CASUAL LABOUR
I paused and looked down closely at the bowl of gooseberries, before pouring on the cream.They looked like fat little striped footballs about to split and explode. Or maybe short bulbous, hairy, zeppelins. Curious. Fancy eating HAIRY things. Come to think of it, I suppose most fruit is hairy if you look close enough at it. So are people. I gazed at the back of my hand holding the jug. My wife hates gooseberries. I wasn't so sure I liked them anymore.
The rain slashed against the window panes as the wind bent over our one little tree in the tiny garden. I poured on the cream, burying their hairy greenness under a thick white mantle. Summer's gone, I thought. Slowly I exhumed one and put it in my mouth - funny you can't taste the hairs - and then chewed. The sudden release of bright sparkling acid cleansed away the sticky taste of cream.
Summer. It had been hot for weeks. People complained. The streets were dry, littered and dusty. "Can't stand this heat," they'd say, "terrible for old folk. Wish it would rain, clean the streets down, cool us off a bit. Just for a night.. .Going on holiday next week. Hope the weather lasts!"
You could tell who was out of work. We had all turned into brown people, a different race, a race apart. The lines at the dole office looked more like a queue for customs at the airport, except no-one held on to a silly stuffed donkey or wore a big straw hat. Or clutched bottles of duty-free to console themselves with.
It's nice lounging in the sun in the back garden day after day. The rich do it with cocktails. I wondered if they ever got bored. Someone said to me you can get bored with anything, even being pissed in the afternoon, especially if it doesn't bring the money in. The rich can get pissed AND earn money.
"Here you are," said Jenny, "solved your problem for a day or two anyway. How would you like to be out in the sun all day and get paid for it?" Some times I think she is one of the chrysalids. She held up the evening paper, finger below an advert in the part-time column.
" Raspberry pickers wanted urgently. Several days work. No phone calls. Woodley Farm, Knutsford. I should take a butty-box. Will sandwiches and a scotch egg do?" I nodded. Fait accompli. "I should start early, it's a fair way to Knutsford isn't it?" she said.
The day dawned bright and clear, no sign of rain, and promising a scorching hot afternoon. Half-past eight found me wandering down a leafy country lane, singing to myself, bag over my shoulder. The farm was easy to find, there were signs all the way from the village: 'Come and pick your own fruit or buy it cheap at our shop!' I turned into a cobbled courtyard and joined a short queue of lads. One of them looked over and nodded towards me. Nobody spoke. I took a lead from this and nodded back but kept quiet, concentrating my attention on the old farm buildings, the cobblestones, and eventually the lads themselves. Students, I thought, just as I imagined a lot would be, probably out to make some beer money during the vacation. Some more people arrived and tagged on behind me. Three more boys and a girl. Two of them, judging from their whispered conversation, were geography students. I wondered what sort of a job you could get with a degree in geography.
Then a small curly-haired woman arrived, together with two girls. One was obviously her daughter. They lit cigarettes and started to chatter and giggle. Unlike the students, who all wore shorts, tee-shirts and stout boots or shoes, the girls were dressed to go to town. One wore a tight fitting outfit with black tights and high heels. The other, who was dark-haired and pretty, wore a kind of school uniform, mini-length, from beneath which sprouted amazing flounced petticoat trousers down to her calves. She balanced on thin high heeled- shoes. They continued to giggle and eyed up the boys in front of me.
The line grew and began to sprawl around the courtyard, becoming noisier with each new addition. I found myself facing a man with a strabismus. I tried not to stare at him too obviously and wondered if he saw two of everything to our one, or just somehow switched the odd eye off. He looked as if he hadn't washed or shaved for a couple of weeks. With him was a boy who was fatter and taller, but obviously related.The boy kept sweeping back lank, greasy hair and grinning inanely at nothing in particular.
The babble quietened to a hush, and I noticed a pleasant, friendly-faced man had appeared at the head of the queue. He smiled and asked in a soft voice,
"All raspberry pickers?" We nodded and waited for his instructions in silence. "The Boss will be up from the fields in a minute. He'll fetch you over in the van." The man disappeared again into one of the farm buildings. We hadn't long to wait. A screech of brakes announced the arrival of the boss, who leaped out of a rusty and dented old doormobile almost before it had stopped.
"As many as you can get in the back of the van, quick as you like," he shouted. This should have been my first presentiment, an omen for the day. He was small and round, but with bulging muscles on his hairy arms and legs. He wore faded dirty jeans cut off roughly above his knees. He swelled visibly as he shouted. I was sure he was hairy all over. In my mind's eye he began to turn green and stripey...
"Raspberry fields all full. You'll be picking gooseberries. If you don't like that then you'd better leave now!"
We started to pile in the back of the van. As the girl in the petticoat trousers climbed in, the boss stopped her grabbing hold of her elbow firmly.
"You can come in the front with me. Bring your friend, there's plenty of room," his face approximated to a smile, "but put your fag out." He turned and shouted in a different but equally unpleasant voice, "Can you all dimp your fags. There's no smoking from now on. If any ash falls in the fruit baskets they're no good. Market won't 'ave 'em. Hygiene, right! If I catch you smoking you're off the job."
The girls put out their cigarettes and trooped round the front of the van, leaving mother to clamber in the back with the rest of us. When we were all finally crushed up like pilchards in a tin, the boss yelled,
"Push up, we can get another two in." They must have ended up with their legs dangling out the back of the van, because he couldn't shut the doors.
"Jesus, sodding gooseberries!" came a voice from opposite me. It was the man with the cock-eye. Somehow he and his gormless looking son had managed to get in the first vanload."! wouldn't 'ave come if I'd knowed it was BLEEDING gooseberries."
"Bleeding's right, mate," said a man with rusty hair and freckles. He was still smoking a dimp nipped between his forefinger and thumb. The colour of the finger matched his hair.
The van bumped off slowly, bouncing us against each other. We were too tightly packed to fall over, but I wondered if we might not all end up sliding out the open back. I didn't relish the idea of ending up as sandwich filling between the cock-eyed man and his greasy-haired son.
"Gooseberries are better anyway," gingerhead continued, "you'll fill your baskets quicker AND they pay more." The van bumped and bounced on, squashing us intimately against one another.
"Mind your head on the sides," the boss shouted over his shoulder. Too late for some judging by the thuds and groans that came from around me. A sudden jerk piled us all forward, resulting in some squeals and genial laughter.
"Everyone out. Mrs. Jones will show you what to do. Don't start till she tells you to. And DON'T put any baskets on the paths through the field."
I crawled towards the open doors. Not having been able to see out, I'd become totally disoriented. We might be in France for all I knew. I jumped down and walked round the side of the van, stretching my legs in exaggerated steps, to be pulled up short, frozen to the spot as I looked up. Beneath an impossible, cloudless, cerulean sky lay endless rows of green gooseberry bushes, in lines that stretched on over the brow of the hill to disappear from sight, probably to meet only in the infinite.
"Christ!" somebody breathed over my shoulder, "do we have to pick all that lot?" I heard a shrill voice begin to issue instructions,
"Collect six baskets each, and fill them till they're level about an inch from the top, no more. Don't forget to turn down the tags here on the handle, or they'll tip up. Start from where you can see those people are up to over there, and strip each bush completely except for the little ones, before you move on. And don't just whip the ones off the top that are easy. If he sees you doing that he'll send you right back behind the others! When you've filled your baskets bring them down to me and I'll check them in against your name, O.K.?"
I claimed my six and walked up to a virgin spot just ahead of the rest, not too far in advance, and sat down. From this new eye level, the sight to the horizon was just as amazing as my first view had been. Now I knew how Sisyphus must have felt, faced with his endless task. I imagined pushing a giant gooseberry up to the brow of the field, sweating and panting, only to watch it roll all the way back down again.
A sharp prick from a needle-like thorn ended my daydream abruptly. It had drawn blood. I sucked the injured thumb and then began to concentrate on plucking the berries off carefully, dropping them into the basket, where they made a peculiarly hollow, comical sound as they bounced on the bottom. I worked slowly, pulling off each one singly, but leaving the little ones alone to grow. Occasionally I was pricked again, especially when a berry came off suddenly and the branch whipped back against my hands. Muffled curses floated across the field, evidence that I wasn't going to be the only martyr by the end of the day. I soon noticed that all the fruit hung down underneath the branches, and by lifting each branch by its tip, I could strip off all the berries from the heel up, collecting them in the palm of my hand until it was full. When dropped, this made a much more profitable sound in the basket.
By now the sun was pleasantly warm, and sitting on the dry, brown earth I felt like a child again. I remembered sitting amongst the raspberry canes in a friend's garden, reaching up, pulling down the ripe, red fruit and cramming them in my mouth till the juice dribbled down my chin. Now, just as in childhood, a voice uncomfortably close to my ear ended the reverie. I imagined Nemesis in the shape of a short, fat hairy man leaning over my shoulder.... It was the friendly-faced man from the farm courtyard.
"Not filled all your baskets yet?" he asked. "If you take yourself off over there, by the path, I think you'll find the berries are a bit bigger than they are here." He smiled. I stood up, dusted down my trousers, grabbed the baskets and made off in the direction he had pointed to. I found myself working next to the two fancily dressed girls and the ginger haired bloke.
"Found out where the ripe juicy ones are, mate?" He grinned and winked at me. "Anyone fancy a quick drag?"
"No thanks," the pretty one answered, "if you get caught they'll send you home. Didn't you hear what he said?"
"You won't get caught if you get down between the bushes," he replied, eyeing the taught backside of her friend in the tight dress, bent over a bush.
"Not likely, they'll still see the smoke."
"Please yourself. Are you with me, mate?"
"Err, no thank you, if you don't mind. I'll carry on picking," I said. "I think I'm a bit behind everyone else."
"How many baskets you filled then?"
"About four and a half."
"I'm on me sixth. That'll be about a quid an' a half. Nearly a packet of fags and a pint. Can you keep an eye out for a minute?" He wandered off, fumbling in his trouser pockets. The girls carried on chatting.
"Men! they're all the same, do you want a fag lying down in the gooseberry bushes? God, you'd think he could find something more original than that!" snorted the one in the tight dress." Talk about subtle! Still it's the secret leches that make me sick, the ones that buy the mags from the top shelf and slip 'em inside the newspaper.."
"And the ones who have to touch you and paw you all the time," added her friend, standing up and pulling down the wrinkles that formed over her hips.
I heard the noise of a tractor coming along the path behind me. I'll bet it's not a woman driving it, I thought, but I didn't bother to look up again.
"Did you see the way that guy was ogling my boobs?"
"Yeah. Still, I mean, look at me, flat as a pancake, you wouldn't like it if nobody ever looked at them."
"Like hell!"
"Oh, SHIT!! That bloody tractors run over our baskets."
I looked up in time to see it disappearing in a cloud of dust. The girls rushed over to survey the inevitable scene of carnage. I felt like offering them one of my baskets, but then we had been warned. Sod it, I needed the money. I decided that this was the time for lunch.
I returned from eating in a quiet corner of the field, feeling ready for business and determined to make a real sustained effort for the rest of the day. I'd discovered that some people had already filled as many as twelve baskets, although they were working in a different field and had probably been picking long before my early start. I'd walked back alongside a dark, olive - skinned man, who's accent suggested that he was most likely an Italian. The thorns on the branches grow towards the tips, he'd told me, so if you put your hands in between the branches right down in the bush, then you can draw them back up cupped underneath each branch and 'tickle off ze berries with ze fingers, just like trout.' I tried it, cautiously at first, and found it worked, though I still suffered some scratches. Soon I discovered that the bolder you were plunging your hands into the bushes, and 'tickling' them off, the less scratches you got for your daring.
The day by now was boiling hot, with the sun beating down relentlessly. Most of the men had stripped to the waist, and some were already beginning to turn a lobster red. I guessed a few of them wouldn't sleep on their backs tonight. I worked steadily on, stopping now and then to apply a liberal coating of sun cream, thoughtfully provided by Jenny, or to take a swig from my water bottle.
The baskets filled up steadily. With the new technique, my output rose as much as most other people's dropped, and I was soon bending down to complete filling my fifteenth basket. As I straightened up to ease my back a little, something whizzed overhead and hit a girl nearby on the side of her face. She shrieked, and then retaliated, throwing a large gooseberry at her assailant, the greasy-haired boy with the vacant grin. I was pleased to see that she hit him, the berry squashed in a most satisfying way, leaving green pips sliding down his forehead.
"Stop it!" hissed the cock-eyed man, whose head appeared squinting over a row of bushes - an inviting target. The boy took no notice and replied swiftly with a handful of berries. This elicited a positive response in the form of a massive volley from the girl and her friends, pelting cock-eye and his distasteful son. In no time there was full scale war. The air was thick with flying gooseberries, curses, whooping and shouting. The guy next to me was flinging fruit like there was no tomorrow. It was infectious. I was tempted to grab a handful and throw them at anybody indiscriminately. The Italian appeared, running between the rows of bushes, waving his arms like a madman,
"Stoppa that! Stoppa it! What you buggering doing? You 'ave us all sent 'ome, NO MONEY!" He was met by a solid hail of real ripe ones, as everybody suddenly united their efforts on one solitary target.
"Jesus a' Mary, you stupida fools!" he wailed. The war stopped as abruptly as it had started. The guy next to me gazed ruefully down at his near empty baskets.
"You BURK!" his girlfriend said. "You've wasted nearly three basketfulls. That's seventy-five pee!"
I noticed that she'd helped him do it. Maybe this was exactly how wars started I mused, taking an empty basket off my head and standing up. Some stupid, lunatic politician presses the button on a green, camouflaged, stripey missile and......we're all in it. I levelled off the fruit on my nineteenth basket, hearing Mrs. Jones's voice shrilling in the distance.
"Ten more minutes picking left. You must stop picking by half-four and check in your baskets."
I was galvanised into action, working like a dervish, attacking one bush after another in a desperate attempt to fill the twentieth. Some people had already given up. I guessed there was no payment for a half-filled one.
"That's it! Check 'em in now please."
Everybody had stopped. I ducked down and completed the last basket with a few swift handfuls, oblivious to the scratches. As I stood up, triumphant, I noticed a black, curly-haired head, with an olive skin, rise grinning from a row of bushes a few yards away. He held up a basket in each hand and so did I.
"After you've checked in, make your way back to the farmyard and you'll be payed out," shouted Mrs. Jones. "Reilly...twenty-one baskets...."
"Twenty-two, Missus."
"Twenty-one! That's not full, it's a good three inches from the top. Mister."
"Ah c'mon, Jaysus, you're a hard one," pleaded Reilly's voice. I checked in and followed the crowd back across the fields.
What had seemed to be miles in the van, turned out to be ten minutes walk over the narrow footpaths. We all assembled quietly in the courtyard.
"Bleedin' slave labour," grumbled someone. It turned out to be the man with the cock-eye. "A couple of rounds in't pub, packet of fags, an' you've done it all in." He held up his scratched hands.
"Told you bleedin'ed be right," said the ginger-haired bloke, "just watch the social don't get yer, or you'll be nailed up as well!"
The boss man arrived and started paying out, shouting names from his list.
"Joan S. Fourteen baskets. Three-fifty." A young girl pushed forward through the crowd, which parted grudgingly for her.
"Wigeon. Twenty-three baskets. Five seventy-five."
People were elbowing their way out, eyes down, checking the money over again.
"Fattorini.....Forty baskets..."
There was a gasp from the crowd. The Italian was standing right behind me, and I looked round at him in amazement,
"How the hell did you manage that?" I asked. He grinned and pulled open the satchel hanging over his shoulder as he pushed past. "Theek a gloves. Bugger all ze leetle ones. You strip each bush. But make sure all ze big ones are top of ze basket, eh?" He revealed thick industrial gauntlets at the bottom of his bag. "You remember next time, O.K.? I got family to look after, I no playing at eet!"
He pushed on forward to collect his earnings.
"Mr.Greenham...Twenty baskets, five pounds."
I never did work out just how I'd earned the ' Mister' Greenham. Never mind, I mused, gooseberries taste alright after all, even bought from the corner shop as a special treat, late in the season, foreign, I suppose. And hand-picked, you can't harvest gooseberries by robot or even machines. But it didn't need much imagination to feel the scratches again, bleeding, on the backs of my hands and up my forearms.
Casual labour? Cock-eye was right, bleeding slave labour, unless you learned how to work the system. What price Thomas Hardy? A Life on the land? Economic growth? Try life on the dole!
The rain slashed against the window panes, the little tree bent over, losing a few more of its all too few withered leaves.
"Tea?" said Jenny.
3,542 words c brian ellwood 1982