All Among the Barley

by Melissa Harrison

  Back on our land the corn was a golden sea divided by the dark summer green of its hedges and spinneys. I walked quickly along the field margins, my breath coming fast and Edmund hurrying behind; again the crows in Hulver Wood watched me carefully, and this time I glared defiantly up at them as I passed.

  In the shade of the ring of oaks the fine hairs on my arms and legs stood up and shivers chased each other over my bare skin. My nipples became pinched and felt sore, and I was overtaken for a moment by a shame so strong it could not be withstood. I crouched and closed my eyes, whispering a jumble of phrases under my breath to drown out what I was remembering; then, on a strange impulse, I stood and traced the circular pattern that was on our hearth and the beam over my bed onto each of the six twisted trunks.

  Have you ever cast a coin into a fountain and made a wish, or touched wood to ward off ill luck? You know very well that it’s foolish, but a compulsion comes over you to do it anyway – for where’s the harm? Just as I always stopped reading only on a sentence of seven words, for seven was a good number and would keep my family safe, now I discovered that making the sign of the circle with its secret inner petals felt steadying, and I saw no reason to prevent myself from performing this harmless act.

  Then I looked anew at the flints the trees held, one of them a great holed hag-stone, and it came to me that all along they had been a secret sign meant for me, and that very soon I would understand what it meant. That was the moment, I suppose, that I began to suspect that everything had changed, and that my life might yet have a new purpose and direction – and God forgive me, I pushed the child at Hullets far from my mind.

  I squeezed my eyes shut against the traitorous tears that were rising, tipped my head back, and tried to slow my breath. Yes, we would bring in the harvest: the six of us and Connie, making seven, a good number, and Grandfather in the house to sing us in each night – for surely this year, of all years, he would sing. We would bring each golden field home in the wagon and I would ride atop the last one bearing a green bough like Demeter, in triumph, Moses and Malachi ringing their harness bells proudly as they hauled the final load home. Then the rick-yard would be full of wheat and barley, Father would be himself again and we would sit down all together for a harvest meal. In autumn we would plough and harrow and drill once more, and when the steam tackle came we would thresh, and afterwards sell the piles of bright grain. No more harm would ever come to us, and so it would go on forever, world without end: the elms always sheltering our old farmhouse, the church looking out over the fields. For the fields were eternal, our life the only way of things, and I would do whatever was required of me to protect it. How could it be otherwise?

  Back at the house I found that everyone was back from morning service, Connie with them, and preparations for dinner were underway. Father and John had gone out to look over the fields and check for leatherjackets, and had taken Frank with them; Doble sat on a stool in the yard mending a pair of boots. He had a wooden last to which he had attached the broken handle of an old hay-rake and this he gripped between his knees, topped with a boot, so that he could hammer the hobnails, pelts and Blakeys in.

  While he worked he sang in a cracked and reedy voice, and Connie, in skirt, patterned blouse and Sunday hat, leaned on the wall and gave me a wink as she wrote the words down in her notebook:

  You will see the poor tradesmen a-walking the street

  From morning to night their employment to seek.

  And scarcely they have any shoes to their feet,

  And it’s O, the hard times of old England,

  In old England very hard times.

  In the kitchen I found Mother in a bate about the pots I’d left unwashed. ‘And your hands are filthy, and you’re not even dressed, girl! For goodness’ sakes, what’s the matter with you? Get upstairs, now. And shut that dratted bird in your bedroom while we eat.’

  I flinched a little from her curtness. ‘Is there any water in the copper?’ I managed to ask.

  ‘You had a bath yesterday, Edith. And now is hardly the time, not when I need to get all these potatoes peeled. Now go.’

  Up in my room I pulled my nightdress over my head and at the basin I washed my armpits, with their new downy hair. Then I washed my private parts, the soap stinging, and put on clean underwear. I left Mary’s frayed brassière on the chair with my new green dress and put on a very old blouse that was far too young for me, really; the cuffs didn’t even reach all the way to my wrists. Then, on an impulse, I went through to Frank’s room and rifled through the shirts and long johns and corduroy trousers in his chest of drawers until I found an old pair of his school shorts, and I put them on.

  Back in my room I kicked my discarded drawers under the valance of my wash-stand and sat for a moment, stroking Edmund, who had settled on the counterpane. ‘You’re my best boy,’ I crooned to him softly, tracing a circular pattern seven times on the lovely feathers of his back. ‘Yes, you are. You’re here to protect me, aren’t you? I understand it now.’

  After dinner I left Edmund foraging in the orchard and went out for a walk with Connie, for I didn’t feel able to ride my bicycle that day. Mother had made me take off Frank’s shorts the moment I appeared downstairs, under threat of a thrashing from Father, so I’d gone back up to change into a skirt. On the stairs I heard Connie, who was helping with the potatoes, say mildly, ‘But Ada, why should the girl not wear short trousers if she’s a mind to?’

  ‘I’ll not have a child of mine made a laughing-stock – begging your pardon, Connie, for I know you favour men’s attire. And that may be all very well in London, and on you, but she has to fit in here.’

  ‘Does she?’

  ‘Course. You know that.’

  We walked along Newlands to Far Piece, past Copdock Farm and out along the field paths towards Stenham Park through seas of rustling yellow corn. It was oppressively hot and there were clouds of butterflies everywhere: orange-tips and skippers, fritillaries, meadow browns and others whose names I did not know, dancing their patterns and secret ciphers upon the innocent summer air. It was all so familiar, yet at the same time nothing around me felt quite real; for minutes at a time things would feel almost ordinary, but then an image, or a sensation, would rise up from somewhere unspeakable and assail me, and although I would reply to Connie and hear my voice talking, inside I was terribly far away.

  ‘Wasn’t the fete wonderful!’ she exclaimed. ‘I did so enjoy myself. Didn’t you? And isn’t Cecil Lyttleton handsome! Honestly, I had no idea.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose.’

  ‘And Frank, arm-in-arm with Sally Godbold! I must say, they were a picture, although I don’t believe she’s terribly bright.’

  I felt myself almost smile. ‘She’s a waistcoat short of a button, Mary used to say.’

  Connie hooted with laughter. ‘What a wonderful expression! Do remind me to write it down later. But she’ll make Frank a good wife, don’t you think?’

  I stopped walking, for it felt like falling very fast: of course, Frank would one day be master at Wych Farm, with Sally his wife and the mother of his children; and then what would I be?

  ‘Are you all right, Edie?’

  ‘Oh – yes. Sorry, Connie,’ I managed, with some effort. ‘It’s just –’

  ‘You don’t like Sally, do you? Sisters always think their brothers can do better. You’ll come to love her in time, I’m sure.’

  ‘No, it’s not that. I just – I must ask Frank about his plans, that’s all.’

  ‘I’d say your father won’t be ready to give up the reins for some years yet. Perhaps in a year or two Frank will take a council farm somewhere nearby. I’m assuming he’ll farm, of course?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘And you, Edie?’ She turned to me as we walked and peered at me closely. ‘I like to think we know each other a little better now than when we first met, back when you were haymaking. It was only a couple of months ago, but it feels like years.’

  ‘What about me
?’

  ‘What do you want from life?’

  ‘I – I don’t know, Connie. I really don’t. I wish people would stop asking me that.’

  ‘Well, what if I were to ask you to come to London with me?’

  ‘Yes, I’d like that, of course –’

  ‘I don’t mean a visit; I mean for good. You’re too clever to stay in Elmbourne, Edie, everyone can see that.’

  ‘Connie, I –’

  ‘And you don’t want to marry some . . . some wretched farm boy and push out a baby a year, do you? You’d be bored to death. Go on, tell me I’m wrong.’

  I shivered at the picture she drew of my future, which felt closer now than it ever had. Whitethroats and wrens sang loudly to me from the hedges, their reedy voices full of clues that I would soon learn to understand. Connie and I crossed a stile, heading north now through sweet-smelling fields of flowering beans.

  ‘But Connie, what about “Englishmen and Englishwomen living in harmony with the land”? What about “the perpetuation of our native kind”, and all that?’

  ‘Oh, rot.’

  ‘Connie!’

  ‘I know, I know. And I meant it! And town life can be dreadfully enervating, it’s true. But do you really want to spend your whole life in the same place, among the same people, doing the same things year in year out, until you die?’

  ‘I don’t know. Mother and Father want me here, and I’ve – I have things I need to do.’

  ‘Do they?’

  ‘Want me here? Why, yes, of course.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  I turned. ‘Has Mother said something to you, Connie? Something about me?’

  ‘Good golly, child, of course not. Only – I have a feeling Ada would like to spare you marriage if she could. She just can’t see how, except by keeping you at home.’

  There it was again: the idea that Mother was somehow holding me back from the world. Frank had said the same thing. I felt confused and unsettled, as though perhaps Mother might be against me, something I couldn’t have borne. More than anything I just wanted the conversation to end, for us to talk of other matters – village superstitions, perhaps, or the best way to brew beer. I began to trace a circle on my hip through the cotton of my skirt. I did it seven times.

  ‘Actually, Mother asked if I wanted to go to the hop in Blaxford,’ I said. ‘So I just – I don’t understand all this talk. And I don’t know why you’re so interested, anyway.’

  ‘Because . . . because you’re like me, Edie. And I want to help.’

  ‘Am I?’

  She linked her arm through mine and squeezed, and I could feel the hot flank of her body through the silk blouse she wore.

  ‘Yes, darling. You are.’

  We came at last to the Stound where it flowed through rich water meadows, slower and broader than further upstream where Frank and I had swum. Crack willows grew along it, and in places the banks were thick with angelica and comfrey; where the river cast itself in wide loops the grass that grew there was unnaturally green. A dipper with a white bib like evening attire sang to me like a wind-up musical box from some exposed tree roots.

  We turned and began to follow the river slowly back to the village. When we got there, I decided, I would say yes to a lemonade in the Bell & Hare. For I wanted to stay with Connie for as long as possible; I didn’t want to go home. But something nagged at me, and I had to speak.

  ‘I went over to Hullets this morning,’ I said, gazing at the sparkling water, where azure damselflies darted and flashed.

  ‘So that’s what you were up to! Why on earth does that old ruin fascinate you so?’

  ‘I wanted to see the pauper family.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘Yes. Well, I saw a lady and a little girl.’

  ‘And did you introduce yourself?’

  ‘No, I –’

  She laughed. ‘You spied on them! How perfectly thrilling.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to. They were asleep. Well, the lady was – outside, under a tree.’

  ‘Ah yes, indolent to a fault. I wonder where the menfolk were. I’ve a good mind to write to Cecil Lyttleton, you know. It’s no way to be bringing up a child.’

  I thought about the neat little garden; I thought of the glittering eyes of the girl staring at me from the bed. At some point, my feelings about the family’s trespass had undergone a queer kind of reversal.

  ‘But they aren’t doing any harm, are they?’

  ‘Edie, they simply don’t fit in here – quite apart from the fact that they’re living scot-free on Lyttleton land, while your father and everyone else pays rent. They’re undesirables. You’ll have to take my word on that.’

  ‘Do you mean Irish? Because in the olden days there used to be Irish harvest gangs in summer and they were very hard workers – that’s what Granfer and Grandma always say.’

  ‘They’re Jews, Edie. And we don’t need any more of them in Elmbourne – the egg merchant Blum and his wife are bad enough.’

  I hadn’t realised; I had assumed they were just people. I could still be so terribly naïve sometimes.

  ‘Oh. But – why don’t you like them?’

  ‘Well, I’m no anti-Semite, of course. But they’re not from here, and if we’re not careful they’ll mar the character of England forever – not to mention the way they undercut wages and take work away from ordinary people, just as the Irish did.’

  Perhaps she was right – but it gave me an unsettled feeling, this kind of talk. I didn’t want to think about difficult things, or imagine the world changing. I just wanted to grow up and live an ordinary life among familiar people: people I knew and understood.

  ‘But Connie, if they’re not allowed to stay on at Hullets, will they be found somewhere else to live?’

  ‘Of course, darling! No need to worry on that account. Now, what’s that twittering I hear?’

  She took my arm and we fell to talking about the hedgerow birds and their songs, and I began to tell her the names the older people still used for them – but something else about what she had said was niggling at the back of my mind.

  ‘So . . . Hullets belongs to Lord Lyttleton too?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘He must hate to see it untenanted for so long. It reflects badly on a landlord to have land lying idle. Land is like a woman, you know: it must produce.’

  Connie gave me an old-fashioned look. ‘Is that right? Well, I doubt it’s troubled Cecil much, all in all.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, just that perhaps if he put on the odd shoot, as they do at Stenham Park, he’d take more notice of the condition of his land, but he doesn’t – it’s a crying shame, really. Anyway, it seems the farmer had got himself into arrears. Cecil remitted the debt for two years and then he had him evicted; there was a bit of a stink about it at the time, or so I’m told. Gosh, Edie, nobody tells you a thing, do they? Poor lamb.’

  The word ‘remitted’ caught like a burr in my mind and stuck there, itching.

  ‘And why hasn’t he re-let it – you know, to a better farmer? Or sold the land off?’

  ‘I suppose because nobody’s been able to come up with the readies. It’s a national disgrace, really, but farmland is being let down to grass all over the country nowadays. Unless you’ve got a lot of capital behind you, there’s just no money in cereal at the moment; no money at all.’

  We came to a place where a cluster of willows formed a shady bower at the water’s edge, the river a deep, slow pool. The opposite bank was churned up where cattle had come to drink, and on our side the rich grass was strewn with a few white feathers from the ducks that must have roosted under the willows each night.

  Connie stood for a moment, her hands clasped behind her back, gazing at the cool water slipping by. I felt so strange; it was as though I was floating, or in some other way unmoored.

  ‘England, my God!’ she said. ‘Now, this is what it’s all about. It really does nourish the spirit, I find.
Mr Williamson believes that “Only from nature could the truth arise” – and I think he’s absolutely right.’ Impulsively then she began to unbutton her blouse. ‘Damn it, Edie, there’s nobody about. I’m going to have a dip.’

  I flushed and turned away as she kicked off her shoes and stepped out of her skirt; I didn’t know where to look. What if someone should come along – little boys fishing, or the water-bailiff, or someone from Elmbourne out for a stroll, as we were? But Connie, in an eau-de-nil slip slightly torn at one seam, didn’t seem abashed at all.

  ‘Oh, darling, don’t be a prude. I don’t mind if you don’t.’

  But I did mind, I did. I didn’t want to see her naked, it was wrong, it was too much; I felt as though I might be overwhelmed, as though with the sudden removal of her clothes Connie might reveal herself to be monstrous, or at the very least somebody else. It was my fault, of course, for I was a prude, a silly little girl who knew nothing of the world. But I couldn’t stop it happening, and I was frightened, and I suddenly felt as though I might panic; and more than that, I hated myself.

  She let her slip fall, unrolled her stockings and added them to the pile of her clothes and underthings on the grass. Her body was long and very white, like a church lily, with small, high breasts and generous hips. Her knees, a little dropped and wrinkled, were somehow troubling. They seemed very exposed.

  ‘Won’t you join me?’ she asked, turning to me and grinning, her hands on her hips.

  ‘I – I can’t.’

  ‘Is it your time of the month – is that why you weren’t at church this morning? I must say, you do look terribly pale.’