The hay dealer showed me his latest stock and told me the bright green hay would cost me a staggering €165 a bale.
‘I don’t want to smoke it, I want to feed it to my horses,’ I said, looking doubtfully at what was apparently best meadow hay. It was a very large bale, and it was very green, but even so. I would expect to pay €80 for a large bale, so twice that did not make any sense. I took a handful of it and smelt it and it had a pungent, grassy aroma. There was a strange twang to it.
I asked if he could deliver me a couple of bales and he screwed his face up. He explained he had driven it all the way from England to West Cork. He would be happy to deliver me a €5,000 job lot, and he could offer me an arrangement whereby I paid it off in monthly instalments. ‘I’ve just delivered five grand’s worth down to an English lady with horses in Ballydehob,’ he said, with a swagger.
‘You’re not selling it by saying that, not to me anyway,’ I said, for I have come across many a mad English person living down near the Mizen Head. The fact that hay had been bought at that price by a pink-haired hippy, in all likelihood flying a Palestinian flag on her old farmhouse, with a load of llamas in a paddock and some ‘rescue ponies’ never ridden in a barn, did not increase my confidence.
I told him I didn’t want credit. I would pay up front. But it was an extraordinary amount of money for a large square bale, even one the size of a sofa, and with the same suspiciously inviting interest-free credit. I would have to go away and think about it.
The hay dealer was standing there in this mucky old farm wearing his usual sportif wear and I looked down at his feet in white Nike trainers, perched on the edge of a puddle. Trainers, shiny football tracksuit, baseball cap. He always strikes me as the most unlikely farmer. He usually wants to talk about his trips to Monte Carlo.
I made my excuses and later called my other hay contact, who lives round the corner from me. He had run low on hay. He really hadn’t got anything, except… he did have one thing, he said, after a pause. Some very large squares he had bought in from someone else who had imported them from England. They were €165.
Would you bring me one? I asked. He said he would. So he turned up in his loader with one bale, which was better than me having to buy a job lot. As he pushed it into my hay barn he said, looking doubtful: ‘I fed one to my cattle and they seemed to eat it all right.’ I thought that was a strange thing to say about very expensive, very green hay.
‘Are you kidding? My lot will be stuffing their faces on this,’ I said. It looked even greener now, in full sunlight. It was almost fluorescent it was so green.
As he left, I filled the horse’s nets and hauled them into the stable yard. I tied up the first one, and Darcy the thoroughbred stuck her nose out, sniffed the hay, then curled her top lip back and with her face in the air made a sucking sound.
Then she tentatively picked some hay out of it, chewed it, making a huge fuss with her mouth, and promptly spat it out. The pony took a mouthful then spat it out and ran around the barn, as though spooked. I moved on, thinking the mares were just being fussy.
But both Jimmy and Duey, the fat cobs, looked at the hay, made a face, and stood there staring at me. Ignore them, they’ll eat it, I told myself. But as I walked away, I heard Jimmy banging on his door with his foot, which is what he does when he is demanding his dinner. I sniffed the hay again and could swear I smelt something akin to the wafting stink you sometimes pick up when you walk around the streets of south London.
‘I’m telling you,’ I told the BB later, ‘that hay has had marijuana hidden in it – for smuggling.’ He said he supposed it would explain why all the hay dealers round here are so rich.
The farrier had the answer, as usual, when he came a few days later. ‘Oh, that’s the hay from England with the powder in it,’ he said, his wise old face creasing into a smile as he looked at the bale I was showing him.
‘The powder? You mean they’re moving cocaine in it?’ I said, very excited.
The farrier looked at me like I had lost my mind. ‘No, baling powder. They’ve put a preservative into it. It keeps the green colour. It’s probably just old hay.’
Oh, I said, disappointed. Either way, I thought, as I looked at the untouched haynets later, the horses banging on their doors in disgust, thank goodness I didn’t buy €5,000 worth.
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