The Italians at Cleat's Corner Store by Jo Riccioni Page B

‘That’s gunfire of the fairies, that is. You reckon they’s on our side?’ And he’d laugh, his hair and lashes pale with chaff, his lips red and wet as he swigged from his hipflask.
    Connie crossed the yard and saw the Burrell beyond the pig barns, the silhouettes of the gang still at work in the billowing dust. She recognised the forms of the Onorati brothers lifting sacks onto the tray of a truck. On top of the thresher, their father was bent over the drum. He was tanned and wiry and lean as a whippet, and his shorn hair, the particular curve of his back, made her remember the prisoners bent in the doorways of barns or cutting sugar beet on the ridge during the war. It surprised her now to think how little attention she had given them. Early on she had sometimes glimpsed them thistle-podding or hedging with a camp guard from Wood Walton. But even later, when they were billeted to live at Repton’s, two or three at a time, Mr Rose seemed to keep them occupied, away from the permanent hands and land girls, as if he sensed some latent danger in them, like ratting terriers that had to be kept far from the laying hens. By the time they were driving tractors and freely roaming the yard at the end of the war, she had started at Cleat’s. She spent less time at Leyton House, and her aunt, while she must have seen them, never spoke of it.
    This was how the war had been for Connie — a series of small intrusions from some other world: streamers of silver foil descending like frozen lightning over the fields; the irregular comings and goings of evacuee children in the schoolhouse; the shocking animal cries of a land girl with a telegram; a gabble of American voices in a truck overtaking her bike. It was like the war had allowed her a peek through the gaps in the hedgerows to a world beyond the villages, but by the time she was old enough to wonder at it, to hanker after it, that world was gone, and everyone was back home replanting the rents torn in their enclosures. Sometimes Mrs Cleat would tut her disapproval as she heard of Yanks from the airbase getting rowdy at the Pheasant over in Upton. And now and again a customer would ask if they had any of those bulrush baskets the WOPs used to sell at Thrapston market. Other than that, it seemed barely a trace had been left behind of this foreign world in their own — until now.
    She watched the Onorati boys among the threshing gang, enjoying the silent rhythm of their work against the droning engine. Even from a distance she could tell the difference in the shapes and movements of the two brothers: Lucio’s strength, the steady, closed way he worked; Vittorio’s limber energy, his drive to finish as quickly as possible.
    At the back door of the Big House, she could see that Mrs Cartwright, the cook, had already left for the day. Through the window the kitchen table showed uncut bread and covered cold platters, ready for Mr Repton’s supper. He didn’t eat with his wife during the bringing in. His land stretched as far as Great Siding and he always rode out to check with each of his foremen on the progress of their harvest teams. Connie had expected Mrs Repton to be alone, but as she walked around to the side of the house, hoping to be spotted by her, she heard voices coming from the open window of the library.
    â€˜You’ve seen how he treats them, Harvey,’ Mrs Repton was complaining, ‘making them sweat for every scrap he tosses their way. They’re still WOPs to him. And he always has that air  about him when he’s dealing with them.’
    â€˜What air ?’ It was Mr Gilbert. Connie recognised the vaguely bored, exasperated tone that siblings used with each other. It always made her envious, even of their bickering.
    â€˜Oh, I don’t know … it’s that self-righteous look of the bountiful victorious, I suppose.’
    Mr Gilbert laughed. ‘Oh Evie, really.’
    â€˜He