The Carhullan Army

folded yellow garment. She laid it on the bed, and told me to put it on whenever I was ready and wanted to come down. ‘Standard practice for new intakes,’ she said. ‘We’re a traditional bunch of so-and-sos really.’ In her other hand she held a black leather case, like an old-fashioned doctor’s bag. As she opened it and brought out a wrap of instruments I thought about what Jackie had told me, that Lorry had been responsible for all the safe births on the farm. Like Jackie she seemed to possess authority and confidence.
    I wondered how Veronique had died, and whether Carhullan’s midwife and medic had tried and failed to save her. Perhaps there had been an accident, something too wounding to treat. The thought of it saddened me.
    I wanted to ask Lorry for all the information I had not managed to get from Jackie during our brief exchange. Of the women I had met so far she had been the most amenable and kind, and I knew she had objected, at least on medical principle, to me being tossed into the dog box. I decided not to try my luck on the subject. I was not in a position to pry and I did not know how much inquiry was acceptable yet and how much would be discourteous. I had seen already that the place ran reasonably smoothly and with considerable collaboration among the women. I was still an outsider.
    ‘You’re looking bright,’ Lorry said. ‘Considering.’ She sat down on the unmade bed. ‘I hope you’re OK with everything. I know it must have been a blow, getting slung in the box right off like that.’ She shook her head. ‘Jackie wanted to be sure – we thought we were off the radar by now.’ She smiled at me, and the crease in her brow deepened. ‘She probably wanted to see what you were made of too. She can be a bit of a sod that way. But it is her department.’
    Lorry had on the same long skirt that I had seen her wearing previously, and a woollen cardigan that looked baggy, stretched out of shape at the cuffs and elbows. I shrugged as best I could in the gauze sling. ‘Someone shows up armed and with a picture of me, I likely would have done it too. She thought I was an assassin or someone sent by the Authority, right? And I was supposed to confess in there? I would have confessed to it if I’d thought it was the way to get out.’ Lorry chuckled and gestured for me to sit on the bed next to her. ‘You would have, if it had been the truth.’
    She ran another quick check of my shoulder and then lifted the dressing on my hand. I saw a row of neat black stitches in the flesh. ‘No tetanus shots here, I’m afraid,’ she said, ‘but I irrigated, so you should be OK. Just keep an eye out that it doesn’t start to go green.’ I nodded. ‘There are no shots down there either any more,’ I replied, ‘At least, not for free.’ She glanced up at me and I noticed the caramels and greens that made up the strange marbling of her irises. There was more grey spun into her hair than I had seen in the dusk outside. ‘No, I know that,’ she said. ‘But they do have the means to inoculate against some things, don’t they? The utter bastards.’ Her tone was quietly aggrieved, but she was still smiling kindly, tacitly, and I could see the criticism was not directed at me. It was bitter sympathy that she was expressing.
    My eyes stung and began to fill with tears again. I felt like hugging her, or putting my face in her lap and crying myself quietly back to sleep. Exhaustion had left me too sensitive, too emotional. I bit my lip, caught hold of myself. She took a glass jar out of the case, unscrewed it and gently thumbed a waxy salve over the cut. It smelled of honey and witch hazel and stung a little. ‘Yes. We’re up to speed on the Authority’s anti-breeding campaign. But, you know, it might be good if you talked about it to the other women during one of our meetings. If you feel you want to. We’ve reached a bit of an impasse on the subject.’ She taped a new patch of lint over my palm. ‘So, now then. What do you want me to do about it?’
    I had been undressed, washed and administered to, presumably by Lorry herself. It was obvious that she knew my situation, as Jackie did, and I was glad of it. Sitting there with her rough hands on my arm I felt understood. On the face of it Jackie had seemed convivial, but there was something calculated about her manner, a note of restraint perhaps, that went with her position. The woman tending to me now had a different role. She was a