Driving Over Lemons Part 14

HERBS AND HUSBANDRY.

IF WE HAD WORRIES ABOUT CHLOe BEYOND HER SURVIVAL amid the scorpions and other terrors to infant life it was that she might become lonely on an isolated farm with just her doting, middle-aged parents for company. She seemed happy enough consorting with the rude beasts that surrounded her, conducting scientific observations of the mole crickets and ants, and making the acquaintance of all the plants and shrubs that grew on the farm. But there are some games that can only be satisfactorily played with friends of the same species. Chloe, we knew, would sooner or later be needing a playmate. Luckily she found one as close to hand as you can get at El Valero in Rosa, Bernardo and Isabel's youngest daughter, 'given light' to a year before Chloe at their home in the farm across the river. From the day they met, Chloe and Rosa claimed one another as sisters and would keep themselves peacefully amused with such useful occupations as tossing ca.s.sette tapes into the lavatory or throwing stones at the sheep. Rosa couldn't speak English and, as Chloe hadn't a word of Dutch, they communicated in Spanish. Having a daughter who was a native Granadina and fluent in Spanish helped to contribute to our sense of being finally settled. 'You've sown your seed here you're one of us now,' Old Man Domingo had told me.

Life was beginning to run more or less smoothly. We made enough money from the sheep, the seed-collecting and the shearing to get by and had begun to nurture plans to convert the disused house on the other side of the river near Domingo's house into a holiday cottage. Our home, while still far from opulent, was in good enough repair to keep the rain off in winter and the worst of the heat out in summer, while the farm was moving slowly towards some semblance of order and health. There was one blot, however, that was threatening to disturb the careful equilibrium that underpinned our domestic harmony. The dogs and the sheep were at war.

Bodger and Barkis had grown into a pair of ma.s.sive but amiable mongrels. They were even bigger than the now full-grown Bonka, and in this, in the broad flatness of their noses and their bovine dispositions, I detected the hand of Rosa's dog, Cees, who had recently been sent to his maker after a grisly episode involving some chickens.

Bodger's ears had remained in the one-up-one-down configuration which left him as endearing as when he was a pup, and Barkis was also a beauty. Unfortunately Barkis was exceptionally dim. There wasn't an educable cl.u.s.ter of neurons in the whole of his thick skull, and he was an incorrigible chaser of sheep. Once he'd had a taste of the whole flock flying in panic up the hill, heads down and feet flailing madly in the dust, he couldn't resist; he had to make them repeat the performance every time he saw them. It drove me to distraction. No shepherd can allow such an abuse of their flock and after emerging from the house to find them yet again stranded on a nearby hillock, quivering with fear, I snapped.

'Right, that's enough, Ana. I'm going to shoot the b.u.g.g.e.r! Look, he's chased the sheep up the b.l.o.o.d.y hill again. They're terrified, the whole flock is a bundle of nerves.'

'Go on, give him one more chance, please.'

'I've given the sod chance after chance. I've been patient. I've been nice to him. I've shouted at him. I've whopped him. I've tried training him. But he's completely dim-witted. It's no use, he's got to go. I hate to do it because he's a lovely dog, but if I don't do something now he's going to start killing sheep, and I'm not having that.'

Ana and Chloe watched aghast as I stomped off across the valley to borrow Domingo's shotgun. My intentions were absolutely fixed. I was going to shoot that brainless cur and put an end once and for all to the terrorising of my sheep. But Domingo wasn't in, so I stomped back, secretly rather glad.

Trudging up the path to the terrace where we had buried Beaune, I came across Chloe, inexpertly digging with her sand spade. 'We'll have to bury Barkis, won't we, daddy?' she asked, gazing down with dread seriousness at the hamster-sized hole she'd just completed.

'No Chloe, I'm not going to shoot Barkis,' I answered, lifting her onto my shoulders, out of the way of scrutinising a face wracked with guilt. Ana was up at the house getting ready to visit 199 all the dog-owners who might be persuaded to offer a home to Barkis. Janet promised to give the matter some thought.

Meanwhile, Barkis, oblivious of his reprieve, excelled himself by chasing the whole flock down the river to La Herradura, and then straight up the steep slope of La Serreta on the other side of the Cadiar river. I didn't see the wretched episode but Rodrigo the goatherd had watched the entire proceedings and had been decidedly unimpressed.

Manolo del Granadino broke the news of the exodus to me when I b.u.mped into him later that day in town. He said he had seen the sheep grazing just above the almond groves of El Enjambre. There would be trouble if I didn't get them down as soon as possible, he reckoned.

'They'll come off the hill raiding at night and destroy all the vegetables of the vega vega, then you'll be for it.'

'I think you're being a little over-dramatic there, Manolo, but you're right, I'd better get up there and do something about it.' It was an odd notion, the idea of sheep as night-raiders, coming down like the a.s.syrian horde on the ranks of the valley farmers' vegetables . . . hiding in the inaccessible hills by day.

On the way back from town Ana drove me up to the Venta del Enjambre and left me there with a banana, a pinch of bread and a swig of water. I gathered up a stout stick and set off down the barranco barranco, peering around for the sheep and straining my ears for the bells. It was a lovely, warm February afternoon, the sun veiled by thin cloud. I strolled down the track to La Hoya and stood by the river watching Ana and Chloe disappear round the hill and out of sight. No sign of the sheep, though. I doubled back the way I had come and after about ten minutes caught the distant bongling of bells. The flock was moving along the skyline, high above me. There was no way to get up to them from where I stood as the entire hill face was covered in chest-high gorse, so I changed direction and tramped eastwards in the hopes of finding a path.

Reaching the pa.s.s at the eastern end of the hill I had no option left but to pick my way downriver along the route by which I intended to bring the flock back. Still no path. Exasperated, I struck straight up the steep rock-toothed ridge, clambering on and on through the pine- and rosemary-scented air until, at last, on the summit I discovered a feeble path, that seemingly started nowhere and ran along the ridge from peak to peak.

I sat down to regain my breath and, basking in the late afternoon sunshine, surveyed the scene below. Tiny El Valero was just visible to the trained eye, out beyond the river. Way off to the north were fields of snow shrouding the high peaks, with storm-clouds rolling around them; but where I was sitting was perfect peace, the rivers dimmed to a gentle sussuration, the odd tutubia skeetering away and screeching. I smiled to myself at the thought that the sheep had lured me up to this spot to allow me to enjoy an afternoon's ramble.

As if to crown the moment I heard the distant tinkle of sheep-bells. There they were, a mile off, tiny specks in the scrub, not far from where I'd seen them earlier. I struck down through the two hidden valleys with their tumbled fortifications the Serreta had been a Republican redoubt during the last months of the Civil War and across a long scree-slope waist-high with rosemary. Creeping up, I remonstrated gently with my charges: 'This is no place for sheep, for heaven's sake! Goats maybe, but sheep, no. What on earth do you find to eat here anyway? There's not a st.i.tch of gra.s.s.'

Looking around, I started wondering in earnest how I was going to get them down. They didn't want to go down, I could see that. 'Right, let's go home,' I said, and did a little clucking and whooping. Some of the sheep moved off rather unconvincingly in one direction.

I took stock of the situation. I didn't know where we were, nor did I know the lie of the land. Everywhere there were smaller or greater precipices, and with the waist-high scrub you couldn't see them until you were plunging headlong over. The sheep that I was about to throw a rock at, to get them to move along, could be teetering on the very edge of a sheer drop. I skirted around them to have a look. They were.

So with oaths and stones I turned them around and we headed steadily back along the hill the way I had come. It was h.e.l.l getting them underway. 'Haaii!' I shouted, waving my stick, and a dozen sheep would move forward. The rest would look at them without much interest, then amble off down the hill, grazing as they went, so I hurtled down through the thorns and rocks to threaten the lower part of the flock. These moved off reluctantly in the right direction. Meanwhile the top lot had stopped and were heading higher up towards some nasty-looking rocks. I leaped back up again and headed them more or less in the right direction. Meanwhile, the lower part of the flock . . . I cursed myself for being fool enough not to have a proper sheepdog.

Still, by throwing stones and whooping and shouting, I managed to move them all onto the faintly discernible ridge path. As we picked our way gingerly along, I chatted to them to keep them relaxed and in a good mood. 'Just keep moving along there nicely now, girls. That's lovely, nice and steady now. Find your own way along, no hurry, plenty of daylight left,' and suchlike.

The views from that ridge were breathtaking but knowing that if I were to slip I would probably go hurtling over the edge somewhat dulled my appreciation. Luckily I have a fair head for heights, and the sheep, well, they leave such trivial worries to the shepherd. The leaders of the flock insisted on sticking slavishly to the exact ridge path, which meant climbing up to, and then clambering down from, the very pinnacle of every one of the jagged peaks of this saw-toothed little range. We must have cut a farcical figure from below as we moved along, silhouetted against the darkening sky.

With the setting of the sun, the full extent of my predicament began to dawn upon me. Here I was at the back, or sometimes in the middle, of a slowly moving flock of sheep, high on a precipitous mountaintop from which I had no clear idea of the way down. With the deepening shadows, the contours of the slopes which had earlier filled me with such delight took on an increasing menace. If we reached the eastern end of the range, there was, as I well knew, no way down for a sheep. Even if I did manage to get them down to road level and I could see the road, a fine grey ribbon far, far below, with tiny cars and lorries whispering along it I would somehow have to turn them towards the river, and away from the lush vegetable fields of the vega vega at the bottom. No easy feat for one exhausted shepherd. I would just have to leave the whole thing to chance. at the bottom. No easy feat for one exhausted shepherd. I would just have to leave the whole thing to chance.

The sun sank lower, black clouds fouled the sky, the night drew deeper and the sheep ambled along ever more slowly. My thoughts were by now of the blackest. The plants I had enjoyed earlier plucked spitefully at me as I pa.s.sed, while rocks seemed to shoot from the ground to wrack my ankles.

'We ought to cut down to the right here,' I announced to the sheep, 'because although it looks a h.e.l.lish descent, it's certainly a lot easier than the face at the end and whatever you do, sheep, don't you even think about the north side! That way lies despair.' The urge to talk aloud at that fearful moment, even to sheep, was irresistible.

The sheep didn't much like the look of the north side either. It was an awesome prospect of steep rocky slopes, covered in thick scrub, with cliffs that plunged hundreds of feet to the river. Running through the bushes on their left flank, I redoubled my efforts, hurling rocks and yelling like a banshee. 'Down there down there, you stupid b.u.g.g.e.rs. Look, I know it looks grim, but take my word for it, it's a lot less b.l.o.o.d.y grim than what's ahead of you if you keep on along that ridge!' They looked at me, chewing insolently, and moved on straight up the edge of the next, last and highest peak.

'b.l.o.o.d.y Nora! You brainless s.h.i.ts look at the mess you've got us into now! How in the name of Beelzebub are we going to get down off this?' The cars spinning silently along the road below had their lights on now. A quarter moon sailed among the threatening clouds.

As I moved round, stumbling across the north side of the peak, the sheep at the back turned quietly round and trotted off back the way we had just come. I stopped and stared after them in horror. A Sisyphean vision swam into view of an eternity of walking back and forth along the skyline of this ridge with my dim-witted animals. The flock was fragmenting little by little, some moving back the way we had come, some thinking about the north face, one or two eating on the slope I wanted them to go down, but most of them just standing and looking thoughtfully into the gathering night.

I tried one final burst of frenzied activity, leaping back and forth over the ankle-cracking rocks in the dark, howling and yelling and thrashing the scrub with my stick. It was no good. I had to admit defeat for the night, anyway, and slithered off down that horrible slope.

As I went I made the noises favoured by local people who want sheep to follow them. The sheep listened courteously but decided against it. And fifty metres down the hill I came across the path I had been looking for on the way up.

The next day Domingo and Antonio offered to come up with me to get the sheep off the hill. 'That's very good of you,' I said. 'But I really can't see how we're going to get them down.'

We headed up the hill armed with Domingo's pack of five nondescript curs, and after about an hour's scramble managed to locate the sheep, more or less where I had left them, at the top of the steep cliffs.

'We'll push them down the north side,' said Domingo. 'They'll always go down best the way they came up.'

'You're joking, Domingo. That side is about ninety percent vertical cliff.'

Antonio rolled a cigarette and kept his own counsel.

'Bah!' said Domingo and whistled the bird whistle he uses to get his flock moving. The sheep raised their heads, startled. Then they bolted as one, straight over the edge of the cliff.

I rushed panic-stricken to the edge, expecting to see their little woolly bodies plummeting hundreds of feet through the air to shatter on the rocks of the river far below. But no, there they were, skittering from ledge to ledge, b.u.m up, ears down, hurtling headlong down that impossible hill. It took them seven and a half minutes to reach the river, and then they shot up to the farm and in minutes were lost to view on the orange terraces.

'Well, that wasn't very difficult!' said Domingo brightly, as we all sat down on a rock to look at the view and enjoy the smoke curling away from Antonio.

No sooner had the news reached Janet about the Serreta incident than she came striding across the valley to see us. 'Out of my way! There's a dog's life at stake!' she shouted at some hikers who coincided with her at the bridge.

'I've found an excellent position for Barkis,' she announced when she reached the house. 'Good European family,' she added, meaning they weren't Spanish. 'Now, how much does the dog weigh? The people I've found are very concerned that he should not weigh more than twenty kilos. They don't want to be pulled over by him. How much? Thirty kilos? Well, that should be alright. He's a beautiful boy, just right for them. I'll ring them tonight. They'll be down to collect him tomorrow.'

The dogs happened to be suffering from fleas at the time; there was an outbreak in the stable by the workshop where Bodger and Barkis had their quarters. We covered them all with flea-powder that night, in the hope that they might look more presentable the following day.

As Janet had promised, Barkis's prospective owners turned up next morning, equipped with a pair of bathroom scales. The flea-powder had done its work and brought all the fleas biting furiously to the surface of the dogs' coats. So the dogs were twisting and turning and scratching and gnawing at themselves in a frenzy of itching. You could actually see the wretched fleas hopping. Nevertheless, Barkis could turn on the charm when he thought it might be in his interest to do so. George and Alison were so delighted by him that they took him home with them that very night.

Barkis fell on his feet with his new owners. They have a rabbit farm and they supplemented his diet with dead rabbits. They also took him for walks on their mountain every day and to church with them on Sundays. He thrived under this tender regime and gave up chasing sheep altogether. Then he was poisoned by the hunters.

Hunters in the Alpujarras routinely put poisoned bait down to kill any beast that might disturb their birds. It's a highly illegal as well as cruel practice and a lot of dogs die horrible deaths as a result. But few of the victims' owners bother to make any sort of fuss. Not so George and Alison. They were wretched with misery when Mariano the shepherd brought them their dog, dead in his arms, and immediately launched a campaign to publicise the outrage. The mayor was pet.i.tioned, legal advice was sought regarding criminal proceedings, and together with the village pharmacist they produced an emetic to distribute free of charge to anyone whose dog was in danger. It was a shame that Barkis couldn't have witnessed his ascension to cause celebre.

If the truth be told, Barkis was not the only one of our dogs liable to kill sheep. All dogs will have a go at chasing sheep given the opportunity, but some more so than others. One summer morning the sheep strayed onto a terrace uncomfortably close to Ana's vegetable patch. I ran down to move them off, and the dogs followed. Bonka stood eagerly by as I pushed the flock through the gate. Bodger, however, was not to be found. Fearing the worst I raced up to the far end of the terrace and there came upon a grisly scene. A sheep was stuck in the mesh fence, and was struggling helplessly while Bodger was methodically tearing it to pieces.

I yelled at the dog, heaved a huge rock, and missed. Then I disentangled what was left of the poor creature from the fence. She stood, swayed a little and collapsed in a pool of blood. I rolled her over to have a look at her wounds, averting my eyes and sucking a long breath through my teeth until the spasm of horror pa.s.sed. I didn't know just what fearful wounds those teeth could inflict. The sheep's legs, back and front, were torn apart, like cut meat on a butcher's slab. Her belly was ripped deep and there were b.l.o.o.d.y toothmarks all over her.

I had never seen such a horrible savaging and ran up to the house to get a knife to finish her off. But when I got back she had heaved herself to her feet and was staggering towards the stable. 'If she has that much will to live,' said Ana, 'then it would be wrong to put her down. We must try and treat her.'

'Have you seen the wounds, Ana? They are appalling, she can't possibly survive.'

'We can try, anyway. I'll consult Juliette.' And so saying, she retreated to the house to pore over The Complete Herbal The Complete Herbal Handbook for Farm and Stable Handbook for Farm and Stable by Juliette de Bairacli-Levy, which lay permanently to hand on the corner of our kitchen table. by Juliette de Bairacli-Levy, which lay permanently to hand on the corner of our kitchen table.

I helped the sheep to the stable, made her a pen bedded with fresh straw, and put her lamb in with her. Though she must have been suffering unimaginable pain, the first thing she did was to haul herself to her feet to let the lamb drink. This was definitely a sheep worth saving. I gave her an injection of antibiotics and a feed. Ana came down with some sort of natural cleansing solution, as recommended by Juliette, and bathed the wounds carefully as I held the sheep. She washed away every speck of dirt from every wound on the body, pulling away the wool where it had stuck to the meat.

I couldn't bear to look at the wounds the sight of that torn flesh made my blood crawl but Ana set to work with patience and skill. It took two hours just to clean the wounds. Then we fitted loose bandages wherever possible to keep off the thousands of flies intent on debauching themselves on her blood. The next morning, as prescribed by Juliette, I had to urinate first thing in a bucket, the resultant liquid to be used for the bathing of wounds. Ana and I walked down to the stable (me rather self-consciously swinging the bucket) and tipped the sheep over to remove its bandages. The wounds were now covered in scabs and clots and bits of straw but the sheep munched contentedly while Ana doused them with my morning pee. And so we proceeded, for a week or so, administering one or other ghastly herbal drench from Juliette's natural animal husbandry regime, as the ewe visibly recovered. It kept milking throughout, and its lamb thrived.

Apart from one tendon whose tear would have needed microsurgery beyond Juliette's primer and which left a bent forefoot the sheep recovered completely. She has reared two sets of twins since and the long period of treatment made her quite tame.

It was a result that went beyond the benefits of a single sheep. Knowing that we had rescued the animal, and treated her with natural medicines, left me feeling quite different about my flock and indeed the whole style of farming we were able to practise. In a big efficient flock, sheep with a far better chance of survival than this one would have been knocked straight on the head.

As for Bodger, well we kept a careful eye on him after that.

Over the years, Juliette de Bairacli-Levy has attained such an influence over our household that it's hard not to think of her as a resident in-law, one of a triad of women who dictate the course of my life. She stayed down the road in Lanjaron during the 1950s, and was, or still is (for rumour has it that she lives today among a clump of pine trees on Mount Hermon, a somewhat contentious spot on the borders of Israel, Syria and Lebanon), a woman obsessed with herbs and natural ways of healing. One of her claims to fame is that, during her time in Spain, she nursed herself and her four-year-old son through typhus, pitting herself against the Lanjaron doctors by insisting on following her own prescriptions of herbs and fresh water.

A battered, second-hand copy of Spanish Mountain Life Spanish Mountain Life, Juliette's wonderfully quirky and triumphant account of that year in Lanjaron, formed our introduction to her works. Then some friends sent us a copy of The Complete Herbal Handbook The Complete Herbal Handbook for Farm and Stable for Farm and Stable. On the back were all sorts of testimonials from no-nonsense bodies like the British Horse Society and Farmers' Weekly Farmers' Weekly. Juliette was thus stamped with the mark of respectability.

On many an evening when I came home tired and dusty from the field or the hill, I would find Ana engrossed in the more worryingly ent.i.tled Ill.u.s.trated Herbal Handbook for Everyone Ill.u.s.trated Herbal Handbook for Everyone, soon to be dubbed 'Towards a Healthier and More Wholesome Husband through Herbs'. Ana would regard me pensively as she looked up from the pages. Then, to her undisguised delight, I whacked the sharp point of a sickle into the side of my knee as I was clearing an acequia acequia channel. This is a typical Alpujarran wound, by all accounts, all men having been born with a sickle in their hand and most of them subsequently going on one way or another to get it in their knee. Mine went in deep, and the knee swelled up like a football. channel. This is a typical Alpujarran wound, by all accounts, all men having been born with a sickle in their hand and most of them subsequently going on one way or another to get it in their knee. Mine went in deep, and the knee swelled up like a football.

Ana consulted Juliette, then made a poultice of herbs and a vile potion that I was to drink. Comfrey was an ingredient of both poultice and potion, and the drink also featured coa.r.s.e wormwood and garlic, just in case I should not find it sufficiently detestable. I'm more or less convinced that it worked, for the wound healed unusually fast. Meanwhile, Ana's confidence in her powers as a herbal healer soared. She could hardly wait for another opportunity to test her new skill.

Not long after the business with the knee, I obliged her by being very sick indeed. Ana found me vomiting violently into the rosebushes one afternoon, wishing to die. She sat down on a stone beside me and leafed through the wretched book. 'Juliette says here that it's a wonder that man is so concerned to stop vomiting which is a natural and wholesome purge for all the ills of the body. What do you think of that, eh?'

'BAAUUUGGHHH!'

'But if you really do feel as bad as you look, then you can have some grated raw quince, some cloves, ginger and lemon juice. That'll fix you up.'

It did, given time, and a reluctance to repeat the cure.

Juliette's record with us remains good so far, and at El Valero her dictums are applied equally to humans, sheep, horses, dogs and cats the last being surprisingly accommodating. I am always amused to watch them eagerly queuing up for their weekly dose of garlic, honey and wormwood b.a.l.l.s, while at full moon Bonka and Bodger get pomegranate juice and garlic for their worms. Even Ana, however, stops short at embracing all Juliette's ideas, for it must be said that there is a puritanical streak in the books. Juliette disapproves strongly, for example, of what she calls 'fired food' that is to say cooked food which she claims destroys the ingredients' natural goodness and healthful properties. Nor, she says, should you wear rubber-soled shoes, as they deny you the benefits of the wholesome natural emanations of the earth. Still, Juliette is always worth consulting on the less obvious problems that might beset one how to deal, for example, with the rotting carca.s.ses that are apt to appear in one's garden.

At El Valero, when a sheep dies of mysterious causes and so cannot be consigned to the pot, it gets bundled into a wheelbarrow and heaved over the barranco barranco. The dogs watch this performance with ill-feigned indifference. They string the thing out for a couple of days, until the sheep starts to develop an interesting flavour, then they start work on it. Over the next ten days or so, the sheep returns to haunt us in the form of foul-smelling meaty limbs torn from the carca.s.s and great wodges of rotting flesh with wool on it. The dogs bring these up to the house and spread them around the garden. It's not a practice to everybody's taste. When things get really bad, these offerings start to make their presence felt in the house itself. One night I stepped out of bed in the dark and found myself treading on something large, sharp and slimy. With a squeal I lunged for the torch and discovered the skull of a wild boar, with some interesting bits of flesh still clinging to it. The dogs, who had found it in the river, stood proudly by wagging their tails.

Ana consulted Juliette, who was of course very much in favour of unfired flesh for the dogs, and somewhat dismissive of our objections to the smell of the stuff lying around the house and garden. Why, it might even have the beneficial effect of bringing on a healthy bout of vomiting. She did, however, have a solution that would not only keep the dead animals out of harm's way but would provide a cheap store of dog food. It involved boning the meat and then burying it beneath a mat of selected herbs which were to preserve it.

As the man of the house, I was delegated to dig the hole. It was a hot summer day and the earth was like concrete. I cursed Juliette roundly as I picked and scrabbled about under Ana's supervision. 'That's quite deep enough now,' I grumbled.

'It's not. Juliette says it should be a good metre deep.'

'Juliette wouldn't have had to dig the d.a.m.n hole.'

'No, she would very sensibly have got some man to do it for her. It wants to be a lot deeper than that . . . and finish the sides off nicely. I'm going to gather herbs.'

When she returned from the herb-gathering, Ana looked disdainfully at the hole. It wasn't as Juliette had ordained but it would have to do. Ana and Chloe watched from a safe distance while I boned the meat. You don't do jobs like this in summer, and for a very good reason. I worked in a cloud of flies and wasps. It's not pleasant having two or three dozen wasps wandering about on your hands, but fortunately they were too engorged in blood and meat to care much about stinging. Soon I was left with a couple of buckets full of glistening meat, black with flies and wasps. I rinsed it carefully under the tap to wash off the flies' eggs. Ana meanwhile had exerted herself and laid a mat of herbs of one sort or another in the hole.

'Place the meat on the mat of herbs, then I'll lay some rosemary, lemon thyme, southernwood and rue on top.'

'That sounds like the same ingredients you give the dogs to worm them and just about everything else too.'

'Well, whatever the recipe, it's supposed to preserve the meat and all its nourishing qualities for at least three months, and to protect it from insect attack. I'm sure it's the answer.'

She placed the herbs on the meat in the hole. 'Now you must place heavy stones on top to stop the wild creatures digging it up, it says here, and then fill the hole in.'

You can imagine our excitement when, six weeks later, the time came to exhume the preserved meat and feed it to the dogs. I cleared the earth away and then heaved the stones from the hole. There lay the protective herb matting, miraculously intact. It soon became apparent though, as we lifted the layer of herbs, that there was no meat inside. It had vanished without trace, not a stain, nor a shred, nor a particle of flesh remained. The hole was perfectly undisturbed, not even so much as a scrabble mark. We all stood and gaped in bafflement at the empty hole with its useful herbal matting.

'Where's it gone, Daddy?' asked Chloe with a touching faith that I was somehow lurking at the bottom of this mystery.

'I don't know, Chloe. I thought you might have come and gobbled it up in the night.'

'EEEyuk,' she squealed, running behind some bushes as if to hide from the thought.

'Well, that was certainly a useful exercise. I can't wait till the next sheep drops dead so we can do it again.'

'Mmm,' said Ana. 'You win some, you lose some, and being facetious won't make a blind bit of difference.'

We haven't repeated the meat-preserving recipe; it doesn't seem like time well spent and I rather like the thought of keeping one notable failure up my sleeve to throw back at Juliette should her rule prove too tyrannical. As for the rotting bones on the terrace, we just garden round them now.

MARKET FORCES.

ONE EVENING AFTER A LONG DAY'S SHEARING, DOMINGO AND I and a gang of high sierra shepherds were sitting in Ernesto's Bar in the woods below Pampaneira, eating tapas of meat from the grill carne a la brasa carne a la brasa and doing some earnest and doing some earnest costa costa tasting. The conversation had turned to how much we all loved our tasting. The conversation had turned to how much we all loved our ganado ganado: our flocks. Odd though it may seem, this is a fairly popular topic of conversation hereabouts.

As the shepherds droned eloquently on about their feelings for their charges, I noticed Ernesto's son watching me. He was fairly well gone and seemed to be plucking up the courage to ask me a question. Finally on his way back from the bar he lurched towards me and whispered breathily in my ear, 'Do you too love the ganado ganado?' 'I cannot deny it but I do,' I whispered in reply, and we smiled bashfully at one another.

Domingo caught the undertone. 'What do you mean?' he interrupted. 'You don't even know your own sheep. When did you last walk with them? You've been putting up fences to do your job for you. Those sheep of yours wouldn't even follow you if you wanted them to. That's not loving the ganado ganado.'

These were wounding words, but I couldn't deny that there was a certain truth in them. Since the fiasco of the lost flock I had been busy erecting fences over a large swathe of the secano secano precisely so that I could shrug off the more wearisome duties of the shepherd and get on with more pressing jobs on the farm. Also neither I nor the sheep had quite mastered the easy technique of the Alpujarran shepherd who strides at the head of a flock, whistling for the sheep to follow. Instead I would be left bringing up the rear, shouting and pitching stones. It wasn't the most flattering comparison. My sheep were in good condition, well kept and produced a good number of lambs, but then no one was criticising my sheep. I shrank back under these mortifying reflections and waited for Domingo's show of pique to pa.s.s and for the conversation to turn to other matters. precisely so that I could shrug off the more wearisome duties of the shepherd and get on with more pressing jobs on the farm. Also neither I nor the sheep had quite mastered the easy technique of the Alpujarran shepherd who strides at the head of a flock, whistling for the sheep to follow. Instead I would be left bringing up the rear, shouting and pitching stones. It wasn't the most flattering comparison. My sheep were in good condition, well kept and produced a good number of lambs, but then no one was criticising my sheep. I shrank back under these mortifying reflections and waited for Domingo's show of pique to pa.s.s and for the conversation to turn to other matters.

Soon enough the tender eulogising of sheep had shifted into an angry tirade against the dealers. Everyone, it seemed, had fared badly at the last round of selling and all were swearing to hold out for a better price next time.

'I don't see why we should bother with the dealers at all,' I piped up. 'We can't do worse than we're doing now if we cut out the middle man and sell our lambs ourselves.' It was a bold outburst in such company but I rather enjoyed the lull it created in the conversation. 'When the dealers get a knockdown price they take the lambs to Baza to turn over a quick profit,' I continued recklessly, 'so why shouldn't we try our luck selling direct? I know I'm going to give it a go.' A few seconds before I hadn't known anything of the sort but the looks of startled interest on the faces around me had transformed the vague idea that had been hovering at the back of my mind into a one-man mission. It felt good to be back in the role of innovator again.

Baza market is the largest livestock market in Andalucia, set on a high plateau about three hours' drive away in the north of the province. The dealers who frequent it are a hard-bitten crowd and trying to offload lambs direct would be tricky and contentious even without the handicap of being a foreigner and a relative novice to the trade. But I couldn't back out now.

'The dealers won't like it a bit,' announced one of the shepherds, his eyes glinting with excitement at the thought. 'No,' said another, 'but it's something that's got to come, they can't go on s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g us for ever.'

'Well, the dealers can look after themselves,' I replied. 'I've got forty good lambs that are ready to go. Does anyone want to come with me?'

Perhaps I hadn't phrased the question clearly enough because the debate raged on in abstract terms without anyone actually answering it. Domingo's voice, however, eventually cut through the bl.u.s.ter. 'I'll come with you,' he said. 'You have a word with Baltasar about his trailer. We can give it a try at the market a week tomorrow.'

Baltasar, one of my sheep-shearing cronies, has a powerful four-wheel-drive truck and a livestock trailer. He agreed to take us to Baza Market because he needed to stock up on hay-racks and things for his flock. So, on a sharp winter's evening, we loaded the lambs into the trailer and, as a counterweight, stuffed the car with various people who had decided to come along for the ride. Baltasar drove; then there was Domingo and his cousin Kiki, a lad I'd not met before, for the good reason that he was just out of jail for an episode involving a sawn-off shotgun and a discotheque; and lastly Baltasar's father, Manuel. Naturally I was stumping up for the expedition.

We set off in a leisurely fashion at about nine o'clock in order to get to the market at midnight. This was some unfathomable notion of Domingo's. The market started at six in the morning but Domingo reckoned it was best to get there before the rush started; midnight seemed a bit excessive to everybody else but Domingo was adamant. In the event, as ever, it took a while to get away. As we pa.s.sed through orgiva we were flagged down for a chat by every pa.s.ser-by who happened to know Domingo or Baltasar, or anyone who was simply curious about the trailerload of lambs. By the time we finally left the town it seemed that all its inhabitants knew of my madcap plan to sidestep the local dealers and sell the lambs direct at Baza market.