last Thing
He was not, had never been, what you would call a sentimental man. He
disliked
the cinema. He had never owned a television. He had rarely,
throughout
sixty-seven years of life, read a book. He did listen to the radio: but
only to hear the
news distractedly and the weather forecast most attentively. He had
walked. He
had worked.
In this place, by the aga in the functional heart of the house, he was
fully at
home. He had never lived elsewhere. These rooms had watched him grow.
They
knew him and he knew them implicitly. He was aware, as everyone must
be, of the
existence of the outside world. ('Outside' consisted of everywhere that
fell without a
fifty mile radius.) A place where the price of sheep meat fell far
short of the cost of
rearing the animals he had spent his life breeding and tending. His
universe, both
real and abstract, had always been bounded by the steeply rising hills
that made
even the sky appear small.
From every window within the house, from every vantage point around
the small-
holding, one always saw the steep, ever verdant, stonily inhospitable
sides of the
valley. These barriers had always enclosed him. They were, if you took
the trouble
to understand them, kind and provided a secure home for his flocks.
This world of
wind, water and stone had protected him from the magnitude of the sky
and that
world outside which had always troubled him. He knew intimately every
rise and
fall in the ground that constituted the acreage that had been handed
down to him
by his father and his father before him. He belonged to this land. If
he was a part
of anything, he was a part of this community. He had been born here.
He
recognized that the sheep now grazed the hillsides too closely and that
the river
banks, unless soon attended to, would be eroded beyond repair. These
were his
realities.
Hugh had selected the place carefully. He had chosen the spot with
care and,
over the past few days, he had been collecting stones there in order to
build the
cairn over where she would lie. Now, as Meg lay dying, he waited.
She had been initially so very unpromising. They had all criticized
him, his
fellow hill-dwellers, for the time and care he had lavished so lovingly
upon her.
He had not, at that time, understood his own motivation. His instinct
had, however,
been right. They had been made to eat their words and she had more than
repaid
him for his care. She was sleeping now. She flinched, letting out a
muffled dream-
cry, answered by the spasmodic contractions of her legs. She did not
wake. This
morning's walk had finished her. She had momentarily forgotten her age
and
infirmity. The landscape had called and she had responded. Now, as
her
laboured breathing showed only too clearly, she must pay the price for
that final
exertion. He had known that it would be like this, that when it came,
it would come
suddenly. He was prepared. This was the last thing that he would have
to take
care of. Then, they could begin to take care of him. He smiled at the
novelty of the
thought and immediately felt guilty for having smiled.
He reached over and the placed the heavily sweetened tea before her.
The
disturbance, his movements or the noise, roused her and she attempted
to rise.
She stopped, suddenly both aware of and baffled by her lack of
strength, and laid
back, fixing him with her eyes. He dipped his fingers into the warm and
milky fluid
and held them to her mouth. Her tongue eagerly, yet noiselessly, lapped
at the
sweetness. He tipped some of the tea into the palm of his hand and held
this
towards her. She drank. Then, when she had finished drinking, she
rested her
head upon his lap. He was comforted by the familiar warmth and weight.
They
remained like this for the rest of the time. She slept again. He
watched as the
afternoon faded and evening grew to fill the rectangle of the window.
He was,
throughout this time, faintly aware of the warm moistness of her saliva
as it seeped
from the corners of her mouth and was absorbed into the thick fabric of
his
trousers.
At last, it was over. It was not dramatic: curling herself towards the
warmth of his
body, she relaxed and stopped. It was that simple. He remained sitting
for some
time, intently stroking and petting her, allowing those large, rounded
and scorching
tears of childhood to run themselves dry. He rose, slowly and with
deliberation. He
freed his body from the weight of her and wrapped her in the tartan
blanket that
had always been her particular favourite.
She had been so unpromising. The runt of the litter: shunned by her
mother and
siblings. She had remained inert and shown absolutely no desire to
fight for life on
that cold morning nearly seventeen years before. He had decided then
that she
should not die. He had made her fight. He had massaged her and forced
warmed
milk into her through the severed and pierced finger of a rubber glove.
He thought
he had lost. Nevertheless, he persisted. Then, later in the morning,
she had
rallied. Since that moment, they had been inseparable. She had
responded to his
training instinctively: anticipating his thoughts before they had been
translated into
the well-known calls. She had even sometimes prevented him from
making
mistakes, checking his impatience by willfully delaying her own
actions. She had
learned quickly and she had far exceeded the capabilities of her
mother. It had
been second nature to her. Her descendants now populated and worked
the
adjacent small-holdings. Some had gone even farther afield. He knew,
that
although gifted, they would never be able to match her skill.
He could leave now. He could take it easy. He could allow someone
younger,
with so much more energy and inclination, to work this land as it
deserved to be
worked. She would never have coped with the transition. She would never
have
adapted to a life of retirement in the village. It was so much easier
this way. They
would say he was a sentimental old fool. But he knew that he would
never have a
working-dog like Meg again. He had been fortunate.
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