The supervisor soon takes control. He doesn’t take any shit from anyone. He’s doing all the talking. I guess he’s telling them that it’s no one’s fault, that Eleanor wasn’t fit enough for the job, and that if they want to keep their jobs they’d better get to work. After a few minutes the local workers pick up their secateurs, wander into the rows. Maria is picking grapes two rows from me, and I hear her crying and muttering for the next hour.
At morning break, I sit on the ground next to Jerome because I have a question I want to ask, if I can pluck up the courage. He turns and gives me a hard stare. I stop chewing my bread. Have I annoyed him? He usually sits on his own. The bread goes pasty in my mouth as I wait for him to speak. Is he telling me to piss off? There’s a deep frown line down his forehead. He says, “That fucker of a supervisor.” He shakes his head. “My last day here, I’m going to flatten him. You just watch.”
I start chewing again. “How did she die?” I ask after I’ve swallowed.
“Simple: dehydration, heatstroke. That’s all.”
“Simple?”
He ignores me. He takes a wedge of cheese and bites off half of it.
I don’t push for more. After a couple more mouthfuls, he says, “Maria said it was organ failure. That’s the end result of dehydration and heatstroke. Her temperature was out of control. She wasn’t treated soon enough. I guess she suffered kidney failure, possibly a stroke, multiple organ failure and sepsis.”
“I saw Maria trying to cool her down.”
“Not enough. She needed a cold bath, stripped down, with ice in the water.”
“Are you, like, a nurse?”
He stares at me again. “Eat your food, kid.”
We sit in silence. The runner is recharging everyone’s water bottle at top speed, like he’s suddenly remembered that’s his job. The break will end soon, and I take my chance. “Jerome?”
He half turns his head but doesn’t speak.
Hesitating, I say, “I liked her. Eleanor. She said it was a shame I was eighteen. Why did she say that?”
He snorts. “She was fishing. Everyone knows you’re younger than that. The boss needed extra hands when you showed up. It suited him to believe you.” He takes his enamel cup, pours a refill of wine and sits back down. “Eleanor’s a nosey bitch. Sorry, was a nosey bitch,” he says. “She faked being friendly. I can always tell. Wouldn’t surprise me if she informed for immigration. Nice little sideline for a local picker. If she hadn’t collapsed and died, I was going to confront her. Question is, kid, if you’re under eighteen, a minor, why don’t you hand yourself in?”
I’m about to speak but I suck in my lips. I keep doing this. Wanting to trust people. Skylark, Ma Lexie, Odette. Then Eleanor, if I can believe Jerome. Was she an informer? It’s lonely when you can’t trust anyone. I look Jerome in the eye. “I want to find my parents. My father left Spain and headed to Manchester, but my mother didn’t hear from him after a few weeks. We set off to find him, but my mother and I got separated on the road.”
Jerome sighs, like he’s heard enough hard-luck stories. “Listen. If you want to find your parents, the quickest way is to hand yourself in. At the reception centres, they check everyone’s DNA against their databank. If either your mother or father, or both, are already in the system they’ll reunite you.”
“And if they’re not? What’s it like at the reception centres?”
He shrugs. “Never been in one, have I?” He shifts around. “If there’s no DNA match they’ll ship you out unless you’re a minor. Got any papers?”
I’ve told him enough. “My parents had the papers.”
“Look, it’s dangerous, you wandering around the countryside. There’s scum out there looking for kids on the loose.”
The runner blows a whistle. Jerome gets to his feet. I dip my head, pull the neck of my T-shirt and sniff. Am I scum? During my first week, the supervisor told me I “stank to high heaven.” Told me I’d infect the entire harvest if I didn’t clean up. He said if I didn’t take regular showers he’d ban me from the farmhouse dinner on Saturday evenings. Didn’t know what he was talking about, but I didn’t ask, didn’t argue even though I did take a shower on my first day, but I was the last in the queue so the water was cold. I flicked the water at my skin, didn’t wet my hair, and I had no soap. Every morning, I now check the camp washbasins before setting off to the field, to see if anyone has left a bar of soap behind. I haven’t had to buy any yet. And I try to beat everyone to the first shower when our picking finishes. I’m much cleaner and it’s worth it. The farmhouse dinner on my first Saturday was the best food I’d eaten since I left home.
It’s my fourth farmhouse dinner, and I’ve been thinking about it all day like everyone else. Before I reach the courtyard, I smell chicken roasting on the spit in the open air. I’m one of the last workers to arrive because I’m nervous about where to sit. Four long trestle tables are set out in the open air, each with pitchers of wine and water, baskets of bread, and candles for later. A white rose tree spreads over the entrance door to the house. What I like best is the tree by the winery—it’s not the tree itself, it’s the three lights hanging down from the branches. For our Saturday dinner the owner puts paper lampshades over the bulbs, and the courtyard feels like a different place. Like a secret grotto.
I edge into the courtyard through an arched entrance, wide enough for a transporter, and I try to imagine the olden days with horses and carts bringing grapes from the fields. Usually I sit with the older women because I know they won’t mind me tagging along. The one time I sat with the younger men and women they wanted me to drink more and more wine, and I threw up on the walk back to the camp. I stand just inside the courtyard, close to the winery wall, and look across the tables. Jerome is sitting with the winery workers and he spots me. He points to the bench opposite him. I’m pleased and it must show because he smiles. As I sit down, he says to the others, “This is the lad. He might do it.” He turns to me. “They need help in the winery. It’s less money than fieldwork, so no one’s interested. Easier work though. Sweeping up and hosing down. General dogsbody.”
“Dogsbody?” I ask.
“General helper. Have a think about it.”
I look around at the winery workers, who have cleaner clothes than the pickers, and I wonder if they’re a good team, if they’ll be nice to work for. None of them stay in the camp. They must live locally, or they’re members of the family and live in the farmhouse.
“Decide tonight, hey?” says Jerome.
I answer with a small nod. I’m not sure. Will they boss me around all day? At least in the fields I’m snipping away at the vines on my own.
“Any volunteers to serve? I did it last week,” says a woman with dark, straight hair and dark eyes who I’d mistake for being Spanish, only she has a perfect, neat English accent.
“Me and the kid will do it,” says Jerome. It makes sense as we’re sat at the end of the bench. We both swing around and make our way to the trestle table outside the farmhouse kitchen. Three salads per table. With those delivered, we head off to the spit, where one guy is pushing the cooked chickens off long skewers while a second guy chops them into quarters with a cleaver. Jerome says, “Twelve for us.” The chopper guy pushes our quarters onto two steel platters.
Back at our table, I set the platter down in front of the woman with the straight, dark hair. She’s talking, everyone is listening, so I guess she’s in charge somehow. She taps the point of her knife on the table. “My grandmother says it’s a choice of problems. She prefers the problems we can handle here ourselves.” She goes on, but I’m lost because she uses words I don’t know and talks in long, long sentences. I can tell she’s losing the other workers, too, because they stay quiet and concentrate on the food. She’s talking nonstop about the grape harvest, bottle numbers, and I catch “payback.” I’ve heard that before, but the payback then meant a good beating.
The chicken is perfect, so juicy. Jerome reaches for the breadbasket and
drops two chunks onto my plate. “Eat up,” he says in a low voice, as if he’s angry. The chatty woman is still talking. She stabs the table again, and that’s when I click that she must be chipped, implanted. She’s super smart but hasn’t noticed that everyone’s stopped listening. Can’t imagine me getting that mouthy with big words.
Then Jerome surprises me by picking up the conversation. “So, you agree with your grandmother? Stay low-tech.” He’s been listening all along. “Hire seasonal workers because the risk of a labour shortage is solvable compared to the problems that come with automation, where you depend on remote third parties, often in other countries.”
“Yeah. Some teenager in North Korea scheduling the overnight machine pickers. It doesn’t feel like farming to my grandmother. She’s savvy. We upsell our wine because most vineyards in this valley have taken the tech route. We’re the sole cultivator of Rondo grapes in this region to handpick, and most of our production is preordered for weddings.”
“You’re, umm—” He stops himself. His eyes dart, and he stands, grabs the nearest wine pitcher. “Sorry. Pass the other one to Leo.”
Jerome stands and gestures follow me with his head. “We can’t have the workers getting thirsty,” he says, and strides away. I take a huge bite of chicken and follow him. As we reach the winery entrance he says, “This way. Be sharp.”
Voices bellow from the far side of the courtyard. I twist around and see a bunch of men and women, all wearing black clothes. Uniforms. One woman is holding up a piece of paper. A whole load of shouting and cussing in the courtyard. Cracking sounds—dishes, glasses, breaking on the cobbles. Jerome grabs me by the arm and rushes me towards the rear of the winery, down a corridor.
He eases open a door. “Immigration raid,” he whispers, as he pulls me outside.
“How did you know?”
He puts a finger to his lips. “I saw them. Now move it, or we’ll be in prison cells tonight.” He bolts across the kitchen garden. Catching up, I grab his arm. “Jerome. Jerome, wait! I can’t leave without my stuff.”
We keep off the paths in case any immigration officers are positioned in the vineyards. We reach the camping ground and thankfully there’s no one else around. We slip into the barn, open our lockers. I grab my backpack, heavy with all the food I’d stashed, and push a bottle of water into the side pocket. I’ve emptied and refilled the bottle every day since arriving here. Always ready. More important, my backpack still has my papers sewn into the straps.
I can still taste the chicken if I suck my teeth. But there’ll be no more Saturday feasts in the courtyard. Here I am again walking the canal paths in the moonlight, and this time I’m the teacher. I’ve told Jerome we walk at night, hide in woodland during the day.
We haven’t spoken much, and I realise I don’t know anything about Jerome. His English is perfect to my ears, so I don’t think he’s an illegal. I’ve decided he’s a criminal. Yes, he’s in trouble with the police and he’s been hiding out in the vineyards.
The wind picks up suddenly and it feels colder. Jerome, ahead of me, stops and waits for me to catch up.
“There’s a weather front passing over. Let’s speed up,” he says. “We’ll take shelter if it starts to rain.” He looks into the sky, holds out his palm. “Rain’s definitely on the way.”
He sets off, striding out, and I do my best to keep up, but after a couple of minutes I’m way behind. I can’t see him. I have a horrible feeling that we’ll meet Odette, as if she’s wandering around the canals like a ghost. I know I’m being ridiculous. She’ll be long gone. But I’m spooked. Maybe she wasn’t as lucky as me, and she’s been arrested for murdering her boss. Unless her boss is in a hospital in a coma. Or she woke from a coma and spoke one word: Odette.
Can’t see Jerome. A few spots of rain are hitting my face. I stop to listen for his footsteps. Can’t hear anything over the wind that’s whistling in the hedges. I pick up my pace, lengthen my stride. I count my steps on a long bend to pass the time, and when the path eventually straightens, I make out a small bridge over the canal. It’s the usual kind of brick bridge on these canals, with a low arch, carrying a quiet country road. The canal path narrows and bends around the brick supports. A white plaque, bright in the moonlight, sits over the bridge arch, with the number 108 printed in black. It’s dark under the bridge, and I’m a few steps away when I see Jerome sat there, elbows resting on his knees. I drop my backpack next to him.
“Thought I’d lost you. Where are we?” I ask.
“We’ve headed north, and now northwest, on the Shropshire Union. We’ll rest here a while.”
I sit on the damp path. “And then?”
“Lay low for three or four days and then head back to the vineyards, a different one. That’s what I’m doing.” He turns to me. “You, you need to think carefully. This life is temporary for me. To tell you the truth, I’m on the missing-persons list.”
I look back at him, my eyebrows shooting upwards, but I can’t see his face clearly. “Are you in trouble with—?”
“I need to drop below the radar for a few months,” he says. “But you, you can’t roam around like me. Anyway, how did you reach the vineyard in the first place? Where’ve you been living?”
I don’t answer him. He doesn’t seem bothered that I’m ignoring him. He opens his backpack and pulls out a bag of dried fruit and nuts. Pours some into my palm. He tells me he misses his dog, and I tell him I miss my friends. I’m watching the raindrops on the canal water, and I wonder if a canal can overflow. Jerome says, “Have you any idea how vulnerable you are? You’re just a kid.” He leans into me and speaks into my ear as if he’s telling me a secret. “It’s better if you hand yourself in, rather than being caught.”
“If I had papers would it make a difference?”
“Sure it would.” He nudges me with his knee. “If you’ve got papers . . .” I ignore him again. “So, assuming you’ve got papers proving you’re a minor”—he lets that hang—“then they can’t throw you out of the country. You can take indentured work on the fish farms or the power-from-waste plants outside the enclaves. If you decline that offer, you’ll be kept in youth detention and deported as soon as you turn eighteen.”
“And if they do find my parents?”
“There’s the thing, kid. You’ve a better chance of staying here, long term, if your parents don’t show up. Because if they’re not asylum seekers, if they’re not actual refugees, they don’t stand a chance.”
I tell him my parents wanted a new life, and wanted me to get chipped when I turn eighteen, become an office worker and make loads of money. Jerome doesn’t interrupt but gives a heavy sigh, and I can tell what he’s thinking. He thinks my parents were stupid to have this dream. I ask him straight, “What are my chances of getting chipped?”
He laughs.
“I’m serious.”
“Your one chance is this, so listen: Hand yourself in. It looks better. Show the immigration people your documents, take indentures. You’ll work for the state until you’re twenty-five, minimum. Then apply for right-to-remain and you might have a chance, a slim one, of getting late implantation. But be careful what you wish for, kid. Believe me.”
Jerome speaks in a low, soft voice. “Let’s rest up during the day tomorrow. Stay hidden. On Monday, I can take you close to a police station and leave you to walk in. Immigration will want to know where you’ve been living, how you crossed the Channel, who trafficked you, where you’ve worked, how you’ve survived. They’ll treat you better if you tell a good, truthful story. You should practise it.”
And so, I tell Jerome my story under this bridge, number 108. I tell him about all the people I’ve met because he’s the first person to tell me anything helpful, about how it all works. He knows stuff. And I feel sorry for him after he tells me his story—that even though he’s chipped and, at one time, had a good job, his wife left him.
In any case, I want to tell Jerome my story. I’m tired of all the secrets. You have to tr
ust someone when you’re on your own. But I don’t mention Odette.
I lean my head back against the damp brickwork of the bridge. In my heart I know the truth, but I can’t say the words aloud. My father is dead. If he was still alive, he’d have found a way to contact us while we were still in Spain. Mother didn’t have the guts to admit that—to me or herself. When I last saw my mother, she’d already lost her mind. She let me down. Now, I have to do what’s best for me.
CHAPTER 6
JEROME
My instincts when I first encountered the boy proved correct. He’s a minor. And before he arrived at the vineyard, he’d been serially trafficked. By dragging him away from the farmhouse raid, he instantly trusted me. Indeed, he yielded the name of each person who supposedly helped him on his journey. Once he started talking, all was revealed within the space of thirty minutes. Easier than I expected.
Our close proximity helped. We sat shoulder to shoulder under the bridge as we sheltered from the rain. Pure serendipity: the heavy rain, the low bridge, the narrow path. Almost a cave. My first move seemed to do the trick, telling him I missed my dog. I felt the boy’s weight as he leaned into me, and I elaborated about walking with my Jack Russell along the beach in north Wales, how he’s one of five brothers that me and four of my friends adopted, how we meet up once a year and let the dogs play together. I told him my dog is the best behaved. He isn’t yappy. Almost convinced myself I actually owned a dog.
I switched the conversation around, said I’d watched him at the vineyard and admired his diligence. It was a shame we had to move on. He wiped his eyes, telling me he missed his friends back in Spain. I chose this moment to apprise him of key facts regarding the immigration process for minors, and as soon as he’d absorbed this reality check, I gently reeled the boy in, telling him I’d be able to advise him better if he showed me his papers.
Bridge 108 Page 10
