The Festering

by Guy N Smith

  ‘I see.’ He was trying to keep it from Holly, which he knew was stupid because she was standing right by him and would find out from the rest of the conversation. ‘How bad?’

  ‘Very bad!’ Kemp paused. Mike could hear a rustling of paper. ‘A variety of bacilli, salmonella included – twenty-five per cent. Others which will need a chemical test if you want them isolated. But that will cost you fifty quid. I’m sorry.’

  Mike stiffened. Salmonella itself was bad enough – sheep droppings washed down from Hughes’ pasture-land probably. The rest unknown poisons. Bureaucracy didn’t care, they’d done all that was asked of them. ‘Disease?’

  ‘I couldn’t say, I’m not a scientist, but they probably wouldn’t do you any good if you took them into your system.’

  ‘What do you suggest?’

  ‘You could pump the well to waste for another few days, see if you can clear it. Apart from that, I can’t suggest anything.’

  Oh, shit! We’ve been pumping the well for days, and if it was going to clear it would have done so by now, he thought. And suddenly he could taste that foulness in his mouth again, a cloying putrefaction like residue on his palate from some vile cesspit.

  ‘I’ll get back to Bennion.’ His voice sounded as if it was a whisper coming from a distance. ‘Maybe he’ll know what to do.’ And if he doesn’t, I’m two and a half grand better off and we can move to some civilized place, he consoled himself. Now he had to console Holly.

  ‘You do that, Mr Mannion. And when you want another test, just give me a bell. All the best.’

  ‘So it is bad.’ Holly covered her face with her hands, ‘I knew it couldn’t be otherwise after I’d smelled it. Oh, Mike, it’s more than just contaminated, it’s evil!’

  ‘That’s nonsense.’ Mike knew he would fail to convince his wife, but he had to say something. The responsibility was his, but right now he was going to pass the buck … to Frank Bennion. Holding the receiver, he dialled with a finger of the same hand, his other arm cradling Holly to him. He heard the phone ringing at the other end.

  A woman’s voice answered, probably Bennion’s wife. Bennion was around somewhere, she said, and she’d go and fetch him. An agonizing two minutes passed before he heard Frank Bennion’s suave voice.

  ‘Ah, Mr Mannion, you’ve phoned to tell me that –’

  ‘That the well’s contaminated. Badly. Salmonella and a host of other so far unidentified bugs. The bloody thing’s a foul boghole.’

  Bennion caught his breath, but when he spoke again the confidence was back in his voice. ‘Not to worry, Mr Mannion. Just a teething problem. I’ll tell you what the problem is, one of the seals on the liner is probably faulty and is letting in surface contamination. We can rectify it easily enough.’

  ‘How?’ Mike was abrupt. I’d sooner not have to pay you and get the hell out of here, he thought.

  ‘I’ll have the lads there first thing in the morning. They can winch the liner out, check the seals and put it right. Just bear with me for a couple of days or so. Not to worry, when we’ve finished you’ll have pure water, I guarantee it.’

  ‘All right,’ he said grudgingly, wishing they could call the deal off, fill the hellhole in and bury that evil forever. But Frank Bennion wanted his money, and he wouldn’t give up without a fight. ‘See you tomorrow, then.’

  ‘It won’t be any good.’ Holly groaned, ‘It’s hopeless. There’s something down there, I know it.’

  ‘Salmonella and friends.’ Mike unscrewed a water container, filled the kettle and put it on the stove to boil.

  ‘More than that. Much more. Oh, Mike, I’m so frightened.’

  He did not reply. Because he was frightened too, against all logic, all reasoning. Because he knew that the stench which had come up at him out of the well the other day had been a living force, an evil entity.

  And whatever it was, it was still down there. Waiting. For what?

  6

  Holly felt a sense of despair as she watched the Land Rover backing the rig down through the gateway again. The compressor truck was parked in the entrance. It was like a rerun of some terribly boring film that she had seen only yesterday, and she hated the idea of having to sit through it again. Tommy Eaton and Jim Fitzpatrick were busily fixing up the winch on the back of the vehicle to the protruding blue pipe which was the top of the well liner, tying ropes, making sure that they were firm enough, then pausing to light cigarettes.

  Holly glanced at the clock above the Rayburn. Nine-five. They had not wasted any time getting here; Bennion was obviously a man of his word. Or, more likely, and she smiled wryly to herself, money was his god. There was a bill outstanding because of a hitch, so the priority was to rectify it and get his money. She wondered how Mike was going to pay. The signature money would not be arriving just yet – it might be another week or two. Still, water tests took time; Kemp would have to be summoned, do his testing and submit it to the laboratory, and they certainly wouldn’t hurry. It all took time and, right now, time was of the essence.

  A sudden thought brought a sense of light relief: they wouldn’t have to drill again, would they? Her reasoning told her that they had reached water, fresh or pure, and there was no point in going down any deeper. Just a question of hauling the liner out, checking the seals and dropping it back down the shaft. She shrugged. She hadn’t a clue about the technicalities of water-well making, so it was a waste of time surmising. But she fervently hoped that that awful vibration, the noise and the spouting liquid filth jetting on to the trees and shrubs, dripping down and oozing all over the untended garden, would not happen again.

  Footsteps on the stairs, and seconds later Mike appeared in the kitchen doorway dressed in a T-shirt and jeans. He had risen late. He was never an early riser, but this morning Holly noticed he looked tired and dispirited. All this business was getting him down, too. He poured himself a mug of coffee and sipped it before he spoke.

  ‘I’ll have to get cracking on that painting today,’ he grunted, ‘borehole or no borehole.’

  ‘Which doesn’t sound as though you relish the job,’ she replied. ‘I always thought artists were devoted to their work and loved every second of it. Where’s your inspiration going to come from in that kind of mood?’

  ‘Inspiration is a myth.’ He added some more milk to his coffee. ‘This is work, pure and simple, a commercial enterprise done for money. Hack work, if you like to put it into perspective.’

  ‘I see.’ She glanced out of the window as a clanking, grinding noise began. ‘That looks like the liner on its way up. Well, let’s just hope they don’t start drilling again.’

  ‘There must be a possibility, otherwise they wouldn’t have brought the rig, would they?’

  ‘Gee, thanks.’ Mike could be a bit touchy first thing in a morning. She had learnt that during the three years they had been married. ‘Well, I’m going into town this morning. There’s lots of things we’re running low on. Coffee, for one thing.’

  ‘You won’t get the car out.’ He nodded his head to where the big truck was blocking the entrance.

  She almost said, ‘You should have put it up on the road last night when you knew they were coming back,’ but thought better of it. ‘The bus runs today, ten-fifteen from the Green, back at three o’clock, so I’ll see you after three. Have a good day.’

  He grunted again. It wasn’t going to be a good day. He didn’t want it to be, because he was pissed off with all this business which wouldn’t solve their water problem at the finish, he was sure of that. Frustration and inconvenience, that was all it amounted to. Thank Christ he had stuck to his guns and refused to pay. Eventually Bennion would have to admit defeat and fill his bloody hole in, and that would be that. Everything for nothing.

  ‘That bleedin’ stink’s back again,’ Tommy Eaton said through a mouthful of cold bacon sandwich as he struggled to push the sliding side window of the Land Rover shut. ‘Jeez, I never smelled owt like it, Jim.’

  ‘Huh?’ His stocky, moros
e companion grunted as he avidly continued reading the sports page of his crumpled newspaper. ‘The Town are trying to get that defender from Bristol on a free transfer for the start of the season. Another buckshee throw-out that nobody else wants. If you ask me …’

  ‘I said that fucking smell has started up again.’ There were flies crawling over the insides of the windows, and was it any wonder! ‘Your bloody nose must be stopped up, Jim!’

  ‘Uh?’

  ‘It smells out there. Which is why I’ve shut the window.’

  ‘You don’t expect anything else, do you? In this job you’re working in shit all the time, drilling down through soak ’oles and … do you remember that time we tapped a septic tank drain at the farm?’

  ‘But nothin’s ever smelled as bad as this!’ Tommy could even taste it now, as if the bacon in his sandwich had gone off; putrid, worse than a sewage works. ‘I tell you, Jim, it’s giving me a bloody headache and a sore throat.’

  ‘You’ll get acclimatized to it shortly.’ Jim Fitzpatrick had moved on to the racing page; if there had been a bookmaker’s handy, he would have put a bet on Scarlet Lady in the three-thirty at Ludlow. But there wasn’t a bookie in Garth, so he would just have a bet with himself and an extra pint tonight if it came up. ‘We got used to it before, didn’t we?’

  ‘We should’ve sealed right down to twenty feet in the first place.’ Tommy was obliquely blaming his companion for the oversight which had brought them back here. ‘Then we wouldn’t’ve had to get the bleedin’ thing back up again.’

  ‘Why worry? We’re getting paid whether we’re drilling new ones or repairing old ones. The only one to lose out is that old fart, Bennion.’

  ‘Well, I don’t like this bugger.’ Tommy wrapped the remains of his sandwich in its greaseproof paper, put it back in his Tupperware box and made sure the lid fitted snugly. He didn’t feel like eating. His usual ravenous appetite was non-existent this morning. Ugh, he could taste that stink as if it really was the bacon gone off. ‘The sooner we’re done and gone, the better. And make sure the fucker’s sealed properly this time, Jim!’

  ‘You leave that to me.’ Fitzpatrick scowled beneath his grimy complexion, ‘I’ll say what’s to be done on these jobs, lad. You’re just the bloody mate. Get it?’

  ‘I guess so,’ the younger man sighed. The last thing he wanted was an argument. Jim was touchy this morning – he’d been on the beer last night, all right. ‘I want to finish early tonight.’

  ‘You’ll be lucky, mate. This is a two-day job, as much work as starting from scratch, and the boss won’t wear any ’angin’ about ’cause time’s money. There could be a bit of overtime in it if we play our cards right, so don’t go fuckin’ it up for me – ’cause I’ve got a wife and three kids to support. Goin’ shaggin’ that bird of yours again, I suppose?’

  Tommy blushed slightly. It felt like a hot flush, the sort you got when you had a fever coming on. He always felt embarrassed when Jim started on these sexual innuendoes; the fellow didn’t let up. Today, particularly, he could not be bothered to think of an apt reply. Ignore it, he told himself. Go on, finish reading your bloody paper, then we’ll get back to work. Tommy felt lethargic. He could have closed his eyes and dozed off. Sometimes Jim had a snooze at bait time; Christ, I wish you’d go to bloody sleep right now, he thought.

  ‘ ’Ad it last night, did you?’ A coarse leer. ‘Bloody knackered you by the look of it. I wouldn’t’ve thought that wench of yours ’ad it in ’er to knacker you. All right on the job, is ’er?’

  Tommy closed his eyes and did not reply. His head was pounding, he felt slightly sick and that awful stench was in his nose and throat. He was sure it wasn’t healthy, and couldn’t possibly do him any good. What was that disease they used to get years ago from drains and the like? He remembered how his mother went on about it when he was very young. Diphtheria, that was it. Kids died from it until they found a vaccine. So it couldn’t be diphtheria because it didn’t exist any more. Something else, then. There was always a new virus, one that baffled the doctors. They didn’t find a cure until somebody had died. He was trembling. He was going to be ill, he knew that. Really ill, a high temperature, sweating, aching all over. Jim was saying something but Tommy was not listening, aware he might have to go home shortly.

  ‘Come on.’ Jim was shaking his younger companion roughly. ‘Time to start work. We can’t sit in ’ere all day, stink or no stink.’

  Tommy Eaton groaned and forced himself up out of the seat. Those flies on the windscreen seemed to spin, crazy black dots that were joining up into a gyrating circle. Outside there was a fog, a heat haze, perhaps, rolling in at him. He clutched the steering wheel, holding on grimly.

  ‘What’s up, Tommy?’ Jim was genuinely concerned now.

  ‘I … I’ll be all right.’ The buzzing flies were coming apart now, separating, and outside the fog was rolling back, clearing until it was all gone. He was sweating – but that was the heat, the stifling atmosphere of the closed Land Rover he told himself. His headache had receded a little. He’d be all right – he’d have to be, because there was no way he could go home. No transport, except the Land Rover and the big truck, and Bennion would not stand for either being used for private reasons. And as he had to stay, there was no point in doing anything other than work. His legs felt shaky and all the strength seemed to have drained from his body. He knelt down and began unscrewing one of the seals on the liner; it was stiff, so he had to exert every vestige of force he could muster. And when it finally came apart he let out a loud gasp.

  ‘I tell you, you’re bleedin’ knackered. Too much dick, that’s your trouble.’ Jim Fitzpatrick did not glance up. ‘Tell you sommat else, son. That wench of your’n is after more than just a good shaggin’, you mark my words. I got caught just the same as you will, and look at me, kids and ’avin’ to work every minute Bennion’ll let me, for them. She’ll say to you one o’ the nights, “there’s no need to use one o’ them French letters, Tommy, ’cause I’m safe for a day or two.” So you'll put it in, come your lot and think it’s bleedin’ great. Next thing you know, she’ll be makin’ a show o’ bein’ upset and sobbin’ “Tommy, I’m in the club, we’ll ’ave to get married.” It’s the same old story, and the blokes fall for it every time. I did, and you will, too. See if I’m not right, my son.’

  Tommy’s brain spun and he almost fell forward on to his face. Jim’s words rang in his ears, echoed, took on a taunting tone. Oh, Christ, why did you have to tell me that today, Jim?

  Last night … it was as though Jim Fitzpatrick had been looking through a peephole into the council house where Penny lived with her parents, and now was throwing it all back in his face. Penny’s folks were away at Bridlington for the week, so she and Tommy had made the best of their chance. They couldn’t get up to Penny’s room fast enough each evening. Penny was no oil painting, he was the first to admit that, but her slim figure was reasonable, and what was it Jim had muttered the other week …? You don’t look at the mantelpiece when you’re poking the fire.

  They had played about, enjoying their freedom. It was much more relaxed than a screw in the back of the old van or up in the wood where somebody might come along. She had played with him, got him really close, and when he leaned across to try and find that packet of condoms he’d left handy on top of his pile of clothes by the bed, she had pulled him back.

  ‘You needn’t worry about that tonight, Tommy, I’m safe for a day or two. Go on, shoot it all into me please!’

  Tommy had done just that, and it had been the most marvellous sensation of his young life. In fact, he had done it twice, the second time about an hour later. It had worried him, there was no point in denying it hadn’t, but he hoped it would be all right; he would probably worry for weeks.

  Now grumpy old Jim had said the very words Tommy didn’t want to hear. And there was a chilling ring of fear about them. Christ, he wouldn’t want to marry Penny! That voice of hers, a kind of complaining screech most of the
time coming out of a mouth that took on a square shape when she was building herself up for a tantrum. He could see it now, hear it, the wail, ‘I’m pregnant, Tommy. We’ll ’ ave to get married!’

  Anger, dismay and a sensation of nausea brought back the pounding in his temples and made him sweat rivulets. Then he was shivering in the heat.

  ‘Blimey, you ain’t gone and done it already, ’ave you, son?’

  He did not reply. The mist was back before his eyes, an opaqueness tinted with crimson. His throat was dry, and that smell was clogging his nostrils – the stench of rotting, diseased flesh!

  Jim did not appear to notice. He was busy unpacking some new seals, whistling tunelessly through his breath. And that was when Tommy Eaton looked down at his own body and stared in horrified disbelief.

  At first he thought it was some kind of skin rash spreading downwards from his navel and disappearing from view into his worn jeans. A mass of tiny pimples, dozens of them, were standing out starkly red against the sun-tanned skin. He resisted the urge to undo his belt, drop his trousers and see where this sudden disfigurement ended. In a minute he’d go into the bushes and do just that. For the moment, he was too shocked at what he saw. Pull yourself together, he told himself. It’s probably a nettle rash, or some other foliage that you’re allergic to. The pimples stung, and he was suddenly aware of a kind of burning sensation. When he rubbed them, they stung even more sharply and seemed to swell. He covered them with his hands in case Jim noticed them. It wasn’t the clap, was it? His companion was always making jokes about catching a dose of ‘the clap’. It depended if the pimples spread right down there. Or came up from there!

  ‘We’ll ’ave to winch the pump up as well,’ Jim was saying, his back to Tommy. ‘Tell you somethin’, we’ll be lucky to be finished by tomorrow at this rate. Never mind, we’re gettin’ paid for it.’