it got dark. Walter can still feel her rough kiss between his teeth. Mary is dragging her boots, singing some kind of song. Walter likes to sing too – you do when you're walking, working, worshipping – but not the way Mary sings, like a bird shot in the breast.
Sugar-beeting would start soon, a hard job, nobody liked it, but there were always plenty of lads willing for the shilling. Hilda Brown objected to her son spending all his time in the fields, but she allowed Walter to help at harvest, and he regularly earned a few coins here and there. A shilling an acre he would get for pulling up docks and half a crown for singling mangolds, which was another back-breaking task. Hilda, however, had kept a careful eye out for signs of passion in her son. His employment was waiting for him at the Water Company. His father and grandfather worked their way up. He must be ready to begin his ascent, the same. She bought him his first suit and shoes before he left school to make certain his future was set, to see off any ideas that came in the night to ruin everything. This way her boy would be steady and secure. Not for him farming, skilled labour, craftsmanship; unreliable trades, dependent on the weather or the times or a glut of customers. The Water Company needed no such encouragements.
Walter and Mary walk the dusty lane between the uncut hedges. As the rabbits scattered at the neck of the woods, Walter shot them all with his imaginary twelve-bore and Mary makes the noise of their cries. A smell of stocks and yarrow thickens the air now and there is a scent too of cut corn with a spice of horse dung. Just here a hare was killed last night, a doe. Her leverets will starve until they are finished off by the fox. The dry dust hangs high, gauzing the sun, softening the distant line of ragged elms that marks the field's boundary.
'D'you want to marry me then?'
'No,' Walter replies, not unkindly.
Mary looks behind and sees their bootprints in the dust. She stamps harder to make a better impression.
'Well, I don't care,' she says.
To take her mind off Walter's response she remembers that to find the North Star you have to first find the Plough. You follow the two stars at the end of the tip of the Plough upwards until you get to the brightest star, and that star is the North Star. A ploughman had told her that. His name was Swift. You only knew their last names. Ploughmen knew about the sky as well as the ground. Tonight she would take a look for that bright star and make a wish and then Walter had better look out. It would be a secret else it would not come true.
'Bugga you, then, Wally Wallflower. Clear off then.'
Walter looks at her, smeared with dust, stamping her feet like a baby, and he thinks, after you kiss a girl they go queer. He will remember that.
Charles Sankey had none of the old traditional skills of the local craftsmen: the bodgers, caners, polishers and cabinetmakers. He worked in one of the new automated chair factories in Wycombe – the chair shop they called it. He worked maskless in a spray booth, using methylated spirit as a solvent. When the fumes overwhelmed him he opened the door for ventilation and if that didn't work he tried a sacred song and that always did the trick. The work was not bad, he thought, a bit cold in winter, even after you got the wood burners going; when it was cold you needed to keep the doors closed and the chemical vapours would hang in the air and burn everyone's eyes and throats. You got used to the sickly smell; Sankey found smoking a cigarette helped. Of course contrariwise the chair shop was hot in summertime and then everyone boiled over chronic. Often Sankey and the others would be put on short time due to the lack of customer demand and, depending on the time of year, this would get them into the fruit orchards or fields for harvesting and clear their heads of fumes and dust.
Sankey took to cherry-picking. Fruit it was in actual fact that made this place famous. They had
Sugar-beeting would start soon, a hard job, nobody liked it, but there were always plenty of lads willing for the shilling. Hilda Brown objected to her son spending all his time in the fields, but she allowed Walter to help at harvest, and he regularly earned a few coins here and there. A shilling an acre he would get for pulling up docks and half a crown for singling mangolds, which was another back-breaking task. Hilda, however, had kept a careful eye out for signs of passion in her son. His employment was waiting for him at the Water Company. His father and grandfather worked their way up. He must be ready to begin his ascent, the same. She bought him his first suit and shoes before he left school to make certain his future was set, to see off any ideas that came in the night to ruin everything. This way her boy would be steady and secure. Not for him farming, skilled labour, craftsmanship; unreliable trades, dependent on the weather or the times or a glut of customers. The Water Company needed no such encouragements.
Walter and Mary walk the dusty lane between the uncut hedges. As the rabbits scattered at the neck of the woods, Walter shot them all with his imaginary twelve-bore and Mary makes the noise of their cries. A smell of stocks and yarrow thickens the air now and there is a scent too of cut corn with a spice of horse dung. Just here a hare was killed last night, a doe. Her leverets will starve until they are finished off by the fox. The dry dust hangs high, gauzing the sun, softening the distant line of ragged elms that marks the field's boundary.
'D'you want to marry me then?'
'No,' Walter replies, not unkindly.
Mary looks behind and sees their bootprints in the dust. She stamps harder to make a better impression.
'Well, I don't care,' she says.
To take her mind off Walter's response she remembers that to find the North Star you have to first find the Plough. You follow the two stars at the end of the tip of the Plough upwards until you get to the brightest star, and that star is the North Star. A ploughman had told her that. His name was Swift. You only knew their last names. Ploughmen knew about the sky as well as the ground. Tonight she would take a look for that bright star and make a wish and then Walter had better look out. It would be a secret else it would not come true.
'Bugga you, then, Wally Wallflower. Clear off then.'
Walter looks at her, smeared with dust, stamping her feet like a baby, and he thinks, after you kiss a girl they go queer. He will remember that.
Charles Sankey had none of the old traditional skills of the local craftsmen: the bodgers, caners, polishers and cabinetmakers. He worked in one of the new automated chair factories in Wycombe – the chair shop they called it. He worked maskless in a spray booth, using methylated spirit as a solvent. When the fumes overwhelmed him he opened the door for ventilation and if that didn't work he tried a sacred song and that always did the trick. The work was not bad, he thought, a bit cold in winter, even after you got the wood burners going; when it was cold you needed to keep the doors closed and the chemical vapours would hang in the air and burn everyone's eyes and throats. You got used to the sickly smell; Sankey found smoking a cigarette helped. Of course contrariwise the chair shop was hot in summertime and then everyone boiled over chronic. Often Sankey and the others would be put on short time due to the lack of customer demand and, depending on the time of year, this would get them into the fruit orchards or fields for harvesting and clear their heads of fumes and dust.
Sankey took to cherry-picking. Fruit it was in actual fact that made this place famous. They had
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