Sarah Hall - The Carhullan Army

Jackie wanted to show me the hefted flocks; the farm’s first true success, she called them. They were close to the summit of High Street. As we climbed upwards her hair blew lankly around her face, across her eyes and mouth, but she did not bother to fasten it back, as if the feeling of it were inconsequential. Under her body warmer her arms were bare, slightly reddened and chapped. She was more lean than brawny and I could see that for all her middle age she was still strong, still vital. When I looked down at my own hands they seemed pale in comparison, and starkly veined.

I fought for breath as she talked. ‘The lambs are threatened by seagulls now as well as the corbies,’ she said, ‘even this far inland. They come and pluck out their eyes and their arseholes, anything soft they can get hold of. There are no fish for them to catch, so the bastards come for my heafs. I have to sit up here in lambing season and scare them off. I’m a bloody scarecrow, Sister, that’s what I am.’ Her voice was not loud, but it carried well outside, and even in the strong breeze, with me falling behind, I could hear every word.

We were heading into a small half-valley tucked away at the bottom of the ridge. I caught up with her. ‘Sister, you see that river over there?’ she asked me. Her arm was raised, indicating a small waterway ahead. I nodded. ‘That’s Swinnel Beck. It feeds the mill further down. I once saw a hare get stranded on a piece of ground in the middle. It was grazing there and then it started to rain like murder, a really bad flash rain, you know the kind we get now. The thing froze right where it was. It did n’t move. And the water rose up so fast it cut it off from the banks.’

She paused, then spat on the ground and wiped her mouth. ‘Christ! I’ve got a bad stomach today. It’s all Ruthie’s bloody garlic. She goes howking through the woods for the wild stuff. That crazy bitch thinks it keeps us protected from everything on the planet and douses the scran with it any chance she gets.’ She held a hand to her chest. ‘I need some goat’s milk or something to settle myself. Come on, let’s away back.’ She turned on her heels, abandoning the walk. ‘What about the sheep?’ I asked her. ‘We’ll do it tomorrow,’ she called over her shoulder. I followed after her, back down the slopes. ‘So what happened to the hare? Did it drown?’ She glanced back at me. ‘No, no, it did not, Sister. It swam to the banks and got the fuck out. All animals can swim if they have to.’

We walked on a few more paces, with her a little in front. The mountain air was buffeting past us. Suddenly she swung round and I almost walked into her. She put a hand on my shoulder and leant forward as if pushing me away. Her eyes were rocking with water. ‘There are girls here in love with me,’ she said. ‘I only have to put my hand on them and they want to lick me out. I can’t even look at them.’ She cocked her head to the side and squinted back towards the river, and I passed out of her focus. I could feel my face burning. I did not know why she had chosen to say this to me, or what to say to her in reply. I did not know why she left her hand on my shoulder so long. Her eyes, usually oily and flammable, were glassy and clear. There were times I’d felt sure her temper was about to ignite, though it never had. Now she looked rinsed of her energy. I said nothing and waited for her to snap back to life, knowing she could disarm me as suddenly as she could make me her ally.

On the way back to the farmhouse we passed through the paddocks and stopped to stroke the manes of the ponies, and the deathliness seemed to leave her. ‘There’s no written constitution here,’ she said, rubbing behind the ears of a small brown mare. ‘We thought about it for a while, when Vee was alive, setting out something formal. But it wouldn’t have worked in the end. We’d have been paralysed by it, I’m sure of that. Constitutions are hard to change. And we’re going to have to change.’ Her fingers worked through the mane, pulling out the tangled knots. ‘I can’t say that I didn’t expect I’d have to fall back on myself during all this. People might think I’m an extremist, but it’s for everyone’s sake. They’ve not tried to cut my throat yet.’

She laughed her low inward laugh, swung a leg up onto the pony and mounted it. I watched as she heeled the mare gently in the flank and took off at a brisk canter across the field. She rode without much grace, her back slouched over slightly and her legs drooping long. Travellers at the horse-fairs in my youth had ridden with postures similar to hers, I remembered, bareback and untidy, but with similar control.

She turned the animal about a few times as if testing it, and brought it back. ‘Cumbrian fell pony,’ she called to me. ‘Bonny, eh? They’re the hardiest of all the breeds. They’re even tough enough for me. It’s how we get to the towns when we go down on rec. Saves diesel. And they like a good run out across the tops.’ For a moment she looked as if she might be about to spur the pony into a gallop, but she reined the animal in with her knees and slid off, then bent down and felt along the length of one of its legs.

I knew she was not trying particularly to impress me, but right then her capabilities seemed unlimited. I felt that if she told the mountain we were standing on to get up and move it would. There was something remarkable about her company, electric almost. I wondered if that sensation would ever fade, if one day she might walk into the room as just an ordinary woman. I knew it was unlikely. The other women responded to her with respect; I could see it. As she checked over the animal I tried to picture her as a gentler woman, less martial, less dominant, before she had enlisted, or as Veronique’s partner. But I could imagine no other woman than the one in front of me.

‘You’ve seen the girls out training, haven’t you?’ she asked. ‘That’s my unit. It’s what they’ve chosen to do, and they’re good at it. There are some here who disapprove of us having a defence council. It’ll get talked about in the meetings — you’ll see. We all get along though, at the end of the day. Everyone has a specific role in this joint. In the copse. Or the dairy. Or the fishery. Each to her own corner of expertise. We’re a bit like a monastery that way.’ She snorted. ‘But not in other ways. Now, let’s go, I need that milk.’

She did not try to describe Carhullan as any kind of Utopia. Even on my first day in the house, when she had referred to Shangri-La as I lay recovering in bed, it had been with a note of irony. She was visibly proud of the place. But I wondered how much she felt she might have failed in her original plan, how much she might have had to compromise. Perhaps she had tried to leave behind her past, as the others had, and found that she could not, that even in this most remote of places she could not escape human conflicts. She excelled in managing them. I wondered how much the absence of her partner had affected her. I did not understand her grief, with its dark humours, its tripwires and awkwardness, but I knew she must have suffered in the bereavement.

I waited for her to finish with the pony. I reached out and put my hand on the forelock of the creature and it nudged against me. Its coat was coarse and greasy, but it smelled sweet and there was something pleasant about the odour, something reassuring.

*

She did not come for me the next morning; nor the one after. I was disappointed. Instead of walking with her, I hung round the kitchen, helping Ruth and a woman called Sonnelle prepare the evening’s food. I drained the bowls of Carlins that had been soaking overnight and tipped them into a huge cast-iron pan on the stove, ready to boil. Their black eyes shone. I’d not eaten them since I was a child. The stitches in my hand had begun to itch and feel tight, and when the cooks were done with me I went to find Lorry and she took them out with a pair of scissors. I did not know where Jackie had gone, or what she was doing, and when she found me the following day she did not say anything about her absence, merely continued familiarising me with the farm’s layout and calendar. Much of it revolved around food, growing it, harvesting it, consuming it.