Sker House (15 page)

But she wasn't going to give up just yet. She sensed a breakthrough. Each day, except her day off, Ruth spent every spare minute at the allotment tending and
willing
those plants to grow. In many ways, it became symbolic of her fight to build a new life. It was a struggle at first. Oh yes. But she never let tragedy beat her, and there was no way she was going to be beaten by a patch of bloody soil. Standing up defiantly, she brushed her gloved hands off on her gardening apron and took one last, lingering look at her bountiful garden before going back inside. It was time to go to work.

*

As her mother lovingly tended the garden, Izzy was getting ready in her room. Glancing at her radio alarm clock, which was playing some cheesy old eighties tune, she saw it was already after nine-thirty. Almost time to leave. She let out a sigh. She planned to go to college in September, and had allowed herself to be persuaded that it would be a good idea get a job to save some money before she went. Her mother was very big on teaching her the true value of things. Especially money. She thought that if Izzy earned it herself, she'd be more independent and sensible. That was why when mam found the job at Sker House, she'd managed to get Izzy in there too. Things worked out quite well most of the time. They both worked the same hours, which meant Izzy got a lift there and back, and she didn't exactly have to do a lot. The only problem was, she hated working there.

It's only temporary,
she constantly told herself.
Deal with it.

It wasn't like she was adverse to working for a living. In fact, she couldn't wait to save up enough money to pass her driving test and buy a car of her own so she wouldn't have to rely on her mother and public transport. Then she would be able to drive herself to college, a different job, or even right out of Wales if she wanted to.

At first she thought working in a bar near the beach and having a steady flow of new and interesting people introduced into her life would be fun. Living in Nottage village was like living in a goldfish bowl. She thought she might even meet a nice boy there. A cool surfer dude or something. In the beginning, it
had
been fun. It was all fresh and exciting, and it did feel good to be earning her own money. She couldn't help but feel proud of herself.

But that was then and this is now, as they say. Reality soon kicked in. The place was practically deserted most of the time, so she never met anyone cool. Plus, all the ghost stories about Sker House the local kids told must have made her paranoid. Now, she couldn't relax there. Not even for a minute. And she hated being by herself. The place gave her the creeps, plain and simple.

She tried not to think about the weird stuff that happened. Lights and taps turning off and on when no one was in the room, things disappearing then reappearing. The shadows that seemed to crawl along the walls by themselves without anyone there to cast them. One night, when she and mam had been cleaning the kitchen, they both realised there were three shadows on the wall when there should only have been two. There was something standing between mother and daughter, something tall and slender. Something that didn't belong. Then there was the time...

Don't think about it.

“Isabel! Are you ready yet?” Mam's shrill voice called up the stairs.

Shit! When she stopped being 'Izzy' and became 'Isabel' it meant there was a rush on. Either that, or she was in serious trouble. One of mam's little traits. “Yeah, just coming!”

Mam always tried her best, fair play. Especially since dad passed away. Right now, she was trying her best not to show her true feelings, but Izzy knew her too well. Her mother was just as reluctant to go to work as she was, which wasn't like her. When they first started the job she'd been so excited. 'Everyday is a happy challenge!' She would say. But somewhere along the line, the days stopped being happy challenges and became arduous tests of the human spirit. Not many people could actually lay claim to enjoying their work, but you should at least derive a little satisfaction from it. Otherwise, what was the point? You may as well go out and do something else instead. Which was exactly what Izzy intended to do just as soon as she passed her driving test.

For the time being, however, she would just have to bite the bullet. As weird as the stuff that happened in Sker was, she knew her mother wouldn't let anything happen to her. Stuffing her phone and some mints into her bag, she slung it over her shoulder and took one last lingering look at herself in the full-length mirror covering one wall of her bedroom. Then she clicked her heels together three times, a ritual she had undertaken every morning since she'd seen the wizard of Oz as a kid, and made for the door.

Chapter 15:

Secret History

Lucy awoke to a strange sound. A tapping? She lay motionless for a few seconds, giving herself time to shake off the shackles of sleep and come back to her senses. It was almost as if unseen hands were pulling a veil from over her face. She listened. The sound was familiar, even comforting. It ebbed and flowed with a soothing rhythm, and she was sure that if she listened to it long enough it would send her tumbling back into the abyss of sleep.

What could it be?

All at once she identified the source of the noise, and instantly cursed herself for taking so long to do so. It was the sound of somebody hitting keys. Typing. Dale. Just to be sure, Lucy opened her eyes a fraction and peeked out from under the covers.

Sure enough, Dale was sitting at the little desk furiously tapping away on his laptop, no doubt working on the Sker House article. It seemed to be going well; his brow was creased in concentration and his lips moved silently as he mouthed the words he wrote, fingers gliding across the keyboard with practised precision. He must have found an angle, some kind of hook on which to pin the feature. Good. She had a little experience of writing articles and knew that could be the most difficult part. Try as you might, the right words just wouldn't come in the right order. Then something just clicked, the pieces fell into place, and you were away. From the looks of things Dale had made the breakthrough, and that was not only good news for the article but good news for her. Dale could be a proper little bitch when he couldn't crack a story. She sat up and stretched.

Dale stopped writing and turned to her. “Ah, sleeping beauty arises. I was wondering how long it would be before we could get some brekkie.”

“Is that all you think about? Food?”

“Pretty much,” replied Dale. Then his smile faded and a peculiar expression took its place; something like a mixture of curiosity, concern and wariness. Cocking his head to one side he asked, “How are you feeling now?”

“Fine, I guess. No worse than I usually feel when I wake up. You know I'm not a morning person.”

“Who is?”

“You, obviously. I can see you're busy over there. Working on the Sker feature? How's it going?”

“Pretty good. But there's stuff we should talk about later. We need to compare notes.”

“Sure thing, but lets get you fed and watered first.” Lucy started getting out of bed, then stopped and added, “What do you mean by, 'How are you feeling
now
?”

“That's one of the things we need to discuss. After I'm fed and watered...” Dale turned back to the computer and started typing again, showing Lucy his back.

The urge to remove the yucky film of fur coating the inside of her mouth and a literally burning desire to pee cut short her contemplation time and Lucy bounded for the en suite. Inside, she did her business, brushed her teeth and took a quick shower, all the while turning Dale's words over in her mind. What did he want to discuss? Maybe she'd had a coughing fit or something during the night. He could be a worrier.

But there was something else. Some nugget of information hovering tantalizingly just beyond her reach. Was it a memory? She made a mental grab for it, missing by fractions, and was left with nothing more than vague abstract images of being alone and walking in dark hallways. The memory, if that's what it was, had the same wafer-thin translucent texture as a dream.

When Lucy exited the bathroom Dale was still tapping away at his laptop, but with less urgency now. Lucy sensed that his creative discharge was beginning to subside, at least for the time being. He must really have been hungry because he was waiting at the door even before Lucy had finished putting her trainers on.

“Do you remember anything about last night?” He asked, almost bashfully.

Lucy stopped midway through the act of doing up her left shoelace. That was a good question. Did she? Again, that chunk of orbiting knowledge loomed into reach. Again she grasped at it, and again she missed. “Er, I remember coming up here and going to sleep, if that's what you mean.”

“Anything else?” A gentle prod. Whatever it was, he was cautious of going there.

“Oh God. We didn't have sex did we?” Asked Lucy, feigning alarm. She wanted to lighten the mood a little. No matter how tired she got, sex was something she always remembered.

“Sadly not.”

“Who's sad about it?” Lucy couldn't resist a little giggle at her own joke.

Dale shook his head. “One day you will regret your cruelty, woman. Mark my words.”

“Yeah, yeah, and this time next year Rodney, we'll be millionaires...” As they left the room, Lucy happened to glance back at the desk and noticed that Dale had laid out one of his notebooks, opened to a blank page, and left one of his pencils lying across it. Nothing odd about that. He was always scribbling in notebooks. But the way the notepad and pencil were positioned
just so
seemed so precise, so deliberate. There was also something about the look he gave the carefully positioned stationary before he closed the door, almost as if he were checking the notebook and pencil were still there. Odd.

They made their way down the stairs to the bar where they hoped to find 'Don't call me mister' Machen. However, en route they found the front door hung wide open allowing a fresh salty sea breeze and the harsh squawk of seagulls to circulate around the lower reaches of the building. They paused for a few moments to fill their lungs, gazing out across the distant hills and listening to the gentle murmur of the sea. Later, when Lucy looked back upon her time at Sker, those precious few moments stood out against the horrors that came later like sparkling diamonds in a wall of granite.

The spell was broken when Machen suddenly appeared next to them like some goofy cartoon character. “Up early, I see!”

Lucy wasn't sure if it was meant as an observation or an announcement. The landlord was wearing the same clothes as the day before, and a patchy white stubble covered his cheeks and lower face. The lines around his watery, deep-set eyes seemed deeper and more pronounced. There were no two ways about it, the guy was a mess.

“We thought we'd get an early start,” Dale said.

The landlord smiled broadly. “Early start, is it? And what have you young 'uns got planned for today, then?”

Lucy noticed for the first time how meandering clusters of broken blood vessels littered the landlord's red cheeks and nose, and a nervous twitch tugged at one eyelid. Trying not to stare, she said, “We want to get some work done on the article. Perhaps learn a little more about the history of Sker. You know, try to capture the mood of the place.”

“Oh that's right, I forgot about the article you're writing.” Machen managed to look both thrilled and apprehensive at the same time. He paused, then added, “Listen, I think I know what you're after now. You want some juicy gossip, right?”

“We just want to know the truth,” replied Dale. “It doesn't have to be salacious gossip. Solent News is a long way from being the Daily Star. With a history this long, I don't think there'll be any need to over-dramatize anything.”

The landlord's brow furrowed further. “Yeah, you could be right there. Look, I'll tell you some stories about the place later, when I've done my chores. Okay?”

“Sure thing,” said Dale. “Maybe we'll take a walk on the beach, give you some time to do what you have to do. After we've had a bit of breakfast, that is.”

Machen stared at them for a few seconds, his eyes going from Dale to Lucy and back to Dale again as he processed the information. Finally the penny dropped with an almost audible chink and his whole face lit up. “You want breakfast? Now, like?”

“If it's not too much trouble.”

“Too much trouble? No, no trouble at all. Right this way!” Machen beamed as he led them into the bar. When they entered, Champ the guard dog gave a limp wag of his tail in greeting.

“So what would you like?” asked the landlord. “I can knock up a continental if you want, but I recommend the traditional Welsh breakfast.”

“Which is?” asked Lucy.

“Sausage, baked beans, egg, bacon, tomato and fried bread.”

Dale shot Lucy a look that said
don't say it!
But it came too late. Lucy was too busy playing with Champ's ear to notice. “Sounds more like a traditional English breakfast to me...”

Machen chortled contemptuously. “You think you invented the fry-up, like?”

Though she was slowly adjusting to the landlord's fiercely patriotic disposition, Lucy was taken aback by anger in his voice. “No, I... Erm, was just wondering what makes it Welsh...”

“Local produce! Sorry, we're all out of lava bread and cockles at the moment, luv. And you can probably blame over-fishing by your lot or them bloody Spaniards for that.”

“Overfishing?” said Lucy, perplexed. And then, “What's lava bread?”

Dale stepped in to save her. “It's a kind of food made from sea weed. Baked in an oven.”

“You eat seaweed for breakfast?”

Machen huffed and disappeared into the kitchen, no doubt to prepare their traditional Welsh English breakfast, so Dale answered the question for him, lowering his voice slightly so the landlord wouldn't be able to hear. “Lava bread is a traditional Welsh food. I don't think many people eat it these days, not when there are McDonald's and KFC's on every street corner, but it's still popular with tourists. Lots of restaurants and guesthouses do it.”