by S. C. Howe
‘And you forget that we need extra money put aside, ‘capital’ if you like, to build the place up.’
Tom sat back in his chair, looked attentively at Joss. ‘I want this place to work, Joss. If it fails I’ll be on the streets and I don’t want that.’
‘Did you hear what you just said?’ His tone was incredulous.
Tom shook his head. ‘That came out wrong... I mean I want this to work.’
‘And so do I. Do you think we’re just bound by mere economics? After all we’ve been through?’
‘When there’s no money, no food and no fire to sit by, economics is everything.’
‘We swim or we sink together. That’s what I’ve always understood.’
‘The same here. But just let’s make sure we swim.’
Roger Deerman called by a few days later. Joss raised his eyes as he saw the shiny chrome of the car catching the sun as he drove it down the lane to the track. Deerman parked it at the top of the track and negotiated his way through the sun-baked ruts in elegant driving shoes.
‘Ah, younger sib,’ he said trying to push away Nico who gave everyone the same enthusiastic greeting. ‘Will you get this thing under control,’ he said waving a disdainful hand at the dog.
Joss caught Nico’s collar. ‘What do you want?’ he asked.
Deerman gave an ‘oh’ face as Tom walked up.
‘Just calling on the rustics to see how their bucolic idyll fares.’
‘Do try and talk normally Roger.’
‘Would you like some tea?’ Tom asked.
Deerman looked at Tom with a grin of triumph. ‘Yes, and if the younger sib wants to join us, he can.’ As he sat down on the bench in the courtyard, he pulled off his driving gloves.
‘So how’s the army?’ Joss asked, sitting opposite.
‘Oh, you know.’
‘Not really.’
Deerman shrugged. ‘Mother tells me you’re going into strawberries.’
‘It’s one string to our bow.’
‘Sounds very um...vital.’
‘It makes money,’ said Tom.
‘Ah, here’s the one with the real business acumen. The one who gets to the point.’
Tom frowned at Deerman, who smiled at them both, a graceless, patronising smile.
‘Just as well Thomas here isn’t playing at being a farmer,’ Deerman quipped. ‘Leaving you to frolic amongst your strawberries.’
‘Oh go away Roger.’
‘Seriously though,’ said Deerman, looking at them both levelly. ‘They say farming’s going into decline, so you may need to think about changing.’
Joss looked momentarily stunned. ‘Pardon?’
‘If agriculture goes into depression, you may need to sell up.’
‘I think it’s a case of looking at we can produce most successfully here and concentrate on that market,’ Tom said. ‘Market gardening is actually our strongest line. We’re near the railway halt and it connects to the large urban areas.’
‘Oh listen to him!’ said Deerman with an exaggerated surprise. ‘As I say, brother, look after this one, he will help you grow.’
Joss stared at his brother with undiluted loathing. ‘What are you here about?’ he asked, his voice unusually clipped.
Deerman turned to Tom. ‘So what are your plans for expansion, Thomas?’
Tom glanced over to Joss. ‘We’ve just bought in a small flock of sheep.’
‘And can you manage with all the extra work? It must be heavy labour, not to mention noisome at times.’
Tom pointed over to where Joe Greener was forking dung from the horse’s stall onto the muck-heap. ‘Joe helps.’
Deerman looked harder at the figure that was shirtless because of the heat and hard work. ‘Mmm…nice.’
‘Forget it Roger, he’s married,’ said Joss.
Deerman turned back to look at him. ‘And it’s quite often those who jump into bed the quickest, believe me. I think they need a jolly good–’
‘Shut up!’ Joss got to his feet. ‘I don’t know why you bother coming over here, all you do is show off and sneer. If you can’t do any better, just keep away.’ Joss turned his back on him and walked back to strawberry field.
There was an uncomfortable silence then Deerman seemed to pull himself to. ‘I suppose I ought to be going. But Thomas, if you want to expand and want to make some contacts, let me introduce you to some business friends of mine.’ Deerman patted him on the thigh. Tom got up.
‘I have to get on with the sheep,’ he said and moved off.
Deerman looked after him. The hungry, hunting look crept back into his face, the look that even his own mother could not abide.
‘All I’m saying,’ said Sykes as Barratt followed him up the step entry. ‘Is no-one can touch you, you’re a free agent, you can go where you want, when you want–’
Be free to starve, thought Barratt.
‘Bollocks!’ blurted Sykes.
‘Barratt peered over Sykes’ shoulder; saw the entrance to their shelter boarded up. Sykes scrambled up the scrubby slope and stared at the boarding that announced ‘By direction of Kidderminster Town Council’ stamped in large black capitals on planks. Underneath in red was ‘All Trespassers will be prosecuted.’ Their belongings lay haphazardly to one side.
Sykes sat down heavily on the rolled-up mattress. ‘The bastards! Well we can forget taking this lot,’ he said kicking the heap. ‘No, hang on a minute; we’ll take the bedding, and the brazier. They can shove the rest up their–’
‘Where shall we go?’ Barratt interjected.
‘I know a place,’ Sykes said, lighting a cigarette.
Barratt sat and looked out over the dusty, dark-leafed suburbs and thought may be this living for the moment was the natural corollary of living out in the trenches. But out there ‘living for the moment’ had taken on a wholly different connotation. Standing out on the streets, asking for change had been painful beyond measure to begin with but, as the weeks had passed, it became easier, like most things. Most people ignored him anyway. From the start he had selected a sunny spot outside an old coaching inn by the bridge of the River Stour, where patrons were used to having change-in-hand to tip porters. Throughout the early summer, the sun had shone white and hazy with a lethargic heat in the airless atmosphere of the town centre and Barratt had become used to the dust, which he could taste on his lips, and where the smoke from the chimneys hung over the roof tops like a dirty morning mist. On hotter days, the black pods from a broom, which slumped over the short wall of the inn, cracked and popped; the seeds sometimes hitting him on the back of the head as he gazed over the brown canal. On one afternoon, a young woman had approached Barratt holding out a glass of lemonade, which he gulped as she sat beside him.
‘I could see you were thirsty,’ she said in a well-spoken voice. ‘Would you like another?’
Barratt peered at her, through the thick mist of low spirits that hung with him most days now.
‘Yes. Please,’ he said, and for the first time he wanted to weep. Shame flooded over him. He turned away so the young woman wouldn’t see his misery. She went over to the street seller and bought two tall glasses.
‘May I?’ she said, gesturing to the low wall he sat on.
Barratt nodded. He nearly said, ‘I wouldn’t bother if I were you, go and sit with someone who matters’, but he kept silent and looked into the distance. He tried to force this sudden despair back into the trough, battling not to show it on his face or by his movement.
‘My brother’s out in France,’ said the young woman, also staring ahead.
‘Oh,’ said Barratt. Where?’
‘Around Beauterre.’
Barratt gave an involuntarily yelp then managed to say. ‘He wasn’t called Briggs, was he?’
The woman looked at him with surprise. ‘No... Anyway, what’s your name?’
‘Barratt.’
‘My name is Alice.’
‘My first name is Charles.’
She smiled kindly at him. �
�I have noticed you around for a while. We’re trying to recruit people to help deliver leaflets,’ she explained.
Barratt’s heart fell. So there was an ulterior motive to what had seemed a beautiful kindness. What did he expect?
‘For what?’ he asked without interest.
‘For getting social justice for soldiers coming back from the Front. It’s painfully obvious to quite a few of us that the men returning from active service have been treated disgustingly.’
Barratt jolted. ‘Really?’
Alice looked into his face; her expression was serious. ‘Yes. A group of us want to do something about it.’
Barratt gave a short smile.
‘If you’d like to join in and help out, in return we can put you up, it’s only a hostel at the moment I’m afraid, and also share our meals.’
‘I’m not sure about the hostel,’ said Barratt. ‘But I would like to join the group, and the meals would be welcome.’
CHAPTER TEN
‘You did what?’ Joss demanded as they made their way along the lane back to the farm.
‘Booked the same pitch for next week,’ Tom said.
Things had not been easy lately. On one early morning, they had taken the last crop of strawberries to the retail market. At first it had been quite pleasant and jovial, unloading the cart at the service entrance and talking amiably with a few other sellers. But by nine a.m. all the pitches had been taken and the atmosphere had become tense and sullen, as only a few buyers came in and were quickly waylaid by the more seasoned stall holders who shouted at them in an assured, confident tones. Joss had tried but his voice restricted and his face pinched. He glanced over to Tom who was looking out across the market hall with the intensity of a hawk looking for prey. A few people glanced their way and, to Joss; it seemed that they eyed him suspiciously because they were not selling anything. The place was too empty to give him any hope, and so he had stayed tucked back in the stall. By midday the area had become busier, but Joss recoiled further. The voices of customers and the screeching whistles of barrow boys had seemed detached. The faces of one or two potential customers looked at him as though expecting him to haggle but Joss had glanced nervously away and those people had retreated, muttering to themselves. The next, he was back in the melee of the trenches with men shouting, bellowing orders, as mortars blew the earth apart. Then the scream ‘Stretcher-bearers!’ went up. A shell burst nearby – he thought his ears were bleeding. He pressed his hands to his head to shut it out finally, but it went on furious, without mercy. The next thing he knew someone was helping him to drink from a mug of water.
Opening his eyes, he saw Tom stooping in front of him. ‘I’m going to take you round to the cafe while I pack the cart up. Will you be all right there?’ His tone was kind, solicitous.
Joss nodded, got to his feet unsteadily, like an old man. They crossed the busy street to a cafe on the corner where a bored-looking waitress stared at them as Tom helped Joss into a chair. Tom said something to her and a few minutes later he had a cup of lukewarm tea pushed at him. Joss stared out of the window at the busy commercial world, his jaw resting in his left palm. He jumped when the waitress asked, ‘Will you be wanting another? You can’t just sit here and not buy anything, you know.’
Joss looked round slowly at her, then got up and limped away.
Tom was just finishing hitching Jasper back to the cart. ‘Are you all right now?’
Joss merely nodded.
They journeyed back in silence until Joss asked, ‘So you sold the whole lot, I see.’
‘I had to haggle, but I got the idea in the end and I agreed to have a pitch for next week with the view to making it a permanent arrangement.’
‘You did what?’
‘We have to do this Joss, if we’re going to make a go of it.’
‘I thought we already were.’
‘We have to secure it for the future,’ Tom said.
Joss shrugged. ‘I suppose it will be no surprise that I won’t be joining you.’
Tom kept his face forward, concentrating on the road the reins in his hand. ‘If that’s what you want.’
‘Flogging stuff on a market stall is not my forte.’
Tom nearly said, ‘So you think you’re a bit above that, do you?’ but remained quiet.
They reached the farm. Joss levered himself down and started undoing the cart from the horse. Tom led Jasper away to be fed, watered and rubbed down. Joss could hear him talking to the horse. Nico sat beside Joss and proffered a paw, and for the first time that day, he smiled. ‘I don’t think I’ll be doing that again,’ he said. Nico leant his head to one side. ‘I disgraced myself. It’d be rather like you peeing up the produce in dog terms.’
Still, there was plenty he should be doing around the farm, and it didn’t take two of them to man a stall, Joss thought, walking over to the oat field. The crop was crisping in the sun, the paper-thin heads rattling slightly in the breeze. They would have to be thinking about getting that in. But when? He would have to consult Stephens again. The strawberry crop was over and the hay crop was in the big, dry barn. The chickens were producing magnificent eggs and there was a steady income from these, so why was he feeling doomed, as though something awful was about to happen? It must be the war, the effect, he thought. But this pervading heaviness pushed down into his mind, so he couldn’t concentrate on reading the literature he needed to read about the crops, and hoped instead that Tom would assimilate it. It was a warm, sweet-scented evening so he set bacon and eggs to sizzle on the range and pulled out bottles of beer from the cool cellar and arranged a mini-feast on the trestle table in the courtyard.
‘To celebrate our first marketing success!’ he announced as Tom came over from the stable.
Tom saw his wide smile, the dimples in his cheeks, and was profoundly relieved. Joss’s unusual quietness had been gnawing away at his mind. Now, as they sat back in the fold-up chairs, he hoped it had just been fatigue with the newness of the market situation sapping Joss’s normally buoyant mood.
A few afternoons later, a mauve-blue July day with shimmering sun saw them shirtless and supine on the bank underneath the terrace where the heath began. It was Saturday afternoon and the Greeners had gone home after helping to dip the sheep in a roughly constructed tub. It had been a long morning of good humour and laughter as everyone got drenched. They had eaten a hearty meal together, sitting outside and then, as the Greener’s voices trailed away, Joss had looked at Tom and, stripping off, they’d run to the stream and, splashing each other, had washed away the sweat, then made love, butt-naked, under a clump of cool hazels, deeply out of sight. The dark stripes of leaves and branches, shuttered out the white sun, which, mixed with their heightened senses and their arching bodies, left them panting, relieved of the anxiety of the last few days, weeks even. Then, lying out again in the crystal steam, they let the water flow beautifully cool over their skin. Now they lay, hands behind heads, on the hillside, overlooking their farm, an evening of doing nothing stretching lazily out before them. Tom gazed up, trying to describe the colour of the sky in his mind, was it mauve, or purple-blue? A twitch on his nose made him look over to Joss, who was trailing a dried seed head over him and smiling his big, broad smile. Tom reciprocated, overwhelmed with Joss, his nature and his undeniable physical beauty.
When they had arrived back at the shelter that afternoon and found it boarded up, Sykes had kicked the shuttering savagely. ‘They can stick it!’ he shouted. ‘It stinks round here, anyway. That bloody canal and the tip. I could smell it all last night.’
Sykes had then scrambled up the bank and returned a few minutes later.
‘Got three bob for the chair–’
‘I thought you said they’d given you the chair?’
Sykes gave a sly grin. ‘Well, they did, but they seemed to have forgotten and I didn’t want to remind them. Anyway, I got this out of them,’ he added, holding out a length of rope.
Barratt frowned in question.
‘Go on,’ said Sykes pushing an uncertain Barratt forward. ‘Walk.’
Barratt tottered and swayed, slipped backwards and immediately bounced up. Sykes laughed out loud. Barratt smirked. Walking down a gloomy, sunless entry, they forced their way down the narrow space, getting jammed several times; by the time they reached the street, their elbows and the sides of the mattresses were stained with algae and soot. The canal was dark green and litter strewn; it smelled rancid with decay. Holding their breath, they quickened their pace and moved like enormous, ungainly straw tortoises, flopping to and fro, and at last emerged into the red-brick expanse of Mill Street. Here the air was heavy with mortar and brick dust – in the distance was the dull boom of demolition. They moved on, passed the carpet factories where looms thudded and rattled relentlessly, like vast mechanical hearts. A man stood by an open door of one of the factories, smoking a cheap cigarette muttering, ‘Stupid buggers’ as they swayed passed. For once Barratt didn’t care. He had no idea where he was going; his only desire was to get out of this town and onto the sunny, open river terraces and the countryside.
They walked along the Franche Road singing ‘Pack up your troubles’ in painfully flat singing voices, the July sun in their faces, a breeze freshening, the sky clearing to a deep, summer’s blue so their inky shadows stretched out before them like elongated turtles. Then a cart, pulled by a shining black carthorse and driven by Tom Fielder, overtook them and stopped.
‘Captain Barratt?’ came an incredulous voice.
Barratt looked up and saw John Deerman’s sun-tanned face staring down from the passenger side. ‘What’s happened?’
‘We’ve been evicted.’