The Carhullan Army

speaking to a young child. Her lips were rolled inwards. It was an expression that could have been a smile, or it could have signified derision. Behind her a third girl was running back across the moorland. As she approached she nodded to the otter-haired woman and then ran past. ‘Right. Away in then,’ the woman said to me. ‘You can tell us your name if you like, but you might as well save it for Jackie. She’ll be the one you have to ask it back from anyway.’ I felt myself being nudged forward by the gun barrel.
    Nothing more was said as we walked. I fell slightly behind the two of them. The pace of my escorts looked leisurely but it was brisker than I could manage. I tried to keep up, but the weight on my back made me slow and clumsy; my knee was swelling and stiffening, and I stumbled over the uneven ground. From time to time they adjusted their stride, falling back a few paces, not enough to allow me to catch up properly, but I could see they were keeping me in their range. Their hostility had lessened, but they were making no moves to be friendly, to find out anything about me, nor were they inviting me to ask about them. A sense of disappointment began to creep through me.
    It was not the reception I’d played out in my mind so many times when thinking about Carhullan. I’d seen myself striding up to the farm, looking fit and fierce, being welcomed, not with awe or amazement, but with quiet admiration by the girls working outside. I’d imagined an immediate sense of unity, the way it had felt to form a group of new friends at school, with everyone suddenly aware of the collaboration and trust involved. And there would be Jackie and Veronique, standing at the great oak doorway, just like they had in the photograph, as if that’s where they had always stood, and would always stand.
    But fifteen years was a long time to be left alone in the wilds. And in that time so much had passed. There had been terrible events, and responses that were almost as extreme. Though I had lived in it I often barely recognised the residual world. I wondered what they knew of this. How must it have been for them, detached and unaided as they were? Perhaps aware of the changes going on. Perhaps oblivious to them. As we walked I began to realise that I had come to a place now as foreign and unknown as anywhere overseas, as anywhere of another age. I wanted to press them for information, ask questions, and tell them about conditions in the towns. I wanted to try to negotiate, or ingratiate myself. But I didn’t. Suddenly I was too tired, too weary almost to move.
    Rain blew in from the summit of High Street, colder than before, soaking my face and clothes again. I tried to fasten my jacket but my fingers felt awkward and would not cooperate, so I held it closed over my chest. I peered into the squall. There was still no sign of the farm or even the outbuildings. All I could see were drifts of rain and the relentless brown withers of fell, appearing then disappearing. The adrenalin of the encounter had worn off. I had walked more than twenty miles to escape. And I had gambled with my life. Now I felt numb, and close to seizing up. All I wanted was water to drink, and to take the bag off my back, lie down, and go to sleep. It took all my energy to put one foot in front of the other and remain upright.
    Ahead, the girl and the woman paused, but they did not look round at me. I wondered if they could hear my dry, laboured breathing, and if it had concerned them. I’d slowed almost to a shuffle as I moved between the limestone boulders and thorn trees. Before I could reach them they stepped forward again and the gap between us widened. It was a calculated move designed to keep me separate but corralled, and they repeated this behaviour all the way across the fell. Finally, I felt tears of exhaustion and self-pity stinging my face. I wanted them to stop, and take hold of me, and tell me it would all be fine. I wanted them to say that I had done well, that I was here now, with them, and it was all right. But they didn’t. The fell wind blew damp and cold between us. They were moving me along impersonally, as if I were an animal they were stewarding, as if I belonged to a different species.
    *

    Eventually, through the gloom and darkening cloud, I could make out the shape of the farm. It looked smaller than I had imagined it. The outbuildings sat low on the ground, huddled around the main house like stone wind-breakers. Only the