by Hall, Sarah
Jackie had said she wanted to see me before I spoke. She asked me to go to her room at the end of the landing an hour before the meeting. I’d glanced at the door many times on the way down the stairs but had not seen inside. Sometimes I had been tempted to knock on the door. But I never found the nerve. Since my arrival I’d laid down strict routines for myself, had tried hard to fit with the way of the farm, modestly helping out wherever I was directed, trying to find my skills, and not straying into any of the areas where it might seem that I was interfering.
Lorry and Ruth had allowed me to assist them in their tasks, and I had cut vegetables with Sonnelle in the kitchen, and cleaned the oak table after meals. I’d even learned how to paunch rabbits and cut strips from the aged carcasses hanging in the cool stone larder. Though my clothes were returned, and the tin with my possessions in, I still wore the yellow tunic over my jeans, and was uncertain about how long I should keep it on. So much at Carhullan was self-initiated, self-decreed, but I had not yet found my footing. In truth I liked the feeling of it, the rough texture on my arms, and I liked the brightness of it reflected in the windowpanes when I walked past. Every day I wore Megan’s necklace, tied at the base of my throat, like a charm.
Jackie’s bedroom was the largest upstairs and it overlooked the mountains to the west. Whoever had built the farm four centuries ago had fashioned for themselves a chamber of suitable status. When I knocked she did not call out, but I heard the squeak of a mattress and then her heavy-soled footsteps crossing the boards to let me in. She had on wire-framed reading glasses, and they tempered the hard aspect of her face, made her appear scholarly. I felt as if I had disturbed her, even though she had asked me to come. But she motioned for me to enter, and I went in.
I had not known what to expect of her private space. When I’d looked in on them, the dormitories were small and crowded. The bunks were sometimes separated by curtains, but mostly through the day they were left open, even if shared by two women, and they were immaculately tidy. The beds were made, many with matching khaki blankets – army surplus I guessed – or carthens, and the floors looked swept. On the first visit I had thought perhaps they would be strewn with items of clothing and bedding, that a natural dishevelment would prevail, but it was as if they had been prepared for an inspection. I did not know if this was on my account, whether Jackie had prearranged it, knowing that she would be taking me there that day, or if this was one of the expected standards at Carhullan. Military neatness.
Her bedroom was not as chilly as the rest of the house, though the window was wide open. There was a cast-iron grate in the corner of the room. It was empty and there was no wood stacked beside it. The temperature was still falling on the mountain, but it was not yet cold enough for Jackie to need the heat, and perhaps she never did. Every wall was lined almost from floor to ceiling with books. Where they would not fit on the shelves they sat in loose piles or were slotted into the gaps above the rows. They seemed to absorb the light and distort the angles of the room, and probably went some way towards insulating it.
Her bedroom was as tidy as the barns, but it contained much more. It was Carhullan’s library. Suddenly Megan’s boast of having read all the farm’s books seemed worthy; I stood in the centre, surrounded by them. ‘Are these all yours?’ I asked her. ‘There must be thousands.’ ‘Yes and no,’ she said. ‘I brought most of them. But they belong to us all. It’s quite a collection now. You fetched nothing up with you. Do you want something to read?’
She sat down in the chair by her desk, pushed a stack of written papers back against the wall, and removed her glasses. She handled them with great care, folding them back in their case gently, as if they were the most precious thing she owned. I couldn’t remember the last time I had read a book. Even though there had been enough time between work shifts – the only public television now ran during the hours of allocation and it was pitiful and full of propaganda – I had never found true solace in reading; I had never turned to it as an escape. ‘Honestly? I wouldn’t know what to ask for,’ I told her. ‘I don’t know what I’d enjoy really.’ She nodded. ‘OK. There are a couple of things I’d like you to look at though.’
She stood and walked across the room, bent to one of the lower shelves and searched out a thick volume. On the cover was a grey photograph. I could not see what the picture was, perhaps a man in a long coat carrying something, but the image was hard to make out from where I stood. She opened it and removed a thin pamphlet from between the pages and then she handed it to me. ‘Why don’t you start with this?’ I took it from her and looked at it. It was flimsy and old. The sheets had been stapled together in a couple of places and the words looked typed rather than printed. Its title was ‘The Green Book’. ‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘Let’s just say it’s a limited edition,’ she replied.
Jackie put a hand on my shoulder. I could almost feel a current passing from her body to mine. ‘Look. You know why you got the hood, don’t you? Well, you’ll never go back into the box without first agreeing to it. I promise you that. If you read this, it might give you a way of dealing with it. It might give you some context. And some company.’ Her voice remained gentle, but I felt a flutter of panic in my chest at the thought of ever returning to the blackness, the stench, and the abrasive metal sheeting in that tight solitary space. There were moments in daylight when I closed my eyes and I could still see the iron-jawed woman carrying me off, still feel the rotting shrunken dog held in my arms. And when I woke from my dreams I sometimes thought I had not yet been released from the cage and I’d yell out in the dark of the room.
I held the pamphlet in my hand. I wasn’t sure what Jackie was asking of me, or telling me to do, past reading it, but I knew there was a subtext. I felt she was again crediting me with more understanding than I possessed, expecting more of me than I knew how to give, and I felt out of my depth. She took her hand away from my shoulder, stepped back, and lowered herself into her chair again, folding the energy of herself away. I was standing above her and through her thin hair I could see several raised red marks on her scalp. ‘Sit down, Sister,’ she said. ‘We’d better have a quick run over matters before tonight. There are things you need to know.’
Her bed was the only other place to sit, and I could not move to it, so I remained standing. I already knew there were tensions at work in the farm. It had not taken long to realise the smooth operation of the smallholding countered an opposing gravity, and that something separated the women in their beliefs. It was why the meal shifts always contained the same faces. And why some of the relationships had broken up. ‘Is this about the defence council?’ I asked her.
‘Yes it is,’ she said. ‘But it’s not just about that. Listen, the beauty up here is that we can disagree, we have the space, we have the time. And we do disagree, Sister. Especially when it comes to the outside world.’ She sighed and crossed an ankle over her thigh, held the knotted laces of her boot. ‘But I don’t blame the Sisters for shutting it out. Truly, I don’t. They’ve come up here to make a better life, and not make the same mistakes. They’ve … Let’s say they’ve washed their hands of the past.’
Her expression darkened. ‘Fine. Yes. Women were treated like cunts back down there. Like second-class citizens and sex objects. They were underpaid, under-appreciated. Trust me, I know all about being told you aren’t suitable for a job. Fifty per cent of the world’s female population was getting raped, the fanatics had the rest bound up in black. We were all arguing over how women should look and dress, not over basic rights. And in this country, women have treated each other just as poorly. Fighting like cats and dogs. Competing for men. Eating our own young. No solidarity. No respect. No grace, if you want to call it that.’
She let go of her bootlace and spread her arms wide. ‘And here, we’ll we’ve more or less cracked it, haven’t we? Everyone’s employed. No one’s made to kneel in a separate church. No one’s getting held down at bayonet point. We’re breeding. We’re free. Why would anyone want t
o risk this, Sister?’ I gave a small brief nod, but I don’t think Jackie noticed. ‘And the government down there now? Well, it would be madness to interfere with it and draw attention to what we’ve got here, wouldn’t it? Sheer madness. Too much of a risk. What possible kind of campaign could we run? Surely it’s better to just bolt the door. Hole the fuck up. And pray to be left alone.’
There was a smile on her face. It was not derisive but it seemed somehow mannered, and patronising, as if she were acknowledging a moderate and rudimentary opinion presented by a child, like the reciting of a basic commandment: Thou shall not kill. Her sympathy was so great it almost looked like disappointment.
Suddenly, she leant forward on the chair. ‘What do you think, Sister? Do women have it in them to fight if they need to? Or is that the province of men? Are we innately pacifist? A softer sex? Do we have to submit to survive?’ I was still standing in the middle of the room. I felt the air around me, wide and open at my sides, and wished I had something solid to touch. ‘Yes, of course we have it in us,’ I said. ‘Ah. Attacking or defending though?’ I frowned and thought for a moment. I could not tell if she was seriously engaging with me, or just warming me up for what might occur in the kitchen. ‘Both,’ I said. ‘But it depends what scale it’s on. I think women are naturally just as violent. Especially when we’re young. But we’re taught it’s not in keeping with our gender, that it’s not feminine behaviour. Men are forgiven for it. Women aren’t. So it’s suppressed. We end up on the defensive a lot of the time. But I think we’re capable of attacking when it’s something worth fighting for.’
Jackie nodded. ‘All good points, Sister.’ She sat back and recrossed her legs. ‘Then let me ask you this. When you went in to get that tag fixed up your tuss, why didn’t you fight then? Why did you let them do that to you?’ Her brow was lifted and heavily lined. She had summoned up incredulity and I did not know if it was for effect or if it was genuine. I felt as if I had been punched in the gut, and I gaped at her, appalled by her ruthlessness. I had become used to her bad language, her often taciturn moods, but the onslaught when Jackie Nixon launched a hard line of enquiry was impossible to withstand. I could feel my back teeth clenching and grinding over each other, a prickle in the ends of my fingers. I did not know if I was upset or angry. ‘What choice did I have?’ I finally managed to say. ‘It’s the law. I was surrounded by the system, and …’ I stumbled over my words, ‘… and they have these places where those who refuse are sent. I’ve heard about them.’
She nodded again. ‘Yes, I know they do. They’re in the old county prisons. It’s a scandal.’ There was an undertone of sarcasm in her voice. ‘So, tell me. Was it fear that stopped you? Fear of reprisal? Fear of what else they might do to you? Sister, how bad does a situation have to be before a woman will strike out, not in defence, but because something is, as you say, worth fighting for? Weren’t you?’ I searched her blue eyes for compassion, then I looked away. The bedroom window was lit by the red western light of the setting sun. The withers of the fell wore the same vivid stain on them. I could see women walking over the fields towards the main house. I had no worthwhile reply.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘It’s difficult, I know. You think I’m cruel. You think I’m a royal bitch. Maybe I am. Shit, I won’t lose any sleep over that. I just want to get to the bottom of why these things go on. I’m a dark fucking tourist, Sister, I like going to these places. It’s interesting to me. I’m interested in what holds people back. And what doesn’t. And how far these things extend.’ She paused. ‘I’ve got one more question for you – would you mind hearing it?’ I looked at her again. She had one hand on her hip and the other was resting on the tabletop holding her chin. She looked restful now. The vibrant dismay and the actor’s posture were gone. I shook my head. ‘It’s fine.’
‘Suppose you had that old gun I’ve fixed up. Suppose you had it in your hand and the doctor asked you to lie back and open your legs wide. Suppose if you said no, he was going to make you. Would it make any difference, that gun?’
I nodded. ‘Yes, it would.’
*
Downstairs there were tallow candles burning on the windowsills and the table. The paraffin lamp had its wick turned up and it threw out a buttery light from the hook in the middle of the ceiling. The wind had picked up; it moaned across the courtyard and rattled the farm’s window frames, and the sound of it in the hollow of the chimney breast was mournful, its register almost human. Orange flames blew through the iron fret of the range, reaching out towards the wood stacked in the recesses and glinting off the firedogs. The dinner plates were gone, the table had been pushed back against the wall and the benches set out in front of them ready. Those who could not sit on chairs stood to the back or squatted on the floor. Sixty-four women. Sixty-five, now that I was there.
I took my place in front of them. They faced me, quietly, patiently. Some sat with arms around each other, or arms hooked through the legs of a partner. If there had been talk or banter earlier in the gathering when they first arrived from the fields and the dormitories, it had lulled the moment the stair door opened and Jackie and I entered the room. In the candlelight the women looked gaunt and sculpted, their eyes shadowed. They did not look like girls, middle aged and older women. They seemed to be sexless, whittled back to muscle by toil and base nourishment, creatures who bore no sense of category, no dress code other than the one they chose. Their differences in age dissolved against their bones. I knew they were strong, resilient, perhaps braver than I would ever be.
My voice trembled as I began to speak, but the words came more easily than I thought they would, and I did not feel afraid. The heat of the fire at my back warmed the red embers inside me. I knew they already understood something of the conditions in Rith, and the events of the last few years, but I talked about everything. The floods. The collapse of the market and the recession. The state of emergency declared and the Civil Reorganisation. I described the terrace quarters, the deprivation, sickness, the Authority abuses. I told them what had happened to my marriage with Andrew. And then, without knowing I would, I described my own humiliation, at the hands of the doctor, and the monitors in the back of the cruiser.
I took the metal device from my pocket and held it on my open palm. Then I passed it to a woman in the front row. She looked at it for a long time and handed it on.
After I had finished speaking I felt airy inside, and my mouth was dry. My forehead ached and I realised that I had been holding it in a furrowed expression for almost an hour. I rubbed it with the heel of my hand.
The room remained silent. I invited questions, but nobody raised a hand or called out. Then from the back of the room Jackie told me that a discussion was not going to be opened that night. It was the privilege of each new speaker, she said. During the next meeting, I might be called on to continue, and if there was anything I wanted to close with now, the floor was still mine. I thanked them all for listening. I half expected them to clap, or shout out something, moved perhaps by what they had heard, but there was nothing. Just the darkly cast eyes turned on me, and my hands clasped over my belly. It seemed anti-climactic.
The gathering broke up. A swell of noise rose as women filed out and began to talk among themselves. Those who had been sitting on the cold flagstones rubbed their rumps to warm up. Some of the women stayed in the kitchen, as usual, to drink cider, and Lorry brought me a glass. ‘You did well,’ she said. ‘Not easy the first time, but you did well.’ I shook my head. ‘All I did was tell them what they already know. They’ve probably heard it all before. Their stories are probably far worse.’ Lorry lowered herself onto one of the benches. I sat with her and drank quickly to the half-way mark of the glass. ‘No, that’s not true,’ she said. ‘You’re of interest to most people. We all got out before things really deteriorated, more or less. It’s hard to appreciate it when you’re up here. It’s still hard to believe of this country. I think some of them still imagine things are the way they were when they left. We t
hought we were unlucky when we came. But we weren’t.’
I shrugged. She was being kind and I knew it. ‘Anyway. How’s your shoulder?’ she asked. ‘A lot better now, thanks,’ I said. ‘It only hurts when I roll onto it at night.’ Lorry ran her hand along my collarbone. ‘It’s good it didn’t break or dislocate. Never would have healed right without being set, and you’d have been left with a weak spot.’ Her eyes in the flickering of the candles glimmered between brown and topaz. They looked flawed and lovely. She cleared her throat and her tone became more confidential and earnest. ‘Jackie’s picked up the Authority’s communications before, out on patrol. She’s good at tracking frequencies; hell, she’s had years of practice at it. There are things we’ve known for a while. But it’s quite another thing to hear what they are doing from someone else, first hand. It makes a difference.’
She stretched her legs out in front of her, under the long pleated skirt, and placed her elbows back on the table behind her. I had never seen her not looking tired, but she often stayed up late in the kitchen. ‘So what’s your story, Lorry?’ I asked quietly. ‘You mean why did I come here?’ I nodded. ‘Oh well, it was a long time ago now. I was in my forties, divorced, and pissed off at work – everyone in the health industry was back then. It was in bits, about to go bust. I was doing more bloody paperwork than anything useful.’ She paused, took a sip of her drink. ‘You were a doctor?’ She shook her head. ‘Nurse.’
She took another sip and continued. ‘There was one little atrocity too many for me to stomach I suppose. Domestic abuse. I was on duty. Nothing I hadn’t seen before. But … I had to hold this little girl together while she told the social worker her father had attacked her and her mother. He’d just got back from service in South America. He had Clough’s syndrome and wasn’t being looked after. Not a very popular diagnosis with the Ministry of Defence, you see. He was in the next room, yelling away; he’d had a go at himself with the knife too.’ Lorry paused and then grimaced. ‘Angharad, her name was. I remember it. Poor little thing. Six pints of blood she took and it all pissed away out of her. I suppose that was my tipping point. You just know when the world is about to break apart. I think you just know it, don’t you?’