The first case in Cumbria was confirmed yesterday. Everyone must have heard by now. It was only a matter of time before it arrived here. Now that it has, we can only hope that it stays a small outbreak. I pray - though prayer isn't something I usually do – for those who are going to lose their animals. Who can explain what they must be going through? With us, well, we carry on. What else can we do? We had a calf born last night. A Holstein heifer, fairly white. S- was quite reluctant to name her in the present climate, but in the end settled on Artemis. It was a convention of her uncle's to name calves after astronomical features and mythology, and sometimes fictional characters too. I look forward to the day in three years' time when we'll trying to name Artemis' first born.
How soon the monitoring and checking becomes a habit! She does it unconsciously, eye passing over mouths and feet as she moves the cows up the yard, fingers feeling for even the slightest irregularity in each cow's teats as she wipes them before slipping the cluster on. All is the same, all is normal. Blinded, she would know each cow by the skin beneath her fingers.
At once, the knowledge that all is well is both a relief and a tightening of the noose. She has to check them again tonight and in the morning and tomorrow night and each time she checks them brings her closer to the time when she'll find something. It is not a question of if, but when, as far as she can tell. Yes the neighbours might be all right for now, but that doesn't mean that they will stay all right, not when each time she turns on the radio there's news of another farm condemned. They all thought that they would escape, and thought that this would pass with little fuss. Now look where they are. Ready for the slaughter.
Well, it makes no sense, but it might be better to expect the worst. Maybe then she and Irene can escape.
Which one of these old friends will be the cow to condemn them all? She doesn't know. She can't know and yet when her hands are on each one seeking out infirmities she can't help but wonder. Is it Sirius, named after a star by uncle Ford? Or Valjean, whose name came from an old French novel Ford read so many times the cover fell off? She remembers Valjean as a calf, just about twenty years ago. Sherlock was only eight at the time, and Ford brought her out to help with the delivery. The calving remains an impression of long, slim white legs and a delicate nose. Valjean grew into a prize-winner and brought home many rosettes and still every year she calves regular as clockwork. An old dear, Irene calls her. There's a photo of her and Ford from fifteen years ago sitting inside on the mantel piece, and hanging around Valjean's neck is a sash proclaiming her Supreme Champion.
No. It won't be Valjean that brings the Ministry down on their heads. Another one, maybe, but not her.
The milking ended, Sherlock walks out across the slatted tank. There aren't too many left to calf - at least not in the immediate future, and so the tank is largely quiet. Here, too, all is well. No dribbling, no lameness. Eyes bright and coats healthy. Paganini's udder is well full up now, so Sherlock rearranges the gates and lets her through to the calving shed, so recently vacated by Tungsten. She won't calve today, but better that she relax in the comfort of a deep straw bed than lying up in a cubicle. It's not a big job to bring a wheelbarrow full of silage through to her anyway.
Out here, in the normal routine of spring, it is easy to allow herself to forget that all is not well in Cumbria. The cows must be milked, the springers observed, the calves fed, and those things can never be allowed to go unattended. Surrounded by the content munch of silage and grunts of well-fed cattle there is a calm that Sherlock could never find in the city. And, she suspects, a hand resting lightly on Cosette's shoulder, Ford felt much the same too.
An hour passes before Sherlock makes her way back to the house. Noodling quietly in the back of her head are several strings that she might work into a violin piece, if she can find the right place to segue into them. So easy is she watching the flakes of snow drift to the ground she doesn't notice the house door open and Irene standing in it with a blanched face until she is up at it. Then the hand on her arm is so unexpected a jolt runs through her, snapping her back to her thoughts.
"Sherlock." Irene's voice is strained, concerned, almost as if there's been a death in family.
"Who is it?" The question rolls off Sherlock's tongue without her even pausing to consider it. And then, "Where is it?" It. The only term needed for this virus she can't bring herself to name. Naming it is to accept it and she cannot accept something that so violently shatters the peace of this land.
Irene's voice is hushed. "Joe Madox."