Fiona Mozley - Elmet

‘Needed money,’ said Cathy.

‘Aye, don’t we all.’

He had brought an apple with him and began shining it on his trouser leg like a cricket ball. He then raised it to his mouth and took a bite, cleaving a quarter of the apple’s flesh with a loud crack. He chewed what he had bitten off and swallowed the mouthful before turning back to us.

‘You must have got desperate if you’ve come up to work with us lot,’ he pointed out.

‘Suppose so,’ said my sister.

‘Not seen either of you before, is all, and it’s shit work, this.’

‘Is it?’ said Cathy. ‘How shit?’

‘Shit.’ He lowered his voice, ‘And bosses are right bastards. Us lot only do this work because we’ve got no other choice.’

‘How come?’

‘Most of us are just out of prison, or else our working record is so bad we can’t get owt official. Dole-wallers, the lot of us. Only bosses encourage it. They drive us up to our probation office or job centre to get our money, and they know that way they can pay us less.’

‘How much?’

‘Twenty quid for a ten hour day. Cash in hand, mind. The days are getting longer, and all. Hardly anyone wants to do it any more — not even Lithuanians — it’s not worth it. It’s just us few who’ll put up with it. We fancy an extra bit of cash on top of our dole-money for a few pints and a packet of cigarettes.’

‘I roll my own.’

‘Do you? Clever girl. You got any for me?’

Cathy took out her tobacco and began rolling a cigarette for the man. When she had finished she passed the ivory stick between the headrests of the seats in front and he placed it behind his right ear. ‘Can’t smoke it now. Will save it for later.’

‘Who is boss?’ asked Cathy.

‘Coxswain today. He’s one of worst, but none are good.’

‘Who else do you work for?’

‘All sorts. All the landowners round here. Sorting potatoes and that, and doing odd jobs. There’s casual work in slaughterhouses too. Jim Corvine’s a boss. Dave Jeffreys. Price.’

‘Price?’

‘Aye, Price. He’s one who fucking terrifies me, but we don’t see him much in person. Too important, that one.’

‘Aye but when you do see him, what’s he like?’

The man shrugged. ‘Like I say, I’ve not had much contact with him. None of us have. Only I know not to mess with him. One of lads a couple of years back, maybe it’s five years now, got his leg badly mangled in some machinery up at Price’s farm. Don’t know what work he was doing for him but it was after dark and place wandt lit properly. Well Johnno — that’s name of lad — he got talking to some men down pub and next thing I knew he were trying to get some money out of Price. Some compensation for his injuries.’

‘Did he succeed?’

‘Did he fuck. He got half his family evicted from homes. Price owned lot. Not only was he evicted but also his poor little mum, his sister with her new baby who had a flat up in Donnie, and even a fucking cousin or summat, who lived in a house of Price’s right on other side of county. All of them turfed out as quick as you like. You don’t fuck with Price, no you do not. Oh yes, there’s many of us who’d like to take that man down a peg or two but there’s few who’d dare.’

‘Would anyone dare?’

The man shrugged and took another, similar sized, bite from his apple. The edges were turning golden brown.

‘Someone who’s got nowt to lose, I suppose.’

Cathy looked at me. I felt her thigh move closer to mine and we began, unconsciously, to breath in unison, knitting ourselves together in a common cause.

The van was drawing in to the farmyard. There were some shallow outhouses made from red bricks and corrugated iron and a block of stables in the distance. There were two large barns, one of which had been painted blue and the other of which had been painted white but so long ago that the colour was flecked and faded and both barns were now for the most part the colour of metal in rain. The tall doors of the barn had been cast wide open to give the men light in which to work.

The man’s name was Gary. He told us as we were getting out of the van to begin the day’s labour. We worked close by him for the next ten hours, maybe more. We stopped for a short while for cups of tea and Cathy and I snacked on the lunch we had brought. Gary introduced us to some of the other men and he told them what we had been whispering to him while we worked. He told them that we had a daddy who thought he could bring down Mr Price or at least stand up to him. Some laughed openly and others turned away to conceal their laughter. But not all of them. Some looked me and Cathy up and down as if trying to gauge the measure of our father by sizing up his offspring. If that is what they were doing they were likely to be surprised. I was still a little lad and though Cathy had that great and alarming strength about her, she was still just a girl in their eyes. Gary, at least, seemed convinced by us. He had spoken directly to my sister after all and Cathy was nothing if not compelling. Without fail, her eyes made contact with whomever she was speaking to. She stared, blinking only occasionally, and so quickly and faintly that it could almost be missed. She did not laugh nervously where others might. She committed to her story where others were prone to waiver, and she always believed everything she said — a kind of honesty to which few could admit. There was some hope in her words, I suppose, and Gary was pinned. Through him others were convinced too and Cathy spotted a good moment to invite them up to our house as Daddy had instructed us. They were to come and we would light a bonfire, drink beer and cider, and cook meat on the open flames. A few said they would come there and then and Gary said that he would bring more. Cathy urged him to remain quiet about our business. He assured us he would be canny and I believed him. That evening we passed their names to Ewart.

Caring for a wood means huge stacks of trimming get piled up around the place. In order to let new growth fight through, overhanging branches, crumbled bark and fallen trees must be cleared. Weeds in the undergrowth must be managed. The right shoots must be let through and the wrong ones discouraged. Hazel needs to be hacked back to the stem so that it sprouts forth again severally next season like the heads of Hydra.

The multiple, thin trunks that come from hazel are useful for building fences and baskets and they form the wattle of wattle and daub walls. Daddy, with our help, had been rebuilding and extending the chicken coop with wattle and daub and something like a thatched roof, though Daddy admitted a proper thatcher would be loath to give his approximation that name.

The new chicken coop was attached to our house. Its back wall was what had been the outside of our kitchen wall, by the stove. This meant the hens could enjoy the warmth that seeped through the wood and stones, such that it did. Daddy said that most people kept their chickens at the bottom of the garden far from the human house so that the human family need not be bothered by the clucking and scratching of the birds. Daddy said this was unkind and that he would rather live with the racket than think of the creatures left needlessly cold when there was a clear and direct remedy. So we built their house tucked up close against ours. Its wattle walls were curved and crinkled like a callous on the smooth, straight lines Daddy had constructed for our home the previous year. A grotesquely large wasps’ nest glued to the side of a silver birch.

With all that work for the chickens and all the continuing work to restrain and shape the copse, the piles of woodland debris grew and grew. We burnt much of it in our stove but every now and then we set a load ablaze in an outdoor bonfire. We picked clear evenings for these, even if the cold was biting, and we stood about and warmed ourselves against the baying flames and roasted cuts of meat or vegetables or else we toasted bread as we had when we first arrived and lived out of the two vans.