The Farm Beneath the Water (16 page)

“We need to show them to an archaeologist,” said Lottie. “Not one of the Aqua ones. A proper one. To tell us if they’re genuine.”

“How will we find an archaeologist?”

“You could ask Sophie,” said Jo. “She works at the university, doesn’t she?”

Lottie and Hannah stared at her.

“That is actually a really good idea,” said Lottie.

“I know. How much are you going to pay us?”

“Honestly,” said Lottie. “You two are obsessed with money.”

“So would you be,” said Jo, “if you didn’t have any.”

“Will you get Sophie’s contact details from your dad?” said Lottie, as she and Hannah clattered down the back stairs. “Then we can get in touch today. Come round to mine this afternoon if you like.”

Hannah’s stomach tightened.

“Oh, er, thanks, but I … I can’t, you see. Someone’s … er … someone’s coming up this afternoon.”

“Oh? Who?”

Hannah squirmed. She knew from experience that if she wasn’t honest with Lottie, there would
be dire consequences.

“Jack,” she muttered.

“
Jack?
Why?”

“I didn’t invite him,” Hannah said desperately. “He offered. To take photos of the farm. And film footage. To make a sample. To see if we wanted to use it in the play, you know? He’s offered to put together some music and images to help get across our points. And I think that might work really well. You know, to tell the story of the farm?” She knew she was babbling now. “Jack’s really good at film stuff. Jonah said. And he offered…”

She tailed off, wilting from the force of Lottie’s scowl.

“So,” said Lottie, “you’re trusting Jack to come to the farm, after he practically destroyed it last time, and you want him to have a massive part in our play, even though he’s completely unreliable and a total waste of space?”

“Don’t be like that. I know we said we wouldn’t let him come here, but this is different, isn’t it? He’s coming to help.”

“Help!” Lottie gave a scornful laugh. “Listen to yourself! Wasn’t he meant to be helping with
Romeo and Juliet
? Wasn’t he meant to be putting together music and images? And did he do anything? Did he do one single thing to help?”

“But this is different.”

“Too right it’s different. This is a play that we’re doing to save your farm. It’s a play that could get us all expelled. And just because you fancy him, you’ve
told Jack he can practically run the show.”

“I do not—” Hannah began, but Lottie’s glare stopped her from finishing the sentence.

“And if he ruins the play? And gets us all expelled? How are you going to feel then?”

“He promised he’d be good.” Even as she said this, Hannah realised how lame it sounded.

“Oh,
did
he? Well, that’s all right, then. I’m
completely
reassured.”

Lottie walked out into the yard. Hannah followed her. “Listen,” she said, desperate not to fall out with her friend, “it’s only a sample. He might not even turn up. You know what he’s like. It might not be any good. And if it’s all rubbish, or if he just messes about, we can ditch him, can’t we? It’s just that he had some really good ideas, and if they work, it could be amazing.”

Lottie quickened her pace.

“Fine. You do whatever you want. I’m going home. I’ve got a costume to make.”

Chapter Twenty-One

The Site Office

Hannah’s mood for the first fifteen minutes of Jack’s visit veered between tongue-tied awkwardness, pinch-me-I’m-dreaming exhilaration and sudden plunges into guilty misery when she thought about Lottie. But once she settled down and got used to the fact that Jack was actually here, on her farm, walking around chatting to her and taking photographs, she became fascinated by this whole new side of him that she was seeing. Because the Jack behind a camera lens was a completely different Jack from the one she had always seen at school.

They started in North Meadow, where Jack took long-distance shots, panoramas and close-ups.

“Mmm, blueberries,” he said, when they came to a cluster of blackthorn bushes covered in dusky-blue sloes.

“Try one,” said Hannah innocently. “They’re really nice.”

She held her breath as Jack popped one into his mouth.

A second later, his face creased up in disgust and he spat the remnants of the berry violently out on
to the grass.

“Ugh, what the heck was
that
?” he spluttered.

Hannah was doubled up laughing. “Your face! It was a sloe, you dingbat. Have you never tasted a sloe before?”

“Well, I never will again,” said Jack, shoving her shoulder. “Thanks a lot, Roberts.”

“Hey! You nearly pushed me into the hedge.”

“Would’ve served you right. That was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever eaten. It’s sucked every bit of moisture out of my mouth.”

“Sorry. That must have been a bad one. They’re not usually that bitter. Here.” She plucked a plump sloe from the bush. “Try this one.”

Jack flicked it out of her hand. “What do you think I am, some kind of idiot?”

“Sorry. No, I really am. Here, try a nettle. They’re delicious.”

“Ha ha.” Jack crouched down and lifted his camera. “Nice view of the stream here.”

“We get kingfishers along it, but you don’t see them that often. We should go to a couple of the ponds as well.”

“How many ponds are there?”

“Eleven. And they’re full of wildlife.”

“I’ll take some pictures of the trees, too. Those ones over there are massive.”

They walked up to the wood, down through the fields, past two of the ponds and back across North Meadow, Jack taking film footage and pictures all the way.

“So, how’s the stealth play coming on?” he asked.

“I don’t really know. I mean, it’s so weird, writing a play where the person with the main part doesn’t have a script. I’m writing all these lines and then leaving blanks. But what if he doesn’t say what we want him to say?”

“He will, if you ask the questions right. You know the kind of thing he’s going to say, don’t you? You said the stuff in that brochure they sent round was exactly the same as what he said at the meeting you went to. So he’ll probably say exactly the same stuff again.”

Hannah laughed. “Yes, you’re right. He
does
have a script, doesn’t he? All that stuff he spouts, it’s all scripted. We just have to prompt him.”

Jack stopped to photograph a towering holly tree, its deep-green leaves and bright-red berries so shiny they looked as though they had been polished.

“Can you take some footage of the animals in the yard now? They’re all rare breeds and they’re all farmed properly, no horrible battery cages or anything. And the calves are so photogenic, with those lovely big eyes.”

Jack hesitated. “What about your dad? Won’t he mind me being in his farmyard?”

“No, it’ll be fine,” said Hannah, sounding a lot more confident than she felt. Dad was probably in the yard somewhere and she had no idea how he might react to seeing Jack.

On the way to the calves, Hannah suddenly had a thought that made her insides freeze.

The burnt-out barn! It was right next to the calves’ barn.

What should she do? It would sound weird if she suddenly told Jack they shouldn’t film the calves after all. But if she took him to the burnt-out barn, would it look as though she was deliberately making him face the consequences of what he’d done?

And so he should,
said Lottie’s voice in her head, and she felt another twinge of misery at how she and Lottie had parted.

But Lottie shouldn’t be so ridiculously anti-Jack, should she? If she could see how helpful Jack had been today…

They turned the corner. And there it was, right in front of them. The blackened shell of the burnt-out barn.

All that was left were the steel uprights. The rest was just a flat empty concrete space. Nettles had already pushed their way up through the gaps in what had been the floor.

Jack stopped dead. Hannah didn’t breathe.

After what seemed like minutes, she risked a glance at him.

His face was white. He looked frightened.

“I didn’t realise…” he said, and Hannah had to strain to hear him. “I didn’t think it was so big…”

He took a step across the soot-blackened floor into the vast empty space.

And then, around the corner, a bucket in each hand, came Dad.

Hannah’s stomach contracted. What would Dad
do when he saw Jack? What would Jack do? Would he run away, like he had done when the fire started?

Dad barely glanced at them. He carried on walking towards the calves’ barn.

And then, to Hannah’s amazement, Jack walked right up to her father.

“Hello, Mr Roberts.”

Dad looked at him blankly. He didn’t seem to recognise Jack. He seemed to be looking right through him.

“I’m Jack Adamson. It was me who burned your barn down. Me and Danny.”

Still Dad didn’t react.

“I never apologised to you. I … I don’t know why. I’ve just seen it. I’m so sorry.”

Dad grunted. “Bit late for that now.”

“He’s trying to make up for it,” said Hannah. “He’s taking photos of the farm. To show people what will be lost if it gets flooded.”

“Oh, is he? Well, he’d better take a photo of that, then.”

He jerked his thumb to the left, towards the pig field. Hannah looked, and drew in her breath. In the corner of the field stood a huge white portacabin, as big as a bungalow.

“What is it?”

“See for yourself. They’ve stuck a sign up.”

Hannah walked towards the portacabin. Taped inside one of the windows was a large piece of paper. In massive black capital letters, it said:
SITE OFFICE.
In the top right-hand corner was the Aqua logo.

So Aqua had decided to set their office up here.

For a moment, Hannah felt only relief. They weren’t going to demolish the theatre!

When she glanced at her father’s drawn, tense face, though, guilt flooded over her. What was she doing, feeling relieved?

But then the guilt turned to anger. Why should
she
feel guilty?
She
wasn’t the one who had dumped a massive great building on her dad’s pig field.

“When … when did it come?” she asked. As if the time of arrival mattered. But she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Articulated lorry brought it up this morning,” said Dad.

“And didn’t you know?”

He gave a bitter laugh as he picked up his buckets. “Oh, they don’t need to tell
us
. The landlord’s granted permission and that’s all that matters.”

The clomp, clomp, clomp of his boots echoed across the yard as he walked away. Jack stood motionless. The silence seemed to go on forever.

“Do you want to take some photos of the swallows’ nests?” asked Hannah, and she hated how high and fake her voice sounded. “They’re amazing. Did you know the swallows come back to the same nests every year, all the way from Africa? How do they do that? It’s like a miracle, isn’t it?”

“Actually, I’d better go. Homework and all that.”

“Oh, yes, sure,” said Hannah, who knew perfectly well that Jack made it a point of honour never to do
homework. “Well, thanks so much for coming.”

“No problem. See you.”

He mooched off up the track, head down, hands in his pockets.

Hannah suddenly felt exhausted. But she needed to speak to Dad.

He was leaning over the wall of the pigsties at the bottom of the yard, the buckets at his feet, scratching his favourite sow behind the ears.

“There you are, Gertie,” he was saying, as the pig grunted with pleasure. “Good girl. Good girl.”

Hannah stood beside him.

“It’s going to be all right,” she said. “With the reservoir, I mean. I’ve got a plan.”

“Have you? What’s that, then? Yes, that’s right, old girl, you like that, don’t you?”

“I can’t tell you exactly, but it’s good.”

He gave her a brief sharp look before turning back to his pig.

“You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?”

“Of course not.”

“Good. Because I’ve got enough on my plate at the moment without you getting into trouble on top of everything else.”

Hannah crossed her fingers firmly behind her back.

“Don’t worry, Dad. Everything will be fine. I promise.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Inside Information

In a classroom off the hall, Miranda was in full flow.

She placed one hand on her heart and, with the other, blew an extravagant kiss to Ben, who winced.

“Great!” said Hannah. It was so much easier to direct Miranda when the actual performance was never going to happen. “That was perfect.”

“I know,” said Miranda, arranging strands of hair around her face with her fingers.

Behind them, somebody gave an enormous sniff. They all turned. In the doorway, wiping imaginary tears from his eyes, stood Jack.

“I’m sorry,” he gulped. “That was just so moving.”

Ben threw his script at Jack. “Shut up, Adamson.”

Jack ducked. “What? It
is
moving. Or is that just me? Is it meant to be a comedy?”

“Jack, get out,” said Hannah. “We’re trying to rehearse.”

Jack looked thoughtful. “Maybe it
is
just me. I’m very easily moved. I cry at cat-food adverts. If, you know, the cat looks really hungry, or has really big eyes.”

“Jack! We’re having an important rehearsal here.”

“Go ahead, don’t mind me. I only came to give you this.”

He handed Hannah a memory stick. She took it, her heartbeat speeding up as her fingers brushed his.

She looked at him. “Is this…?”

“Just a sample of the kind of thing you might have in the background. Sounds, visuals, you know – what we were talking about on Saturday.”

“Oh, brilliant. Thank you so much.”

Miranda looked curiously at the memory stick, and then at Jack’s and Hannah’s faces, and Hannah could have sworn she saw a flash of something very like jealousy pass across her features.

Miranda Hathaway, jealous of her and Jack? Could it really be true?

“When do you need this back?” she asked.

“That’s OK, you keep it. It’s all on the hard drive.”

Miranda looked from one to the other of them, her eyes narrowed.

“Effects for the play,” Hannah told her. “It’s going to be amazing.”

“Yep,” said Jack. “The stuff on there will blow your mind.”

Matthew appeared in the doorway. “You have got to see this, mate. Look what she’s getting them to do.”

He dragged Jack out into the hall, where Zara’s choreographer was holding a dance rehearsal for the spirits in
The Tempest.

Lottie appeared in the doorway, holding an embroidered jacket.

“Can you try this on, Ben? In case it needs any last-minute adjustments.”

She didn’t look at Hannah, and Hannah felt the misery of it like a weight in the pit of her stomach. For a few minutes, the rehearsal had taken her mind off the hideous fact that Lottie had acted all day as though she didn’t exist.

Hannah had tried to explain again but Lottie had totally blanked her. How long would she keep it up? What if she went through the whole play like this? What if she never spoke to Hannah again?

Hannah couldn’t bear even to think about that.

Miranda looked at Ben’s jacket and curled her upper lip. “Are we finished? Because I do have other things to do.”

“Er … yes,” said Hannah. “That scene’s perfect now. Thanks so much.”

Miranda elbowed past the others, her expensive bag whacking Hannah on the leg. She stopped in the doorway. Then she spun round and glared at Hannah.

“Look at that!”

“What?”

“That,” spat Miranda, flinging out an arm in the direction of the stage, “is what you get when you have a proper choreographer and a proper costume
designer. Not a bunch of amateurs like we’ve got here. I don’t know why we’re even bothering.”

With a final look of disgust at Hannah and Lottie, she strutted away.

“What are you planning to do about her?” asked Ben. “We’d better think of something soon. We’re running out of time.”

Hannah and Lottie were silent. Jack walked back into the classroom, unzipped his bag and pulled out a laptop.

“Now she’s gone, take a look at this.”

“If it’s to do with you-know-what,” said Hannah, “it’s too risky to watch it here. Anyone might come in.”

“It’s nothing incriminating. Just a bit of film footage. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it, that’s all.”

Hannah shot a sideways glance at Jack. He sounded so mature. He hadn’t even said anything rude to Lottie. And he clearly had been working on the projections. She had been so right to trust him. Why couldn’t Lottie admit that?

Jack double-clicked on the mouse pad and turned the laptop round so they could all see the screen. Ben moved closer. Lottie was fiddling with the jacket, pretending not to be interested, but Hannah knew she was watching.

Up flashed the animated body of a chubby garden gnome, with Lottie’s head superimposed on it. The Lottie gnome was dancing to synthesised music.

“Jack!” yelled Hannah.

Lottie made a grab for the computer. “You idiot! Turn that off right now.”

“I am
so
sorry,” said Jack. “I totally did not mean for that to happen. I have no idea how it got there.”

“Delete that this second,” spat Lottie. “No, give it here and let me delete it.”

“Hey, get your hands off my computer. Look, I’ll delete it and you watch, OK? Jeez, some people are so touchy.”

Lottie turned to Hannah, her eyes blazing. “See? Do you see now? Or do you
still
think he should be part of our play?”

Hannah felt as though she was going to explode. Emotions boiled up inside her: fury with Jack for making a fool of her, hatred of herself for being so stupid, and utter misery at ruining her friendship with Lottie.

She rounded on Jack.

“How
dare
you do that? You promised! You promised you’d take this seriously and look what you’ve done. I
trusted
you and you’ve made a complete idiot of me, and my best friend won’t even speak to me. Don’t you care about
anything
? You said you wanted to make up for what you’d done, and all you’ve done is make things worse. The farm’s going to be destroyed and all you can do is make videos of dancing gnomes. You are a complete—”

“Hannah,” said Lottie.

There was something in her voice that made Hannah look up.

Lottie glanced towards the door with a warning
look. Hannah turned round. Miss Summers was standing in the doorway.

“Oh,” said Hannah. “Hello.”

Miss Summers stepped into the room.

“I just came to see how your rehearsal was going. Is everything all right?”

Lottie broke the awkward silence.

“Yes, thank you. We’ve finished the balcony scene. Hannah and Jack were just having a bit of a disagreement about the projections for the backgrounds, that’s all.”

“I see.” She looked hard at Hannah and Jack. “Will you be able to resolve your differences, do you think? Without coming to blows?”

Hannah said nothing.

“I think so, miss,” said Jack. “I’ve got some other stuff she might prefer.”

“Right. Well, I’ll leave you to it, then. But if you have any problems that are too difficult to resolve by yourself, Hannah, come to me, will you, and we can chat about them. Don’t let things get on top of you.”

With a last look at Hannah, she left the room.

Hannah turned to her friend and took a deep breath.

“I’m
so
sorry, Lottie. You were completely right and I was completely wrong. He is an idiot.”

“Hey, I am here, you know,” said Jack.

“Yes, and you’re an idiot. Just go away. You’ve ruined everything.”

“Well, I’m glad you’ve finally realised what a loser he is,” said Lottie. “It took you long enough.”

Hannah looked at Lottie. Her voice sounded normal again. Could she … might she … be forgiven?

Jack was fiddling with his laptop. He turned the screen out to face the others again.

“What are you doing?” asked Hannah. “I told you to go away.”

“Just look at this one thing, will you? I’m sorry about the gnome. Just look at this and then I’ll go away if you want me to.”

A picture appeared on the screen. A flickery, slightly faded, black-and-white film of farm workers harvesting a field of corn.

The camera zoomed in slightly. Hannah gasped.

Grandfather! He had died before she was born, but she recognised him immediately from the photos around the house. He was driving an old combine harvester. He had stopped it next to the grain trailer and the freshly harvested corn was pouring from the combine’s chute into a slithery golden heap in the trailer.

She turned to Jack. “Where did you get this? I’ve never seen it before.”

“There’s an old bloke down my road who used to work at your farm. Tom Robson? I asked him if he had any photos of it in the old days and he brought me this. He had a bit of a thing about photography, he said. He took this with his first video camera.”

The camera panned out to show the tractor pulling the grain trailer.

“Wow, that tractor’s tiny!” said Ben. “It hasn’t even got a cab. And look at that exhaust funnel.”

Hannah wasn’t looking at the exhaust funnel. She was looking at the tractor driver.

“Is that your dad?” asked Lottie. “He looks so young.”

“His fashion sense hasn’t changed, though,” said Jack. “He’s still working that flat cap and checked shirt combo.”

There was no sound on the video but you could tell that Dad and his father were sharing a joke as the corn spilled in a steady stream into the trailer.

“He must be young,” said Hannah. “Grandfather died when Dad was fifteen.”

“What year was this film taken?” Lottie asked Jack.

“1973, I think he said.”

“Oh!” cried Hannah.

“What?” asked Lottie.

Hannah was staring at the screen. “Grandfather died in 1973. In the autumn. He was doing some tractor work for another farmer, up on the Downs, and his tractor rolled over on the hill and crushed him.”

“Ouch,” said Jack.

Ben gave him a look. Lottie shuddered, even though she had heard the story before.

Hannah looked at the image of her father, so relaxed and carefree up on his tractor seat, with no idea that his world was about to change forever.

“Cool to have some footage of him,” said Ben.

“Yes. I wonder if Dad’s ever seen it.”

The picture cut out suddenly and the screen turned
to flickery greyness.

“I thought it would be good to show this kind of thing,” said Jack. “To show the continuity of the same family farming it for all that time.”

“It’s amazing,” said Hannah. “Thank you so much for finding it.”

“There’s more on that memory stick. And I’ve set the pictures I took on Saturday to music, so they make more of an impact. Anyway, watch it and see what you think.”

Hannah looked at Lottie. “What do you think? Should we give him one last chance?”

Lottie narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know. He may have got hold of that film, but he’s still an idiot.”

“Tell you what,” said Hannah. “You and I will watch it together.” She turned to Jack. “And if it’s
really
good, and if you absolutely swear that you won’t mess about, then we
might
let you stay in the team.”

Jack looked as though he were about to make a sarcastic retort, when the door opened. He closed his laptop.

“It’s OK,” said Hannah. “It’s only Jonah.”

“Charming,” said Jonah, walking in and shutting the door. “You won’t be saying, ‘Only Jonah’ when you hear what I’m about to tell you.”

“Really? What?”

“This reservoir, yeah? You’re not going to believe it.”

Hannah made herself focus on Jonah. “Believe what?”

“You know my dad’s got this mate who’s a local councillor?”

“Yes, you said something about it.”

“Well, my dad asked him a while back to find out as much as he could about the reservoir.”

I bet he did, thought Hannah. Trying to see how he could make money out of it.

“Anyway, this guy’s a retired engineer and he’s been looking into all the technical stuff. And he rang back this morning and guess what he’s found out?”

“What?”

Jonah looked round at the others dramatically. “You are not going to believe this. I was totally gobsmacked when my dad told me. After everything they’ve been saying, and all those photos in their brochure. I’m telling you, when we tell everyone, there is going to be a riot in that hall.”