The Carhullan Army

‘There’s no written constitution here,’ she said, rubbing behind the ears of a small brown mare. ‘We thought about it for a while, when Vee was alive, setting out something formal. But it wouldn’t have worked in the end. We’d have been paralysed by it, I’m sure of that. Constitutions are hard to change. And we’re going to have to change.’ Her fingers worked through the mane, pulling out the tangled knots. ‘I can’t say that I didn’t expect I’d have to fall back on myself during all this. People might think I’m an extremist, but it’s for everyone’s sake. They’ve not tried to cut my throat yet.’
    She laughed her low inward laugh, swung a leg up onto the pony and mounted it. I watched as she heeled the mare gently in the flank and took off at a brisk canter across the field. She rode without much grace, her back slouched over slightly and her legs drooping long. Travellers at the horse-fairs in my youth had ridden with postures similar to hers, I remembered, bareback and untidy, but with similar control.
    She turned the animal about a few times as if testing it, and brought it back. ‘Cumbrian fell pony,’ she called to me. ‘Bonny, eh? They’re the hardiest of all the breeds. They’re even tough enough for me. It’s how we get to the towns when we go down on rec. Saves diesel. And they like a good run out across the tops.’ For a moment she looked as if she might be about to spur the pony into a gallop, but she reined the animal in with her knees and slid off, then bent down and felt along the length of one of its legs.
    I knew she was not trying particularly to impress me, but right then her capabilities seemed unlimited. I felt that if she told the mountain we were standing on to get up and move it would. There was something remarkable about her company, electric almost. I wondered if that sensation would ever fade, if one day she might walk into the room as just an ordinary woman. I knew it was unlikely. The other women responded to her with respect; I could see it. As she checked over the animal I tried to picture her as a gentler woman, less martial, less dominant, before she had enlisted, or as Veronique’s partner. But I could imagine no other woman than the one in front of me.
    ‘You’ve seen the girls out training, haven’t you?’ she asked. ‘That’s my unit. It’s what they’ve chosen to do, and they’re good at it. There are some here who disapprove of us having a defence council. It’ll get talked about in the meetings – you’ll see. We all get along though, at the end of the day. Everyone has a specific role in this joint. In the copse. Or the dairy. Or the fishery. Each to her own corner of expertise. We’re a bit like a monastery that way.’ She snorted. ‘But not in other ways. Now, let’s go, I need that milk.’
    She did not try to describe Carhullan as any kind of Utopia. Even on my first day in the house, when she had referred to Shangri-La as I lay recovering in bed, it had been with a note of irony. She was visibly proud of the place. But I wondered how much she felt she might have failed in her original plan, how much she might have had to compromise. Perhaps she had tried to leave behind her past, as the others had, and found that she could not, that even in this most remote of places she could not escape human conflicts. She excelled in managing them. I wondered how much the absence of her partner had affected her. I did not understand her grief, with its dark humours, its tripwires and awkwardness, but I knew she must have suffered in the bereavement.
    I waited for her to finish with the pony. I reached out and put my hand on the forelock of the creature and it nudged against me. Its coat was coarse and greasy, but it smelled sweet and there was something pleasant about the odour, something reassuring.
    *

    She did not come for me the next morning; nor the one after. I was disappointed. Instead of walking with her, I hung round the kitchen, helping Ruth and a woman called Sonnelle prepare the evening’s food. I drained the bowls of Carlins that had been soaking overnight and tipped them into a huge cast-iron pan on the stove, ready to boil. Their black eyes shone. I’d not eaten them since I was a child. The stitches in my hand had begun to itch and feel tight, and when the cooks were done with me I went to find Lorry and she took them out with a pair of scissors. I did not know where Jackie had gone, or what she was doing, and