The scream woke me from a deep sleep and I was not sure for a moment whether I'd imagined it or not: not until it was followed by a string of foul language that is!
Scrambling out of my warm bed, I fumbled my way onto the landing and spotted Uncle Hobart closing the door of Aunt Martha's bedroom. His face was a picture of pain as he clutched his bandaged hand to his chest. Not seeing me, he leant against the banisters, mouthing silently what I instinctively knew were more curses.
He jumped as I spoke, "You okay Uncle Hobart?"
"God damned bleedin' woman!" he muttered, nodding at Aunt Martha's bedroom door. "What the 'ell she 'ave ter go and do that fer? The stupid cow nearly broke me bleedin' 'and!"
As he shuffled off towards his bedroom, I was left wondering just what Aunt Martha had done, and why. I tapped a knuckle on her door. "You alright in there, Aunt Martha?"
"Come in for a moment, Peter," her muffled voice called. Sitting up in bed as I entered the room, she smiled. "Everything's fine, thanks," she added softly.
Pulling a mousetrap from beneath her duvet, she placed it on the bedside cabinet, then patted the edge of the bed, moving over so that I could sit down.
"So what's he been up to now?" I asked.
"Well," her sharp nose jerked this way and that as the laughter lines creased the corners of her eyes, "he paid me a little surprise visit." She giggled gently behind a raised hand. "But he was the one who got the surprise this time!"
"Surprise visit? What surprise visit?"
She just looked at me askance, until finally understanding dawned.
"Oh I see!" I felt my face redden. "He came in for... Well, I suppose he must have wanted to..." I looked around the room in confusion, waving my hand in a useless gesture.
Aunt Martha finally rescued me. "Indeed he did, Peter. Indeed he did." She giggled again. "But this time he got more than he bargained for."
"You mean he's done this before?" My voice squeaked with indignation.
Aunt Martha patted her hair and smoothed the front of her nightgown. "You find that so surprising then, Peter?"
"Yes … well I mean no, of course not. I just meant..." I was getting more and more flustered. "Well he is seventy three after all, and you're not exactly young, are you?" I felt the heat rising on my face. Aunt Martha raised her eyebrows. "So what happened? Did you slap him or something?" I asked lamely, as she continued to stare at me.
"Goodness me no, Peter. Nothing so vulgar!" Picking up the mousetrap between thumb and forefinger she waved it about. "I simply put this under the duvet and when he pushed his hand underneath to... Well, I'm sure you must have heard the result."
"Only one trouble," I said, laughing along with her.
"And what's that, Peter?"
"You trapped his injured hand. Now we'll have to stay even longer while it heals." I groaned, rubbing at my aching back. "Sometimes I wonder if we'll ever get away from this place. Has it really only been two weeks? It feels more like two years!"
Aunt Martha lay back on the pillows. It was obvious her mind was wandering over some past event and when she finally spoke her voice held a whimsical note. "Well it hasn't been too bad really, has it? I mean, it's been pretty entertaining in a way. What with you and the chicken, and Hobart and the mousetrap."
"Aunt Martha, you promised me faithfully. You said you wouldn't mention that damned chicken again!"
She slipped into a fit of girlish giggles and for a moment looked almost young again. I got off the bed and straightened the duvet. Then, leaning over, I kissed her lightly on the forehead.
"Good night Aunt Martha. Sleep well," I said, with a wink.
"Oh don't worry, Peter," she replied, winking back at me as she snuggled under the duvet. "I will.
*
"God, how on earth can you eat cornflakes without your teeth in!" Ignoring my question, Uncle Hobart opened the ketchup bottle and poured a liberal amount of the red goo over his breakfast. "You're not!" I exclaimed in horror.
"What's he up to now?" Aunt Martha asked as she entered the kitchen.
"He's putting tomato ketchup on his cornflakes."
"Nothing that man does will surprise me anymore," Aunt Martha retorted.
"Oy, I am 'ere yer know!" the object of our criticism complained.
"Yeah, well that's questionable," I countered with a laugh.
"You'll laugh t'other side of yer face later, my lad," he warned me, splattering soggy, half-eaten pieces of flakes across the table.
Wiping the worse of the mess from the front of my shirt, I raised an eyebrow. "What now?" I asked with a sinking sensation. "More mucking out?" My back tweaked in protest at the thought.
Collecting what remained of the ketchup and milk from his bowl with a slice of cake, Uncle Hobart completed his breakfast ritual by swirling his false teeth in his tea to clean them. Fumbling them back into his mouth, he squinted at me. "Cow's got bloat. Yer'll need ter spike it," he said around a mouthful of fingers.
"What?" I frowned uncomfortably. "That sounds like you want me to stick something into one of your cows."
"Got it in one," he retorted, holding up his bandaged hand for my inspection. "I can't do it, can I? And don't blame me," he continued quickly, noting the expression on my face, "blame 'er. She's the one what tried to 'ave me 'and off with a bleedin' great mousetrap! Just as it were getting better too." Turning his hand over, Uncle Hobart studied it with a whimsical look.
"Oh dear, and why did I do that I wonder?" Aunt Martha asked demurely.
"You'll need 'elp," Uncle Hobart told me, looking at Aunt Martha with an intense stare.
She looked at him down her prodigious nose. "Hobart Tuttershed," she said, her voice cutting across the kitchen at him, "if you think I'm going out there to wrestle with half a ton of cow, you've got another think coming!"
"Well it ain't my fault, is it?" he snapped, shaking his injured hand in the air at us. From the look of pain that suddenly crossed his face, he must have regretted shaking it quite so forcefully. "Some inconsiderate bugger's put me out o' action, ain't they?" Finished, he scuttled out of the kitchen before either of us could reply.
Looking over at Aunt Martha, I shrugged.
"After you," she responded with a sigh.
*
Half an hour later, I was sitting astride Janet - Uncle Hobart's favourite cow - waiting for him to tell me what to do. Indicating a spot on the animal's flank, he thrust a gleaming instrument into my hand. "'Ere, stick that in there."
"You want me to stick this thing into the cow?" I checked with a queasy voice.
"Aye. Right there," he replied. "Then pull out the middle bit. That'll free the gas in its guts."
My own guts began filling with gas as I started feeling even queasier. "I really don't think I can do this," I told him.
"You've got ter. And 'urry it up will yer. That bleedin' cow'll die if yer keep mucking about fer much longer."
Taking a deep breath, I drew back my hand, closed my eyes, and stabbed the instrument downwards. There was a loud scream in my ear and snapping open my eyes, I saw Uncle Hobart hopping up and down in some kind of demented dance.
"What on earth's the matter with him?" I asked Aunt Martha.
She pointed at the bobbing figure. "Look, you've stuck the trocar in his leg."
And sure enough, there it was, protruding from Uncle Hobart's thigh. He gave one last gurgle before collapsed onto the floor in a heap. Aunt Martha and I knelt beside him.
"I think he's fainted," she said, pulling the trocar from his leg.
As she did so, Uncle Hobart gave another yell, so loud this time that it shot his false teeth across the barn. I ducked as they flew past my head on their way to embedding themselves in the doorframe.
"Oops," Aunt Martha muttered, handing me the bloodstained instrument. Noticing my ashen colour, she sighed. "For goodness sake Peter, get off that cow and I'll do it."
I didn't need asking twice. "Right," I replied with relief. "I'll just sit over here and have a smoke to steady my nerves."
With shaking hands, I lit a cigarette, watching Aunt Martha plunge the trocar into the cow's swollen abdomen. By now I was recovering my composure a bit and despite myself, was beginning to take an interested in the proceedings. Leaning forward, I looked on while Aunt Martha extracted the central part of the instrument, hearing a loud hissing as the gas escaped through the trocar. Fascinated, I leant closer still. Uncle Hobart recovered at this point, sitting up with a look of horror on his face. He shouted out a warning, but before I could react, the end of my glowing cigarette ignited the escaping gas with a thunderous explosion.
*
Now it's not the fact that Aunt Martha got away scot free of injury; nor the fact that Uncle Hobart's barn was totally destroyed by the explosion, nor the fact that for months afterwards we kept finding small bits of poor old Janet scattered about the place, that upset me so much. No, what I found so hard to bear, was spending the next two weeks in hospital with Uncle Hobart languishing in the next bed, regaling me with an endless string of recriminations.