Worms

by James R. Montague

  ‘Water,’ said the Controller. ‘We need lots of water to cool the turbine – and I’m certain you’ll agree that there’s nothing much cooler than the North Sea at this time of year.’ His small joke produced no more than a courteous smile.

  ‘The turbine is behind those doors, is it?’ asked the Colonel. He indicated some heavy metal doors that reminded me of the bulkhead of a ship. As we looked at them, one opened and we could see that they were double doors with a small area between; the second door was closed. The man who emerged was covered from head to foot in a uniform like a space suit, his features invisible behind helmet and visor. He wore heavy protective gloves and carried a covered steel basket containing five bottle-like phials. His sudden appearance was unsettling and a momentary expression of annoyance passed across the Controller’s face; he glanced at his watch and turned away from the doors. ‘Yes, that’s the turbine house. I’d be delighted to show it to you but technically I don’t think it would mean a great deal. There’s also that piece of paper called the Official Secrets Act.’ He pretended to scrutinize us. ‘I don’t think any of you look like Russian spies but one can never be too careful­­.’

  I looked back towards the men in the protective clothing. He was laboriously opening another door by moving steel levers. ‘Presumably there’s a risk as well,’ I said.

  ‘Radiation,’ said Mrs Murchison, opening her mouth for the first time since we had arrived.

  The Controller was trying to lead the way towards a half open door beyond which I could see a table laid out with glasses. He stopped and turned to face us. ‘There are codes of safety practice laid down in any responsible organization,’ he said. ‘I think we should beware of employing emotive phrases which have been bandied about by the press until they are meaningless.’ He sounded hurt, as if his confidence in the ultimate good of human nature had been shaken. He gestured about him. ‘I think that, one day, what is being achieved here will astound the world. We may envy the Americans their space programme, but in the long term what our British scientists have achieved may be of more benefit to humanity. What is ultimately more important, ladies and gentlemen, the conquest of space or the conquest of those problems that face us here on Earth?’ A silence greeted these remarks during which I looked round for the man in the protective clothing. He had disappeared but his image stayed in my mind. ‘I sincerely believe that to have had its name associated with this project may, one day, make Blanely proud.’ There was no voice for or against, and the Controller gestured towards the open door. ‘And now, in rather frugal surroundings I must confess, we would like to offer you something to keep the cold at bay. We can also have a look at those drawings I was talking about.’ We moved forward dutifully like sheep towards a dip. Even the Colonel was reduced to fingering his tie. ‘If you are going to hold a meeting,’ said the Controller innocently, ‘I would be most delighted to come along and tell everybody what we’re up to.’

  Soon we all had glasses in our hands and the Controller’s assistant was passing round illustrations of what the reactor would look like when it was finished. It did resemble a mushroom, one with a short stem, lying upside down on a cromlech of concrete piles. The artist had painted in wispy trees nearby which bore no resemblance to the real-life situation and for this the Controller apologized.

  I think we had all taken rather a knock and were wondering where we could possibly go from here; I was glad that it was Colonel Fraser and Mrs Valentine who had to take the responsibility for decision making. I detached myself from the group and went up and outside into the open area. It was still snowing and a north wind was blowing the snow almost horizontally through the arches; occasional flakes would sting my face. I turned up my collar and dug my hands deep into my pockets. The lorries had ground to a halt and nobody seemed to be working. The windscreen of the Colonel’s car was covered by a layer of snow. I walked out along one of the groynes watching the sea beneath me, which seemed to be going through some kind of gate; it made a honking, snorting noise like a man trying to clear his throat. I suddenly thought of my wife in the sluice.

  ‘Careful how you go. It’s rather slippery underfoot.’ The Controller had arrived at my shoulder without my hearing him. My heart jumped again and a flurry of snow made me duck away and turn my back against the wind. The sea slapped against the groyne.

  ‘What about the worms?’ I said. The Controller searched my face as if for some small clue which would make the meaning of my words transparently clear. There was no trace of apprehension or censure in his eyes. If I do not understand, said his frank, level gaze, then the fault is totally on my side. ‘They’ve disappeared.’

  The Controller nodded as if meaning was beginning to percolate. ‘If you’re worried about the balance of nature and that kind of thing, you need have no qualms.’ A thought struck him. ‘In fact a nuclear reactor has been known to have a very salutary effect. Saviour of the Colchester oyster . . . Warm water pumped out from our Bradwell reactor resuscitated a dying breed – they thrived on it. Waxed fat and juicy.’ I looked down to where the snowflakes were flecking the restless surface of the dark water like spent bullets. ‘We just use the sea for cooling the turbine. There’s no damage to the environment’, he went on. I started to think of oysters waxing fat and juicy; somehow, the words used conjured up images that alarmed me. I looked through the snow and saw the Colonel and the rest of them waiting under the shelter of the main structure. I felt an overwhelming desire to get away from this gaunt intimation of the future and from the persuasive Controller.

  ‘I think they’re waiting,’ I said and started to walk back towards the groyne.

  ‘If I can send you any literature . . .’ said the Controller.

  ‘What happened to you?’ the Colonel asked huffily, but he was not interested in a reply; he just wanted to make it clear that he disapproved of me wandering off, undermining his leadership.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I found it a bit stuffy down there.’

  ‘I’m so glad you could come,’ said the Controller. ‘I hope you’ve got a much better idea of what it’s all about. Doubtless we’ll be in touch with each other.’ He made no move to step out from under the awning and see us to the Range Rover.

  The Colonel stuck out a hand. ‘Thank you. Most interesting.’

  We said various kinds of goodbyes and stumbled out into the snow. I don’t think that one of us said another word until we were nearly back at Marsh House.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  No more posters announcing the inaugural meeting of the Save Blanely! Association were put up after our visit to the reactor and in fact I had the impression that some of those already up were discreetly taken down. There was even what Mrs Valentine called ‘an atmosphere’ when the Vicar came down off his fence and announced the meeting when he read out the parish notices during the Sunday service. The unfortunate man could not understand why this gesture apparently did not improve his relations with the Colonel.

  The meeting when it occurred was a low-key affair. The attendance was poor because of the bad weather conditions and competition from television, and if there were any newspaper reporters present I did not see them. The local M.P. certainly did not put in an appearance. Colonel Fraser was in the chair but his was no fire-and-brimstone address such as one might have expected from his initial vehement opposition to the reactor. He made a statement of the situation and described our tour of the site, repeating many of the arguments advanced by the Controller. Although Mr Brownly’s­­­­ offer to address the meeting had not been taken up, there was a pile of literature available that he had sent, and Mrs Murchison announced that the Women’s Institute had been invited to visit the site with the promise of light refreshments – the Young Farmers’ Club, too. It was significant that, when the time came for questions, the only two that were asked related to the possibility of the reactor providing jobs for local people, and it was doubtless no coincidence that the edition of the local paper which came out after the meeting carried
an article by Mr Brownly saying how the new reactor would certainly create employment in the area. The meeting was covered in a few lines under the anodyne headline ‘Blanely villagers gather to hear about new reactor’. There was no doubt in my mind but that the Controller was aptly named, and that any teeth the Save Blanely! Association might have once possessed had been drawn as if from an old dog. Whist drives, house-to-house collections, bring and buy sales and other fund-raising activities were not even mentioned and I recall reflecting that the dreaded encyclopedias would probably gather dust on my shelves for another few months unless I went to the length of throwing them away.

  All this time I was becoming increasingly nervous and apprehensive; the optimism of the previous May had completely disappeared. With the virtual acceptance of the nuclear reactor it was as if a black shadow had fallen across the land, one that would never go away. It is difficult for me to explain my feelings exactly because I always saw it as representing evil in a way that defied analysis. I had known for a long time that something was building up, something frightening and terrible, and now I felt I was actually in the presence of its catalyst. Just out of my sight but never out of my mind was the dark, brooding mass disturbing the already troubled balance of nature.

  I slept badly and was troubled by such hideous dreams that daylight came as a blessed relief. More and more often I was tortured by visions of my wife and of Wilson; her bloated whiteness would extend a swollen, accusing arm towards me; Wilson’s heart would be pumping like a balloon as the dying fish jumped about his body. Always, always, there were worms – emerging from every orifice: nose, ears, mouth, rectum, singly and in unending streams, always writhing obscenely. Sometimes these worms would give birth to other worms extruding from their bodies like excrement until my whole imagination was full to bursting and I would explode into sweat-soaked wakefulness. Of course my feelings of guilt were induced by fear but they were no less genuine for that; no pain that my wife had caused me was like the torment I was undergoing now. I was being pursued by small writhing demons and what was so terrifying was that as their mental presence increased so their physical presence diminished – I never saw a worm these days. It worried me so much that I even began to look for them. I would pull back stones, terrified but still hoping to catch a glimpse of a small red shape sliding beneath the earth. I was almost disappointed. I watched the thrushes and the blackbirds on the Marsh House lawn; their heads would be cocked expectantly but I never saw one with a worm. The banks of the dykes that I had seen pock-marked with casts were now smooth. Where were the worms? Had some blight wiped them out? I thought not; I had the strange and terrifying premonition that they were indeed there, somewhere, waiting for something. Sometimes in the small hours I would lie awake and think of the list of worms that I had read in the encyclopedia; their nauseatingly evocative names would be typed out neatly on the white paper of the ceiling. I would imagine them, massed, united, boring through my body like white hot wire.

  Why, you may ask, did I stay in this place with its increasingly morbid and apocalyptic associations? Why does an alcoholic continue to reach for the bottle or a heroin addict the syringe? Those in the grip of death have no free will; they are programmed to their environment as I was to this desolate marshland. I could not escape from it. At my most sanguine all I could believe was that I had sinned and that I must wait for whatever punishment was coming to me.

  All I did wish was that I could talk to somebody – confide my fears. I envied the Catholic his confessional, but how could I tell a part without telling all? Could I describe the worms without revealing why they persecuted me? Because I had killed two people. With every day that went by the need to unburden myself became greater and it was perhaps this that caused me to pause one morning as I walked past the church. The vicar’s bicycle leant against the porch and I hesitated only a moment before entering the graveyard. As I did so, he emerged carrying in his arms a large bunch of withered holly. I was reminded of when I had first met him; again, one of those moments of déjà vu that seemed to be happening with unnerving frequency.

  We exchanged greetings and the vicar shook his head as he followed the path round the side of the church. ‘This holly has been in the church since Christmas. It really is too bad. Berries all over the transept. I’ll have to speak to Mrs Murchison; her ladies are supposed to be responsible for the flowers.’

  I sympathized and watched as he threw the holly onto what had become a compost heap of grass cuttings and dead flowers from the graves. Snow still covered the ground and it was obvious that nothing had been added to the heap since the snow had fallen. ‘Look at that!’ The vicar clucked and advanced to a grave that had an elaborate posy of plastic flowers on it.

  ‘How many times do I have to make my feelings clear on that point. I will not have those abominations in my graveyard. That’s that Hargreaves woman. I’m not surprised.’

  Again I sympathized and wondered if there was any point in trying to approach my dilemma. If the vicar was agitated by the sight of plastic flowers on a grave, I scarcely dared think about his reaction to my crimes. A sense of desperation began to grip me.

  ‘How odd.’ The vicar had seen something else. I moved to his side and followed his puzzled gaze. By the yew hedge in the corner of the graveyard was a grave that was completely free of snow. It lay there, a neat, grass-covered rectangle. There were no footprints in the snow around it and no indication that it had been swept.

  ‘How very strange,’ I said, and together we approached the grave. The grass was gleaming, the earth beneath it black and moist. On an impulse I bent down and touched the ground. I withdrew my hand quickly: the earth was warm. Furthermore it gave off a faint but discernible vibration. The vicar saw my reaction and looked at me questioningly.

  ‘It feels warm,’ I said. ‘Perhaps there’s a drainage pipe or something like that running beneath the graveyard.’

  He raised his eyes beyond the yew hedge to an uncultivated orchard being strangled with ivy. Behind the other corner of the graveyard was a ploughed field lying beneath a coverlet of snow. ‘Possibly,’ he said without conviction.

  The silence began to weigh on me. ‘Whose grave was it?’

  ‘William Wilson’s.’ I stepped back as if from a suddenly revealed snake pit. A throbbing bolt of terror passed through my heart. Although I had attended the service I had not participated at the interment; if I imagine the sound of a shovelful of earth hitting the top of a coffin I become nauseous.

  The Vicar read the consternation in my face although he clearly did not understand all the reasons for it. He plucked at my sleeve and began to walk back towards the church. I followed, still feeling the movement of the ground vibrating through my fingertips.

  ‘There is much that is strange about this place,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘I never feel, how can I put it, at ease here.’

  ‘I know exactly what you mean,’ I said, finding it easy to agree with him.

  He paused in the porch and shivered. ‘I sometimes think it must be the coldest church in England.’ He paused. ‘I know I should not say so, but I wonder if in part it does not come from the people who worship in it.’ The inner door was now swung open and he looked down the nave towards the two stone effigies lying with hands folded in prayer. ‘It is a tradition that goes back a long way.’ I said nothing but followed him towards the tombs. It was true that the cold was almost insupportable; it seemed to enter into your bones. In this glacial atmosphere the rectangle of warm earth outside was even more bizarre, more sinister. I avoided looking at the swaying worms on the side of the tombs.

  ‘Sir Robert de Wicklem.’ The vicar looked down at the pious stone face and pronounced the name like that of a criminal awaiting sentence. ‘Perhaps it all began with you.’ He turned to me and indicated the effigies. ‘These two were apparently not as devoted to each other as their proximity in death suggests. I have made local history one of my pursuits and there are some interesting chronicles of the time, what on
e might describe as gossipy letters to a friend in Norwich by a spinster neighbour of the de Wicklems. She reports that Sir Robert de Wicklem treated his wife shamefully, beating her and deceiving her with any local wench who took his fancy. There are details of this side of the relationship that it distresses me to think about, let alone repeat. He was far from reticent in the conduct of his affairs.’ The vicar’s gaze which had strayed to Lady de Wicklem, quickly moved to the altar cross. ‘The poor woman was eventually found dead in a ditch near the house. She had been struck about the head and de Wicklem maintained that she had been murdered by footpads, whilst taking alms to the church. He claimed she had been carrying several pieces of silver, which were never found. Of course, there were many local people who disagreed with this version of the truth and said that de Wicklem had killed his wife in a drunken rage. Nevertheless, he was the lord of the manor and his word was upheld. According to the letters, a local simpleton was arrested for the crime and eventually hung, drawn and quartered.’

  I looked down at the demurely closed eyes and the aristocratic nose and high cheekbones. Now that I examined the face carefully there was a cruel quality about the small, almost lipless mouth and the severe lines that ran down to the triangular spade beard. In some inexplicable way the face vaguely reminded me of someone, though I could not decide who.

  ‘So he got away with it,’ I said.

  The vicar hesitated. ‘Well, we don’t know. It can never be definitely proved whether he was innocent or guilty. The interesting fact is that he died the day after the execution of the man held responsible for the crime. He went out riding and his horse came back from the marshes without him. His body was never found.’

  ‘Perhaps somebody took revenge,’ I suggested.

  ‘Perhaps.’ He turned away, his brows knitted thoughtfully.

  ‘It is a strange story is it not? I know it is a tenet of the Christian faith that people should be forgiven their sins but I cannot help feeling that the presence of this man pollutes the atmosphere of the church. He does not belong here and yet his effigy presides over our worship.’