by Mary Gibson
The back of his hand struck her cheekbone with a crack, and sent her stumbling back towards the fire. Catching at the mantelpiece with her hand, she steadied herself. She could feel the warm trickle of blood on her cheek, where his ring had broken the skin.
‘I’m sick o’ the sight of you! Go an’ eff off down hoppin’ if you want, but see how you like walking all the way because you won’t get a penny train fare from me!’
Milly wiped the blood from her cheek, smiling behind her hand. She had won the war.
Milly was the only woman there. A group of men were already clustered round the doors of the Swan and Sugarloaf when she arrived that Saturday morning. She stood, awkward and unnoticed, on the edge of the group, wishing Pat was here to meet her. His lorry was parked outside the pub, but he was nowhere to be seen. She recognized many of the men, some were drinking pals of her father’s, others from Southwell’s or neighbours. At first she hung back, clasping a battered cardboard box to her chest. As well as her clothes, it contained tins of food, filched from the supply her mother had left for the old man. She hadn’t told her father how she’d be getting to Kent; in fact she’d said no more about going. She liked the idea of him waking up to find her bed empty and no breakfast on the table – he had told her to eff off down hoppin’ after all.
She was relieved when Pat and his friend emerged from the pub, carrying crates of beer. Pat nodded at her with a smile as he slid the crate on to the back board.
‘Fuel for the journey!’ He winked and came over to take her box. ‘This can go in the back too, but you’re coming in the cab with me. This lot’ll be pissed as puddin’s before we get to Seven Mile Lane and I did say I’d look after you!’
She didn’t remember him saying that, but was grateful she wouldn’t be bouncing around on the back board all the way to Horsmonden. Soon she was settled in the cab and the back was loaded up, crammed with men, boxes of supplies and gifts for their families, which, along with the beer crates, made it a tight squeeze. But they were all in high spirits and as soon as they were on the road Milly heard them start up the hopping songs, accompanied by someone on an accordion.
‘When you go down ’oppin, ’oppin down in Kent, you try to earn a bob or two, to pay the bloomin’ rent, with an ee ay oh, ee ay oh, eeay, eeay, oh!’
Pat was right. By the time they’d made their slow way through heavy traffic in Old Kent Road and left the smoke behind, the songs grew bawdier. Pat grinned at her sheepishly, but Milly wasn’t shocked – she’d heard them all before. She was content to drink in the increasingly fresh air, leaning her arm on the open window of the cab, watching for the first green field to replace the suburbs.
After an hour on the road they stopped at a roadside café, and the men insisted she join them in a drink. She sat with her legs swinging over the back board, sipping from a beer bottle, beginning to relax in their company.
‘How’d you persuade old man Colman to let you come, Milly?’ Sid, one of her father’s work pals, asked, eyeing the cut still visible on her cheek. ‘He’s a stubborn old git, never changes his mind.’
‘I made his life a bloody misery, Sid, that’s what I did. Burned his dinners and hid the poker!’ Sid and the other men gathered round laughing. ‘That’s the spirit, love, you got to stand up to the mean old bully!’
She drained the beer bottle with a sense of triumph and Sid handed her another. As she sipped at her beer she reflected that Sid was right, it was time to stand up to the old man. His bullying had been going on far too long. He’d always been a strict disciplinarian and she’d feared him as long as she could remember, but she clearly recollected the day when the cane on the table had been replaced by his fists. It was during the war, and she could see her family now, gathered in the kitchen of Arnold’s Place. Even after all these years she could remember the sound of her father’s laugh. A staccato burst that bounced off the kitchen walls. Amy, a toddler, had said something quick and clever and he’d swiped her up from the floor with something like affection. When the knock came on the door, he’d handed Amy to her mother. Milly saw her ten-year-old self, sitting on the kitchen floor, showing Elsie how to whip a wooden top till it spun in a blur over the lino. Absorbed in keeping the spin going for the longest of times, Milly barely registered her father opening the front door, letting in the cold and dark. And when he came back with the telegram, the top was still spinning. But as the words emerged dully from his mouth, ‘Jimmy’s dead’, the top wobbled crazily, bouncing across the lino to her mother’s feet. Milly scrabbled to grab it, just as her mother let out an agonized cry and let Amy fall from her arms. Some instinct made Milly dive. She caught her sister and held her close, as she’d seen boys dive to save a goal, while her mother’s moaning filled the kitchen. ‘Not my Jimmy too, not both my boys!’ Over and over. The old man didn’t utter a word, but pulled his jacket off the peg and walked out. She remembered the feel of his steel-capped boot in her ribs as he kicked her out of the way. Milly had put her mother to bed that night, along with Elsie and Amy, and she had looked after all of them till her father staggered home drunk three days later. That day the beatings began, almost as if he blamed his wife and daughters for being alive when his two sons were dead. Not long after that, Wilf signed up too and Milly never heard the old man laugh again. But now she was old enough and strong enough, and it was time to fight back, for all their sakes.
Back on the road, hedgerows began to appear, fields of cows and sheep, stands of trees, and the gently swelling Kent hills, dipping to sweet-scented valleys. She felt heady with beer and pride in her hard-won victory over the old man. She’d done it, she was free! She let the wind take her carefully waved hair, feeling it whip about her face. Leaning back as the warm September sun splashed through the windshield, she sighed with pure happiness.
‘You look different.’
She hadn’t been aware Pat was watching her.
‘This is my happy face.’ She gave him an exaggerated smile. He laughed, but then seemed to grow serious.
‘No, I mean, you look more grown-up, you’re looking... very pretty today.’
Pretty! She didn’t think he’d ever paid her such a romantic compliment before, unless he was mocking her.
‘You taking the piss?’
He shook his head, giggling.
‘What’s so bloody funny?’ She felt uncomfortable now; perhaps the men hadn’t been laughing with her, but at her.
‘Nothing, it’s just you’re as prickly as one of those hop bines you’re off to strip...’
She gave him a sidelong glance, keeping her face straight until he winked at her and they both burst out laughing. She would give him the benefit of the doubt; she was enjoying herself far too much to pick a fight today. Nearing the top of Wrotham Hill, the lorry juddered to a halt, then slowly but surely began to roll back down again. Pat groaned, pulled hard on the handbrake and leaned out of his window.
‘Everyone off!’
The men all tumbled off the back and began pushing the lorry up the hill. By the time they’d struggled, panting, to the top, they were all thirsty and another beer stop was called. This time, when they started singing, Milly joined in with the strong, tuneful voice she’d inherited from her mother.
‘Oh me lousy ’ops, oh me lousy ’ops! When the measurer comes around, pick ’em up, pick ’em up off the ground. When ’e starts a-measurin’ ’e never knows when to stop.Aye, aye get in the bin and take the effin lot!’
When Pat started up the engine again, she went to jump off the back board, but Sid and the others refused to let her return to the cab.
‘Stay and have another drink, Mill, don’t get back in there with him!’ Sid pleaded.
She liked being the centre of all this good-natured banter, and banging her fist on the back of the cab, shouted, ‘Drive on, Patrick! Milady’s staying back here for more refreshments!’
She ignored Pat’s complaints and soon the lorry chugged into life, before hurtling down the other side of Wrotham Hill. Be
er and joy had eroded their decorum, and she spent the rest of the journey sitting on a crate of beer on the back board, surrounded by hollering, swearing, joking men who seemed happy to accept her as one of the gang. She felt freer than she had in all her life. She scanned the countryside, looking out for the first oast house, and when she spotted a group of red-tiled conical roofs, topped with brilliant white cowls, she stood up for a better view.
‘Careful, gel!’ Sid grabbed her arm. ‘You’ve had a drop too much, don’t want you falling arse end over the side!’
Milly turned to him with a smile, bracing herself against the lorry’s back board.
‘Thanks, Sid, but I think I’m stone-cold sober.’
‘Good gawd,’ Sid called to his mates, ‘look at her, steady as rock! She can drink us lot under the table!’
As they coasted to the bottom of the valley and slowed down through the village of Horsmonden, Milly smelled the tangy aroma of wood fires. Turning into the field where the hopping huts were situated, tantalizing smells wafted over to them from hopping pots, suspended over fires.
Sid breathed in deeply. ‘Mmm, smell that, Milly, just in time for dinner!’
Excited children came running across the field as soon as the lorry came into view. Mothers left the cooking fires and ran with babies in their arms. This was the highlight of their week – the men were sure to have brought treats. Milly was the last to jump off the lorry, pulling her box down after her.
‘Bloody deserter! You left me driving all on me own!’ Pat joked, jumping down from the cab.
‘Sorry, Pat, they just wouldn’t let me off!’
‘Well, I don’t know what your mother’ll say about you turning up blind drunk!’
She shrugged. ‘You never seemed bothered before whether I got drunk or not. Anyway, I’m not tipsy!’
Eager to be away, she scanned the field for her mother and sisters. She was looking forward to surprising them. About two dozen hop huts were ranged in long lines round the edge of the field. Built of wood, they were topped with corrugated-iron roofs and looked little more than stable blocks, with only a door for light and ventilation. She wandered along the row of huts, dodging round cooking fires, greeting women she knew. Finally, at the very end, she saw her mother sitting on a wooden chair, stirring the hopping pot. Elsie sat with Amy on the grass; both held huge hunks of bread and balanced tin plates on their knees. Milly tried to creep up unnoticed, but Amy had spotted her, and she saw her sister’s face fall.
‘Oh no, what’s she doing here? Now we’ll have to squash up in the bed!’
Milly was anxious not to begin on a bad note, so said nothing. She dropped her box and dashed up behind her mother before she could turn round. Putting both hands over Mrs Colman’s eyes, Milly whispered, ‘Guess who?’
‘Oh Gawd, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, you frightened the life out of me!’ Her mother twisted round with a delighted smile on her face. She cupped Milly’s face with her black, hop-stained fingers and kissed her noisily. ‘How did you get here?’
Elsie hadn’t said a word; she was looking at Milly without a trace of surprise.
‘I had a dream about you last night,’ she said solemnly. ‘I knew you’d be coming.’
‘Well, you’re just an old Polly Witch!’ Milly blurted out her normal response to Elsie’s flashes of intuition and had to duck quickly as Elsie spun her tin plate through the air, narrowly missing Milly’s head.
‘Sod me if you’ve not started already!’ Mrs Colman snatched the plate from the ground and Milly glared at Elsie, but was determined not to let her sisters ruin her arrival. She dug into the cardboard box, drawing out a paper bag of humbugs and another of cough candies. Her sisters accepted the peace offerings with bemused looks on their faces. Milly had learned during the past weeks with her father that there was more than one way to win a fight, and as she thought again of her musings on the journey down, she realized that once, long ago, her sisters had not been her enemies. The war between them had crept in, insidiously, with the cold and dark, the day her father had turned into ‘the old man’.
Her mother’s face relaxed as she saw Milly making an effort to be friends.
‘I’ll just go and put my things in the hut,’ Milly said, ‘then I’ll tell you all about it!’
Ducking into the dark interior, the familiar smell of damp earth and sweet straw mattresses hit her. As always her mother had made their hut a home from home. The roll of wallpaper had been pinned over bare wooden walls, lino rolled out on the earth floor and, on a deep wooden platform at the back where they would all sleep together, the straw-ticking mattresses had been laid out, neatly covered with blankets. Milly stowed the box in the only spare corner and sat on the bed platform. Patting the springy straw-filled ticking, she sighed and lay back. Tonight would be spent at the village pub and tomorrow feeding the men at a great communal Sunday roast. She would have to wait till Monday for what she really longed for: to be among the wide hop fields, with blue sky breaking through green tunnels of bines, her nose assaulted by a thousand citrus explosions as she crushed papery hop flowers between her fingers.
5
The Snares of Paradise
September 1923
On Sunday morning Milly poked her head out of the warm nest of bodies curled up, top to tail, on the straw mattresses at the back of the hut. The others were still sleeping. Amy’s small, grimy foot prodded her in the face as Milly pulled herself up gently. The wooden hut was freezing cold and damp from the morning mist, which seeped through every crack in the ill-fitting weather boards. She tucked the blanket firmly around Amy’s legs and, wriggling to the edge of the sleeping shelf, slid off, trying not to wake the others. Slipping on her coat, she shoved her feet into her shoes and eased open the hut door. A mist-wreathed world of grey-green and pearl greeted her. Through the mist came the sounds of other hoppers already stirring, the splashing of water as buckets were filled from the standpipe, and the subdued murmurs of the early risers collecting faggots for fires. Sharp woodsmoke began to fill the air, and the crackle of kindling catching fire shot through the muffled sounds of their voices. She went to fetch a bundle of faggots from a nearby pile the farmer had provided. Carefully arranging the twigs, she made up their own fire and put the kettle on to boil. Once a good blaze had started and the kettle was billowing steam, she called her mother and sisters, who emerged from the hut, groggy and grateful for the hot strong tea and slices of bread and jam she offered them. These early morning hopping rituals were something she’d always loved, and in spite of the chilly start and the spartan hut, there was deep comfort in waking to the sounds of other pickers and the smells from dew-damp earth and dripping trees, all seasoned with woodsmoke.
‘Hurry up and get ready, you two,’ she urged her sisters after breakfast. They both looked as if they hadn’t washed all week. ‘I’m not walking up to the green with you looking like scruff bags.’
Her mother always seemed more lenient with them when they were hop-picking. Her sisters were allowed to roam wild over the countryside all day, with the other youngsters in the camp, so long as they first picked a bushel or two of hops. But today there would be no picking. As more and more hoppers gathered round the fires there was already an air of gaiety pervading the huts. People were dressing up in their Sunday best, ready for a walk up to the village green, where Bermondsey traders would be setting up their stalls. They followed their customers to the hop fields each year, and the pickers were grateful. Signs on many village shops warned No hoppers! And even those who did serve ‘the foreigners’ from London kept a suspicious eye on them. For however much their labour was valued, often, their presence was not.
The family took it in turns to wash in a bucket of cold water that Milly had already filled. But Amy’s brief dip in the bucket with one hand didn’t go unnoticed by Mrs Colman, who yanked her back as she tried to escape.
‘Get here, you soap dodger. Nine years old and still can’t give yourself a proper wash. Look at the tidemark round
your neck! It’s not had a drop of water on it.’ After giving Amy’s neck a vigorous scrubbing, she passed her over to Milly.
‘Here, let me do your hair.’ Milly reached for Amy, who ducked out of her grasp.
‘I can do it meself!’
Milly caught her, marching her to the mirror.
‘Look at this, it looks like that straw mattress we slept on!’ And ignoring Amy’s complaints, Milly began teasing out her sister’s tangles. As she squirmed, Milly tapped her head with the brush. ‘Stand still and be made respectable, you little scarecrow!’
She’d forgotten this side of hopping, the fractiousness of Amy and the dreaminess of Elsie, who was still mooning about outside, gathering wildflowers into a posy to brighten the hut. Their annoying traits intensified once they were freed from their everyday lives. They all seemed to become more vivid versions of themselves, and that was not always comfortable, especially when living together in a tiny hut.
Once she was satisfied that her sisters looked respectable, she got ready herself, putting on her second-best dress, a pale green shift with long sleeves. In the tiny mirror tacked to the hut door, she made the best of her dark wavy hair and put on a straw cloche hat. She slipped on her shoes and they strolled over to the gate. There had been little rain this season and the grass, though wet with dew, wasn’t muddy. From every hut, families emerged, until the whole field of hoppers formed a straggling procession down the lane between the high hedgerows. Amy and Elsie ran ahead with the other children, while Milly ambled with her mother and neighbours, past oast houses and farm buildings. The mist had burned off to a bright morning, washing the wide village green in a golden warmth. Stalls decked with bunting made the green look like a fairground as groups of hop-pickers wandered from stall to stall, beginning to haggle with familiar tradesmen just as if they were back in Bermondsey.
Milly linked arms with her mother. The night before, after the usual walk home from the pub in pitch dark, followed by a sing-song round the camp fire, her mother had taken her aside and made her explain exactly how she’d managed to persuade the old man to let her come. Mrs Colman hadn’t commented much, merely nodded and sometimes sighed. But today she resumed the conversation.
