Rough Cider

SIX

She blinked rapidly two or three times, and her mouth trembled as if she were about to cry. She said huskily, “For pity’s sake, Theo, don’t clam up on me now.”

I told her, “Leave it, then. I can tell you what I remember and that’s all.”

“But you must have thought about it since.”

“Often.”

“In that case…”

“My thoughts won’t help you. Let’s stay with my memories. Christ, we’ll be here all night if we get into speculation.”

Alice lowered her head and drew her arms tightly across her chest. “I’ve got to live with this tragedy for the rest of my life.”

The self-pity didn’t move me. I said sharply, “I was part of it. How do you think I feel, forced to go over it again?”

“Sorry.” She straightened up and moved her hand across the table in a placating gesture. “I won’t interrupt again, Theo. I promise.”

I took up the story.

The stacks in the orchard multiplied during that last week of September 1943, and diffused sweet-sharp aromas through the crisp air. I joined the pickers at every opportunity, reluctantly fitting school and sleep into the intervals. While I was working, the homesickness hardly troubled me at all.

One evening after tea the GIs unexpectedly drove in to spend a few more hours with us. I was elated, especially as Duke had brought some chewing gum for me to hand round at school. The Yanks generally were known for their generosity to children, but to me it was more personal. Duke understood how I felt as an outsider. In between gathering the apples he asked me how I was treated there. I told him they were no different, really, from the kids I knew in London, except for the way they talked. He chuckled at some of the names I’d heard for ailments that kept them off school, like hoppy cough, brown kitties, and information. One boy had spent a week in horse piddle. Duke said he was collecting local words and sayings, and he asked me to listen out for more, not just at school but round the farm. No doubt he saw a small, lonely boy in need of distraction, although I know his interest in the dialect was genuine.

I’ve a suspicion that Mr. Lockwood overheard some of this, because as the light faded, he came out with a beauty, which I hope I remember right: “Well, ‘tis dimmit near as dammit. Us be to home, I say.”

Walking back with Duke and Mr. Lockwood, I heard Duke ask after Barbara, who hadn’t put in an appearance that evening. Mr. Lockwood gave a sniff and said, “Seen too many apples, I reckon.”

“But she’s okay, sir?”

“Right as rain.”

Duke cleared his throat and said, “Some of the guys at the base are putting on a show for Columbus Day a week Saturday. Amateur talent, mostly, but not bad, not bad at all. Harry and I figured maybe Barbara and her friend Sally…”

Mr. Lockwood said as if the connection were obvious, “Can ‘ee get hold of a gun?”

Duke frowned. “I guess I could, sir.”

“Can ‘ee use ‘un?”

“Sure.”

“Come over betimes. Shoot some of they pigeons for supper, talk some sense into my maid Barbara.”

So a shooting party was got up the following Sunday. Four men with three weapons between them. Mr. Lockwood and his son, Bernard, had shotguns, while Duke and Harry shared a service-issue automatic pistol, a Colt.45. No questions were asked about where it came from. Acquiring it was easy, I imagine, compared with smuggling a jeep out of the base, and that seemed to raise no problems.

Being so young, I wasn’t invited. I recall sitting in the farmhouse kitchen hearing shots from the woods and feeling sorry for the pigeons; needlessly, as it turned out. The shooting party shot nothing, and we supped on bacon and eggs. But the evening wasn’t wasted for Duke, because Barbara agreed to attend the Columbus Day show if her friend Sally went too.

The day also ended happily for me. Duke promised to come back and show me how the Colt.45 worked. I might even be allowed to try a few shots myself. He was leaving the pistol in the drawer of the hallstand where the shotguns were kept, because there’d be another shooting party before long.

In bed that night I credited myself with bringing Duke and Barbara together. Two of the kindest people in the world; perfectly matched by me. They’d never have met if I hadn’t brought Duke to the farm. I still reflect on it sometimes. The difference is that these days it doesn’t send me into a deep, smug sleep. It has me racked with guilt.

On the night of the show Barbara brought me back a Hershey bar from the base. It was after midnight when she tiptoed past the open door of my room. I called out to her. She came in and sat on my bed and described every turn in the show, from a black jazz man to a man who took off Hitler. And she’d had the surprise of her life when Duke had gone up on the stage. He hadn’t been on the program. He was just called up there to fill in with a song when there was some backstage hitch. There’d been a great cheer from the GIs as he went forward. They’d handed him a guitar and he’d sat on the edge of the stage in front of the curtains and sung three or four songs. He’d got a really fine voice and a great sense of rhythm and he’d written all the songs himself. The audience had loved it. And Barbara had felt fit to burst with pride when he’d taken his applause and come back to his place beside her in the audience.

She told me she’d be meeting Duke again. There was more to him than she’d thought at first, quite apart from his musical talent. Beautiful manners and a quiet, roguish sense of humor. Withal, he was shy, which she’d never have expected a Yank to be.

After that I looked forward to his calling often at the farm, but Barbara preferred to meet him secretly. Possibly she didn’t want her parents to know how often she was seeing him, because there was a lot of local gossip about GIs behaving badly with girls. She used to say she was meeting Sally. I think Duke would meet her down the lane and drive her into Glastonbury or Shepton Mallet for a drink. She was always home before eleven. And I always left the door of my room ajar, in case she wanted to come in and talk.

Once, when I was cleaning my shoes outside the kitchen door, Mrs. Lockwood came out and talked to me about Barbara. There’d been some friction in the family since the incident in the orchard with Cliff Morton. I think they blamed Barbara at least in part for what had happened. Mrs. Lock-wood asked me if any of the village children had mentioned seeing Barbara going out with Americans. I was truthfully able to say they hadn’t. The kids at school didn’t ever speak about Barbara. Then Mrs. Lockwood asked me flatly if Barbara was seeing Duke.

It put me on the spot. I’d been brought up to tell the truth. Most times, anyway. Kids were fair game but not grownups. Lying to grown-ups was out. Yet I felt a pull of loyalty. Barbara was a grown-up, too, and I liked her best of all the Lockwoods. I didn’t want to break a confidence. So I refused to answer.

To no effect. Mrs. Lockwood learned exactly what she wanted to know from my silence. And when I refused to confirm it, she bent me over the mangle and larruped my backside with a slipper for dumb insolence. She was a resolute woman.

It was the only time anyone struck me during my stay in Somerset. I’m not going to make the obvious comment that I was more surprised than hurt, because the truth is that I was surprised and hurt. That slipper really stung. Until that time I’d equated Mrs. Lockwood’s temper with her voice. She’d tolerated me in her kitchen, fed me well, washed my clothes, and sent me to school on time. She hadn’t given me affection, which Barbara supplied, but neither had she been hostile. Looking back, she was obviously under strain. She resented being stuck with an evacuee and felt worried over Barbara, and it all came out as she wielded the slipper.

I’m grasping for a memory now. It’s elusive, and I can’t be certain whether some of it was wish fulfillment after my punishment. That same night I’m lying facedown in bed and the pillow is damp. I’m practically asleep when I feel the soft movement of hair against my neck.

It’s Barbara.

I keep still, not wanting her to know I’ve been crying. Her face rests lightly against mine and remains there for some seconds. Then she kisses my cheek. The touch of her lips stirs me in a way quite new to me. She strokes my forehead, whispering that she’s come to thank me for what I went through for her. She says I’m her little champion. She knows how much it hurt because she and her brother, Bernard, used to get it the same way when there was trouble, over the mangle, with the slipper, just like me. But they always deserved it and I didn’t, and she feels ashamed of what her mother did. She promises me it won’t happen again-not because of her, anyway. Before she goes, she kisses me a second time. That’s all I’ve retained. I don’t think I made it up. I can hear her clearly saying, “My little champion.” Don’t mock it. We were all children once.

In November the cider pressing got under way. The first frosts had nipped the applies lying heaped in the orchard, and we loaded them into trailers to be moved to the cider house. When I say we, I mean Mr. Lockwood, Bernard, and three farmhands, assisted between times by me and the GIs, who were eager to see the process. That’s what they said, anyway. If they’d come to see the girls, they were in for a disappointment, for this was men’s work.

Boys’ work too. I was honored with a special duty. The old stone cider house was equipped with a loft, and the apples were brought there to be hoisted up in sacks through a door set high in the wall that fronted on the yard. It was my task, working by lantern light in the apple loft, to load the fruit into the wooden feed box of the mill beneath. I was given a wooden shovel, and when the mill was running and the word came up from Mr. Lockwood, I’d start an avalanche through the square opening in the floor, down through the funnel of sacking to the hissing, spitting cider mill. Tremendous. In the intervals I made a slide over the juicy, black mess on the floor.

Below me, the apples were converted into pomace, first by toothed iron rollers that broke them up, then stone rollers to crush them. Now Mr. Lockwood simply fitted up his all-purpose petrol engine. The pomace was collected in a wooden trough at the bottom of the mill and shoveled out with wooden spades. At this stage in the process, nothing of metal was allowed to come into contact with the fruit.

Beside the mill was a massive wooden press. On it, alternate layers of wheat straw and pomace were spread to build what Mr. Lockwood called a cheese. He stood beside it, shaping it to about four feet square, turning in the ends of the straw as each layer was completed. The final cheese was taller than I was, and they said it weighed a ton.

Then everyone gathered round for the pressing. Barbara and Mrs. Lockwood were called from the house. A tub was positioned under the press, the windlass was turned, and we all cheered as the thick brown juice gushed out.

The women hadn’t come, as I supposed, simply to watch. At this stage they joined in the work, transferring the juice with wooden dippers to casks where it had to ferment. What really surprised me later-and the GIs, I remember-was to see Mr. Lockwood drop a leg of mutton into each of the casks. “Best cider’s mutton-fed,” he told us, swiveling his bloodshot eyes. “They bones’ll be picked clean by Christmas.”

One Saturday morning in the cider house, when the Yanks were in and we were having our morning tea break, Bernard made trouble. I’m sure it was calculated. He was malicious, resentful of the amusing turn the conversation always took when Harry was on form. He suddenly said, “Cliff Morton’s been around again.”

Mr. Lockwood looked up sharply and asked “What do ‘ee mean, been around?”

Bernard answered cagily, “No more’n what I say, Father.” His eyes were fixed on Barbara, who went pale. He was a sadist. He easily could have taken his father to one side and spoken to him in confidence.

Mr. Lockwood said, “Around the farm or what?”

Still with his eyes on Barbara, Bernard answered, “Saw his bike when I were walking home last night, didn’t I? Stuffed in the ditch, far side of the north field.”

Mr. Lockwood spat copiously into the straw. “If that sod-din’ bastard-”

His wife cut in, and I thought she was taking exception to his language, but no. “Blimmin’ deserter too,” she said. “Got his call-up papers September, I was told. Should’ve reported last month.”

“Buggered if he’s holin’ up ‘ere,” Mr. Lockwood decided, on his feet. “Show me.”

Bernard followed him out, but I don’t think they found the bike, or its owner, because no more was said. Mr. Lock-wood was back in twenty minutes to supervise the clearing of the crushed cheese from the press, ready for the next load. I helped Barbara fill a, barrow with dry pomace for cattle feed. She wasn’t speaking to anyone.

By lunchtime tempers were less frayed. The first cheese had yielded 110 gallons, and the second was taking shape quickly with the extra help of the GIs. When Duke and Harry offered to give me a shooting lesson with the pistol, Mr. Lockwood told them amiably that there was no need to hurry back.

To my delight, Barbara said she’d like to join us. It was pretty obvious that she’d had a basinful of her family-her brother, anyway. Bernard had cynically and cruelly chosen the moment to tell his scare story about the odious Cliff Morton. It was calculated to embarrass and alarm Barbara in front of everyone. I think it had caused her more anger than distress. She was still subdued as we crossed the field to the edge of the copse where Duke had decided the lesson could safely take place.

We took turns shooting at an old petrol can. I learned how to load and take aim and hold the gun steady, needing both hands to control the recoil. By the end I was about equal with Barbara in hits, but neither of us would have been much use to the army.

On the walk back across the field Harry tried to liven things up by unfastening Barbara’s headscarf and passing it to Duke. Barbara grabbed for it and missed. She was in no mood for romping about the field. If you ask me, she was still upset by what had been said in the morning. Duke held the scarf high above his head, fluttering in the wind, so that she would have to get close to reach for it.

Some girls would have resorted to tickling. Barbara was smarter. She grabbed the gun from Duke’s pocket and pointed it at him. Harry shouted a warning, for this had become a dangerous game. Duke handed over the scarf, and Barbara slung the gun as far aside as she could and ran on alone. She’d had enough.

I remember that when I retrieved the gun and handed it to Duke, he checked that it wasn’t loaded. None of us had been certain when Barbara pointed it at him. He still had a few loose cartridges in his pocket. He emptied them into the drawer of the hallstand when we got back to the farm. The gun was also deposited there. I’m certain of this, which I told Superintendent Judd, who interviewed me before the trial.

The cider pressing went on through the next week, and we didn’t see the GIs again until it was almost over. They drove out to see us on the last Thursday afternoon in November, their Thanksgiving. I doubt whether the Lockwoods had ever heard of the occasion. I certainly hadn’t, but I was highly gratified to receive as a present from Duke the carved figure of the policeman that I was eventually to give to Alice.

The GIs had planned a surprise. There was to be a party at the base with a buffet of roast turkey and pumpkin pie. They’d already collected Sally from the pub, and she was sitting on Harry’s lap in the front of the jeep with her frilly petticoat showing. Everyone was in high spirits. I mean ourselves as much as the Yanks, because the last load of apples was in the cider loft, and Mr. Lockwood had shown his appreciation at lunchtime by offering extra cider from last year’s vintage. The farmhands had been allowed to leave early, and only the family was still about.

For me it had been school as usual. Since getting back, I’d been in the cider loft helping Bernard and his father to mill the last of the apples. The mechanism made a tremendous noise, and I wouldn’t have known that the jeep was in the yard if I hadn’t happened to spot the movement through the open door. I jumped onto the trailer outside, climbed down, and ran to welcome Duke just as Mrs. Lockwood was coming out to offer them hot scones and cream.

First they wanted to tell Barbara about the Thanksgiving party, so that she could get ready. Mrs. Lockwood informed them in her placid voice that the two hours between four and six was Barbara’s time for rounding up the cows and milking them. She’d started earlier than usual that afternoon, so she should soon be free, and she was certain to be excited at the prospect of a party.

I listened to this with mixed feelings, considering that it was little more than a month since I’d been slippered for refusing to speak about Barbara’s meetings with Duke. The Lockwoods seemed to have revised their opinion. Duke’s stock had risen rapidly since he and Harry had made them-selves so useful on the farm. For her part, Barbara still wanted it understood that her occasional evenings out were spent walking with Sally, but I’m damn sure that if she’d admitted she was seeing Duke, there’d have been no objection.

I’ve sometimes asked myself whether I was secretly or subconsciously jealous of Duke. I can truthfully answer that I felt no animus towards him at any time, even after what ultimately happened. I couldn’t dislike him. Between them, he and Barbara got me through what could have been the most desolate months of my life. Yes, I’ll admit to a slight pang of rejection when they were seeing each other and I wasn’t asked along, but that didn’t amount to jealousy.

To come back to that fated afternoon, Duke and Harry went to look for Barbara in the field beyond the copse. The milking was done in the open air, from mobile sheds that were known as bails. The cows on Gifford Farm stayed out night and day, well into the winter months.

The rest of us, including Sally, made a start on the scones in the farmhouse kitchen. Mrs. Lockwood said she’d keep a second batch warm for the others, but it was never needed. After fifteen minutes or so, the GIs came back and reported that they couldn’t find Barbara.

No one could understand why. She’d definitely said she was going to start the milking. There followed a confusing exchange between Bernard and Harry about which field they’d looked in, but as Duke pointed out, there was only one herd of cows, and Barbara wasn’t with them. It was obvious to anyone that they hadn’t been milked yet.

Mr. Lockwood said he’d take a look round after he’d put another load in the cider mill. Quite soon we were all engaged in a search. Mrs. Lockwood ventured the theory that possibly the cider at lunchtime had affected Barbara and she was resting somewhere.

I’m not going to make a suspense story out of this. Things that happen to people you love-appalling, deeply distressing things-are difficult enough to articulate, anyway. I was the one who found Barbara. Some instinct or intuition led me into one of the smaller barns, set back from the main cluster of farm buildings.

At first glance it looked an unlikely place for her to be, for it was three-quarters stacked with hay. Then I heard a scuffling sound, too heavy for a rat. It came from the loft that extended halfway under the roof. Bales of hay were stacked there too. I couldn’t see a ladder, so I used the bales as steps. There was a five-foot wall of hay confronting me when I reached the loft. By then I was certain there was someone behind it, for I could hear quite vigorous movements; so forceful, in fact, that I was discouraged from calling out.

I couldn’t believe it was Barbara.

I worked my way along the barrier of hay and located a triangular space where the last bale met the angle of the roof. By squeezing sideways between the rafters and the hay, I managed to penetrate far enough to get a narrow view of the other side.

What I saw was my poor, gentle Barbara being raped by Cliff Morton. When I say raped, I’m using an adult term for an act that wasn’t comprehensible to me at that age, if it is now. A violent, indecent, and humiliating attack by a strong man on a powerless woman. He was thrusting into her like a rutting stag while she struggled and gasped, beating her fists on the loft floor. Her blouse was open to the waist, and her overalls and knickers had been dragged down and were trapped round one of her legs below the knee.

There was nothing I could do except jump down from the loft and run frantically to find someone, anyone. Fate decreed that it was Duke.

He was coming out of the shed where the farm machinery was stored. I shouted to him that Barbara was in the small barn, and the man Cliff had taken off her clothes and was hurting her. Duke didn’t say a word. He dashed past me across the yard to the barn. I ran on, crying, to the farmhouse where Mrs. Lockwood was talking to Sally, and blurted out what I’d seen. I told them Duke had gone in there. I couldn’t do any more.

Mrs. Lockwood ran out, leaving Sally and me in the kitchen. After about five minutes she came back with her arm around Barbara, who was sobbing hysterically. They went straight up to Barbara’s bedroom.

The only thing I remember about that day is much later, lying in bed. Mrs. Lockwood was leaning over me, giving me something to drink. I asked if Barbara was going to be all right, and she said yes, she would be all right, and I was to get some sleep.

They kept me indoors most of the next day. As soon as I got up, I asked about Barbara and was told she was resting, but I noticed that the curtains of her bedroom weren’t drawn. That night I could hear her sobbing.

I didn’t ever see her again. The next memory I have is the hammering on Sunday morning when they had to break down her door. And the screaming when they found her dead. She’d cut her own throat with her father’s razor.

Later that morning my headmaster, Mr. Lillicrap, collected me from the house. On Monday one of the teachers took me back in the train to London and home. I wasn’t evacuated again.