All Among the Barley

by Melissa Harrison

  ‘But this country must be able to feed itself without relying on imports,’ Connie said, ‘and that means ensuring decent, honest Englishmen like you, George, can continue to farm.’

  Father nodded. ‘Why, it was barely worth harvesting at all in ’30; I might as well have let the corn rot in the fields for the little I got for it, and for all the work I put in. It’ll take more than a few of their marketing boards to turn it around and make farming pay. It’s enough to break a man’s spirit, I’ll tell you that straight.’

  ‘That’s true enough,’ said John. ‘But it seems to me you want what’s not possible: you want the government not to meddle, but then again you want ’em to protect prices.’

  Grandfather cleared his throat, and I wondered if he might interject. But whatever his opinion was on the matter, he kept it to himself.

  ‘Whitehall simply cannot underwrite prices indefinitely while wheat continues to fall on the world market,’ Connie continued, after a moment. ‘It makes no economic sense.’

  I wondered which of the local farmers she had got her opinions from, for while she might have been clever, after such a short time in the countryside I was sure she could not yet have formed them herself.

  ‘No, we must look to our own,’ Father said decisively. ‘Especially when times are hard.’

  ‘That’s why I believe there should be a new Agricultural Bank, to help farmers,’ Connie replied. ‘And it must be run by farmers themselves, not by the – well, not by international financiers.’

  It was beginning to grow dark when Connie left that night. She and Father talked on while Mother and I cleared away; Doble and Grandfather lingered, too, but John said he needed Frank’s help to clean the horses’ feet, and so took him from the room. From the backhouse I caught bits and pieces, but I had long grown used to farming talk and so I let my mind wander, picturing London with Connie: Horse Guards Parade, and shopping emporiums; tea at a Lyons’ Corner House, and the British Museum. I sometimes wonder, if the visit had happened, whether it would have been anything like my imaginings. I have still never visited London, and so have had no means to find out.

  There was a bedtime trick I had discovered, which involved lying on my stomach with my right leg crooked up, and that night, in bed, I allowed myself the secret pleasure of it. I tried to think of Alf, for surely he was my sweetheart, but my mind refused to picture him. In the end there was just an image of John’s strong hand wrapped around the handle of his knife.

  VII

  The weather seemed to have fallen into a pattern: the days dawned fair and warm, clouded over, and then each afternoon came the sound of thunder somewhere far away. And yet it didn’t rain, and the air stayed humid and close.

  One morning I came downstairs to find the landrail in the kitchen, peering about inquisitively and making short runs under the table and between the chairs. It had grown since I’d last seen it, its newly dappled back, pale chest and grey head cleaner and more distinct.

  Mother was kneeling by the range and jiggling the handle of the ash pan, which often became stuck.

  ‘It was at the back door, Edie, and the cats are about. I had to let it in,’ she said. Just then it looked at me, flipped back the lid of its head and uttered its unearthly crex-crex.

  ‘It’ll drive me round the twist if it keeps doing that. You’ll have to take it further out – far enough so it doesn’t come back.’

  I knelt down by Mother, still half asleep, and it ran to me and pecked at my hands. ‘I haven’t anything for you,’ I murmured. But it flustered its wings suddenly, and even as I flinched and rocked back I found it settling on my thighs like a hen.

  ‘Well,’ said Mother, sliding the ash pan out and standing up, ‘happen as you have yourself a familiar, Edith June.’

  ‘A familiar?’

  She laughed. ‘A pet, at any rate.’

  I stood up, and reluctantly it allowed itself to be tipped from my lap.

  ‘I’ll take it to Far Piece when I’ve had breakfast.’

  ‘And when you’ve done that you might give the floor a mop, too.’

  ‘Is there any porridge?’

  ‘Keeping warm on the range.’

  I took a bowl and a spoon from the dresser. ‘Can I have golden syrup?’

  ‘You may.’

  I fetched the tin from the pantry, brought it to the table and levered the sticky lid up with my spoon.

  ‘Can I have a new dress?’

  ‘You don’t need a new dress.’

  ‘I do. I’ve grown.’

  ‘You had two of Mary’s not six months ago. You’ve not grown that much since then.’

  ‘Why can’t I have anything new?’

  ‘What’s brought this on, Edie? You’re not the sort to care about clothes.’

  ‘Well, perhaps I am. I might be. Anyway, it’s not fair.’

  ‘Fair doesn’t come into it, as well you know. There isn’t the money for fripperies.’

  Surreptitiously I spooned more syrup onto my cooling porridge and mixed it in. ‘Mary always got new clothes.’

  ‘Course she did, Edie, she came along first, and we had to clothe her somehow. And anyway, times were easier back then than they are now.’

  Crex-crex, crex-crex, creaked the landrail, and pecked around my bare toes.

  Mother came to sit down with me at the kitchen table and sighed.

  ‘Mother did say you were tetchery. Tell me, Edie, what’s this about?’

  I had stopped eating my porridge and was just playing with it now, pushing it around my bowl, something I knew that she hated.

  ‘Is it that you want to go to a dance after all? Frank did say you were feeling a bit stuck at home. Well, I’ve been thinking about it, and perhaps your father’s right after all. There’s a band coming to the village hall at Monks Tye at the end of the month, and Frank’s said Alfie’ll take you, and he’ll ask someone along, too. I know he’s sweet on Sally Godbold – you know, from the end cottage on Back Lane?’

  ‘Frank said – ? What’s Frank been saying behind my back?’

  ‘Nothing, Edie! Nothing! He just mentioned that you might like to go. It’ll be a jazz band, he said. Or there’s the village hop in Blaxford? I’ll wager your Constance would take you to that if you asked.’

  ‘But I’m not interested! I don’t feel stuck at home!’

  ‘Oh! Well, that’s good. I’m ever so glad. Why didn’t you say?’

  I closed my eyes briefly. I loved Mother, but recently I had begun to find her insufferably obtuse at times. All one could do was change the subject.

  ‘She was here until late last night – Connie, I mean.’

  ‘That she was. I offered her Doble to see her home, but she said she’s got a lamp on her bicycle now.’

  ‘Do you like her now?’

  ‘Well, she’s got her head screwed on more than some, I’ll say that. Your father says she talked a lot of sense last night.’

  ‘About farming?’

  ‘And politics.’

  I considered this. The two were the same in our house, or nearly; but while in those years there was more and more talk about the country in general, and Europe too, I paid it little mind, for it all seemed so far away and could never affect us. That’s what I thought back then – although of course I never read the newspapers, so the world seemed to me for the most part a good place. But although my ignorance made for a pleasant life, growing up has taught me that you can never go back to more innocent times, or behave as though something complicated is as simple as you once thought it. It doesn’t work.

  ‘You didn’t like Connie at first, though, Mother.’

  ‘That’s true enough.’

  ‘So what changed?’

  ‘Well, she came looking to speak to John about the horses and I sat her down and told her a thing or two. She took it on board, to her credit – there’s not many as’ll do that.’

  ‘So now you’re friends?’

  ‘I wouldn’t go that far, but someone had to
teach her some manners if she’s to go around bothering folk. Otherwise she’ll get nowhere fast, and we’ll have her on our hands forever and always.’

  John tapped at the kitchen window, and leaned in at the open casement.

  ‘Morning, Ada; morning, Edith,’ he said. ‘I’ve a job for you, unless your mother needs you.’

  ‘Look, John!’ I said, pointing at the landrail with my spoon.

  ‘Yes, I saw. Best keep it out the way of the cats.’

  ‘I’m going to take it to Far Piece. What d’you want me to do?’

  ‘Well, to my mind Seven Acres may be fallow, but we’ll want the use of it next year, God willing, so I’ve harrowed it and now I aim to cross-plough. Can you fetch some elder for the horses? I’m going there now.’

  I walked to Far Piece through the cornfields, the landrail tucked peaceably under my arm and Mother’s pruning-shears in my skirt pocket banging against my thigh. Elder was plentiful in the hedgerows there; when I was as far from the house as I could get I set the bird down in the rustling wheat and cut armfuls of green leaves for John to weave into Moses and Malachi’s bridles against flies and clegs. The landrail investigated each of the leaves I dropped, and I knew, as it pecked around my feet, that it would try to follow me back; and so when I had gathered enough leaves I ran, my loose hair streaming: first along the margin of Far Piece, and then I skirted Newlands into Seven Acres, where John, following the horses beneath a hot blue sky, had started the first furrow in the hard task of cross-ploughing, a job that would take him a week.

  I can’t remember a time before Moses and Malachi, although Mary could just about recall the team that came before. That pair was old enough in 1915 that they were spared the trenches, although the Remount Department requisitioned the pony we had then, and many of the horses from Rose Farm, Hullets and Ixham Hall.

  To me, Moses and Malachi represented the very definition of horseflesh, exemplars from which all others deviated in size or colour, temperament or strength. How many times did I ride on their broad backs when they were in harness, going to the fields and back; how many times did I watch John groom their glossy chestnut coats, or just stand with them in the stables, whispering my trivial secrets into their twitching ears and stroking their great necks? They were more than just horsepower, they were our wealth, our pride. And we loved them as animals, too – each of us, no doubt, in different ways. I can still remember how I envied Mother’s gentle voice with them, how she’d blow into their nostrils and let them mumble at her neck.

  Once, at the table, Frank had asked Mother if she was a true horsewoman – if she really had ‘the power’, as it was called. We were fascinated by the secret ritual we had heard tell of, something about fern seeds and a toad’s bone floating upriver – though Mary said we were confusing it with witches, and the way they were once ‘swum’ to see if they sank. Granfer, no matter how pressed, would reveal nothing of horse magic, but some of the old wives in the village muttered about it, and Frank had gleaned bits and pieces from other boys at school.

  Of course, we knew it was poppycock – that overwilling a horse might be difficult, but there must be a science to it, or at least an art, and that it was something to do with the tiny bottles and bags of herbs we knew John secreted about his person. I suppose we just wanted to know if Mother had been initiated, all the same, and whether she really was as rare a woman as we wanted her to be; or whether she had just attempted to do a man’s job for a few years, in the War.

  ‘Oh, give over, Frank,’ she’d replied, and changed the subject; but I saw that John was giving her a long, level look.

  ‘You must miss it, though,’ Frank continued blithely. ‘Being useful, I mean.’

  ‘She doesn’t miss it,’ said Father. ‘She’s had you three to keep her out of mischief – isn’t that right, Ada?’

  Then, as Doble began to hum under his breath, John excused himself, got up and walked from the room.

  That afternoon, after I had swept and mopped the floors and seen to the hens and Mother had weeded the vegetable-garden and done some mending, she and I went to the village. We walked up the lane past Hulver Wood and turned right at the four-a-leet, both of us glancing over at Hullets as we passed; smoke was issuing from the end chimney, and I found myself trying to picture what it was like inside. I wondered how many children were living there, and settled on two: a girl my own age, and a younger boy. I allowed myself a daydream in which they became my friends, and we played together. I could show them the farm, and let them meet Moses and Malachi, perhaps lend them my books: there was a nice, useful feeling about that, and I enjoyed imagining how grateful they’d be.

  We reached the Stound and crossed it on the packhorse bridge. When we were almost at the draper’s, Mother woke me from my reverie.

  ‘I thought we’d stop in here, Edie, and look at the patterns. What do you think? And you can choose some material if you like.’

  ‘Patterns?’

  ‘For a dress. Your father says you’re to have a new one for the fete.’

  ‘Did he really? Oh Mother – thank you!’

  I took her arm, and smiled up at her, although she didn’t return my smile. And then we went in, the shop bell tinkling gaily over our heads.

  ‘Mrs Mather, how lovely, do come in. And young Edith too, what a treat!’

  Mrs Eleigh came out from behind the counter and held both our hands, limply. She was a widow, and Mary and I thought her impossibly dried-up, although she can’t have been more than fifty years old. Not much taller than a child, she peered up at us both near-sightedly.

  ‘Miss FitzAllen isn’t here, though, I’m ever so sorry. Though you’re welcome to wait.’

  ‘Oh, but we’re not here to see Constance,’ said Mother. ‘Edie here needs a new dress.’

  ‘Oh, certainly! Certainly! What a pleasure. Something ready-made? We have some rather pretty girls’ frocks. . .’

  ‘We’d like to see your ladies’ patterns. And will you measure her, please, while we’re here?’

  While Mother flicked through a pattern book, Mrs Eleigh ushered me into her little fitting-room, fishing a tape measure from the pocket of a lawn apron finely tucked and shirred to advertise her skills. I didn’t want to be measured; I couldn’t see why Mother couldn’t do it when we got home. Besides, I wanted to look at the patterns with her. It was to be my dress, after all.

  I took off my blouse, vest and skirt and waited with my arms crossed over my chest, wondering why it was that Mrs Eleigh would leave me so tactfully to undress alone when she was going to come in and see me in my drawers anyway. ‘That’s right, dear,’ she said, coming in and pulling the curtain back into place. ‘Now, both arms out.’

  Looking down at her I wondered, as she slipped the tape around my ribs, how many bosoms she had seen, there in the corner of her little shop. All Elmbourne’s women must have passed through here, I supposed; her nimble fingers must have taken in and let out thousands of skirts, blouses and dresses and measured for hundreds of liberty bodices, combinations and girdles over the years. She knew all the shameful secrets of our womanly flesh; and yet, like a priest, she would never, ever tell.

  ‘Mrs Mather, your daughter needs a brassière,’ she called through the curtain to the shop floor.

  Mother came into the little curtained room then, and the two women stood looking at me critically. I hunched my shoulders and tried to keep my arms down by my sides.

  ‘Her bust is quite developed, do you see? How old is she now?’

  ‘She’s fourteen. Do you think it’s quite necessary yet? Mary was nearly sixteen, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Oh yes, I would say she needs support. Look –’ and she lifted my left breast in her chill hand, and let it drop. ‘Besides, a brassière will help give her a neat figure for her new dress. Don’t you think?’

  I wasn’t accustomed to thinking much about my figure. We had no full-length looking-glass at Wych Farm, something Mary had often complained of; but apart from when I was
ill or hurt I felt for the most part as though my body didn’t really exist. I lived, I suppose, in my head: thinking, imagining or worrying. Yet other people had bodies that were them, it seemed to me – that spoke who they were, did their work in the world. Most of the time mine was nothing to do with me; and sometimes – with Alf, for example – I felt as though I became invisible inside it. But why, if my body barely mattered to me, did I now feel so strangely ashamed?

  ‘She can wear an old one of Mary’s. There’s still a box of her things at home,’ Mother said, and folded her arms. It was clear Mrs Eleigh was not going to make the extra sale.

  ‘And how is your Mary? It seems only yesterday that she was in here, discussing her trousseau. And you a grandma now! How the time does fly.’

  ‘She’s middling. Her confinement – well. It wasn’t easy, as I expect you’ve heard. But it’ll come right in time; and in any case, she dotes on that baby, she really does.’

  ‘And that’s the main thing. They’re such precious angels when they’re tiny, aren’t they? It makes it all wholly worthwhile.’

  ‘It does.’

  ‘And her Clive, is he. . .’ – her voice dropped several tones – ‘is he understanding?’

  ‘Are any of them?’

  Both women laughed.

  ‘Well. You can get dressed again now, dear,’ said Mrs Eleigh, and they left me alone.

  I expect they thought I didn’t know the first thing about sex, but I did, of course. There had been a boy at school who was notorious for taking his thing out and frightening the girls with it – apart from Hilda Cousens, that is, who was said to let boys see her private parts for sixpence. As for what it felt like, I had asked Mary about it when she was expecting. She told me that usually there were parts that felt nice and parts that felt horrible, but that when it was happening to you, you could tell yourself a romantic story that made it all right – and that, in any case, it was soon over.

  ‘But why do you let Clive do anything that feels horrible?’ I’d asked her. ‘Why don’t you stop it?’ – but she had just laughed.