Sarah Hall - The Carhullan Army

She jerked her head to the side, indicating that I should get back into bed, and I did so. Then she walked over to me and held out the tray. I took it from her with my free hand, gripping it unsteadily. The bowl and the jug skittered close to the edge. Feeling feeble and clumsy, I righted it and set it on my knees.

My stomach griped with hunger. The white substance in the bowl smelled starchy, and a little bit salty. It reminded me of the cones of popcorn that used to be sold in Rith’s cinemas when I was very young. There was an oily yellow pool in a crater in the centre of the mixture. In the jug was thick, creamy-looking milk.

Jackie sat in the chair next to me again. ‘Might taste a bit funny to you,’ she said, ‘but it gets better the longer you eat the stuff. That’s butter on it, for a bit of winter insulation. You look OK to me, but the girls here have to put on a few pounds this time of year or they start getting run down.’ I nodded, picked up the spoon, and began to eat. It was scalding hot and burned the roof of my mouth and the tender spots inside my cheeks, but I was too hungry to care. I worked air into the mouthful to cool it down and swallowed. Jackie leaned over and poured the milk into the bowl. As she did so her arm brushed past me. Her vest smelled of utility, like the proofed fibres of a cagoule. She put the jug to her lips and drank the last inch.

I felt self-conscious in the bed, eating so hurriedly, and only half dressed, with one breast covered by the sling and the other exposed. I was aware of how vulnerable I must appear, and had already proved myself to be. I’d been run through the mill because of it. We were now in civil proximity, Jackie Nixon and I, and the atmosphere was one of diplomacy, but I also understood that it had been her choice to incarcerate me initially; it was her voice I had heard in the darkness, committing me to my term in the hot, stinking shed.

She had been ruthless then. Now she was giving me a reprieve, making a truce perhaps. She was even waiting on me. Her actions were not designed to intimidate, but nevertheless I felt nervous in her company. She was a woman I had wanted to meet for a long time; a woman who was indigenous, who had built up an extreme rural enterprise and kept it going for almost two decades, while all around her things had broken down. Face to face, I could see there was a durability to her appearance, a worn and coarsened exterior. And she had poise, the look of someone in power, someone to whom others would bow.

She raised one leg onto the chair, bringing the boot into the back of her thigh. ‘Well, where to start, Sister? I’m sure there’s a lot you can tell us. But you’ve probably got a fair few questions to ask too.’ She raised her eyebrows, waiting for me to respond. I finished the oatmeal first, unable to stop eating it, and set the tray to one side. The lethargy I had shrugged off came warmly back as the food hit my system, but I was determined to stay sharp. ‘How many of you are there?’ I asked. Her eyes narrowed. ‘Sixty-four,’ she said. ‘As of eight weeks ago, that is. You saw our littlest one out of the window I take it.’

She did not wait for me to confirm that I had before continuing. ‘She’s called Stella. The second generation is bigger than we’d imagined it would be. You’ve met the oldest of them already — Megan. She knocked seven shades out of you apparently. Bit excitable. We’ve not had anyone to try out the system on before you. She’ll no doubt apologise at some stage, or maybe she won’t, it wasn’t personal, was it? That tough little bitch is trained as well as it gets.’ I saw a shine in her eyes, the glitter of pride perhaps. ‘So, you’ll go to her if there’s a problem between the two of you. Don’t come to me with it. The way it works here is everyone resolves their shit at source, face to face. That’s just how we run things. OK?’ She crossed her arms and the chair creaked as she leant back into it. ‘All the births have been manageable, thanks to Sister Lorry. We only lost one, and that was before she came.’

I took a slice of apple from the dish on the tray and bit into it. It was sweet, crisp and full of juice. It was the most delicious fruit I had tasted for years. Jackie noticed the pleasure on my face. ‘Yeah, that’s an Egremont russet. Aren’t they lovely? It’s warm enough up here to get them now. We’ve a good crop this year. And look. They’ve cut it up for you in case you can’t chew, busted up as you are. They’re good lasses.’ She reached over, stole a slice and winked at me. ‘We’ll all be sick of them come December. But not the wine .’ She drew out the word, letting her voice hum over its cadence. It was a swift and playful change of tack, and her whole demeanour altered. I felt suddenly charmed by her. Then as quickly as it had arrived, the banter was gone and her face hardened again.

There was a fierceness about her, something amplified and internalised, an energy that my father would have described as Northern brio. Growing up in Rith, I had seen girls with this same quality. They had carried knives and had scrapped outside the school gates with little concern for their clothes and their looks, and there was an absence of teasing when they flirted with men. Jackie looked like a more mature and authentic version. Sitting beside me she seemed too inanimate for her voltage, too kinetic under her restfulness. It was as if her skin could barely contain the essence of her.

I wondered what the other women at the farm made of her. For all its equalities, and whatever formula the place ran on, it had been apparent from the first night that Carhullan operated a system of control; a hierarchy was in place, and Jackie Nixon’s orders were obeyed. She was the superior. The alpha. As she sat watching me in the bed, I thought about all those who had walked up the slopes, a decade and a half before, knowing her name. Over the years she must have achieved some kind of mystical status as one of Carhullan’s founders. I had still not seen the other.

It surprised me that they had not come in together to give me the low-down on the place. I swallowed the last piece of apple and wiped my mouth. ‘Where’s Veronique? Can I meet her?’ Jackie’s chin was resting on her hand. She dropped it an inch and pressed her knuckles to her mouth. Then she clenched her uneven teeth. A wave of tension ran though her forehead. ‘No. She’s dead, Sister.’

Jackie met my gaze for as long as it lasted. I could not hold her eyes. I shook my head and looked towards the window. ‘She’s been dead three years.’ There was an uncomfortable pause. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, looking back at her. I wanted to say more, but the grin she had on her face jolted me from making anything but the briefest of condolences. It was a terrible expression and I couldn’t tell if it was genuine or not. I thought that she must be joking, and at any moment she would apologise for having a black sense of humour and say that Vee was out on the farm with the others. But she did not. The smile held, becoming gross and manic. Her cold clear eyes held no mirth in them. ‘Life goes on,’ she said, ‘beloved or bastardised.’

I knew then that she was serious. I felt a shiver pass through the pores of my skin, though the autumn sun shone into the bedroom with a warm cidery light. The nipple of my breast felt tight and hard against my inner arm, and the flesh of my chest was suddenly chilly and damp. I tried to pull the sheets up around me but they were trapped under the tray.

Jackie observed my discomfort. Her face relaxed out of its grimace and she stood up. ‘You’ll see how it all works soon enough. We’re strict, but things are pretty straightforward. We’re all sticky up here. I know you know that, Sister, and I know that’s why you’re here.’ She paused, as if to let me register what she had just said, but her words seemed oddly confidential and coded, as if she was speaking to someone else, someone who knew more than I did about the place I had come to.