The Limits of Enchantment

by Graham Joyce

  They insisted on cleaning up my kitchen behind them, and before they had finished that task two men came to carry the pie away to the bakers. It was to be baked that night. With my kitchen clean, the ladies took off their aprons, put on their coats and carried away their cooking equipment. After they had gone I realised that not more than eight or nine words had passed between us during the entire time they were there.

  I almost began to doubt of their existence at all.

  34

  The drinking was already well under way by the time I got to the Fox Inn on Monday at lunchtime. They had set up an ale tent on the grass beyond the duck pond, and the fine weather had brought the revellers out in force. The sun was busy too, though there was a chill in the air when the wind picked up. Nevertheless the Master of the Stowe would have pronounced it a perfect day for the annual Hare Pie Scramble and Bottle Kicking.

  I passed through the ale tent looking for Arthur. He’d told me he would be drinking at the Fox Inn from midday. He’d no doubt want to get stoked up for the Bottle Kicking and in any event the parade left from there before it moved down to the church of St Michael’s. I couldn’t see him, but I saw Venables enjoying a pint of bitter with a couple of his cronies. Their heads turned my way. Venables made some remark and they all cackled.

  I went instead to see if I could find Arthur inside the pub, and there he was, supping foamy ale with Bill Myers and other men in a bar crowded with footballers and pipers from the marching band. Bill was known to like to mix it in the Bottle Kicking. Often in the scrum a few old scores were settled, and though Bill was always fair with me, he was known as a bruiser and a hard case. Unlike Arthur, Bill came from a neighbouring village, so he kicked for Medbourne. Traditionally only Hallaton men were allowed to kick for the Hallaton team, whereas the Medbourne team comprised blades from several of the smaller surrounding villages.

  They were already well oiled. Both Arthur and Bill cheered when they saw me, and they waved me over to their table. They wore striped football jerseys and dirty industrial boots; their eyes were moist and their faces red. Bill yelled to a friend at the bar to get me a drink. I said no, I’d just come to see the procession of the pie, but Bill insisted and Arthur told him I drank Babycham, so I had one of those.

  The men were in raucous mood, good-natured but clearly spoiling for something. I noticed that a pint of beer might only be raised to the lips three or four times before it was emptied, as if for these men it was a hard and fast quaffing rule. They joked, they teased, they broke into song easily. One man I’d never seen before stroked my hair and asked me for a kiss.

  ‘Get off her or you’ll answer to me,’ Arthur shouted, and the company laughed as if his was the funniest remark in the history of funny remarks.

  Arthur winked at me and said, ‘How’s yer pie?’

  ‘My pie is all right. How’s your Bottle?’

  ‘My Bottle is here,’ he said and he reached down and picked up the small ale-filled wooden barrel he was commissioned to carry during the procession. On sighting the barrel held aloft all the men cheered and broke into song. Arthur looked at me and blushed. He was so proud to be carrying the Bottle that year. He’d won the right – when one of the older men retired from the honour – by scoring a goal for Hallaton the previous year. And there was something about his pride and humility mixed that made me want to put my hand on his arm. Instead I sipped my fizzy Babycham.

  When they finished singing Bill embarrassed me by getting to his feet. ‘Gentlemen, we have a songbird amongst us! A lovely songbird she is. Let’s have her give us a song!’

  Now it was my turn to blush. I waved my hands in protest and shook my head vigorously but then there were nine or ten men on their feet and chanting, ‘She’ll give us a song, she’ll give us a song, she’ll not take long but she’ll give us a song!’

  I looked for the door. Arthur knew what I was thinking and said, ‘Better give ’em what they want.’

  ‘No way out, lovely girl,’ Bill put in. ‘No way out.’

  I got to my feet and the chanting men fell back into their seats. One burly figure made it worse by lifting me by my waist as if I were as light as a pin and standing me on a table. Bill was right, there was no way out. I knew my voice was good but I felt crushed with embarrassment. The rest of the pub fell quiet for me.

  I cleared my throat and it just happened at that moment that one of Venables’ cronies came into the taproom and, seeing me up there on the table, put his hand to his mouth and blew an ugly lip-fart. Instantly every man around me leapt to his feet roaring displeasure, waving fists at the man and lashing their arms in the air. Suddenly they seemed like a colony of wild things at the waterhole in a brief, defensive frenzy. Venables’ crony coloured and ducked smartly out of the room. Just as quickly the men slumped back in their seats and fell silent, fixing their eyes on me and I was momentarily afraid of the hair-trigger nature of the switch from masculine cheer to imminent violence.

  But with order restored, Bill said, ‘On you go, Fern.’

  By this time the pipers and drummers of the marching band had gone silent for me, too. Better make it a jolly one I thought, even though I was trembling. I knew there was only one thing to do with such embarrassment and self-consciousness, and that’s to deflect it elsewhere. So I fixed my gaze on Arthur, and I sang. I gave ’em that old one, ‘The Brisk Young Butcher’, and they loved it all right.

  When he arrived at Leicester town he came upon an inn,

  He called out for an ostler and boldly he walked in.

  He called for liquors of the best, he being a roving blade,

  And quickly fixed his eyes upon the lovely chambermaid.

  Nine verses, and Arthur never took his eyes away from mine, nor did I take mine from him. They whistled and stamped and called for another song so I gave them ‘The Coal-Black Smith’, which is a right dirty song when you think of it and they whistled and cheered and stamped at that, too, but I got down off the table and told them that would have to do.

  The beers were going down like ninepins and I got my arm twisted to have a second Babycham. Bill’s way of teasing Arthur about my gazing at him through the song was to jiggle his eyebrows and to lean over and grasp Arthur’s cheek between his leathery thumb and forefinger. Arthur didn’t seem to mind, at least not until the third time it was done.

  But then I must have drifted off and Bill noticed me looking sad. ‘Cheer up, Fern, might never ’appen.’

  ‘Oh it’s that Venables. He was in the ale tent mocking me as usual.’

  Bill looked thoughtful. I also noticed two burly figures in red-hooped rugby football shirts who seemed to take an interest at the mention of Venables’ name. Then Bill shrugged. ‘Medbourne’s a bit short of numbers this year. Ain’t that right, lads?’

  ‘Could do wi’ one or two more,’ someone agreed.

  Bill got up. ‘Let’s get out and recruit from the ale tent.’ A few of his drinking pals drained their glasses and staggered out after him. I asked Arthur if we should follow, too, but one of the men in the red-striped shirts put out a gentle hand and touched my arm. ‘No m’duck, you and Arthur stay here with us a bit.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Arthur. ‘Stay with us Hallaton men a bit.’

  One of the men would buy me another Babycham and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Though rough-looking they were nice fellows, and they pretended to be interested in my singing and in how I knew the songs; but I couldn’t get past the feeling that they were detaining me for a reason.

  At one-thirty it was time for the procession. All the pipers and drummers from the marching band drained their glasses and went to muster for the parade, and the rest of the footballers went too, leaving the bar eerily quiet. I couldn’t stay there so I went out to watch the procession, but first I passed through the crowded ale tent. I noticed Bill Myers and some of his drinking pals standing with Venables. Bill had his arm around Venables’ shoulders, and they were sharing a joke, obviously enjoying each other’s
company. I felt hurt that Bill could be so fickle. Venables, laughing uproariously, was red in the face.

  ‘One more before we go,’ Bill shouted.

  ‘No, I’m slaughtered!’ I heard Venables protest.

  But one of Bill’s chums was already pulling in the beers from the ale-tent bar. I saw him deliberately spill a bit from one glass and top it up with a huge splash of vodka from a quart bottle. Then he secreted the bottle in his pocket and passed the doctored beer to Venables. The men raised their glasses and started up some sort of a drinking chant, where they all downed their beers in one. Venables included.

  I left them to their boys’ games and went out to the street in front of the Fox Inn. The procession was lined up and ready to go, and there, at the front, was the Warrener in his green cape and holding a staff. Behind him, glory of glories, were two young women from the village carrying the great pie between them. My pie! My hare pie.

  Following the pie were the bearers of the three ‘Bottles’, including Arthur; and behind them a motley crew of local dignitaries, assorted footballers, and committee members including Peggy Myers, the sweet hunchback lady, and William. He kept checking his fob-chain and looking irritated with everything. William saw me and he let pass the nearest thing to a grin I imagined he could manage. I’d seen that half-stopped grin only once before, when he’d suggested we ‘make some smoke’: the sympathy-garnering churchyard atrocity had been his idea.

  At a command from the bandmaster the marching band stiffened to attention, sticks poised a fraction above the drum-skin, pipes ready at the lip. The three Bottle Bearers each held their barrels aloft with one hand and the Warrener prodded the air with his staff. The band struck up loud and the procession moved off, and every hair on my body stood thrilled and erect.

  I watched the procession move down the hill towards St Michael’s church. More footballers came spilling out of the ale tent to catch the tailcoat of the procession, amongst them Bill Myers and Venables. Bill and one of his pals were supporting or coaxing Venables to join in the parade. Each had an arm locked round Venables’ arms, as if they were holding him upright. He was clearly very, very drunk. I heard him protesting in a good-natured and humorous manner that he wasn’t dressed for the football, but Bill and company were jocular and wouldn’t hear of it. No one else was taking much notice that Venables was a late recruit into the game.

  I followed the procession all the way down to St Michael’s, where it halted in front of the wrought-iron gates at the east end of the old church. There was the vicar of St Michael’s, waiting to perform his duties. I’d heard he didn’t like doing this. He’d made his feelings known about what he called primitive rituals several times. But like many vicars before him he knew the warnings handed out in the eighteenth century, and like that parson before him he was compelled to dirty his hands with pie gravy.

  For it was his duty to carve up the hare pie and offer it to the people in the scramble. By now there were hundreds of villagers from all around the region, their ranks swelled by tourists and sightseers, pressing forward as the vicar sliced up the pie. The pie was then snatched from his hand and flung, as was the tradition, at the crowd.

  There was a roar of delight as the crowd surged forward. The vicar was jostled as pieces of pie were torn from him and flung at the pressing throng, pastry, gravy, meat, potatoes and all the rest slapping in folk’s faces and exploding in their hair. And those who held up their hands caught the pie as it flew and they stuffed it, shrieking, in their mouths. The people at the front of the crowd jostled the vicar again, almost having him off his feet, imploring, pushing out their hands for pie. With barely concealed ill temper the harried vicar doled it out. The people ate it. They turned back for more, pushing and shoving to get at it. They flung it further out into the crowd. And as I saw the fragments of pie dispersing and soaring through the air I whispered, ‘Fly to them, Mammy! Fly to the people!’

  It was done.

  After the Hare Pie Scramble came the Bottle Kicking. Part of the procession, leaving the scene of the scramble behind them, wound up the grassy hill of Hare Pie Bank where all the players assembled. The chairman of the Bottle Kicking match threw one of the ‘Bottles’ into the air. This he repeated twice. When the Bottle hit the grass for the third time, the men fell upon it in a furious scrum. This was a game like few others. The touchlines were represented by streams at each end of the great field, about three-quarters of a mile apart. Between the streams lay hills, hedges, water-filled ditches, country lanes and barbed-wire fences. There were no rules. First-aid stewards from the St John Ambulance Brigade, themselves an annual fixture, stood by to attend to the inevitable wounds, fractures and other injuries.

  I watched as the mob of straining, groaning, jostling men locked into combat, failing to make an inch of progress on either side of the muddy field. There were two kinds of players – the mad bloods who launched into the centre of the fray risking every limb, and the skirmish players who stayed on the periphery. From a safe distance I saw fists fly and then a slight lurch – not more than a single yard – downhill. Then the lurch was corrected back to the start position.

  Chas, Luke and the man with sunglasses were there. They seemed to have joined the skirmish, but only on the very safe extreme periphery of it. In fact they looked stoned out of their heads. They each made a nervous short foray towards the skirmish, flapping an arm at an imaginary Bottle or enemy before laughing like hyenas and then withdrawing for a rest and another smoke. Still, they seemed to enjoy it.

  I also saw Venables, still drunk and still protesting, carried into the very grunting epicentre of the struggle by Bill and one of the men wearing the red-hooped shirts. Briefly I saw Arthur’s face. He was seriously gasping for air. Then the scrum swallowed all of them. I turned away and went back down into the village. There is only so much of this you can watch.

  It was only some time later that I found out that Venables had been injured in the meêlée. I have no idea how it happened. In the central scrum of fifty or more bodies no one else would have seen either. These things happen by accident. I would imagine that Bill Myers, in securing a grip on the Bottle might have found his fingers slipping and his elbow crashing back and breaking Venables’ nose. I expect Arthur, in trying to make progress through the scrum, might have inadvertently brought his knee under Venables’ jaw, and that was what dislocated it. I guess one or both of the burly men in red-hooped shirts, whom I later found out to be Jane Louth’s brothers, might in trying to get advantage have accidentally pushed Venables’ arm so far up his back that it broke a bone. Who knows how he had his teeth pushed in? You can’t keep speculating, and the older men, stalwart critics of the game, observed that it was never wise to wade into the annual Bottle Kicking while worse for wear with drink.

  Everyone knew you went into the Hallaton Bottle Kicking at your own risk. And what’s more, they remarked to each other as seasoned observers, it was never meant to be a game for girls.

  35

  Somebody won the game, but in truth no one cares too much to remember the score. It’s always the event that matters. Who were the victors, who had scored the rare goals and what had happened in which muddy field, was a subject of endless debate in the pubs of Hallaton and the neighbouring villages that very night. Arthur told me that Medbourne had won two-nil, though he seemed perfectly happy in defeat. In fact all of the men, Arthur, Bill, the Louth brothers and every single male who took part in the skirmish looked happy. As if they’d worked something out of them. Or maybe had something put in.

  I was talked into drinking with them that evening, and I said I would as long as I didn’t have to drink that horrible Babycham stuff. I asked Judith to come along for female company but she’d arranged to see Greta, who’d promised to help her in the dark matter of List Ninety-nine and her teaching career. Proper village advocate Greta was becoming. Even so I somehow couldn’t see Chas and his band of gypsies downing bitters and cracking funnies with the likes of Bill Myers. Anyway, it
ended with us supping at both the Fox Inn and the Bewicke Arms in Hallaton that night. Hallaton men drank happily with members of the Medbourne team out of whom just a few hours earlier they’d been kicking lumps. Arthur had earned a fresh, juicy black eye, just as mine was fading. Bill had three vicious claw marks down the side of his face. They all made light of it.

  ‘Shame about that Venables bloke,’ Arthur said beerily when we were ensconced in a nook of the Bewicke Arms.

  ‘Yes, shame,’ said Bill. ‘Nice bloke he is and all.’

  ‘Yes,’ said one of the Louth brothers. ‘Shame about that Venables bloke.’

  ‘Still,’ Bill said, holding aloft a foaming pint of bitter. ‘Cheers to all the players.’

  ‘Cheers!’

  ‘Cheers!’

  Well I raised my glass to that. I was drinking half pints of bitter now. I don’t know what Mammy would have thought of me sitting in pubs, downing beer with the men. But I decided I liked it.

  I decided I liked Arthur, too. And the more I supped from my glass the more I found my liking grew. I took a fancy to his blackened eye. I wanted to put my lips to the violet and yellow swollen skin and kiss it away.

  ‘Are you two going to spend the evening eyeing each other up?’ Bill said at one point. ‘Because you’re putting me off my ale.’ I blushed, so he saved me by changing the subject. ‘What will you do now you can’t complete your midwife course?’ he asked me.

  I explained that MMM had told me of a grant I could apply for, to get a proper qualification in nursing. And then after that I could go on to become a qualified midwife. That seemed to be the thing to do.

  ‘All above board, sort of thing,’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’