Where Have All the Boys Gone?(39)

“Wow,” she said to Harry. “If you ate something like this in London, the Atkins Police would come and chase you.”

“Well, here it’ll be the real police,” said Harry gravely. “Those are for the baking competition. Very competitive event. Michael Craven’s won for his black bun three years in a row now and it’s all getting very tense around here.”

A tall, rather skinny man wandered across. “Ah, Barr.”

“Hello Ross,” said Harry gravely.

“What do you think of the teacakes this year?” said the tall man, somewhat mournfully.

“They look lovely, Ross,” said Harry. “Of course, you know, it’s very difficult to tell just by looking at them.”

The man nodded his head. “Thought as much,” he said. “That bastard Craven’s going to win again, isn’t he?”

“You know, Derek and I love your teacakes.”

“Well, that doesn’t go for much round here, apparently,” said Ross, and stomped off.

Katie looked at him retreating through the flaps of the marquee, then back at Harry.

“They take it seriously, OK?” said Harry. “Lots of bachelor farmers, by themselves at night . . . baking’s just something to do.”

“Why aren’t they on the internet, finding fat girlfriends in America?” asked Katie in wonder.

Harry shrugged and led her through and out the other end of the tent.

Immediately the smell changed from warm baking to rich, deep cow smells. Katie wrinkled her nose instinctively, then tried to hide her reaction.

“Animals eh?” said Harry. “Stinking up the natural human environment of refined sugar and diesel.”

Katie fervently wished he would stop being such a sanctimonious idiot for just ten seconds or so a day, but couldn’t remove her fingers from pinching her nostrils together in order to say the words.

The cattle, of all different sizes and colours, were in different pens, and were milling around in the mud, making a lot of noise. Katie hadn’t been so close to a large animal since her mother had taken her and Clara on a pony trek when they were small. She’d had hysterics, Clara had smugly taken to it like a duck to water, and believed she had a special affinity with animals ever since.

“Um, what’s happening?” she asked Harry, managing not to tug on his shirtsleeve in panic.

“It’s a cattle market. They’re selling them off.”

A bull gave a particularly grisly-sounding moan, and fixed Katie with his creepily swivelling huge eyeball.

“What for?”

Harry looked at her, screwing up his face. “Well, do you know where babies come from?”

“Um . . .”

“They’re for stud.”

“Oh, OK.” Katie tried not to look at the bull’s penis and almost succeeded. “It’s like Boujis in here,” she said, but Harry had already started talking to a man on his right, and they were muttering and nodding and looking at the cattle in a meaningful way.

Meanwhile, Katie had seen something much more to her liking—in a smaller pen, a shepherd was leading a small parade of lambs in, their little coats splattered with ink numbers.

“Oh, look at the lambs!” she squeaked.

Harry and the man stopped their conversation immediately. The older man’s face creased in a grin. “Who would this be now?” he asked Harry, as if Katie were five, or one of the lambs.

Harry looked pink. “This is our new PR girl. From London.”

“Is she now?” said the old gent, and examined her closely.

Katie felt herself redden too.

“PR? Is that like that Alastair Campbell?”

“No,” said Katie, as Harry said, “A little bit.”

The man’s gentle expression disappeared immediately. “Those Campbells!” he said. “Causing trouble from the dawn of time.”

“She’s not a Campbell,” said Harry quickly. But the old man had sniffed and walked away.

“Old clan conflict,” said Harry. “He’s a MacKenzie.”

Katie had no idea what he was talking about. But it seemed certain that their policy of softly winning over the locals wasn’t going to go as smoothly as they’d hoped.

Wandering off alone through the crowds of animals, she made her way to another tent, this one filled with beautiful, enormous fruits and vegetables; huge leeks, gigantic turnips and shiny spring peas.

“I feel like Alice in Wonderland,” she said out loud to herself, dwarfed by an enormous parsnip.

“Wasn’t she always getting herself into trouble?” came a smiling voice.

Katie started in surprise. It was Iain. He was standing, hidden behind a huge tray of super-carrots, with a large camera.

“Oh, you gave me a fright!” she said.

“First rule of journalism,” said Iain. “Terrify people into submission.”

He started snapping the carrots, and some particularly garish flower arrangements. “That’s Hamish McTrell,” he said, crossly. “Colour blind, the old sod. Still enters every year. Maybe I should switch to black-and-white film.”

“Are you the official photographer for your paper?”

“No, I do these paparazzi shots freelance, then auction them to the highest West Coast bidder. Pretty lucrative stuff. It’s like Posh Spice, only with vegetables.”