The work was better, the pay was better, the caravans were better. There were facilities—a separate barn with a ping-pong table, a common room, a TV, a phone. Even the strawberries were better, or at least they looked more even in size and colour. And yet each morning since I’d been here, I’d woken with a feeling of emptiness, like a big blank inside me where something vital was missing. No, it definitely wasn’t that Ukrainian miner I was missing. There were plenty of Ukrainian boys here, and none of them was of any interest whatsoever. Maybe it was just the scale of the place—fifty or so caravans parked side by side in rows so close together that it was more like a city than a farm. You couldn’t see the woods or the horizon, and in the morning it wasn’t birds that woke you, it was lorries, and men clattering around with wooden pallets in the yard. You couldn’t hear yourself think because people were always talking or playing their radios. My head was full of questions, and I needed a bit of peace and quiet.
