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The Well. Catherine Chanter
Читать онлайн.Название The Well
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781782114659
Автор произведения Catherine Chanter
Жанр Контркультура
Издательство Ingram
The guard sits in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead at the track which will take her away. The driver turns up the music and they are gone and then there is nothing except silence, three soldiers and me. They kick the fence with their heavy boots, one lights a cigarette and suddenly I think of a picture of Russia I saw once, taken during the Second World War: young men silhouetted against a barren landscape, staring at the horizon, waiting for relief. We face a different onslaught. I stand, halfway in and halfway out of the house, my legs shaking with exhaustion.
‘Shall I go in?’ I call and immediately regret my weakness. ‘I mean, are there any other formalities to be completed?’
All three turn, as if mildly surprised that I can speak. A sudden officiousness seems to come over the short one, as it does for all people newly appointed to small amounts of power. He marches over; the other two hang back slightly.
‘There are a number of regulations and procedures we need to go through with you. I therefore suggest that we meet . . . er . . .’ He has a tight voice.
‘Around the kitchen table?’ I suggest.
‘That would be satisfactory, yes – there, in one hour.’
‘You may have to knock and remind me.’
‘We don’t need to knock,’ he replies.
The thinner of the other two tries to make some joke about drinks at six. I don’t quite catch it, but try to smile all the same. Pour encourager les autres.
What do I do now? I try to summon old habits. Like a frightened bride, I force myself over the threshold and then kick off my shoes and go into the kitchen. It is a sparse version of its former self, being robbed of its clutter and wiped down. I run the cold tap just to make sure and then fill the kettle. While it is boiling, I take down my favourite mug and trace the delicate painting of the grayling, trout and perch which swim the porcelain river and wind themselves around the handle, wipe the dust from the rim with the tip of my finger. Instinctively, I go to the fridge, which is working normally. There has been no shortage of wind in the last few years. For us, if our turbine is working, the pump is working and if the pump is working, we will have water from The Well. Water, but no milk. I loathe the powder substitute, it tastes of the city, but the drought has forced a lot of substitution one way or another: no rain, no grass, no grass, no cows, no cows, no milk. We were going to have a cow in Year Three of the dream, but we never got that far.
Most of what Mother Hubbard had in her cupboard is gone, but there is a half-empty box of teabags on the counter, so I use one of those. Sitting at the empty kitchen table, I trace the grain of the wood. Such silence. I shiver; the Rayburn is not lit. That would help, I think, I could warm the place up a bit, but the matches have deserted their home in the top left-hand drawer of the dresser and I don’t know where they have gone. Easily defeated, I wander into the sitting room where the curtains are drawn, my hand hesitates at the window, but even tweaking them opens the way for a javelin of daylight and I leave them closed, for the time being. Moving to the stairs, I put one foot on the bottom step, but make the mistake of looking up. That is too high a mountain to climb now.
The sofa feels damp. Yesterday’s newspaper lies on the table, with the ring of a coffee mug over the face of a topless model. ‘Dress for drought!’ A pale, hollow-cheeked woman in the photo on the opposite page reminds me of Angie, although my daughter would not thank me for the comparison. Flicking through the pages, it is as though I am in a waiting room, regretting not having brought a friend with me to soften the blow.
My name is called, but I am slow to respond. For a few moments, I can’t remember who they are, these men I can see sprawling against the sink and spilling all over the kitchen as I sit obediently, rigid, feeling the wood of the kitchen chair hard against my fatless thighs. Have these men come because of the investigation? No, that was a long time ago and that was the police, not these oversized boy soldiers.
A ringless hand, cuffed in khaki, places a brown file with my name on it in front of me, then opens a laptop and hammers in a password. A voice says the purpose of the meeting is to remind me of my legal status, the reasons for that status, the nature of that status and my rights whilst subject to that status.
Ruth Ardingly is subject to house arrest under the terms of the Drought Emergency Regulations Act, section 3, restriction and detention of persons known to, or suspected of, or deemed likely to act in a way liable to: (i) Disrupt, interfere with or in any way seek to manipulate the supply of essential goods or services, in particular any service relating to the provision of water for drinking, irrigation, manufacturing processes or commerce not covered by exemption clauses outlined in the Drought Emergency Regulations Act, section 4.
I find this funny, being the only subject in Her Majesty’s kingdom who appears to have unlimited access to water and who has no need to siphon it off for my own purposes. The judge and jury in front of me don’t seem to have a sense of humour. What is less amusing is that the period of detention is described as ‘indefinite but subject to judicial review at periodic intervals’ and my questions about what that means in practice are unanswered.
Ruth Ardingly has also been subject to the following Finding of Fact judgments, as used under the Emergency Drought Protection Order Regulations for the Rapid Processing of Justice:
| (i) | that Ruth Ardingly started a series of fires with intent to cause grievous bodily harm or death; |
| (ii) | that Ruth Ardingly was derelict in her duty towards a minor, resulting in death. |
I put my hands over my ears. I will not listen to that. I will not have that said.
The small man drones on.
Under the civil jurisdiction of the Emergency Drought Protection Orders, it is confirmed that the property known as The Well shall remain the principal domiciliary residence for Ruth Ardingly, but that under the terms of the Occupation Order 70/651, Ruth Ardingly agrees for the said property to be temporarily used for the purposes of research and development, including, but not limited to: soil sampling; the planting, management and harvesting of crops; the drilling and sampling of, but not extraction of, bedrock water as defined under the Extraction for Use Act (amended); the collection, sampling and testing (but no distribution of) rainwater run-off.
Despite the small print of my Faustian pact, they don’t own The Well – I won that much. It is still mine; underneath the wire and the helicopters and the men in brown, The Well is still mine. Half mine. It is not clear to me what has happened to Mark’s share.
‘That’s the legal status. Have you got any questions?’ he asks.
Sinking a little, I shrug. He hands over the file to the fat, anonymous man who is apparently going to deal with the ‘nitty-gritty’ of house imprisonment. He reads haltingly, finding it hard to make sense of the interminable regulations. It is as if I am listening to a foreign language, but the broad message is clear. They are my guards. This is my home. Words slide across the paperwork and set off randomly around the room, sliding down the sink, fluttering up the cold chimney, trying to crawl their way out like wasps from a jam jar. The photo we took of Heligan Gardens in the spring and hung to the side of the kitchen window is tilted and this makes it look as if the lake is flowing over the banks and about to trickle down the cream walls and onto the vegetable rack, empty except for the brittle brown flakes of the outer layer of an onion.
Curfew
Bread
Electronic
Rights