Rachel Cusk - The Country Life

‘Excuse me?’ I cried, my voice a dramatic croak.

The belly remained intransigent behind the glass.

‘Hello?’ I cried again.

There was another pause, and then a man’s voice issued faintly out to me from the side.

‘What can I do for you, dear?’

It was quite a high voice, and heavily accented, but it sounded friendly enough.

‘I’m very thirsty,’ I said, directing my comments to the belly for want of a more conversational appurtenance. It required the greatest effort for me even to be polite. ‘I wondered if you would be so kind as to give me a glass of water.’

Before my eyes, the belly seemed to roll away as if attached to a large rotating wheel lodged behind the scenes, and in its place appeared a grinning human face.

‘Glass o’ water?’ it said — I could now not be sure whether it was a woman or man. Its hair stood up in a frizz above its pocked forehead as if electrified, and confronted with the disastrous, freckled spectacle of its features I felt the thrill of looking at the ugliest human creature I had ever seen. ‘It’ll cost ya!’ it said, grinning wider to show hoary teeth like a jumble of old gravestones.

‘But I haven’t any money!’ I gasped. ‘I was merely asking for a drop of human kindness. And besides, as this isn’t a restaurant you can’t charge me for water. It would be’ — I put a hand to my fevered throat — ‘unethical.’

The creature looked at me quizzically, its brows — the hairs of which were preternaturally long and curled — furrowed to form a single line, as if a fake moustache had been attached to its forehead.

‘I was only joking, girl,’ it said, quite sorrowfully. ‘If you come round the back, I’ll put you right.’

It disappeared abruptly from behind the glass and after some protracted shuffling on the other side of the partition a door slowly opened to my left.

‘Come on,’ coaxed the creature, beckoning me with a saurian claw. ‘Don’t hold back, girl.’

It held open the door and I passed through into a narrow enclosure. A further door lay directly ahead of me, and to my right was the scene I had glimpsed through the glass, the old till on the counter with what looked a child’s high chair drawn up to it. There was a paperback book lying open on the seat. The space was no bigger than a coffin, and was roughly the same shape.

‘Step this way, if you would,’ the creature said with sudden formality, as if I had all at once ascended a level in some cryptic hierarchy. I felt it hovering at my elbow, and looking down realized that in height the creature barely rose above my waist.

‘Thank you,’ said I, moving forward through the second doorway. I was now in a dark corridor which smelt very damp.

‘All the way to the end, madam. That’s right.’

We entered a room about which, the curtains being drawn to exclude all but a faint white seam of light, I could discern almost nothing.

‘Now, let’s see, shall we, madam?’ murmured the creature, straying from my elbow. I heard the whisper of its feet against the floor, but could not make out in the dark where it had gone.

‘It might be easier if you put the light on,’ I advised. ‘It’s pitch black in here.’

‘Oh, no need for that, my lady,’ it said. ‘We’ll manage.’

‘I think I would prefer it, actually,’ I asserted; for I had suddenly become nervous at how I had been lured into this shadowy lair, where no one would ever think of looking for me. ‘I insist that you turn on the light!’

There was a pause, there in the dark. I could hear no sound of movement at all and began to feel positively frightened. I was about to turn and flee when a steely grip on my arm pulled me down so that I was bending almost double.

‘Are you a sympathizer?’ the creature whispered fiercely in my ear. Flecks of spittle rained on my cheek. ‘Is that why you came?’

My heart was pounding hard with the surprise, but I was not so cowed that I could not think clearly. Having no idea of what I might be supposed to be sympathetic to, still I could see that it would be a good idea to concur.

‘Yes,’ I responded, in a loud voice.

‘Ssssh! Good. Well, then. You’ve come to the right place.’

The grip on my arm was released and a moment later the light came on; a naked bulb which depended so far into the room from a length of flex that I felt its heat against my hair. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw around me. The tiny room was no less than a shrine, a votive chamber dedicated, to my astonishment, to the Maddens.

‘Good God!’ I exclaimed, my eyes frantically combing the walls thickly billeted by leaflets and posters, newspaper clippings, photographs, and what looked, more worryingly, like instruments of torture — nooses made from wire, with a chain attached — hanging from nails like commemorative wreaths.

‘Impressed?’ said the creature, who had been busy meanwhile at a small sink — hardly bigger than a cup — which stood dingy and serene in the corner of the tumult. It crossed the room as coyly as a party host and handed me a large glass of water. ‘It’s taken me years to get it like this.’

My thirst, forgotten amidst this drama, flamed anew at the sight of the glass. Delicious pearls of liquid trailed down its sides. I took it and raised it trembling to my lips.

‘Course it picks up at this time of year,’ continued the creature, while I drank. I believe that there is no sensation on earth more pleasurable than the one I was at that moment experiencing. ‘We get all sorts down here in the summer, especially round the bank holiday weekend. That’s my busy time. Come next week, I’ll be flat out.’

‘Do you work alone?’ I gasped, draining the glass and handing it back. ‘Can I have another?’

‘Certainly, madam.’ It took the empty glass, lost in contemplation of its handiwork. After a moment, and with a last longing look at the noose on the far wall, it shuffled back towards the sink. ‘When it started it was just me,’ it called, over its shoulder. ‘Now there’s hundreds, just contacts mostly, but it comes in handy. I’m still the boss, mind. I tell them what to do, and they do it. Day to day, Darren over at the Dog mucks in when he can.’

‘Did you put that leaflet under my door?’

‘Me?’ The creature looked round. ‘No fear. I’ve got a contact at the farm does that kind of thing for me. No, too risky for me over there these days.’

I wondered who the creature’s ‘contact’ could be. Mrs Barker? Thomas? Thomas was the most likely suspect, given his presence at the scene of the crime. From behind I still could find nothing either in the creature’s attire nor its physique to determine its sex. Its back and shoulders were round and quite strong, but tapered into bony shanks from which its dirty dark-brown trousers hung in folds. They were too long in the leg, and the hems gathered into frills around a pair of scuffed slippers. It seemed to be taking an inordinate amount of time fetching the water, and with the selfishness of physical need, I resolved to make no further enquiries which might slow the rate of service until I had the glass in my hand. This plan paid off, for the creature, head jerking up slightly at the silence, looked swiftly over its shoulder as if to make sure that I was still there.

‘You’ll be wanting your water,’ it said, nodding. ‘Quite a thirst you’ve got on you.’

I remained silent until the water was safely on its way. When the creature turned around, its swollen belly protruded so distinctly that I wondered if it might be pregnant.

‘Thank you very much,’ I said graciously, accepting the second glass. Things were less of a blur now that my emergency had been met, and my eyes surveyed the walls more calmly. There were several of the familiar leaflets pinned at intervals around the room, and many others of a similar type duplicated this pattern. Indeed, I soon saw that I had been slightly misled in my first impressions of the place, for the campaign’s look of abundance was achieved more by repetition than diversity. The photographs, of which there were some dozen, were blurred Polaroids and I could make out little of what they were supposed to represent; except that all had been taken outdoors and that in each case the photographer appeared to be falling over. A large poster printed on a white background which hung directly in front of me read ‘MADDEN KILLS!’. Beneath it was an efficient drawing of a noose identical to those adorning the walls.