All Among the Barley

by Melissa Harrison

  At noon we had bread and dripping left over from Sunday’s roast, and the men had to do for themselves. Then, after we’d eaten, we rinsed the washing in cold water, with Reckitt’s Blue for the whites, then put it all through the mangle, piece by piece, and rinsed it again. We didn’t commonly use starch, as Mother thought it a waste of time and effort except on her good lawn tablecloths, and those we hardly used; in fact I don’t think we starched anything at all after Mary left.

  At last, after a final mangle, we would peg it all to the lines in the orchard and pray that the weather stayed fine; or if it was raining there was a ceiling airer and the fireguard. We’d aim to fold it all up when it was still ever so slightly damp, because between us it would all need to be ironed, and that would help.

  ‘I don’t suppose your Constance has ever washed her own smalls,’ said Mother, wringing out a pair of Father’s drawers and dropping them in a tub ready for the mangle. ‘Let alone anyone else’s, come to that.’

  ‘I expect not.’

  We scrubbed in silence for a while.

  ‘She’ll be paying Violet Eleigh to do her laundry for her, no doubt.’

  ‘Do you want me to ask?’

  ‘Don’t be daft, I couldn’t care less. But I’ll wager she won’t be writing an article for her magazine about how we do the washing.’

  ‘I doubt it. Who’d want to read about that?’

  ‘Well, she was agog when your grandfather told her how to use a scythe; I saw her write it all down as though it were Gospel. I don’t see why that should be any more interesting than women’s work.’

  ‘Have you taken against Connie again, Mother?’

  ‘Course not. Why would I do that?’

  ‘I don’t know. You seem . . . vexed, that’s all.’

  ‘I just hate wash-day, Edie. You know that.’

  It didn’t rain, and the blustery weather was as good as sunshine for drying the clothes. After supper we were in the orchard bringing the last of it inside when Connie appeared, waving a piece of paper triumphantly above her head.

  ‘It’s in! They ran it! Ada, Connie, come and see!’

  We brought the corners of the sheet we were holding together, Mother taking it from me, folding again, then rolling it tightly up. She laid it in a basket with the others, then began unpegging a pillowcase from the line.

  ‘What do you mean – what’s in?’ I asked.

  ‘My piece for the Pioneer, the first I’ve written about Elmbourne! Gosh, I have to say, I’m quite pleased with how it’s come out.’

  ‘What’s it all about, then?’ asked Mother through a mouthful of pegs.

  ‘Well, it’s only an introduction to the series, really; they wanted me to set the scene.’

  Connie thrust the paper at me, grinning, and I stood by the clean washing and read out loud:

  ~ Sketches from English Rural Life ~

  Earth has not anything to shew more fair than an English village under summer skies. The meadows have been harvested, the hay piled into ricks; the cornfields are ripe and golden, awaiting the day of harvest, and the winding lanes around the village are loud with the song of birds. Well may the hiker, cycle-tourer or day-tripper venture forth from the city in search of a rural idyll he knows is his; for we all hailed from such villages but lately, and rightly do they remain the repository of our national pride.

  Here is the little church, and village pump; here is the inn where the thirsty traveller may refresh himself with a mug of ‘old and mild’. Here beats the heart of our nation, hale and lusty: Englishmen and Englishwomen, living in harmony with the land. They may sweat, and they may toil, but there is a purity of purpose to their labours; for it is not enrichment they seek, nor government assistance, but the simple perpetuation of their own kind.

  In the village, bread is still baked the old-fashioned way: in a proper brick oven, in round ‘cottage loaves’. The village housewives take pride in it: ‘I don’t hold with shop-bought bread,’ they’ll tell you – and quite right! Some of the old folk still recall the days when everything was cooked so cleverly together in an iron pot hung over the fire; but none decry the labour-saving invention of the modern range!

  Neither are the menfolk strangers to invention: the tractor-drawn reaper-binder is used here as well as the horse. They know, though, that the old ways are valuable, and they will not allow them to be lost; for in the English village can be found much wisdom, as well as the curious traditions of a bygone age.

  Here the most pallid, enervated urban youth will discover a sense of pride in the outdoor life: in strength, health, and husbandry, and love of the natural world. ‘Why, one has no time to be bored!’ the farm girl will tell you, her complexion clear, her eyes bright. Nor do they – and nor has this writer since arriving in the village, for here one may truly find everything essential to a happy, healthy, and productive life.

  The English Pioneer will feature a ‘Rural Sketch’ in every edition until further notice. Your countryside correspondent is

  Miss C. N. J. FitzAllen.

  ‘What do you think?’ Connie asked, snatching it back from me. ‘Say you like it, oh do.’

  ‘It’s very nice, Connie,’ said Mother, handing me a pile of clothes. ‘Very clever. You’re very good with words.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so glad you like it. I thought you would. What do you think, Edie – did you recognise yourself?’

  ‘That was me, the farm girl? Saying there’s no time to be bored?’

  ‘It was! Don’t you remember? I made an especial note.’

  ‘I – I didn’t realise you were writing down everything I said.’

  ‘Well – I always feel a few quotes, judiciously used, bring an article to life. Don’t you think?’

  Of course she was right, and I was silly to even think of minding; what did I know about such things, after all? As Mother and I carried in the washing and set it on the rack in the scullery, Connie following us, chattering, behind, I thought how intoxicating it must be to see your name in print and know that strangers were reading your words. Who had first told Connie that her opinions mattered, I wondered; how had she come to believe that the world would listen to what she had to say?

  ‘The next one is already written – all about wholesome rural food – and I thought I might do one on poultry-keeping and brewing, too. And then I absolutely must write about our soil and how to keep it pure and productive – these new artificial manures are a terrible worry, don’t you think?’

  ‘What about witchcraft?’ I said; I suppose I just wanted to be involved in her project in some way. ‘I mean, all the old superstitions and traditions – you mentioned them in your piece. One of our neighbours found a witch-bottle in her house the other day – didn’t she, Mother? Mrs Godbold, on Back Lane. You should write about that.’

  ‘Oh, is that right, Ada? How completely wonderful. Has she kept it, do you know? I’d so love to see.’

  ‘People find all sorts of things hidden in houses, don’t they?’ I went on. ‘Shoes, and dried-up cats, and poppets. . .’

  ‘What’s a poppet?’

  ‘Just a child’s toy – a doll,’ Mother said. ‘Edie, will you go and see if your grandfather wants anything? I thought I heard him call.’

  ‘Which reminds me – folk songs!’ I heard Connie saying as I reluctantly left the room. ‘Ada, you simply must get Albert to sing for me one of these days.’

  We had two days of light rain, which topped up the horse-pond a little and came as a relief. My monthlies arrived and I spent a day in bed with cramps, but I took some of the ‘composition’ powder that mother got from the carrier, stirred into hot water, and was able to get up the following day. Doble gassed the warrens and when he was done he built a pyre of rabbits, poured kerosene over them and set them alight. ‘I’ve stopped up all the buries,’ he told Father over supper that evening; ‘the dead ’uns underground’ll stink otherwise.’ The following day John, Frank and Father set out with their guns, and with Mr Rose and his two sons t
hey shot a good number of pigeons, and Mother and I plucked our share and jugged them with port wine.

  On the Thursday, Connie and I bicycled to Blaxford so she could visit the tiny flint church with its thatched nave and chancel and round Anglo-Saxon tower. I remember how we gingerly climbed a rickety wooden ladder to the belfry and found change-ringing sequences scratched on the walls by bell-ringers who knows how many decades ago.

  While we were up there the church door banged; it made us both jump, and we looked at one another, eyes wide. A woman had come in, and after some footsteps, then silence, we realised that she had taken a pew and begun to pray. As the minutes passed it became increasingly impossible somehow to reveal our presence above her, and so we waited, breath held, a kind of hilarity gathering all the while. When the woman stood at last, and broke wind so that we could hear it, we doubled up in helpless, silent giggles, and when the church door banged again we lay on the dusty boards and laughed until we cried.

  By the end of that week, and if he was in earshot, the landrail would come when I called ‘Edmund!’ – although whether it was because he had learned his name, or that he simply came to the sound of my voice, I cannot say. Like Connie, he didn’t spend all his time with us, but we saw him nearly every day; none of us, however, knew where he went at dusk, or whether he was safe.

  Saturday dawned clear and dry with the promise of heat to come. Frank polished all our shoes ready for the fete, including Father’s boots, and combed his hair flat with water and Brylcreem. Mother had her good bag and a natty new trim made of feathers for her hat. My dress was finished, and when I came downstairs with it on Father told me I looked pretty – and I felt it, too, for the very first time in my life.

  We set out mid-morning, all of us together – even Doble and John, who were lending a hand behind the scenes, for which they were promised three pints of mild each, not to be taken at once. Mary had sent word that Terence had colic and so she wasn’t coming; I was disappointed not to have her to go about with, but I resolved to enjoy myself anyway.

  The road to the village was busy with people on foot and in traps, and as a motor-car passed us at some speed Mother and I pressed ourselves into the hedge.

  ‘We’ll stop here and wait for the Roses,’ said Father at the four-a-leet.

  ‘I’m sure we’ll see them there, George,’ Mother said, taking my arm.

  ‘We’ll stop here nevertheless.’

  ‘Morning, all. New dress, Edie?’ Alf asked when they arrived. He shook hands with Father; ‘Mr Mather,’ he said, and grinned.

  ‘Yes, Mother made it.’

  ‘She wanted it in scarlet, would you believe,’ Mother replied.

  ‘Plenty of time for all that,’ said Alf, and gave me a wink that brought the blood to my cheeks. ‘Anyway, green suits you very well.’

  We set off. When the lane curved towards the village the sun was directly ahead of us, and very bright. I lowered my head and watched the road dust take the shine from the toes of my brown Sunday shoes.

  ‘Your pa and ma not with you?’ asked Frank. ‘Surely they won’t want to miss out?’

  ‘They’re coming after dinner,’ said Sid, his head jerking with palsy. ‘My – mm – my old man won’t eat anything Ma hasn’t cooked.’

  ‘He’s a crackpot, our dad,’ Alf said. ‘He runs Ma ragged. I keep saying we should get someone in to do for us – they’re not getting any younger, either of them. But he won’t hear of it. Well, what can you do?’

  Beside me, Mother made a quiet tutting sound under her breath.

  ‘Suits us, though’ – and he elbowed Frank in the ribs; ‘means we’re free for the morning! What about you, can you be spared?’

  ‘Oh, I think so,’ said Frank, turning to Mother and walking backwards with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets and a grin lighting up his face. He looked as Father must have looked once: young and strong and happy as a lark.

  ‘Oh, go on with you, boys,’ Mother replied, and with that the three of them whooped and broke into a run.

  ‘See you at the Hall, slow-pokes!’ called Frank as, their six boots clattering, they raced one another across the packhorse bridge over the Stound.

  The grounds of the Hall had been tidied up a little for the fete, the weeds cleared from the centre of the carriage ride and the grass cut. Sir Cecil didn’t allow the Hall itself to be used, not even the kitchens, but it was nice to see the shutters off the windows all the same.

  We found Connie in the refreshments tent helping to make fish-paste sandwiches with Elisabeth Allingham and Miss Eleigh. The whole village knew that those two didn’t like one another, but with Connie joshing them along they had been coaxed into good humour, the sandwiches mounting up in neat piles under net covers and four huge baskets of strawberries waiting to be cut next.

  Father tipped his hat to Connie before saying he was going to find Sir Cecil, and Connie joined Mother and me for a stroll around the fete. It was astonishing how many people she knew – everybody in the district, it seemed – yet she had been in Elmbourne for only two months.

  When Connie had first arrived, alone, in her man’s clothes, I had thought the village would talk – and while they had, it hadn’t been disapprovingly: in fact they seemed rather to have taken her to their hearts. What a thing charm was, I thought; probably you were born with it. At school my efforts to be liked had always seemed to have the opposite effect.

  We took a turn at the coconut shy, and Connie had her fortune told in a gaily painted booth and came out shrieking with laughter at the things the woman had foretold. ‘Six children? I don’t think so. And another thing: she’s no more a gipsy than I’m Mae West,’ she said, which made Mother laugh.

  ‘We used to have a proper gipsy fair, you know, Connie,’ she said. ‘There were swing-boats, and a travelling menagerie, and a fat lady you paid a penny to see. Whatever’s happened to the gipsies? You never see them any more. It’s a crying shame, it is, the way all the old things are lost.’ It was a curious speech for her, which is why I remember it: Mother so rarely spoke of the past, being generally of the opinion that even ill years turned rosy in the mind’s eye, and that nostalgia was not something one should trust.

  After a while Connie excused herself, saying that she had promised to help serve the sandwiches in the refreshment tent. Mother stood talking with some women; she told me to go and enjoy myself, and to join her in half an hour for something to eat.

  The great lawn before the house was thronged with people now, many of the women in light summer frocks and hats. I walked rather quickly, hoping it looked as though I was on my way to meet a friend somewhere, for I recognised several of the girls and boys I had gone to school with and a couple of farm-hands from neighbouring farms. Some of Mary and Frank’s pals were there, too, and Mr Blum who bought our eggs strolling arm-in-arm with his pretty wife, and the wheelwright’s apprentice, a barrel-chested boy a little older than Frank whose name I didn’t know. Children ran about between the grown-ups’ legs, shrieking; a knot of them had gathered by a stall selling penny ices and peppermint rock, their faces sticky, one or two already fractious in the heat. They were like little animals, I thought, turning away as the band struck up; and there, not ten yards away, stood Alf, very still and looking directly at me through the crowd.

  Dinner was a shilling each, or sixpence for children, for which we were given sandwiches, cold cuts, potato salad, pink blancmange or strawberries, and as much tea as we could drink. Afterwards, Mother and John went home, Mother to make a start on the marrow jam, as following the rainy spell we had a glut, and John because it was only a half-holiday for him.

  A dozen or so deck-chairs had been set out in the shade of a huge cedar of Lebanon and I went to sit there for a while, watching and listening to the hubbub of the fete; I crossed my feet at the ankle, which I felt looked elegant, and then stuck them straight out and leaned back nonchalantly, as I imagined Connie would. Slowly the chairs around me were occupied as the older people grew tired, an
d mothers brought their babies to settle them for a while. I must have dozed, for the next thing I recall was Father kicking the leg of the deck-chair where I sat.

  ‘By yourself again, girl?’

  I sat up and shaded my eyes with my hand, for the sun was behind him, turning him into a silhouette. It must have been close to four o’clock.

  ‘Hello, Father. Are you having a nice time?’

  He stared down at me. ‘Oh, a smile at last, is it? First one this year. Why d’you never smile, girl, eh?’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Six month. A six-month remission. While he . . . he gallivants around in that damned Rolls Royce.’

  ‘What’s happened? What do you mean?’

  ‘What’s happened? What d’you mean?’ he mimicked, cruelly. I could see now that he was unsteady on his feet.

  ‘Father, please,’ I hissed. People were looking.

  ‘Don’t you hush me. I’m head of this house.’

  I looked around for Mother before remembering, with a sinking heart, that she had gone home. It wasn’t the first time I had seen Father in his cups, by any means, but it was the first time I’d had charge of him myself, and although he was my father and I knew that he loved me, it was frightening, for he seemed different in a way that was more than just about unsteadiness or the slurring of his words. Seeing him stripped of self-control, his anger naked, gave me a feeling inside that was a kind of stifled horror, as though he had been replaced entirely and was no longer my father, George Mather, at all.

  I got up and tried to take his arm, but he shook me off.

  ‘You’n Ada! No bloody idea, the pair of you,’ he said.

  The cursing was quite shameful. I glanced around; one or two people were staring, but most were turned studiously away. An old lady in worsted began to get up, her jaw jutting; but her husband muttered something and she subsided again. Father regarded me for a few moments, swaying, and then he spat, and wandered off.

  I found Frank strolling arm-in-arm with Sally Godbold. Her straw-coloured hair had been cut into a bob, and she was wearing it in finger-waves.