The Farm Beneath the Water

by Helen Peters

  Lottie gaped. “To Miranda? Are you mad?”

  “I have to. It wasn’t nice, what I did.”

  “She’s not nice. She completely deserved it. And anyway, everyone’s praising her for her marvellous acting. You could say we’ve done her a favour.”

  “That’s not the truth, though, is it? And it doesn’t matter what everyone else thinks. What we did wasn’t good. It had to be done, but it still wasn’t good. So I need to apologise. Don’t try and stop me.”

  Lottie spread out her palms and took a step backwards, as though Hannah’s madness might be contagious.

  “Fine. I just hope you’ve made a will, that’s all.”

  * * *

  Hannah found Miranda in the girls’ toilets, with what looked like the entire contents of an expensive beauty counter spread across the windowsill.

  Miranda glanced at the door as Hannah walked in. When she saw her, she turned back to the mirror without a word.

  Hannah scanned the room. They were alone. She spoke quickly. Someone might come in at any moment.

  “Miranda, I’m so sorry for what we did – what I did – to you. Deceiving you, and not letting you have your chance to be in Romeo and Juliet.”

  Miranda gave no sign of having heard. She brushed grey powder across her eyelids.

  “I had to do it,” said Hannah. “Aqua has been lying to everybody, and this was the only chance we would ever have for everyone in the village to hear the truth. But I know you don’t care about that and there’s no reason why you should. And I’m very sorry that you didn’t get the chance to be in a play.”

  Miranda unscrewed a mascara tube and started to stroke her lashes. When she spoke, it was in a detached tone and her attention remained fixed on the mirror.

  “Do you really think I care that I wasn’t in your pathetic little production? To be honest, it was a relief. I was embarrassed to be associated with it. My acting was the only good thing in that play, and the judge loved my acting anyway.”

  Hannah held her breath. She couldn’t believe it. Was she really going to get off this lightly?

  Miranda screwed the mascara wand back into the tube. Then she turned and looked Hannah in the eye. Her voice was hard.

  “But I will never, ever forgive you for what you did, Hannah Roberts. And I will pay you back. Remember that. You’re going to wish you had never been born.”

  * * *

  “Of course she’ll never forgive us,” said Lottie, when Hannah told her what had happened. “We’ve tricked her and humiliated her. She’ll hate us forever. We’re just going to have to live with that. And I think I can manage it.”

  Hannah’s heart contracted as she saw Miss Summers weaving her way through the throng towards them.

  “Uh-oh,” said Lottie. “Someone else we need to apologise to.”

  They started on their apologies before Miss Summers had a chance to speak.

  “We’re so, so sorry,” said Hannah, talking over Lottie. “We really were going to do Romeo and Juliet – well, you saw us rehearsing, didn’t you? – but then it was so awful, what was happening to the farm, and we didn’t know what else to do and—”

  Miss Summers put a restraining hand on Hannah’s shoulder.

  “Thank you for apologising. But there’s really no need. I thought your play was fantastic. I’m very glad the judge said what she did.”

  She glanced around the hall. Then she lowered her voice. “But as far as the authorities are concerned, I’m very, very disappointed in you, so don’t go telling anybody anything different.”

  A Year 7 parent tapped Miss Summers on the arm and she turned away to speak to him. Lottie and Hannah stared at each other.

  “Well…” Lottie began.

  “Congratulations, darlings!” called an unmistakable voice.

  Lottie’s mum ploughed through the crowd as if it didn’t exist, dragging Hannah’s dad, who looked distinctly uncomfortable, in her wake. She swooped on Hannah and Lottie and hugged them tight.

  “Congratulations, darlings. Congratulations, all of you. That was quite a coup. I’m so proud of you. And Arthur is, too, aren’t you, Arthur?”

  “I certainly am,” said Dad. Hannah met his eyes. He smiled at her and there was real warmth in his smile. “What you just did up there might save the farm.”

  With her father standing in front of her, smelling faintly of pigs, Hannah had a moment of insight.

  “No. If the farm does get saved, it will be you who saved it. That ovation – it was for the farm and the way you’ve looked after it all these years.”

  “Maybe, but it was you lot who showed everyone what’s happening right under their noses. Now they’ll be writing to the Environment Minister, and Aqua will have to sit up and take notice.”

  “It was Lottie’s dad and Sophie as well,” said Hannah. “And the Beans, with their Roman remains.”

  “Beautiful old film footage, too,” said Vanessa. “It was extraordinary to see Rachel there on the screen.” She turned to Hannah’s dad. “I never realised how like her Hannah looks.”

  Dad’s eyes rested on Hannah for a moment, but a part of him seemed a long way away. “Yes,” he said eventually. “Hannah’s very like her mother.”

  At that moment, Martha appeared with Granny.

  “Well done, Martha,” said Vanessa. “Lovely dancing.”

  “Yes, well done,” said Hannah. “Your play was great. And your costume was definitely the best.” She winked at Lottie.

  “Thanks,” said Martha. “I said we’d win, didn’t I?”

  Lottie raised her eyebrows. “Gracious as always.”

  Granny smiled at Lottie. “Your costumes were wonderful, Lottie. I’m so glad you won the prize. And the play … those old films…”

  Her eyes filled with tears. She lowered her head as she blinked them back. Hannah suddenly realised that Granny had probably never seen any film footage of her daughter. She walked over and put her arms around her. Granny hugged her tight and Hannah was taken aback at how small and thin she felt.

  “Hi, Jack,” she heard Martha say, in her most flirtatious voice.

  Hannah looked up. Granny released her and they both wiped their eyes. Jack was holding something out to Dad, and Hannah was glad he wasn’t looking at her. It gave her an extra few seconds to rearrange her face.

  “I thought you might like this, Mr Roberts.”

  Dad took the little piece of plastic and stared at it. He turned it over in his hand, looking bewildered.

  Hannah laughed. “It’s a memory stick, Dad. It stores the work you’ve done on a computer.” She turned to Jack. “Sorry, Jack, he still uses a typewriter.”

  “Everything that was on the screen up there is stored on that,” Jack explained. “All the photos and the video footage. You just plug it into a computer when you want to watch it. Hannah will show you how.”

  Dad was staring at the USB. “All of that is stored in this?” He shook his head. “Incredible.”

  “Is that film of Mummy on it?” asked Sam.

  “Yes,” said Jack. “It’s all there.”

  “Can you make me a copy, too?” asked Martha.

  “Sure, no problem.”

  Dad shook himself out of his reverie. “Thank you, Jack. That’s very kind of you. It was very impressive, what you put together there. Very impressive.”

  Jack shook his head. “It was the least I could do. After … you know … everything.”

  “Well, I appreciate it,” said Dad. “I think it might make a real difference.”

  Jack’s eyes met Dad’s. Dad held out his huge, calloused hand. And Hannah watched in amazement as her father and Jack Adamson shook hands.

  The sitting room sparkled like it had never sparkled before. Hannah had polished the silver candlesticks to a deep gleam and they glittered in the light from the roaring fire. Dad kept stoking the fire with dry logs, and they blazed heat into the crowded room as they crackled and shot sparks up the chimney.

  Across the c
eiling, Hannah had looped multi-coloured paper chains made by the Beans. The stern-faced family portraits were brightened with silver tinsel, strands of ivy and branches of holly and fir tucked behind their gilt frames. Mum’s precious glass baubles hung from the picture rail and caught the light from the fire.

  Best of all was the Christmas tree. They had chosen it from the plantation in the woods yesterday, riding there in the box fixed to the back of Dad’s ancient tractor, holding on to the freshly cut tree on the journey home, singing carols and getting prickled by its needles as the tractor bumped over the fields. When they stood the tree in the drawing room, the top brushed the ceiling. Dad had draped it with lights and the children had decorated it with every ornament they could find.

  “Oh, my word,” Lottie had said. “Did you all just close your eyes and throw the decorations at it?”

  But Hannah thought it looked beautiful. She couldn’t understand Lottie’s house at Christmas, with its tiny tree adorned with colour-coordinated baubles and a tasteful seasonal flower arrangement on the windowsill. If she had as much money as Lottie’s parents, she would have so many Christmas decorations that you wouldn’t be able to see the walls.

  Hannah would happily have exchanged every one of her Christmas decorations, though, for the latest addition to the sitting-room walls. It was the front-page article from last week’s Linford Gazette, hanging next to the fireplace in a brand-new frame.

  AQUA ABANDONS RESERVOIR PLANS

  Residents of Middleham were delighted to learn yesterday that water company Aqua has scrapped its controversial plan to flood a historically and ecologically important farm in order to create a new reservoir.

  Following a packed public performance by Middleham Community College students last month, which highlighted concerns about the proposed reservoir, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was deluged with letters objecting to Aqua’s plans to destroy beautiful Clayhill Farm, on the outskirts of Middleham.

  Aqua claimed the reservoir would be vital to provide its customers with a secure supply of water, but the company’s claims were called into question when the students revealed that Aqua is losing three times as much water per day from its leaking pipes as would be provided by the reservoir.

  The water company’s surveys of the land they proposed to flood were also revealed to be inaccurate and incomplete, and the company was accused of failing to understand the habitat value of the landscape for a wide variety of scarce and endangered native wildlife species.

  Bat specialist Sophie Gardner, 33, who gained access to Aqua’s surveys under the Freedom of Information Act, said: “Their hedgerow surveys were conducted out of season and their bat surveys were undertaken in inappropriate weather conditions. Crucial surveys of butterflies, moths and molluscs were also inadequately carried out.”

  The play, which was researched, written and performed by Middleham Community College students, galvanised the village into bombarding the Environment Minister with hundreds of letters objecting to the reservoir scheme.

  Local resident Elizabeth Flowers, 42, said: “The children did an incredible job. Aqua should be ashamed of themselves. They clearly only care about their own pay packets.”

  As a direct result of the letters opposing the reservoir, the Environment Minister called a meeting with Aqua bosses last week. Following the meeting, Aqua announced that it would not be continuing its programme of investigations and surveys at Clayhill Farm.

  Aqua’s Assets Director, Nick Constable, who masterminded the reservoir scheme, declined to comment.

  However many times Hannah read that article, it never failed to give her a warm glow inside. The last sentence alone was something she would treasure for the rest of her life.

  Mr Collins had assured her that the two-day suspension from school he had decreed as her punishment would remain on her records forever. It was clear that he expected her life story from this point onwards to be a tragic descent into shame and disgrace, probably ending with a long prison sentence and a painful, lonely death. Hannah had nodded seriously throughout his lecture. It was a bleak picture but, on balance, it would have been worth it.

  Hannah and Lottie circulated the packed sitting room with plates of Granny’s mince pies and jugs of mulled wine. They had made the mulled wine by pouring every bottle in the larder into Mum’s preserving pan. Then they had tipped sachets of spice mix from Lottie’s kitchen cupboards into the pan and heated it all on the Aga.

  Lottie’s mum took one sip, screwed her face up as though they had fed her rat poison and beckoned them out into the kitchen.

  “Where’s the rest of this brew?” she asked Hannah, tying an apron around her waist. “Don’t worry, I’ll sort it out. Just point me in the direction of the sugar, would you, sweetheart?”

  Back in the sitting room, the Beans were offering round their homemade fairy cakes. Hannah and Lottie watched the faces of the guests as they stared at the lime-green icing decorated with dried kidney beans.

  Hannah had warned the Beans that their efforts might not be appreciated by everyone. “Some people might not understand. I mean, they’re not exactly festive, are they?”

  “They’re appropriate,” said Jo, “and that’s what matters.”

  The Beans offered their plate of cakes to Jack, Ben and Jonah, who were skulking in the corner with cans of Coke, making rude comments about the family portraits.

  Jack frowned at the Beans in concern.

  “If you two eat beans,” he said, “doesn’t that make you cannibals?”

  “Oh, we’re not going to eat them,” said Jo. “We tried them. They’re disgusting.”

  Martha, eyeing the lime-green, bean-topped cakes with horror, had pulled a recipe book from the shelf and, to everyone’s amazement, produced the most delicious chocolate chip cookies. Hannah, who liked Christmas to be traditional, had made a proper Christmas cake. It crumbled into pieces as soon as it was cut, but it did taste good.

  Standing in the doorway, looking around the big, brightly decorated room, Hannah swelled with happiness. This is what Christmas ought to be like, she thought, and what Christmas hadn’t been like at all in the seven years since her mother had died.

  The party had been Hannah’s idea. “We ought to do something,” she had said to Dad. “We should thank all the people who helped with the reservoir campaign, and everyone who wrote letters to the Environment Minister to save the farm.”

  Amazingly, Dad had agreed. And he even seemed to be enjoying it. He still looked too tired and too thin, Hannah thought, but he was clearly enjoying the conversation he was having with Ben’s dad about rare-breed pigs.

  “Christmas cake?” said Hannah, offering the plate. The men scooped up a handful of crumbs each.

  “I’ve always loved pigs,” Ben’s dad said. “I really fancied having one at the bottom of the garden, like people used to do, but we just haven’t got the space. Those Gloucester Old Spots of yours are beautiful.”

  Anyone who could see the beauty of a rare-breed sow was a thoroughly good person in Dad’s eyes. Those two would be friends for life now.

  “Your dad seems to be having a good time,” said Lottie, appearing in the doorway and following the direction of Hannah’s eyes.

  “So does yours.”

  Lottie’s dad and Sophie had been chatting away since the beginning of the party, each seeming enthralled with what the other had to say.

  “Birds and bats,” said Lottie, shaking her head sadly.

  “They’re quite close to the mistletoe, aren’t they?”

  “Ugh, shut up. He’s twice her age.”

  Hannah laughed. “You sounded just like Martha then.”

  Lottie thumped her arm. “I did not!”

  Lottie’s mum bustled in with a jug of mulled wine. “I’ve hurled about a pound of sugar into it, darlings, and I think it’s just about drinkable.” She handed the jug to Lottie, who plunged into the sea of guests.

  Martha pushed past Hannah, carryin
g an empty plate.

  “Guess we know whose cakes were most popular, then,” she said, jerking her head at the heap of crumbled Christmas cake on the table by the window. “Mine have all gone.”

  “Oh, well,” said Hannah, “we can’t all be good at everything.”

  “No,” said Martha, “and some of us can’t be good at anything.”

  Hannah walked out into the hall, where Ben’s mum, sister and brother were taking off their coats and boots. Ben’s mum smiled at Hannah as she unwound her scarf and dropped it on top of the heap of coats on the hall chairs.

  “We’ve just been looking round the farm,” she said. “Joshua! Megan! Take your muddy shoes off.” She turned back to Hannah. “Aren’t those calves lovely? So gentle and placid. You can tell they’re well cared for. Joshua, I said take your shoes off.”

  “Your farm is awesome,” said Joshua, as he tugged at his shoe. “You’re so lucky to live here.”

  Several women whom Hannah recognised from the Ecology Group tea party spilled from the sitting room into the hall, laughing and chatting.

  “I’m glad to see you’ve framed the piece from the Gazette,” said one of them. “Something to treasure, that.”

  “So I hear there’s going to be an archaeological dig here,” said a woman in a green dress.

  “Yes,” said Hannah. “Next year, hopefully.”

  “How exciting. I can’t wait. Will we be allowed to come and see the progress, do you think?”

  “I hope so,” said Hannah. “Yes, I’m sure you will.”

  The women went into the kitchen. The noise level from the sitting room was rising. In the corner, Granny was doubled up with laughter over something Jack was saying.

  The Beans came out of the sitting room, each clutching a guinea pig to their chest.

  “It’s way too noisy in there for Carrots and Snowy,” said Jo. “People are very thoughtless. Come on, boys, you can go back in your hutch.”

  Lottie wove her way through the crowd, holding an empty jug. “This mulled wine sure is popular. Your granny’s on her fourth glass.”