Bridge 108 by Anne Charnock

Author:Anne Charnock [Charnock, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781542006088
Published: 2020-02-17T16:00:00+00:00

It’s my fourth farmhouse dinner, and I’ve been thinking about it all day like everyone else. Before I reach the courtyard, I smell chicken roasting on the spit in the open air. I’m one of the last workers to arrive because I’m nervous about where to sit. Four long trestle tables are set out in the open air, each with pitchers of wine and water, baskets of bread, and candles for later. A white rose tree spreads over the entrance door to the house. What I like best is the tree by the winery—it’s not the tree itself, it’s the three lights hanging down from the branches. For our Saturday dinner the owner puts paper lampshades over the bulbs, and the courtyard feels like a different place. Like a secret grotto.

I edge into the courtyard through an arched entrance, wide enough for a transporter, and I try to imagine the olden days with horses and carts bringing grapes from the fields. Usually I sit with the older women because I know they won’t mind me tagging along. The one time I sat with the younger men and women they wanted me to drink more and more wine, and I threw up on the walk back to the camp. I stand just inside the courtyard, close to the winery wall, and look across the tables. Jerome is sitting with the winery workers and he spots me. He points to the bench opposite him. I’m pleased and it must show because he smiles. As I sit down, he says to the others, “This is the lad. He might do it.” He turns to me. “They need help in the winery. It’s less money than fieldwork, so no one’s interested. Easier work though. Sweeping up and hosing down. General dogsbody.”

“Dogsbody?” I ask.

“General helper. Have a think about it.”

I look around at the winery workers, who have cleaner clothes than the pickers, and I wonder if they’re a good team, if they’ll be nice to work for. None of them stay in the camp. They must live locally, or they’re members of the family and live in the farmhouse.

“Decide tonight, hey?” says Jerome.

I answer with a small nod. I’m not sure. Will they boss me around all day? At least in the fields I’m snipping away at the vines on my own.

“Any volunteers to serve? I did it last week,” says a woman with dark, straight hair and dark eyes who I’d mistake for being Spanish, only she has a perfect, neat English accent.

“Me and the kid will do it,” says Jerome. It makes sense as we’re sat at the end of the bench. We both swing around and make our way to the trestle table outside the farmhouse kitchen. Three salads per table. With those delivered, we head off to the spit, where one guy is pushing the cooked chickens off long skewers while a second guy chops them into quarters with a cleaver. Jerome says, “Twelve for us.” The chopper guy pushes our quarters onto two steel platters.

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