Summary | Excerpt | Reviews | Beyond the Book | Readalikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio
A Novel
by Marina Lewyckatwo trailers
There is a field - a broad south-sloping field sitting astride a long hill that
curves away into a secret leafy valley. It is sheltered by dense hedges of
hawthorn and hazel threaded through with wild roses and evening-scented
honeysuckle. In the mornings, a light breeze carries up over The Downs, just
enough to kiss the air with the fresh salty tang of the English Channel. In
fact so delightful is the air that, sitting up here, you might think you were in
paradise. And in the field are two trailers, a mens trailer and a womens
trailer.
If this were really the Garden of Eden, though, there ought to be an apple
tree, thinks Yola. But it is the Garden of England, and the field is full of
ripening strawberries. And instead of a snake, they have the Dumpling.
Sitting on the step of the womens trailer, painting her toenails fuchsia pink,
petite, voluptuous Yola watches the Dumplings Land Rover pull in through the
gate at the bottom of the field, and the new arrival clamber down out of the
passenger seat. Really, she cannot for the life of her understand why they have
sent this two-zloty pudding of a girl, when what is clearly needed is another
man - preferably someone mature, but with his own hair and nice legs and a calm
nature - who will not only pick faster, but will bring a pleasant sexual harmony
to their small community, whereas anyone can see that this little miss is going
to set the fox among the chickens, and that all the men will be vying for her
favors and not paying attention to what they are really here for, namely, the
picking of strawberries. This thought is so annoying that it makes Yola lose
concentration on her middle toe, which ends up looking like a botched
amputation.
And there is also the question of space, Yola broods, studying the new girl as
she makes her way past the mens trailer and up through the field. Although there
are more women than men, the womens trailer is smaller, just a little four-
berth tourer that you might tow behind when you go on on holiday to the Baltic.
Yola, as the supervisor, is a person of status, and although petite she is
generously proportioned, so naturally she has a single bunk to herself. Marta,
her niece, has the other single bunk. The two Chinese girls - Yola can never get
the hang of their names - share the fold-out double bed, which, when extended,
takes up the whole floor space. Thats it. There is no room for anyone else.
The four of them have done their best to make their trailer seem bright and
homey. The Chinese girls have stuck pictures of baby animals and David Beckham
on the walls. Marta has stuck a picture of the Black Virgin of Krakow beside
David Beckham. Yola, who likes things to smell nice, has set a bunch of
wildflowers in a cup, hedge roses, campion, and white-gold honeysuckle, to
sweeten the air.
A particularly charming feature of their trailer is the clever storage space:
There are compact cupboards, cunning head-level lockers, and drawers with
delightful decorative handles where everything can be hidden away. Yola likes
things to be neat. The four women have become skilled at avoiding one another,
skirting around each other in the small space with womanly delicacy, unlike men,
who are defective creatures, prone to be clumsy and to take up unnecessary room,
though of course they cant help it and they do have some good points, which she
will tell you about later.
This new girl - she skips right up to the trailer and drops her bag down in the
middle of the floor. She has come from Kiev, she says, looking around her with a
smile on her face. Irina is her name. She looks tired and disheveled, with a
faint whin of chip fat about her. Where does she think she is going to keep that
bag? Where does she think she is going to sleep? What does she have to smile
about? Thats what Yola wants to know.
Excerpted from Strawberry Fields by Marina Lewycka Copyright © 2007 by Marina Lewycka. Excerpted by permission of Penguin Group USA, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
The moment we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold into a library, we've changed their lives ...
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.