At the Break of Day by Margaret Graham Page B

Maisie said as she gave Lee a biscuit to chew. As they ate supper heated over the primus in the end building he did and they all laughed, even Norah, even Ollie, even Rosie, and it was from deep inside.
    Jack and Rosie walked down the lane to the road, watching for the caravans that they knew would come bringing gypsies on from the plum-picking at Evesham, the cherries at Shropshire and the peas at Worcester. The gate was warm from the sun, deep cracked, chipped with the initials they had carved in 1938. Jack covered it over.
    ‘Your Grandpa would catch us with his stick,’ he laughed.
    Rosie nodded, looking down the lane, hearing the caravans, the barking of the long dogs and lurchers, the ponies which plodded, the brasses which jingled. She felt the wind in her hair and was happy because for the four weeks they were here, this place belonged to her, just as much or as little as it belonged to the others.
    The gypsies came now, the women walking at the pony’s head, one smoking a clay pipe. The men sat, the reins in their hands. The children sat too, looking ahead, not at Rosie or Jack.
    ‘Never changes, does it?’ Jack murmured, watching as they rolled past.
    They walked then, up to the hop-fields, neither speaking, taking the path which ran along the top of the kale field. She remembered where to go, she realised. Somehow she knew where to go.
    She walked ahead now, confident, hearing Jack close behind. On round the kale which looked like small trees, then further to the ragwort-spotted meadows. At the bottom of these, past clumps of purple-crested thistles, lay the stream. They used to picnic there at the end of the day. She turned.
    ‘Do you remember …?’ she began, but stopped for Jack was nodding.
    ‘Yes, I remember. Tinned salmon sandwiches.’ He was smiling and there were no shadows in his eyes today. Rosie hoped that there would be none as the four weeks went by. Would Ollie and Maisie be able to go back in time, enough for a fresh start? Would she?
    In the distance rooks clawed up into the sky from the copse planted on Trafalgar Day. She turned further up the hill and they were on to the worn top path and into the hop-fields where the bines swung fifteen feet above them in the wind and Rosie stood still, looking about her, remembering.
    Her mother had come every year before she died. They had picked all September and her mother had said it made her feel safe, standing here, as Rosie was doing now. Safe from the world. She had died though, her father too. They hadn’t been safe. Was there such a thing as safety? Everything changed. It always changed.
    ‘It’s like being under the sea,’ Jack said, standing close to her, looking up.
    It seemed so quiet, no dogs barking, no cyclists whistling, no children playing. She loved this first evening before the picking began and the hops were stripped.
    ‘I love this first evening,’ Jack said.
    When they returned to the sties the Welsh had arrived and were in the barn, singing, shouting, laughing. One child was crying but Lee was sound asleep and Maisie too. Norah lay on the straw mattress. It always itched the first night, Rosie thought as she settled on hers, but she could see the sky through the window, the clouds scudding over the moon, and then she slept and dreamed of nothing.
    In the morning she was up early, walking along the lane again. The mist lay still over the land and there were blackberries on the bushes as she passed. She picked two and they stained her fingers. They were sweet and cool.
    The oasts were shrouded by the mist, the farm buildings too. A cockerel crowed. She was at the kale now and there was dew on the leaves. She reached down, rolling the drops off into her hand. There were ferns at the edge of the field and everywhere the earth was red and smelt of a long warm summer.
    There were partridges flying up before her, and a lurcher dog over from the caravans was leaping and bounding in the kale, making more birds rise. There was smoke