The Festering Read online

  ‘I think I’ll have a word with old Hughes.’ He straightened up, and she heard his knee joints cracking as if he had stepped on some dry twigs. ‘We’ll walk back that way. Damn the fellow, he can get down here and get it going again.’

  The old hill farmer regarded them stoically across the rusted gate which separated his yard from the track leading up from the lane below, a kind of dilapidated barrier erected to keep out townies who chose to infiltrate the wild lands of his forefathers. Small and wizened, he wore the same tattered brown shepherd’s smock that had seen him through last winter. He pursed his lips pensively. It was impossible even to guess his innermost thoughts, but Holly decided that, one way or the other, he did not intend to help them. He had sold them the cottage; they had their dwelling, he had his money and that was that. Whatever was written into the title deeds was just words on a piece of paper; this wasn’t the town – out here life was different. Furthermore, the Mannions were outsiders and that was Elwyn Hughes’ criterion in this case.

  ‘We’re out of water,’ Mike said for the third time. ‘The ram has stopped working.’

  The farmer regarded them steadily. Not so much as a flicker of those grey eyes, just a pursing of the lips, a dribble of saliva as he sucked on his dead pipe. ‘It’s the drought.’ He spoke softly, almost menacingly. ‘If you’m don’t have rain, you’m don’t have water.’

  ‘I am well aware of that fact.’ Mike’s tone was clipped, ‘It’s not the drought I’m talking about, it’s the ram. It’s stopped. It … isn’t … working!’ Christ, doesn't he understand?

  ‘That’s what I’m tellin’ you.’ There was a slight note of irritation in the farmer’s voice now. ‘The ram’s stopped because there isn’t any rain. The water level in yon stream has dropped; there isn’t enough water to make the ram work. Now d’you understand, Mr Mannion?’

  Mike felt his stomach contract and suddenly the day did not seem so warm. With a sudden chill he realized they did not have any water because the ram had stopped, and the ram had stopped because there wasn’t any water. Catch 22, as the saying went.

  ‘Do you understand what I’m saying, Mr Mannion? There’s no water so –’

  ‘Yes,’ Mike answered slowly. ‘I understand.’

  ‘But what are we going to do?’ Holly thought her voice sounded shrill, as though it bordered on hysteria. ‘Can’t you make it work, Mr Hughes?’

  ‘No.’ Those wizened lips parted in a smile which might have been sadistic delight, and the head moved slowly from side to side. ‘Only the good Lord can get it going again, Mrs Mannion, and He’ll do that when He’s ready. In His own good time. Now, do you understand?’

  She said ‘yes’ meekly and hated herself for it, then added, ‘but isn’t there anything we can do?’

  The farmer pondered, taking his time replying, almost as though he was debating whether or not to advise these outsiders further. ‘You’m could get yourself a borehole,’ he said at length.

  ‘A borehole?’ Mike stared in amazement. ‘What the devil is a borehole?’

  ‘A well.’ Hughes spoke condescendingly as if he was addressing an infant class in a village school. ‘There’s a good many folks havin’ ’em drilled nowadays, mostly them that have moved out here from the towns.’ He paused to let the implication register. ‘No trouble. Bennions are doin’ ’em as fast as they can get the rig from one place to the other. Take a tip from me and get yourselves a borehole.’

  And let you off the hook, Mike thought, and clenched his fists angrily. You’ll have all the water you want for your stock then. He said, ‘It’s an idea, certainly. We’d have two water supplies then, a well and the ram, Mr Hughes!’

  The old man’s eyes narrowed, his thin lips tightened, and then, without another word, he turned away and shuffled back into the farmyard.

  ‘Well,’ Mike shrugged, ‘we don’t appear to have any choice, Holly. It’s either a borehole or going without water. We’d better have a look in the phone book and see where these Bennion folk hang out. I get the feeling I’m going to have to get that painting finished and sold pretty quick!’

  2

  Mike Mannion was pleasantly surprised by his first impression of Frank Bennion. He had anticipated a rough, overall-clad figure smeared with tractor grease, possibly another antagonist of ‘outsiders’. Instead, the managing director of F. Bennion & Co. Ltd. was smartly dressed in a tweed suit, spotless shirt and tie, with clean wellingtons on his feet and a clipboard tucked under his arm.

  ‘Mr Mannion?’ The visitor extended a hand, a smile on his fresh clean-shaven face.

  ‘You’d better come inside, Mr Bennion.’ Mike held the door wide, sensed Holly behind him.

  ‘First things, first.’ Bennion glanced behind him at the overgrown patch of garden surrounding the cottage. ‘Before we waste each other’s time, I think we’d better ascertain that there actually is water here, don’t you think?’ Another smile. ‘I expect you’ve seen the guarantee with our newspaper advertisements. “No water, no fee”. You can’t be fairer than that, can you? Most of the drilling firms nowadays don’t guarantee you water. They want a couple of grand off you before they start to drill, and if there’s no water down there then it costs you another five hundred to get the shaft filled in. We guarantee water, or if we don’t find any then it doesn’t cost you a penny.’

  ‘I see.’ Mike found himself following the other man round the house, Bennion walking fast, confidently, then stopping, looking round as if he was trying to get his bearings.

  ‘I think we’ll start here. Just hold my clipboard for me, will you, Mr Mannion?’ Bennion was delving in his pocket, searching amid coins that rattled, and eventually pulled out a length of string with a polished wooden conical-shaped object attached to the end. He let it dangle and spin, caressing it almost lovingly. ‘Do you know anything about pendulums, Mr Mannion?’

  ‘Er … no.’ Mike shifted, felt embarrassed and glanced at Holly, ‘I’m afraid I don’t.’

  ‘Never mind.’ Bennion was holding the end of the string between thumb and forefinger, steadying the spinning weight with his other hand, releasing it when it was still. ‘More reliable than copper wands, at least, as far as I'm concerned. When it finds water it’ll spin clockwise, anticlockwise if there isn’t any. Just watch, please, I have to concentrate.’

  Mike and Holly watched, fascinated; at first the pendulum did not move, then, with some hesitancy, it began to swing in an anticlockwise direction. Bennion grunted and moved on a few yards. The same ritual; the pendulum told him for the second time that there was no water directly beneath where he stood. On again, a full ten yards this time, standing in a slight hollow covered with sun-scorched weeds.

  ‘Ah!’ There was satisfaction in his exclamation, and his grey eyes were shining with boyish delight. ‘I think we may be in luck this time.’

  The pendulum swung in a clockwise arc, then made a full circle, gathering momentum all the time until Frank Bennion snatched it back and dropped it into his pocket. ‘There’s water down here, and plenty of it by the pull. I don’t think we’ll need to look elsewhere. This is an ideal spot for the borehole, far enough from the house so that it doesn’t get sprayed with slurry when we drill. Now, perhaps we could go indoors and I’ll put a few figures down on paper so that you’ll know what you’re in for. No offence if you turn us down, Mr Mannion.’ He laughed good-humouredly.

  Mike experienced a fluttering in his stomach. He had no idea what all this would cost – a thousand pounds for sure. He asked, ‘How long will the job take?’ A good guideline to the financial aspect, he thought, and held his breath. He reminded himself that Daniels, his agent, was expecting an offer any day on that painting he had only finished last week.

  ‘A couple of days, three at the most.’ Bennion seated himself down at the scrubbed pine table and began jotting some figures on an estimate sheet.

  ‘Coffee, Mr Bennion?’ Mike noted the slight tension in Holly’s voice; she was apprehensive too. They had n
ot budgeted for the outlay on a water system. That was hitch number one. How many more were hidden in this new lifestyle waiting to pounce?

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Mannion.’ Bennion answered without glancing up, scribbled something on the paper and sucked the end of his ballpoint.

  Mike was watching Bennion closely. He might have been mistaken for a gentleman farmer, an astute agriculturist who had made his pile. Well-spoken, affluent; that was a BMW parked out in the lane, and at a glance the car looked new. Bennion was surely of retirement age, possibly over it, the kind who never stopped working and dropped down still wearing his green wellies when his time was up. He sipped his coffee without taking his eyes off the paper in front of him, furrowing his forehead as he made mental calculations, then wrote something else.

  For Frank Bennion life was idyllic. He remembered ‘the old days’ with nostalgia – the time when he had been just an ordinary agricultural contractor. In the spring he’d contracted for as much ploughing as he could get, followed by corn sowing. Harvest time had been the worst because it was dependent upon the weather; a fine spell after a wet one, and everybody thought you ought to cut their corn first. Hedging in the autumn – pleaching in those days, not this unsightly foliage gobbling with a mechanical flail that tore indiscriminately at everything in its patch and left a mile of hawthorn looking as if some ravenous browsing monster had feasted along it. Hard work then, and the money wasn’t good because he’d had to undercut his competitors to get any work at all.

  Then Frank had invested in a second-hand quarry rig and begun drilling water wells as a sideline. In the beginning it was just the odd one, then this craze began where folks moved out from the towns to a new lifestyle – they called it ‘self-sufficiency’, but it was all a game; they expected the mod cons to go with it. These newcomers to the countryside weren’t prepared to fetch their water from the stream or do without when their shallow well ran dry. So the boom in boreholes began, and Frank found it more profitable than ploughing and hedge-trimming. He took on a youth to do the labouring, then a man to work the rig; finally an electrician and a plumber so that they could do the whole job from start to finish. He had drilled six hundred wells to date; the Mannions would be number six hundred and one. If they accepted the estimate.

  He paused and took another sip of coffee. ‘Will you be wanting to use your own plumber, Mr Mannion?’

  ‘Er … not really.’ Mike did not even know a plumber in the area.

  ‘I see. Then I’ll quote you for plumbing as well.’ Bennion was writing again.

  Mike shifted uncomfortably in his chair and looked across at Holly. She was pale, uneasy. But they did not have to accept the quote; they could simply wait for the rains to come. But from this morning's forecast on the radio, that might be a long time. The weathermen were already talking about another 1976.

  ‘I think that’s about it.’ There was a sense of smug satisfaction about Bennion as he pushed the sheet of paper across the table to Mike. Mike picked it up and found himself reading it line by line, the fingers holding it shaking slightly. It read:

  ESTIMATE FOR WATER-WELL

  60’ borehole, with well casing, seal from surface contamination & cap with pit & manhole £850.00

  Extra footage @ £7.50 per ft. if needed

  Pump & Controls £320.00

  Cable in bore £40.00

  Cable to bore £35.00

  Probes £80.00

  Weatherproof control box £20.00

  External electrics £45.00

  Float & pilot cable £26.00

  Rising main in bore £30.00

  Delivery pipe from bore £24.00

  Fitting & control valves £18.00

  Excavation of trench to dwelling £60.00

  Labour and journeys £220.00

  Interior plumbing £200.00

  Total £1,970.00

  ‘It may be more … or less,’ Bennion added softly, ‘depending upon whether we need to drill deeper than sixty feet. I hope that won’t be necessary.’

  Mike’s vision swam. The figures in front of him merged, swirling like a still pond into which a pebble had been tossed. Holly was trying to read the estimate from the end of the table but was too polite to lean across. Jesus Christ, close on two grand!

  ‘When would you be thinking of starting, Mr Bennion?’ The question seemed to come out casually, but he hoped the older man could not hear the pounding of his pulses or detect a quaver in his voice. Knowing contractors, it might be weeks, months – in which case the rains would probably have come by then. Then they could cancel.

  ‘Let me see.’ Frank Bennion pulled a diary out of his pocket and flicked some pages. ‘Today’s Monday. Say Wednesday, Thursday at the latest.’

  ‘This week!’

  ‘Surely. We’re just finishing off at that white-washed cottage that stands up on the hillside as you come into Garth. A mile away – less, probably. It’s very convenient for moving the tack here. If we had to travel from home it would cost you a fair bit more. It’s cheap, Mr Mannion.’

  Waiting for an answer, drumming a finger on the table, Bennion thought, hurry up, Mr Mannion, I’ve got three more estimates to do before lunch.

  ‘I …’ just at that second the phone shrilled; it seemed to scream a warning: Don’t take it, Mike, you can’t afford it. You’ll be in debt for years if you do.

  ‘I’ll get it.’ There was relief in Holly’s voice as she leaped up and almost ran to the wall phone by the Welsh dresser. Mike sucked in his breath. A welcome interlude; breathing space; a few seconds during which he could still hang on to that two thousand he didn’t have.

  ‘For you, Mike.’ Holly was holding out the receiver, leaning against the wall with her free hand, ‘It’s Bob Daniels.’

  ‘Excuse me a moment.’ Mike returned their visitor’s fixed smile, ‘I won’t be a moment.’

  ‘Mike.’ The art agent sounded continents away, his voice lower than usual as if he spoke in confidence and was afraid of being overheard in his own office. ‘The picture – I’ve had an offer.’

  ‘How much?’ The all-important question. Tell me it’s two grand because I’m going to spend it in about ten seconds flat.

  ‘Not just the picture, Mike. That and others. Dowsons, the commercial art publishers, are interested in a series of similar landscapes to do limited-edition prints. They want a contract for ten!’

  ‘I see.’ If Bennion had not been less than six feet away Mike might have said ‘Holy Christ Almighty!’ His pulse rate speeded up still further and he mouthed into the handset, ‘What’s the deal, then, Bob?’

  ‘Ten grand. Five on signature, a thousand on delivery of each painting. I know you’ll accept. I already have on your behalf.’

  Mike caught his breath. He did not trust himself to speak. If Bennion guessed, then there might be a few extras on that estimate. ‘That’s marvellous. Go ahead, Bob, and I’ll call you back in a bit. Okay?’

  ‘Sure.’ The agent sounded disappointed. Maybe he got his kicks from hearing whoops of joy from his clients, Mike thought as he replaced the receiver, barely trusting himself to walk back to the table. Bennion was already on his feet, his clipboard under his arm ready for his next customer, and picking up his floppy hat.

  ‘I’ll have to be on my way, Mr Mannion.’ He was still smiling, but it seemed forced now, irritated, disappointed. Time was money, and these people had wasted an hour of his time.

  ‘We’ll see you Thursday. Or Friday at the latest.’ Mike derived a kind of pleasure from the casual way he spoke.

  ‘Oh … fine.’ Bennion’s former smile returned. ‘You can rely on us, Mr Mannion. We’ll find you water. And if we don’t, then you won’t owe us a penny.’ And then he was gone through the door, striding down the weed-covered path, the jauntiness back in his step.

  ‘Mike!’ Holly’s features were white and she was trembling, half-angry. ‘You know we can’t afford that sort of –’

  ‘We can … now.’ He pulled her to him and kissed her
quivering lips, ‘I almost think Bob Daniels is telepathic. Or something. He’s sold that picture, and nine more to go with them. Our only worry right now is what Frank Bennion finds at the bottom of the well he’s going to drill. Water, I hope!’

  3

  Holly had not really expected drilling to commence on Thursday. Or Friday. Contractors were all the same: promises, excuses, delays – it would be two to three weeks before they turned up, and only then after repeated reminders. Consequently she was surprised when just after ten o’clock on Thursday morning a battered old long-wheel-base Land Rover arrived towing the rig, followed by an ex-WD lorry which had been converted into a mobile compressor. A fresh-faced youth and an older, stocky, taciturn man in torn overalls busied themselves backing the rig through the front gate and down to that shallow dip in the weedy garden where water had been divined. She looked for Bennion, but there was no sign of the dapper boss; his job ended with dowsing and writing out the estimate probably.

  She stood there on the step, watching them unhitch the rig, and had numerous misgivings about the wisdom of the enterprise. A large proportion of Mike’s advance on the paintings was invested in it – or, rather, it would be when the cheque arrived. She just hoped there were no hitches, no second thoughts by the art publishers. Frank Bennion did not look the kind of man who would wait patiently for his money.

  ‘Here we go, then.’ Mike appeared from the kitchen. ‘Bang on time. It’s a good job we hadn’t made a start on the garden. God knows what kind of a mess they’ll leave behind when they’ve done.’

  The two workmen laboured frantically, cursing beneath their breath as they endeavoured to connect up all the various machinery. The compressor was parked in the gateway; Mike wondered how he was expected to get his car out, but he would meet that problem if the need arose. Large metal drums were unloaded from the back of the Land Rover and linked up like undisciplined soldiers; then coils of rope, a length of cable, spades, numerous bags of sand and gravel. The two men might have been oblivious of their audience for all the notice they took. There was an almost frantic haste about their movements.