Elmet

by Mozley, Fiona

  ‘He’s your little boyfriend, is he?’ said the man, obtusely.

  ‘Brother.’

  ‘How did you hear about meeting place?’

  She shrugged again but the man did not seem too fussed by the rudeness. ‘Same as everyone,’ she said. ‘Someone told us. Someone said go down to WMC of a morning if you want to earn a bit of money. So that’s what we did.’

  ‘Who’s your dad?’

  ‘Sam Jones. Do you know him?’

  It was a common enough name. I was not sure if it was someone she knew of or if she had pulled it from thin air there and then.

  ‘Never heard of him. Do you know any of this lot to vouch for you?’ He nodded at the men already sitting in the van and those still standing in the car park.

  ‘We heard you were short of hands this year so we thought we’d come down and try our luck.’

  The foreman stopped to consider. He blinked a couple of times. His eyelashes were as grey and as coarse as his moustache. ‘That’s true enough. We do need some extra. Are you up to it?’

  Cathy shrugged.

  ‘It’s hard work. Bending and lifting all—’

  ‘Not that hard,’ interrupted Cathy. ‘We’ve sorted potatoes before. And picked them. And carried great big sacks of them. It’s no problem. We worked on a farm near Grimsby where we did potatoes and sugar beets and all that.’

  ‘Grimsby? What the fuck were you doing over there then and being here now? You a pair of fucking gypos?’

  ‘Our nan lived over there. We used to live with her. Now we live with our dad.’

  ‘Your dad, Sam Jones?’

  ‘Aye.’

  He did not believe us but he let us on the bus all the same.

  The last of the men in the car park were marshalled onto the van and they found their places among those that were already inside. The seats were coated in a sticky fabric that was pretending to be leather. There were gashes in some and seat-padding was spilling out. Some gashes had been made deliberately. They had been cleanly slashed by a bored and frustrated labourer who had sunk the blade of his penknife into the soft cushion rather than into the taut muscles of his own thigh. Most of the holes were from wear.

  The foreman had left the engine running and the radiator on. It was gorgeously warm. The windows had steamed up so the cold world outside looked like it was shrouded in a close fog. I made my mark with my finger. I traced a single line of about six inches across at the height of my eyes like the thin slit in a knight’s helmet. I looked out through my visor. My nose pressed on the glass made a further mark in the damp glaze.

  The van was not half full and Cathy and I were the only two people sitting next to one another. All of the men had chosen a pair of seats for themselves so they could spread themselves out with an arm up on the neighbouring headrest or their coat or bag between them and the aisle. They all appeared to know each other quite well but they protected their individual space nevertheless.

  A man sat in the row directly in front of us. He was wearing a black beanie hat and a bomber jacket that was more British racing green than military green. When the doors were shut and the driver had got going, the man took off his outer clothes. Beneath his hat he had a shaved head and on the back of his neck a tattoo of a word or phrase written in a gothic script so dense I could not make out the letters. Beneath his jacket he wore a white vest. He bore the signs of a thin man who had worked hard to build himself up. His muscles rested uneasily on his bones.

  As he arranged himself in his seat he noticed me looking. He turned and used the window as his back-rest so that he could face us and talk.

  ‘Not seen you two before.’

  ‘Needed money,’ said Cathy.

  ‘Aye, don’t we all.’

  He had brought an apple with him and began shining it on his trouser leg like a cricket ball. He then raised it to his mouth and took a bite, cleaving a quarter of the apple’s flesh with a loud crack. He chewed what he had bitten off and swallowed the mouthful before turning back to us.

  ‘You must have got desperate if you’ve come up to work with us lot,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Suppose so,’ said my sister.

  ‘Not seen either of you before, is all, and it’s shit work, this.’

  ‘Is it?’ said Cathy. ‘How shit?’

  ‘Shit.’ He lowered his voice, ‘And bosses are right bastards. Us lot only do this work because we’ve got no other choice.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Most of us are just out of prison, or else our working record is so bad we can’t get owt official. Dole-wallers, the lot of us. Only bosses encourage it. They drive us up to our probation office or job centre to get our money, and they know that way they can pay us less.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Twenty quid for a ten hour day. Cash in hand, mind. The days are getting longer, and all. Hardly anyone wants to do it any more – not even Lithuanians – it’s not worth it. It’s just us few who’ll put up with it. We fancy an extra bit of cash on top of our dole-money for a few pints and a packet of cigarettes.’

  ‘I roll my own.’

  ‘Do you? Clever girl. You got any for me?’

  Cathy took out her tobacco and began rolling a cigarette for the man. When she had finished she passed the ivory stick between the headrests of the seats in front and he placed it behind his right ear. ‘Can’t smoke it now. Will save it for later.’

  ‘Who is boss?’ asked Cathy.

  ‘Coxswain today. He’s one of worst, but none are good.’

  ‘Who else do you work for?’

  ‘All sorts. All the landowners round here. Sorting potatoes and that, and doing odd jobs. There’s casual work in slaughterhouses too. Jim Corvine’s a boss. Dave Jeffreys. Price.’

  ‘Price?’

  ‘Aye, Price. He’s one who fucking terrifies me, but we don’t see him much in person. Too important, that one.’

  ‘Aye but when you do see him, what’s he like?’

  The man shrugged. ‘Like I say, I’ve not had much contact with him. None of us have. Only I know not to mess with him. One of lads a couple of years back, maybe it’s five years now, got his leg badly mangled in some machinery up at Price’s farm. Don’t know what work he was doing for him but it was after dark and place wandt lit properly. Well Johnno – that’s name of lad – he got talking to some men down pub and next thing I knew he were trying to get some money out of Price. Some compensation for his injuries.’

  ‘Did he succeed?’

  ‘Did he fuck. He got half his family evicted from homes. Price owned lot. Not only was he evicted but also his poor little mum, his sister with her new baby who had a flat up in Donnie, and even a fucking cousin or summat, who lived in a house of Price’s right on other side of county. All of them turfed out as quick as you like. You don’t fuck with Price, no you do not. Oh yes, there’s many of us who’d like to take that man down a peg or two but there’s few who’d dare.’

  ‘Would anyone dare?’

  The man shrugged and took another, similar sized, bite from his apple. The edges were turning golden brown.

  ‘Someone who’s got nowt to lose, I suppose.’

  Cathy looked at me. I felt her thigh move closer to mine and we began, unconsciously, to breath in unison, knitting ourselves together in a common cause.

  The van was drawing in to the farmyard. There were some shallow outhouses made from red bricks and corrugated iron and a block of stables in the distance. There were two large barns, one of which had been painted blue and the other of which had been painted white but so long ago that the colour was flecked and faded and both barns were now for the most part the colour of metal in rain. The tall doors of the barn had been cast wide open to give the men light in which to work.

  The man’s name was Gary. He told us as we were getting out of the van to begin the day’s labour. We worked close by him for the next ten hours, maybe more. We stopped for a short while for cups of tea and Cathy and I snacked on the lunch we h
ad brought. Gary introduced us to some of the other men and he told them what we had been whispering to him while we worked. He told them that we had a daddy who thought he could bring down Mr Price or at least stand up to him. Some laughed openly and others turned away to conceal their laughter. But not all of them. Some looked me and Cathy up and down as if trying to gauge the measure of our father by sizing up his offspring. If that is what they were doing they were likely to be surprised. I was still a little lad and though Cathy had that great and alarming strength about her, she was still just a girl in their eyes. Gary, at least, seemed convinced by us. He had spoken directly to my sister after all and Cathy was nothing if not compelling. Without fail, her eyes made contact with whomever she was speaking to. She stared, blinking only occasionally, and so quickly and faintly that it could almost be missed. She did not laugh nervously where others might. She committed to her story where others were prone to waiver, and she always believed everything she said – a kind of honesty to which few could admit. There was some hope in her words, I suppose, and Gary was pinned. Through him others were convinced too and Cathy spotted a good moment to invite them up to our house as Daddy had instructed us. They were to come and we would light a bonfire, drink beer and cider, and cook meat on the open flames. A few said they would come there and then and Gary said that he would bring more. Cathy urged him to remain quiet about our business. He assured us he would be canny and I believed him. That evening we passed their names to Ewart.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Caring for a wood means huge stacks of trimming get piled up around the place. In order to let new growth fight through, overhanging branches, crumbled bark and fallen trees must be cleared. Weeds in the undergrowth must be managed. The right shoots must be let through and the wrong ones discouraged. Hazel needs to be hacked back to the stem so that it sprouts forth again severally next season like the heads of Hydra.

  The multiple, thin trunks that come from hazel are useful for building fences and baskets and they form the wattle of wattle and daub walls. Daddy, with our help, had been rebuilding and extending the chicken coop with wattle and daub and something like a thatched roof, though Daddy admitted a proper thatcher would be loath to give his approximation that name.

  The new chicken coop was attached to our house. Its back wall was what had been the outside of our kitchen wall, by the stove. This meant the hens could enjoy the warmth that seeped through the wood and stones, such that it did. Daddy said that most people kept their chickens at the bottom of the garden far from the human house so that the human family need not be bothered by the clucking and scratching of the birds. Daddy said this was unkind and that he would rather live with the racket than think of the creatures left needlessly cold when there was a clear and direct remedy. So we built their house tucked up close against ours. Its wattle walls were curved and crinkled like a callous on the smooth, straight lines Daddy had constructed for our home the previous year. A grotesquely large wasps’ nest glued to the side of a silver birch.

  With all that work for the chickens and all the continuing work to restrain and shape the copse, the piles of woodland debris grew and grew. We burnt much of it in our stove but every now and then we set a load ablaze in an outdoor bonfire. We picked clear evenings for these, even if the cold was biting, and we stood about and warmed ourselves against the baying flames and roasted cuts of meat or vegetables or else we toasted bread as we had when we first arrived and lived out of the two vans.

  Now, we had much wood to burn and this time decided to bring others along to our bonfire. We invited Andrew the butcher and Peter and Ewart and Martha, and Gary and the other labourers that Cathy and I had made contact with. Ewart suggested an event to get to know people properly, to foment support or sound out the people and the possibilities that lay in our community. Martha said that we had been alone for too long.

  Maybe so. The prospect of so many faces coming up the hill to see us felt strange, like we were to be stripped naked and paraded.

  This said, there was excitement as well as fear. I busied myself with arrangements for the food we would serve. I calculated the amount we would need and saw that we got it in the days before. I picked spring vegetables from the patch and chopped them into chunks before setting them on skewers to char over the fire. I picked out some large potatoes from our store. The new potatoes in the ground were too little to disturb so I went to these hefty lates that we had kept dark in hessian sacks from last autumn. The store was running low but the ones I chose would be big enough and I wrapped them in tin foil so we could place them on the embers of the fire. That way they get all smoky as they cook and the skin becomes crisp while the white flesh on the inside melts like hot dollops of cream, not far in texture from the butter we would drizzle over the tops. Daddy sorted most of the meat but I ground offcuts and entrails and made little patties with barley and spice.

  We invited Vivien too.

  I met with her almost every day. Sometimes she would leave me with reading or work to finish in silence. On other occasions she would stay with me and chat. I cherished these conversations and when I could think of a good one I would ask her a question about what I was reading in the hope that her answer would be long and detailed and that it would lead us to other topics, further questions, new answers.

  The thought that she would be coming up to our home excited me. I liked the idea of seeing her in a new place and showing her around the spaces I inhabited with Cathy and Daddy. I wanted to show her the trees in our copse and the chickens and my vegetable patch and the house itself. I wanted the chance to tell her things she might not know. This was my land and I could show it to her. If there was time I wanted to take her up to the railway tracks. There would certainly be trains passing while our guests were with us but I wanted to take Vivien, especially, up for a closer look.

  The same old trains still ruffled on past, despite it all. I wondered what the train driver thought, and what the passengers thought, when they looked out the windows as dusk settled and saw our copse, and the crest, and the trail of thin black smoke coming from behind it.

  It was set to be a mighty blaze. Daddy had rooted out all the dead wood he could find: dead brambles from the hedgerows, fallen branches from an oak that were obstructing a bridleway. A beech had been struck by lightning in a midsummer storm the year before. Its dead wood had hung limply ever since, festering in the formation in which it had once grown. Daddy pulled the worst of it down and carried it back to ours. In the days before, as I had been making my preparations, he had been breaking up all this wood and vegetation he had collected and going about the process of drying it as best he could. Under bits of it he lit little fires then packed the wet wood on top, as if he were making charcoal.

  On the afternoon before the evening Cathy and I helped him move it all to the allotted location. Daddy insisted that we move it for the final time rather than burn it where it stood, in case any little animals had made their homes there. Sure enough, Daddy picked up a big old log and a little hedgehog blinked in amazement against the daylight before rolling itself up into a tight ball and presenting its bristles. Daddy picked up the creature carefully in his massive leathery hands and carried it to safety.

  When we lit the construction it was clear there was still a good deal of water amongst the branches, twigs, leaves and logs. Steam came off it in sweeping flurries and it fizzed and popped like a boiling kettle. But the fire took hold and, with attention, soon the flames sent up wreaths of smoke rather than hot steam. The afternoon wind was busy and changeable, swirling one way and then another. This was good for the fire but bad for us. Cathy and I could not work out where to stand and on more than one occasion we ran back from the fire, having been sent into retreat by the billowing black smoke.

  By the time the first of our guests arrived, the dancing amber flames reached deep into the dusk. Ewart and Martha Royce came up with a basket of teacakes for toasting and soon afterwards Gary and ten of the other men arrived, to be shortly fo
llowed by a dozen more who had also been given the address. A few of the men looked over at Cathy but with Daddy by her side nobody would ever give her any bother. Many had brought girlfriends or wives and a few had brought little babies and kids. Andrew came up from the village and so too did Peter and other people from the villages around whom Daddy had helped out or who had just heard what was going on. Most people brought drinks and some food to cook on the flames, so even though the food I had prepared soon ran low there was more. Nobody went hungry.

  As the evening progressed, Ewart Royce gathered men and women close to him, one or two at a time, and spoke at length and directly to each one. He spoke about their livelihoods and their homes. He asked about the work they did and how they were payed. Who owned the house in which they lived. To whom did they pay rent. How much was that rent. Mostly, the men and women answered. When it came to relating the sins of their employers and landlords, most had no compunction. Who could blame them?

  A woman in a fleece and jersey tracksuit came forward. Her long, dirty-blonde hair was held in a low ponytail at the nape of her neck. She gripped a lit cigarette between the ring and middle fingers of her left hand and told Ewart about the man who owned her bungalow. ‘At least when I paid rent to council, I felt I could get things fixed. It were a slow process, always, but someone would come eventually and see to cooker, or whatever. I knew who to go to. I knew there were some kind of, what’s word, process, no matter how tricky. I gave my money to council and I kept place nicely and in return I got a decent place to live. Now it’s a private landlord and he doendt give two stuffs. I don’t have a fridge any more. The wires went last year and it handt been cold since. It’s just another cupboard. That’s how I use it, like a cupboard.’ Some others laughed. The woman encouraged it, laughing too with a warm guttural giggle. ‘Call me naive, but it were only really then I realised it were just land. It were as you were saying to me before, Ewart. The landlord wandt there to provide a service, as he saw it, or to offer owt in return for money I paid him. I were paying him money for land. For right to live on land. This might seem obvious to all of you, but it wandt to me, not when council was my landlord. Then I thought money was for upkeep of house. But, let me tell you, house could come down tomorrow and Jim Corvine would still come for that cash. It’s land. Only land. I’m paying to live on a piece of land that we, all of us, used to own together. And I’m working as hard as I ruddy can to get enough money to pay for that land that we, all of us, used to own together. And I can’t see reason for any of it, any more.’