The Carhullan Army

She was dead. I was alive. But the only heartbeat I had was the pulse these women were beating though me.
    It was not until the first of them left the table, came forward and took hold of my neck and kissed my mouth, while the others continued to knock their cutlery, and when the woman next to her followed suit, and the next, and the next, that I began to understand what was happening. I realised what the noise was. It was not a clamour intended to drive me out or to let me know I bore some kind of stigma. It was the sign of acceptance I had been waiting for. It was applause.
    *

    The following morning Jackie waited for me after the breakfast shift, gesturing for me to get ready, and I hurried upstairs to put on warm clothes and went out with her onto Carhullan’s land. After my appearance in the kitchen, my boots had been given back to me together with my clothes, cleaned and dried and folded. I had the use of the indoor bedroom until otherwise notified, Lorry had told me, until I got well enough to handle something less luxurious. Then I’d be moved out into one of the dormitories. ‘Make the most of it while you can,’ she said. ‘It’s no fun dotting over that stream to take a piss in the middle of the night. Believe me, I know. I did it for years. And the other girls will keep you up gabbing, I have no doubt about that.’
    I noticed the other women watching as Jackie and I passed by on our way out of the farmhouse. They had not been unfriendly; I had shaken hands, learned a few names, but for the time being they were mostly steering clear of my company.
    We did not go far. My legs were still sore and I was light-headed from days of undernourishment. I apologised to Jackie for my condition when I had to pause and rest, but she said not to worry. ‘You’ll be right soon enough,’ she told me. ‘Back when I served, I saw people come out of the box and never get well. It kills your head. You’re stronger than that. Keep eating what they give you. And keep taking butter on it, like the others do.’ I warmed at her compliment but I knew it was too generous. At least once or twice a night the terrors of that confinement woke me in a sweat, and I would cry out as if still trapped there.
    As we walked around the estate’s inner fields, she listed the illnesses that I should watch out for, and could probably expect to get. Anything that brought a fever with it was a real problem, and I should tell Lorry immediately. Anaemia was a risk. When she heard I didn’t eat red meat Jackie scowled and shook her head. ‘That’s going to have to change, Sister. I’m going to get Ruthie to give you liver this week. It’ll do you more good than anything else.’
    There were gastro-sicknesses occasionally – the outside toilets were old and bugs got passed around. I should clean up well after myself, she said, put the sawdust mix down after a shit, boil my cloths clean every month, and adhere to good rules of hygiene, though it would mean braving the cold outdoor showers every day. Some of the girls had warts; not much could be done about that. Constipation; after four days something had to be done about this. There was a bit of cockie about, she said – I did not know what she meant but I made a note to ask Lorry later. Women had thrush. There were ring-worms. Parasites. I’d get giardiasis if I drank anything other than water piped from the well. Even then it might happen. It was an inconvenience. But eventually I’d be immune, she said.
    We crossed the soft earth furrows. The small irregular trees I had been marched past on entering Carhullan were sago palms; they thrived better in the new humidity of the summer than the traditional plants did, Jackie told me. Corn and rye too. There had been years when the wheat crop had failed completely, and they had been hard years to endure. The oats and the potatoes seemed to manage in the wet conditions. These were the farm staples.
    We collected a batch of eggs from the quail coops, then ventured a little way out onto the fell, and Jackie showed me how to set the hillside snares at the lips of the burrows. ‘Can’t eat rabbits too often,’ she said. ‘Not enough nutrition in the buggers to do you any good – but they’re OK for filling up the gut now and then, and that’s half the battle won. They make you fart like nobody’s business, the table empties pretty quickly on smoor night, I can tell you.’ She said this seriously, smiled a crooked smile a moment