The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall

Author:Sarah Hall [Hall, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
ISBN: 9780571267620
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2007-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

There were two meals at Carhullan: breakfast and dinner. And most evenings there was a gathering of some kind in the large downstairs kitchen. If the generator was switched on there was power for the CD player, bickering about whose turn it was to select the music, and if not, those with instruments usually played for a while. There were a couple of guitars and a fiddle, a flute, and an accordion. Some of the women could sing very well, Benna among them, and I liked it when the tallow candles were lit and the musicians played.

I had begun to put more names to faces. The otter-haired woman in Megan’s patrol was Cordelia. Everyone called her Corky. I had smiled at her a few times across the room, but she remained distant, perhaps suspicious of me. Most of the women were Caucasian; there were a couple of Asians, and a black girl called Nnenna, who had been the most recent arrival at Carhullan before me. The rest of her family had been deported. The mother of Carhullan’s newborn was Helen. Every time I heard a new name I said it a few times to myself in order to remember it. Katrina. Sil. Tamar. Corinne. Maia.

People came and went, to and from the dormitories, so it often seemed chaotic and crowded, but there were always routines in place to ensure everyone was fed and comfortable. The apple cider was in plentiful supply and it was wonderful to drink. There were batches of sloes from the year before that had been turned into a sweet spirit. I was passed a cup of the purple syrup. I soon realised it was what Lorry had dosed me with before taking out the coil, and when I smelled its aroma of cloves and berries, it brought back that memory and I couldn’t sip it. I handed the cup back to Sonnelle and she shrugged and drank it herself.

The atmosphere lightened after the dinner shifts. The work of the day was done, though the unit was still on duty, and Jackie posted a four-woman patrol every night to keep a lookout over the surrounding area. I found this out from Megan one evening when she wasn’t on the night watch. She did not mind usually, but the temperatures had dropped in the last few weeks, and she was glad not to be out in the boggy dark, she said, freezing her arse off.

Megan was fourteen years old. She was the most confident girl I had ever met. Where some of the other women held back at first, glancing at me across the room, and leaving space around me as if I were a frail being in need of air and insulation, she was not so shy about finding a spot on the bench beside me. She shoved the women closest to me along the wooden seat and straddled it. Her arm rested against mine as she sat down.

‘Took your time getting up, didn’t you? Nice togs. I never had to wear one of those,’ she said, tugging the strings of the tunic.

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