The Festering

by Guy N Smith

  The compressor was blocking the gateway so he had to park on the grass verge. From here he had a view of the drive, and saw that Tommy Eaton and Jim Fitzpatrick had already started digging the trench from the borehole to the house; it looked as if the water pipes entered beneath the front door, which meant that he would have very little trenching to do himself for the other system, maybe only a couple of yards or so. First, though, he needed to go up into the loft and look at the tank – that would be the tricky part. He glanced across the road. There was a council land drain going under it. What was the betting that old Hughes had used that to cross the road with his water pipe? Nick laughed to himself; out in the country, folk were predictable. He had learned that in a very short time.

  Christ, there was a bloody stink! He coughed, looked towards the borehole and saw that slurry still dripped from the trees and was drying in the garden. That smell was never normal, he thought, more like something decomposing. He wished he had remembered to leave the phone off, and then he would have been at Mrs King’s doing an easy routine job and eating cheese and pickle sandwiches when it was done. He shrugged his shoulders and trudged down the drive towards the cottage.

  Holly Mannion opened the door to his knock. ‘You must be the plumber.’ She seemed embarrassed, and looked across to where the two workmen were still digging out the trench. That terrible smell was still hanging around although it did not seem quite so bad as yesterday. Perhaps it would disperse now that the sea of sludge was almost dry. ‘Come in, please.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Nick squeezed inside and laid his tool bag on the floor, ‘I’ll have to have a look at the tank in the attic first to see what’s to be done.’

  ‘Tea or coffee?’ She moved over to the stove where the kettle was boiling.

  ‘Er … coffee, please.’ His thoughts switched momentarily to Mrs King’s, but there were unlikely to be sandwiches on offer here. His eyes rested on Holly; she was very attractive. Usually he was too wrapped up in his work to notice the opposite sex. He wondered idly where her husband was. Out at work, probably.

  ‘I didn’t realize that having a borehole meant such an upheaval.’ She brought two steaming mugs of coffee to the table and seated herself opposite him. ‘Or such an awful smell, for that matter.’

  ‘Not very nice, is it?’ He tried to make a joke of it but it didn’t sound funny. ‘Like a … well, a bit of a niff, to say the least.’

  ‘What do you think has caused it?’

  He scratched his head and tried to sound casual. After all, it was Bennion’s pigeon, not his. ‘I’d say they’ve drilled through an old boghole. But that won’t matter,’ he hastily tried to reassure her, ‘because they’ll seal the well at least twenty feet down. Blimey, some of the holes that Bennion’s drilled have been in farmyards knee deep in sh – cowmuck.’

  ‘I hope you’re right …?’

  ‘Nick.’ He suddenly felt at ease with her. ‘Well, I’d best get started. From what I’ve seen out there, Jim and Tommy are nearly finished. They’ll be away this afternoon, I reckon.’

  ‘Thank God for that,’ She resisted the temptation to go and look out of the window, ‘I shan’t be sorry to see the back of them. Nothing personal, but it has been a disturbance. My husband’s an artist, you see.’

  ‘Oh!’ Nick failed to keep the disappointment out of his tone. Subconsciously he was hoping that this girl was either separated or divorced, or maybe her husband worked away in the week. Not that it would have made any difference, she was hardly likely to fall in love with a plumber at first sight. ‘I’ll get on up to the attic, then.’

  ‘I’ll show you where the loft ladder is.’ She walked through to the hall ahead of him, and he found himself fascinated by the rear view of her, in those ragged cut-off denim shorts. Suddenly he was glad he had answered the phone that morning and hadn’t gone straight to fix Mrs King’s toilet.

  The men outside were loading up their equipment. Empty drums were stacked in the back of the Land Rover and the trailer was hitched on, filled with surplus rubble which they were taking away. They were hurrying even though it was already four-thirty. There was another job to set up ready for drilling in the morning; Frank Bennion did not delay where work was concerned. They heard an approaching car slow in the lane outside and park behind the plumber’s van. That would be the boss – he seemed to sense completion time on every job by some kind of mysterious sixth sense, like his dowsing with the pendulum.

  ‘Well, it looks as if they’ve finished.’ There was distinct relief in Mike Mannion’s voice as he watched from the kitchen window, a mug of tea in his hand. ‘Here’s Bennion, come to see that everything’s satisfactory. Well, I don’t think we’ve much to complain about – they’ve cleared up pretty well, even hosed all that sludge away. Most of it will trickle down old Hughes’s field.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘But the borehole top looks pretty untidy. I thought they’d remove that length of blue pipe from it when they’d done. Anyway, here’s Bennion coming now.’

  ‘Everything to your satisfaction?’ The boss was smiling benignly. ‘Good lads, those. They always do a good job. Now, you’ll note that we’ve left you that thirty foot of pipe on the well. That’s for pumping the waste down the field. Pump it for two or three days to clean it out, then if you turn the stopcock next to it, and check that the switch in the box on the outside wall is turned on, you’ll have water coming out of your taps. Oh, and make sure that the float switch is submerged in the tank in the loft. At the moment it’s pulled out so that you can pump the water away.’ He reached in his pocket and pulled out a neatly folded sheet of paper. ‘And here’s the damage, Mr Mannion.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Mike took it but did not open it out. ‘As soon as the tests prove the water’s pure I’ll send you a cheque.’

  ‘I don’t think you need to worry about the quality of the water, Mr Mannion.’ There was a sharp edge to Bennion’s voice now. ‘I’ve seen it coming out of the pipe. It’s as clear as a bell.’

  ‘I hope so.’ Mike was wondering how long it would be before his contract signature money came through. He had returned the signed documents by this morning’s post. ‘Anyway, we’ll see. I’ve already phoned the Environmental Health Department. Their inspector is calling to test the water the day after tomorrow. As I said, as soon as they give me the okay, I’ll post you a cheque.’

  ‘We usually receive payment on completion.’ Bennion’s smile had vanished. ‘Naturally, if there are any teething problems we will rectify them at once. But when there are any, they are usually of a minor nature.’

  ‘I’ll pay you the moment we get the all-clear.’ Mike dropped the invoice on to the table. ‘As you said, Mr Bennion, no water, no fee. And we don’t know yet whether it will be drinkable, do we?’

  ‘Well, don’t be too long about it.’ Frank Bennion turned towards the door and jammed his soft hat angrily on his head – ‘Good day to you both.’

  They stood in the window, watching him stride back down the drive until he was lost from their view. Engines started up: the BMW, followed by the Land Rover, then the compressor truck.

  ‘Well, that’s that.’ Holly sank down in the nearest chair. ‘The plumber’s fixing the original system into the new one, and then our problems are over. I hope. By the way, that stench seems to have gone. Whatever it was, they’ve obviously managed to clear it, Mike.’

  ‘Thank God! Now all we need is the health inspector to test the water.’ And my money through so that I can pay Bennion, he added silently, because he’s not the type to be stalled for long.

  Mike had an uneasy feeling, one that he could not place. Not just about the water but about this whole setup. He shrugged it off. There was no point in discussing illogical fears with Holly, but somehow the job was all too sudden to be passed off and forgotten; one week they were dry, the next they had all the water they needed. And that stench worried him; it was gone now, but he could still smell its lingering vile odour in his nostrils.

  There were footsteps o
n the stairs, and they turned to see Nick Paton entering the room. He nodded to Mike, then dropped his gaze.

  ‘How’s it going, Nick?’ Holly broke the sudden awkward silence.

  ‘Okay.’ He smiled faintly. ‘I’ve finished upstairs. Now all I need to do is dig a pit outside the door and join the two pipes up in there. By this time tomorrow you’ll be able to use whichever system you want. At least, you’ll be able to use the ram again when it rains.’ He laughed nervously, ‘I’ll see you first thing in the morning.’

  Mike went back to his studio. Now that the drilling was finished he should have been able to concentrate on his painting. But for some reason he could not settle. This whole business had been most disturbing. And for some inexplicable reason it still was.

  5

  Mike had envisaged a young, possibly officious health inspector, modern bureaucracy in an office suit and green wellies, silently rebuking them for having opted out of a conventional life, offhand because they were wasting the department’s time when they should have been living in suburbia and drinking mains water and gratefully accepting unquestioningly any additives which the authority in their infinite wisdom chose to put in it. But Bill Kemp was nothing like that at all, in fact he was the complete opposite of what Mike had imagined.

  The man from the Environmental Health Department was, quite obviously, of retirement age – maybe a year or two over it. Tall, slightly stooped, he had a shock of white hair which flopped over his narrow forehead. His piercing grey eyes were shrewd but kindly behind rimless glasses. He wore a white cotton jacket and grey flannels which would have been more at home on the bowling green. The only hint of officialdom was the clipboard full of duplicated sheets and the small gas Bunsen burner which he held in his other hand.

  ‘It doesn’t smell very good from here, does it?’ He stood by the door, looking towards the unsightly mound of concrete and blue piping. ‘Decidedly niffy, in fact.’

  ‘It didn’t smell good when they were drilling.’ Mike’s hopes sank. ‘But the smell seemed to go once they’d finished.’

  ‘Or maybe you’d got acclimatized to it.’ The official was walking towards the borehole. Beyond the overgrown shrubbery which was the boundary between Garth Cottage and Elwyn Hughes’s farm they could hear the gushing of water as the well continued to pump to waste. ‘Now, I need to take two samples.’ He produced a couple of corked empty test tubes. ‘One from the borehole itself and the other from the taps.’

  They walked into the field. Trespassing. Mike enjoyed the thought but was glad Hughes wasn’t around. Right now he considered they had enough problems without the old farmer’s intervention. The length of pipe lay in the browned grass, a half-coiled viper spitting its venom. Mike peered over Kemp’s shoulder as the inspector dropped to his knees and managed to light the burner.

  ‘Go and switch it off for a moment, will you, Mr Mannion?’ he asked, ‘I’ll have to sterilize the end of the pipe first. A fly or a bit of dirt on there could result in a contaminated test. Then switch the water to the taps and I’ll join you in the kitchen.’

  Mike knelt by the open pit at the top of the borehole and saw the pipe jutting up out of its surrounds. It went down a hundred and thirty feet, unless Bennion was conning him, far into the earth. Darkness and cold, a deep evil, place. He grasped the red knob of the stopcock and even as he struggled to turn it in an anticlockwise direction, the stench hit him like a physical blow from some foul invisible demon and sent him reeling back, gasping for air. Oh, Jesus Christ, the smell is still here!

  ‘Mike, are you all right?’

  He looked up and saw Holly running towards him, an anguished expression on her face. He wanted to shout to her to keep away, to stay clear, but the words would not come. It was as though whatever it was that was down there was asphyxiating him. She was close now, did not seem to notice.

  And then the foul air was gone, leaving only a rancid taste in his throat, ‘I’m all right.’ He tried to speak normally, but kept his head turned away from her. ‘I’ve got to turn this stopcock. I … lost my balance.’

  She did not reply; perhaps she believed him. With shaking fingers he grasped the knob again, and this time it turned easily.

  ‘That’s fine.’ Kemp’s voice came from the field beyond. A few seconds and then, ‘Now go and put the floatswitch back in the tank.’

  Holly followed him, right up the ladder into the dry, dusty loft, holding the torch, once flashing it on his face as though checking him again. Mike pulled up the switch on its length of cord and dropped it back into the half-filled tank. A faint splash, then a droplet of icy water flecked on his face and he recoiled in the blackness. God, that water’s come from down there, too!

  Now the water was flowing in, starting to fill up the tank. ‘Let’s go back downstairs.’ Christ, he thought, I’ve got to come back up here, put my hand in that to pull the switch out again!

  The health inspector was standing at the sink, the flame of his Bunsen burner playing on the cold tap. After a few seconds of intense heat he extinguished the flame, turned on the water and filled the second test tube. Meticulously he corked it and wrote something on the label.

  ‘I’ll have that into the laboratory by three o’clock this afternoon,’ he smiled. ‘Officially the test will take about a week, but I’ll know the result in a day or two and I’ll phone and let you know. These bacteriological tests are free, but if you want a chemical test it’ll cost you fifty quid.’

  ‘I think we’ll stick with the bacteriological tests for the moment,’ Mike replied. ‘Have you … any ideas? I mean, can you tell anything at this stage?’

  Kemp hesitated. ‘Strictly, I’m not supposed to give an opinion. But all I can say is that the water itself looks clear enough but … well, when it was coming out of the pipe in the field there was a sort of … putrid smell, like the one I smelled when I arrived. Can’t smell it now. It may be nothing, perhaps some of that slurry that’s lying all over the field. Anyway, the lab tests will prove whether or not the water’s fit to drink. As I said, I’ll phone you.’

  ‘All we can do is keep our fingers crossed.’ Mike stood on the patio with Holly after Kemp had gone, ‘If it wasn’t for that stink, I’d say by the look of it the water’s pure.’

  Nick Paton had finished and left, and for the first time for days Garth Cottage seemed strangely deserted. Mike had almost finished his second landscape. It was much easier to work now. That feeling of mounting tension had gone, along with the vile odour, and the only inconvenience was having to fetch several containers of water for domestic use from the outside tap on the garage forecourt in the village.

  ‘It’s a farcical situation.’ He lifted a polythene water carrier up on to the working surface next to the sink. ‘Here we are with, in theory, two water supplies, and we’re having to fetch the bloody stuff daily from the village! Still, hopefully it won’t be for long. With luck, Kemp will phone tomorrow.’

  ‘And inform us of the worst,’ Holly replied.

  ‘Don’t be a bloody pessimist.’

  ‘Well, I know it won’t be fit to drink.’ Holly’s depression had been deepening all day. She had woken with it and, like a headache, it had got worse and worse. ‘The inspector knew, but he didn’t say because he wasn’t allowed to, just hinted.’

  ‘Well, you dragged me out here away from the town comforts,’ he retorted. ‘And only last week you said that life here was idyllic and you could stand it for the rest of your life. Don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind. Holly.’

  ‘I was fine until they started drilling.’ She was very close to tears now. ‘Then everything seemed to change, and this place became … evil.’

  He wanted to tell her it was nonsense, but he knew he would be lying if he did. The stench that came up out of the bowels of the earth was both tangible and malevolent. Like Satan’s foul breath from hell!

  ‘Well, it’s gone now, whatever it was.’ He slipped an arm around her. ‘And if you want to sell up, then just say
so.’

  ‘I don’t.’ She was adamant. ‘Not yet, anyway. Let’s wait and see what the tests throw up.’

  Outside, the sun blazed fiercely, scorching up the surrounding countryside. A place of peace and tranquillity; it was difficult now to imagine it as anything else.

  It was Friday morning, and there was still no word from Bill Kemp. Mike was edgy; he sensed Holly’s restlessness, too. He was tempted to phone the Environmental Health Department but he resisted the urge. In all probability Kemp would not be there; his was only a part-time retirement job checking private water supplies. Or the laboratory had not sent the tests through yet; like that time when Holly had toxoplasmosis and it had taken three lots of tests to diagnose the problem. Patients became frustrated, but bureaucracy went along at its usual pedestrian pace, devoid of emotion. The health officials didn’t care. All they had to do was to test a sample of water, and they would do it in their time.

  He had finished the second landscape. It looked fine, but he sensed a lack of feeling in it, though perhaps that was only obvious to him. He hoped so, anyway. A workmanlike job by a professional artist, he judged, no way a masterpiece with feeling. It left a sense of dissatisfaction, a longing to be back in a terraced house with no outside problems, just his work to concentrate on. Maybe it would be a blessing in disguise if the tests were positive, a valid reason for selling up. At heart he was a townie, and he would never be otherwise.

  And then the phone rang. Mike knew even before he went through to the kitchen that it was Kemp on the line. Holly had answered it, she was holding the receiver out to him, almost shying away from it.

  ‘Kemp here.’ The health inspector’s tone said all that Mike feared, a kind of ‘it’s bad news, I’m afraid’ voice. ‘I’ve just had the results of your water test in this morning. I’m afraid the well’s contaminated!’