The Well

by Catherine Chanter

  ‘Goodbye Ruth,’ she says.

  She tosses the berries into the Wellpond and, for a brief moment, a few slight ripples catch the light and sparkle and then the water is still and dim again. She brings her other arm up and holds her wrists out for the handcuffs. I am about to say something, but there is too much shouting, it is confusing, it seems hard to organise the words for what needs to be shared. I am ordered to follow, but I hang back. Boy hesitates; I ask him to go. Three tells him to move and the moment is past. Amelia is manhandled out of the clearing, I hear them crashing their way out of the Wellwood and watch the swing and lurch of the torchlight fade. As she goes, I hear her singing.

  What am I when I rise from the water?

  Myself streams away from me

  And I am gone.

  And she is gone.

  Wading into the pond, I am surprised by how warm it is and its warmth is seductive. I am in up to my waist. I reach out for the berries and they float beyond my reach. I inch forward, I grasp one, then another and another until I am sure there are none left and I hurl them from the spring. Then, with one deep breath, I plunge my whole being into the womb of the water and feel the weight and the cloak close over my head and hold me down until I think there will be no end to the pain and the pressure and the blindness, before I burst back out into the miraculous lightness of air and understand. That was how it was for him – my question is answered.

  It is a very hot afternoon, the thick walls of the cottage have held the sun at bay, but the heat took my breath away when I stepped outside. I slept very deeply last night and right through the morning. I don’t know who put me to bed, I remember very little after they took her away, but now I am sitting outside under the shade of the oak. Boy has put up the little card table and has run a bowl of warm water and is bathing the cuts on my arms. I let him; he is gentle and intent in his care and as he dips the cotton wool and dabs my skin, he tells me that Angie has left a message: Mark is safe. He also fills me in on what happened last night, how they found me collapsed by the spring and carried me home and how it took two of them to hold Amelia, even handcuffed, how they took her away in a police van.

  I wince at his first aid. ‘An ambulance would have been more appropriate – actually no, a hearse. That’s what she needed.’

  ‘She looked pretty rough,’ he agrees, ‘tachycardic, sweating, hallucinating. So did you for that matter.’ He takes the bowl and empties the stained water into the hedge. ‘But you have to be careful after an electric shock.’

  ‘No, you don’t understand. She’ll never stand trial.’ I have brought Lucien’s book of Poisonous Plants of the British Isles out with me and I thumb through to find the right page. ‘That’s what she threw in the pond.’ The picture accurately depicts the deep purple flowers with orange stamens and the rich, dark berries hanging from their vine-like host.

  ‘Deadly nightshade? Are you sure?’ Boy turns the pages of the book in disbelief.

  ‘Devil’s herb, sorcerer’s cherry, call it what you will. It drives you mad with thirst.’ A woman by a Wellpond, holding out the offer of a tin cup of water and a fistful of fruit – I close my eyes to rid myself of the picture.

  ‘Belladonna, isn’t that the same thing?’

  ‘It is. Do you know why it’s called belladonna? Women used it to make their cheeks flush or their eyes look enormous.’

  ‘That’s right, her pupils were really dilated.’

  ‘But another myth is that sometimes the deadly nightshade takes the form of an enchantress of great loveliness who it’s dangerous to even look upon and fatal to kiss.’ A second recollection, tactile this time, touching and a tongue around the lips, the licking of lips. I wipe my mouth with the remaining cotton wool. ‘She will die.’

  Boy gets out his phone. ‘I’ll call the police. There must be an antidote. She has to live to be charged.’

  Leaning over the table, I put my hand on his. ‘There’s nothing to be done. She will never stand trial, never be found guilty.’

  More than that, she has mugged me and run, left me full of hatred and robbed me of the chance to forgive her one day – people say that’s how you move on, but I don’t know if forgiving the dead has the same effect. She has snatched from me the possibility of pity, the quality of mercy.

  Boy hammers the table. ‘But that can’t be allowed to happen, there’s no justice in that.’ He paces up and down. ‘Things need to be tied up, finished.’

  ‘Resolved?’ He doesn’t hear the smile in my voice. ‘She’ll confess first, she loves me enough to do that.’

  ‘But that won’t resolve anything.’

  ‘I’ve had my day in court, Boy, and the verdict was . . .’

  Suddenly, Boy is on his feet and so am I, both incredulous, because the Land Rover is being driven down the drive at a crazy speed, thumping into the potholes, crashing against the ruts, horn blasting, radio blaring and Three is leaning out of the window, shouting, ‘Come and listen to this! You’ve got to hear this!’

  They skid to a halt, inches from us.

  ‘Jesus! Get a piece of this.’ Anon is in the passenger seat, sticking his head out of the window.

  The Amelia story cannot have come out so soon. Anyway, it’s not the news, but a ludicrous song from the 1960s playing ‘Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head, because I’m free, nothing’s worrying meeeee.’ Three is now out of the Land Rover, drumming the beat on the bonnet and crooning. I join him and Boy and listen as the music fades.

  ‘Now we go over to the London Weather Centre for an update. George, what have you got for us?’

  ‘Sometimes I thought I’d never hear myself say these words again, Miles, but here it goes. It is raining.’

  ‘Say it a bit louder for us, George.’

  ‘Yes, Miles, it is raining. Not just raining, in fact, but bucketing down in Northern Ireland and just starting to drizzle in the northwest and the forecast is for these storms to sweep across the British Isles over the next twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Fucking hell!’ said Boy. ‘Rain!’

  Three tells them to shut up.

  ‘We’ve been here before, haven’t we, George? There were storms last year which petered out. What’s different this time?’

  ‘This time, Miles, there is a real shift in the weather pattern. We’re 90 per cent sure of it. You’ll have read in the press that the temperature readings from the Atlantic indicate a long-term change in the currents and that has combined with wind swinging round to the north-west. We really think that this will be more than a one-off soaking. How long it will stay, how long it will take everything to recover, there are a lot of unanswered questions out there, Miles, but we’re pretty confident the worst is over.’

  I look up at the sky. It is not raining here.

  ‘But there’s no such thing as a free lunch, George,’ continues the weatherman, ‘the country is now gearing itself up for severe flooding . . .’

  Three turns the radio down, Anon jumps out and they are all reaching for their mobiles, texting, checking, and then they run into the Barn. The television is turned on, there is a lot of swearing and more whooping. The whooping must be Anon. I guessed a long time ago from the smell on their breath that they had found a way of using our old potatoes for their own illegal brew. They will be drunk soon enough and will have forgotten all about me.

  I walk stiffly up the drive, knowing that the alarm will go off as I cross the tagging zone, knowing they will switch it off and keep watching the news. For the first time since I was brought back here, I reach the top of the drive, that place where we stopped the car and gasped all that time ago, and I can look out over The Well and see close-up the strips of crops planted by the government researchers, they fall away either side of me like a striped quilt, their colours luminous in the strange light created by the ferocity of the lowering sun and the blackness of the thunderous clouds. Great shafts of sunbeams burst from cracked seams in the sky, illuminating Montford Forest and the Welsh hills. The wind is picki
ng up and the trees rustle and gossip and pass on the news, the breeze brings with it the sound of car horns blaring over and over again in the village, as though they are heralding a bride, and over the Crag I see the veil descend which means it’s raining there. When she was kneeling, Sister Amelia’s hair used to hang over her face like a veil. I did look into her eyes, I did. My eyes into her eyes, blinded.

  I could go down to where Angie and Lucien were camped, all that time ago. Or I could go the other way, see whether the grass has grown over the scorch marks where the Sisters’ caravans were parked. It was Sister Amelia. I could keep wandering, go as far as the gate, turn right onto the lane, feel the tarmac under my feet, get as far as the main road and let the swish of the traffic push me into the hedge. For God’s sake, I could get in the Land Rover, turn the key and drive. I am free, or will be soon. It was not Mark. The drought is over. It was not me. I am not free from guilt, but I am not guilty and I will be free. I am free from Mark. I am free from Amelia. How will I know when she dies? Maybe I will just know. It is impossible to know what to do with this self that is now me. It is impossible to understand the rain.

  It is still not raining here, but it will be soon and I will get ready for that homecoming. There isn’t a lot to choose from in my wardrobe, so I put on an old sundress and nothing else and fetch a rug from the wicker basket on the landing. That is all I will take with me when the sun goes down. I will not need a torch, I know the way well enough to the place I have chosen; I will not need shoes, I want earth under the soles of my feet; I will not need champagne or music or streamers; if the rain is coming to the rest of the country, that is enough.

  When I reach the brow of the hill in First Field, it is as I imagined it would be. I spread the rug carefully and sit in the middle of it, my arms wrapped around my legs and wait. There are doors slamming as Boy goes in and out of the barn; the ring of a mobile phone; a shout across the night, a reply and then quiet, the sort of quietness you get in a theatre in that strange moment between the audience settling down and the curtain going up. Anon has a habit of coming out for a cigarette on these unbearably hot evenings, even on ordinary ones. I think Three must be sleeping it off. Despite the heat, I shiver. Somewhere over towards Rose Cottage there is a dog yapping into the night and there is the barn owl again, marking its territory down in Morgan’s Wood. Other than that, the land beyond The Well seems to be getting used to the idea of rain – the thunderous clouds have smothered the hills to the west in their embrace, turning out the lights ready for their consummation.

  Tonight there would be meteors and comets were it not for the clouds, but we have no need to make wishes if the forecast is right. Lying back and looking at the few stars still visible in the clouding sky, I feel, for once, my own significance, not the status imposed on me by the Sisters, not the status imposed upon me by the media, not even the status of a prisoner, but my own physical significance. The breeze gets up and goose-bumps my legs, naked under my skirt. The earth supports the weight of my head and isolated drops of rain are falling as if they are each, individually, committing themselves and they leave their mark on my thin dress. I wait and watch.

  In the distance, the darkness is pierced by the pinprick flicker of lights as if a few stars have broken out of prison and this is the first high land they found as they fell to earth. And there is singing, I think. I am no shepherd and these are no angels, but here is good news. Lights move, they part and come together again, fickle like fireflies before joining in a stronger illumination, and I can see they are flares, carried by people and the people are circling and swirling, dozens of them, no hundreds maybe, choreographed for a grand opening ceremony. With them come music, drums and the banging of spoons on saucepans and pipes and singing. Visions like this have plagued me, been my downfall, so I get to my feet hesitantly, full of fear that here is more trickery, full of hope that it has come to save me. Rain – not heavy – but rain all the same, is starting to fall steadily. It seems different, this rain from another country. I sniff it like a wine-taster: a hint of salt, bracken, pavements, perhaps. I am not guilty. These, these crowds now pouring down the drive in the distance, spilling out over the fields and running down the hills in rivers of release, these are people, real people, come to celebrate real rain. Behind the foot-revellers come cars, headlights throwing long beams on the luminous grass, horns blaring, radios loud and pumping. The Well is throwing a party. It is clear that my absence is of no consequence to the villagers, or to the Sisters from the site over the road, or to the remaining farmers, or indeed to the hostess herself: The Well. A huge celebration has sprung to life with this cottage as its centrepiece and I am deliriously happy in my anonymity on the hill. Hours pass? I think so. The party ebbs and flows; somehow there is a band down there now, plugged into the kitchen sockets, I guess, the bass guitar throbbing across the field. Every now and again, everyone joins in and swells a familiar chorus – just pop songs, silly songs – an explosion of childlikeness and I recognise the words from another life and sing along to myself and hug my knees and tap my feet and they all dance in unison, hands in the air, waving their lighters. And there are children, so many children, I can see the outline of them, always running, chasing. I can hear them laughing in this, their second christening. Lucien would have run and laughed and loved like that. A few of the new invaders have come a little closer, but they don’t know I’m here, at the top of my hill, wrapped in the clouds; these are the teenagers who kiss and in the dark places shadowed from the moon by the tall hedges, I know their love-making is wet and wonderful.

  Somewhere over Montford Forest, thunder stirs up the earth and the lightning is fleeting and hesitant, but the crowd have noticed the messenger and roar their welcome. Soon it is really raining, hard, driving diagonally across the fields and watering their memories of packed-up barbeques and coats over heads as you run for cover and staring out through the doorways of leaking marquees and puddles of water mixing with wine in glasses left beside the storm-blown roses. But here, now, this England is dancing in the rain and I am released.

  I do not go down, but pull the blanket around me and wait. Although I am stiff in the morning and cold, I wait. The rain has stopped, the cloud has lifted and a grey daylight is prompting the crowds to leave, draining away in dribs and drabs, leaving tyre tracks and litter and the glorious detritus of celebration in this, our weak, wonderful, washed-out dawn.

  Anon gives me updates. The guards up at the experimental plots will be staying on apparently, although a good part of one crop was washed away in the surface flooding that followed last night’s storm. ‘Seems the government still thinks there are lessons to be learned from your Well,’ he says, and as always I resist the desire for an ironic reply because he never gets it, never will. He also tells me that Sarge was gone early, redeployed somewhere terribly important no doubt, and Boy, he has also gone, but left a note on the kitchen table. I will read that later. It is right that he has moved away; this is no country for young men. He will look after his mother, love a girl one day soon and make her happy, father children, all just a little bit differently because he spent six months at The Well – and that’s my going-away present to him. I feel his leaving like a child on a hilltop releasing a balloon.

  Anon is still talking, but he must be used to being ignored by now. He is saying something about the fact that he himself will have checked out by evening; he is also needed elsewhere to cope with the floods and what’s being called the National Adjustment Plan. The local police have been asked to ‘oversee and monitor’ my imprisonment and secure the perimeter and he’s just hanging on in there for them to show up. The Cabinet’s emergency committee is meeting to discuss how to deal with the wave of mania which hit the country last night and Parliament is to be recalled to consider amendments to the Drought Relief Powers. Anon is a veritable mine of information and conversation, for once.

  ‘I guess you’ll be a free woman again.’

  Free. The word feels thin and insubsta
ntial against my teeth; it should have rounder vowels, more breath than this. Nevertheless, I use it again, for practice. ‘And I hope you’ll be a free man as well, before too long.’

  ‘I figure on going to the States,’ he says. ‘Take a road trip, go to Vegas, it’s what I’ve always wanted to do.’

  Well, you could have fooled me.

  Anon has various bits of paper I am meant to sign. A police car is stuttering down the drive, one of those allocated to the Drought Community Officers. I comment to Anon that I really have been downgraded.

  ‘Don’t take it the wrong way,’ he apologises and I suppress my laughter.

  Anon takes the file into the barn, saying he needs to make sure the paperwork is in order and then he’ll be off. I am not sure of the etiquette of saying goodbye to one’s guards. The policeman is sitting in his car. I am hovering awkwardly when Anon comes out with his rucksack.

  ‘One more thing,’ he says. ‘There’s a message just left on the phone from your ex, saying he has heard from your daughter and he will write soon. Sounds good.’ He gives me an awkward hug. ‘That’s us done, then, Ruth!’ he says. ‘Signing off for the last time. Private Adrian Lambert – over and out!’

  ‘Good luck, Adrian, good luck!’