The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall Page B

girls. I had heard Veronique on the local radio station and she had the last hum of an accent, a soft drawl, when she talked. And it was mostly her who talked. She was the spokesperson, the one who gave interviews to the magazines and news crews. The place sounded utopian, martial or monastic, depending on which publication was interviewing, and what angle they wanted to push. Veronique’s other half was more reclusive.
    The number of women grew each year, though no recruiting was ever done. There were some complaints from men, that their wives and daughters had been kidnapped, brainwashed, assimilated, and bent. There were police investigations, but no formal charges were ever brought. The girls who went there had simply opted out of their old lives. Each time I came across an article in the papers I would cut it out and keep it. I followed the progress of the farm, discarding the criticism, and searching through the text for a clue to its real spirit, its philosophy maybe, until the newspapers switched fully to issues of state, then downsized circulation, folded, and I heard nothing more about the place.
    I don’t know what it was about Jackie Nixon that compelled me. Maybe it was because she was from my area, and that likened us. I felt I almost knew her. She was always depicted formidably; hard-cast, like granite. People in the region were wary even of her name, old as it was – stock of ironmongers, masons, and the bowmen of the North. In Rith it was issued like superstition from the mouths of those discussing her and her girls. ‘Jackie Nixon,’ they said. ‘She’s one of the Border Nixons. They were the ones who went out with bulldogs to meet the reivers.’ I watched for her at the market, but she never seemed to come down from the farm with the other women.
    Before he died my father commented that it would take only a small twist of the dial for Jackie Nixon to become a menace to society. The more he spoke out against her, the more intrigued I became. I remember asking him across the kitchen table one morning what it was about her that he thought was so objectionable. ‘Don’t you think she’s some kind of heroine,’ I’d asked him, ‘like Graine Warrior? I mean, she lives up there completely independently. I’ve heard she doesn’t take any subsidies. The others must trust her to stay on. She must be an amazing person. I’d like to meet her.’ My father had raised his eyebrows high on his forehead. ‘I think she’s leaning on them lasses to do whatever she damn well wants, and she’s messing with their heads,’ he said, ‘like a cult bloody crackpot. And you, my girl, are to steer clear.’
    I had two photographs of her. The first was from back when the project began. She was standing outside the heavy oak door of Carhullan with an arm around Vee; it was held awkwardly up across her friend’s shoulders because Veronique was much the taller of the two. The picture looked posed, agreed to, and as if the notion of what they were doing was a high-spirited challenge of some kind, like crossing the Atlantic in a coracle. The two of them were in their late twenties then and they looked full of vim and determination. The caption described them as partners and the article went on to speculate about whether or not they were lovers. They’d met at Cambridge University, it said, while completing postgraduate degrees; two like minds, two retro feminists. Before that Jackie had been in the military. Her rank was uncertain.
    Jackie had tightly cropped hair, a lopsided face, and a broken jawline. Her eyes were the blue of the region’s quarried stone. If she’d had a softer appearance she would have been called bonny perhaps. As it was she was handsome, arresting. In the picture she was wearing a tank top and army surplus trousers. She looked both slim and stocky at once. The second photograph, taken five years later, had her turning away from the camera. Her hair was slightly longer, she was much leaner,