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of the attached rope to my assistant. ‘Pull, please.’
    Having calved the head, we had only nine-tenths of the calf to go. ‘Right,’ I said. ‘More lube. You can never have too much lube.’
    Mark sniggered.
    ‘Oh, shut up.’
    ‘I didn’t say a word!’ he protested.
    I put down the lube container and picked up the calving jack. ‘It was a very suggestive laugh. Now we’ll hook this up and I’ll get you to do the pulling while I stand here at the front and pretend to be doing something important.’ Please, please, let it come out without me having to cut off a leg.
    Even with an All Black on the end of the calving jack, however, the calf didn’t come. I had to cut off a front leg, and then lie on the concrete behind the heifer to work my fingers between the calf’s ribs and pull out handfuls of decomposing internal organs. The smell was appalling.
    ‘Are you doing that for any reason other than to see if you can make me throw up?’ Mark asked.
    I dropped something which may once have been a liver onto the ground beside me with an unpleasant wet splat. ‘I’m trying to deflate the thing a bit. I did tell you it’d be the world’s lousiest evening.’
    ‘Nope,’ he said, ‘it still doesn’t crack the top ten.’
    ‘What would?’
    ‘Losing the last World Cup was up there. And the World Cup before that.’
    ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Of course. Right, let’s hook up the calving jack again.’
    We did, and pulled, and the calf broke in half behind the ribs. I very nearly rested my cheek on the heifer’s rump and wept. ‘Can I have the evil hook again? And we’d better put in some more lube.’
    ‘You’re doing well,’ he said gently.
    ‘I’m not,’ I said, and if my voice wasn’t a wail I’m sure it was heading that way. ‘The thing’s got a bum the size of a bus, and I have to try and get a wire round and split the pelvis, and even if I can do it we’ve still got to get the back legs out.’
    ‘And if we can’t?’
    ‘I’ll have to put the heifer down. I’m not leaving her for Joe to shoot; I did that with a cow that had a broken leg a few months ago, and Keri saw her lurching round in a paddock a week later.’
    ‘Is it worth carrying on?’ he asked.
    I pushed a wisp of hair back off my face with a dirty glove, which was an ill-considered move. ‘Yeah. I’ll put the hook around a vertebra and get you to pull it all a bit closer. Poor little heifer.’
    After another ten minutes I pulled my left arm out of my patient and said unhappily, ‘I can’t do it. I can’t reach, and my arms aren’t working anymore. Could you try? If you can’t reach either I’ll put her down.’
    ‘Yes, of course,’ he said.
    I got stiffly to my feet. ‘I’m so sorry. You’ll get filthy.’
    ‘So I’ll wash,’ he said serenely, pulling a long glove out of the box. ‘Tell me what to do.’
    On impulse I reached up and kissed his cheek, which in hindsight would have been a nicer gesture if my face had been clean. ‘Drop the introducer over behind the tail, and then pick it up from underneath. You’ll need to worm your arm forward as far as you can and push the thing over, then pull your arm out and reach in again underneath. I’ll give you my calving gown.’
    He shook his head. ‘It won’t fit me,’ he said, unzipping his sweatshirt and hanging it over a rail. He held out his hand for the introducer.
    ‘You’ll want some lube,’ I said, pouring it liberally over his gloved arm.
    ‘Because you can never have too much lube.’ He knelt behind the heifer and felt his way into the birth canal. The heifer stared dully ahead with a look of exhausted bovine long-suffering.
    ‘If you follow the rope in you’ll find that evil hook clamped around a vertebra. And you should be able to feel the hair on the calf’s back, and if you keep going back you’ll feel a tail.’
    He closed his eyes, frowning. ‘It’s enormous.’
    ‘It’s all blown up with gas. What can you feel?’
    ‘The end of