by Betty Burton
* * *
The weather has changed, there are squalls and high winds. Ted is glad that he wasn’t tempted by the early spring to get his runner beans in ahead of time. May’s strawberries need rain, but she frowns at the winds gusting across the fields. Bar comes and goes. Lu tries her hand at baking bread; the mysteries of the action of sugar on yeast, the balloon of dough, falling and rising again, never fail in their interest. Ted gives her a handful of rape to grow on a piece of towel, and in days he has taken her first crop for sandwiches. The pale ghost who left Lampeter Street a few weeks back has come to life. And, as spindly winter twigs will burst into pink blossom in the spring sunshine, so Lu, nourished and away from the smoking chimneys of a score of staymaking factories, has recovered her vitality. Her hair shines and bounces, her complexion is clear and her eyes bright. She now seems to be much taller than Bar, and she looks very pretty. She seldom falls asleep in the day, but is up and brimming with ideas of what she will do today.
* * *
The great event in the month of May was Wickham Fair.
Once the police had pulled barriers across the main road through the village, the fair sprang up in hours. May and Ted Wilmott, like most villagers, gave themselves a half-day holiday and let themselves go. Lu, having been given fair-shillings by Ted and Mr Strawbridge, had a pocketful of money. She was allowed to go with Bar and be free to do as she pleased.
The transformation of the quiet village was spectacular. Overnight it was made into a place of thrills, flashing lights, wind-organ music, proud horses with flaring nostrils prancing up and down and round and round on brass poles, sparking dodgems, and swinging-boats. Licensing hours were abandoned, the school closed, and shops and houses around the square became hidden behind stalls that glittered and twinkled with prizes, booths that offered contests, and structures which offered rides that rocked, whirled, rose up, plunged and rotated. There were skills to be tested and male muscle-power to be measured, there were things to do, to see, to eat, to drink, to win and to buy.
For a couple of hours in the first morning, village children were given free rides on anything moving, so that even quite early in the day there was noise and excitement. Bar knew the ropes and pulled Lu here and there, on and off rides and then all over again. She wore the same black clothes she had worn at the field-walk. When she was out of her shapeless work dress, it was easier to believe that she was the dervishing girl.
At one end of the square, the roadway is taken over by gypsy horse-traders. Bar says, ‘Come on, let’s go and have a look, see if Duke’s bought Pixie.’
Although many of the sideshows and stalls are owned by gypsies, it is the men with their horses and the women who look on in a laughing, chattering group that look the part. Most of the older women wear dark skirts that reach below the calf, some have woollen shawls. The men all wear felt hats or caps pushed to the back of their head. Lu and Bar stand on their own watching as the men take their horses back and forth along a stretch of the road at a fast trot. The horses wear no tackle except a bit and a short length of rope, as they run they prance and flick their heads, the men call, ‘Hip-hip. C’me on then… Yip!’ The women take no notice.
Lu sees Bar’s father with Pixie. Although she has seen him coming and going many times back at Roman’s Fields, he has never said more than, ‘You all right, girl?’ and Lu has never replied other than, ‘Yes, thank you.’ Several times he has made her wonder about her own father, and what it will be like when he comes home again. Duke looks a lot like Mr Barney, thin and brown-skinned, long, dark curly hair, wide-spaced teeth, always busy loading or unloading something. But Duke is not straightfaced and silent, though; Duke makes sure people see him, standing up to drive a cart, cracking a whip on the air when riding a horse, he whistles at dogs, and whenever there is a bit of silence in the open air, he calls out something to break it up. Today his chin is clean-shaven, but he has the beginnings of a moustache growing; he wears black trousers with braces and a collarless striped flannel shirt with several of the top buttons undone. The two girls watch him, tossing and spinning a golden sovereign over and over again, showing off in front of some girls.
‘Is your dad really going to sell Pixie?’
‘I expect so.’
‘Won’t Duke mind?’
She shakes her head. ‘He’ll buy her.’
‘That don’t make sense. Why don’t your dad sell her direct to Duke without showing her to other people? Somebody else might buy her.’
‘If Duke wants her, then he’ll have to go the price she gets to. They both got a good idea what she’ll fetch.’
‘What if somebody else will pay higher?’
‘Then Duke’ll pay a bit more. He won’t let her go. He’s already got a stallion in mind for her. It will be Duke’s first foal… Lord, won’t he just show off then?’
‘Has he got a lot of money then?’
‘To buy horses, yes. He’ll get Pixie, he’ll pay whatever price she runs up to. None of my dad’s people will bid her up above what she’s worth, so Dad and Duke both get a fair deal don’t they? There isn’t no reason why Dad should let her go for less just because it’s Duke, and Duke wouldn’t want no favours.’
They drift away, buy bags of chips and sit on a doorstep eating them. They watch as May drives Ted in a dodgem car, May leaning forward eagerly to see who she can crash into next, Ted being jolted around laughing, and paying again and again because May loves the dodgems so. Lu tries twice to win a coconut; she is about to try again when, without a word, Duke gives her back her money, pays for the balls, has three misses and one coconut. When Bar asks him to get her one, he says, ‘Go on, you got muscles of your own.’ For a while he continues going with them from stall to stall. He makes the bell ring on the ‘Try Your Strength’, and gets a ‘Strong and Handsome’ on the ‘Tell Your Character’ grip. He shoots a bullseye with a rifle and gets a little china pig which he says he’ll take home for his mum.
Bar said, ‘She won’t want that old thing against all her nice things.’
‘You want to bet? She’ll want it because I won it for her.’ Which Lu suspects will be true because, although she doesn’t even know if she likes coconut, it felt like a real prize when he pushed it into her hands. Before he goes to take Pixie back home, he tries the darts and wins a black kewpie-doll with a feathered skirt which he tosses to Bar with a lofty air.
Lu’s opinion of Duke is that he is really nice when you get to know him.
‘That’s because you’re pretty.’
‘Don’t be daft.’
‘You are, you’re ever so pretty. He’s always hanging around pretty girls. What do you think he got you that coconut for?’
‘Because I couldn’t even get a ball near.’
‘No, it wasn’t… he wanted to show himself off to you. He likes you, I know he thinks you’re pretty.’
‘How?’
‘I won him at arm-wrestling and we had a truth or dare on it. I made him tell truth what he thought of you.’
‘Well… what?’
‘I’ll tell you if you tell truth what you think about him.’
‘I just said, he’s nice.’
‘Tell truth, go on.’
‘He’s good-looking… I like his hair.’
‘It’s like a girl’s!’
‘I know, and I like it tied back like he’s got it today.’
‘Shall I tell him?’
‘No! Don’t you dare!’
‘I won’t… don’t you worry, he’s swelled-headed enough already. He’ll dip his whole head in his hair-oil if he thinks you like it. You could be his girlfriend.’
‘Don’t be daft! I’m not old enough for him.’
‘My ma was twelve and my pa was twenty when he first come to Wickham… that was Fair Day, too.’
‘Anyway, I don’t want a boyfriend. Go on, I told truth, what did he say?’
‘He said he liked your hair, and one day he would get himself a thoroughbred Arab stud horse the
same colour, and he would put you up front and gallop you up over Corhampton Downs.’
‘Did he say all that?’
‘Honest. And he said he’d give me a Chinese burn if I ever told.’
Lu’s impending womanhood arm-wrestles her receding girlhood and the woman wins. Had it not been for the devastation done temporarily to the woman in her, she might have noticed Duke weeks ago. She tightens the waist-tie of her dress, drawing it in so that it shows that there had been young breasts there all the time, as yet only budding but there, swamped by the loose bodice Aunt Elsie had made with allowance for growing.
It was late in the evening when the girls walked up the long lane with Ted and May, Lu chattering and giggling as much as Bar. Ted said, ‘You done a good job, May, she’s a different child. What do you reckon about her stopping on till the end of the school holidays?’
‘You saw what Ray said in his letter. If Lu’s happy, then Vera will be only too glad. That job always takes some getting over. She’s going to be laid up for weeks yet.’
‘Do you reckon they’d be covered for the hospital?’
‘I was only talking to Pa about that yesterday. Ray said they paid in a Doctor’s Club, but I don’t know about hospital.’
‘If it was his wife, then I dare say the union would cover the whole family, but I doubt if they stretch to mothers.’
‘Hardly seems fair, Ted. I mean, like Pa said, we could help out, but it’s a touchy thing offering your actual money.’
‘Well, think about it. There might be a way. It’s a real bugger an’t it, not being able to afford to be ill and worrying your guts out over doctors’ fees.’
‘I wish I could believe my pa was right about there being a government sickness insurance for everybody before long.’
‘And I wish I could believe in Father Christmas.’
‘It don’t seem such a difficult thing, and it’s only what the unions are already doing, and the Doctor’s Clubs… everybody paying in a few pence a week to one big insurance scheme, and you don’t have to worry about how to pay the bill if you have to have an operation.
‘Perhaps Ray might feel better if it was a loan. I sent Vera a couple of night-gowns from Joycey’s, but you don’t want to look as though you’re being patronizing. I mean, Vera’s had a terrible hard enough life as it is.’
‘Well, we done one good job, May. She’s a grand girl, we’re going to miss her.’
‘Oh, Ted, don’t go and put the damper on things after we had such a good day out.’
Walking ahead of Ted and May, Lu told Bar it had been the best day she had ever had. ‘I spent all my money. But I still got Duke’s coconut.’
‘And the slab of toffee in a tin from your uncle.’
‘And it’s got its own hammer to break it. If it hadn’t been for all the free rides this morning, I wouldn’t have had enough to buy all the presents.’ Lu had had money to burn, to lavish on presents. It was a heady feeling pondering, choosing, discussing with Bar what to buy. Loving every moment of the spend up, she was carrying home a painted paper sunshade for her mum, a knot of white heather on a ribbon for over the Roman’s Fields door, a lucky black cat for Ray’s pocket and a whistling bird for Ken. She and Bar bought each other threepenny rings, each with the appropriate birthstone. Her best bargain was a heavy wooden pencil into which was burned, ‘A present from…’ The pencil, intended for Mr Strawbridge, was a penny, and for a ha’penny the name of the place could be added, but Lu didn’t want the pencil to be a present from Wickham, so she paid the ha’penny for ‘Louise’ to be burned into the space.
* * *
About Lu’s flowers coming soon, Ann Carter was right. It was hardly anything really. She told May, who was very matter-of-fact about it.
‘Of course, it’s a private thing, women talk to each other sometimes when they’re on their own, Lord knows there’s times when we need to talk to one another, but it’s not the kind of thing men like to know about, goodness knows why, it’s only nature at work. Thank the Lord, we don’t belong to any of the religions where they put you out of the house once a month. I will write a note to your mum later on. She’ll want to know.’
Lu is surprised to receive a letter and small booklet of pictures and verses, entitled, ‘Thoughts, by a Mother’.
‘Lu, my dear, If I had been up and about I would have just sent you an ordinary card, but I had to get Dotty to choose it, and she got carried away in the Christian bookshop, but she’s proved to be the best neighbour you could hope for. She thought it was wonderful and sat here reading the verses aloud. The words are very sentimental but what they say is that the recipient is a daughter loved by her mother from the minute she was born.
‘I have been thinking about you a lot whilst I’ve been laid up in bed, and you couldn’t be in better hands than May’s. Hector and Ray say that you are back to your old self, and you are grown quite a lot. May says she hopes that you will stay on till the end of the school holidays, and that you can visit them any time you like. That says to me that you must have got pretty good marks for good behaviour.
‘My twelfth birthday, I seem to remember as being a milestone. It was the one that was the bridge that went from girl to young woman, and of course that is what you now are. I should like you to have something nice on your birthday, so Ray has given Hector five shillings to pass on to May, and I have asked her to get you a new dress from a shop. I have also sent you the only thing left over from when I was a different woman from the one you have always known. It is the cross and chain given to me by my mother on the day I was confirmed. It is gold. Disregard the bad verse, my dear Lu; my words are simpler but more sincere: I love you and am proud of you. Vera Wilmott – June 1929.’
* * *
Bedtimes now are later. Ted’s bedtime reading has stopped and it is now Lu who reads aloud whilst they all sit outside the back door, May shucking peas or scraping carrots, Ted and Mr Strawbridge smoking pipes, puffing out clouds of smoke to keep the midges away. On Fridays she reads to Mr Strawbridge. Aunty May puts pencil rings round the columns that will interest him most, and although the Hampshire Chronicle looks dreadfully dull with its dense, unrelieved print, the items always turn out to be interesting. A court case where somebody is sent to gaol will start Mr Strawbridge off about prisons, asking Lu if she thinks it is a good idea to have prisons and which people should be sent to them. Lu, of course, has never given any thought to such matters. Prison is for criminals.
But he makes her think. Is it as simple as that? He never talks down, although he often punctuates what he has to say with, ‘D’you understand what I’m getting at, Louise?’ In his quiet voice in his quiet, book-filled room, he is gradually getting her to question every established notion. ‘No law is carved in stone so that it can’t be changed. Ask yourself why things are the way they are, and then ask yourself if there’s a better way of going on.’
Gradually she begins to question him back. ‘All right, then, what would you do if a thief stole something from you? Why shouldn’t he get sent to prison?’ and he throws a question back. ‘Why do people steal? Will prison stop them? If it works, then why are there still thieves about?’ And Lu is left with big questions.
Why are some people more important than others? Why are some people rich and some very poor? How did they get rich? How did the land become theirs? What are soldiers for?
May, listening, sometimes says, ‘Father, you’ll have the poor girl’s brains addled.’
‘Are yours addled? I am only asking her the same questions I asked you.’
And May says to Lu, ‘Questions, questions. My father’s been asking questions for sixty years.’
‘Oh, longer than that… ah, yes…’
May tells Lu about Gabriel’s quest to find the truth behind the newspaper reporting of the Boer War. ‘He couldn’t get a straight answer, so he got on a boat and worked his passage to South Africa to see if he could find out for himself.’
‘And did you find out?’
‘I did. It was how I discovered that in newspapers there are half-truths, lies, deceptions, falsehoods, whitewashes and treachery. Which means that if we take things for granted and don’t ask questions, we shall never know the truth of anything.’
* * *
With June came settled sunny weather; suddenly the fields were flowing with strawberries. From the moment the dew has dried until dark, Uncle Ted and his two casuals, plus Eli Barney and some of the village women, squat over the rows and pluck ripe ‘Sovereigns’ to fill the hundreds of punnets, woven in winter by the Barneys from thin wood strips. Lu, and Bar when she is not at school, lay supplies of empty punnets along the rows, the filled ones being packed in crates by Aunty May and Mrs Barney.
Lu, who had rarely eaten strawberries until now, could never tire of the sight of the exciting profusion of fruit with its bright red skin, and juicy flesh surprisingly white within such glossy scarlet.
When the day is over, Lu eats ravenously anything that comes her way, and drinks plenty of the Jersey cow’s yellow milk. Her skinny arms are gone, along with the bruised, hollow eye-sockets; her long legs are becoming shapely and firm, and people in the village who saw her during the first weeks at Roman’s tell her, ‘Look at her, she’s a different girl.’ She can see it for herself in the long mirror on Aunty May’s wardrobe. The waistband of the skirt Aunty Elsie made has had to be let out, and Aunty May has bought her, from Joycey at Clark’s, two new cotton tops, some strong leather sandals like her own, and some new knickers.