Animals can sense the approach of death.

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John Ramine knew that only too well. He began to understand this fact before he was even ten years old, when his father gathered sheep from their Yorkshire hill farm into trucks for transport to slaughter. An air of trepidation, nervous unease and helplessness seemed to emanate from the doomed creatures. They somehow knew their destruction was at hand, but trotted dutifully towards it, domesticated beyond the point of refusal. At fourteen, John studied one of his father’s flocks in awe: of the two hundred livestock, one single sheep was left alone by the others – deliberately segregated by its own kind. John’s father examined the animal, but found no evidence of sickness or injury; also, it continued to eat and drink normally that day. Twenty-four hours later, the sheep was dead. “Natural causes,” the vet said. “But the other sheep knew”, John tried to explain. “Don’t be daft, lad. It’s just your imagination.”

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On John’s eighteenth birthday, another aspect of death touched his life. John’s father revealed the family secret. He explained why the family could never move from their location and why the farm could never close. It grew clear why John’s parents had only had one child – one was sufficient to continue their legacy and mercifully meant that no second or third child would have to endure the same existence. John was shown the family’s inheritance, held in an ancient chest like some pirate’s treasure. And he was indoctrinated into service… A service he was made to vow to maintain for the rest of his life. All John’s hopes and aspirations, of education, of a life in the city away from the bleak isolation of the farm, were decimated. He came to realise that his fate had been sealed at the moment of his birth. Worse still, he would have to bear the knowledge that his future single child and the child of that child too, would be consigned to the same destiny.

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John was thirty-six when his mother died of cancer. Her loss drew the last vestiges of happiness from John’s father and he began to waste away – his twenty-stone weight halving in six months, his grey hair whitening and falling out, his ruddy skin becoming like ancient parchment. In that time, John took over the farm completely.

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And The Hole became his to attend to.

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Two years after his father’s funeral, John Ramine took a wife. The marriage was one of convenience: two lonely people without kin or friends, looking for companionship and hoping for love. Mary found even greater loneliness in her new home and each day ate at her soul. However, she organised the book-keeping of the farm well and, after a year, gave birth to Melissa. Tiny Melissa, John always called her, when his huge calloused hands lifted her gently from her crib into the air so he could gaze up at her face. She was so small, delicate and beautiful; a beacon of innocence and joy in the dark home of the farm.

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Time quickly took its toll on Mary. There was no love for her here from her husband. The winters were incredibly hard. The isolation was unbearable. If it hadn’t been for Melissa, she would have left – but for Melissa, and the love John had for the child, she stayed...

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Gradually, Mary started to become aware of John’s secrets... Once, when the bank was threatening to foreclose on their numerous loans, Mary wept all night in worry. The following day, John visited the bank. He returned with their account twenty thousand pounds in credit and with his battered Land Rover filled with presents. Dresses for Mary; toys for Melissa; a giant television for the living room. When Mary asked in one word “How..?”, John simply replied, “Don’t”. She never dared broach the subject again... Then there were the nights each month when John would go out alone into the darkness. He didn’t leave the farm, for the Land Rover remained outside the house. But he returned with his clothes dirty and his expression hauntingly blank. Those nights – once, sometimes twice a month – were the darkest times of Mary’s life... The third secret was the missing livestock. Each time Mary worked the accounts, there were animals missing. “It’s a wild landscape,” John told her repeatedly. “They get lost sometimes. Eventually they’ll come back and we could have up to a half-dozen extra head, which’ll be a bonus. Think of it as swings and roundabouts, darling, swings and roundabouts...” However, none of the lost animals ever did return. When they got lost, they stayed lost. And the losses went on like a steady ebb of blood from an unclosed wound. There were between fourteen and twenty-two a year: oddly, the same number as John’s nocturnal trips.

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By the time Melissa was four, Mary had started to become more distrusting and bitter. At the same time, John had turned to drink – not at The Raven’s Claw pub four miles away, which he never frequented, rather in his own living room whilst staring at the television and trying to lose himself in its images. Arguments exploded between the couple, over everything from spoiled lunches to Mary’s pleas for a holiday away from their lonely prison. Only John’s secrets were kept out of the furious rows, and simply because Mary was too afraid to discuss them. Finally, Mary gave an ultimatum. One night, she demanded a change in their life – for them to go on a trip, to holiday, to do something to shatter the monotony – or else she would leave with Melissa...

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John sat in silence for several long seconds as he considered the threat. He reacted not by shouting or striking Mary, rather he stood up from his armchair and grabbed her using his great, calloused hands. She struggled, but was held like an object in a steel vice. He guided her swiftly out of the house and into the darkness.

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To The Hole.

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