Homeland (29 page)

‘Well, you’ve come to the right place all right!’ someone bellowed. The ensuing laughter was sudden and strident, like a release of tension.

‘You be in the right place if you be looking for cider an’ all!’

Wladyslaw joined in the general laughter, and found the cadaverous old man swaying at his shoulder, pressing a jar of cider into his hand.

‘So where you wantin’ to get to then?’ called a heavy man leaning against the cider press.

‘I don’t know name of this place.’

‘The name o’ this place! Can’t say we’re too sure neither, are we, lads?’ roared a joker. ‘Not by this stage o’ the day!’

When the laughter had died down, the heavy man said, ‘Sounds like you gone and got yerself well and truly lost.’

‘I think so, yes.’

‘Where you hail from then?’ he asked.

Wladyslaw knew perfectly well what he meant, but partly to maintain the jovial atmosphere, partly to postpone the moment of explanation, he answered, ‘Crick Farm.’

This was met by another wave of laughter. The joker, a wiry young man with rolling eyes, shouted: ‘You got ter find Crick Farm all right then, did yer?’

‘They tell me so.’

One man was helpless with laughter, mopping his eyes with a handkerchief, while another was clutching the cider press for support.

Wladyslaw added ingenuously, ‘It is very wet place certainly.’

Amidst the roaring and howling, Wladyslaw became aware of an immobile figure on the periphery of his vision. Turning, he found himself looking into a pair of cold eyes set in a fleshy unsmiling
face.

‘So where you from before that?’ the man asked.

The laughter began to subside a little.

‘Poland.’

The man turned to the others and raised his eyebrows. ‘Hear that, lads?
Poland.
’ Then to Wladyslaw: ‘Long ways away from here.’

Wladyslaw took a sip of the cider, which was rich and cloudy. ‘Yes.’

Laughter continued to ripple around the room, but the mood had became more attentive.

‘How long you aiming to stay with us then?’

‘I don’t know this yet.’

‘Like it well enough, though, I’ll be bound?’

‘Sure.’

‘’Course he does,’ chipped in a cheery voice. ‘Can’t do no better than Somerset. Cider and sunshine and bugger-all to do.’

During the flurry of laughter and comment that followed, the cold-eyed man continued to gaze at Wladyslaw. He was short and bull-necked, with wiry fair hair, small eyes and white lashes, and
skin that was pink and blotchy, as though he lived off a diet of milk and lard.

‘You working for Billy Greer then, are you?’

‘Yes.’

‘What, cutting withies?’

‘Yes.’

The man looked down at Wladyslaw’s hands, as if to check for missing fingers. ‘Well, if you’re with Billy you’ve fetched up in the wrong yard. He don’t bring his
withies here. He goes to the Honeymans.’

‘And where are the Honeymans, please?’

‘You’re a way out.’

‘He not be the only one neither!’ offered the joker. ‘Us all be a way out today!’

With a tip of his head, the pink-faced man gestured Wladyslaw towards the door. ‘I’ll point you in the right direction.’

‘I’ll be needing some pointing in the right direction myself, at this rate,’ cried the cheery voice.

There were shouts of, ‘We’ll get you home, Charlie!’ ‘By Christmas at the latest!’ ‘Never lost you yet, Charlie.’

At the door Wladyslaw gave a brief wave and received a rumble of goodbyes and a couple of raised jars by way of reply.

‘Happy fellows,’ he remarked as they walked away.

The pink-faced man was staring openly at Wladyslaw’s limp. ‘They’re marking the apple harvest.’ The eyes went up to the fresh scratch on Wladyslaw’s cheek and back
to his leg as if the one might explain the other. ‘But then you lot ain’t averse to a few drinks neither.’

‘Sometimes, sure.’

‘Difference is, you’ve no ’ead for it.’

The note of truculence was unmistakable and Wladyslaw gave a nod that was deliberately vague.

When they reached the gates, the pink-faced man turned and gave Wladyslaw a narrow sidelong glare. ‘Don’t go down too well hereabouts, see. Strangers coming and causing a
ruckus.’

‘A ruckus?’ Wladyslaw asked with sinking heart.

The other man was eager to enlighten him. ‘Tuesday night, two of your lot come into the George with some gyppos and started an altercation. Fisticuffs and all. But we don’t like
rough stuff round here, see? We’re not that sort of folk. We don’t go making trouble, and we don’t like trouble coming our way. Best for you lot to stay away. Best for all
concerned.’ He added in a tone of blatant insincerity, ‘No offence.’

Billy had told Wladyslaw about two Poles who’d had too much to drink, but he’d made no mention of a fight.

‘I have not heard of this,’ said Wladyslaw.

‘Well, it was your friends all right.’

‘Maybe they are not my friends.’

‘What’re you talkin’ about?’ the other man argued indignantly. ‘They were in uniform, the Polish marks right there, clear as day.’ He jabbed a finger towards
the top of his shoulder.

There was something about this man that made Wladyslaw loath to concede more than he had to. ‘I’m sorry if these Polish soldiers make trouble,’ he said, ‘but these are
just two men. Most Polish soldiers do not do such things.’

‘Well, I’m just telling you, aren’t I? I’m just warning you.’

Wladyslaw knew he should leave the matter there, but he heard himself say, ‘I do not have the honour of your name.’

‘Carr,’ the other man muttered after a pause. ‘Frank Carr.’

‘Well, Mr Carr, I hope that I myself as a Polish soldier will not be unwelcome in your pub.’

The cold eyes were small and sharp and pink-looking in their surround of white lashes. They reminded Wladyslaw of a hog.

‘Suit yerself,’ Carr said tightly. ‘So long as everyone takes care to watch theirselves.’

‘I will be sure to watch myself with much attention.’

The white lids blinked rapidly, the cheeks became a patchwork of pink and white.

‘And the direction, please, to Honeymans’ yard?’

Frank Carr jerked his head up the lane, in the direction Wladyslaw had come from. ‘Straight as you go, three-quarters of a mile on your right.’

‘Thank you for your help, Mr Carr.’

The small mouth tightened and twitched, before the fleshy head gave a stiff nod.

Wladyslaw walked as fast as he could, but by the time he reached the Honeymans’ yard Billy had already unloaded half the trailer. Bracing himself for the sharp edge of Billy’s
tongue, he was surprised to be met by a raised eyebrow and a sardonic smile.

‘Lose our grip, did we?’

‘I fell into this hedge.’ Wladyslaw touched the scratch on his cheek by way of evidence.

‘Pull the other one. I saw the schoolteacher, remember.’

Wladyslaw patted the book tucked inside his shirt. ‘She brought me this English grammar.’

‘Course she did. And she’ll be bringing you a lot more if you’re not careful,’ Billy said in the voice of doom. ‘Like trouble.’

Laughing this off, Wladyslaw set to work unloading. Yet as the two of them crossed back and forth between the trailer and the growing stack of withies, he was aware of Billy eyeing him tensely,
with what might have been concern, and a small worm of doubt began to uncurl in his stomach. Finally he demanded, ‘What the hell, Billy?’

Billy aligned some bundles against the stack before turning to face him. ‘Thing is, Johnnie, she’s got a bloke already.’

Wladyslaw felt the stillness come over him that was his defence against bad news.

‘She’s sold on her cousin, so they say. Name of Lyndon Hanley.’

Wladyslaw saw from his expression that it was true.

‘Only heard this minute. Otherwise I’d’ve told you before.’

Disappointment came slowly to Wladyslaw, in small nudges, interspersed by occasional flurries of denial.

‘But I tell you, Johnnie boy, she must have a screw loose if she fancies that berk.’ Catching Wladyslaw’s frown of incomprehension, Billy tapped a finger to his temple.
‘She must be bonkers.’

‘Why?’

‘Because the man’s a pain in the neck and about every other part of the anatomy that you care to mention, that’s why.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean he’s a self-satisfied sod who thinks he’s a cut above the rest of us. I mean I wouldn’t trust him further than I could throw him. I mean he’s a nasty piece
of work.’

Wladyslaw pondered this statement with rising alarm. ‘A nasty piece of work. What is this, please?’

‘It’s what is says. It’s—’ But at that moment a hearty voice called Billy’s name and a jovial man with a big face shambled across the shed to shake his hand.
The man cast a long unabashed look over Wladyslaw before giving Billy a heavy wink of approval. As acquisitions went, it seemed Wladyslaw had been judged a fair buy.

The two men wandered off into the yard. Billy reappeared a minute later to tell Wladyslaw to make his own way home.

If the village had seemed deserted earlier that morning, it was almost busy by the time Wladyslaw started back. First there was a young couple, happy and carefree, who smiled at him. Then a
hurrying woman who glared suspiciously and a weather-beaten man on a bicycle who fixed him with a fierce frown. Thinking the older people were simply unaccustomed to strangers, Wladyslaw soon had
reason to think again as a couple of farmhands gave him the shortest of nods and muttered under their breath as they strode by, and an elderly couple, avoiding his eye, drew their grandchildren to
the other side of the road. These reactions, quite unlike those he’d experienced in Middlezoy not an hour’s walk down the road, puzzled him deeply until it came to him with the jolt of
the obvious that they knew who he was and had condemned him by association with the troublemakers at the George.

Sometimes on outings from the convalescent home the Polish flashes on his shoulder had made him a target for scorn, but, determined to bear his uniform proudly, feeling he had nothing to
apologise for, he had shrugged off the occasional stares and taunts. But now he was a civilian, a working man in a working community, he knew that these things could no longer be shrugged off, that
he must accept these people’s judgements, however unwarranted, and for the first time since arriving in Britain he felt a small chill of vulnerability.

There were no more people once he turned down the lane to the moor. Reaching the last bend, he saw that the low mist of the early morning had evaporated to reveal drifts of water lying over the
moor in sheets, ribbons and ponds. Even where stretches of pasture still showed, the grass glinted and shimmered with wetness. Stopping to stare, it seemed to him that the whole landscape oozed
softly, as though the water were seeping up through the thin membrane of the earth from a vast reservoir beneath.

In the absence of any other instructions, he spent the rest of the morning rooting through the clumpy grass in the orchard for the last fall of apples. Stooping, gathering, pushing the loaded
handcart up the slope towards the meagre pile of apples, the word
nasty
rang and rang in his brain. It was a word he understood to mean unpleasant, but which took on increasingly dark and
oppressive meanings with each push of the handcart.

At midday on his way to the house for food, he stopped at the apple store to look it up in the dictionary. He translated the word back and forth several times to obtain all possible gradations
and variations of meaning: unpleasant, offensive,
malevolent
, ill-natured,
abusive
. . . Each sense sent a fresh dart of dismay and bewilderment into his heart.

Emerging from the apple store, he saw that Billy had returned and was disappearing down the drove in the direction of the moor, armed with a woollen hat, a sack of decoy ducks and a shotgun.

Wladyslaw passed the afternoon in the apple store, sitting at his makeshift desk, huddled under a blanket to spare himself the fumes of the paraffin stove, attempting to study but thinking
almost continuously of Stella. He found it incredible that she should like, let alone love, an openly unpleasant man, but even supposing for a moment it were true, then he couldn’t believe
she wouldn’t have found some way to let him know she was unattainable. She couldn’t have failed to noticed the joy he had in her company, the element of hope; she was surely too
honourable, too sincere to allow misunderstandings of such a heartless kind.

He remembered a favourite proverb of his father’s: it is a wise man who knows when to give up and a foolish man who falters at the first obstacle. In this case, the obstacles were
considerable. Even if Stella were free he had nothing to offer her in the way of money, shelter or worldly goods, either now or in the immediate future. Yet while his logic urged him to accept
defeat, his heart ached with wild hope and irrepressible optimism. He could not believe that this wondrous creature had been put into his path only to be stolen away by ‘a nasty piece of
work’.

At dusk he finally gave up the struggle to study. Going into the farmhouse, he found the kitchen commandeered by Billy, who was filling a zinc tub with hot water from a collection of kettles and
pans crammed onto the top of the range. Retreating to the apple store once again, Wladyslaw returned half an hour later to find Billy dressed in a suit and crisp white shirt, combing his hair at
the mirror on the mantelshelf.

‘You go to the dance?’

‘I do not go to the dance,’ said Billy, mimicking Wladyslaw’s accent. ‘The dance is for straw-chewing clodhoppers.’ He slid the comb into his pocket and smoothed
his hair down with the palms of both hands. ‘I go into Taunton with a lady for dinner.’ Billy pulled on his raincoat and, with a last smooth of his hair, put a change of shoes into his
knapsack and made for the door. ‘Don’t even think of waking me in the morning, will you, Johnnie?’

‘I value my life too much. Have a good evening, Billy.’

He got a rare smile. ‘I will.’

Wladyslaw decided against going out that night. There would be no pleasure in going to the pub alone, and he had no appetite for dancing with anyone but Stella. Instead, he played canasta with
Stan and listened inattentively to his tales of the flood of 1929.