mirror of
https://gitlab.silvrtree.co.uk/martind2000/booksnew.git
synced 2025-01-11 17:35:09 +00:00
78 lines
17 KiB
Plaintext
78 lines
17 KiB
Plaintext
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
|
|
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
|
|
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
|
|
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
|
|
<head>
|
|
<title>18</title>
|
|
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="imperaWeb.css" />
|
|
<link rel="stylesheet" type=
|
|
"application/vnd.adobe-page-template+xml" href=
|
|
"page-template.xpgt" />
|
|
</head>
|
|
<body>
|
|
<div id="text">
|
|
<div class="section" id="xhtmldocuments">
|
|
<h2>18</h2>
|
|
<p><em>July:</em></p>
|
|
<p>The stranger came knocking at the door in the early afternoon. Jean McColl didn't hear him at first, engrossed as she was in the delicate task of removing honeycombs from the hives at the back end of the vegetable garden where the bewildered and angry bees buzzed in clouds. The terriers heard him, as they heard everything and had set up a racket, insistently barking their high-pitched temper and eventually she had to lay down the smoke funnel and go round through the gate to the front yard to check.</p>
|
|
<p>"Looking for work, " the man said. He was tall and angular, though broad shouldered and his dark hair hung down over his eyes. In the warmth of the summer afternoon, he was wearing a log coat with a belt hanging loose, the kind they used to wear back in the fifties and it had seen better days. Over his shoulder, an old army tote bag showed the stains of many miles.</p>
|
|
<p>"Saw the sign, did you?" Jean was still wearing her broad straw hat with the muslin tucked into the neck of a man's chambray shirt. On her hands, a pair of her husband's protective gloves made her look almost comic, like a child dressed in adult's clothes. She unrolled the fine cloth and peered out from under the brim. "The sign on the gate?"</p>
|
|
<p>"I did," he said, nodding to affirm. He was standing with both feet planted apart. One boot's sole was peeling from the upper.</p>
|
|
<p>"Can you dig potatoes?"</p>
|
|
<p>"Sure I can. All day too." He hadn't shaved in a couple of days and he looked as if he needed a bath. In the angle of the sun, she couldn't see his eyes, but there was no particular need. Maybe the country was changing after the austerity of the years after the war, but there were still plenty wanderers who couldn't settle, men with no fixed abode and an itch in their feet, looking for seasonal work.</p>
|
|
<p>"Well, you look big enough," Jean said. She was fifty six years old, ten years younger than her husband Ian, and where he was wide and blocky, she was bird-like and quick. Her hair was pure white and her skin was clear despite a lifetime of helping to run the hill farm, out in all weathers. She squinted up at the big man.</p>
|
|
<p>"The labourer is always worthy of his hire," the man said. His voice was deep and slightly rasped, like he'd beeen breathing in the cornstalk dust. She couldn't place his accent.</p>
|
|
<p>"Amen to that," she said, picking up the context. He was a religious man. Good. "Blackwood should be back in a half hour or so and he'll tell you what's needed. But there's work to be done so he'll no doubt take you on." She turned and pointed round by the corner of the byre where a half dozen heavy red chickens were scratching in the straw, jerking their heads in nervous tics. "There's a space in the bothy where you can put your kit. Running water's from the tap on the wall."</p>
|
|
<p>"What's he paying?"</p>
|
|
<p>"Same as anybody else. A pound a ton and then he'll see how fast you go. You get bed and board, and if he takes a shine to you, well maybe there's some walling needs done for the winter, but that'll be up to him."</p>
|
|
<p>The big man said nothing for a moment, but remained standing there, almost in silhouette. The sun limned the edge of his hair, making it gleam blue black, like a red Indian's hair. He looked as if he'd been sleeping rough for the past few days. Maybe he was hungry.</p>
|
|
<p>"I suppose you could have a bite and a cup of tea while you're waiting. Give me ten minutes to finish with the bees and I'll put the kettle on."</p>
|
|
<p>"I'd appreciate that, ma'am," he said, nodding again. He hadn't said much at all but that wasn't unusual either. Many of the men on the roads just came out of nowhere and worked a few weeks, sometimes a full harvest season and disappeared again with hardly a word. It was possible, Jean knew, that one or two of them might have been running from trouble, with the police or the army, but as long as they could work, that was nobody's business but theirs. She came from old farming stock and farmers in this neck of the woods liked to preserve their own privacy. They respected the need in others.</p>
|
|
<p>Round at the home garden, she unshipped the last dripping slab of honeycomb while a few bees which had been out of the hive when she used the smoker came buzzing angrily around her head. The rich, thick honey dripped into the pan, sending up a luscious, exotically sweet scent that reminded Jean of every summer she'd spent on the farm. She smiled to herself, thinking of all those seasons that made up most of her life.</p>
|
|
<p>She was in the kitchen when the man came back, now stripped of his heavy coat. The sleeves of his shirt, a faded blue working-man's cotton, were rolled up to his elbows, showing a pair of long, muscular arms covered in a matt of black hair. He'd obviously bent to get his head under the hosepipe tap for his hair was now slicked back from heavy eyebrows and beads of water trickled down his cheek like sweat.</p>
|
|
<p>"Here, I made you a sandwich," she said, indicating the table. "Set yourself down while the tea's brewing."</p>
|
|
<p>Off in the distance, a low rumble told her the tractor was heading back up the rutted track. The stranger sat up straight, head cocked to one side. An odd, indecipherable look flicked across his face. He blinked a couple of times.</p>
|
|
<p>"That'll be Blackwood coming back," she said. It was a tradition in these parts, still is, for farmers to take the name of their spreads. Ian McColl farmed the highest land on the north side of the town, a mix of poor arable and high moorland where the bracken made further creeping inroads every year. They'd some cows which were pastured down on the edge of the barwoods and three hundred sheep and a small herd of shaggy highland cattle up on the heath and scrub of Blackwood hill and beyond. On the south facing fields below the trees where he'd spent three backbreaking years stripping out the thick gorse, there was a fair crop of early potatoes and a handy field of swedes, most of which would feed the beasts in the winter. It was a hard life up on the hill, both of them knew that, but for Jean, it was the only life, often rewarded by the late, dropping sun catching the rocks of Langcraig Hill in the distance, or gleaming up from the river estuary in the height of summer. The winters could be bad at this height, but then she'd see a spider's web hoar-frosted and glittering, or a white stoat go scampering across the rocks, and in the depth of January, she'd hear the first bleating sounds of the new life as the sheep dropped their lambs. It was no easy life, but there was a beauty and a symmetry and sometimes a magic in it all, as she would write in her neat hand in her diary.</p>
|
|
<p>She brought two big mugs to the table and filled them both. "The ham's my own. Smoked only last week, and the bread's fresh from the oven this morning."</p>
|
|
<p>Jean never tired of telling folk, even strangers looking for casual labour, about her bacon or her bread. She'd a store out the back with rough cheeses wrapped in muslin and maturing away in wooden rounds and a half a dozen demi-jons sealed up with last years vintage of elderberry wine. All of it, every fermentation, every batch of cheese was carefully noted in her book. Every new year she'd go down to the town, as long as the snows hadn't blocked the track, and buy a new diary. They were her pride and her record of thirty years up on Blackwood Farm. On winter nights, when the wind howled around the red-leaded struts of the haybarn, she would bring a book down from the loft and travel back in time to the days when she was young and dark haired; to when Ian McColl would take time off from the scything of the hay and chase her through the long grass and sometimes catch her.</p>
|
|
<p>Outside in the yard the tractor shuddered to a halt. The engine barked twice and Jean knew there would be a plume of blue exhaust smoke trailing away from its rear end. The stranger started back at the sound and his eyes blinked several times as if grit had got in under his eyelids.</p>
|
|
<p>"Och, it's only a backfire," she told him "You'll get used to that soon enough if you're here awhile."</p>
|
|
<p>The man looked at her, still blinking, as if he couldn't really see her and Jean wondered if he was all right. Just then her husband came in, wide shouldered and with a day's silver growth of beard ragged on his cheeks. He took off his hat and wiped a handkerchief over the red crown of his head.</p>
|
|
<p>"The heat would melt you out there," he avowed, and slung the hat onto the hook. He turned and saw the other man. "Looking for work I suppose?"</p>
|
|
<p>The big man nodded again. "Yes sir, I am that."</p>
|
|
<p>"Sound like an army man, eh?"</p>
|
|
<p>Another nod.</p>
|
|
<p>"So you'll not be scared of a bit of hard graft?" McColl said cheerfully. "Usual start rate's a pound a ton, and maybe a bit more on the up-slope when we reach it. There's a good two weeks work there on the early crop if you want it."</p>
|
|
<p>Jean McColl brought the tea across and Ian sat down, his scalp fiery and beaded with sweat. He still hadn't set eyes on his wife, but when she laid the cup and a plate of sandwiches down in front of him he took her fingers in his calloused hand and gave them a gentle squeeze that conveyed a whole sonnet of feeling. "Good lass. Saved a life."</p>
|
|
<p>The other fellow reached forward for his cup and as he did so his sleeve rose up close to his shoulder, just enough to expose a small tattoo on the outside of his arm below the shoulder.</p>
|
|
<p>"That your name? Lesley?" Ian asked, pointing at the blue scrolled word on the skin. Jean was over at th stove and missed the tattoo. The man had taken a drink of tea and he inclined his head forward. The farmer took it as confirmation.</p>
|
|
<p>"Right Les, if you want the work, then it's yours. You look as if you've got a strong back and I need the crop in by the end of the month for getting it down to the co-operative. On and after that, I've got some walling up on the moor that I'll need a hand with, so if you work out all right with the tatties, then you'll be welcome to stay."</p>
|
|
<p>"The labourer is worthy of his hire," the new hand repeated, almost whispering.</p>
|
|
<p>Ian eyed him up. "I'll be the judge of that, you can bet."</p>
|
|
<p>Jean came to the table with her own cup, a delicate fluted piece of china which looked like a part from a doll's tea set next to her husband's chipped pint mug. The men finished their snack and Ian McColl took the new man through the back to show him the potato field. The stalks were already tall and drying to yellow, bent eastwards by the gentle breeze of the past few days which had died down now to a sultry summer's day.</p>
|
|
<p>"The bothy's fine and dry and the missus is a good cook so you'll not want for a square meal or a place to sleep. You want anything from the town though, it's a bit of a hike. More'n five miles by the track. I don't manage down there myself much except for a delivery or for the auctions. You from around these parts?"</p>
|
|
<p>"Long time ago," the fellow said. "Long time. Before, you know?"</p>
|
|
<p>Ian McColl nodded. Some folk didn't give much away and he wasn't the one to push either, though it would have been good if the new hand was more of a talker. It was good to chew the fat across the table when the talk of farming was done and the work was finished for the day. From back in the kitchen, the sound of dishes being washed and stacked came back to them. Jean said something which neither heard clearly enough to make out, but from the tone was unmistakable. The terriers came scrambling out of the kitchen as if devils were chasing them. The door slammed shut.</p>
|
|
<p>"Never did like her kitchen getting messed up," Ian said.</p>
|
|
<p>The other man blinked again as if the sun was in his eyes. McColl moved off towards the tractor and got it started. He beckoned the stranger across and waited until the man hitched himself up behind the seat.</p>
|
|
<p>"Might as well get started," he said brightly, slinging his cap back on his head and shoving the peak up the way farmers do. The tractor coughed bronchially, spat smoke from its stack and lurched round by the byre.</p>
|
|
<p>Jean McColl watched from the window, thinking. Help was hard to come by this far up and almost anybody who came through the gate at harvest time got a job for the asking. But there was something about the stranger with the nervous blinking eyes that didn't settle with her. She tried to think what it was but couldn't get a finger on it. There was something about his face, gaunt and angled, that should have been expressive but wasn't quite, as if everything was being held down inside.</p>
|
|
<p>There was something about the man and his deep set, coal black eyes and his slicked back gypsy hair and the smell of woodsmoke on his clothes. Up around these parts, the tinkers, the travelling folk, were MacFees and MacFettridges, descendants of the refugees kicked off the land in the highland clearances. The new man had a travelling look about him, but he didn't look like a tinker.</p>
|
|
<p>Later that night, after the men had come home and eaten a heroic meal, she and Ian had sat at the table while he worked on the model ship he was building out of matchsticks, a labour of love that promised to keep him occupied right through the long dark nights until the end of winter when the ground would be soft enough to work. Jean was writing in her book.</p>
|
|
<p><em>New man started today. Big as a Clydesdale ploughhorse and with the looks of an Italian or maybe a Polish soldier. Says his name is Leslie, Leslie Joyce. Says he's from around these parts from way back. Looks strong enough for carting the potatoes and that should give Ian a fair hand and good for his back too. He won't go down to the doctor about it no matter how much I go on about it. Made five pounds of butter today and got six full jars of honey. Best collection yet, and not one sting this time. As ever, I couldn't help licking my fingers for the taste of heather.</em></p>
|
|
<p>She looked over at her husband, swinging her eyes from the one black-bound book to the next one, opened beside it. "You're a week early with the potatoes this year compared to last." she told her husband who was gingerly gluing a spar to a curved rib of the old-fashioned ketch. "And I'm a week ahead with the honey too."</p>
|
|
<p>"It's the heat since the start of summer. It's lasted a while. After the good rains in the late spring. Always gets things of to a fine start. A lucky year for us."</p>
|
|
<p><em>Ian says it's a lucky year,</em> she wrote down. <em>We've had our share of them, in between the bad ones.</em></p>
|
|
<p>She smiled at him though he never saw it, his red dome bent to the delicate task, thick gnarled farmer's fingers surprisingly agile, delicately gentle and Jean knew just how gentle he could be. It was safe enough to write some things down in her diaries. Now and again, she'd read him a piece out loud, an entry from previous years, making him grin with the accounts of young Ian's first tottering steps, or bringing the hint of a lump to his throat when she showed the dried wild rose she'd pressed between the pages, a small gift brought back from a foray down the valley to the Barwoods to round up the strays. But he would never read her diary, never go looking in her private place. That was hers.</p>
|
|
<p>Outside in the yard, the terriers barked. The bothy door closed with a dull thud and the dogs went silent again. Leslie Joyce (if that was his name) must have got up and gone to the outhouse.</p>
|
|
<p>The noise interrupted her train of thought. Where had she been?</p>
|
|
<p>Back ten years ago to the day she had pressed the rose in the book, a delicate pink with a powerful wild fragrance, a token, plucked in the passing, but a treasure for he'd brought it home for her. Another lucky year, just like this one. She wrote that thought down, savouring it and the memory it brought back, wondering what she'd think in ten years time, God sparing.</p>
|
|
<p>Out in the bothy, the free-standing stone shelter that served as a bunkhouse for the labourers, the man with the tattoos and the black eyes lay stretched out on the bed. The dogs had surprised him when he'd walked silently across the yard and leaned in at the corner to peer in the kitchen window, but no-one had come to the door. In the house the old woman was writing in a book and the farmer was bending over something on the table. The tall man turned away when the dogs started their yapping, high pitched chiding and he'd stared down at them. Without a word he moved soundlessly across the dry earth and cobbles of the yard and let the door spring back. It took forty steps from the window to the bothy and he counted them all, just in case he needed to know the paces. Overhead, the moon showed a sliver of silver in a velvet sky. In the dark of the bunkhouse he lay down on the straw mattress and put his hands behind his head, staring into the dark.</p>
|
|
<p>The dogs stopped barking and settled down at the front door.</p>
|
|
<p>The man with the tattoos lay silent but inside his mind, the thoughts were hot and dark and filled with memories.</p>
|
|
<p>After a while, in his thoughts, he heard the high-pitched voice and the steady drone and he knew it would not be long before....</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</body>
|
|
</html>
|