Homeland (42 page)

As the train began to slow for Athelney Station, Billy pulled his kitbag off the rack and lowered the window, ready to turn the handle. There were perhaps ten people waiting on the platform,
standing expectantly or moving towards the train. He paid them no attention until he had got off, when he looked up and noticed a smartly dressed woman reaching for a door to the next carriage. Her
neat figure, her slim legs, her stylish clothes and jaunty little hat would have marked her out in his sight at any time, but when she swung the door open and the back of her hat gave way to a
striking profile he realised with a leap of surprise that it was Annie.

He called her name and saw her hesitate and look over her shoulder to scan the platform behind her. Her gaze swung round and she finally spotted him striding towards her.

She gave a wide smile. ‘Well, if it isn’t “Guess Who”.’

Her skin was white and smooth in the morning light, her lips a shiny red. She seemed both extraordinarily familiar to him and unnervingly foreign.

‘We wondered when you were coming.’

‘Didn’t I say?’ he remarked with mock astonishment.

She shook her head.

‘Maybe I forgot.’

‘Maybe you did.’

She laughed easily, her eyes dancing. She seemed exceptionally happy. While he wanted to believe that his arrival had something to do with it, the part of him that doubted his judgement in
matters of happiness, that automatically cautioned against the risk of humiliation, told him it might not be so. He tried to read her face, to get some key to her thoughts, but saw only the bright
confident gaze.

‘Where are you off to?’ he asked.

‘To work.’

‘You found a job then?’

‘It’s only three days a week and the pay’s nothing to write home about – but yes.’

‘Enough to keep you in hats?’

She laughed. ‘Just about.’

A whistle blew.

‘So what’s this business you’re starting up?’ she demanded.

‘That would be telling.’

‘A secret, is it?’

‘Not if you’re free for a drink’ – he pretended to work out the best day – ‘tomorrow? Or another day,’ he added casually, to show he was in no
particular hurry.

The whistle sounded again on a high insistent note, but she took no notice. It was one of the things that had always attracted him so much: she answered to no one.

‘Can’t do tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Don’t laugh, but I’m helping at the village hall.’

‘Why would I laugh?’ he said.

‘Because it’s the sort of thing our mums used to do.’

Or not, he thought.

‘It’s an evening in aid of the war memorial.’

‘I thought we already had a war memorial.’

‘There isn’t enough room on it. They’ve got to buy a plinth.’

The engine sent out a whoosh of steam. Finally she got into the carriage and he closed the door behind her. She lowered the window and stuck her head out.

‘What about tonight then?’ he said.

She gave a slow smile. Her eyes were dancing again. ‘All right.’

‘Seven?’

‘Seven.’

On the level crossing the gates clanged shut across the road.

‘So?’ she said with a tilt of her jaunty little hat.

‘So?’ he replied, tilting his head in parody, mimicking her smile, having the reward of another rich laugh. In that moment it seemed to him that a look of understanding passed
between them, that her eyes told him she knew what he was thinking, and that she was thinking the same, that it was all on between them. His mood soared; he almost laughed aloud.

The train clunked into motion. He was about to ask where she’d like to go that evening when she cried, ‘Oh, I must tell you – those Poles have been amazing. Working through the
snow and the floods.’

‘Poles?’ he queried, walking alongside the train.

She nodded emphatically. ‘Never stopped for a moment, any of them.’

He was walking fast now, the train starting to outpace him. He called, ‘How many are there, for God’s sake?’

She said something he couldn’t hear, and then it was too late, she was speeding away from him. He stood and watched as she gave a bright wave and ducked back through the window.

A section of road on the far side of the level crossing was flooded. A couple were waiting for a lift on a van or lorry, but, risking a touch of mud, Billy hitched a ride on the trailer of a
passing tractor. The farmer took him up the hill as far as the crossroads. Walking briskly through the village, Billy’s mind veered erratically between thoughts of Annie and the Poles.
Never stopped for a moment, any of them.
He had a vision of a gang of Poles slashing their way down the withy beds. He could imagine all too well how the situation had come about. Polack
Johnnie had found the work too hard and too lonely and had talked Stan into hiring some of his comrades to keep him company, and Stan, gullible and pig-headed, hadn’t thought to count the
cost. Visions of the satchel being raided at weekly intervals drove Billy on at a brisk pace.

He began his audit as soon as the moor came into sight, sweeping the sheen of water for the stubble of uncut beds and finding none. Rounding the bend in the lane, he noted the gate to the track
solid on its hinges, the fences in one piece, the orchard . . . He slowed for a moment, thinking his eyes were playing tricks, but there was no mistake – the apple trees had been pruned back
to a few stunted limbs. The job seemed unnecessarily savage until it occurred to him with a spark of anger that the Poles had probably been taking the branches for firewood.

He scoured the yard ahead. The floor was clean, the area tidy. A few withies stood propped against the first line of drying rails, a dense line of hurdles against the next, while on the edge of
the pasture wisps of smoke rose from a smouldering pile of spraggle. In the withy shed stripped willows were drying beside the stripping machine, and when he touched the motor casing it was still
warm. Next to the wall was a stack of baskets and wicker trays. At first Billy thought they must be locally produced stuff, samples perhaps, but when he looked closer he realised the designs
weren’t in the usual style. One tray had a fluted edge of a type he’d never seen before, one basket was oval with a handle running from end to end.

Going back into the yard, he heard a voice somewhere behind the shed and followed it round into the orchard. He saw smoke coming from the boiler chimney before he saw the boiler itself and
Wladyslaw balanced on the side wall, loading withies into the tank with the help of a man standing below.

Wladyslaw glanced up and, taking a harder look, raised a hand in salutation. ‘Billy! Hello there.’

‘Don’t let me disturb you.’

‘I just finish.’ Wladyslaw took a bundle from the other man and manoeuvred it into the tank with a deft prod of his stick. Clambering down, he limped over and, wiping a palm on his
leg, held his hand out. ‘How are you, Billy?’

‘Couldn’t be better,’ Billy said brightly, shaking hands. ‘So how’s it all going?’

‘Not so bad.’

‘Been keeping busy, have you?’

‘Sure. The snow, the floods haven’t been so good, you know. But we manage to stay working.’

‘We? How many are you exactly?’

Wladyslaw touched a hand to his chest in a gesture of apology. ‘Forgive me, please. This is Jozef. He has been working here since January.’

Billy felt certain he had seen the bony face and fierce eyes somewhere before, but he couldn’t immediately place him.

‘How many are you?’

‘Just two.’

Billy grinned. ‘Try again, Johnnie.’

A flicker of puzzlement crossed Wladyslaw’s face before he said, ‘You mean Polish Stan?’

‘I don’t know, do I? That’s why I’m asking.’

‘Polish Stan comes from the camp maybe two, three times each week to make baskets.’

‘Does he now?’ Billy said in the same lively tone. ‘Well, well. Quite a little industry then.’

Catching the note of sarcasm, Wladyslaw’s eyes turned narrow, a wariness settled over his features.

‘Everyone been earning good money, have they?’

Wladyslaw replied calmly, ‘I earn same as before. Jozef, he does same work but on lower rate. Polish Stan, he asks only a few pence each basket.’

‘Very modest. And they just turned up, did they, your friends? Offering to help out?’ No sooner had Billy asked the question than he withdrew it with a gesture of amused scorn.
‘No – spare me the details. I think I can guess.’

‘There was much work to do, Billy.’

‘I’ll bet.’

‘After we fix the boiler we reckon that we get best money if we boil withies and make baskets and hurdles ourselves.’

‘And have you?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Got the best prices?’

‘Not so bad, I think.’

‘Where d’you sell them?’

‘The baskets in Taunton.’

Billy gave a bellow of derisive laughter. Selling baskets in Taunton was like flogging cheese in Cheddar, you could barely give the stuff away. ‘God help me,’ he spluttered
pityingly.

Wladyslaw took a handkerchief from his pocket and with concentration began to wipe his hands.

‘Taunton . . .’ Billy muttered with a benevolent shake of his head. ‘Well, I think we might
just
be able to do better than that. The boiler – how d’you fix
it?’

‘Mrs Bentham, she found this welder. The cost was not great.’

‘Mrs Bentham?’ He felt a quiet thrill at speaking Annie’s name. ‘And it’s fixed good, is it? No leaks?’

Replacing the handkerchief in his pocket, Wladyslaw regarded Billy with a steady gaze. ‘No leaks.’

As Billy ambled over to the boiler, he remembered where he’d seen this Jozef before. In the cold morning light the fellow looked even worse than when he’d been lying unconscious on
the floor of the George. With his skull-like head, sunken cheeks, and staring eyes he might have come out of a Boris Karloff film, one of the living dead.

Billy cast a cursory eye over the boiler before wandering back to Wladyslaw.

‘This basket-maker of yours . . . is he any good?’

‘Sure. He’s old chap, you know. From lakes of Poland. He makes baskets all his life.’

‘That fancy stuff I saw in the shed – that’s his, is it?’

‘Yes.’

‘He can do large stuff as well, can he?’

‘This I don’t know.’

‘Because that’s what we’re going to produce, Johnnie.’ Billy gave him a comradely slap on the back. ‘The large stuff. Laundry baskets. Haulage baskets.
Porters’ baskets. Going to send them direct to London. I’ve got it all set up. Fifty of each, just for starters.’

Wladyslaw tried to speak but Billy was still talking.

‘We can use up a lot of the hurdle wood that way. Bash ’em out quick.’

‘Billy—’

‘I might even be able to keep your friends on,’ Billy added in a spirit of generosity. ‘We’ll see how it goes.’

‘Billy, listen please. I must tell you that I am leaving. And Jozef also.’

Billy felt the cold plunge of betrayal. ‘What, you’re buggering off, are you?’

‘We wished to leave weeks ago. We wait only because we hear you are returning and we don’t want to leave Stan and Flor alone.’

‘So . . . you beg for a bloody job, you take the money for as long as it suits you – and then you just bugger off.’

‘But the cutting season is almost over, Billy. You always said—’

Billy stabbed a finger at Wladyslaw. ‘Don’t tell me what I said! Don’t talk to me about the cutting season. You can just bugger off right now, both of you! Go on! Just get the
hell out of here!’

He stalked off, only to turn on his heel and come straight back, the anger still crashing in his ears. ‘I could have you arrested – you know that?’ he said wildly.
‘You’re meant to give proper notice. That’s how we do it in this country – everyone works out their notice, fair and square. But you wouldn’t understand that, would
you, coming from where you do? From where they treat workers worse than muck.’

By the time Billy had run this argument back through his mind for flaws, Wladyslaw was saying, ‘But you never wished me to stay, Billy. You always said this. You always said . . .’
Reading Billy’s expression he abandoned the argument with a dip of his head and half turned towards Jozef as if to consult about something. Thinking better of it he looked back and said,
‘If you wish me to stay for one week more, then I will do this.’

‘Wait a minute, wait a minute,’ Billy said, in a tone of sudden enlightenment. ‘I get it. You’ve had a better offer. You’ve been promised more money.’

Wladyslaw gave Billy the look that had always irritated him so much: the quiet stare with the hint of reproach, the air of moral rectitude. ‘It is not money, Billy. I will go to university
to study. And Jozef, he will try for building work in Bristol.’

‘You’ve got it all worked out then.’

Wladyslaw was silent.

‘Well, you can go to hell, both of you. And you can go right now. Go on – bugger off!’

Wladyslaw’s calmness finally deserted him. He said with a spark of anger, ‘Sunday is first time we can leave. Nothing is possible before Sunday.’

‘Please yourself.’

‘You wish us to stop now, or finish these withies?’ Wladyslaw threw a hand towards the boiler.

‘I told you – do what the hell you like.’

Billy marched down to the house and entered the kitchen with a bang of the door.

Stan was standing in front of the table as if he’d been waiting for him. Flor was propped in a chair by the range, weeping, a handkerchief pressed to her eyes.

‘What’s she crying for?’ Billy demanded.

Stan shook his head. ‘It was the schoolmistress.’

‘What’re you talking about?’

‘Wladislaw wouldn’t be going if she hadn’t thrown him over for that Hanley fellow. He’d have stayed till autumn-time.’

Billy dropped his bag onto the floor. ‘Well, he’s not staying, is he? So you’ll have to make do with me.’

Annie answered Billy’s knock almost immediately and stepped out with a smile. Before closing the door she called a farewell to someone called Margaret, presumably the
babysitter.

At the gate he offered her his arm and she looped her hand easily through his elbow. She seemed as self-possessed as ever, yet beneath the surface he thought he could sense an edge of tension
not unlike his own. She was, after all, publicly stepping out with him, she had gone to the trouble of arranging a babysitter; it was a statement of, if not intent, then at least strong
possibilities.