The Well (8 page)

Already showered and dressed, Sarah was partway through putting on her make-up.

“How long have you been up?” he asked.

“Not long. Less than an hour,” said Sarah, concentrating on applying her mascara. “I don’t want to sleep the weekend away and – well, I was thinking about the kids.”

Jim sighed to himself. He’d never really had much of a problem leaving Matt alone. Matt and he didn’t exactly spend much time together anyway. Before they moved to Bankside, Matt would either be out with his mates or in his bedroom; since they moved, he’d not really made many new friends so he stayed mostly in his bedroom, talking to his old mates on the Internet – although he had started to spend more time with Becca. Jim wouldn’t have seen much more of Matt if he’d been in the same house all weekend. If either he or Sarah should be worried about one of their kids, it should be him – which was why Jim couldn’t understand quite how much Sarah fretted about Becca. Matt didn’t really care what his father thought, but Becca wouldn’t knowingly do anything to upset Sarah.

When Sarah’s protective nature first collided with Jim’s more easy-going temperament, it had created some conflict in their relationship. Given Matt’s bumpy past and often-abrasive nature, Sarah couldn’t understand why Jim didn’t mind leaving him on his own. Before they moved in together, Jim would mostly stay at Sarah’s house rather than she at his. It made some sense: Matt was the older child; theoretically old enough to be left alone. (Sure, Jim would come home to an untidy house, but what do you expect from a teenage boy?) Yet when Sarah came to stay at Jim’s house she always brought Becca; Sarah never left her at home or with friends. For months, they
never
had any time alone. And, the first time the two of them had gone away alone, it had been a disaster. Becca had arranged that two of her friends stay with her, but Sarah had either called her or sent a text every hour or so. Over the course of a couple of days, Jim had grown more annoyed – after all, if she couldn’t forget Becca for thirty minutes, then they weren’t
really
alone.
The children are important
, he had thought,
but so is our relationship
. They’d had a massive row, after which Sarah
had
accepted that perhaps she needed to give Becca a bit more space. That said, she had stood firm about one thing: she was a worrier by nature. OK, maybe she needed to cut loose a bit, but if Jim didn’t like her nature, then tough. At forty-three, she wasn’t going to change that much. Jim accepted that: one or two calls a day was fine, although he personally would still only call Matt once a day (or even every couple of days) at the most.

This was their first weekend away alone since then. Jim knew that Sarah would be missing Becca, even though it was less than a day since they’d spoken.

Jim got out of bed and kissed her on the forehead. “Why don’t you give Becca a quick call?”

Sarah seemed relieved. “Should I?”

“Why not? You know you’ll be thinking about it until you do.”

Sarah looked at Jim, to see if he was annoyed. If he was, he wasn’t showing it. She gave him a kiss back. “OK. And you,” she said, picking up a towel and throwing it at him, “go get a shower.”

While Jim showered, Sarah called Becca’s mobile – which went straight through to her voicemail. It was good to hear her daughter’s chirpy voice. “Hi, it’s Becca. Not here – so leave a message!”

“Hi Becca,” said Sarah, “it’s Mum. Just calling to see if you’re OK. I’ll call again later. Love you.” She glanced at her watch; it was ten-forty.

Sarah carried on getting ready until Jim came out of the shower, rubbing himself dry.
Forty-six and in darned good shape
, thought Sarah. “Did you speak to Becca?” he asked.

“No. I just got her answer phone.”

Jim glanced at the clock. “Well, it’s ten to eleven, Becca’s probably still in bed or, if she’s up, she’ll have gone swimming – and Matt
will
be in bed until way after twelve. We can call them later.”

Sarah knew Jim was right.

“OK. Now get dressed and let’s get out – let’s see if you can show a lady a good time when you’re
out
of bed.”

5

Hannah finished brushing her short blonde hair. She placed her hairbrush back on the dressing table, which was a jumble of make-up and cheap jewellery.

Although her phone had been silent for the last hour, she checked it again. There was still nothing from Becca.

Hannah was still cross, but considerably calmer than she’d been last night. The more she thought about it, the more Becca’s silence nagged at her. While it was true that she’d seen progressively less of Becca for the last few months, Becca had never totally ignored her before.

When she’d woken up, it had crossed Hannah’s mind that perhaps Becca’s phone was simply switched off or was charging, but as the morning had crawled by, she’d begun to doubt the idea. As with all teenagers, Becca and her phone were seldom separated. On top of that, she’d not been on the Internet last night or this morning.

Ordinarily, Becca might have been out: she often went swimming on Saturday morning. But not this weekend, since she was grounded. (Now and again, Hannah had gone swimming with Becca – and while she enjoyed it, she wasn’t obsessed like her friend.)

Until Jim and Matt moved in, Hannah and Becca had been good friends, in fact, in Hannah’s view, BFF – best friends forever. Hanging out with Nisha, Susie, Kate, Jessi and Elle was OK, but Hannah really missed Becca.

Hannah’s phone chimed as a text message came in. She picked up her phone quickly, hoping that the message was from Becca. She sighed, disappointed. It was from Nisha.

GOIN 2 TOWN 2DAY? BORED.

Hannah tapped in a quick reply.
CAN DO. WHEN?

Almost instantly, Nisha came back with:
HALF AN HOUR. KATE + ELLE COMIN. CALL FOR U IN 20?

Hannah almost replied with a yes, then changed her mind.

GOT SOMETHIN 2 DO FIRST. C U L8R. TEXT U IN AN HOUR.

She quickly pulled on her trainers, ran downstairs and popped her head around the kitchen door. “Mum,” she said. “I’m just going round to see Becca.”

6

Although Becca had ceased crying, she felt more desperate than ever.

She’d wept for over an hour, her sobs and wails interspersed with angry screams. Several times she’d thought she was cried out; that she’d run dry and it wasn’t possible to cry any more – but then she’d simply start crying again. The anguish was like a physical pain, as if a multi-bladed knife was twisting inside her. It was so all-enveloping that it even blotted out the cold, thirst, hunger and discomfort.

But eventually, she
had
stopped crying – or at least, she had stopped crying continually. Every now and then she broke down again. It seemed that almost any thought was enough to set her off.

As the morning wore on, she started to regain something of her composure. The reality of her situation became clearer.

Her recurring thought was that it was entirely possible that she wouldn’t get out of the well alive. Each time this unwanted idea surfaced, she worked as hard as possible to push it away – but there was no denying that things looked very grim.

There was only one way out: up. Yet she’d tried that and only got around halfway – and it was one of the hardest things she’d ever done.

She had very little to eat or drink. She had no way of signalling for help. The water in the well was rank and cold. As a keen swimmer, she knew something of the danger of staying in cold water for a long time; although the water was far from freezing, it was cold enough to keep her body temperature well below normal.

But all of those physical things, the practicalities, she felt she could cope with. What was harder –
much
harder – was the way in which being in the well was messing with her head. She’d been down the well for less than a day and was already struggling to keep track of time. With nothing to do except think, minutes dragged terribly. The reality of her situation was a tedium that gave her little to do but wrestle with her growing fears. The well seemed to get smaller by the hour. The isolation was awful. Few sounds came from above, no matter how quiet she was or how hard she listened – and yet, for all she knew, there could be people playing in the quarry pool just a hundred yards or so away.

Strangely, she was now even starting to fear being rescued – because she’d have to explain what had happened, why they fell in and when Matt had died. She’d have to give accounts, probably over and over, of things she didn’t even want to think about.

Becca couldn’t comprehend that Matt was dead. Just a few hours ago he had held her, kissed her. All that warmth was now gone. Three times she’d gone back to
his body
; touched him; shaken him. She’d never seen a dead body and it seemed curious to her that in death, Matt was little different from in life. He didn’t look peaceful or at rest, but he didn’t look
dead
either. Becca fluctuated between desperately wanting to hold him and not wanting to touch him at all.

Get a grip,
Becca thought,
or you’ll go bonkers.

Deal with the practicalities
. She decided to again take stock of her meagre belongings. She pulled out the lighter and flipped it on, her eyes squinting in the sudden light. Becca made an effort not to look at Matt, but found it impossible. She determined that Matt’s body was just another practicality that she’d have to deal with. She knelt beside him and kissed him kindly on the forehead. His skin was stone cold against her lips, but the act was surprisingly rewarding. “I’m sorry,” she said. It was a genuine apology, not an expression of self-pity. Her tears flowed again, but she stopped herself from losing control.

She stood up and raised the lighter, locating the mobile phones. She found hers and pressed the on button, holding her breath. The screen lit briefly and then died. After that, no matter how many times she pressed it, the phone remained dark. Matt’s phone was as dead as ever. She thought about this.
They should dry out.

With some difficulty, holding the lighter in one hand, she managed to pop the battery out of Matt’s phone. She placed both Matt’s phone and its battery back in the gap in the wall and did the same with her phone.
It will help them to dry out
, she hoped. Her towel and jumper were still damp; truth be told, more than damp. She couldn’t use those to dry the phones.
It’s damp down here
, she realised.
It’s going to take things much longer to dry.

The iPod still worked and listening to music would pass some time – but sitting next to Matt, listening to
Foo Fighters
, didn’t seem right.

Although it had been gnawing at her all morning, she hadn’t admitted to herself that she was either hungry or thirsty, but once her eyes rested on the water, her stomach groaned. She ran her tongue over her lips: they were rough and parched.
Crisps, chocolate, an apple, fizzy orange and water
.
Things could be far worse
, she decided. Normally, they’d have come home with everything eaten. She glanced at Matt and realised that she couldn’t yet bring herself to eat – but she
needed
a drink. She pulled down the water bottle and found that she couldn’t open it with one hand, so she flipped the lighter off and put it back into her shirt pocket. It felt hot against her skin. She opened the water bottle and took a careful mouthful, swilling it around her mouth before swallowing it. It tasted cold and delicious. She shook the bottle. There wasn’t much in it. Becca had no idea how much water someone had to drink each day to stay alive, but she was sure it was more than a mouthful. She took another drink, but was careful to take less this time.

That’ll have to do
, she thought. She replaced the cap and fumbled around to locate the gap from where she had taken the bottle, but couldn’t find it. Frustrated, she flipped the lighter on again.

From above came a sudden, loud, fluttering sound. Startled, Becca dropped the bottle into the water, her heart pounding.
Shit! If the cap had been off
–

She fished the bottle out of the water and looked up. The bird was back, silhouetted against the blue sky. It cawed, forcefully.

“Go away!” she screamed. The bird didn’t even flinch.

She placed the bottle back into the gap and flipped the lighter off. She was somehow certain that the crow, rook – or whatever the hell it was – was the same bird. The bird hopped around the wall, doing almost a full circuit of the well. It cawed again, louder than ever.

Becca’s instinct was to shout at it, swear at it or throw something at it. All equally pointless, she decided.

It’s less than thirty feet above me,
she thought, bitterly,
yet it’s free and I’m trapped.
Becca clenched her teeth together and closed her eyes. The bird cawed again.
Just fuck off,
she thought – but it didn’t. The bird stayed, hopping around, occasionally fluttering its wings and squawking regularly.

All the while, Becca grew more and more disconcerted.

After perhaps half an hour (or an hour – Becca honestly couldn’t tell) the bird left, with a boisterous flutter of wings.

The silence that followed was an empty void that left Becca alone, to continually relive the previous day and brood on her darkest fears.

7

Unable to push the image of Becca’s youthful body from his thoughts, Tom Randle had barely slept. The combination of photographs and the recently acquired scrunchie had been a powerful one. His orgasm had been both rapid and intense; yet it left him wanting. Afterwards he lay alone, gloriously spent but restless and brooding.

Eventually, he gave up the idea of sleep. He sat alone, nursing a cup of hot tea, flicking through the albums of Becca’s photos. Like his other favourites, Becca had originally just been one of many girls he’d photographed indiscriminately – but once she’d caught his eye he’d enjoyed watching her develop. In another year she’d mature beyond his tastes, but right now she was perfect.