Page 66 of The Cut
Full forty days, it will remain.
The month-long heat wave finally breaks with some of the most violent thunderstorms in the region for years. Static electricity crackles in the air as the black storm clouds gather over the open quarry at Mallet Hill. The sweltering heat of the previous month has baked the ground rock hard and scorched the grass. A hosepipe ban stifles all the usual summer fun of leaping through sprinklers and slipping on soggy turf in back-garden paddling pools. The brook at Cheney End feels like an oasis. There is a stifling tension in the air: something is about to break. It’s more than just a weather pattern; everyone feels it. Exams are over, the school term is nearing its end. A feeling of restlessness hangs over the village of Barton Mallet. Hot and sticky nights with the windows open have left everyone tired and irritable. So, when the rain comes, it is a release.
The heavens open at 2 a.m. on St Swithin’s Day and the sky crackles with forked lightning. An overwhelming volume of water drenches the clay-baked earth, unable to penetrate. Flash flooding in the region hit the lowlands hard. The brook at Cheney End is swollen and breaks its banks at around 8 a.m. The Water Splash at Water Ford Gate is overflowing into the surrounding fields, but the most worrying breach is man-made.
The small hole in the sluice wall, the handiwork of Davis and252Patel, has opened up a steady flow of water. The mill pond is high, the head race at full capacity and the deep reservoir for the water wheel filling fast. The covered tunnel to the tail race, blocked with shopping trolleys and detritus, won’t hold for long. Another night of rain and the dam will break.
‘Let’s play it again from the beginning.’ Catherine places the score on her music stand and picks up the needle from the spinning vinyl LP on the radiogram in her bedroom. She adjusts the RPM, slowing down their ‘backing track’, and wets the reed of her clarinet. Mark flips his score back a few pages and grips his cello between his legs. He tightens the small nut on the end of his bow and applies more rosin.
The first few bars of ‘The Hebrides’ overture by Mendelssohn always cause Mark’s hairs to stand on end, the undulating chords of the rising arpeggios like the ebb and flow of the sea, and the naming of Fingal’s Cave conjured up images of shipwrecks and wild stormy seas.
The rain lashes against the window and the lights in the bedroom flicker. The Maddock Farm has become a swamp of muddy, waterlogged fields after the heavy rain overnight, but the cattle have been locked in the sheds and the sheep herded into the pen, safe and sound for the evening. Mark’s socks and sweater are drying out on the radiator and Mrs M made sure they both finished a bowl of beef stew with dumplings before they were allowed upstairs to practise.
Annie Maddock is out this evening and Mark is glad of that. He doesn’t want to see her after the shock of her betrayal. He’s avoiding her, and anyway, he needs her to be out of the way for what he has planned. He had it all figured out, all under control, but then Annie had blown his cover and now everyone knew. How could she do that to him? She was as bad as the rest of them, worse even253because she’d pretended to care. The more he thought about it, the more he hated her. He wanted her to disappear. He wanted to make her sorry. And that’s exactly what he intended to do.
‘Penny for ’em?’ Cat hovers over the radiogram, ready to drop the needle. ‘You look like you’re about to kill someone, you psycho.’ She laughs and kicks his leg with her foot.
‘Just thinking.’ Mark fingers one of the pegs of his cello. ‘Getting into character.’ He tunes the G string a little sharper. Cat lowers the needle and the record crackles into the intro.
Mark runs his bow over the strings of Mendelssohn’s opening arpeggios. He smiles at Cat as she places the clarinet into her mouth and harmonises to the low turbulent crescendo of the first few bars. Outside, the thunder rises in sympathy, adding an ominous bass to the music winding out of the window of the Maddock Farm.
A few miles away, the stifling tension in the dark sky releases a lash of forked lightning, like a whipped tongue, spitting venom from the sky. The Hanging Tree along the old road into the village is suddenly illuminated. The damp leaves fizzle as drops of water vaporise into a sudden explosion of fire. The old oak ignites, smoking and burning as branches fall and the trunk is severed in two.
‘What was that?’ Mark stops playing for a second as Mendelssohn’s orchestra crescendoes on the vinyl. Cat moves to the window and peels back the heavy curtains.
‘It’s a fire.’ The glowing light in the distance blazes for a moment then dies down. ‘Over towards Mallet Hill.’ The sheet lightning takes over, accompanied by curtains of wind-driven rain.
Cat’s shoulder touches his and she presses into him gently. He smiles at her in the reflection, condensation framing their faces.
‘Break time? I’m dying for a cuppa.’ Cat smiles and hurries off downstairs to fetch tea and biscuits.254
The rumble of thunder recedes outside and Mark rises, ready to do what he came here for. He lays down his cello and tiptoes out on to the landing. He listens from the top of the stairs; the TV is on in the sitting room and the kettle is already whistling on the stove. Not much time. He has to be quick. He creeps along the landing and silently pushes open the door to Annie’s bedroom. Without flicking on the light, he crosses to her chest of drawers.
‘Custard cream or bourbon?’ Cat yells up the stairs.
Heart beating fast, Mark reaches into a pile of dirty clothes ready for the wash and takes something out, stuffing it into his pocket. He can already hear Cat’s footsteps on the stairs. Shit. He daren’t breathe. He’s trapped. He stands in the darkness of Annie’s room, heart beating, peering out of the dark as he sees her turn the corner at the top, two cups of tea in her hands and a plate of biscuits balanced on her arm.
‘I got both … and Jaffa Cakes.’ She nudges open the door to the bedroom. ‘Oh … where are you?’
Just as she is about to turn back, Mark flits over to the bathroom door, reaches in and flushes the toilet. He grabs the towel from the rack and pops his head out, pretending to wipe his hands.
‘Yum. Two secs.’ He flings the towel back over the bath and pads back into the bedroom, pushing something deep into his pocket, before grabbing two Jaffa Cakes and stuffing them into his mouth whole.
‘You OK? You look white as a sheet.’ Cat blows the surface of her tea.
‘Mmmph ummph and ffft.’ Mark splutters with his mouth full.
‘You felt fat?’
Mark spits Jaffa crumbs from his mouth, unable to speak.255
‘Well … taking a dump in the middle of a storm isn’t going to help much.’ Cat giggles, spilling tea on the carpet. They both explode with laughter.
A few miles away, the water in the pond at Blackstone Mill begins to rise. The ancient wheel on its rusty spindle strains under the weight of the water filling the deep reservoir. The rotten blades buckle under the pressure as the metal housing of the central pin creaks and grinds into motion. Buried deep in black mud, the bottom of the wheel begins to shift. Billows of murky silt rise as the tail race releases its blockage and the huge volume of water begins to push. Unable to resist the force and true to its purpose, the rusting ancient wheel untethers itself from the inertia of its metal prison and the mill awakens.256
257
46
