Jon McGregor - Reservoir 13

Cathy Harris helped Sally clean out the caravan once the police had finished. Most of what they hadn’t taken was only fit for throwing away. Cathy asked what Sally thought would happen next. I really don’t know, Sally said. I’m starting to think he’s just that bit too damaged, you know? He gets himself into these situations. The only time I ever see him looking peaceful is when he’s in the hospital, but the only way in is when he gets arrested first. I don’t know what more I’m meant to do. The orchard looked hacked and awkward, but Brian Fletcher said he thought the two men had done a good job on the whole. The protest camp had mostly closed down, now that the new quarry was fully up and running. The first excavation had started three miles away from the Stone Sisters, and it was clear that it wouldn’t get much closer. Most days there was just the one protester up there, keeping the fire going and repainting the banners. The estate lost more pheasants than usual to poachers, and there was talk of an organised gang. The odd one or two was tolerated, but this was dozens in a single night. In the parlour at Thompson’s farm the men hooked the milking clusters up to the next group of cows, the rich smell of cream and shit rising in the late-afternoon air. In his studio Geoff Simmons fixed handles to a new batch of jugs, scoring a cross-hatch at the attachment and sticking each one on with a smear of slip. There were orders to pack and take down to the post office. There was a woman he’d been seeing, a potter from Devon who’d become very friendly at a craft fair and had been up to stay a couple of times. She said she preferred him to travel down to her place. She’d encouraged him into the mail order. He’d hated the idea of a website, and of people buying his pots without holding them first, but she was persuasive. This was starting to worry him. On his lunch break Martin took his sandwiches to the park by the river, and when he’d finished eating he stopped off at the toilets and heard something going on in the cubicle. There was just muttering at first, while he stood at the urinal, and then some other rustling or rattling around. It sounded as though two people were in there, and the thought crossed his mind that it could be two men having sex. He understood that this was something people did. He’d wondered, when they’d first learnt about Bruce, whether this was something Bruce had done. He’d found the thought upsetting, far more than the basic fact of his being gay or whatever they wanted to call it. He’d settled with that. He’d told Bruce, eventually, soon after meeting Hugh, that he’d settled with that. There was silence in the cubicle, and he thought he must have imagined the noises. Which was a concern in itself. And then as he was washing his hands there was the sound of a sudden movement, a bang against the cubicle door, and a kind of wincing grunt of pleasure. He realised, as he walked quickly away without drying his hands, that the idea of the pleasure had surprised him. Because why would it be a surprise. Because whatever else people thought about that type of thing it could only be assumed that they enjoyed it. Else why would they go to all that trouble. Why would they put up with people talking about them. He found himself thinking about whether or not he’d heard what he thought he’d heard for days afterwards. He wanted to tell someone about it but there was no one. He wondered how they went about agreeing to go into the cubicle together in the first place. The wheat fields by the main road were harvested and the woodpigeons gathered for the spilt grain. In the clough in the evenings there was a thin mist following the line of the river, rising like smoke from the water. The weather was closing in.

In their front room the Cooper family watched Harry Potter , after a day of walking up on the hill. The twins fell asleep after twenty minutes, one hand each resting in the bowl of popcorn wedged between them. Austin had just been commenting quietly on this to Su when he realised she was asleep as well. He turned the sound down on the film and listened to the three of them. He had a memory of listening to them like this when the boys were babies. They had become so much more in the meantime. He watched the boys’ chests rise and fall, their lungs still small and their bodies busy growing. He looked at them. The neatness of their proportions. Their skin. The utter stillness on their faces. The light in the room kept changing with the movement of the trees outside. The people in the film kept shouting at each other, mutely. And Su, turned in towards him, her slight frame slow and tidal in its sleeping breath. He felt as though he were holding the three of them, holding this room, this house. They made him feel at once immensely capable and immensely not up to the task. He remembered all the times he’d lain awake at night, thinking over the locks on the doors and windows, working through what he would do when someone came crashing into the house. And here they all were, safe. The light from the television screen shone across the boys’ faces. Austin was holding his breath, as if letting it go would let the moment spill. He felt the contentment in his chest like an aching muscle. He noticed Sam’s hand twitch in the popcorn bowl, and wondered what he was dreaming of. He felt Su shift beside him, her cheek turning into his shoulder, and then Lee asked him to turn the volume up because he couldn’t hear the film.

When the first siren sounded over at the quarry the workers cleared the area. When the second siren sounded the birds fell silent. In the village, windows and doors were pulled shut. The third siren sounded, and the birds rose into the air, and the explosion came from deep behind the working face, spreading through the body of the earth, a low crumping shudder that shrugged huge slabs of limestone to the quarry floor. The dust rose and continued rising and drifted out through the air for five minutes or more. The first all-clear sounded, and the birds returned noisily to the treetops. The second all-clear sounded, and the workers returned to their places. In the village the windows and doors were kept closed as the dust spread. On the bus back from town Winnie saw Irene and asked whether she’d had her hair done. Irene’s hand went up to her head, although she hadn’t meant it to. She told Winnie it was only the usual. Keeping it tidy, she said. Well, it suits you, Winnie told her. Irene only nodded, and turned to face the front of the bus. Winnie wondered how she’d caused offence. It wasn’t always easy to tell, with Irene. At the bus stop Irene saw Sally Fletcher, who wanted to know about the plans for the next Women’s Institute sale and also felt it necessary to pass remark on her hair. What a lovely job they’ve done there, she said, and for a moment she had her hand on Irene’s shoulder, as though she wanted to turn her back and forth like some kind of dressmaker’s dummy. Well, Irene said. I do prefer it short, you know. Practical. Later, when Su Cooper said something similar, Irene began to wonder if some elaborate joke was being played on her. She didn’t welcome the attention. She wasn’t vain about her appearance. She would have to ask Jackie to do a simpler cut, next time. Tidy was all she’d asked for. In the evening she met Winnie for a drink at the Gladstone, as they’d arranged. It was her sixtieth birthday but she didn’t want a fuss. At the council meeting there was a dispute about burning the Guy Fawkes at the bonfire party. Susanna Wright said it was anti-Catholic which was more or less the same as racist when you thought about it and she didn’t think the parish council should be condoning anything like that. The majority saw it as a harmless tradition which there was no need to drop. After the meeting Susanna was taken to one side and told that as a newer member of the parish council she should wait a year or two before tabling any more motions. There were springtails in the crumbling wood of the fallen ash by the river, moulting and feeding and getting ready to lay more eggs. There was a storm and the felt on the village-hall roof came away. There was so much water damage that the wall panelling down one side had to be taken out. That end of the hall was cordoned off, and a meeting held about urgent fundraising for repairs. There was flooding the length of the valley and some newly cut trees from the Hunters’ land came crashing down the river and took out the footbridge by the millpond weir.