Marina Lewycka: Two Caravans

Yola’s eyes narrow as she watches the Ukrainian girl wander along the strawberry rows as if she had all the time in the world to fill those punnets. Out in the strawberry field it’s the hierarchy of the check-in that matters. Several times a day, the farmer counts the trays of punnets, checks them in, stacks them on pallets in the prefab, and notes down who has earned what. The women generally earn less. The men earn more. The supervisor of course earns the most.

Yola is both the gang-mistress and the supervisor. As a former teacher, she is a person of natural authority and a woman of action. It is her belief that maintaining a pleasant sexual harmony within the picking team is the key to success, and for this reason she encourages the men to take their shirts off in the sun.

She doesn’t want any griping or unpleasant comments behind her back, especially from those Ukrainians, now there are two of them. Not that she has anything against Ukrainians, but it is her belief that the high point of Ukrainian civilisation was its brief occupation by Poland, though the civilising effects were clearly quite short-lived and superficial. To be fair, this Ukrainian boy Andriy is quite a gentleman as well as a good picker, but he is inclined to moodiness, and he thinks too much. Thinking is not good for a man. He is quite nice-looking, though of course he is much too young for her, and she isn’t the type of woman to seduce a boy half her age, though she knows some who are in Zdroj, which she will tell you about later.

Yes, if only there were more good pickers like that. Nobody understands the problems she faces, for her pay depends not just on her own efforts but on the performance of the good-for-nothing team she supervises in the field. She tells them-but will they listen?-to pick strawberries just right. Too white and farmer will reject. Too ripe and shops complain. And you have to handle correctly, and drop gently-don’t throw-into punnet. She tells them, and they just carry on exactly the same as before. Really, she is getting too old for this game.

This is her second summer as a supervisor, her seventh summer in England, and the forty-seventh summer of her life. She is beginning to think she has had enough. During those seven summers she has picked almost fifty tonnes of strawberries for the Dumpling, and the income from this, added to the extra sums paid for additional services of a private nature, have allowed her to buy a pretty three-roomed bungalow on the outskirts of Zdroj with half a hectare of garden that leads down to the Prosna River where her son Mirek can potter around to his heart’s content. She has a photo in her purse of Mirek in the garden sitting on a rope-swing that hangs from the branch of a cherry tree in full blossom. Ah, those little smiling eyes! When he was born, she had to make a difficult choice-give up her job or put him in an institution. Well, she has seen those institutions, thank you very much. Then someone at the school said they were recruiting strawberry-pickers for England, and her sister said she would look after Mirek for the summer, so she seized the opportunity. And what woman of action but of limited choices would not do the same?

Last autumn she invested some of her strawberry money in a pair of Masurian goats and this year there are two snow-white kids running about in the garden, bleating, jumping over each other, nibbling at the dahlias and generally causing mayhem. She was thinking of those kids as she lay on the straw in the back of the Dumpling’s Land Rover last night looking up at the swaying roof, while he toiled and puffed away above her. And she smiled to herself and let out some delightful bleating noises, which the Dumpling mistook for cries of pleasure.

Usually Yola brings a team of pickers she has recruited locally in Zdroj, for there were always people desperate for a bit of cash since they closed the millinery factory, but this year nobody wants to come, because now Poland is in Europe marketing why should they work for that kind of money when they can earn better money legally? Three friends who were supposed to be coming let her down at the last minute, and she has brought only Marta and Tomasz to England with her. The Dumpling has had to find additional labour through other agents of a more shady character, and has even hinted that he will not renew her contract. Just let him dare-we will see what the wife has to say.

Being a supervisor is not as easy as you think. You have to deal with all types of personality. That Tomasz, for instance, has been hanging around making eyes at her, well, that is in itself not so surprising, as she is generally thought to be an attractive woman, but at the end of the day he has come to England to pick strawberries, not for any activities of a more carnal nature, for which there are plenty enough opportunities back in Poland, Lord help us.

Or take Marta, her niece-her religious airs are enough to put anyone off sainthood.

“Are you OK, Ciocia?” she asked, the first time she saw Yola lying on the ground with her shapely legs stretched in front of her, breathing deeply with her eyes closed.

“I am letting the sun enter my body to warm me from inside like a good husband. Why don’t you do the same, Marta?”

“Why would I want the sun for a husband?” Marta said sniffily. “I will let the spirit of the Lord warm me from inside.”

Probably her excessive piety is not her fault. She could only have learnt it from her mother, Yola’s sister, who although very kind when it comes to looking after Mirek, can be extremely irritating. Well, it’s one thing to go to church and ask for forgiveness for your own sins, but quite another thing to rub other people’s noses in theirs.

And while we’re on the subject of noses, it is of course not Malta ’s fault that hers is so big, but maybe it is why she has so little discrimination when it comes to men, for she seems to be drawn to the most unsuitable types and obvious sinners, like Vitaly, for example. Yes, Yola has observed the way Marta’s eyes follow him about the field, and she doesn’t want the poor girl to be taken advantage of. She knows that type of man. She was married to one, once.

As for this new girl, Irina, she is far too free and easy with that dimply smile of hers, and Yola has noticed the way the Dumpling’s eyes linger on her longer than is strictly necessary. She picks strawberries that are more white than red, and answers back when Yola politely draws this to her attention, and sniffs when Yola tries to teach her the correct handling technique, which is like this, you have to cradle them in your palm from below, never more than two at a time, like a man’s testicles. Don’t squeeze them, Irina!

OK, I admit I wasn’t the fastest strawberry-picker, but I didn’t need that bossy Polish auntie to point it out to me in that vulgar way.

This was my fourth day here, and I still couldn’t believe the pain in my back and knees every time I bent down to strawberry level. When I stood and straightened up, my bones creaked and groaned like an old woman’s.

The Ukrainian boy would slip fruit into my punnets when the men’s rows and the women’s rows came together, which was nice of him, but I wished he wouldn’t stare at me like that. Once when I sat down for a rest, he came and sat beside me and popped a strawberry in my mouth. Well, I could hardly spit it out, could I? But he’d better not start getting any ideas, because I haven’t come all this way to spend my time fending off the advances of a miner from Donbas.

I had enough of it fending off advances from the boys at school. They were generally primitive types who just wanted to grab all the time-not very romantic-and they had no idea whatsoever about tender words and gallant gestures. In my opinion, everyone should read War and Peace , which is the most romantic book ever written, as well as the most tragic. When Natasha and Pierre come together at last, it gives you a feeling inside that is quite fiery in its intensity. That’s the sort of love I’m waiting for-not a quick thrash behind the bushes which is what all the boys seem to be interested in.