shrugged. ‘A few hundred.’
‘A few hundred!?!’
‘Maybe a few thousand. Frankly, after the first eight hundred, cows all start to resemble each other. I may have coated some twice.’
‘And that’s what you’ve been doing all day?’
‘What else would one do on one’s holiday?’
‘Most people go down the beach.’
Teena looked at her like she was talking to a simpleton. ‘Sally, there are no cows on the beach.’ Striding forward, she gave the cow a firm slap on the flanks. The impact sent water flying from it.
It mooed, startled.
Teena opened the front door of the office and prepared to go inside. ‘Coming?’
Sally watched the sodden cow, its ears at half mast. ‘I don’t care how indestructible she is, I’ll still worry about her.’
‘That’s because you’re a non-scientist. You view cows as people. They’re not. A cow’s a cow, and she won’t appreciate being treated otherwise. Now come on indoors and you can show me your fridge.’
Sally stepped forward, feet splashing in puddles. Water leaked into her trainers, soaking her toes. She ignored it. When she reached the cow, she stopped. With some difficulty she pulled the cow’s mouth open and placed the umbrella handle in it. Robbed of the umbrella’s cover, she was instantly soaked, her clothes clinging to her like cold octopus tentacles, rain pummelling her like the skies were out to dump the world’s oceans on her. With yet more difficulty she clamped the cow’s jaws shut around the handle.
Teena said, ‘Sally, what’re you doing?’
‘The umbrella’ll keep her head dry.’
‘Are you trying to make me look silly?’
‘What? As opposed to smearing cows with anti-gravity cream and tying them to doorknobs?’
‘That’s different.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s science.’
‘Now then, Daisy–’
‘Daisy?’ Teena protested. ‘Her name’s Clytemnestra.’
Sally still held the jaws shut. ‘Just keep hold of this umbrella all night, and you’ll be fine.’
‘She’s my cow, you know.’ Teena still held the door open.
‘We don’t listen to the nasty woman, do we, Daisy? She slaps people and accuses them of wanting to eat her.’ And she released Daisy’s jaw.
The umbrella hit the mud at Sally’s feet.
‘Sally, it won’t work. Cows don’t understand umbrellas.’
Sally picked it up, wiped its handle clean on her soaked sweater, forced Daisy’s jaws apart then placed the umbrella handle between them. She pressed the jaws shut. She released the jaws. Daisy dropped the umbrella.
Teena tutted.
Sally picked it up, wiped its handle clean and put it in Daisy’s mouth.
She released Daisy’s jaw.
And this time …
… The cow held onto it.
‘Sally?’
‘Yeah?’ With great difficulty she bit a generous length of masking tape from a roll. It tasted foul.
‘I’d like to thank you for putting me up for the night.’ Teena lay on the top deck of Sally’s bunk bed, having refused the bottom one.
‘Don’t mention it.’ Sally stood beside her, on the bunk’s ladder. She took Teena’s right wrist, the one nearest her, and wrapped tape around it. She yanked the wrist against the nearest bed post, held it there, and bound wrist to post.
Teena said, ‘Only, some women seem to find my presence intimidating.’
‘You know, that’s how they feel about me.’ She bit off another strip then leaned across and wrapped the tape round Teena’s other wrist.
‘Sally?’
‘Yeah?’
‘What’re you doing?’
‘Strapping you down.’ Having to stretch to reach, she pressed the wrist against its nearest bedpost and bound them together.
‘Sally, it’s not that I’m actively opposed to bondage. As a social scientist I appreciate its therapeutic value. Lesbianism has its place also. However, as we’ve established that you’re not attractive and I’m engaged–’
‘Engaged. Engaged. You’re always saying you’re engaged. For someone who claims she’s a man magnet, you seem remarkably impressed with yourself for having pulled. My God, even I’ve been engaged once. It’s not that big an achievement.’ She’d been engaged to Barry Sping, the paper boy, when they were both eleven. Cthulha’d put them up to it. She’d thought it cute.
Teena said, ‘Look in my coat pocket.’
‘For what?’
‘A wallet.’
Annoyed at the disruption to her work, she finished binding wrist to post then stood up as best the ceiling allowed. Teena’s camouflage jacket hung drying on the bed post. Sally felt in the pocket and retrieved a wallet.
‘Open it,’ Teena said.
She opened it.
‘What do you see?’
‘Credit cards, old tickets, taxi firm numbers, a photo–’
‘Take the photo and look at it.’
She did so.
And … ‘Jesus Christ!’ She almost fell off her ladder with shock. ‘What the hell’s that!?!’
‘My fiance.’
‘But … but he’s huge!’ The photographer (who Sally assumed to be Teena) had only managed to fit half of him into the photo. You could have fitted Barry Sping into a photo and have had room left over for the Brighouse and Rasterick brass band.
Teena said, ‘Huge? He’s positively Olympian.’ It wasn’t clear whether she meant an athlete, a Greek god or the mountain. Sally suspected she meant all three.
‘But he’s got no clothes on!’ said Sally.
Teena said, ‘When one owns a work of art, one doesn’t leave it covered up.’
‘But that
