The Visitors

by Mascull, Rebecca

  ‘What happened?’ Lottie asks. I watch their mouths closely.

  ‘Mr Golding asked me if I wanted to work on the farm permanent.’

  ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘I said no.’

  I knew it, I knew it, but did not want to believe it. I look down at my feet, my head swimming. But Lottie is prodding my arm. They have been talking and I have missed something.

  ‘Caleb has enlisted!’ Lottie signs furiously.

  I read her signs, but I do not comprehend them. I stare at him. He glances at Lottie, looks to me. His eyes are speaking to me, but I cannot read them adequately. At first I see pity there, but then I wonder, a kind of conflict in his soul? If only we were alone.

  ‘I’ve enlisted in the army,’ he signs to me.

  ‘Not the navy?’ I sign, and Lottie looks at me, incredulous.

  Caleb signs and speaks simultaneously, for my benefit. ‘I go to camp tomorrow. We’ll sail out in a few weeks, I think.’

  ‘Sail where?’ Lottie says, signing too.

  ‘South Africa, for heaven’s sake. Where do you think?’

  ‘And when on earth were you going to share this with us?’

  ‘I just did, didn’t I?’

  I touch his arm and I sign, ‘But there isn’t a war there, not yet.’

  He looks at me kindly. ‘There will be, Liza,’ he says. ‘And soon.’

  Lottie smacks her hands together in sign. ‘And what the hell’s that got to do with you?’

  ‘It’s my country, isn’t it? Every Englishman must do his duty for the empire. We can’t let the bloody Dutch push us around.’

  ‘Don’t give me that rubbish about Queen and country. You’re lying! You just want to escape, that’s all.’

  ‘Look, I’ve enlisted and that’s that. Leave me be, woman!’

  And I can see from his face, his chest and his throat that he is shouting. He stalks away towards the oast house. This night is his last on the farm. Whatever else transpires in these hours, I must seek him out and speak with him alone.

  Lottie is too angry to converse with me or anyone. We maunder from the house, each of us waist-deep in our own thoughts. Both of us are sick with it. I cannot explain to her why I am, though I know her reason. There is something between them, a twin consciousness that would be torn if he were to sail away. She fears for his life. I feel ill with it too, but must comfort Lottie, as if my sorrow is but a reflection of her grief. When we reach the hop garden the pole-pullers are taking down the last few bines, wielding their long hooks and using the sharp blade at the top to slice through the bines and bring them to the ground. The hoppers then lay the plants across their knees and pluck the flowers off at great speed with thumb and forefinger, dropping them in the canvas bins. We find the Crowes finishing their last bine, the boys stopping to salute each other, Mrs Crowe laughing, shouting across to other hoppers and nodding. They have heard Caleb’s news. I assumed Mrs Crowe would be worried for her son. But no, they are all so proud their eldest is going to fight for his country. The boys shoot at imaginary Boers all down the hop alleys.

  The measurer comes and I see him shout, ‘Pull no more bines!’, as he does every day at this time.

  Mrs Crowe nudges me and nods towards him. ‘There aren’t no more bines to pull, you giddy goat,’ and I can see many others laughing.

  Our measurer Hodge is a pompous man, proud of his new waistcoat and unpopular. The hoppers are paid by the number of bushels picked and they say Hodge is mean with the weighing out. He comes to the Crowe bin and measures out the last hops into his bushel basket.

  ‘Scoop them up loosely, won’t you?’ says Mrs Crowe.

  He ignores her and sifts through the load. I cannot see his mouth to divine what he says, but he pulls out a bunch of hops with leaves and twigs still attached, holding them aloft as proof that Mrs Crowe has tried to cheat him on the weight.

  I tap Hodge on the arm and sign, Lottie translating, ‘It was my fault. I picked that one. Sorry.’

  Hodge glances at Mrs Crowe who folds her arms over her bosom and smiles smugly. He touches his cap to me and continues to fill his bushels, forcing down the cones as he goes.

  ‘Eh, don’t press them down, Mr Hodge. Times are hard, you know.’

  ‘They are indeed, Mrs Crowe. For all of us.’

  She turns to us and shakes her head, signs for me and speaks for the family. ‘The sooner our Caleb is in Africa, the better for him. Out of this silly business, all of it, on our feet picking the blasted hops ten hours a day, six days a week, and my husband tending those oysters every hour he can and never enough pay for all our hard work. This war will be the making of Caleb.’

  This evening, the last night of the hopping, there is the annual hoppers’ feast. They throw off their aprons, hats and caps. They eat huffkin cake and drink beer. They dance and sing old hopper songs, about the work and the washing and the lice:

  Now early Tuesday morning,

  The bookie he’ll come round

  With a bag of money,

  He’ll flop it on the ground.

  Saying, ‘Do you want some money?’

  ‘Yes sir if you please,

  To buy a hock of bacon

  And a roll of mouldy cheese.’

  I say one, I say two,

  No more hopping we shall do.

  With a tee-I-ay, tee-I-ay, tee-I-tee-I-ay …

  I watch them laugh and shout around the campfires, the light leaching from the sky and the flames throwing black twisting shadows across the bare hop poles. I wait and wait for Caleb, hoping he will be permitted to take a break from the last night of the drying. He comes late, past eight, and at his arrival the hoppers cheer him and break out in patriotic songs: ‘Boys of the Bulldog Breed’, ‘Tommy Atkins’ and ‘God Save the Queen’. Caleb plays his violin with other musicians, the same woman who plays her drum every year, another fiddler and a guitarist. Caleb takes a rest from playing and dances with some of the ladies. I watch him move and smile. I know it is my bedtime soon and Father will send a maid to fetch me for my bath, but I want to stay here at the party till dawn. There is a heat and a quickening in the air and I want to breathe it in. I watch Caleb dance and suddenly he turns and walks towards me. He smiles and holds out his hand. I know I must smile and seem the good girl. But when he moves my body around the ground strewn with hop leaves and cigarette stubs, I think grown-up thoughts about him which make me colour hotly. And I believe I feel his body bend towards mine as we dance, his fingers curl into mine as we turn, as if they wish to speak to me in the old way and tell me secrets. I cannot make sense of it. As the dance ends and I must leave him, I catch an ardent glance from him; there is knowledge there and desperate sadness. I am decided what course I will take to make him stay.

  I am in bed, and the house is sleeping. My clock reads one. I go to my window and open it. It is a balmy September night with a high, bright moon and the heat from the oast house ovens drifts on the breeze and warms my face. I dress quickly, just a shift and a robe, my hair loose. I open my door and creep downstairs. I pad through the kitchen, the tiles cool under my soles. I take the key from above the scullery door, unlock it and slip out. The grass is damp and soft with dew, the air dusty, spicy, ambrosial. I cross the herb garden and run my fingers across the fragrant plants as I pass. As I approach the oast house, the heat and the smoky, bitter-sweet yeast scent of the drying hops is overpowering. Feeling faint, I stop, touch my forehead and steady myself.

  The door to the kilns is open. I peer inside and see the Head Drier asleep on his bed in the corner, blanket thrown aside, head tipped back, red tammy-shanter slipped over his eyes. I tiptoe inside. Caleb’s bed is the other side, and I have to come into the room to see him. There is a dim lamp alight in the corner. He is sitting upright on his bed, smoking and staring into space. He wears a white shirt, a few buttons open to the heat, grey trousers held up with braces and grubby boots. His head turns sharply and he sees me. We stare at each other. He does not speak.
I stand still. Finally, he drops his cigarette and crushes it underfoot. Stares at it for a moment, then looks up at me. He reaches down, pulls at the laces of his boots and slips them off so that he is barefoot too. He walks to me and takes my hand, but he says nothing and I do not sign to him either. He leads me up the wooden stairs. We pause at a creak on the stair, and he looks round at the Head Drier, who does not stir. We walk up and step into the cooling loft. The heat from the drying rooms is terrific. There is no lamp here, so the only light comes from the moon, casting a white cloak across the hop sacks, the press, the scuppets, the hop fork, the horsehair lifter cloth and the pokes stored on the green stages. There are no Visitors here. They know they are not wanted. We are alone in the world.

  There is a pile of sacking in the corner and he bids me sit there. He kneels beside me, and we look at each other. I tilt my head so that his face is clear to me. Everything is his eyes and my eyes. I thank the stars that I can see, that I can look into the eyes of my love this night and he into mine. When he kisses me, I taste tobacco and tea and feel my future, which had stretched before me until this moment, shrink to the size of a pebble and slip into his pocket. I am his now.

  Afterwards, we lie together for a long, long time. The moon still shines and the heat still wafts over us in waves. Our bodies are wet with movement and love and the moisture loosed from drying hops. My hair is long and sticks to his chest, his neck, his face. I know I am a woman now. I wonder if his child will grow in me. I bury my face in his hair and kiss him again. He lays me down and regards me.

  ‘I am a young man again,’ he says, smiling.

  ‘I will keep you young,’ I finger spell for him.

  ‘I don’t doubt it.’

  ‘Where will we go? What will we do?’

  He frowns. ‘Now? I have to check the furnace in a minute.’

  ‘No, tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow, I must go.’

  I sit upright. I look at him very seriously. I brush my hair from my face and sign to him.

  ‘You must not go. Africa is too far away. And war is perilous.’

  ‘I have to go. I’ve enlisted.’

  ‘But a promise has been made, here, between us.’

  He sits up, rubs his eyes, clasps his hands before him and looks up at me. ‘I’m sorry. I did not mean to promise you that.’

  ‘But … I love you.’

  He smiles and reaches out a hand, his fingertips brushing my cheek. ‘You are lovely.’

  ‘Do you love me?’

  ‘Yes, my pet. Of course I do. But I am enlisted and must go tomorrow. Today, this morning.’

  I am on fire. I sign with ferocity, smacking my hands together at every sign.

  ‘Why did you enlist? Why would you put yourself away from me?’

  ‘Liza,’ he signs, ‘it is complicated.’

  ‘Explain!’

  ‘You are very young—’

  ‘Not so young,’ I interrupt and he holds up his hands, then drops them. He will not sign. He speaks to me now.

  ‘You are a young woman, lately a child. The daughter of my employer. I am not so foolish as to believe there is any future for us, for you with me, who has nothing to offer you.’

  ‘But I do not care for any of that.’

  ‘But your father will, your mother. Even Lottie. You know this is true.’

  ‘I do not, I do not! Father will do as I say, he will want to make me happy.’

  ‘But I cannot make you happy.’

  ‘Yes, yes you can!’

  ‘You know me. You know me deeply. You have seen into my soul. There is a restive man there, a selfish one. It was that man who enlisted. If I stay here, at the farm, at the sea, I will go mad, Liza. I will end myself, I know it. I think you have always known this.’

  ‘But all that has changed. How can you go now? I could never leave you, not by choice. Never. I have always loved you. From your first letter to me. From the first time I touched your face. From the first moment I saw you with my eyes. How can you leave me now?’

  ‘Perhaps in Africa I will make something of myself. Who knows what the future holds? I only know I cannot stay. I will write to you, Liza.’

  How can he think this is enough? I am at a loss for words, and my hands grasp the air for them. Finding none, I thump him in the chest. His eyes harden and he stands up, pulls on his trousers and walks away from me. I am left, alone, my wet shift cold against my skin. I pull on my discarded robe. He stands by the hop press, his hands on his hips, staring down into the opening through the floor, where tomorrow morning he will help fill the hessian pockets with the last of the season’s dried hops. He stares and stares into that hole. And I know that his silhouette etched in moonlight will imprint on my memory, the image of him standing there, bare-chested, looking down through the floor of the oast house and making his decision, and it will haunt me.

  Then he turns. He signs to me. ‘I want to go.’

  I run from him and almost trip on the stairs. I see the Drier on his bed, still sleeping the sleep of the just, and I hate him for his peaceful slumber. I run from the oast house and cross the herb garden, the pretty fragrance turning my stomach now. Back in my room, I twist and cry silently in my sheets, desperate that no one in this house or this farm or on earth should know of my great disappointment. My blood does not run, my heart beats very slow and aches very quick. I believe my love has forsaken me and I shall lose him for ever. My hopes are drowned and soiled. My sorrow makes me wretched and I bite the pillow to stop my tears flooding the room. And I tell myself I hate him, I hate Caleb. For leaving me, for not moving heaven and earth to stay with me. And I wish it could be midnight again, before I left my room, before the scent of herbs and the cool grass and the dry heat and first sight of him there on his bed smoking, before he looked up at me with his pale face. Before I lost myself to him. So that I could relive it, every moment again, every touch and every word his hot hands finger spelled into mine as we moved together, words of desire I will never repeat to a soul, our secret words he left in my hands for me, that convinced me of his love. And I fear I will never lie with him again, that he will leave me and die in Africa; or, if he lives, he will abandon me for another life, for I was just a sweet girl for him who made him young again this one night and who will be crushed like a dry hop in his hand and scattered to the warm wind, forgotten.

  12

  On 11 October 1899 the Boer republics declare war on our nation. Caleb has been gone for seventeen days. On the eighteenth day my monthly curse comes, and as the blood flows from me into the bath water and colours it crimson, I weep and weep. The thought of his child within me has kept me company in the shorter days and the longer nights and now all trace of him is gone, as if he had never lain with me, as if it had never happened.

  We read of the war every day. Lottie and I have made a map of South Africa and put it up on the dining room wall. We follow every battle, skirmish and troop movement with pins, white for us and black for them. We order all the newspapers, which give us disputatious ideas about the war. We thought it was all about the British settlers, who the Boers call Uitlanders, which means outsiders or foreigners. One paper says that the treatment and rights of the Uitlanders by the Boer government is why we are fighting. Other newspapers say this is nonsense, that most Uitlanders, particularly the working men, do not care about the vote. That it is only the stock market Uitlanders who are making all the noise, that they have invented their grievances to create insecurity in the money markets and lower prices. Some say that the aim of the war should be to create a united South Africa, that only British rule would be progressive and Dutch rule is retrograde. One editorial said that the Dutch have no desire or ambition to make the whole of South Africa Dutch, as is commonly believed. And that it is all about money for rich men who want control over the gold.

  So, we are confused, Lottie and me. Why is Caleb going to fight? Why are our brave boys risking life and limb, and even dying, in that hot country so many miles from home?
Father is very clear: it is the British Empire that must rule South Africa for its own good and the Dutch may go whistle. The Boers are a scrappy nation of ragtags and farmers who will bend under British might and it will all be over soon. He takes us to the Cinematograph at Canterbury to watch a little fiction entitled A Sneaky Boer, where a brave British soldier is attacked by the craven Boer wriggling through the long grass. I can see everyone cheer when the beastly Boer is caught and a few handkerchiefs are pulled from pockets and shaken in the air. Then Lottie beside me jumps in her seat and puts her hand to her heart, and I see a puff of smoke issue from the front. It turns out the owners have planted actors in the audience to let off guns to heighten the drama. There is so much smoke by the end that we cannot see the screen. We leave in a flutter of excitement at our entertainment, yet also determined that Caleb and our lads will beat back these cowardly Boers and be home for Christmas.

  But Christmas comes and goes and the war does not end. By March 1900, Caleb has completed his training and sails to Africa. We write to him but hear nothing back. For weeks, I am the first to check the post and am disappointed day after day. I have to conceal my distress from everyone. Nobody knows the truth. In the past, it would always be Lottie; she knew all the workings of my heart. But I cannot share this with her. I have not told her anything about Caleb and me, of how I feel for him, of what we did. I believe she would be angry with Caleb, blame him for taking advantage of a girl’s callow desire. I fear she would be jealous and a mistrust would grow. That the end of it would be the end of us. It would alter her love for me, snap it and ruin it. I cannot risk losing her, so I decide I cannot tell her. It pains me to keep a secret from her, my soul’s companion.