Rough Cider by Peter Lovesey Read Free Book Online Page A

the guardian spirit of orchards, transfixed anyone who tried to cheat the fairy folk.
    Disturbing things happened in the orchard that September afternoon. If, like me, you don’t believe in malign forces, you may think the cider at lunch had something to do with it. Or perhaps it was just the heady excitement produced by country girls mixing with American soldiers.
    We’d gathered round an ancient wagon heaped with fallen apples of many colors, used to make the “windfall cheese” that would produce the first cider. The men sat on the shafts, the girls on upturned baskets, eating the bread and cheese with slices of onion that they’d brought in rush baskets and red handkerchiefs. Shafts of sunlight probed through the leaves overhead.
    After we’d eaten, the girls showed the GIs how to tell your true love with an apple skin, peeling it in one piece and throwing it over your head to see if it fell in the shape of a letter. Harry’s fell conveniently into an 5, and Sally kissed him amid shrieks of excitement, but Duke refused to try the experiment. They persuaded him instead to throw an apple high in the air, without telling him the purpose of the game. Several girls rushed to catch it, leaping like rugby players, but no one caught it cleanly. It bounced loose, across the grass, straight to Barbara, who hadn’t joined in. She picked it up.
    Someone handed her a knife. With everyone crowding round, she cut it cleanly in half and showed us two pips. The girls chorused, “Tinker, tailor,” and I realized that this was a version of the fortune-telling game my mother had once taught me to play with plum stones. A boy was supposed to discover what job he would have in adult life; a girl would find out what her true love would be.
    She took one of the halves and bisected it. There were no pips showing. She cut the opposite half. Someone (I think it was Sally) shouted triumphantly, “Soldier!”—but the word froze on her lips because the knife had cut clean through the pip. Apparently it was a bad omen. Barbara threw aside the pieces of apple and said, “Silly nonsense, anyway.”
    After lunch I didn’t see much of Barbara. She was collecting farther up the orchard, with her brother Bernard, I believe. I heard one of the girls say, “It don’t seem worth crying over,” and the other gave a shrug and moved on.
    Towards four, Mrs. Lockwood brought out tea and cakes and we assembled along the dry-stone wall where the sun was warmest. Sally was sitting in the jeep with Harry. Duke leaned against a tree, whittling at a piece of dead wood he’d found. I couldn’t see Barbara, but each time a break was called, some of the girls would leave us to use the farmhouse toilet.
    She still wasn’t back when Mr. Lockwood gave the word to start again. I noticed Mrs. Lockwood look anxiously about her before she picked up the tray and returned to the house. A short while later she was back to speak to her husband. He handed his ash pole to Harry to take a turn and marched off into the thick of the orchard.
    I sensed trouble for Barbara. Soon a figure appeared from the direction Mr. Lockwood had taken. It was the man Cliff, whose interest in Barbara I’d noticed earlier. He marched briskly towards us, ignoring some mild taunts about skiving. Without a word to anyone he continued straight to the wall where the bikes were lined up, collected his, and cycled away up the lane.
    Then I saw Barbara coming from the same direction, closely followed by her father. Her hair was hanging loose, and she was carrying the scarf she’d used as a fastening. As she came closer I saw that she was crying. She broke into a run. Ignoring everyone, including her mother, who stepped towards her asking, “Barbara, my love, what is it?” she ran through the gate towards the house.
    Mr. Lockwood spoke briefly to his wife, and they followed Barbara.
    At this point you’ll be wanting to know precisely what had happened. I can tell you that Alice broke into my