All Among the Barley

by Melissa Harrison

  ‘What did the doctor say?’

  ‘Well, he couldn’t credit it, really – not when Mother told him how far he’d fallen, and how long he’d been out cold. He checked him over and dressed the wound on the back of his head; he said the fact he fell on the threshing floor had probably saved him, it being beaten earth and not brick.’

  I sipped my tea. It wasn’t the floor of the barn that had miraculously saved Doble; that much was clear to me, if not to Frank.

  ‘Does Father know? About the doctor, I mean.’

  ‘No. He’ll want paying by the end of the month, though.’

  ‘We’ll manage something – perhaps Doble has some money put away.’

  ‘Let’s hope so. God knows we’ve none here.’

  ‘Is Mother still over there?’

  ‘Yes – she said to send you over when you woke. I was thinking: what about your Constance – could she help nurse Doble for a few days? Father wants to start on the harvest this morning, and we need you and Mother in the fields.’

  ‘I could ask, but we’ll still be short-handed. For one thing, Mother’ll need to sleep now, if she’s been up all night.’

  ‘We’ll manage,’ he said. ‘I’ll get Alfie to come over and lend us a hand to-day.’

  Father and John were out in the fields testing the wheat for ripeness one last time; Frank had gone to the barn to see what was left to do to make it ready, and to sharpen his and Father’s scythes. Another night with very little sleep had left my eyes feeling slow and catchy in their sockets, and yet strangely I wasn’t tired at all that first day of harvest-tide. In fact the farmhouse, the yard, even the black crows in the trees had begun to seem unnaturally vivid, like a painting, and I searched in everything I saw for the secret clues that would help me know what to do when the time came.

  I ate a few spoonfuls of porridge from the pot on the range, and then took some tea through to Grandfather; I found him up and dressed already, and anxious, although glad to have news of Doble.

  ‘I don’t say as all will quite be well yet, but we’ve a fair chance. A death at harvest-tide – no, it’d bode very ill, and that’s a fact. It’s when we come to build the ricks we’ll miss him, though. No-one can match Doble for thatching a rick.’

  ‘I’m going to take some breakfast over to Mother now, but – they won’t start without me, will they?’

  ‘There was a drench o’ dew at first light, girl, can’t you smell it? They’ll wait for the sun to burn it off. Go on, now. I’ll be all right.’

  I had always been there at the start of the harvest: every year. Father would cut two stalks of wheat for each of us and twist them together, ‘like a man and a maid’, the saying went. The men would wear them in their waistcoat buttonholes until the very last load was in, while Mother, Mary and I would pin them to our hats, or tuck them into our headscarves. It was bad luck to lose yours while there was still corn to cut, though I suppose it must have happened to one of us at some time, and been quietly replaced. I was religious about keeping hold of mine, each year adding another to the jar on my bedroom windowsill, where they remained, desiccated and dusty and never to be thrown away. I don’t know what the others did with theirs.

  Hurrying along the lane on my way to Doble’s cottage I saw Mother coming the other way, carrying a basket. She raised it a little to show that she’d seen me, but I could tell from the way she walked that she was bone-tired, and that bringing Doble back from death’s door had used up everything she had. For a moment I saw her completely anew, saw how powerful a woman she really was beneath the toil and how little it mattered that she didn’t read poetry, or know the first thing about politics, as Connie did. I felt proud to be her daughter then.

  ‘Frank told me everything,’ I said, kissing her cheek and taking the basket from her. ‘What’s this? And who’s with him now?’

  ‘The man needs clean clothes and bed-sheets, so I’ll have to wash to-day, if only this. Mrs Rose arrived a little while ago – Sid told her what had happened. She’ll stay with him a while.’

  ‘We’re going to start to-day – this morning. Father says he won’t risk the bran thickening up any more.’

  ‘Which field?’

  ‘I don’t know – they’re out now to check.’

  ‘Well, I won’t be needed straight away; there’s dew, for one thing. I’ll give these a quick slop-wash, and then I’ll rest for an hour. Edie, you must make sure to be really useful this year, though, do you understand me? No wandering off with a book – your father needs your help.’

  ‘I understand perfectly, Mother,’ I said. ‘Frank says he’s going to get – to get Alf Rose to help, but I wondered, could I ask Connie to come instead?’

  ‘Alfie’s abed, according to his mother.’

  ‘In bed?’ I asked. ‘Why, what’s the matter with him?’

  ‘Oh, it’s probably nothing. But he’ll be no use to us this week.’

  At the house Mother went to light the copper. I followed her into the backhouse and put down the bundle of clothes and sheets, a mixture of relief and something darker coursing through me at the thought of Alf Rose ill.

  ‘Edie, I want to talk to you.’

  ‘About yesterday?’

  ‘Yes. I know you were tired, and upset with your sister, and the fact is she shouldn’t tease you. But what did you mean by drawing that shape in the air?’

  ‘But you know what it was, Mother.’

  ‘Edie, tell me. I want to understand.’

  ‘You know, though. You and Grandma. I know you do!’ I said, my voice a little uncertain despite the conviction I’d felt growing since Frank had brought me tea at first light.

  ‘Know what, girl? Look, I’m the tired one now. Perhaps I’m missing your meaning.’

  I looked past her, out of the little backhouse window. It was time for secrets to be said out loud, for after all, wasn’t I a woman now?

  ‘I understand why Mrs Godbold asked you to help her with the witch-bottle,’ I said. ‘And I know how Grandma perceives things we haven’t told her. And – and I know what Edmund really is.’

  ‘Edmund – your bird, you mean? Edie, that’s –’

  There were voices in the yard: Father and John had returned from the fields and Frank had gone out to meet them. I heard Grandfather, too.

  ‘Mother,’ I whispered, taking both her hands in mine to reassure her, ‘it’s all right: I know everything. I know it was you who saved Doble from dying last night, with your powers. And I know who’s cursed Alf Rose and made him ill.’

  It was nearly nine o’clock when we made a start on Home Field. Father and Frank went in first to scythe the margins up by hand for the reaper-binder; I took a light rake and walked into the corn, standing up any patches that had been laid by wind or animals so that the long blades would not miss them when the machine came around.

  Mother had left the washing to steep and came out with Grandfather to see the first cut made, taking her two stalks from Father and putting them into her apron pocket with a brief smile before walking back with Grandfather and John, who had gone to harness the team. I missed her in the field with me, but it gave me time to think.

  I wasn’t yet clear about everything, and I’d expected that she might not explain it all straight away, but at the same time it had been hard, the way she’d stared at me in the backhouse; I felt lost and adrift, and I wanted her to admit me to the wonderful secret we shared. But the men were nearby, I reflected, and I wasn’t yet sure how much they might know, so perhaps it was as well that we spoke about it properly another time. All I knew for certain was that Mother had healed Doble with her powers, and Grandma had overlooked Alf with her errant eye and made him ill – she’d as good as told me she’d sicken him, I realised now. And as for me, the daughter and granddaughter of these women: when Mother said to me that I must help Father with the harvest, there was clearly a secret meaning in it, because it wasn’t something, at fourteen, that I needed to be told.

  I stood for a moment
with my rake in the middle of the golden field and gazed about me at the thigh-high corn rippling out in all directions until it met the massy hedgerows with their dark August leaves. Above me the sun blazed in a blue bowl, but before long the sky would be grey and stitched with wavering skeins of geese; then the stubble would be ploughed to rich brown furrows, the tall ricks would huddle close about the farmhouse, and with the first frosts the Hunt would ride out again over the autumn land.

  But not yet. For everything there is a season, and now was the time to ensure we reaped our hard-earned reward from the fields. I wonder, looking back, that it didn’t feel overwhelming to have so much resting on me – the future of the farm, and of my whole family, in fact – but it didn’t, somehow. It was as though the entire valley was charged and shining, and I with it, blessed among women; and I felt a growing sureness that as long as I played my part in events properly, all would yet be well.

  Father and Frank had finished the scything and I helped gather the cut corn from the field’s margin into loose sheaves, tying each roughly with a couple of stalks. Then, at last, the reaper-binder appeared at the corner of the field. I could see as I walked over that Moses and Malachi were impatient, for Moses was tossing his head and Malachi’s ears were tipped forward, the muscles of his great chestnut neck twitching and shivering away the flies. They knew that this was their great and bounden duty, and they were keen to set about it; John, who whispered to them of everything, had made sure of that.

  ‘Frank, Edie, you’ll stook,’ called Father. ‘I’ll see you off, but then I shall go to open up Greenleaze. John, do you send Frank over to fetch me if the string fouls or breaks.’

  ‘I can manage the string, Father.’

  ‘That he can,’ said John as he climbed into the high iron seat of the Albion. ‘I taught him myself last year.’

  ‘Well, perhaps. Let’s see how she begins – she’s not the steadiest of contraptions, God knows.’

  And so the harvest began. John clicked his tongue and the team leaned forward into the weight of the machine, pulling it at last into reluctant motion; and as its bull-wheel crept forward, the cogs and gears meshed and the great wooden paddles began to turn. The horses could see where they should start into the crop, and all John had to do was encourage them and remind them once of the machine’s width; then, as the first of the rustling wheat began to fall to the long, saw-toothed blade, he twisted around in his seat to see it move up the canvas elevator to be tied and ejected from the side in a neat sheaf.

  I laughed then, and saw Frank grin too, for it was always a miracle: not just the clanking great contraption – although it was a strange beast, and far too modern, really, for the timeless fields – but the way the corn changed from a plant to a crop in a moment, first one thing and then another entirely. Every year it was the same, and every year it was new.

  Frank and I began to stook. If you have ever done field-work of any kind you will know that it never leaves you; your body writes it into your muscles and bones, like riding a bicycle, I suppose, or perhaps sowing by hand, as Grandfather had done. I had helped stook since I could toddle, Mother and Father knowing that however ineffective I was then, their patience in letting me learn early would repay them in years to come. And I liked it, particularly wheat; for although wheat-sheaves were heavier than barley, the barley-awns would work their way into your clothes and scratch at your skin. Wheat was cleaner to stook, unless the field was thistly, as parts of Greenleaze and The Lottens were; then I’d untie the scarf from my hair and use it to swathe my bare arms. And when the time came to stook the barley, I would wear sleeves.

  Stooking was quiet, steady work: we didn’t sing, for we had to be ready to shout ‘Loose!’ if the knotter failed and the machine began to send out unbound corn, and we had to listen, too, in case it cast a bolt or screw, causing its note to change. Then one of us would cry ‘Stop!’ straight away, for fear that it would shake itself to pieces, and we would search the cut and uncut corn for whatever had come off.

  At Wych Farm we always made stooks of eight for wheat. We’d swing the sheaves with the knots to the outside, dropping them down over the previous pair in the stook so the heads would join them together; Father and John would be displeased if any needed standing up again in the following days, while we waited for the wheat to dry so that we might cart it back.

  We had dinner at noon. Mother brought a basket from the house, Father following with two buckets of water for the horses; John jumped down from the Albion and took the buckets from Father and then set them down before the team. They took both food and water from John, so that they would always know who they worked for – though he would allow Mother to help groom them, of course, and she gave them an apple or a bit of carrot sometimes.

  It was only a short break, so we remained in the field. There was beer in a stone jug for John and Father, and for Frank too, I saw, this year. Mother and I had cold tea.

  John hunkered down by the machine and took a piece of bread and dripping and a peeled onion from the basket; then he began to slice the onion carefully with his old bone-handled knife. Finally he folded the bread around it and began to eat.

  Frank was cramming bread and cheese into his mouth at his usual rate. ‘Aren’t you eating anything, Father?’ he asked.

  Father shook his head. ‘No, I’m not of a mind to eat just now.’

  ‘Not even an apple?’ I asked, crunching into mine.

  ‘No, girl. Where’s that bird of yours, anyhow?’

  ‘Edmund? I don’t know; shall I –’

  ‘Don’t call the pesky thing to us. Sit back down.’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I put up a landrail on Greenleaze, near the horse-pond – very bold, it was. Might’ve been yours – you don’t commonly see see the noisy buggers, after all.’

  ‘George,’ Mother said.

  I gave Frank my apple core to eat. Mother’s hand rested lightly on my hair, smoothing it. It felt nice.

  ‘Edmund’s all right, wherever he is just now. I’d know otherwise.’

  John swallowed his beer in one draught, wiped his mouth and addressed Father. ‘What d’you think to Greenleaze?’

  ‘Middling,’ Father replied. ‘Thinner than it should be, but not as bad as last year. We’ve a good crop of nettles and thistles around the pond; I might take Doble’s sickle to ’em.’

  ‘That old pond makes the job half as long again, don’t it?’

  ‘Well. I shall have it done this afternoon.’

  I pictured the black pond on Greenleaze. Grandfather said that once upon a time there had been an old cob house next to it, but it had long sunk away and ‘gone home’. When he was a little boy, he told Frank, you could still make out where it had stood when the crop was low. There was nothing at all to mark the place now.

  ‘Do we need more hands?’ John asked.

  ‘We’ll get by for now; come time to cart we’ll feel the lack.’

  John nodded. ‘Best in the county for building a rick, some say.’

  ‘Doble’s not dead,’ Frank said.

  ‘Might as well be, boy, for all the use he is.’

  ‘I’ll go over this afternoon,’ Mother said. ‘See how the poor man is.’

  ‘No you won’t, Ada. You’re needed here. Fact is, he’d be better off in the workhouse, as well you know.’

  Mother’s hand came to rest very still on my head, but she didn’t speak.

  ‘Better for you, you mean,’ Frank muttered under his breath.

  Just then there came a familiar ‘Halloo!’ and we turned to see Connie striding over, followed by a small man in a dark suit carrying a leather case.

  ‘How are you all? Wonderful harvesting weather, isn’t it? So sorry I missed you cutting the first ears this morning; I went to meet Charles at the railway station. Oh – this is Charles Chalcott, everyone: he’s a photographer. He’s come to capture some rural scenes – isn’t it the most perfect English Arcadia, Charles? What did I tell you! Glorious. We
ll, is the wheat “addling” well, as they say here, George? What have I missed?’

  Mr Chalcott shook Father’s hand, and then John’s and Frank’s, and tipped his hat to Mother and me.

  ‘How d’you do. Very pleased to meet you all,’ he said.

  Connie put her hands in her pockets and grinned. ‘Oh! Doble’s sitting up and taking some broth, Ada – I stopped in on the way here. Isn’t it a miracle? Mrs Rose says you’re not needed this afternoon – she’ll stay with him until supper.’

  Mother smiled. ‘Thank you for that, Connie. It’s kind of you to let me know.’

  ‘You look peaky, Edie. Were you up all night with Doble too?’

  ‘No, I just – I didn’t sleep well,’ I said.

  ‘Well, you’ll be sure to tonight, after bringing in the harvest all day,’ she said. ‘Now, Charles, are you ready? Can I do anything to help?’

  Mother was packing the remains of the meal back into the basket; John was rubbing the horses’ noses and speaking softly to them and Father was lighting his pipe. Mr Chalcott, meanwhile, had taken the black camera from its case and was peering into the top. I hurriedly moved out of the way.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, miss,’ he said with a smile. ‘I’m just making some adjustments for the light. I’m not taking a picture of you.’

  I was relieved: there was something horrible about the thought of a man peering at me through his apparatus and taking an image of me away. Mary would have jumped at the chance to be photographed, no doubt, but for some reason it felt unbearable to me. And perhaps a photograph would reveal what had changed in me, something that for now I needed not to be seen.

  ‘Mr Mather, may I have your permission to take photographs on your land?’ Mr Chalcott asked formally.

  Father gazed out at the ripe wheat, at the red reaper-binder and at Moses and Malachi, glossy and well groomed, and for a moment I saw what he saw, and what he wanted the farm in that moment to be.

  ‘Work away, Mr Chalcott. You photograph anything you like.’

  ‘Not quite,’ John called over as he climbed back up onto the Albion’s metal seat. ‘I’ll thank you not to make any images of me.’