A Pocketful of Rye

by Anthony Masters

  Her life was spent around the farm where she shambled, bent and almost mole-like, from room to room, polishing, cleaning and dusting until every corner was spotless. Her legs protestingly took her round the farmyard and sometimes even into the cool woodlands, where she would lie animal-like in the sun, curled on her side or on her front, for it was almost impossible to lie at ease on her back. Living entirely isolated with Jacob in the lonely farmhouse, the nearest villages were in turns terrified and amused by her. Coming across her humped body lying peacefully in the woodlands they were startled out of their contemplation of beauty. Without conscience or even pity they wondered how such ugliness could be allowed to defile the soft, sweet autumn, and then grew ashamed as they realised their own callousness. Ella loved to lie curled in the thick, crisp carpet of leaves which feathered the glades, cushioning her deformity and hiding her almost entirely. On waking she would rise stiffly and stumble away, or on interruption she would hurry from the interlopers. She would choose spots miles away from the trodden paths where she would be concealed and could lie peacefully, unafraid of the hard, then guilty glances of the passers-by. Even then, children playing in the glades or the dying bracken would come across her in a hollow and would run screaming away. She had been awake once, curled on her side as usual with her hump concealed behind some foliage. A few children had approached her and she smiled, waving at some ripe blackberries behind her. Cautiously, yet unafraid, they stepped into her hollow and made their way towards the bush. Unable to contain her excitement and eager to join the thorn-wary hunt, she half rose and tried to stand. Her legs, inadequate to support the weight on her back, buckled and she fell in an ungainly heap, her hump clearly visible. Still smiling she tried to crawl towards them, but after a moment’s electrified silence they backed away and broke into a run. She heard their feet crashing through the dry bracken and little clouds of pollen-laden dust rose to cover their retreat. Soon there was silence except for the far-off snapping of wood and a sobbing from one of the smaller children. Diving into her handbag she desperately drew out a mirror and firmly powdered her nose. This was the only cosmetic she used, and only when she felt the need for action rather than thought.

  In their turn the soldiers alternately petted and teased her. Whatever they did, she was terrified of them. She hardly dared leave the house when they sunbathed in the farmyard, and when they knocked for water she opened the door an inch, grabbed the can, quickly refilled it and thrust it out through the tiny aperture. Jacob accepted the soldiers as he had accepted diseased animals, bad harvests and general failure. His martyrdom grew as did his day-to-day moroseness, until he hardly spoke except out of necessity.

  There were still a few poultry on the far side of the farmyard, and it was Ella’s job to feed them in the morning. She dreaded the journey, although in the early morning there were few soldiers around. Bowed even further down by the weight of a heavy bucket, and with a low fleeting glance to left and to right she scampered across the yard. She still went in living fear of a soldier who had seen her on the morning journey from the barn. Softly he stole up behind her and sharply tapped on the tip of her humped back. Startled and terrified she dropped the bucket, its contents spilling over the hard mud of the yard. With a tremendous effort she stared up at him, their eyes meeting temporarily. Then with a spreading blush he looked away. Shuffling his feet he began to stammer apologies. She said nothing but quietly began to pick up the bucket, trying to scrape the grain back into it. He knelt down beside her but she shied away, almost falling backwards.

  “It’s good luck,” he said stupidly, yet stubbornly as if he was forced to give her an explanation. “They said it was good luck.” He gesticulated in the direction of the barn where the soldiers gathered silently at the entrance and at the windows. Ella said nothing, but with another effort to draw herself up she looked into his eyes. Again he blundered on: “They said it was good luck—to touch it—to touch a—your hump.”

  He stood there inanely stammering, and she turned away from him quite quietly and went back to the house to refill her bucket. When she returned he had gone and there were no soldiers in the farmyard.

  A few weeks later, a little further into the autumn, the soldiers spread quantities of barbed wire amongst the bracken and concrete blocks in the glades of the woodland. From her window Ella could see the great white bulk of these blocks through the thinning leaves. Soon enemy troops were reported to be manoeuvring in the area and the woods were closed and guards unobtrusively posted. One night Jacob cursed and Ella huddled further into the blankets as the bedrooms were lit by fires and shells in the surrounding countryside. All night there was the rattle of machine guns and sudden silences, punctuated by individual shots, crisp and clear in the night air as trodden twigs in the autumn woodland. In the morning the soldiers returned begrimed and tired and Jacob was told that an enemy patrol had been wiped out, and as there was no sign of another, the countryside, once the débris had been cleared a little, would be reopened.

  Ella, as fast as her weakened legs would carry her, almost ran into the woodlands. For over three weeks the coolness and verdant shelter had been denied to her, and she desperately felt the need for the caress of the roughened foliage. There was a finality in the late October day—a kind of transient mellowness that promised memories of lazy summer days in its fleeting presence. When she came to the trees she noticed great clefts, where shells and grenades had torn beneath her beloved treetops. Great strands of barbed wire had been cleared from the paths but lay discarded in the bracken. Motor tyres and an old exhaust pipe obscured her favourite glade, and in another hollow flies swarmed.

  The place was some way off the path and all Ella could see at first was a mound, besieged by flies. Partially covered by mould and a scattering of parchment leaf tissue lay a bedraggled uniform, twisted grotesquely in a gesture of uneasy supplication. Night rain and dew had discoloured the leather webbing and gaiters, and the hands, thrown awkwardly out from the body, had been washed clean. The head, bent to one side, was partially shattered. Used to the ugliness of her own mirror Ella bent unafraid towards the dead man, staring at the back of the head. Breathing in short gasps she leant over and twisted the head round to face her. It resisted, and then lolled back into its accustomed broken position. The good fortune seeker of the farmyard was shattered and entirely alone amongst the dying foliage of the woodland. His beret lay beside him and there was a mineral water bottle, stoppered and half drunk, a few feet away. Above him the insects hummed and buzzed and then made fleeting dives for his scalp. Ella knelt beside the soldier and gently removed his belt.

  She lifted the disfigured head and turned the body over on its side. It had begun to stiffen, but Ella made good use of the strength in her arms and wrists. Covering the face with heather she left the woodlands, passing trees alongside the path which had been scored by bullets and the ground which was littered with already rusting metal cases. Caught in a bush was a tiny scrap of material whilst in a clearing she came across a heap of identity discs. She reached the farmhouse, and braving the farmyard she collected a heavy spade from an outhouse. With an effort Ella hoisted the implement over her back, and staggering made her way back to the woodland.

  The Fluffers

  The last tube left decreasing echoes in the station and swiftly the long platforms were emptied. Only a porter remained in the expanse, listlessly sweeping cigarette cartons on to the line, his brush sending wraiths of dust up into the air, to haze softly under the burning arc light. Escalators clanked slowly to a halt and metal gates clanged as the last passengers went out into the night. Barriers were locked and ticket clerks firmly closed black metal boxes and, after a last look round their tiny domain, switched out the office light. A porter stationed himself at the outside grill, unlocking a tiny portion of it for the clerks, who passed through with a swift nod and a muttered goodnight. Their footsteps sounded a staccato beat down the High Road, until they were lost in the noise of a late night bus which drew up at the
station entrance.

  Down below, on the platform, the solitary worker paused in his sweeping to light a cigarette which glowed dark red against the pallid amber of the lowering electricity. In vaulted silence he drew on the butt, until his fingers were burnt and he dropped it, still smouldering on to the platform. He picked up the broom and idly swinging it walked into the tiny rest room near the entrance of the tunnel. Here innumerable cups of tea were made and countless porters had sat, idly kicking the blackened green and white paint and filling in closely documented roster sheets in fading biro. There were newspaper cuttings yellowing on the boarding walls, whilst the glass window was covered with cartoons and a coy nude advertising soda water. Picking his coat up, he filled a kettle and left the door ajar as he went out. Grinning he stepped back inside and on the plain back of a timetable he wrote in huge spidery lettering NANCE NEEDS IT and stuck it up in front of the kettle. Then he hurried off the platform, his tuneless whistle shrilly disrupting the hardening core of silence, breaking in upon the velvet solidarity of the veiled tunnels. He passed on, leaving a deceptive echo that only slowly began to merge into insignificance in the night. Somewhere, around innumerable corners and beyond the passages, his boots metallically rang on the escalators, slowly ascending, and cautiously picking their way in the fading light.

  The lights began to frost the air with a pallid iridescence, and the passageways, vast and deserted, picked up the slightest noise and softly rustled it down their length. Silent machinery seemed to breathe trickles of sound, plunging them into a void of silence which enclosed, shroud-like, this network of tunnels. Mysterious draughts swirled refuse down the platforms and there was a sudden click as the live rail lost its power. Energy died and with it desolation increased. Black tunnel entrances offered protection from this ill-lit, soundless world, and faint stirring inside them seemed to prove this protection had been sought. Advertising slogans screamed at the emptiness around them, and scrawled pencilled messages seemed indicative of a long dead, yet derisive civilisation. The rails gleamed dully, seemingly composed of cold tar and bulkloss shadow. Pockets of cold air seemed to hang stationary in the twilight tunnels and the sudden draughts whistled down the passageways, catching the end of posters and flapping them, shaking them indolently. They banged to and fro slapping the surrounding tiling, until the draught suddenly disappeared, sneaking down other passages until far away the old muffled flapping could be heard as the draughts gently played their way through the night. A rat scampered across the base of an escalator, heading into the tunnels, its eyes pinpointing the darkness. The silence held the network in clinging folds, tenderly caressing the emptiness, filling it, enclosing it and holding it, then rejecting it as noise disrupted the completeness. The shroud seemed to lift and then drift away—noise, however small, destroyed these images, plunged something composite in their midst and the folds of the underground darkness parted to reveal reality. The noise echoed round the walls of the passageways; dying, then increasing, then fading—leaving only the broken silence behind it. Slowly the darkness repaired the rent, seeping in and around it, filling and expanding until folds encompassed the tunnels, blanketing the barren vastness of the halls.

  Hours passed until the increasing monotony of a recurring noise from the tunnels materialised in the distant rumble of harsh voices.

  Working through the night, tirelessly, on hands and knees through tunnels from station to station, the Fluffers talked amongst themselves—a low mutter that carried along the tunnels and preceded them by many yards. Habitually they talked softly, in hushed whispers rustling amidst the torch-lit darkness, often bumping against each other clumsily and then laughing uproariously, their laughter like their chatter passing swiftly up the tunnels ahead of them. In Cathedral reverence they worked, cleaning the dust-clogged electric rail with duster-like brushes and brooms. Slowly they worked their way through the tunnels, completing a circuit of the major London underground stations. They formed a gang, almost entirely composed of women, and slaved at this strange task for hours at a time. The tunnels echoed to their gaiety, yet their loneliness was immense in the darkness.

  Nance, with a flamboyant wave to her permanently untidy hair and a voluminous boiler suit, dominated the gang. In unceasing irrelevance, she chided, scolded, argued and infuriated the other women. In turns they hated and adored her forging vivacity—and she loved them for their noisy company. She was compelled to love them as they worked alongside her in the darkness, had grown to love them so deeply that they became every part of her, for she had nothing outside this noisy band—only an increasing emptiness that stretched limitlessly before her in daytime, ending only when she rejoined her Fluffers at night. There she worked the circuit, through tunnels and into dimly-lit stations, bullying and cajoling the gang into a merriment far out of proportion to their circumstances. Nance grew fond of the dry warmth of the tunnels and tolerated the dust forming layers in her mouth—whilst the other women grumbled incessantly as their throats roughened. The night wore on with her constant liveliness and the ever-growing need for the companionship of the gang. Then morning would bring the walk back to the house in the suburbs, the tiny breakfast and sleep. Afternoon would begin slowly and continue listlessly, every hour burdening her as she filled each minute with a parody of energy.

  The familiar dryness of the booking hall enclosed her as she grinned saucily at the yawning porter when he let her in. She was dressed in verdant green, with an enormous imitation fur that rested stolidly on her broad, strong shoulders and a hat, feathered and foliage crowned, rakishly tipped over a bejewelled ear. She swaggered past him, her feet buckling in the stiletto heeled shoes that she was thirty years too old for and her great hands squeezed into kid gloves that had been washed too often and too hard.

  “Fancy me tonight, Joe—coming down the tunnel with me?”

  “Mmm!”

  She jauntily winked and Joe shrugged at her retreating wiggle. Nance had said this every night—it was a kind of password between them—and it had become so familiar that he would hardly have unlocked the door for her had she not said it. He knew she only dressed up for her nightcap at the pub opposite the station, startling weary railwaymen and desultory late night drinkers with her feathered guile. He shrugged again and locked the gates behind him as he stepped into the street leaving Nance clacking in stiletto heeled uncertainty down the deadened escalator, bound for the rest room and her boiler suit. She whistled as she picked her way down, and swore as her heel caught in the metal rungs. She had to sit down, remove her shoes and edge painfully down the stairway, her language and stumbling breaking the great gulfs of silence in the darkening tunnels.

  Clutching her shoes and with her feathers a little more askew she opened the door of the rest room a crack and hissed waggishly through the opening:

  “It’s Nance—dear old Nance—come to make you laugh!” and made her grand entrance on sore feet, undismayed by the unenthusiastic response of the women at the lockers. They were climbing into thick boiler suits and awkwardly working on enormous leather gloves.

  “Well—what a welcome for poor old Nance—not a smile—not a cheer?”

  Large, clumsy women they were, changing in almost complete silence, their every movement an effort as they worked thick limbs into roughened material. A few, having changed, were smoking or reading the late edition of the evening papers.

  “What’s new, girls. Any gossip for an old woman?”

  They raised their eyes; even this tiny movement seemed clumsy and they eyed her roundly, their eyes all riveted for a second in stupefied greeting. A few nodded and there was a low murmur.

  “’lo, Nance.”

  “Oh well, at least you know me. Did you ever hear the one about the gravedigger’s daughter—you know—the one that slept under the sod? No? Well did you hear—?” And she regaled them with a barrage of jokes, all the time carefully removing her feathers and fur. Patting the hat into shape and lovingly caressing the fur she laid them in a careful bundle in
her locker. Then she began to slowly strip off the verdant green, until she stood huge in her underclothes, breasts heavily restrained under layers of elastic and her waist strangled by more. Gradually she levered off her corsets and painfully clambered into the boiler suit. Drawing a cap over her head and thick gloves up over her veined arms she was almost ready. Somewhere a whistle shrilled, and tucking her hair wispily under the cap Nance led the way out of the rest room, rallying her gang dejectedly around her, setting off like an army of Amazons down the silent halls and tunnels. They walked into the distance, Nance’s voice strident with only a mumbled assent from the straggling rear. Silence closed their retreat, their voices dying into the haze of low burning fluorescence at the end of the tunnels.

  The station platforms were silent, enclosed by the arid warmth of the day’s commuting. Yet they were waiting disturbance and the overhead lighting flickered and the shadows wavered as if the peace was soon to be shattered. Like an increasing drone the Fluffers could be heard approaching, one voice becoming more distinguishable than the others, its tone vaulting space and echoing disembodiedly on to the empty platform.

  “Only a few yards more, girls, and the Night begins—a few more yards to Heaven.”