The Well (3 page)

Recently, Hannah and Nisha had become closer and were now often to be seen together.

“He’s probably already gone,” said Hannah.

“I think he’s been held back again,” said Becca. Hannah shrugged,
no surprise there
. Becca ignored it as sour grapes, which it mostly was.

“Hi Hannah.” A couple of boys walked past, both from her class. Hannah gave a half-hearted reply and turned her attention back to Becca.

“I think he likes you,” teased Becca.

Hannah looked cross. “Who, Simon? Nahh.”

“You know he does.”

“Well, OK, but he’s the biggest geek in the school.”

“Does that matter, if he likes you?” asked Nisha.

“As a matter of fact, it does,” said Hannah, stealing a quick look at Simon. “I have standards.”

While her friends talked, Becca glanced at Randle, who was helping another stream of children across the road. Something in her expression caused Hannah to look around too. “What’s up?”

Becca shrugged. “I dunno. He was staring at me. He creeps me out a bit.”

“Old Tom? Nahh,” said Hannah. “He’s alright. He’s been here since before my Mum was at school.”

Hannah sat down beside Becca and asked, “Come on, girl. What are you doing this weekend? Fancy going shopping on Saturday? Pizza? Or a film?”

Hannah’s questions weren’t intended to make Becca feel guilty, but they did. She loved spending time with Matt – well, she loved what they did when they spent time together (not
quite
the same thing) but she missed Hannah.

“I can’t. I’m grounded this weekend,” Becca lied.

“You, grounded?” Hannah’s disbelief was good-natured and sincere. “No way! What did you do?”

Becca had already rehearsed her excuses, so that she wouldn’t hesitate or blush. “I broke one of lover Jim’s golf clubs,” she lied. “Cost him nearly £300, he said. So I’m in all weekend. No friends, no phone, no Internet.”

“That sucks,” said Hannah, swallowing the deception. She knew that Becca thought Jim was pretty much an arsehole and that Becca’s Mum didn’t punish her daughter often. In fact, Hannah couldn’t recall Becca being grounded before and guessed that Jim would have made her do it. The way Becca described Jim, he was laid-back to the point of being dull, but maybe he flipped every now and then. But that sounded pretty good to Hannah, whose father could be very hotheaded, especially after a drink or two.

Hannah slipped down off the wall. “Big brother’s coming,” she said, nodding towards Matt, who was just coming out of the school entrance. “Maybe next weekend?”

It was a genuine overture: Becca smiled – in fact, she almost glowed. “Great,” she said.

Nisha, who was visibly frowning, tugged at Hannah. “Come on,” said Nisha. “I need to get home.”

By the time Matt had walked over, the two girls were already crossing the road.

Matt didn’t apologise for being late. “Let’s hang back a bit,” he said. Neither he nor Becca wanted any of their friends to see them heading off in the opposite direction to home.

So they sat on the wall and chatted for a couple of minutes until Hannah and Nisha were out of sight. Once they had gone, Becca and Matt didn’t cross the road as they normally would, but headed up the main road towards the lane at the edge of the school grounds.

They were almost brother and sister, going for a walk. Not touching. No obvious body language. No one would read anything into it. But Tom Randle did. He could
sense it
.

He walked over to where Becca had been sitting and spotted something on the ground. Her scrunchie. He looked around and, seeing no one looking, scooped it up and put it in his pocket. He felt it between his fingers, imagining it was still warm.

A blue VW Beetle pulled out of the school driveway. Louise Sanderson, the geography teacher, wound her window down. “Night, Tom,” she said, smiling with genuine affection at probably the most trusted man in school.

“Night, Louise,” he said.

As her car disappeared down the road, Randle’s fingers stroked the scrunchie in his pocket. He went and stood in his normal spot, thinking of Becca.

5

Becca and Matt wandered along the lane. It was bordered to their right by a high hedge and to their left by the school fence; beyond the fence the sports field was empty. Their chat was mostly small talk: things that had happened at school.

Matt would have been happy to go straight home, but Becca was insistent. She wanted her Mum and his Dad gone when they got home. Matt didn’t really understand that, but he didn’t need to: he just needed to pretend to.
That
he understood.

The school faded behind them, the hedge now bordering both sides of the lane.

The afternoon May air was unseasonably warm for Lancashire, almost like July or perhaps even August. Both Becca and Matt had removed their blue school jumpers; Becca’s was tied around her waist while Matt’s was stuffed into his shoulder bag. A cabbage white butterfly flitted around the hedge and somewhere a bird chirped repeatedly.

Few cars came down Harper’s Lane, as there was really nowhere to go. It skirted the border of Bankside in a way that was so inefficient, with a surface that was so uneven, that no one bothered to use it – other than the people who lived at the farm about halfway along it, or that photographer guy who lived at Heddon Farm, on the hill.

After another five minutes, where the dusty lane took a sharp left, they left it for the field to their right, climbing over the old stile which cut a gap in the hedge. They walked up the grassy hill, towards the old quarry.

The field was empty, although sometimes people came here to walk their dogs; in the summer holidays plenty of kids hung out around the quarry pool, and even swam in it, though they were not supposed to.

They skirted the edge of the quarry pool. If the pool had been on anyone’s route home from school, it might not have been so quiet. Later in the day, once the town’s children had been home, changed and eaten, it might perhaps have a few visitors, but at this time it was deserted.

At about sixty yards across, the pool was large enough and deep enough to swim in. Its steep sides offered plenty of places for the brave to dive in, despite the warning signs. Even at the edges, the pool quickly became deep – you couldn’t paddle more than a few steps before the bottom fell away. It had once been fenced off, but now the rotten fencing was mostly broken or gone.

They climbed the side of the steep hill that curved around the left side of the pool, where the stone had been cut away long ago. To their right, around fifteen feet up from the pool’s surface and roughly in the centre of the rough-hewn wall, water trickled from a manhole-sized culvert, dribbling lazily into the otherwise still water. After stormy weather, the water was pushed out from the quarry’s wall in a forceful arc, but today it couldn’t even be called a rivulet.

Panting hard, they reached the top of the hill and paused for breath, taking in the view. Becca could see beyond the school, even to the housing estate where she –
they
– lived. Manchester was a grey smudge in the distance. Some miles away, hidden over the hill behind them was Hawksleigh, the next village. Between Bankside and Hawksleigh, thankfully hidden, was the grey eyesore that was the medical research company Ederon, the largest employer in the area.

While some people might climb the hill for the excellent view of Bankside, few people ventured further – as they would do today.

About ten yards beyond the top of the quarry pool they reached the old stone wall which bordered the deserted Whitaker estate. At least three feet taller than Matt, the once ostentatious wall was now overgrown, crumbling and, in many places, largely obscured by bushes and trees. The combination of the wall and local legends was enough to keep most people out of the Whitaker estate – especially at this side of the estate, where the old cottage lay in ruins.

Becca and Matt worked their way into the undergrowth to a hidden spot where the wall had been partly breached by a tree, forcing its way through over time. They still had to climb to get in, but it wasn’t too hard to scale the broken stones.

Matt went first. As they descended the other side of the wall, Matt held Becca’s hand as she carefully worked her way down the gap in the wall. It was the first time they’d touched since leaving school, but now it was OK: no one could see them. Becca stepped onto the long, unkempt grass and they finally kissed, long and slow. Then they walked, hand in hand, the last few yards towards the old well – to kill some time.

6

With the back of her hand, Becca wiped at the tears that were streaming down her face. Her strong inner voice, the one that pushed her on when she was swimming, was telling her to get a grip – yet she was shaking uncontrollably.

Beside her, Matt coughed harshly. His breathing was a grotesque liquid-filled rasping sound. Becca forced herself under control, pushing back her own distress with some shame.

She took her schoolbag from over her shoulder, dropped it into the water and squatted down next to Matt, the cold water rising above her waist. She felt her feet shift and sink a little further in the deep mud. Matt was a dark shape, almost lost in the gloomy well. She strained to see him properly.

“Matt,” she said. He coughed again, but gave no indication of having heard her. She stroked the hair from his forehead. “Matt, can you hear me?”

He nodded. It wasn’t much of a nod, but it was there. Her tears came again and she tried her best to hold them back. She forced herself to feel Matt’s body under the water, more carefully this time. Around two feet of grating protruded from his abdomen and perhaps four or five inches of it jutted out of his back. He was more or less pinned into a sitting position, the grating pressing against the curved side of the well wall. Although she couldn’t see it, Becca knew that he would be bleeding heavily into the water.

“We’re gonna get out, Matt,” she said, knowing that for Matt, whether they got out or not probably wouldn’t make any difference.

Matt coughed again and spat liquid – a lot of liquid. Becca wiped his mouth with her hand. Although she couldn’t see what was on her palm she felt sure it would be blood.

Becca knew that she couldn’t (and in any case probably shouldn’t) extract the metal from inside Matt, but she thought that she may be able to make it less painful if she unpinned him from the wall. If she could bring Matt closer to the centre of the well, there was more space. She felt along the grating to the point where it touched the wall, her fingers groping around. The grating seemed to have cut a gouge in the stone. It wasn’t especially deep, but deep enough to hold it firmly in place.

She went back to Matt, put her arm around him and kissed him on the cheek. He stirred and coughed again.

“Matt, I’m going to try to move you. It might hurt a bit,” she said, realising how stupid her words were. Matt was almost certainly living in a whole world of pain right now. “Is that OK?”

Matt’s head moved a little, but she couldn’t tell if it was a nod. She tried again. “It could hurt, maybe a lot, but after it should hurt less,” she said. “Can you hear me?”

Under the water, she felt something fumble against her thigh: his hand. She reached into the water and held it. “Can you hear me?” she asked again. She felt his hand tighten slightly in hers and he croaked out a wet, “Yeah.”

She squeezed his hand and let go, feeling her way along the grating. Gripping it tightly, she pulled as gently as she could to test how firmly it was stuck. Matt groaned as it shifted a little.
Good
, she thought,
it probably wasn’t held totally fast
. “Get ready,” she said, “I’m gonna pull hard now.” She squatted and braced herself with her feet as much as she could. “One, two, three –”

On
three
, Becca pulled hard. With a scraping sound, the grating came free from the wall. She fell backwards into the water, her hands grasping beside her for purchase in the deep mud. Matt screamed; it was the most horrific sound Becca had ever heard. It echoed loudly around the well.

She went back to Matt’s side, crying freely. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said through her sobs. “I’m really sorry.” Matt was closer to the centre of the well, and the front of the grating was now free, but the back of it was still pressing against the wall behind him. She knew she had to move him again, to lean his shoulder against the wall; while the grating was leaning against the wall, his weight would press his body into the metal.

“Matt,” she said, softly, into his ear. “I need to move you again, so it’s not pressing into you.” This time, Matt’s head did move: it shook from side to side, slowly. “Fuck, no,” he said.

“I
have to
,” she said. “Just one more move. It will help, I promise.” She found his hand again and squeezed it. He didn’t respond.

She got on her knees, as close to him as she could, hoping it would help her keep her balance. In the mud, her bare knees were scraping against something hard – stones perhaps – but she ignored the discomfort. She put her arms around Matt’s shoulder. “I’ll do it as gently as I can,” she promised, earnestly.

Becca carefully pulled Matt slightly forwards, taking him away from the well wall. She twisted him gently, pulling him sideways at the same time. He groaned.
Christ, he’s heavy,
she thought. She didn’t need to move him far; within a minute she’d managed to rest his shoulder against the stone wall.

She knelt next to him, water sloshing around them both. “All done,” she said, kissing him again. Her vision was getting accustomed to the dark – she saw his eyes flicker open and look at her. “Thanks,” he rasped, before coughing again and closing his eyes.

That one word filled her with relief. She stroked his head for a short while. His breathing became a little less laboured.

Becca stood, instinctively wiping the grit and small stones from her knees. She sat down, facing Matt, her back against the wall, water lapping around her.
I need to think,
she realised, bringing her tears under control.
I need to calm down, get my breath back and think.