Staying out until the cows come home

I like going to strangers’ houses. I once wrote a story about an old man, Bernard, who went to strangers’ funerals. He’d have a boiled egg and toast for breakfast, read the obituaries, and then dress up in a black suit. By lunchtime, after attending a funeral service, he’d be invited back to the house of the deceased. There, he’d eat sandwiches, raise a glass in memoriam, and sometimes, even make a speech. 

I imagine this queer habit began with partying on Manchester’s Canal Street in the 90s. Approaching 2am, when the DJ’s magic dissolves, the house lights come on. The crowd slow crawls across the dance floor to gather coats, swap numbers, kiss for the last time, slip out hand in hand. Going home with a stranger is a flight path to another possible life, a life outside of the mundane, and, for some, a chance to find queer life in books: a well-thumbed paperback of Cookie Mueller’s ‘Ask Dr Mueller’ on the bathroom floor of a penthouse loo and Jackie Kay’s ‘Trumpet’ on a kitchen table amidst the remnants of dinner. 

I notice the same habit appears whilst house hunting. The estate agent says, ‘Take as many pictures as you like.’ I take pictures of the bookshelves. On a Saturday, we’d visit 4 or 5 houses a day, and by late afternoon, all the houses (and all the books) would become a blur. Sitting down in a cafe to think through our options, my partner says, ‘let’s see your pictures…’ and I say, ‘mmm, what about this one where they’re reading Dean Spade in the living room and Nigel Slater’s guide to fruit in the kitchen?’. ‘Any pictures of the garden?’ my partner asks, ‘Ah… no, but look, these folk have a book on lemons - lemon cocktails, lemon desserts, lemon jams, lemon pasta. Should we get it!? Let’s get it?’

In 2025, just before we have our long-awaited baby, this queer habit came sneaking back. I am scrolling through a WhatsApp group - FREE stuff for Babies - and arrange to collect a chest/breast pump. I notice a rush of anticipation as I travel on the 55 bus to pick it up. I feel crushed when the owner doesn’t invite me in, instead handing me the boxed item on the doorstep. ‘It’s unused… so glad someone wants it,’ she says, closing the door as quickly as it opened. I am forlorn, disappointed even. The doorstep handover didn’t give me the connection I craved. The same thing happens with trips to two more houses for a set of baby hats and a box of giant Lego bricks. Looking at the Lego bricks, I feel wistful. Getting the bus home is unfathomable. I book an Uber and spend the journey wondering how this queer habit came about. It stretches way back, much further than stepping over the fishtank built into the glass steps at Velvet on a Saturday night. 

Between the ages of five and twelve, my mum sent each of us four kids to stay with distant family and friends overseas for the summer. For the most part, raising us alone, she had to work during the holidays. My mum takes me to the airport and we say goodbye as an air hostess comes to collect me. It hasn’t dawned on me that I won’t see my mum for nearing two months. Instead of saying goodbye, I say ‘see you later’. My mum has tears in her eyes. It makes no sense. The people meeting us on the other side are essentially strangers, but over the years, summer by summer, their homes become our homes from home. I stay on my mum’s cousin’s farm. She says I can call her auntie, so I do. For a city kid, born into a high-rise in the East End of London, living in the countryside seems beyond wild. 

For the first time ever, I have my own room. From my bedroom, I can see stars through a skylight window in the roof. When my aunt reads me a story and says goodnight, I ask if she can leave the door open so my mum can come in to say goodnight to me. My aunt goes along with this and leaves the door ajar every night, every summer, for the next six years. By day, we pick berries and peas from a vast garden, dig up and shake new potatoes from the soil. All of this turns into meals, served with a piece of chicken or beef. I thought food came from the shops. 

There is a pine forest on the farm. At first, I am reluctant to walk through the forest. I can’t imagine beyond the dark trees. I fathom there will be bears or a wolf, like on TV. My aunt reassures me that the only bear in this forest is the one that enjoyed honey on its breakfast porridge. Laughing, I take my aunt’s hand and we walk together in silence. I catch wafts of the fresh, earthy smell of pine sap. The trees eventually give way to a winding chalky path, which leads to a picnic bench in a clearing surrounded by patches of wildflowers. When we reach the bench, a butterfly lands on my arm. It’s gingery-brown, and the white stripe on its wings stands out against my brown skin. The butterfly’s feet feel sticky. My aunt tells me it’s a White Admiral. We watch the butterfly flutter away, taking my fear of the woods with her, we sit down to our picnic. 

My aunt introduces me to the cows, chickens and fields of barley that all need tending. First thing, she sends me out with a basket to the chicken house to pick eggs. Then we take hay from bales in the barn to feed the cows. If it is harvest time, a combine harvester descends like an alien from the far end of the field to a grassy ridge near the house, collecting grains twenty rows at a time. I wonder how we knew when the barley was ready to harvest. The following year, my aunt takes a grain from a green head of barley and presses on it hard with her fingernail. ‘Too hard, not yet,’ she says. Weeks later, the barley is yellowing and bowing to the sun. She peels back the husk and does it again. This time, the outer yellow grain yields to her fingernail, revealing an inner, white, cheesy texture. ‘It’s time.’

One year, a cow escapes the field, crossing the bridge where we play Pooh Sticks and falls into the river. It takes four hours and four people to pull her out. All of this stewardship takes up entire days, and we are accompanied by two dogs, one big, one small. I am out of the house from seven in the morning until seven at night. We have no need to look at a watch; we simply notice when the cows slowly make their way back towards the trees from the river. A cow bell sounds their return home. And I know it is also time for me to head home. 

Evenings are taken up reading comic books, sewing, or playing games - Chinese chequers, Yahtzee and Uno. My aunt’s youngest son brings down a box of Lego from the loft - a Lego train set - with blue tracks. We spend several evenings building it, getting the signalling to work at the intersections. I swear I am in heaven. Keen to finish building it, I fall asleep by the side of the tracks before being carried to my bed.

At breakfast, I am very quiet, a bit teary. My aunt asks me what’s wrong. I tell her I am worried that I will go home a different person, and my mum will not know me. My aunt disappears into my uncle’s office and returns with a yellow exercise book. ‘Here,’ she says, handing me the exercise book, ‘write about your days and share it with your mother when you get home’. I think this is a great idea, and I set about writing down what we have for breakfast and lunch and dinner and everything in between. In one entry, I write about the death of Jane, my favourite chicken, who was taken by a fox. I deliver a eulogy at breakfast honouring her life. In another, I recall seeing a calf being born, slipping from its mother’s womb, covered in a thick film of mucus and blood. The calf doesn’t breathe on its own, and my uncle rushes to pick it up, suspending the calf in the air and slapping it across its chest. The drama is too much for me, and I turn to the dogs for comfort, but they are busy licking mucus from the cow. I find it all quite disturbing until suddenly the calf snorts through its nostrils, and we are filled with joy. My uncle turns to me and says, ‘Name the calf… this year is F’.  I pick Frederick or Freddy for short. I love Freddy with every sinew in my body. He acts like he knows it too, kicking his legs out behind him as he learns to run. 

One summer, I think I am about eight, and a cousin of my cousins stays on the farm. She has short blonde hair and looks like a slender boy. My aunt and uncle are on a business trip, and their three boys, all now grown-up adults, have their own families and work to attend to. With just two of us, on days like these, the house feels vast and empty. We have rooms on opposite sides of the house. I do my chores, collect eggs, and feed the cows. From day one, she tells me to show up early for meals. I ask ‘why?’ and she tells me ‘Meals don’t appear by magic’. In between meal times, she goes to her room to study or walks alone through the forest, a book in hand. She is 19. I learn to make scrambled eggs, casseroles, spaghetti bolognese, salads, and note the recipes in my yellow book.

With my chores complete, I decide to explore the barn. At the very back of the barn, there is a grain store. It’s empty as the harvest hasn’t happened yet. Suddenly, the floor comes alive with little mice darting across the room. They are so quick! I imagine them running up my leg and nesting in my hair. I escape the scurrying mice by climbing a ladder to the top level of the barn. I come across a large white freezer. I look inside. To my horror, I discover half a cow. The cow has been cut from the neck to the tail end, revealing its ribs. It slowly dawns on me that we have been eating our cows. I shudder. I vow to give up meat there and then. 

I go home early and look for company, especially as it’s raining. My go-to companion, the big dog, is not in her basket. I feel mildly sad, then scared as suddenly, lightning strikes. I call the dog’s name. She doesn’t come. I climb into the dog’s bed. I feel lonely. It’s still raining. It’s dark now. I cry myself to sleep. When I wake up, I am nestled in my cousin’s lap in a large armchair in front of a crackling fire. My head is nuzzled into her collarbone. ‘You missed dinner’, she says softly. I tell her about the cow in the freezer. I cry again. She gently runs her hand from the top of my neck to the base of my spine a few times. I feel healed. I lull in and out of sleep as she cuddles me. Hours pass, and we stay like this. This feels like home. 

Four, maybe five years before she dies, my aunt asks me to pick an item to remember her by when she is gone. She is in an old people’s home now. She is essentially living with strangers, but takes the time to get to know each one. When I visit and bring her lunch, she takes me round, room to room, to meet her new housemates, and then we eat in the shared kitchen. After lunch, she asks me to help her water the plants on the balcony, before we head back to her room, where she pours us a glass of wine and encourages me to look around at her things. She looks at me, takes my hands in hers and smiles. ‘So, have you decided?’ I look around the room. The cowbell sits on a shelf with photo albums. I gently pick it up. I can hear it ring, before I ring it. ‘It’s yours,’ she says. 

I don’t go to her funeral. It’s during the pandemic. Instead, I let my tears soak into the soil, and I ring the cowbell from my garden, and it all comes flooding back; the stars above my bed twinkling goodnight, the sweetest raspberries, my beloved Freddy, the door ajar and the longest, blissful cuddle in front of the fire on a lonely, stormy night.

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I am at the hospital, and the midwife tells me, ‘Now is the time to go fetch the car seat and any baby clothes you want baby to go home in.’ I ask her ‘What time will baby be born?’ She tells me, ‘it’s a guess, but probably in the middle of the night’. I take the lift down to the street. Cold air greets me as I wait for a cab. I check the time. It’s seven pm. If the baby is born in the middle of the night, it will be the 17th of January. The 17th is my aunt’s birthday. I am suddenly filled with hope, and love, and all the good stuff.

I put the key in the lock, pick up the car seat from the living room, grab a bag of clothes, and the snacks my partner wants. I am about to leave. I pause, I look at the bookcase. I see the cowbell next to books about trees, wildflowers and insects. I put down the car seat, and I ring the bell quietly as the neighbours will be thinking about bedtime. ​ As the sound of the bell recedes, I am left thinking how wonderful it is to be filled with love for a being that is not my blood, and not my flesh. That’s the future, right there.

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