The Well (19 page)

‘Tonight,' Hester said, ‘you will go down the well on the rope I bought and when we have the money safely here in the house – tomorrow I shall take you to town and we'll invest that amount in your name. And then for our living expenses and for our holiday in Europe I can draw out …' She paused, waiting for Katherine to confess in the face of such generosity that there was no need to make the horrible descent – that the money was there already in the house. Hester was prepared for Katherine to be triumphant. They would celebrate together the presence of the neatly rolled-up notes.

Katherine did not reply at once, her mouth was full of hair clips. Hester, waiting and feeling the clips sliding on her scalp, allowed herself to wonder when Katherine could have taken the money. Any time, she supposed, possibly just before they left for the Bordens' party. It might, it would surely be hidden quite near, somewhere in the house, perhaps even under an upturned jug or a basin on the dresser. Hester glanced quickly round the kitchen. She wanted to jump up and pounce on an inverted bowl and turn it up with a definite movement of discovery and reveal the hidden treasure. She had to restrain herself knowing that Kathy, accustomed to her own ways, would use hiding places which she herself would choose. The red hat, she noticed, lay inside out, empty on the shelf where it was always kept. The sight of it made Hester's heart pound with suppressed anger. She said nothing and waited for Katherine's reply.

‘There's no need Miss Harper, dear,' Katherine said smoothly, ‘for me to go down. I've already explained to you, if you'll let me have the key to the Toyota I'll get the rope – it is in the Toyota isn't it? – and we can let him climb up. He'll be a lot better than me at climbing on a rope! Miss Harper, dear.' Katherine's voice changed. ‘He can't go on being down there. He'll go mad. He's told me he'll go mad and besides he's got some injuries. He's in pain and he wants a doctor and he's told me he must out tonight. I must get the rope off you; he's told me I must. He's afraid Miss Harper, dear, don't you understand it's awful down there and the torch batteries are low and I've had to tell him we haven't any more. They're our last I've had to tell him. He says I must get the key off you. I've told him you keep them on that chain around your neck he says I'm to get it off you …' There were tears not far away, Hester knew the sound.

‘If we get him up, your young man,' she said in an easy bantering tone, ‘he'll just as soon put us both down there. You can believe me, Katherine, anyone who comes back to life after being killed by a truck and thrown down a well isn't going to take things lightly. Understand this, Katherine, once and for all, you have to go down tonight and retrieve the money.'

‘Miss Harper, dear,' Katherine seemed to croon, ‘yew don't believe that he's really alive, do you. Well, I'm telling yew he is. I've been all day out there, he doesn't like being left alone. I should be there now only I can't be in two places …'

‘If he is alive as you say he is,' Hester interrupted continuing in the light teasing way, ‘just you make yourself nice and clean and pretty, put on your yellow dress and some of that exotic
Chloë
and go down to him. You know, offer yourself to him – since you love him so much it shouldn't be too difficult. Tell him you love him, that you want to bear his child and ask him for the money, tell him to trust you, promise him everything and so on and so on, you know the kind of thing. And you also know that lovers often break promises. So, what's the problem? Hm? But,' she added, ‘it's much easier to get money from a dead man. Much quicker too, you'll be down and up and it will all be over and done with. Now,' she said, ‘time to change the subject. I think I could eat an egg. What about you? You'll have an egg too? I'm going to have two, lightly boiled and scooped out into a glass and I'll have some thin slices of freshly buttered bread.'

‘Miss Harper, dear,' Katherine said, making no move towards the preparation of the food. ‘Do you remember,' she said in a quiet voice, ‘do you remember he sent up a note, a hundred dollar bill?'

‘Yes yes of course,' Hester said, ‘one of mine I believe.' She limped across to reach for the special little saucepan they used for eggs.

‘Miss Harper, dear,' Katherine said, ‘I couldn't have had that if he hadn't sent it up in the little basket. I never have any money so how could I have that note?'

‘Katherine!' Hester barked, ‘do not continue to lie to me. If you would like to have the money you have taken and invest it for yourself I am perfectly willing for you to have it. I'll discuss it with you later. Now we must see to our supper or whatever this meal is, if your gentleman friend has left us something in the larder.' She hummed a song tunelessly, a subdued braying resonant in her nose.

‘Money is the only thing you know or care about.' Katherine's voice caused Hester to turn so quickly that she almost lost her balance.

‘Money money money,' Katherine shouted.

‘Yes Kathy, dear, money,' Hester said, ‘I do know about it and I care about it and so do you obviously. Oh Kathy,' Hester said, her face changing, ‘Kathy, what's the matter with us.' To her surprise and in spite of her intention, she began to plead. ‘Kathy,' she said, ‘Kathy listen to me, there's only one person I really care about and that's you and the one thing I care about is your future and your enjoyment in life. You know that. I've never been mean to you. I've always tried to please you and I've always trusted you completely. Doesn't all this mean anything to you at all. You must know that you are the only person I live for.'

At this Katherine burst into tears and cried aloud. ‘Oh Miss Harper, dear, you are good to me. I know. I know but please don't let's leave him one more awful night down there. It's hell he says. I can't rest Miss Harper, dear I haven't slept and I'm so tired but I can't bear to be comfortable knowing that he's all alone in that dark wet hole. Miss Harper, I've spent every minute I could out there with him telling him over and over that you are a good kind person that you'd give me the key and I'd get help to get him out. I keep talking to him telling him everything'll be all right. Please Miss Harper, dear, just give me the key to the Toyota, please. You see if he can't climb up the rope himself we'll have to fetch help. I promised him we'd fetch Mr Borden and some others to help.'

‘Stop that noise at once,' Hester said in fear. She held one hand to her flat breast and was partly reassured. She could feel the keys safely in their place. ‘Stop all that rubbish!' she said determined to squash the outburst of hysteria. ‘Get on and spread the bread and butter, nicely too. I don't want the bread all broken and the butter in lumps.'

‘It isn't rubbish,' Katherine shouted, ‘and I'll tell you this, Miss Harper, I didn't kill him. I did not kill him and it was you that put him down the well. It was your idea and you did it and if you keep him down there he'll die and you'll have been the one who killed him. You can't kill him! Give me the key!' she screamed. ‘I've got to go and get help. I hate you!' Her scream rose higher. ‘I hate you and I shall always hate you. I see now what you're really like. Don't forget I had all those years in the convent. We didn't just talk about nothing there. I do have something, I do know what's good and what's not good – I know a bad thing. Miss Harper I know when a person's bad.' She drew breath. ‘I hate your music too. More than anything I hate that.' She sat down at the table and cried.

‘Kathy,' Hester said, her hand outstretched as if she would stroke the fair head. ‘You realize don't you that I put the body in the well to save you. You understand that surely. I got rid of the body, of the evidence. Have you thought of that. Now listen, why can't we calm down and just talk quietly …' She limped round the table.

‘Oh rack off!' Katherine jerked herself away from Hester who was about to caress her shoulder. ‘Piss off!'

The two women, as if unable to leave each other, sat in the kitchen, one each side of the table where the partly prepared meal remained. Neither of them attempted to eat anything, not even a piece of bread. Neither of them spoke. From time to time Hester rose awkwardly and, limping to the wood box, she put a piece of wood in the stove. Outside it had started to rain. Long overdue the rain was heavy and persistent. They heard it beating on the roof. Water ran in long rivulets down the outside of the uncurtained kitchen window. The fragrance of the rain on the dusty earth which normally pleased them both was not mentioned. It was as if they had not noticed it.

Katherine said once, ‘Please Miss Harper, dear.' Hester, knowing the need not to give way to hysteria, did not reply for a time. ‘Get ready for bed Katherine,' she said later.

Neither of them attempted to move away from the table. Hester sat upright on her chair, her usually busy hands were idle. No knitted garment was taking shape on her lap. Katherine stared at Hester until tears filled her eyes and she was obliged to wipe them away. Sometimes she rested her head on her arms on the table. Raising her head Katherine said again, ‘Please, Miss Harper, dear, the key to the Toyota. Let's go out to him.'

‘No it's raining too much,' Hester said, adding ‘I told you to get ready for bed hours ago.'

Slowly Hester began to understand that Katherine would wait until, exhausted, she had to sleep. She often, after a bad headache, had a long and refreshing, almost childlike sleep. She understood that this was what Katherine was waiting for and then her light fingers would quickly unlatch the key from its accustomed place of safety. In the face of determination, Hester knew, nothing was safe. All the same she resolved not to sleep. Kathy had not slept and she, Hester almost smiled, because she was young was capable of hours of very deep sleep.

Sometimes Katherine cried softly to herself, her face hidden in her arms and, at other times, it seemed that she did sleep for short intervals. Hester, alerting herself, understood too that Katherine might pretend to be asleep so that Hester, feeling relaxed, might go and stretch out on her bed where she would the more easily sleep.

The rain continued. It had danced on the roof to start with, rushing with a musical sound along the gutters and into the dry downpipes. Then as the downfall increased there was no other sound except that of the rain which became a torrent thundering on the safe roof of the cottage. At times Hester gave herself up to the sound of the rain. She thought about the places on her father's land where water collected and flowed. It seemed, as she grew older, that like the many unblemished summer days remembered there were, in her childhood, very many wet winters. A great deal more rain.

‘Come Hester!' Hilde Herzfeld said. ‘Let us make a little rain walk.' They went out together in their rubber boots. Hester unable to wear Wellingtons on both feet kept her special boot as dry as she could. That had been quite a game, something Hilde invented. She would go first to test the safe places on the soft wet tracks. ‘Come Hester, here is an island!'

Strange water courses reopening altered the paddocks. The rain altered life too. Everything began to be active with the coming of the rain. People changed too. They rejoiced and they forgave old bitterness. And they did optimistic things like sowing more land and increasing their buying of machinery. Even her grandmother, who did not allow boots indoors, did not seem to mind mud on the kitchen floor when the men came in to devour the date and walnut cake and the scones freshly baked and piled with red jam and cream.

When she lay in bed long ago she heard the rain in the night, a steady drumming on the roof and a waterfall over the eaves when the pipes could not take the flood. All night long, behind the noise of the rain, chairs and tables talked and groaned and the floorboards, creaking, passed the sighs and the whispers from room to room and on up into the timbers of the roof. Sometimes something cried out. There was a pain and she called out. Her father came flickering across the ceiling in the light of the candle he carried on a saucer. It was the mysterious cramp in her lame leg or an earache. Later, during the nightmare, as her father and Fräulein Herzfeld hurried along the passage, the double light from two separately held saucers flooded Hester's ceiling and their two shadows, grotesque and tremulous, moving up and down and across the walls, colliding, became one. Her father, yawning, told her stories in a deep voice about the great red fox and brother wolf …

Sitting in the kitchen, jerking herself awake, Hester listened to the rain. She longed for the free pleasure of the rain. Everything would look different in the morning but the problem would be unchanged. On the other side of the table Katherine was perfectly still. Hester wondered if she would be better before Joanna came. The thought of the impending visit was unbearable. In a tired way Hester began, in her head, to compose a letter in which she suggested that the visit be put off ‘for a time'. ‘Katherine is not well …' Should she get some decorated note paper? … Joanna would be sure to want to know what was the matter, the two girls having grown up together seemed closer than some sisters Hester had known. What sort of thing could a young woman be suffering from so that an unwanted visitor could be discouraged. Something infectious – measles, mumps, chicken pox – but there were all the childish illnesses probably shared already by the two girls. Appendicitis, also belonging to childhood, and a hospital would be required and Joanna, like a great many people, would love hospital visiting. A nervous breakdown, a convenient phrase, but someone or something would have to be explored and explained and blamed …

One of the red fox stories her father told was about the fox who called out at intervals, ‘
Top Off, Half Gone' and ‘All Gone
.' There were times when Hester felt she was on the edge of a memory which was about to be revealed. And then suddenly there was no revelation, only a closing off of the memory. Why did the fox call out these strange names? Somewhere in her mind Hester remembered the fox was a mid-wife but this only added to the mystery of his shoutings.