The Well

by Catherine Chanter

  They took my body up the hill, but I left my eyes behind, watching. The Sisters saw what was happening; they were surging forwards into the searchlights, stretching out their arms as if they could reach me, falling on the ground, weeping. ‘Ruth!’ they cried, ‘Chosen one of the Rose.’

  Their arms directed me forwards, my head swivelled round to look back, below, in the sodden, emptied camp. Amelia was alone, still holding the Rose aloft above the embers.

  The doors of the ambulance open. The play is finished. We are outside the theatre.

  I scream. ‘Stop them!’

  I am all fury and physical rage, but they have a great many hands to hold down my limbs. The needle slides into my arm. The waters close over my head.

  So it was that The Well waved goodbye to me, standing with hands on hips, watching me taken off, drugged and deranged, by men in uniform. Then, not much more than two months later, when the world and its justice had had its day with me, The Well watched me return, peeped through the kitchen window at the prison van bouncing down the drive, observed the guards releasing the handcuffs, then opened the front door for me, made my bed for me, welcomed me home and kept me here for one hundred and twenty-seven days so far, tucked up tight like a long-stay patient, unwilling to make predictions about a prognosis for my particular disease.

  Anon’s shadow blocks the evening sunlight which was lighting up the straw as I am forking manure, ready to bring the cow in for the evening milking. There is real pleasure in my new duties and routines and real resentment when it is disturbed. ‘Do you want something, Anon? I wasn’t aware that you were keen on cowpats?’

  Anon keeps a safe distance. ‘Don’t shoot me, I’m just the messenger. The gardener wants a word about the vegetable plot, asked me to let you know, that’s all.’

  Propping the fork up against the wheelbarrow, I pause. ‘The gardener? Do you mean Boy?’

  Anon laughs a lot at his own joke; he has put on so much weight doing his indolent job at my bountiful Well that his belly shakes. ‘That’s the one,’ he says and plods off, wheezing and coughing and calling behind him. ‘He’s out there now.’

  It seems a strange message, unusual enough to make me leave the stable and go to the fence in the orchard. I call over to Boy, ‘I gather you’ve got a problem?’

  Boy turns quickly and jumps to his feet, sees me, looks around, beckons me in. ‘You’ll need to take a closer look,’ he says. ‘I hope Anon has gone in.’

  ‘I don’t garden, Boy, you know I won’t come in.’

  ‘It will be worth it, I promise,’ he says.

  Reluctantly, I push the little wooden gate, remembering how it sticks at halfway open, halfway closed, because we put the hinges on the wrong way round all that time ago and I stand like a foreigner amidst the rows of orange-flowering runner beans. ‘Well?’

  Boy slips me a letter. It says it is for a Mr and Mrs A. Ranger at an address which is unfamiliar to me. But the handwriting, that I do recognise, the looping R is the same as the way it used to be written extra large on birthday cards, with the rest of the words tailing away. If proof were needed of Boy’s loyalty, then this would be it; he did post the letter to Mark and he has with him a reply.

  ‘That’s my parents’ address,’ Boy is explaining. ‘I slipped a note in with your letter, telling Mark that was the best way to get a reply to you if he didn’t want it opened. Mum’s old-fashioned, no emails for her. She still writes to me every couple of weeks and sends stuff. I asked her to forward it on, if a reply ever came.’

  There will be time enough to thank him, but at this moment, I am drawn to the handwriting, thinking how forensic pathology would be able to tell me how he was feeling when he wrote it, maybe even where he was, the pollen in the air caught in minute samples on paper, sealed in the glue on the envelope, which he must have licked. I sit myself down slowly on an old log. Of all the places to read a reply from Mark, here I am, in his beloved garden, at my feet tiny fragments of glass still glinting in the mud, the shell of the greenhouse behind me.

  Now I have only these words.

  Dear Ruth,

  ‘I got your letter. You are right, I am in Northumberland. Uncle Andrew passed away last month, after a heart attack. It was a terrible shock for Annie and difficult for me. As you know, he was like a father for me and the last thing I could cope with was another bereavement. But life must go on. I am helping Annie look after what’s left of the farm. The sheep up here aren’t doing too badly, they have taken on some British Alpine goats and of course she’s always had her hens. I am doing the occasional piece of work for some local solicitors as well.

  To respond to your letter. We all need to find out what happened to Lucien. Nothing can bring him back, but I agree certainty would help so much. It is easier for me, I know, since it is clear where I was and what I was doing that night and that I am innocent. You are in a much harder position, but you ask, so here are my thoughts.

  1.

  Amelia has set up some sort of copycat cult in East Anglia and managed to con some poor drought-stricken victims into following her. It was in the press and there is a little about it – but not much – on the internet. It looks as though Dorothy has gone back to Canada. I don’t know about the mental one. That just leaves that rich bitch businesswoman (Eve?) and they couldn’t have done anything without her.

  2.

  It is clear Amelia wanted me out of there and she succeeded. I think that was because she wanted you and she got you. Who knows what she was capable of doing in order to achieve that. So many things seem to point to her, but the police lost interest in her pretty quickly. No evidence, plenty of alibis. They have told the press that they are not following any leads on anyone living outside The Well at the time of Lucien’s death. I want to believe it’s Amelia, but it looks increasingly unlikely.

  3.

  I asked you once before to get help, but you ignored me. Please, this time, take my advice. I have been finding out about therapists who can help you retrace things from the past and I can put you in touch with one if that is helpful. You know I was never one for that sort of psychobabble, but even I think it has to be worth a try. Whatever you find out about what you have done, it cannot be worse for you than not knowing.

  I am sorry I have not been in touch. I did get a letter some time ago from some vicar who is visiting you, at your request, if he is to be believed. I would have thought you had had enough religion for one lifetime. I have – there was no way I was going to get involved with him. If I am honest, I have to say I cannot face you.

  Yes, I do miss The Well. I loved that place. I can remember every tree I planted, every branch I pruned, every single sheep I lambed, the way the tractor stalled on corners. Everything.

  You asked about Angie. I can tell you she is with Charley, she is safe and – if I believe her and that was always the problem – apparently not using any more. She says she went down around the time of the funeral, but Charley has helped her back up. She has asked me not to tell you where she is. She is not ready yet to be in touch with you. I know this will break your heart, but I cannot blame her. At least we are close now and I hope I am some support for her. Give her time.

  I’d like to hear from you again, I worry about you and miss you and am plagued with guilt about leaving you when you needed me. I may not have liked you very much towards the end, but I will never stop loving you. I will never love anyone else.

  Mark

  So he is alive – and well, as the cliché goes. And my Angie, nothing terrible has happened to Angie. Nothing else, that is. I re-read those lines again and again. ‘She is safe’, ‘she is not ready’ and ‘we are close’. Where does that leave me? At The Well, of course. I remember Boy is there.

  ‘Read it.’ I offer it to Boy.

  ‘You want me to?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He wipes the mud from his hands on his jeans and takes the letter. I watch his face while he reads, the way he turns over, flicks back, shakes his head.
>
  I want a second opinion. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘What do you mean, what do I think?’

  ‘What is he trying to say?’

  Boy passes me back the letter and runs his hands through his hair. ‘There’s nothing new in what he says, is there? I mean, I Googled some stuff when I was on leave, picked an internet cafe where I could use a different account, but to be quite honest, it wasn’t worth it. Mark, Hugh, me, none of us have come up with anymore outside The Well than you have stuck here.’

  ‘So what’s he saying?’ I repeat, although the answer is clear to me.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re getting at.’ Boy picks up the spade and jabs it into the soil.

  ‘Yes, you do, Boy.’ I fold the letter over again and again. There’s something about only ever being able to fold a piece of paper six times, no matter how big it is to start with, everything always ends up in the same impossible conundrum. ‘Hugh, now Mark, it’s clear, everyone thinks it was me. That’s what he’s saying.’

  ‘I think he wants you to think that it was you. What’s always puzzled me is why don’t you ever think it was him?’

  He waits for me to answer, but I am exercising my right to remain silent, so he continues. ‘You do think it was him, don’t you? Sometimes, anyway. It’s just you don’t dare say it out loud.’

  Shaking my head, I tell Boy he just doesn’t understand: this was Mark, a gardener like him, this was what he loved; I wave crazily at the ordered ranks of courgettes. Mark wasn’t mad, he wasn’t evil, he wasn’t violent . . .

  ‘So what happened to the greenhouse?’ Boy looks pointedly at the ruin.

  ‘I drove him to that. Before we came here, he was different, he was . . .’ I falter.

  ‘A paedophile?’

  I have to get out of this garden. At the gate, I turn round and tell Boy. ‘I never believed he was a paedophile!’

  ‘Then.’

  The monosyllable takes its place in this outdoor theatre of a courtroom, the implicit question raises its eyebrow at the bench, but stays silent.

  Boy follows me out of the garden, catches me, takes the letter from my hand and pushes it out of sight into his pocket. We walk as far as the front of the cottage; there is no one around and we continue our legal wrangling by the back door.

  ‘Ruth, I could argue, objectively, that he was all those things. And – no, let me go on – and who else would Lucien have gone with? He had the chance to dump the green jumper, the wet clothes, the rose necklace, on his early morning trip to buy a newspaper, which you yourself said was totally out of character.’

  ‘Stop it.’ I am going to go inside, shut the door on his logic.

  Boy puts his foot in the way. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because, I don’t know why, I just want you to stop.’ Of course, I have thought about whether it was Mark, but Boy is right, hearing that suspicion voiced out loud is something different and I put my hand out to get my letter back from him, but he keeps it out of my reach.

  ‘I’m not saying it was him. But if it was, then what better way of covering things up than making you mad all over again, convincing you of your own guilt? It’s obvious no one is going to pin it on the Sisters.’ He turns his back to the barns and gives me back my letter. ‘I’ve never the met the man, Ruth, but you’re always defending his memory and no man is that good; we’re a jealous breed.’

  I allow myself a day in bed to think about Boy’s unthinkable premise, to re-read the letter, trying to find the sub-text; I was so good at analysis of language when I was paid to teach it, but now, looking for a different sort of remuneration, I am not up to the job. I loved Mark. For a very long time I thought he was a good man, even when others disagreed. He wasn’t the sort of man to hurt people, although he did. He hurt me for a start. He had an alibi, but people can do all sorts of things with computers and rarely get caught, which he knew only too well. I loved him. The reason it is unsayable is this: if it was him, if the laptop accusations were true and that was him, I have lived with and loved a pervert, I’ve been so embroiled with him that I myself cannot have escaped contamination. Easier, in a way, for it to be anyone but him. Easier, even, in some strange way, for it to be me.

  Outside, I can hear banging. Looking out of the window, I can see Boy has taken up my idea of keeping chickens and is mending the henhouse, bent double, hammering the wire to the frame, his collar turned up against the dry wind whipping up the dust, surrounding himself with the paraphernalia of the dream of the smallholder. No man is that good.

  Today is 15 August. Exactly this time, one year ago, I was making a cake. I will make a cake again today as an act of remembrance. I will take the large yellow mixing bowl from the bottom of the dresser. Perhaps when I am finally released I can write a celebrity book called The House Arrest Cookbook. The first thing it will say is to make sure you have enough small things: saucepans for one, half-pint mixing bowls, casserole dishes designed for one chicken leg only, although it may be worth keeping one large yellow mixing bowl big enough for mixing a six-year-old’s birthday cake, just in case. With some foresight, I have ordered ahead.

  Anon queried the shopping list. ‘Some kind of special occasion?’ he asked.

  He is not inquisitive enough to be promoted. Anon will go through life knowing enough and no more, which is one way of living – maybe a good one – but whatever he thought of my request, he brought back what he could. Food interests him; he is probably the only person in the UK to have put on weight during the drought. Flour is still easily obtained, if expensive; sugar, providing you are happy to take unrefined, is also not a problem; and hens are quite happy scratching a living from dust and bare earth, so we are now apparently a nation of free-range egg eaters. I have made an attempt at making my own butter from Annalisa’s lovely milk.

  The ingredients are laid out on the table, reminding me of cookery lessons at school, when we had washed our hands (how casually we must have washed our hands), tied the stiff, plastic aprons behind our backs with uneven bows and read through the recipe written up on the whiteboard. Diana Reid was my cooking partner. We lost touch long before we moved here. I wonder if she read about me in the press and said to the people in her office, I used to be her cooking partner at school, you know. And everyone would think, I work with someone who went to school with someone who knows that weird woman who thinks she’s the chosen one and who killed her grandson in the pond. They would all experience a little frisson of having come so close to madness and got away with it.

  I take a spoon and scoop off a block of butter and scrape it into the bowl. There are no scales so I cannot be weighed and found wanting. I use a tablespoon to measure out the sugar: flat across the top for sugar, heaped for flour – that made twenty-five grams, my mother taught me. Actually, she would have said ounces, I think, but I am making things up. I can’t hear her voice any longer. Much as we had our differences, I am glad she never lived to see this: her daughter baking birthday cakes for the dead.

  Creaming butter and sugar is hard work. The muscles which I used to pin down the sheep for shearing and balance the wheel-barrow full of stones for repairing the orchard wall, have withered long ago and I find myself softening the butter on the Rayburn to make the task easier and swapping the wooden spoon from hand to hand to alleviate my aching arms. The creaming done, I crack the eggs into a bowl and whisk them lightly before adding them slowly to the cake mixture. At first it is beautiful, full of air and a consistency which reminds me of the Cornish cream the old ladies used to serve at the fete with dollops of jam and crumbling scones and wasps. How full of memories I am today. But then I add the egg too quickly – slapdash Ruthy – and it curdles into slimy islands which slop their way around the bowl and refuse to bind. The flour rescues it, but I don’t have baking powder and now I think this cake will be airless and lifeless like biscuit. In a second, it has gone from a work of love to an object of hate and I am close to hurling the yellow mixing bowl and its separating mixture of survival and
grief against the wall.

  Then Lucien is standing on the chair besides me. He smells of clean laundry. If he could be there, if he could only be there, beautiful on the chair beside me, wanting to put the eggshells back together again and lick the spoon, then I could carry on. I uncurl my hands from their rigid grip on the bowl and breathe deeply, resume folding in the flour, first this way, then that, and slowly it starts to come right again. I resolve not to throw it away. I spoon the mixture into the greased cake tin and put it in the oven, then stand by the sink and watch the wheat unharvested ripple and fly in the hot wind and I think of his hair. The pheasants, fat and unaware of their good fortune, pecking in the straggling grass by the gatepost remind me of him windmilling down the drive, clapping his hands and watching them take off, heavy as jumbo jets. I run my own finger around the bowl and lick it, once for me, once for him, and once for what? For good luck?

  Three invades my house.

  ‘What do you want?’ I am brave, here in my kitchen, ready to defend my cake against any imposter.

  ‘For once, I thought you would be pleased to see me. But if I’m interrupting something . . .’

  Putting the spoons and bowl into the sink, I work hard to manage my expectations. I run the water to wash up. ‘What is it you wanted to say?’

  ‘It was to inform you that a section 9 visitor’s permit has been granted for this afternoon. Fourteen hundred to sixteen hundred hours.’

  He has played his trump card and he knows it.

  ‘Today?’

  ‘I said this afternoon, fourteen hundred to sixteen hundred.’

  ‘You must have known about this and you’re telling me now. You are a sadistic bastard!’ I smash the bowl onto the draining board.

  ‘You must be aware I have the authority to rescind the permission if you are not in a fit mental state.’ Three plays with the piece of paper in his hand.