The Farm Beneath the Water (6 page)

Hannah felt sick. Was this Sophie person really Dad’s new girlfriend? And how come these strangers
knew about it and his own children didn’t?

Fury rose up inside her. Why did he still not tell her anything?

“You’ve got to talk to him,” said Lottie, as though she had read Hannah’s thoughts.

“What was that lady talking about?” asked Sam. “What secret?”

Hannah looked at the Beans. Maybe, if all his children confronted Dad together, it would be harder for him to fob them off with vague replies that told them nothing.

“Come on,” she said, parting the brambles and edging out of the thicket. “We’re going to talk to Dad.”

Chapter Seven

Confronting Dad

Martha was in the kitchen, crouched in front of an open cupboard. She glared at Hannah.

“How come there’s never anything to eat in this poxy place?”

“There’s a casserole in the larder.”

“Not that one we had the other day?”

“There’s plenty left.”

“Yes, because it was so gross that nobody ate it the first time round.”

“Don’t be rude. Granny made that.”

Their granny, Mum’s mother, lived in Middleham. She was old and frail, but she still liked to cook for them, and they always came back from visits to her house with meals for the freezer or tins full of cake.

“I’m making my own tea,” said Martha. She reached to the back of the cupboard and pulled out a tin of spaghetti hoops.

“That’s not fair!” cried Jo. “How come she gets spaghetti and we have to eat casserole?”

The door to the washhouse, where Dad kept his coats and boots, rattled open.

“Martha, will you leave that for a minute?” said
Hannah. “We have to talk to Dad.”

“We? What do you mean, we? What about?”

Hannah spoke quickly. Any minute now, Dad would come into the kitchen. “You know that woman who came up the other day? Sophie?”

“What about her?”

Hannah told Martha what she had overheard in North Meadow. Martha stared. All the colour drained from her face.

“No way,” she said at last.

“I swear.” Hannah nodded at the Beans. “They heard it, too.”

“But what did it mean?” asked Sam. “What’s he not telling us?”

The kitchen door opened.

“Tea ready?” asked Dad.

They stared at him.

“What’s up with you lot?”

Hannah pulled out a stool and patted it. “Sit down. We need to talk to you.”

He sat, frowning at his children. “What’s going on?”

They pulled out stools and sat at the table. And everyone, including Martha, looked expectantly at Hannah.

Hannah took a deep breath. “Dad, we know you’re keeping secrets from us.”

He looked startled for a second. Then he seemed to pull himself together. “What are you talking about?” He turned to the Beans. “Is this that blessed spy club of yours, or whatever it is? Have you been
snooping about again?”

“Don’t get angry with them,” said Hannah indignantly. “We’ve all seen stuff. It’s not exactly difficult. First we come home and there’s a strange woman in the house wanting to check out the loft, and you’re wearing your best jacket and making her tea, when you’ve never made a cup of tea in your entire life…”

“Good grief, if I can’t make a cup of tea in my own house without facing a court martial from my children…”

“And then we come home and you’ve got a tea party going on in the sitting room, with a load of women we’ve never seen before. And just now, you’re showing those people round the farm and they’re asking you whether you’ve told us yet. And you said you would do it directly, which we all know means never. So we had to ask you. And we’re not letting you leave this room until you tell us what’s going on.”

Dad’s frown had deepened. “What were you doing listening to private conversations? It’s none of your business.”

“None of our business?” exploded Martha. “Of course it’s our business.”

Dad hesitated for a second and when he spoke, his voice was gentler. “It’s none of your business at the moment, and hopefully it never will be. There’s nothing you can do about it so what’s the point in getting you worried for nothing?”

“For nothing?” said Martha. “It’s not exactly
nothing, is it?”

“It’s completely our business,” said Hannah, “if we get a strange woman living in our house, putting her stuff in our loft. And what about Mum’s stuff? We won’t let her throw out anything of Mum’s.”

“Throw out…? What on earth are you talking about?”

“We know you’ve joined a dating agency,” said Martha. “So I don’t know why you’re bothering to lie to us.”

“A
dating
agency?” Dad’s voice was about two octaves higher than usual.

“Wearing your best clothes. Strange women all over the place.”

“Are you getting married again?” asked Jo. “Is Sophie going to be our stepmother?”

Dad looked completely bewildered. Then, suddenly, his face cleared and he threw back his head and laughed until the tears rolled down his face.

Hannah stared at him.

“What are you laughing about? There’s nothing to laugh about.”

“He’s gone mad,” said Martha. “He needs locking up.”

Eventually, Dad stopped laughing, pulled a grubby handkerchief from his jacket pocket and wiped his eyes.

“I’m not getting married again, all right? I’ve got enough on my plate without that, for goodness’ sake. I have absolutely no intention of getting married. Or,” he said to Martha, seeing that she had opened
her mouth to interrupt, “joining a dating agency. All right?”

They stayed silent for a while, taking this in.

“Really? Definitely?” said Hannah.

“Absolutely definitely.”

Oh, thank goodness, thought Hannah. They weren’t going to get a stepmother. There was nothing to worry about. Her hunched shoulders dropped and she let out her pent-up breath in a huge sigh of relief.

Sam looked disappointed. “Oh. She was nice.”

“Stepmothers always
seem
nice,” said Jo darkly. “Until they try to kill you.”

Martha was still frowning. “So who were all those people, then? Why were you wearing your best jacket and making tea?”

“They’re from the local Ecology Group. They’re interested in the farm, that’s all. How soon’s tea, Hannah? If it’s not ready, I’ve got things to do.” He pushed back his stool and stood up.

But Martha’s question had stirred up Hannah’s thoughts.

“Wait a minute. If Sophie was just interested in the farm, why was she wanting to put stuff in the loft?”

Dad hesitated. Then he said, “Sophie’s a chiropterologist.”

“A what?”

“She studies bats. We know bats roost in the loft, and she wants to put recording equipment up there so she can identify how many species we have.”

“Cool,” said Jo, her face lit up with interest. “What was that word you said?”

But it still didn’t make sense to Hannah. “But then why did you say she was just what we need? Why do you
need
her?”

“Need? What do you mean?”

“You said she might be just what we need.”

“Did I?”

Hannah prickled with irritation. “You’re still not telling us the truth. I know you’re not. When those other people came round, one woman said something about it being a totally unsuitable site, and you sent me and Lottie out of the room. What’s it unsuitable for?”

“And,” said Jo, “why did that lady ask if you’d told us yet? What haven’t you told us?”

“Yes,” said Hannah. “And she said she hoped we wouldn’t hear it from someone at school – oh!”

Like a punch to the stomach, she remembered the last time someone hadn’t wanted her to find something out from gossip. That time, it had been Granny. And Granny had been warning her that her father had no money to pay the rent and they might have to leave the farm.

Had Dad run out of money again?

“What?” Dad asked Hannah. “What’s up with you?”

Hannah glanced at the Beans. She didn’t want to scare them, but she had to get the truth out of Dad. This was their chance to get a proper answer, while they had him cornered.

Trying not to sound too panicked, she made herself look her father in the eye. “Is it the rent? Is
it the landlord?”

Sam went white.

Jo gasped. “Has the money run out? Is the landlord going to demolish the farm and build houses on it?”

Dad cleared his throat.

“No,” he said. “No, it isn’t that.”

“What is it, then?” said Martha. “Something’s going on. You have to tell us.”

“We saved the farm,” said Jo. “Well, Hannah did. So you have to tell us.”

Dad looked at the tabletop and ran his hands through his thinning hair. There was a long pause. Hannah held her breath.

Eventually, Dad raised his head.

“It’s not going to happen,” he said, “which is why I haven’t mentioned it, but I suppose you’d have found out anyway soon. They’ll be announcing it any moment now.”

“Who?” said Hannah. “Announcing what?”

“The water company. Aqua, or whatever stupid name they call themselves these days.”

“The water company? What’s the water company got to do with anything?”

Dad took a deep breath, as though he were preparing for a long swim underwater.

“They want to take the farm.”

They stared at him. This made no sense.

“Take our farm?” cried Sam. “They can’t take our farm. What do you mean?”

“Take it?” said Hannah. “Why? What does the water company want our farm for?”

In a flat voice, Dad said, “They want to flood the farm and turn it into a reservoir.”

There was a stunned silence.

“
What?
” said Martha eventually.

“Flood the farm?” asked Sam. “Why would they flood the farm?”

“What’s a reservoir?” asked Jo.

Hannah couldn’t speak. She had studied reservoirs in geography. She knew what a reservoir was.

She stared at her father. “You’re joking. You are joking, aren’t you?”

“No. It’s true.”

“Daddy, what’s a reservoir?” said Sam.

Hannah searched Dad’s face desperately for a sign that he wasn’t serious. But her father didn’t make jokes.

“The whole farm?”

“Pretty much.”

Hannah couldn’t think straight. Her brain didn’t seem to be working.

“But … but they can’t. Can they?”

“No, of course they can’t,” said Dad. “It’s a ridiculous idea. So don’t you worry about it, all right? Now, I need to get round those pigs.”

He left the room. The others looked at Hannah.

“What’s a reservoir?” demanded Jo.

Hannah felt flat and unreal. It was as though all her feelings had been switched off. In a daze, she rooted through her school bag for her geography book.

“It’s a big artificial lake.”

“What do you mean, an artificial lake?”

“It’s a lake that’s made by deliberately flooding a valley. Sometimes they dam a river and sometimes they pump water into the valley.”

“But why would they do that?” asked Sam.

“To store water. They take the water from the reservoir and send it through the pipes to houses and factories and whatever.”

“But how can they turn our farm into one of those?” asked Jo. Her voice sounded panicky.

Hannah flicked through the pages of her geography textbook. “Look. This is a reservoir in Wales.”

They looked at the picture of a large tranquil lake surrounded by green hills.

“Eight hundred acres were drowned to make that. There are twelve farms and a whole village under that water.”

“But what about the people who lived there?” said Sam. “Did they drown, too?”

“No, they didn’t drown. But they all had to move out of their homes.”

“Well, they were stupid, then,” said Martha. “They should have refused to go.”

“They did. There were loads of protests. We saw a film about it. Marches and banners and chanting. But it didn’t make any difference. The government just went ahead and did it anyway.”

“Are they going to drown our farm?” cried Sam. “They won’t drown our farm, will they?”

“But our farm isn’t a valley,” said Jo.

Hannah remembered what the woman in the
sitting room had said that day.

It’s a totally unsuitable site.

She thought back to the tea party, and Sophie’s visit, and those people today. So that was why Dad had invited them to the farm. To help him stop it being turned into a reservoir.

But what if they couldn’t stop it? What if the water company was stronger?

In her mind’s eye, Hannah saw the sheep grazing in the fields, the new calves in the barn, the ancient cowsheds with their roofs covered in moss and lichen, the swallows’ nests and the pigsties and the wildflower meadows and the oak trees, and her own lovely theatre, hidden in the copse. And she imagined a great creeping tide of water spreading over the farm, obliterating every inch of the landscape until the farm was buried beneath it. Forever.

“They can’t take the farm,” said Sam. “Where would we live?”

“And what about the animals?” said Jo. “What would happen to them?”

Hannah looked at her brother and sister.

“No,” she said. “They can’t take the farm. They won’t take the farm. Because nobody will let them.”