On Beulah Height - Reginald Hill

Reginald Hill

On Beulah Height

DAY ONE

ONE

BETSY ALLGOOD [PA/WW/4.6.88]

TRANSCRIPT 1

 2 of 2 copies

The day they drowned Dendale I were seven years old.

Id been three when government said they could do it, and four when Enquiry came out in favour of Water Board, so I remember nowt of that.

I do remember something that cant have been long after, but. I remember climbing up ladder to our barn loft and my dad catching me there.

Whatre you doing up here? he said. Tha knows its no place for thee.

I said I were looking for Bonnie, which were a mistake. Dad had no time for animals that didnt earn their keep. Cats job was keeping rats and mice down, and all that Bonnie ever caught was a few spiders.

Yon useless object shouldve been drowned with rest, he said. You come up here again after it and Ill get shut of it, nine lives or not.

Before I could start mizzling, sound of a machine starting up came through the morning air, not a farm machine but something a lot bigger down at Dale End. I knew there were men working down there, but I didnt understand yet what they were doing.

Dad went to the open hay door and looked out. Low Beulah, our farm, were built on far side of Dender Mere from the village and from up in our loft you got a good view right over our fieldsto Dale End. All on a sudden, Dad picked me up and swung me on to his shoulders.

Tek a good look at that land, Betsy, he said. Dont matter a toss now that thas only a lass. Soon therell be nowt here for any bugger to work at, save only the fishes.

Id no idea what he meant, but it were grand for him to be taking notice of me for a change, and I recall how his bony shoulder dug into my bare legs, and how his coarse springy hair felt in my little fists and how he smelt of sheep and earth and hay.

I think he forgot I were up there till I got a bit uncomfortable and moved. Then he gave a little start and said, Things to do still. Nowt stops till all stops. And he dropped me to the floor with a thump and slid down the ladder. That were typical. Telling me off for being up there one minute then forgetting my existence the next.

I stayed up a long while till Mam started shouting for me. She caught me clambering down the ladder and gave me a clout on my leg and yelled at me for being up there. But I said nowt about Dad cos it wouldnt have eased my pain and it would just have got him in bother too.

Time went on. A year maybe. Hard to say. That age a month can seem a minute and a minute a month if youre in trouble. I know I got started at the village school. Thats where most of my definite memories start too. But funny enough, I still didnt have any real idea what them men were doing down at Dale End. I think I just got used to them. It seemed like theyd been there almost as long as I had. Then some time in my second year at school, I heard some of the older kids talking about us all moving to St Michaels Primary in Danby. We hated St Michaels.

We just had two teachers, Mrs Winter and Miss Lavery, but they had six or seven and one of them was a man with a black eye-patch and a split cane that he used to beat the children with if they got their sums wrong. At least thats what wed heard.

I piped up and asked why we had to move there.

Dost know nowt, Betsy Allgood? asked Elsie Coe, who was nearly eleven and liked the boys. What do you think theyre building down the dale? A shopping centre?

Nay, fair dos, said one of her kinder friends. Shes nobbut a babbie still. Theyre going to flood all of Dendale, Betsy, so as the smelly townies can have a bath!

Then Miss Lavery called us in from play. But I went to the drinking fountain first and watched the spurt of water turn rainbow in the sun.

After that I started having nightmares. Id dream I were woken by Bonnie sitting on my pillow and howling, and all the blankets would be wet, and the bed would be almost floating on the water which were pouring through the window. Id know it were just a dream, but it didnt stop me being frightened. Dad told me not to be so mardy and Mam said if I knew a dream were just a dream I should try and wake myself up, and sometimes I would, only I wouldnt really have woken up at all and the water would still be there, lapping over my face now, and then I really would wake up screaming.

When Mam realized what were troubling me, she tried to explain it all. She were good at explaining things when she wasnt having one of her bad turns. Nerves, I heard Mrs Telford call it one day when I was playing under the window of the joiners shop at Stang with Madge. It was Mrs Telford I heard say too that it were a pity Jack Allgood (thats my dad) hadnt got a son, but it didnt help anyone Lizzie (thats my mam) cutting the girls hair short like a boys and dressing her in trousers. That was me. I looked in the mirror after that and wondered if mebbe I couldnt grow up to be a boy.

I was saying about my mam explaining things. She told me about the reservoir and how we were all going to be moved over to Danby, and it wouldnt make all that much difference cos Dad were such a good tenant, Mr Pontifex had promised him the first farm to come vacant on the rest of his estate over there.

Now the nightmares faded a bit. The idea of moving were more exciting than frightening, except for the thought of that one-eyed teacher with the split cane. Also the weather had turned out far too good for young kids to worry about something in the future. Especially about too much water!

That summer were long and hot, I mean really long and hot, not just a few kids remembering a few sunny days like they lasted forever.

Winter were dry, and spring too, apart from a few showers. After that, nothing. Each day hotter than last. Even up on Beulah Height you couldnt catch a draught, and down in the dale we kept all the windows in the house and school wide open, but nought came in save for the distant durdum of the contractors machines at Dale End.

Fridays at school was the vicars morning when Rev Disjohn would come and tell us about the Bible and things. One Friday he read us the story about Noahs Flood and told us that, bad as it seemed for the folks at the time, it all turned out for the best. Even for them as got drowned? cried out Joss Puddle whose dad were landlord at the Holly Bush. Miss Lavery told him not to be cheeky, but Rev Disjohn said it was a good question and we had to remember that God sent the Flood to punish people for being bad. What he wanted to say was that God had a reason for everything, and mebbe all this fuss about the reservoir was Gods way of reminding us how important water really was and that we shouldnt take any of his gifts for granted.

When youre seven you dont know that vicars can talk crap. When you get to be fourteen, you know, but.

Slowly day by day the meres level went down. Even White Mares Tail shrank till it were more like a white mouses. White Mares Tail, in case you dont know, is the force that comes out of the fell near top of Lang Neb. Thats the steep fell between us and Danby. Its marked Long Denderside on maps, but no one local ever calls it owt but Lang Neb, thats because if you look at it with your head on one side, it looks like a nose, gradually rising till it drops down sudden to Black Moss col on the edge of Highcross Moor. On the other side it rises up again but more gradual to Beulah Height above our farm. Theres two little tops up there and because they look a bit like a mouth, some folk call it the Gob, to match the Neb opposite. But Mrs Winter said we shouldnt call it owt so common when its real name was so lovely, and she read us a bit from this book that Beulah comes into. Joss Puddle said it were dead boring and he thought the Gob were a much better name. But I liked Beulah cos it were the same as our farm and besides it sort of belonged to us, seeing as my dad had the fell rights for his sheep up there and he kept the fold between the tops in good repair, which Miss Lavery said was probably older than our farmhouse even.

Any road, no one could deny our side of the valley were much nicer than Lang Neb side, which was really steep with rocks and boulders everywhere. And in the rainy season, while thered be becks and falls streaking all of the hillsides, on the Neb they just came bursting straight out of fell, like rain from a blocked gutter. Old Tory Simkin used to say there were so many caves running through the Neb, there was more water than rock in it. And he used to tell stories about children falling asleep in the sunshine on the Neb, and being taken into the hill by nixes and such, and never seen again.

But he stopped telling the stories when it really started happening. Children disappearing, I mean.

Jenny Hardcastle were the first. Holidays had just started and we were all splashing around in Wintle Pool where White Mares Tail hits fell bottom. Usually little ones got told off about playing up there, but now the big pool were so shallow even the smallest could play there safe.

They asked us later what time Jenny left, but kids playing on a summers day take no heed of time. And they asked if wed seen anyone around, watching us or owt like that. No one had. Id seen Benny Lightfoot up the fell a way, but I didnt mention him any more than Id have mentioned a sheep. Bennywere like a sheep, he belonged on the fell, and if you went near him hed likely run off. So I didnt mention him, not till later, when they asked about him particular.

My friend Madge Telford said that Jenny had told her she was fed up of splashing around in the water all day like a lot of babbies and she were going to Wintle Wood to pick some flowers for her mam. But Madge thought she were really in a huff because she liked to be centre of attention and when Mary Wulfstan turned up we all made a fuss of her.

You couldnt help but like Mary. It werent just that she were pretty, which she was, with her long blonde hair and lovely smile. But she were no prettier than Jenny, or even Madge, whose hair was the fairest of them all, like the water in the mere when the suns flat on it. But Mary were just so nice you couldnt help liking her, even though we only saw her in the holidays and at weekends sometimes.