The Secret Life of Evie Hamilton - Catherine Alliott [163]
‘GET THAT PIG OUT OF HERE!’ roared Tim, brick red in the face, glancing hopelessly at his wife, the only one sufficiently versed in pig husbandry to assist. She gazed blankly back as if to say – pig? What pig?
Meanwhile younger members of the male guests had taken up the challenge. Shimmying out of their jackets they hurled their coats at Leonard like matadors, and themselves after them, a strong smell of testosterone in the air. It was as if they sensed their moment had come: that Alice's wedding had to be rescued. Perhaps past beaus were amongst the gallant young men who attempted to rugby tackle the pig into submission, but Leonard was strong, and very angry now, and not even Clarence, who, having satisfied himself his antisocial and aggressive don was spent for a moment – arms hanging limply, shoulders hunched – could pin this boar to the floor. He slipped, he slithered, he evaded capture. And the awful thing was, he'd spotted the cake.
His little piggy eyes lit on it: three-tiered, white and gleaming, in splendid isolation on a table in the corner. One could almost see the thought processes whirring. Could something so tall, so white, so patently unlike swill in a trough, smell so delicious? Was his nose deceiving him, or was it really full of fruit and brandy and molasses and dripping with sugar? He cantered steadily towards it as yet more shirt-sleeved heroes flung themselves in his path; but every time he squirmed free, his eyes, beady and determined. He got up and made inexorably for it again, until, that is – a cry went up. Not a human cry, but a loud, desperate, porcine honk. It stopped him in his tracks.
We all swung around; Leonard too. There, at the entrance to the marquee, sat Mum, revving a quad bike. A small trailer was on the back, wire meshed, and once used, I recalled, for transporting chickens. Inside it now, honking her heart out, was a very horny Boadicea. She'd smelled Leonard, and she wanted him. Mum later told us she'd taken a small piece of wood from Leonard's trailer for her to smell. Boadicea had eaten it whole, as if demonstrating what she had in mind for him. For a moment Leonard hesitated. The cake was big, but this girl was hot; circling her cage, mad for him, desperate. And what's more, other potential girlfriends, who, after all, he'd come here with the sole intent to roger senseless, hearing Boadicea's cry, were baying for him in the background. Once more, the wheels of his piggy brain were visible. Food… or sex? Sex… or food? How many male hearts did not go out to him? Offer their sympathies?
Boadicea, sensing indecision, dug deep and gave one lusty primeval bark; a bark full of longing, a bark he couldn't resist. Leonard turned and trotted hypnotically towards her. He went to the back of the trailer, where Henry, Mum's accomplice, was poised, ready with the tricky little assignment of opening the cage door and letting Leonard in, but not Boadicea out. He hadn't grown up on a farm for nothing, though, and the operation went faultlessly. The pigs were united, in every sense. Within seconds, for the benefit of the entire wedding party, Leonard climbed aboard, and with his mouth hanging open, and with that glazed, faraway expression females of all species are familiar with, he jigged away making the two-backed beast, whilst Boadicea, now she'd got her man, looked for all the world as if she was quietly planning a dinner party.
The crowd went wild: cheering, whooping and clapping. It seemed Mum's inspired insight into the male psyche had saved the wedding. After all, the cake was still standing, only one tray of canapés had been eaten, the broken champagne glasses were quickly swept up, chairs righted. Leonard and Boadicea were driven away, up the hill to where the rest of the sows were waiting: not quietly, like ladies, but noisily, like ladettes,