FOR THE LOVE OF DONKEYS
28 JULY
Now that, my friends, is a bloody great big pile of cash – metaphorically speaking.
I sit on my couch with the remittance advice from Brightside Productions open in front of me, my eyes wide. I knew this money would be coming along, but I didn’t quite compute just how much cash it would be, when everything was taken into account from the handover.
Seventy-three thousand pounds of fine British money.
. . . and this is only the first instalment.
I stare at the remittance for a few moments, trying to decide what my feelings are about it.
In another life, on a parallel world, I would be a-whooping and a-hollering with joy right now. Just think of all the lovely things I could buy with all this disposable income. A new sports car! A yacht! Four Rolex watches! Several round-the-world cruises! A boob job for Sienna!
But back here in this world, I am not a-whopping and a-hollering. In fact, I can barely register a smile.
Because it’s all just so damn inconsequential, isn’t it? When you don’t have much time to spare, what does it matter how much money you have? Material possessions become entirely irrelevant when your life hangs resolutely in the balance.
This new-found perspective has forced me to think long and hard about myself and the relationship I’ve had with money and success.
It forces me into the clear and undeniable conclusion that I have largely wasted my life up until this point.
And I have been a very, very wasteful person.
I live alone in a huge new modern house that I tend to rattle around in most of the time.
I have no one who relies on me financially – Mum is independently well off from her statue making and I can’t persuade Eliza to take any cash for her or Callum, so I only have myself to worry about.
Until recently, I drove a rather stupid car that cost more than most people earn in five years. My bifold patio doors were hideously pricey, because I just had to have the brushed gunmetal-grey aluminium, and most of my furniture is bespoke – which is to say it was all ridiculously overpriced. I spend money every month on an expensive gardener to come over and prune my Japanese maple tree, when I could probably get out there and do it myself.
The amount of cash I paid out to keep Sienna happy before we split doesn’t even bear thinking about. That silly red Prada dress was four figures, for starters.
I have been blessed by good fortune thanks to The Foodies – and have largely wasted that fortune on inconsequential rubbish.
Somewhere in my vast open-plan kitchen, there is a three-hundred-pound juicing machine in a cupboard that I used once to make a smoothie that resembled brown sludge and tasted like I’d already drunk it once. It has languished in that cupboard ever since.
The showerhead in my en-suite cost four hundred pounds. Why? I have no idea.
I have a pair of ripped jeans in my wardrobe that look like they should have been thrown out decades ago, but I paid two hundred pounds for them this year.
My bed sheets are imported Egyptian cotton that cost a grand.
Yes, a fucking grand.
Don’t you just hate me right now?
. . . welcome to the club.
I could go on with this litany of wastefulness for hours if I wanted to. Looking back on the past five years since The Foodies royalty cheques started coming in, I’ve burned my way through tens if not hundreds of thousands of pounds – not saving one bloody penny of it for a rainy day, I might add. All that money bought stuff I neither need nor even want that much. Such is the attitude of one with a healthy and constant influx of money and all the time in the world to spend it.
What a total waste.
I crumple the remittance advice into my curled fist and thump the arm of the couch. What the hell have I been doing all this time? What the hell kind of person have I been? And more importantly, what the hell do I do to make up for it?
I sit there for a moment, letting my mind drift through a sea of self-loathing and frustration, close to drowning in both.
But then, in the distance, I metaphorically spot an island . . .
I think back to both my anger management session with Cleethorpes and my cannabis-infused revelation at the Light Havens – about how I’ve felt like I’ve lost all purpose in my life and need to find something to fill it back up again. My new relationship with Allie has kept me quite busy, but it’s not solved that central problem, has it?
Maybe now, though, I’ve found something that can.
I uncrumple the remittance advice again and give it a good, hard look.
If I want to leave any kind of mark on the world – if I want to be remembered for doing something worthwhile – then maybe the key to that is in my hands right now. Instead of wasting all my cash on frivolous junk, why don’t I find someone who actually needs it and give it to them?
. . . but how to do this?
How does Nathan James start giving back a little?
As I sit in my lounge on my three-thousand-pound white leather couch (which is extremely uncomfortable, if I’m being honest about it), a plan starts to form in my mind.
First, I will give a sizeable amount of money away to charity.
That will be a good start, but doesn’t really feel like it’ll be enough. It doesn’t take much effort these days to fill in an online form on the WWF website and give your credit card details.
No, I must do something a little more proactive to prove my worth. I need something to get me out of bed in the morning with a sense of bloody purpose. I have to get off my arse and actually get involved with a project that’ll benefit from my soft-earned cash.
This leads to a constructive twenty minutes on Google researching local good causes. Thankfully (but perhaps unsurprisingly in this day and age) there’s a website for that.
GivingLocal.com is a veritable treasure trove of advertisements from various people and organisations looking for a little financial aid from those able to offer it.
Not that I’d describe all of the adverts I read as good causes, necessarily. I’m fairly sure that Barry needing a new engine for his 1973 Ford Capri does not qualify, for instance. Neither does Helena and her dog turd company. Helena wants money to assist her in her new venture, which involves the recycling of dog excrement. In a lengthy and slightly rambling advert, she describes how she’s invented a new technology for turning dog shit into glue. She assures the reader that it would revolutionise the world and that people would be clamouring for her ‘Pooperglue’ in no time at all. This strikes me as being an unlikely proposition, for several reasons. I very much doubt that anyone will be clamouring to get anywhere near her if she spends all her time accumulating dog shit. Also, I’m no canine expert, but I’m fairly sure that their waste material does not contain any intrinsically glue-like properties. And lastly – and this is the most important issue as far as I’m concerned – Helena is quite clearly as mad as a box of frogs on methamphetamine.
Thankfully, though, the majority of the adverts are more sane and reasonable. In fact, there are so many that I end up feeling comprehensively guilty that I don’t have even more money to spread around.
Being an inveterate animal lover, I find one appeal really stands out from the rest.
A rural donkey sanctuary about fifteen miles away from my house is in desperate need of money to help maintain it.
In an extremely heartfelt and personal appeal, the lady who runs it – the remarkably named Winnifred Sperlingford – details how the sanctuary has become more and more difficult to run following the death of her husband nine years ago. This immediately creates a painful parallel in my mind with my own mother, who lost my father at exactly the same time.
Both the house Winnifred lives in and the buildings in the grounds of the sanctuary are becoming extremely dilapidated. Unless something can be done about them soon, the sanctuary will be closed down. And then what will happen to all of those donkeys, eh?
Nothing good, that’s what.
There are almost tears in my eyes as I finish reading the online appeal. How could I possibly ignore this one?
I manage to get ahold of myself by the time I call Winnifred Sperlingford some five minutes later to arrange a time to visit.
She sounds both amazed and delighted that someone has finally taken an interest. She’s not had one single person go and see her in the three months since she placed the appeal.
I intend to change that by visiting the donkey sanctuary that very afternoon!
Winnifred sounds delighted by this. I put the phone down on a very happy donkey sanctuary owner.
As I call for a taxi and pour myself a cup of tea, I feel a new-found sense of purpose – a feeling of personal fulfilment and drive that I’ve been missing for so bloody long.
This is it. This is the thing I need. This is my new path in life. This is the thing that keeps Nathan James in the game, for as long as he has left!
The cabbie drops me off at the end of a long driveway leading away from the road. A rather battered sign nailed to the gatepost tells me that this place is called ‘Winnifred Sperlingford’s Sanctuary for Donkeys in Need of Homing’ – which is about as grand a title for a donkey sanctuary as you can come up with, short of sticking the words ‘royal’ and ‘by appointment’ in there somewhere.
Winnifred Sperlingford may be wanting for money since her husband’s death, but she sure as hell isn’t wanting for space. As I walk up the driveway, I can see that on either side of me are large fenced-in and rather unkempt fields, which terminate far in the distance at several patches of woodland surrounding the whole estate. I can’t help thinking that if she sold off some of this land, she wouldn’t need any assistance from the likes of me, but then I spot a few reasons why she probably hasn’t done this. Standing in a variety of random positions around the fields is a selection of donkeys, most of whom look relatively happy to be there.
All of them certainly look quite elderly, that’s for sure. I pass one close on the left-hand side who peers at me from between the fence posts as if studying some strange new life form. Its muzzle is almost completely grey, as is most of its head. If this donkey were a human being, it would almost certainly be Phillip Schofield.
Phillip Schofield Donkey continues to watch as I walk up to the house. It only loses sight of me as I finally crest the deceptively steep driveway and emerge on to a large, open area of gravel that leads to what was once an impressive old manor house of considerable size.
Parked to one side of the sizeable double front doors is a battered old green Land Rover. In the rear windscreen is a sticker that reads ‘Love a Donkey & Love Yourself!’ I’m not entirely sure how I should take that, to be honest with you. It conjures up images in my warped little brain that are quite disturbing.
Close to the building, I can see how much of it has gone to the dogs over the years. I can only imagine how much money it must cost to keep this kind of house in a good state of repair. It’s certainly more than Winnifred has been able to afford recently, of that there is no doubt. Everywhere I look there are signs of decay. The mortar is crumbling from the walls. The ancient drainpipes are rusting into oblivion. The paint is chipped and peeling. It really is a bit of a sorry sight.
Still, I’m here to see donkeys, not make comments on the upkeep of a property, so I briskly walk over to the impressive front doors and give the bell pull a tug.
A sonorous chime rings out from the interior of the house. I have to wait a few moments before the door is opened by a tall, frail and painfully thin old woman with a mane of long grey hair. She is of course wearing wellington boots and an ancient brown Burberry jacket, because it’s the law in places like this.
‘Hello there, are you Nathan?’ she says with a smile.
‘Yes. And you must be Winnifred,’ I reply, extending a hand.
She takes my hand in a papery, thin one of her own and gives it a surprisingly strong shake. ‘Do come through, won’t you?’ she says. ‘I’m just about to feed the herd and would appreciate a little help, if that’s okay?’
‘Of course – please lead the way,’ I reply with an ingratiating smile.
Given that this woman looks like she could snap like a twig at any moment, I’m expecting a slow and unsteady amble through the confines of the house, but Winnifred instead takes off at a rate of knots I am scarcely able to believe. In fact, I have to hurry just to keep up with her.
Internally, the house has suffered from much of the same neglect as its exterior, save for one area off to the left-hand side comprising a neat and tidy kitchen attached to a sprawling reception room. Both are well maintained and look quite comfortable. This must be the area of the house poor Winnifred lives in on a day-to-day basis.
Speaking of whom, my host has now reached the back door, which she quickly unlocks and goes through, turning back briefly to see what’s keeping me. ‘Are you all right?’ she asks, apparently wondering how I’ve managed to fall behind.
‘Yes, fine, thanks,’ I reply, just a little bit out of breath. I join her at the back door as she turns around again and strides off towards a large barn situated about forty feet away.
Outside, I can see the extent of the house’s land laid out in its entirety. It really is a huge plot, consisting of more fields, more trees and, of course, more donkeys. There must be a good forty or fifty of the buggers milling about.
The large majority of them are now making a beeline towards the barn, having seen Winnifred appear from the back door of the house. None give me a second look, having rightly dismissed me as a pointless interloper into their Winnifred-led existence.
I follow the old woman over to the barn and join her inside. The smell of old hay and donkey parts is rather overpowering. Looking up, I can see that the barn’s roof has quite a few holes in it and the timbers are looking decidedly rotten in several places.
The donkeys have congregated at a long gate separating the barn’s back entrance from the fields beyond. All are looking as keen as mustard for their feed.
‘Could you help me lay out some hay for them, Nathan?’ Winnifred asks me. ‘It’s stored at the back.’
‘Of course,’ I say, trying very hard not to hold my nose as we walk towards an area of the barn brimming with hay. The donkeys watch me from behind the gate. It’s quite disconcerting to have so many sets of large equine eyes staring at me in such a way. I know donkeys are herbivores, but the hungry gazes fixed on me at the moment could convince me otherwise.
I feel as if I should learn more about the setup here, given that I might well be contributing money to it at some point, so as Winnifred starts to tug a bale of hay back through the barn and towards the donkeys, I ask her what I presume is a suitable question. ‘How long have you been running the place?’
‘Thirty-six years,’ Winnifred replies, dumping the bale of hay just outside the barn.
Blimey. That’s a lot of donkeys.
‘It must be very time-consuming,’ I suggest as I place my own hay bale alongside hers. This is met with some approving snorts and whinnies from the gathered throng just beyond the gate. ‘And expensive,’ I add, giving the donkeys a sideways look.
Winnifred gives me a small smile. ‘Yes. It’s my life’s work, really. They’re such lovely creatures.’ She gives them a much fonder look than I did, before returning for another hay bale.
We spend the next few minutes lining up more bales, before Winnifred makes her way over to the gate. ‘You may want to stand back a little,’ she tells me as she unlatches it. ‘Come on, you lot! In you come!’ Winnifred exclaims, opening the gate and walking it backwards to allow her charges entry.
I do indeed step back, very briskly, as a multitude of hungry donkeys trot gamely into the barn, going straight to the hay bales with considerable gusto. It’s quite the scene to behold. A bunch of hee-hawing, farting half horses with their muzzles buried in a pile of hay is not something you see – or smell – every day.
I’m starting to feel a little nauseous, so I make my way towards where Winnifred is standing, giving the feeding donkeys as wide a berth as possible.
I join her at the open gate. ‘They certainly seem to know their routine,’ I remark.
‘Yes. Very intelligent animals, donkeys,’ she replies.
‘Where do you find them all?’
‘Various places. Some come to me from farms that can’t look after them any more. Others come from seaside attractions or petting zoos. Most have been either neglected or mistreated in one way or another.’ Winnifred points at one particularly large donkey to the left-hand side of the crowd. On its back I can see long, jagged lines. ‘Take Henry over there. He was beaten by his owners for years. The RSPCA rescued him from a camp of travellers and brought him here about six months ago.’ She then nods towards a smaller, grey donkey with ragged ears standing next to Henry. ‘People used to put their cigarettes out on poor Beatrice’s ears to get her to do what they wanted. She was nearly starved to death before she got here.’
Well, that’s horrible, isn’t it? Up until this moment I just looked at the donkeys as one smelly, hairy mass. I’d not even considered that they’d have individual stories to tell. But now that Winnifred has pointed out poor old Henry and Beatrice, I can only imagine what the rest of them might have been through. I’m sure they all have similar tales of donkey woe.
How depressing.
This isn’t just a place for old donkeys to hang out. It’s a place for them to be safe.
‘Oh no!’ Winnifred exclaims, startling me out of my thoughts.
‘What’s the matter?’
The old woman is staring out into the field at a large bush about twenty yards away. ‘He’s at it again.’
I look over to where she is indicating, but all I can see is the bush. ‘Pardon me?’
‘Every day this happens. He’s such a little bugger, he is. Always wants to do things differently. Always stubborn!’
Hmmm.
Up until now, I’d thought Winnifred was fully in control of her faculties, but it appears that she may be a bit mental. I don’t quite know how to otherwise explain her attitude towards the bush she’s staring at intently.
To me it looks like quite an ordinary bush. Quite large, but otherwise indistinguishable from all the others dotted around the place. It certainly doesn’t look stubborn. Unless she’s on about the roots. They can be quite stubborn sometimes. That holly bush I had to dig out of Mum’s garden last summer was a right bastard to get out of the ground, and I only—
Wait a second. There’s something behind the bush!
Winnifred isn’t bonkers after all.
‘Is there . . . is there a donkey behind that bush?’ I remark, peering over.
‘Yes, there is. And he’s playing silly buggers.’ Winnifred looks at me. ‘Would you mind coming over and helping me with him? He can be a little bit of a handful.’
Gulp.
That sounds ominous.
Winnifred starts to move across the field towards the bush. As I follow her with some trepidation, I start to conjure pictures in my head of an evil-looking large black donkey with boiling red eyes and fangs.
This is ridiculous, but I’m prone to an overactive imagination at the best of times and am currently quite far out of my comfort zone. My knowledge of donkeys is extremely limited, so I have no idea what kind of snorting, stamping horror I am about to encounter.
‘They brought him to me when he was still a foal,’ Winnifred says as she slowly approaches the bush. ‘Even then he was hard to handle.’
Oh God. This is starting to sound like a donkey version of The Omen.
Through the bush I can see movement. I grind to a halt, not wanting to get any closer. Winnifred, however, moves around to the side of the bush and puts her hands on her hips, regarding the concealed donkey with a look of exasperation. ‘Now, what do you think you’re doing, young man?’ she says to the donkey. ‘It’s feeding time. You need to come and eat.’
There is no response from the donkey. Winnifred moves forward and holds out a hand. ‘Now, come on. Stop being such a silly billy,’ she says in a commanding voice.
Then she moves back out from behind the bush. She is accompanied by a tiny orange donkey.
Yes, I said orange and I meant it.
The tumour has not started replacing the word ‘brown’ with the word ‘orange’. This is indeed an orange donkey.
‘That’s . . . that’s an orange donkey,’ I remark, rather unnecessarily.
Winnifred chuckles. ‘Yes. He’s got a rather unique hair pigmentation, hasn’t he?’
The orange donkey gives me a look. It’s slightly cross-eyed.
I’m looking at an orange, cross-eyed donkey.
. . . at least I think I am. If the tumour can give me epically realistic nightmares, can it also conjure up strange and bizarre daytime hallucinations of the brightly coloured equine variety?
‘I’m sorry,’ I say to Winnifred. ‘I have a bit of a problem with my brain, so I’m not sure whether I’m actually looking at a very small, cross-eyed orange donkey or not. Can you clear that up for me, please?’
Winnifred laughs again. ‘You are, Nathan. This here is Pipsqueak. Pipsqueak the Donkey.’ She pats the donkey on the head. ‘Say hello to Nathan, Pipsqueak.’
Pipsqueak looks up at me with an expression of such instant love and adoration that I’m slightly taken aback.
‘Heee-horrrgghhh,’ Pipsqueak says loudly by way of greeting.
‘Pleased to meet you, Pipsqueak,’ I respond, moving forward to give the tiny orange donkey a pat. He responds by moving towards me and nuzzling my hand affectionately.
Winnifred looks delighted. ‘I think he likes you!’
I smile back. ‘I think you’re right!’
‘I’m very surprised. Pipsqueak is a contrary little bugger at the best of times,’ Winnifred explains. ‘He once bit the postman.’
Pipsqueak shows no signs of biting me, I’m pleased to say.
He is pushing into me rather a lot, though. I’m forced to take a step back, such is the small donkey’s insistence on getting even closer. He really is being very affectionate.
‘You’re very lucky, Nathan!’ Winnifred remarks with happiness. ‘The reason why I got Pipsqueak in the first place was because the farmer who owned him couldn’t put up with his mood swings.’
‘Mood swings?’ I reply, giving Pipsqueak another pat. ‘Do donkeys have mood swings?’
‘This one appears to, right from when he was born. He’s full of character, but can be happy as a clam one minute and mad as hell the next.’
I look down at Pipsqueak, who has an expression of ecstasy on his little, cross-eyed donkey face, given that I am now tickling him behind one flapping ear. ‘Winnifred, are you trying to tell me that this donkey has borderline personality disorder?’
I knew someone at university who suffered from that very thing. Lovely girl, she was, when you caught her on the upswing. Not so much on the downturn, though. She once stabbed her boyfriend with a cotton bud. You wouldn’t think something as inoffensive as a cotton bud would cause much damage. You’d be wrong.
Winnifred looks a bit confused. ‘Well, I’m not sure I know what that means, but he’s a character, and no mistake.’
I find it hard to believe that this little thing has the mental capacity to suffer from such a serious complaint.
I mean, just look at that face of contentment, will you? If I handed over an apple or a small tangerine right now, Pipsqueak might reach a level of donkey bliss hitherto unseen in the species.
‘I think I have an apple in my pocket somewhere . . .’ Winnifred says, and goes rummaging around in her jacket.
I give Pipsqueak a smile. ‘Oh boy. Your day is about to go into the top five, Pippers.’
Pipsqueak nuzzles my hand again. He knows what’s coming. You can tell.
‘Oh, I don’t seem to have an apple,’ Winnifred says. ‘I’ve only got this old pear.’
‘I’m sure that’ll do,’ I answer, plucking it out of her hand. It’s a donkey after all. I’m sure an apple or a pear is much the same thing.
With a shit-eating grin on my face, I proffer the pear to Pipsqueak, who sniffs it before taking a large bite.
‘There you go,’ I say to the little donkey, feeling that we’ve bonded so well that there’s every chance he’ll want to come home with me.
I’m picturing the tiny orange donkey cavorting happily around my back garden when Pipsqueak emits a low and rumbling snort.
His ears have flattened. His eyes have gone what I can only describe as ‘flinty’.
‘Oh dear,’ I remark. ‘I don’t think he likes pears.’
Winnifred then does something that marks a severe turn for the worse in my day.
She steps backwards.
‘Ah . . . I think maybe it’d be a good idea just to leave him alone now,’ she comments in a wavering voice.
I slowly turn my head from her, back down to my cross-eyed little friend – whose eyes are now no longer crossed.
I blink a couple of times in disbelief. Instead of having a good-natured and slightly befuddled expression, Pipsqueak now looks like the donkey equivalent of Gordon Ramsay after eating a turd sandwich. He looks pissed as all hell.
‘Oh dear,’ I say in a small voice. ‘This probably isn’t going to end well, is it?’
I, too, take a step away from the donkey, hands coming up in front of my face defensively. ‘Now, Pipsqueak, please don’t be angry. I didn’t know you don’t like pears,’ I say, in an attempt to mollify him.
Pipsqueak takes a step forward. The ears have gone even flatter. The eyes are now gimlets of pure hate. I can see the thick hair on the back of his neck standing on end.
My bottom starts to pipsqueak.
‘Perhaps we can get you a nice apple?’ I suggest, moving back a little faster. ‘Or a small tangerine?’
These words fall on deaf, flat donkey ears.
Pipsqueak moves ever closer.
‘Please don’t hurt me, Pipsqueak,’ I plead. ‘I have a tumour.’
Okay, bringing in the disease is a low thing to do, but I don’t know how else to appeal to the donkey’s better nature at this point. Perhaps knowledge of my sickness will bring out a little donkey compassion in the irate little orange horror?
Nope.
He’s colder than Norway.
Pipsqueak then lets out a noise that I can only describe as ‘Herrrrgggggguumorrrrggggg’. It’s less a donkey-like hee-haw and more a sound heralding the arrival of the elder gods and the oncoming apocalypse.
‘Haaargggmmuurggghhhhooorrrrrggghhhhh.’
Oh my . . . I fear dread Cthulhu and his minions are about to crack through the earth’s crust to consume me.
‘Erm . . . Nathan?’ Winnifred says.
‘Yes, Winnifred?’
‘You might want to run away now.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Run . . . run away.’
‘From a tiny orange donkey?’
She nods her head violently. ‘Yes. That might be an extremely good idea.’
‘Okay, well, you’re the expert here, I suppose,’ I reply, turning on my heels and fixing my eyes on the safety and security of the barn. If I can get back and shut the gate, then maybe I can—
Aaaarggh!
The little fucker’s just bitten me on the arse! Instant, bright pain radiates up from my left buttock.
And with that, I’m off. I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but even I know that when a farmyard animal has started taking chunks out of your behind, it’s best to get the fuck out of Dodge as fast as possible.
I start to sprint away from Pipsqueak as fast as my legs will carry me.
Looking back, I can see that the donkey is chasing after me at a speed that is uncomfortably fast. Even more uncomfortable is the fact that Winnifred is nearly alongside him and both are catching me up at a rate of knots.
I’m not sure how I’m ever going to recover from the humiliation of not being able to outrun a manic depressive, tiny orange donkey and Mary Berry’s less well-off sister.
I’m going to blame it on the shoes I’m wearing. These Adidas trainers really aren’t the right kind of footwear for a tactical retreat from an angry donkey across a lush summer-green field. They simply don’t have the grip.
‘Pipsqueak! You stop chasing poor Nathan!’ Winnifred yells. ‘He’s come here to help us!’
Pipsqueak unfortunately cares nothing for my potential beneficence. I am the human who dared to feed him a disgusting pear, and payback must therefore be sought upon my person.
I look back again as we close in on the barn to see that even poor Winnifred is now unable to keep up the chase. She slows to a halt and holds her chest, breathing heavily.
Excellent. The old girl is going to have a fatal heart attack now, thus leaving me at the mercy of Pipsqueak and his donkey brethren.
I double my pace as I desperately try to reach the safety and security of the barn. If I can just get the gate shut again before Pipsqueak reaches me, I’ll be okay!
Now, let’s pause for a second to consider physics. Or, more exactly – and most pertinently to my current situation – the physics of friction.
Friction, as we all know, is the force acting on an object as a result of its interaction with another object.
In this case, the first object is my Adidas trainer and the second object is the grass below my feet. Bring the sole of an Adidas trainer together with a patch of fresh, slippery grass and only one result will be forthcoming. You don’t need to be Professor Brian Cox to work out what it is.
My left leg goes out from under me as I run past the open gate.
I don’t immediately fall to the ground, though. Instead, my momentum carries me another good ten feet towards the rest of the feeding donkeys in a tangle of arms and legs. Eventually, gravity asserts its supreme authority and I crash to the ground, sliding across the grass like I’m stealing first base.
‘Fuck about!’ I wail as I go over, instantly regretting my choice to wear the six-hundred-pound leather jacket I bought in London last Christmas. Getting these grass stains out is going to be a dry-cleaning nightmare.
These are concerns that will have to wait, however, as I have a far more important problem that I’m going to have to deal with in the next few seconds – namely, an enraged orange donkey catching up to my prone form with the intent to do evil things to it.
I scramble to my feet, hoping against hope that I still have time to get away.
Hope deserts me.
Pipsqueak jumps on my back.
Yes, I know Pipsqueak is a donkey and not a monkey.
I’m well aware that a donkey – especially a tiny orange one – shouldn’t have the ability to jump on the back of a fully grown human being, but that is nevertheless what Pipsqueak has just done, so we’re all just going to have to accept it and move on. There will be time for detailed analysis of how Pipsqueak has managed to overcome the deficiencies of donkey anatomy to accomplish this feat at a later date, but for now, I have a donkey on my back and must do something about it as fast as possible.
What I choose to do is scream.
‘Aaaaaarrggghh! No! No! Pipsqueak! Please don’t eat me!’
Any second now, I expect to feel donkey teeth close around the back of my neck as Pipsqueak tears my head off.
Instead, I feel something prodding me in the back. This, as I’m about to discover, is oh so much worse than having my head ripped off.
I’m not being savaged, but there is every chance I’m about to be sexually assaulted.
Pipsqueak’s mood has quite obviously changed in a split second from murderous intent to something decidedly more amorous.
I’m being molested by a hairy orange creature with a personality disorder. Now I know what it feels like to be a woman locked in a room with Donald Trump.
Why is there never a beanbag around when you need one?
‘No, Pipsqueak! Stop doing that!’ I wail, fearing it will have no appreciable effect. Pipsqueak may be a tiny donkey, but he’s also quite heavy, so I am forced back on to the ground, where the donkey is ready, willing and able to have its wicked way with me.
Maybe it’s the leather coat.
I should have bought a fake one for forty pounds from H&M and had done with it.
And if the grass stains are going to be hard to get out, I can only imagine how bad it will be to remove the stains potentially left by my new donkey ‘friend’.
I can now hear Pipsqueak grunting in my ear.
This is quite comprehensively awful by every measure possible.
If Herman the Grumpy Tumour has any kind of pity in his cold, brain-hugging soul, he will kill me right here and now before Pipsqueak has a chance to build up any kind of rhythm.
‘Please, Pipsqueak! There’s hay over there. Why don’t you go eat some hay?’
My pitiful cries for mercy continue to fall on deaf ears. My fate here is sealed. I am the plaything of a tiny orange donkey. It’s probably best I just accept my new lot in life as quickly as possible.
‘Get off him, Pipsqueak!’ I hear Winnifred angrily shout.
I crane my head around past Pipsqueak’s vibrating muzzle to see that the old lady has not in fact died of a heart attack, but has instead caught us up and is intending to put a stop to this awful scene as swiftly as she possibly can. This seems to involve hitting the horny donkey across the back with a long stick she’s found somewhere.
I’m not normally one for advocating violence against animals of any kind, but I’m willing to put my morals aside in this instance, given that my shirt has now been pulled out of my waistband and I can feel donkey penis against my skin.
‘Get it off!’ I scream with renewed vigour. ‘It’s so wet . . . and I can feel it pulsing!’
Winnifred belts Pipsqueak a couple of times with the stick.
Thankfully . . . gloriously . . . mercifully, this seems to do the trick. Pipsqueak jumps off my back with a loud and angry snort.
I continue to thrash around for a second before realising that my ordeal is over. ‘Oh God,’ I moan into the grass. ‘Oh dear, sweet God in heaven.’
‘Are you okay, Nathan?’ Winnifred asks me, bending down.
‘Yes,’ I lie. ‘As long as I’m not pregnant, I’m sure I’ll be fine.’
I rise unsteadily to my feet, keeping a watchful eye on Pipsqueak as I do. It appears that now he has had his way with me, the donkey has completely lost interest. He joins his friends at the hay bales for a feed.
Charming.
Find ’em, fuck ’em and feed, it seems.
‘I’m so, so sorry about this,’ Winnifred says, trying to brush the grass away from my now ruined leather jacket. ‘They really are lovely animals for the most part. Pipsqueak isn’t like the rest of them at all.’
‘Really? Do the others take you out for a nice meal first?’
‘Pardon me?’
I shake my head. ‘Never mind.’ I give Pipsqueak another uneasy look. ‘Would you mind if we went back to the house so I can clean up a bit?’
‘Of course! Of course! The donkeys will be fine for the minute.’
I’m sure they will. I don’t know what passes for good donkey conversation in these parts, but I’m confident the sexual subjugation of an innocent human being will be right up there.
‘I’ll show you where the bathroom is,’ Winnifred finishes, holding one hand out towards the house.
Luckily, the route back won’t take us too close to the feeding donkeys. I don’t want to take any chances that Pipsqueak might want to engage in a second booty call upon my person, or that his mates might get any ideas and try to join in.
About ten minutes later, I’m sat with a cup of hot, sweet tea in Winnifred’s front room. The jacket is going in the bin, but the rest of my clothes are salvageable. Whether my pride is or not is another thing, though.
Winnifred sits down on the couch beside me rather tentatively. Her expression is one of combined concern and deep regret. ‘I am sorry about Pipsqueak, Nathan. I had hoped that you’d see the donkeys in their best light, and that you’d be willing to . . . well, you know . . .’
Winnifred leaves the sentence hanging, but I know what she’s hinting at.
She probably feels that any desire I had to give her some cash to help with the upkeep of the sanctuary has well and truly disappeared, given that one of her little bastards has assaulted me in broad daylight – but, in actual fact, I think I’m mature enough to see past that and acknowledge that what she’s doing here is a very worthwhile thing.
‘I’m happy to help, Winnifred, I really am,’ I tell her, thinking back to the large and painful-looking marks across Henry’s back. ‘What you’re doing here is fantastic, and I want to make sure you can carry on doing it. How much do you think you might need?’
Winnifred looks down a little shyly. ‘I’d need about twenty thousand pounds, I’m afraid. That would give me enough to spruce the place up, reroof the barn and pay for more feed during the winter. And I’d like to open the sanctuary to the public to make a little money, too, but I need money up front to do that.’
I place a hand over hers. ‘Done. I will write you a cheque as soon as I get home.’
This essentially means that I’m just about to give an old lady twenty grand for the privilege of getting nearly rogered by an insane orange donkey.
My life is complete.
Winnifred looks at me in delighted shock. ‘Thank you, Nathan! Oh, thank you so much!’
I return the smile. ‘It’s my absolute pleasure.’
And it really, really is.
I feel a warm glow in my heart and an absolute sense of rightness about what I’ve done here today. This was definitely a worthwhile thing to do. Even with the donkey sex.
Back out at the front of the grand old house, I wave goodbye to a rather tearful Winnifred and walk back down the bumpy track towards the main road, where a taxi is waiting for me.
As I do, I see that the donkeys have finished eating and have gone back to milling around the place with not a care in the world.
I reach the main entrance and see Pipsqueak standing just off to one side behind the fence, looking at me as I pass.
Yeah, go on, beautiful, his eyes seem to be saying. You go get that cash and come back. And next time . . . wear something pretty and see-through for me.
I’d like to say I didn’t start running at this point, but I’d be lying through my teeth.
I have seen and experienced things today that I shall never forget for as short as I live.
Nevertheless, I’m going to try my bloody hardest to forget – largely through the consumption of strong alcohol and by way of several expensive therapy sessions, all of which will hopefully combat my newly developed and intense fear of donkeys.
And pears.
And large bushes.
. . . but mostly donkeys.