You wouldn’t have thought it to look at him, but Keith Gunn’s bull was gay. But then who are we to impose our rigid notions of masculinity on a bull?
Keith Gunn had named this bull Rambo, which only reinforced the existing stereotype, especially in the eyes of the holidaymakers in the Airbnb down by the burn. The Nortons always came in August for two weeks. Rambo used to look forward to their arrival, heralded each year by the first faint sugar-frosting of heather on the upper slopes of the glen. He would watch out for the five of them striding over the fields in their windproof jackets and wellington boots, the little one, Matty, trotting double-time to keep up. And they would be looking for him. Oh, there were plenty of bonny females in the herd – Joanie, with her dazzling forelocks, and Princess, of course, and Amber of the gleaming gingernut hide. But all the Norton boys wanted was to ‘see if they could see Rambo’. It made Rambo feel like a celebrity. He would position himself so that he was facing up the glen, to give them his best side. He couldn’t deny it; he was trying to impress them. They seemed like such a happy, normal, accepting family.
Then one year the Nortons’ visit provoked confusing feelings in Rambo. The eldest boy, Dominic, was no longer a calf. He had grown at least four inches and his chest was broader, too. His hair, darker now, had been sheared very close at the sides, while on top of his handsome young head lay a dense tousle of curls, just like Rambo’s own forelocks.
‘Oi, Rambo! Did you miss us?’ It was the first time Dominic had ever spoken directly to Rambo, who found himself tongue-tied, unable to say a word. In shy confusion he turned right round. Too late he remembered that he had enjoyed a particularly liquid evacuation just moments before the Nortons’ arrival. No doubt his hinderparts were still slick with his own filth. Placing one trembling hoof directly in front of the other he exited over the hill with as much dignity as he could manage.
Rambo kept a low profile for the rest of the fortnight. He was relieved when he saw the Norton’s Mazda winding its way out of the glen. From then on, he did his best to put the lad from his mind, he really did. He knew it was wrong. He would try to think of something more appropriate, like burly young Angus with his trim waist and proud withers. Then he remembered that Angus was his own son, and moreover, he’d been castrated, so it really was out of the question. Rambo wasn’t that sort of bull. He exhorted himself to purify his mind, to practise meditation.
Yet sometimes, as he chewed the cud, he found himself keeping rhythm with his jaws, beating out the sweet dactyl of the boy’s name. Dom-in-ic, Dom-in-ic, Dom-in-ic.
And then it was August again, and this year, for the first time, Dominic had brought a friend with him. The two of them set off from the house almost as soon as the Nortons had arrived, leaving the parents and the two younger boys to unload the car. It wasn’t just a friend, Rambo realised as they drew closer, it was a girlfriend, a scrawny female with long dark hair who stopped when she spotted the herd up ahead.
‘I don’t like it,’ the girl said. ‘Dom, we should turn back.’ But Dominic said something soothing to her and they continued on, his arm around her waist.
