A Donkey in the Meadow Read Online Free PDF Page A

might bite.’
    I hoped that Jeannie would agree.
    ‘Come and see her,’ she said soothingly, as if I were making a fool of myself, ‘she’s as quiet as an old sheepdog. I certainly don’t mind myself if she comes with us.’
    And she did.
    Half an hour later we were racing along the Redruth bypass with me at the wheel, Jeannie beside me, and between the two of us, shoulder-level, the solemn, patient face of Penny the donkey.

5
    ‘You know, Jeannie,’ I said, as we turned off the bypass and drove up the hill into Camborne, ‘we’ve got ourselves in a fix. We can’t possibly leave a donkey which is going to have a foal.’
    ‘I realise that too.’
    ‘So that’s the end of our holiday before it’s begun.’
    ‘Are you very disappointed?’
    ‘It seems to me to be sheer lunacy to give up a long overdue holiday just because we take pity on a wretched donkey.’
    We were passing the Holman engineering works on our left, and the road to Illogan, where my grandfather was born, on our right.
    ‘Turn round and take her back then.’
    ‘I’m thinking,’ I went on, ignoring Jeannie, ‘of all the trouble involved in putting everything off. What do I say? And how is your mother going to react when you tell her you can’t go to London because we’ve bought a donkey in the family way?’
    ‘She’ll laugh.’
    A huge lorry ahead slowed us down to a crawl.
    ‘I had got myself attuned to the idea of seeing the bright lights again. I was looking forward to a frivolous time.’
    ‘You can go on your own.’
    ‘Don’t be silly.’
    ‘There’s such a change in you. First I have to knock you on the head to make you go, and now you’re moaning away because you can’t.’
    ‘My contrary self.’
    I changed gear, accelerated, and passed the lorry, blowing the horn. I found comfort in doing so.
    ‘It means,’ I said, ‘we won’t have the chance of going away again for a year. You know that. We won’t have a chance what with the tomatoes, the freesias, the daffodils all following on each other. We’re committed to fight it out this year.’
    ‘You can write a book about the year in between.’
    ‘Between what?’
    ‘The year in which you decide whether to work with your mind or work with your hands. The year in which we decide whether to continue with the flower farm.’
    ‘It is a question of labour. There is so much manual work to be done. That’s all the trouble.’
    ‘Cheer up. You’re forgetting you’re going to have another interest.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘A year with two donkeys!’
    At this moment Penny, who was standing in the well of the Land Rover and small enough to be clear of the canvas hood, pushed her head forward and, to my concern, rested it on my shoulder. Thus, as I stared at the road ahead of me lined at first by squat houses and shops, then by the open fields leading to Connor Downs and Hayle, I could see out of the corner of my eye a large white nose; and I felt a weight on my shoulder like the hand of someone wanting to reassure me.
    ‘She seems to like you.’
    ‘I think I’m dotty.’
    ‘But don’t you feel happier?’
    ‘I suppose so.’
    ‘You’re a misery!’
    The time was seven o’clock and we had a little over an hour before dusk. Clouds were looming up over the distant Zennor hills, hiding the sun. Penny’s head remained resting on my shoulder, and I took one hand off the wheel and stroked her nose. Even so early in her life with us, she was placid. It was if she had had many journeys such as this one, shifted from one place to another, railway trucks, the boat from Ireland, cattle lorries, herded with other donkeys at auction sales; and these experiences had made her resigned. Here she was travelling to another paddock, another brief period of affection or work, then on to somewhere else as soon as the originality of her presence had worn thin, or her usefulness had expired.
    We were nearing Connor Downs.
    ‘Let’s stop for a drink at the Turnpike,’ I said. I