Jon McGregor: Reservoir 13

In his studio Geoff Simmons washed his hands at the deep stone sink, the clear water dissolving the clay and running in a milky stream down the plughole and into the trap beneath. The wet pots on the tray were drying off and the kiln was just beginning to warm. In the hedge outside Mr Wilson’s window a blackbird waited on its grassy bowl of blue-green eggs as the chicks chipped away at the shells. On the television there were pictures of floods across northern Europe: men in waterproofs pulling dinghies through the streets, collapsed bridges, drowned livestock. When the tea rooms opened for the season the footbridge hadn’t yet been rebuilt. The parish council wrote to the Culshaw Hall Estate as a matter of urgency, and the estate said it was the job of the National Park. The National Park disagreed. The river keeper said he could only do what he was asked. The first small tortoiseshells began mating, flying after each other above the nettle beds until the females settled somewhere out of sight and waited for the males to follow. The National Park ranger from the visitor centre spent an enjoyable hour watching them, and making a record, and when he got back to the office he filed it carefully away. At Reservoir no. 11, the maintenance team went along the crest of the dam, looking for cracks in the surface or sinkholes. There were molehills on the grass bank to deal with. Along the river at dusk there were bats moving in number, coming down from their roosts to take the insects rising from the water. They moved in deft quietness and were gone by the time they were seen. The Spring Dance ended early when a fight between Liam Hooper and one of the boys from Cardwell spilled back in through the fire doors. It was soon broken up but by then there’d been damage and the Cardwell boys were asked to leave. Outside in the car park Will Jackson was again seen with Miss Carter from the school.

Martin Fowler was working behind the counter in the butcher’s shop when the man from the bank came in and said it was time. You’re talking about what now? Martin asked. He gave the man the kind of level stare that had once been enough to sort things. The man from the bank had some files under his arm and he told Martin he would need the keys. There were two more men waiting at the door. Larger, these two. That’s not going to happen, Martin said. There was a chain-metal rattle behind him and Ruth came through from the back, asking what was going on. The man from the bank repeated himself. But we’ve had no correspondence on this, Ruth said; nothing. She felt Martin go slack beside her, and the man from the bank looked sympathetic. All due process has been followed, he said. The documents were sent by recorded delivery, and signed for. It was the sympathy on his face riled her the most. There was no call for sympathy. She scooped the money from the till while his back was turned, and ushered Martin out with what little dignity she could find in him. The man from the bank had a new lock fitted by lunchtime, and notices put in the window. And that was that. They went home and they sat and she couldn’t even find the energy to ask Martin for some kind of a bloody explanation. The sound of Sean Hooper dressing stone came from across the river, a steady clipped chime moving a beat behind the fall of his arm. The swallows were busy in and out of the barns. The well-dressing boards were brought out of storage and taken down to the river to be soaked. The girl’s mother was still at the Hunter place and it was known that Jane Hughes visited sometimes. She was never there long, and no one thought to ask how the visits went. She’d have said nothing, of course. Sometimes she thought she’d like to be asked, even if only by her husband or by one of her colleagues in the wider church. But this was the job. She parked the car and went inside and a short time later she came out. The girl had been looked for. She’d been looked for at each of the reservoirs, around the breakwater rocks on the shore and up through the treeline and in all the boarded-up buildings and sheds. She could have fallen into the water and drowned. She could have been trapped in some kind of culvert or sluice deep under there. The divers had found nothing. People wanted to know. People felt involved.

When Jackson came home he was taken in a carry-chair from the ambulance to the motorised bed which had been installed in the front room. There’d been plenty of preparations to get to this point, but when the ambulance crew left Maisie felt a wave of panic at everything that had to be done. Gordon and Alex had been busy getting the room ready, but it was hard to tell whether Jackson was pleased. The weakness in his face had improved enough that he was now just about able to speak, but his fixed expression made emotions impossible to read. The bed had been turned to the window so he could see out down the street towards the church. There was a table to one side set with bedpans and medications, and a radio placed near the bed. There would be care-workers coming in, and nurses, and a physiotherapist, but there was still a long list of jobs they would need to do for him themselves. There was a row on the first evening when he made a fuss about being fed. There’d been no objection when it was nurses at the hospital but from his own wife it was too much. He managed to spill a bowl of soup with just a swift angry turn of his head, and when Maisie was done clearing up she asked Gordon to have a word. He didn’t take long. If you’ll not let us feed you you’ll be dead in a week so think on, he said. In the morning Jackson took a bowl of scrambled eggs. Through the window he could just see Les Thompson walking his fields across the river, checking on the ripening grass. The heads would be forming and the leaves falling back. The cut was due. They would need a dry period soon if they were to get it in. There was talk about the survey stakes which had been found near the Stone Sisters. Cooper made enquiries at the planning office and ran a story in the Echo about plans for another quarry. The fieldfares were away in Scandinavia, building nests and laying eggs. A group of travellers moved into the old quarry down by the main road. Tony asked Martin if he’d ever heard anything more from Woods, and Martin said not. Tony asked if he’d not been a bit paranoid about the whole thing, and since it was almost a year now Martin admitted that might be the case. It was water under the bridge, he said.

On the last day of term James and Liam and Deepak skipped school and took their bikes up the track above Reservoir no. 3. They had to push them most of the way up the hill. There was loose shale and deep ruts and the going was slow. At the top they took drinks and crisps from their backpacks. My dad’s been offered a job in Newcastle, Deepak said. Newcastle, said James; how come? Newcastle’s not bad, said Liam. I’ve been there. My uncle runs a sports shop there. I was helping in the shop once and Alan Shearer came in looking for football boots. He’s been looking for a job for a while, Deepak said. It’s my mum’s idea. He was well fussy about the boots, said Liam. Your mum wants to move to Newcastle? Not really. She just wants to move somewhere else. Doesn’t she like it here? She’s been a bit weird about living here, ever since Becky, Deepak said. Funny thing about Alan Shearer, right, is he’s got really tiny feet? Liam, shut up. Your uncle lives in Cardwell. No, that’s my other uncle. You are so full of shit. Your mum’s full of shit. James leant across and smacked the bag of crisps from Liam’s hand. Liam scrambled on to his bike and set off down the hill. They watched him bump and skid down the track, the dust rising behind him. Wasn’t it your mum’s idea to move out here in the first place? Yeah. But she says it’s changed now. You know. She says she wants to be somewhere closer to family. You got family in Newcastle? James asked. No, but. Is he going to take the job? I don’t know. I don’t think he wants to. But Mum’s really unhappy. She keeps going on about it. Newcastle, fucking hell, James said. Yeah. They finished their crisps. James put on his backpack and picked up his bike. Are we doing this? Liam was almost at the bottom of the hill. He hadn’t fallen yet. Deepak got on his bike, and looked at James. That summer. Did you actually get off with her, with Becky? James looked at him. I mean, no, not really, he said. Fuck it, Deepak; did you? No, Deepak said. I wanted to though. Are we riding down this hill or just talking about it or what? James said. Shut up about it. Let’s go. They rattled down the track, their heads full of the noise of their bikes skidding in the ruts. At the bottom of the hill they came past Will Jackson, who was late collecting his boy from school. It was the last day of term and when he got to the classroom the other children had gone. He thought it might be a good moment to have a word with Miss Carter. Tom was full of questions about what they would do when they got home, and Miss Carter was busy clearing up, and so as he walked with Tom down the corridor it was now getting on for three months that nothing had been said. Probably there was nothing to say. She had texted him but he’d asked her not to. He hadn’t wanted any complications. He wondered if complication had been the wrong word to use. Could be she would have taken offence. It wasn’t always easy to know. He wondered what she’d done with his underwear; if she was saving it or if she would have thrown it away. It would have been no trouble to drop it in the post, but she hadn’t. She’d asked him for the loan in the morning, pulling on the pair of blue-and-white-striped jockey shorts that looked a lot better on her than they’d ever looked on him. Snug, would be a word. Not something he’d heard discussed, how good a woman could look in a man’s underwear. But there she’d been, standing at the foot of his bed, those blue and white stripes bending every which way, a mug of tea in each hand and a look on her face enough to blow anyone’s fusebox. And later when she’d slipped out of the house, going the back way through the garden and into the woods so as not to be seen, he’d thought for a moment it could have been the start of something or other. The taste of her as he sat with a fresh mug of tea and didn’t drink it. Will Jackson and Miss Carter from the school: it had a good sound but people would talk. And the boy’s mother would turn it against him. There was no need for that. He could go elsewhere. But there was the give of the mattress beneath him as she’d clambered back into the bed. The force of her. He’d had to keep from bursting out the back door and chasing her down in the woods. And after those texts there’d been nothing. An awkward silence. A getting on with things. But she still had his underwear, and he thought perhaps that meant there was something to come. He should talk to her.