Curtis insisted on taking the short route cutting through the maize field. The towering plants dwarfed both men and instantly Jack became disorientated. He could only glimpse the blue sky above his head and the tall green plants growing densely on every side. Curtis called, ‘This way, Rose-in-Bloom!’ and Jack fought through the towering foliage frantically trying to follow the sound of his voice. He thought of Livingstone lost in the African jungle, suffering from green blindness, and started to panic. It would be terrible to be missing for ever in a maize field not half a mile from one’s armchair. He took a deep breath and prepared to scream, but a moment later emerged in the lane in front of The Crown.
It was early in the morning, yet the pub was already full. There was a hum of agitation as men in work clothes gathered at the bar talking in hushed voices. No one looked up when Jack came in, but then he no longer looked different from the others, dressed as he was in mud-spattered trousers and stained sun hat. Curtis coughed and clapped his hands. Everyone ignored him. So, he clambered upon a bench by the bar and threw his hat on the ground.
‘Mister Rose-in-Bloom wishes ter offer any of yer put out by the arrival of the beast from Hamerica gainful employment.’
The men turned to look at Jack with tired faces.
‘He’ll ’ave to join the queue.’
Jack noticed two men seated by the bar. They were about thirty years old and clad in grey flannel suits. A pair of cheap trilby hats rested on the counter, and the men were not drinking. He grimaced; he had learned not to trust chaps who refused a tipple in pubs. One of the men, a fellow with sandy blond hair and a wisp of a moustache, turned and gave him a thin smile.
‘Good morning. I represent Wilson’s Housing Corporation. If you are in need of a job, I’ll take you on at five pound a week for general building.’
Jack frowned. ‘What are you building?’
‘Bungalows. We have permission for forty in the water meadows at the edge of the village. Want them up sharpish. Hence the most generous wages.’
Jack’s frown deepened into a scowl. He did not like this young man, nor did he like bungalows being built on ancient water meadows. He knew people needed somewhere to live, but he could not understand why they did not put plumbing in the old cottages or rebuild the ones that had tumbled down at the bottom of the lane.
‘Five pounds?’
‘Yes. But you’ll have to prove you can work a full day. No offence, but you’re not in the first flush of youth. And since you’re not English, we’ll put you on probation for a few weeks. Just to make sure you don’t slack.’
His companion sneered. ‘Lazy foreign bastards. All the same. Just remember. We. Won. The. Bleeding. War.’
Jack reddened with rage; he had not been this angry since they mutilated his golf course. His eyes glittering with fury he glanced round the room. Curtis moved in closer to stand beside him, lips drawn back into a silent snarl.
‘Well,’ said Jack, trying to control the furious tremor in his voice, ‘this young man will pay you five pounds. I’ll pay you five pounds and ten shillings.’
The farmers in the bar looked at Jack in surprise. Hunched miserably in the corner, Jack Basset stiffened; he did not speak but stared at the other Jack. The blond man in the suit was taken aback by the unexpected competition. Wordlessly, his companion wrote a note and slid it across the bar. The fair-haired man glanced at it.
‘We’ll pay five pounds twelve and sixpence.’
Jack swallowed. He did not know how on earth he was going to pay them this much but he had to win.
‘Five pounds and fifteen shillings,’ he whispered.
The thin man stood up. His companion was desperate to up their offer but he put a hand on his arm to restrain him; they had no authorisation to go higher. He snatched his hat from the bar, and addressed the room.
‘Fine. But remember you’ll have to work for a shitty little Kraut. When he goes broke and you come crawling back to us, we’ll only pay you four pound a week and not a farthing more.’
They left, crashing the heavy wooden door behind them and Jack sat down in shock, scarcely aware that Basset was buying him a drink. He trembled as he considered the consequences of what he had just done – he would need to take out a loan to cover the cost of the wages. And use the carpet factory as collateral – he couldn’t possibly wire money to Fielding now. He grasped the glass in front of him and, barely conscious of what he was doing, drained the contents. He cursed himself for getting overwrought, ‘I’m a Dumpfbeutel. Oh yes. Emotion is always bad in these situations – it never ends well.’
‘What?’ Basset motioned for Stan behind the bar to pour Jack another drink.
Jack drank and as the liquid warmed his gullet he gained in confidence. He took Basset’s hand and shook it warmly.
‘It is a good day. You’re very right,’ forgetting that Basset had not actually spoken. ‘With all you splendid fellows, I’ll actually finish the golf course. For sure I will. For sure. ’
He toyed with his empty glass. ‘I built up the carpet business from nothing, everyone said I was a meshuggenah hund but I proved them all wrong.’
Twenty men had been put out of work by the great machine. Jack learned from Curtis that Basset and the others were only tenant farmers, permitted to work the land in return for hefty rents. Curtis drew his friend a map of Bulbarrow in the dirt to show how the valley of little dairies was changing.
‘Them big farms, now they ’as got themselves beasts from Hamerica, they wants all the land back. All the little farms is bein’ gobbled up by the big ’uns.’
Curtis kicked away a piece of flowering nettle that was standing in for a field boundary.
‘Yer see? Them giant machines can plough whole o’ the buggerin’ hill in a single day.’
Jack agreed sadly and absent-mindedly began to nibble on a strand of wild mint, which he’d been keeping in his pocket in case he felt snackish.
‘It’s a new era, Curtis. Britain and her hedgerows must make way for progress. I don’t like it. I don’t like it all.’
Jack wrote a careful list of the men he was hiring and added them to the payroll of the London factory. It was cripplingly expensive and Fielding was irate, penning Jack a furious letter, which he scanned guiltily and shoved in the back of his desk. The bank agreed to a loan, but he had made none of the investments he ought to have over the last few months and the quarterly profit was down. He was concerned, more for those who relied on him for their wages than for himself, but he signed the loan papers nonetheless, sent them back to the bank and tried not to think of them again.
The rate of progress on the course rapidly increased. These countrymen had worked on the land all their lives, and understood the quirks of soil and scrub. Basset informed Jack that the marsh at the bottom of the course could not be drained – the soil was clay and there was nowhere for the water to run. For the first time Jack had an expert onsite; Jack Basset’s brother, Mike, had actually played a round of golf whilst on holiday in Margate. Jack and Curtis listened to him attentively. He advised them on the placing of the hazards and that a stream cutting the green in two was highly unusual. He also persuaded Jack that nine holes would be ample – ‘Players who wants eighteen ’oles can jist go round again, like.’ Jack agreed to this solution with relief.
Yet, something had shifted within Jack and he no longer dreamt of demolishing the side of Bulbarrow Hill in order to mirror the Old Course. The slow beauty of the country had crept upon him, and he wanted his course to be defined by the rise and fall of the landscape. Mike was adamant that the greens ought to have a less acute angle. A flat surface was impossible – Jack’s land consisted entirely of the south face of Bulbarrow Hill. Jack listened to the men, and learned to listen to the landscape, until it seemed to whisper the direction they should go, and the positions of the holes. He did not want to dig too deep and disturb the ridges of the hill; it was best to go around them, let the edges of the mounds and ditches define the rough. He felt time
as he dug and raked with his men: the soil was millennia old and held countless lives and deaths – things born or budded, died and rotted.
At midday the men disappeared home for a hot dinner and returned at two o’clock, ready to work again. Whilst they laboured in the afternoon, Jack drew Robert Hunter from his pocket, sat down on a Mackintosh square and read to them from The Links.
‘The true links were moulded by divine hands. Links-land, the fine grasses, the wind-made bunkers that defy imitation, the exquisite contours that refuse to be sculpted by hand – all these were given lavishly by a divine dispensation to the British. With wind and wave, with marram-grass and river’s tide, the Great Creator moulded the links of Britain.’
He was soon overwhelmed by his enthusiasm. ‘You see, you see? This is why Britain is Great. God gave you the best golfing land in the whole of the world. It’s providence.’
He reached into his pocket and wiped his eyes with his once white monogrammed handkerchief.
‘Before Robert Hunter very little had been written on the art of golf course construction. It is a very elusive subject. I would like to share with you, my friends, the rules I have devised from his methods:
‘Number one: Select well-drained, slightly rolling land.
‘Two. Avoid clay soil.
‘Three. Do not go into hilly country at any cost.
‘Four. Shun also that country broken by streams and ponds. They are most objectionable.’
At the end of this little speech Jack coughed. ‘I am aware that perhaps, according to some, the land here on Bulbarrow does not quite conform to Mr Hunter’s recommendations, but sometimes the most beautiful things are created in the most unusual places. Think of a pearl found in the belly of a fish.’
‘Aye. An’ I once found a nest o’ blue robins’ eggs in middle of a dung heap,’ added Curtis, jumping up in a single bound in his enthusiasm. ‘Lil’ spicketty eggs in a steamin’ pile o’ chicken shit. Lovely they wis.’
Jack grinned. ‘You thieved the words from my mouth, my friend.’
The men listened to Jack, intrigued by his passion and energy. Here was a man who disobeyed the rules he himself devised; his golf course was in the worst possible site and had every known drawback. Yet, he believed in it nonetheless and had absolute faith in their ability to produce a modern-day miracle.
At the end of three weeks two holes were complete. The days became shorter, like a tree-trunk steadily shaved and sanded by a meticulous carpenter, and at dusk the men slipped home to supper by their fires leaving Jack and Curtis alone. The two friends sat on a bank at the top of the hill and surveyed the landscape – the seasons were on the cusp. It was early October, two weeks earlier and the girls were still in summer dresses walking down the lane, and in two weeks’ time the leaves on the flowering plum tree would curl and fall to the ground in purple shades. The air was cold and Jack gave a shiver. He was worried; every Friday he paid the men but he did not pay Curtis, and they had been working on the course together for so long that he did not know how to broach the topic.
‘My friend, I do not wish to insult you. But I would like to compensate you for your hard labours.’
Curtis wrinkled his face in displeasure. ‘Friends durst pay.’
‘Friends also do not take advantage of one another. That is not friendship.’
The old man continued to scowl but Jack knew he was right, and refused to be swayed.
‘Let me give you a gift then. Choose something of mine, anything at all.’
Curtis shrugged; he was not hungry or cold and therefore was quite content. Putting an end to the discussion, he got to his feet and started to walk down the hill. Jack followed, always a few paces behind. They passed the two neat flags wavering in the evening air and reached the marshes at the bottom of the valley. All of a sudden, there was a flash of light, and a ball of fire hovered above the bog. A grey goose gave a low shriek in surprise and flew up into the sky in a flurry of wings.
‘A will-o-the-wisp!’ Curtis gasped in excitement.
The ball of light drifted in the air, weaving between the tall reeds. The water looked as though it had caught fire, and the flaming reflection trembled on the surface. Jack watched in awe as the wisp singed the tall reeds and he remembered Moses and the burning bush. Then, it flickered, and was gone.
The two men retreated to Jack’s study, where he set about his weekly letter to Bobby Jones. It was an unusual predicament for Jack, to write letters without knowing if they would ever be read or answered but it was also strangely liberating, and he found that he confided all his fears to the legendary golfer.
Dear Mr Jones,
It has been a long week. I confess that I am worried we will never finish in time. Winter will come and turn the fairways to mud and we will be able to dig no more in the fierce frosts. I am also running out of money. This is a secret. Even my wife does not know how little we have left. I must finish by spring.
This evening I saw a will-o-the-wisp. I knew it to be nothing but a ball of phosphorescent light but I wanted it to be magical, or mystical. Wouldn’t you like to live in such a world, Mr Jones? A world of magic instead of concrete and bungalows?
Regards,
Your humble servant,
Jack M. Rosenblum
Curtis sat quietly while his friend wrote. He waited until Jack sealed up the letter, and had placed it carefully inside his jacket pocket.
‘I can have anything?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘I’d like ’im,’ said Curtis pointing to Jack’s gold watch lying discarded on the bookcase, the strap dangling over the spine of The Woodlanders. Jack had taken it off the first week he arrived in the West Country and had not used it since. It was half hidden under a mounting stash of bills and papers but still glinted in the twilight. He pulled out the old timepiece and pressed it into his friend’s hands.
‘Please. I would be honoured. It is yours.’
Reverently, Curtis slipped it into his pocket. ‘’S excellent. Won’t be late no more. Time keepin’s very important.’
Sadie was busy cooking her way through the recipes in her mother’s book, and the house became filled with scents of her childhood. Sometimes, she took her baking down to the village hall for the women to eat. Each time she ventured into the wood-panelled room Lavender Basset tried to persuade her to stay, ‘Come an’ have a nice cup o’ tea wi’ us, Mrs Rose-in-Bloom. Her Majesty’s Coronation Committee could do with an outstanding baker like yerself.’
Sadie set down her tray of almond macaroons or cherry and coconut pyramids on the trestle table and shook her head, avoiding the eyes of the smiling women.
‘Very kind, Mrs Basset. Much obligated, I’m sure. But I can’t stay.’
Sadie wouldn’t be tempted into eating a morsel but hurried away, as soon as she could be sure she wouldn’t cause offence. Walking back to the house, listening to the laughing of the larks as they took flight, she thought of her London friends – Freida and the others at the synagogue. It was strange, but she did not really miss them. Once a week she telephoned Freida from the red call box outside The Crown, but the conversations were always rather unsatisfactory. Freida prattled with gossip about Bernie Solomons’ bad leg (rumoured to be housemaid’s knee, his wife worked all day in the fishmonger’s and Bernie was suspected of keeping house), the difficulty in getting kosher eggs or enough branches for the Sukkah. When she’d finished, Freida paused expectantly for Sadie to chatter, before prompting her with, ‘your turn friend, what’s new?’
Sadie sighed. There was nothing new. There were only the rhythms of sun, rain and falling leaves. She could hear the murmur of cheerful conversation drifting up the lane from the village hall. For a moment, she wished she could have said yes, she would like a cup of tea and have sat and sipped and listened. But she always said no, and couldn’t possibly join them now. She picked up her pace, and hurried home.
The Coronation Committee only met on a Wednesday, so the rest of the time she le
ft cakes, biscuits and loaves of honey-coloured bread out on the table in the kitchen and forgot about them. After a taste, enough to fill her mouth and remind her of the texture of lavender and rosewater cream-filled buns, they lay abandoned on the wooden table.
Jack and Curtis, passing through the kitchen on their way to the study, presumed that the offerings laid out were for them and ate hungrily. Jack took them as signs from his wife, small gestures of conciliation. He did not realise that this new burst of cooking was another act of remembrance and took the vanilla crescents, the sand cakes and Pfefferkuchen as tokens of a well-concealed affection. He suspected that in some wordless way she understood he was in a spot of bother – being nearly out of money – and that these sweetmeats were a silent symbol of companionship. They barely met, passing as shadows, but he felt for the first time since that day a softening in his wife. He bit into a slice of Stollen, rich with a thick seam of marzipan, and was returned to the tiny flat by the Zoologischer Garten in Berlin. As he ate, he heard the howling of wolves from the zoo at dusk, and remembered the smooth roundness of his new wife. There was a time, long ago, when he loved her every day. When the course was finished, he would sit in her garden and ask her the names of the flowers.
As a consequence of the cakes, Jack started to sleep in the bedroom once more. Also, it was getting colder at night and he liked the warm body of his wife; sleeping in his chair he woke in the small hours, shivering in the dark. This morning he tried not to disturb her as he slipped out of bed in the creeping dawn. He opened the curtains a crack so that he could see to dress, and a cool light poured into the bedroom.
Sadie was only feigning sleep, she rarely slept for more than a few hours: her nights were haunted by people who had lost their names, and who rifled through her dreams trying to find them. From the bed she could see across the valley and the water lapping the edge of the garden. Just then, she noticed that the ducks were leaving the pond – there were clouds of them circling high in the sky.
‘Jack. The ducks are leaving.’
They were the first words she had spoken to him in several days and, realising this, he put on his spectacles and stared out the window at the dark shapes moving smoothly into the distance. The air filled with the sound of quacking, striking a melancholy note in the morning stillness. Jack shuddered; he hesitated and then, uncertainly, placed his arm around Sadie. In a minute the ducks were gone and the pond lay empty, its surface rippled only by the fish gliding underneath the surface. They were bereft.
Mr Rosenblum's List Page 15