isn’t clear from above. The Land Rover is parked up by the chickens for some reason; it never was usually. I don’t know what was going on to make thatnecessary, maybe we’d been lugging some new posts up for the fencing because we’d lost a lot of hens to foxes around that time.
‘What on earth . . .?’ I stared at the photo. ‘What’s it about?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t read it yet. No need to go running to your precious government adviser now, is there? The whole world will be fascinated by our back garden.’
‘How did the press . . .?’
‘The same way it always does. By sticking its snout in the gutter.’ Mark left, the door slammed and moments later I could hear the whir of the chainsaw and the scream as it bit into the logs. Mark had taken about as much as he could with the media coverage of the tribunal and this would be more than he could cope with. Although I felt keenly for him, I was also wondering how many more of his last straws I could carry before this camel’s back broke. I spread the paper on the kitchen table and began to read. The caption said that only two weeks after the disturbances at Duccombe, their investigative reporter revealed another place mysteriously unaffected by the drought: The Well. It referred readers to the full article on pages 4 and 5.
Then the phone rang.
It was the first of a relentless barrage of calls:
The Mail
,
The Express
, the
Scotsman
,
Figaro
, the
New York Times
, the
Phnom Penh Post
. The e-mail inbox filled as I watched it, the bold black type of the unread messages pouring down the page like an oil spill. The answer machine lived its own existence in the corner of the kitchen, dutifully recording old friends, the press, weirdos, PR agencies, until the messaging service was full. Eventually, I stormed around the house ripping plugs from their sockets, watching the blinking green lights of communication with the outside world flicker and go dead. We turned the mobiles onto silent and then when their crazed vibrating dances drove us mad, we turned them off completely. Outside, the helicopters continued to drone overhead. Mark shouted at them to fuck off and they nodded and bobbed in acknowledgement before leaving in their own time.
Not so much a Well as a sieve. We could not keep them out. The first car jolted down the track. It brought a couple from Birmingham on their way to visit their son; set out ever so early this morning, they said, heard it on the radio, had a bit of time to spare, thought they’d come and see what the place looked like and who would have thought it? As they turned round, they met two more cars arriving: one was a local journalist, the other a water-diviner who had driven all the way from Essex, and behind them, more cars. Impotent, speechless, I hid behind the kitchen window watching Mark leaning into the drivers’ windows to talk to them, pointing at the main road and shaking his head. Strangers, all of them. If only one of them had been Angie, or a friend from London, or anyone I knew, who I could talk to, if only I wasn’t so scared of anyone and anything that came from beyond our Well.
By four o’clock we had locked the gate at the top of the drive. The wood was slightly rotten and the bottom bar broke when we yanked it free from the long grass and weeds entangled around it. We padlocked it to the metal post, aware that it was a feeble defence against this new army of the curious. It was the first barricade.
T he next couple of days were bitter and we lived tense from both cold and the threat of invasion. The stove in the sitting room was working overtime, we were getting through over a basket of wood a day and our last lamb to be born, a weakling, was in a cardboard box in front of the Rayburn, her head heavy compared to her unsteady legs. The ewes were still in the barn; Mark was fretting, wanting to get them and their lambs out onto the spring grass, but he was worried they might not be safe. I liked
‘What on earth . . .?’ I stared at the photo. ‘What’s it about?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t read it yet. No need to go running to your precious government adviser now, is there? The whole world will be fascinated by our back garden.’
‘How did the press . . .?’
‘The same way it always does. By sticking its snout in the gutter.’ Mark left, the door slammed and moments later I could hear the whir of the chainsaw and the scream as it bit into the logs. Mark had taken about as much as he could with the media coverage of the tribunal and this would be more than he could cope with. Although I felt keenly for him, I was also wondering how many more of his last straws I could carry before this camel’s back broke. I spread the paper on the kitchen table and began to read. The caption said that only two weeks after the disturbances at Duccombe, their investigative reporter revealed another place mysteriously unaffected by the drought: The Well. It referred readers to the full article on pages 4 and 5.
Then the phone rang.
It was the first of a relentless barrage of calls:
The Mail
,
The Express
, the
Scotsman
,
Figaro
, the
New York Times
, the
Phnom Penh Post
. The e-mail inbox filled as I watched it, the bold black type of the unread messages pouring down the page like an oil spill. The answer machine lived its own existence in the corner of the kitchen, dutifully recording old friends, the press, weirdos, PR agencies, until the messaging service was full. Eventually, I stormed around the house ripping plugs from their sockets, watching the blinking green lights of communication with the outside world flicker and go dead. We turned the mobiles onto silent and then when their crazed vibrating dances drove us mad, we turned them off completely. Outside, the helicopters continued to drone overhead. Mark shouted at them to fuck off and they nodded and bobbed in acknowledgement before leaving in their own time.
Not so much a Well as a sieve. We could not keep them out. The first car jolted down the track. It brought a couple from Birmingham on their way to visit their son; set out ever so early this morning, they said, heard it on the radio, had a bit of time to spare, thought they’d come and see what the place looked like and who would have thought it? As they turned round, they met two more cars arriving: one was a local journalist, the other a water-diviner who had driven all the way from Essex, and behind them, more cars. Impotent, speechless, I hid behind the kitchen window watching Mark leaning into the drivers’ windows to talk to them, pointing at the main road and shaking his head. Strangers, all of them. If only one of them had been Angie, or a friend from London, or anyone I knew, who I could talk to, if only I wasn’t so scared of anyone and anything that came from beyond our Well.
By four o’clock we had locked the gate at the top of the drive. The wood was slightly rotten and the bottom bar broke when we yanked it free from the long grass and weeds entangled around it. We padlocked it to the metal post, aware that it was a feeble defence against this new army of the curious. It was the first barricade.
T he next couple of days were bitter and we lived tense from both cold and the threat of invasion. The stove in the sitting room was working overtime, we were getting through over a basket of wood a day and our last lamb to be born, a weakling, was in a cardboard box in front of the Rayburn, her head heavy compared to her unsteady legs. The ewes were still in the barn; Mark was fretting, wanting to get them and their lambs out onto the spring grass, but he was worried they might not be safe. I liked
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