The Well

by Catherine Chanter

  Looking at the slathering beast at my feet, fear and a sense of impotence paralysed me, until I heard a voice telling me to quiet her. My nausea deserted me and I saw myself stepping forwards as if in a trance, falling to my knees alongside her body and taking her spluttering head in my hands until the rasping gasps become music which passed through my palms into my soul, and all I felt was lightness and all I heard was the song and the voice. That voice which was not recognisable to me then and yet was more familiar than anyone I have ever listened to and that voice was telling me that this was the beginning.

  We sat for a long time, Jack with her head in my lap, me stroking her hair, the Sisters emptied and uplifted by the visitation, lying like exhausted children in the long grass, already damp with dew. Jack remembered almost nothing of her experience, except a great sense of peace, deeper than she had ever known, coming in like the sea over the rocks in summer.

  ‘That peace came through you,’ Sister Amelia said to me later. ‘You were the channel for the Spirit of the Rose.’

  ‘Not just me,’ I protested, ‘it was all of us.’

  Eve agreed. ‘No one person is special. It’s the strength of our sisterhood,’ she said. ‘The power of our communion.’

  But in my head, the voice was with Amelia on this. She disagreed with Eve. ‘No, this was you, Ruth, you alone. This is just the beginning.’

  I want to think about Voice, but I do not know if I dare, because it may be to think about Voice will be to invite her back and I do not have a spare room. Three marches into the kitchen, a handful of letters in his hand. I am wringing out my knickers in the sink. He stands in the doorway and I push them under the soapy water, but even so he grins pointedly. ‘Your priest is not coming today.’

  Clasping my hands under the water, I resolve not to cry in front of him, nor will I risk speaking, nor will I ask him about the letters he has put face down on the table.

  ‘Did you hear? I said the priest is not coming. Not today. Maybe not next week either. Maybe never again, who knows? Still, if you insist, I expect we can always find another. One priest must be much like another, I imagine, and the whole country’s overrun with religious maniacs nowadays.’

  He makes some comment about coming back later to talk about the permissions and steps out into the daylight. The letters are still on the table. I dry my hands.

  He returns. ‘So sorry, I forgot these.’

  Pulling the plug on the water in the sink, I realise that I had forgotten to tap five times. If only I had tapped, Hugh would be here. I had planned to talk to Hugh about Voice.

  In the orchard I spend the rest of the morning making a chain, threading daisies, buttercups, dandelions; campion, cow parsley and Queen Anne’s lace. I slit their stalks with my thumbnail, noticing the beads of sap seep onto my skin. It makes for an uneven chain: the weaker stalks of the buttercups cannot bear the penetration of the dandelions; the whites, yellows and pinks make no sensible pattern, it does not know how to end. I lift my chain letting the links drop onto each other, mute manacles.

  I was sure Hugh was going to bring me information from the internet today. The Rose of Jericho has flowered, after last night’s rain; I wanted to show him the Rose. Three didn’t say why he wasn’t coming. He wasn’t well last time. Or maybe we said something about the internet which was caught on camera. Do they have some way of monitoring what we talk about, even out here in the orchard? I rip at the unruly grass which was growing wild up the bench, convinced that they have hidden their tracking devices amongst weeds and the willow herb. I snatch at the nettles with my bare hands and they blister white at the sting and I think to myself that these are the hands of a madwoman who has done mad things and even the priest realises she is beyond his help. Voice would have agreed with that.

  After that first evening with Sister Jack, I heard Voice more and more frequently, but I told no one about it.

  ‘When you pray,’ I asked Dorothy and Jack, ‘does anyone reply?’

  They were sitting on the grass, stitching white cotton into robes.

  ‘The Rose replies,’ said Dorothy, ‘but you wouldn’t say it’s a voice I can literally hear. But you’ve heard her, haven’t you, Jack?’

  Jack’s hand was guiding the needle in and out of the cotton, tightening the thread which kept it all together. ‘There are different sorts of voices,’ she said, ‘and it’s all about knowing the difference. When I’m ill, the voices are loud, kind of vulgar, I can sort of half see their owners out of the corner of my eye. Meds used to sort of dull them, distance them a bit, but I don’t take the pills any longer. I never felt like me when I was on them and anyway, Amelia, the Rose, they’re a lot more powerful than any chemical crap.’ She paused for a moment as the cotton slid out of the eye, licked the end, re-threaded it and continued in an unfamiliar tone. ‘Do this or else. You’ll be sorry if you don’t. No one will believe you. That sort of thing. If you’ve ever been a victim, you’d recognise my voices.’

  ‘When did they start?’

  ‘When I was about seventeen, and then on and off ever since. The psychiatrist put it down to me having seen my parents beat the shit out of each other when I was little. And then, of course, so predictable, I get with a man who beats the crap out of me. That’s me. I always end up letting other people control me.’

  ‘Used to,’ said Dorothy.

  ‘Yeah, used to. I’m working on it, now I actually believe in something myself.’ She broke off the thread with her teeth and tucked the needle in the cotton reel.

  I hadn’t been a victim. Not then.

  ‘And the other voice?’ I ask.

  ‘The still, small voice of calm, I suppose.’

  ‘That sounds a little clichéd.’

  ‘It does.’ Jack finished tying off the end of the thread. ‘But it’s kind of hard to find any other way of describing it. When that voice talks, I’ll do anything she tells me, because she’s the true voice. Simple as that.’

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘So how is that not control?’

  Jack thought for a moment, looked at Dorothy, then laughed. ‘No. Don’t say anything. I can answer this myself. It’s faith, Ruth. That’s the difference. Faith, from deep inside.’ She got to her feet. ‘God, this is like being back at school in an RE lesson. Come on, stand up.’

  Jack held the hemmed gown up against me. I spread my arms wide like an angel in a nativity play.

  ‘You’ll do,’ she laughed. ‘All you need now is a halo.’

  Jack’s description of her voices didn’t help me much. At times I was frightened of Voice, as I came to call her, this someone who was me, but was not me, inside me but outside also; but at other times, she was my guide and I missed her when she was away. Although for a while, Voice kept herself to the times of day allocated to religious experience, she soon became bored with that limited arena.

  Looking out of the window, wondering why Mark has taken so long in town:

  He has been talking to the bank about selling The Well. Ask him if you don’t believe me.

  Starting work on the accounts which I promised I’d have finished by the evening:

  It’s not about the money, Ruth. Take yourself out to the field and pray. The money will get you nowhere.

  It’s not about the food, Ruth. Only the Rose will feed you.

  It’s not about loving Mark, Ruth. Only the Rose can save you now.

  It’s not about your daughter, Ruth. Angie has never forgiven you. She never will. Only the Rose can forgive you now.

  If Voice had been my sister, she would have been my older sister. When we were getting on badly, she would always win the argument. But when we were friends, we would have borrowed each other’s clothes and straightened each other’s hair, finished each other’s sentences. Mark worried, that much I do know because I followed her advice and checked up on his phone and discovered the last missed call was from the surgery. We had been lucky since we had moved to The Well, we had been
healthy and I was consumed with guilt that I was spying on his mobile and he might be ill.

  ‘You had a missed call on your mobile. I forgot to mention it.’

  ‘Who from?’

  ‘The surgery.’

  ‘Don’t know what they want.’

  ‘Are you OK?’ I persisted. ‘Aren’t you well?’

  ‘Me? No, I’m fine,’ he replied.

  Later that evening, he sat on my side of the bed and reached out to touch me, but Voice asked me what was I doing, letting him lay his fingers on me like that and I froze. He took his hand away and held it in the air for a second or two, before letting it drop to his lap where it lay like a prosthetic limb.

  ‘I’m tired, that’s all,’ I said.

  The cliché slid around between us like a lump of ice. ‘Who is it you’re talking to?’ he asked.

  I rolled away from him to face the window, where the faintest of new moons was ghosting the horizon. ‘I don’t know what you’re going on about.’

  Don’t tell him about me; he’ll say I don’t exist.

  ‘It’s as if there isn’t just you and me in this cottage, it’s like you are living with someone else. We can be chatting and then suddenly, you’re gone, away with the fairies, as if you’re listening to someone else. For goodness sake, Ruth, sometimes you talk out loud and there’s nobody there.’

  He is a non-believer, pray for him.

  ‘I pray, Mark. I pray because I believe. That’s all. I pray for you, for our land, for the country. You’ve got to admit, there’s a lot of things to pray for right now.’ I still couldn’t look at him.

  His internet history recorded on the laptop read like this (I know because I looked):

  mh.co.uk/pseudohallucinations/stress

  hardtolivewith.co.uk/psychosis/hallucinations/auditory

  myfinemind.co.uk/support/paranoia

  I overheard him talking to Angie one morning. I was upstairs, eavesdropping. They were below in the kitchen. Angie had come begging for eggs; Lucien was bouncing a ball against the sitting-room door.

  ‘Does Mum ever talk to you about the Sisters and the Rose and all that?’

  ‘Yeah. Sometimes.’

  ‘Do you or Charley go down there to this worship or whatever it is? Or do any of the others go?’

  ‘Not really. Not to their worship anyway.’ The cupboard door slams. ‘Aren’t there any egg boxes?’ Then Angie continued. ‘We go and talk about stuff, but for most of us, we’re just not in the right place yet to make like, major life-changing commitments. One day maybe.’

  ‘What do you think about your mother going? Lucien, stop that.’

  ‘It makes her happy. What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘She doesn’t look happy. Sometimes I think she’s becoming quite paranoid.’

  ‘Which is another way of saying she feels you’re getting at her, just because she’s got a belief.’

  ‘Lucien, stop that now! You’re going to break something. So you believe all this Rose stuff?’

  ‘Some of it.’

  ‘Out! Now!’

  ‘Don’t shout at him.’

  ‘Typical of you, to pick and choose.’

  ‘Back off, Dad. You’re too cynical.’

  ‘What’s cynical?’

  ‘Nothing, love, don’t worry about it.’

  ‘Lucien, for Christ’s sake, take that ball outside.’

  ‘Someone who refuses to believe something even though it’s staring him in the face,’ finished Angie.

  The fridge door closed and I heard Angie leaving, but then she must have thought twice because I heard her calling back.

  ‘Oh and by the way, Dad, ever heard of the expression: people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones?’

  Mark was shouting after her. ‘You can’t just walk away, what exactly do you mean by that?’

  Their row continued beneath the bedroom window.

  ‘You think she’s paranoid, Mark. Look at yourself in the mirror! You fly off the handle at the slightest thing. If you want her to see a shrink about being paranoid, you should check in with an anger management course.’

  ‘You should know,’ he yelled after her. ‘We’ve spent more money on therapists for you over the years than . . .’ His voice dropped. ‘Fuck you!’ I heard the door slam and the clink of bottle on glass. It was only 11 a.m.

  I did not even know he had gone into Lenford. Increasingly, I found myself keeping out of his way when he was like that and besides, I was with Sister Amelia and time meant little to me when we were together, so when my mobile went at about half past five, it was unexpected.

  It was Mark. He needed me to collect him, from the police station.

  Leave him there, said Voice. Why rescue him? You’re better off without him, he is the one who should be locked up.

  ‘You will miss meditations,’ said Amelia. ‘Do you have to go? One of these days, he will have to take responsibility for his own errors.’

  Fiddling with the key in my hand, I hesitated.

  ‘If someone needs to, let me go.’ Amelia wrapped her arms around me. ‘You’ll never cope with the antagonism out there. When did you last face the world beyond The Well?’ Stepping back, she pushed my hair away from my face. ‘And why should you cope with it? Your place is here.’

  She’s right. You’ll never manage. You’re right to be scared. You’re weak.

  ‘I don’t know why you should have to go . . .’

  Amelia held her hand out. ‘Well, perhaps you’re right. I’ll put the key back in the Land Rover. Come and pray for him, that’s the way to help him, Ruth. Action is the easy choice. Thought, contemplation – that is where the real power for change lies.’

  My phone indicated a further message. Please come. M.

  He has never turned his back on me when I needed him. Closing my eyes to block out the doubting Thomas of a voice, I took a deep breath and then texted back: On my way.

  Once in the driver’s seat, I was shaking, not just because I didn’t really know what had happened, not just because I could see Amelia and Eve in the rear mirror, holding hands, but also because I could hardly remember the last time I had left The Well. The Land Rover lurched up the drive, stuttering in the wrong gear, Voice telling me to turn back. At the gate the police were arguing with someone in a van.

  ‘I need to get out,’ I said. ‘I need to get Mark!’

  It seems they knew something had happened. That’s why they were there, why the local press were there as well. They padlocked the gate behind me and I grappled in the pocket in the driver’s door, wondering if the sunglasses were still there from when we used to go fishing, thinking they might provide some disguise, hoping that they would lessen the glare from this bare, blinding outside world. But they weren’t.

  Voice was relentless and almost impossible to challenge. Go back. You can’t do this. How are you going to cope in Lenford? Everyone will look at you. They’re looking at you now. Look at them looking at you.

  It was true. As I rounded the hairpin bend, Perry Clardle and a teenager were standing in their yard, pointing as I drove past; with no pub to run, I realised he must be unemployed like 28 per cent of the population. Further down the hill I had to slow to pass an elderly couple whose name I had forgotten, walking their dog, their faces shocked as they saw who was driving. It’s her, I imagined them saying to each other, how dare she. And did I dare drive down that dusty lane, the hedges brittle on either side, and the gardens of the bungalows along the main road oblongs of grey wasteland? And how did I have the gall to turn right by the King’s Head, boarded up and covered with graffiti, or cross the bridge into Lenford with the riverbed beneath it sprouting thistles and litter? Where was the love of the Rose in the High Street – the florists gone, the shoe shop gone, the tourist information office closed down? This is a film, I thought, a stage set – it is The Well, only The Well that is real. I pulled up in the police station car park and had to sit for a minute to slow my racing thoughts before I could g
et out.

  At the entrance, the door was locked; you had to talk through an intercom to get in. I pressed the buzzer, but there was no response. A small group of people was gathering on the other side of the traffic lights, looking at me, and although the green man was flashing, they did not cross the road, but stood, arms folded, chins thrust forward. I pressed it again, hard, twice.

  ‘It’s Ruth Ardingly,’ I said. ‘I had a call from my husband.’

  There was a buzz, the door opened and I stepped inside and felt my heart calm a little at the reassuring click of it locking behind me. The woman in civilian clothes behind the glass said I should wait on the blue chairs opposite. I sat, a rack of leaflets to my left, a further locked door in front of me.

  ‘Know your limits!’ An explanation of the new domestic and commercial unit rates for water consumption.

  ‘Drought Crime is serious Crime. If you know someone using water illegally, you can contact DROUGHTLINE anonymously on 0800 700 900.’

  God knows how many calls they had received about us.

  She knows who you are, said Voice.

  ‘Can you tell me what happened?’ I tapped on the glass. ‘Is my husband all right?’

  ‘I can’t say, I’m afraid,’ she replied. ‘Someone will be with you shortly.’

  It seemed I had been waiting for ever and was about to summon the courage to knock on the partition again when the second door opened and a police officer came out, followed by Mark. His T-shirt was blood-stained and his nose, always slightly hooked, looked swollen. In fact his whole face was a mess.