Great Meadow (16 page)

I asked him if Germany was very far away and he said not far enough, and that I was a lucky boy not to live there and to live instead where I did. I said I knew that, and I jolly well did. Nowhere was better than the cottage and Great Meadow, and just as he was mixing up some greenish paint I asked him how he painted the sky. And he said he couldn't paint skies, they were very difficult, and so he was going to paint a tree and would I please shut up and go and see what sort of trees there were in the hedge just below us. Which was silly really, because he could
easily see for himself. But he told me to go off and bring him back a leaf from every tree and bush I could find. A different leaf! I said it would take ages and ages, and he said that is exactly what he hoped, and when I had got them all I could have a penny for something scrumptious, he said, at Baker's. So I went off.

Anyway, it was very nice to have them back again. Our mother was pretty and funny, and she and Lally were talking and laughing up in the vegetable garden. I could hear them clear as clear, and our mother said it was wonderful to be back in England again, and how were the aphids and thrips this year? And Lally said she didn't rightly know, and they laughed and I heard my mother beginning her ‘Silly Song'. Anyway, that's what my sister and I called it because she used to sing it whenever our father was somewhere near. It was called ‘Always', and we thought it a bit disgusting, because sometimes we would see them walking up the path from the O.M., arm in arm, and she'd be just singing this daft song. It made me feel really a bit embarrassed. But then I suppose they didn't know we were watching.

Clambering about in the hedge for the leaves for our father, I could hear her plain as plain. She was hanging out some things on the clothes-line in her gypsy-sort-of dress, and Lally and my sister were looking for one lettuce which hadn't bolted, and my mother was singing away, ‘I'll be loving youoooo . . . always . . . With a love that's trueoo . . . always . . .' But it did feel really pretty good having them back. They had liked my voles very much indeed, and my father told me that the river bank in the box was made of paper machey. And when I asked him what that
was he just said to ask him tomorrow. But he really was
most
interested. So that was all right.

You could hear the rattle and clatter of the reaper right up the path, and when we got to the end of the lane and crossed the chalk road everyone was there and had bagged the best places in the shade. It was terrifically hot, even so early in the morning. Well, early for us. I'd heard the distant clattering through my bedroom window, and the sun was already up, so we were a bit late, but Lally had said what's the hurry then, I haven't got your basket ready, and eat your Bemax, and so on. So we did. And all the time they were all down in the field called Long Bottom, which was quite rude except it was the big field at the foot of Windover. We walked along the hedge under the elms and found a place where no one else was. People put their bags and baskets and the bottles of cold tea to keep cool in the shade, so we knew not to intrude, because even if we did live ‘up at the Rectory' we were still Foreigners, even after all those years. Well, quite a lot. Five or six, about.

So we put our basket under a big ash tree down at the bottom, and my sister just had a look to see if the wet cloth round the ginger beer bottle was still wet, and then we went out into the very edge of the field, where the reaper had already cut, and where everyone was busy gleaning – Winnie Moss and Beattie Fluke and Mrs Daukes. All round the edges of the corn, where it had been cleared, the men stood here and there quietly each chewing a bit of straw, their rifles sort of drooping over their left arms, but really ready to swing up and bang off at a rabbit. The rabbits and mice and things all ran into the middle, and Winnie Moss, who waved at us and came to have a ‘cool down' in the shade, said that they did think some old fox had run bang-slap into the centre, and they were all waiting for the reaper to trim it all down.

It was quite nice walking along in the stubble because I was wearing my old Wellingtons and no socks, and my sister was a bit daft and she was wearing her sandals without socks, so pretty soon she got all cut and scratched around the ankles, because the new-cut stubble was sharp as a razor. But I didn't bother to say anything, even when I saw the blood and the scratches. We just went on gleaning away, although where we were gleaning was where all the others had been gleaning before we got there. So it wasn't much, just the stalks here and there. But Lally had said don't intrude, and so we didn't. Winnie Moss said she had already gleaned enough corn for a ‘best brown' and she'd have to be there for a month of Sundays before she had enough gleaned to make half a dozen loaves. I said well, why was she doing it now, and she said what a silly question. It was the ‘old way', and the old way was going, and anyway, who would glean the stuff left over? What with corn so expensive she reckoned to bag a sack by evening for her chickens, so I said that we hadn't got any chickens and so she could have what we gleaned, and she said that was really kind of us.

And then Miss Aleford came galumphing along in a straw hat and gaiters, and said we were welcome to join in. It was her field, so I suppose she was being polite. Then she said no more capers with harvest mice this year! I was a bit surprised that she had remembered stamping on one
of mine last year and squashing it flat, but I didn't say anything. I just laughed. Well, you do when people say difficult things, and I wasn't going to tell her about my voles. I didn't care about harvest mice after Sat and Sun had gone. Dead and gone, Lally had said, so that was that.

My father had told me that it was very difficult to paint a sky, but he would have had a wonderful time down in Long Bottom because all around us were the Downs, at the back the hedge and the elms and ash trees, in the middle just the golden corn square, getting a bit smaller all the time with the old reaper chugging round and round, and high above (well, where else would it be?) was the sky. Just blue. Blue as blue. No clouds, not even a bird, nothing. Sparkling blue for ever. And hot.

Beattie Fluke had settled herself down in a clump of dock leaves and tall grasses and was fanning herself with her beret. She laughed to us, and that was proof that she
really
hadn't got any teeth at all, and our father was right when he said that ‘all her intake was liquid'. Which I didn't really understand, but seeing the no-teeth part now I think that he actually meant that she couldn't chew things. Only drink things. It was a bit worrying, because she was jolly fat, but very nice really, and she had a face exactly like the stoppers our mother had brought from Germany. All laughing and red.

‘What you got in your ditty-bag, then?' she called. I said I didn't really know what a ‘ditty-bag' was and so she told me, and said it was clear as clear I wasn't a sailor-boy, and laughed like anything. So I said only ginger beer, and she said leave out the ginger and she'd be happy. So it was all a bit of a worry, and then I went down the field and
began gleaning with my sister, who had quite a huge sheaf which we carried up, with mine later, to Mrs Moss.

All you could hear down in the middle of the big field was the rattle of the reaper and the distant talking of women, or children laughing and, now and then, the crack of a rifle when one of the men took a shot at a rabbit. And then, when it really seemed to be terribly hot, the reaper stopped with a clanking and shudder, and a huff of smoke wandered into the blue, and the men jumped off, and everyone came back up the field, past the two big horses swishing their tails by the pink and blue waggon standing in the shade. Everyone settled down under the trees among the campion and ox-eye daisies, while the women opened bottles and unpacked the food and called to the children.

We sat up in our part under the ash tree and my sister took off her sandals and her feet were all cut and bloody. Serve her right. But there was ginger beer and cold pigeon pie, a chunk of Double Gloucester and slices of apple tart. It was really quite decent. Except for the flies and the wasps. The men were all lying in the grass with their arms across their eyes, and they had strings tied round their trouser legs to stop the rats and mice from running up their legs, and that suddenly reminded me of Sat and Sun and, even though I was very happy among all the people and under the huge blue sky which you could just see through the leaves of the ash tree, I felt a little bit miserable. But then Len Diplock from the Court came past with a pole over his shoulder and six rabbits hanging by their crossed legs, and he offered them to Winnie Moss, fourpence each, and to Beattie Fluke, who was sitting with
Mrs Daukes and another lady, and they all screamed with laughter and said who did he think they were? Gordon Selfridge or the Prince of Wales? And they wouldn't have one, not if he made them a ha'penny! ‘Vermin!' said Beattie Fluke. ‘Vermin that's what, nice in a stew, good in a bake, but not at fourpence, what with a pint of beer more than a penny!'

So he went off, laughing, and everyone was very happy and starting to clear up their rubbish. Then we heard the pop and patter of the reaper starting up again. Long Bottom had to be finished before the light went and they couldn't see properly to pick off the rabbits and the old fox, if he was in the middle. Mrs Daukes said not only was there a fox in there but Mr Daukes had put up two hare, and they were sitting just waiting until there was no more corn left to cut. My sister started moaning about how cruel it was, but Winnie Moss just said, ‘That's nature, my dear. It's the country way. Don't have no London manners down here. Life isn't all ice cream and satin cushions. If there's a fox in there they'll get 'im. Or he'll get our hens and then what? Just bite their heads off for the spite of it. I seen 'em bite the legs off all Mrs Witts's whole flock!' And she called across to the lady sitting with Mrs Fluke and Mrs Daukes we didn't know. ‘True as I'm here, Meg, correct? Your hens? That old fox. Got 'em all by their legs?'

‘True! Twelve Leghorns, lovely they was. Just bit his way up into their shed and grabbed them by their legs. Didn't touch the bodies, just legs. ‘Orrid it was. You never did see such a sight, all alive and no legs!'

And Winnie Moss looked at my sister with a quite kind
smile. ‘See? Not a lie. Wicked they are. Don't you have no pity for them rats and foxes, real wicked.'

So that shut her up a bit, and I was just starting to put the stopper on the ginger beer bottle when Miss Aleford called out, quite rudely I thought, ‘Boy! You there! Look what we found. I have a feeling it could belong to you, you seem to have a mouse fixation.'

And she had something cupped in her hands, and was walking quite slowly, and there were two men behind her. I got up and she opened her hands carefully. ‘White. A white mouse. I reckon it might be yours? What do you think, eh?'

And it was Sun. Lying in her hands, wheezing away, his tail all draggly. But he was enormous, much bigger than he had been, so I said I think it might be one of my mice, maybe Sun who was white but he was smaller. And Miss Aleford said, ‘It's no “he”, it's a “she”, and I very much fear it's going to have babies, look!' And she gently turned him over and all his underneath was pink, with little red teats, so it was a girl-mouse. And I said yes! it is Sun, and Miss Aleford said that George here had found it under a stook, and she very much feared it was all too late and that it would die of fright if it didn't die of something else, and the George-person said he'd found it in a ball of hay when he was stacking the stooks.

‘The poor thing, it is the fright!' said Miss Aleford. ‘It's got to have warmth and darkness.' And then she unbuttoned her blouse and pushed her fist into her bosom, which was a bit surprising, but we didn't say anything because it was her farm and her field and her harvest. And then she took it out again and shook her head slowly, and said,
‘No. No hope. I fear it's passed away, poor little thing. You'd better take it off and give it a respectful burial. Probably mated with a wild one. It was
doomed.'

She gave me Sun in her cupped hand, and I took him and it was quite certain he was dead, with his little pink feet crossed and a droplet of blood on his nose. I felt really mouldy. But my sister helped me to scrape out a hole in the roots of the big ash tree, and we buried him there .. . I mean her.

And then there was a terrific sound of guns cracking, and shouts that the rabbits were running. Some of the boys (I saw Reg and Perce tearing around) had big sticks to club them or the hares and my sister said she didn't like this part, even if it
was
nature's way and she'd rather have ice cream and satin cushions or whatever it was.

So she collected our basket and things and wandered on up to the cottage, but I stayed on and gleaned quite a lot and gave our big sheaf to Winnie Moss to add to hers. The square in the middle of the field was getting smaller and smaller, and the reaper went round and round, shaking and clattering. The men stood about with their guns in their hands and not lying across their forearms now because it was getting close to the end and the fox had to run. But I didn't really want to wait. With poor Sun dead, and full of babies, I thought I'd just go home, because everyone was getting excited and laughing and running about and Beattie Fluke called out that this was the best part of the day, but I didn't think so. So I turned and went up the lane home.