The House on the Lake

by Nuala Ellwood

  Three new bolts had appeared on the door. One at the top, one in the middle and another at the bottom. As Sarge stood back to admire his handiwork I asked why we needed new locks when we had a perfectly decent key lock. He nodded his head then and did this funny expression, like he was half excited, half disgusted. ‘It’s to keep them out,’ he said. And he pointed at the door with the hammer. ‘Now they’ve made their intentions clear, we have to be vigilant. They can get to us when we least expect it but we’ll be ready for them.’

  I didn’t know who he was talking about. Surely not the vicar. I tried to imagine that posh, skinny fella breaking into our house and the thought made me giggle. Then I heard Sarge yell.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  I realized, too late, that I’d laughed out loud.

  ‘Nothing, Sarge,’ I said, straightening my face. ‘Nothing at all.’

  ‘You think our security is a laughing matter?’ he said, coming at me with bulging eyes. ‘Do you?’

  I shook my head and stepped backwards. My mouth was dry with fear.

  ‘Do you know what happened to soldiers who didn’t watch their backs in Iraq?’ he said, clenching the hammer in his fists. ‘They ended up being fed to the fucking goats.’

  He stared at me without blinking and I stared back. I didn’t want to show him that I was scared. After a couple of minutes he dropped the hammer on to the floor with a clatter then turned and walked away. I could hear him muttering as he went.

  I stood for a moment to gather myself then I felt a weird pain in my stomach. It felt like someone was twisting my insides. I ran to the bog and sat there for a while thinking that my bowels must need to empty but nothing happened so I stood up. But when I went to pull up my knickers I got the shock of my life. There were bloodstains all over them, deep-red blotches.

  I quickly pulled up my trousers then ran to my room and lay on my bed, wondering how the hell I came to be bleeding.

  That was five hours ago and I’m still here. The pain in my stomach has got worse and I feel hot and heavy, like there’s a big stone wedged inside me. Sarge came in earlier and said he’d made some scran but I said I was feeling ill and couldn’t face it. He muttered something about it being a waste of food but I think he could tell from the look of me that I was telling the truth.

  Now it’s dark and I’m lying here thinking. This is how it begins. Maybe this is how the dead mother in the desert went. I think back to what Sarge said about the war. ‘There was all this blood. It was everywhere.’

  As I write this the pain is getting worse and I imagine the blood getting heavier and heavier until it fills the bed, the room, even the lake. I need to sleep now, need to stop writing, stop thinking, because it’s making me feel even more scared.

  I hope you’re listening to me, dead mother, and that you can hear my voice. If you could just look after me for one more night. Make the bleeding stop. And don’t let me die.

  15

  Lisa

  Warm air drifts through the room as I lie curled up with Joe beneath clean blankets. My hair smells of orange blossom, my teeth are clean, my breath is fresh. It feels like I’m dreaming but the weight of Joe in my arms proves otherwise.

  We’ve both had warm baths. Our bellies are full. These are things most people take for granted and yet just a few hours ago I was panicking that I wouldn’t be able to feed Joe. I watch him sleeping, his soft skin pink from the warm bathwater. If Isobel hadn’t turned up this afternoon he would have gone to bed cold and hungry. I don’t know what I would have done without her.

  After locating the tin bath in the old outhouse we spent the next half an hour or so heating up kettle after kettle of lake water to fill the bath.

  While we were doing that, Joe sat at the kitchen table with his head in his hands. Every time I tried to talk to him he would bang his fist on the table and demand that I take him back to Daddy. Isobel didn’t say anything as we scurried back and forth between the stove and the tin bath that we’d set up in the front room but she must have wondered what was going on. She didn’t ask any questions though, which I was thankful for.

  After I’d spent the best part of forty minutes wrestling a kicking and screaming Joe into the bathtub Isobel was waiting in the kitchen for me with a cup of tea. While I drank it, she showed me how to use the stove, preparing the wood carefully so it catches and doesn’t burn out quickly. Then she went out to the car and came back with clean blankets from her house and a cardboard box full of groceries.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ she said when I protested that I couldn’t possibly accept the groceries after all she’d done. ‘It’s just some leftovers from the church raffle.’

  The sight of the box seemed to perk Joe up and he jumped down from the table to investigate.

  ‘Presents!’ he squealed, darting past me. ‘Daddy left presents.’

  Isobel looked worried but again she didn’t say anything.

  ‘No, these are from me, Joe,’ she said, crouching down to face him. ‘There’s some wine gums in there too. If you’re allowed them.’

  She looked up at me and I nodded my head.

  ‘Just a few though,’ I said as Joe grabbed the bag of sweets from the box. ‘We don’t want to spoil your dinner.’

  I’d already spotted some tinned baked beans in the box. Now the stove was working we could have them for dinner. There was also a box of candles, a loaf of bread, a bottle of sherry and some dried packet soups. It wasn’t much but I was thankful for it.

  After Isobel left I warmed up the baked beans and sat at the table with Joe to eat. At first he just continued to sit with his head in his hands but once he smelt the food he sat up and had a few mouthfuls. After two days of crisps, sweets and pre-packed sausage rolls it was a relief to see him eat something hot. For a few moments I let myself imagine that this was our home, our new reality: me and Joe, finally safe and free of Mark. But when he’d finished his mouthful of food, he threw the spoon down on the floor and started to scream. ‘I hate you. Want Daddy. Don’t want you.’

  I went to speak, to offer words of comfort to him, to coax him, tell him that Daddy would be coming soon, but then something inside me disconnected. I couldn’t do it any more. I couldn’t carry on making excuses and dancing around Joe’s moods like a boxer in the ring. I was tired, crazy tired, and I had no energy left for pleading and negotiating with a child who didn’t want to listen. So I took his bowl, picked up the spoon from the floor and took them to the wooden tub that Isobel had found for washing-up. Taking the jug of lake water we’d collected earlier, I scrubbed the pots and tried to cancel out the noise of Joe screaming behind me.

  Finally he exhausted himself and I carried him off to bed where I’ve been lying awake for the last hour. Despite the warmth and the full stomach, sleep just won’t come. Every time I close my eyes I’m back in London, standing in the bedroom looking into the mirror as Mark comes up behind me. There’s no escape from him, nowhere to truly hide.

  I turn over and face the room. A sliver of moonlight through the curtainless window casts the room in a sickly bluish glow. Behind me Joe wriggles and mutters to himself.

  ‘Shh,’ I whisper. ‘Go back to sleep.’

  And then something odd happens. He stops wriggling and starts to laugh. It’s a strange laugh, low and guttural, like it’s coming from a man, not a child. I turn round to face him. His eyes are open.

  ‘What is it, Joe? Why are you laughing?’

  ‘It’s Daddy,’ he says, pointing past my head to the window. ‘Daddy pulling faces at the window.’

  I stare at him, my body rigid with fear.

  ‘Don’t be silly, baby,’ I say, my mouth drying up. ‘Daddy’s not there.’

  ‘He is,’ he cries, his voice still light with laughter. ‘Daddy at the window.’

  I want to grab Joe and make a run for it but my body is frozen. I have my back to the window. If it is Mark out there he will be able to see me.

  ‘Bye bye,’ says Joe, waving his hands. �
�Daddy gone now.’

  Then he turns over and within minutes he’s asleep. I lie next to him, my eyes wide open, my fists curled into balls, my brain repeating the same thing over and over again.

  Mark is here.

  I need to know. I need to see for myself. With a racing heart I get out of bed and make my way to the window. Moonlight exposes the garden. I see the empty cages, the broken plant pots, the remnants of a stone path. And then, just as I’m about to step away and dismiss the whole thing as a figment of Joe’s imagination, I’m sure I hear the faint sound of a car engine starting up.

  Could Joe have been right? Had there been somebody out there? But if it was Mark, where has he gone?

  16

  Soldier Number 1

  Rowan Isle House, 27 August 2004 – 4 p.m.

  Something good to report. After three days of stuffing newspaper down my knickers and scrubbing sheets at five in the morning the bleeding finally stopped last night. It disappeared as swiftly as it began.

  So far I’ve managed to keep it from Sarge, though he did look a bit puzzled when he saw me wringing out my sheets for the third day in a row. I told him it was the August heat, that I’d been sweating in the night and wanted to freshen up the sheets. I don’t know whether he believed me but he didn’t say anything. That was good because the last thing I want to do is worry Sarge at the moment. He’s in a bad way, that much is clear. His eyes are all black and bloodshot and his skin looks pale and clammy. I heard him talking to himself yesterday morning when I got up to wash the sheets. When I passed his room he was shouting out, ‘Leave him be. Can’t you see he’s had it? Just leave the man be.’

  I wanted to knock on his door and ask him if he was all right but I knew he’d just go mental so I walked away and left him to his monsters.

  So the pain has gone, which is a good thing. But what’s worrying me now is that whatever caused the bleeding must still be there inside my body, though I have no idea what it might be. I had a look through Sarge’s medical books but the sections on bleeding were all about battle injuries. And there was no mention of bleeding from down there. In fact, there was no mention of women at all. It seems that when it comes to war only men bleed.

  6.45 p.m.

  Everything is okay. I’m not dying.

  I’M NOT DYING.

  I needed to write that in capitals to make it real. I really thought I was heading for my grave, that something silent and invisible was killing me from the inside.

  But then this evening when I was setting up the stall, Isobel arrived. My Isobel. She must have walked from the village because there was no sign of her dad or the car. I got a weird feeling in my chest when I saw her, a fluttery feeling like I was going to pass out. My hands started shaking too and I thought I was going to drop the eggs.

  She wasn’t wearing her school uniform this time. She was wearing a dress. White, with red poppies on it which for a moment reminded me of my bloody sheets. She said hello in that gentle voice of hers then asked if she could buy a dozen eggs. While I was putting the eggs into the box she asked me if I was okay. No one had asked me that question for such a long time and, after days of bleeding and worrying about Sarge, to hear someone ask that almost brought me to tears. I looked up at her, right into her eyes, and those eyes told me that this was a person I could trust.

  And so I told her. I told her everything, about the pain and the blood and the sheets and how scared I was and how I thought I was going to die, and all the while I kept looking at those red flowers on her dress until they blurred in front of my eyes and I realized I was crying.

  ‘It’s okay.’

  That’s what she said to me. It’s okay. And it felt like a warm blanket wrapped round your legs on the coldest day of the year. She put her arm on my shoulder and then she explained that what I’d experienced was something called menstruation and that it happens to all women once a month. She started hers two years ago when she was thirteen. ‘Quite late really,’ she said. I asked her why it happened and she said it’s to do with the body getting ready to have babies. When she said this I panicked and said that I didn’t want babies but she said the blood was a sign there were no babies there, and for that to happen I’d need to have sex, and then she kind of giggled and said, ‘And I don’t think you’ll be doing that until you’re a bit older.’

  I nodded and said no I wouldn’t be, though I didn’t really know what she was talking about. Then she said that I had to make sure I was prepared next time. I’d need to go to the shop in the village and buy some sanitary towels and I said I didn’t know what they were, and anyway, Sarge didn’t like me going to the village and even if I did I had no money to get any of those things.

  She smiled then and handed me four pound coins for the eggs, double what they cost. ‘Take that,’ she said. ‘And put the change away for next month. You can use it to buy what you need from the shop.’

  I knew I’d be disobeying Sarge if I went to the village but then I thought about the bloody sheets and my knickers stuffed with newspaper and I knew I had no choice. So I put half the coins in the money tin and half in my pocket then handed her the eggs.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, putting the eggs into her bag.

  It was a nice bag, a pretty drawstring one with flowers embroidered round the edges. I was about to compliment her on it when something amazing happened.

  ‘Look, if you ever need to talk to someone,’ she said, her voice all warm and gentle, ‘come and say hello. Dad’s out at the church most of the time and … there aren’t many people my age around here. It would be nice to … hang out or something. You must get quite lonely living here.’

  She wanted to be friends. This perfect girl actually wanted to be friends with me. I didn’t know what to say. Then I heard Sarge call my name. I turned round and he was standing there in the doorway, his face all twisted.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he said, looking at Isobel.

  ‘No, it’s all right,’ she said, her voice bright and happy. ‘I was just paying for the eggs. My father says they’re the best he’s eaten. So well done, both of you. And the chickens, of course.’

  She laughed then and I willed Sarge to smile too, to just be nice for once. But he carried on glaring at her, his eyes dark and brooding.

  Isobel’s smile disappeared then and she said goodbye. Sarge came over to the stall and we both watched her walk away, her pale hair glinting in the sun. As I stood there I felt free and happy, like the world had suddenly opened up. It was a strange feeling because it didn’t have anything to do with being a soldier or following Sarge’s instructions. In fact, ever since the bleeding I’ve felt different, like I’ve changed in some way that I can’t quite identify. Maybe Sarge saw this change too because once Isobel had gone he looked at me and I saw something in his face that I’d never seen before.

  Fear.

  17

  Lisa

  11 December 2018

  I turn over in bed and watch as the sky outside the window changes from charcoal to violet to a pale, sickly blue. I spent the night lying in one position, curled up round Joe’s warm body, my head tucked next to his. Now my legs feel numb and stiff, and my eyes sting from lack of sleep. Mark. The name churns round my stomach like a piece of undigested food. Could it have been him at the window last night? I think about what I heard. I’m sure it was a car engine. But if it had been Mark at the window and he’d seen Joe then surely he would have tried to get in?

  Without thinking, I reach down and grab my phone from my bag on the floor, forgetting that the battery is dead. I look at the black screen and realize the futility of the phone. What use is it, fully charged or not? I have no one to call, no one to help me.

  Beside me, Joe stirs then sits bolt upright in the bed. His hair is matted with sweat. I gently rub his head, glad that he is waking, that I’m no longer alone with my dark thoughts.

  ‘Good morning, angel,’ I whisper, kissing his forehead. ‘Did you sleep well?’

  He looks at me an
d his face darkens.

  ‘You go away,’ he snaps, his voice croaky with sleep. ‘I want my daddy.’

  He pushes the heavy blankets back, jumps down from the bed and heads for the door.

  ‘Where are you going?’ I cry, stumbling after him. My legs feel like lead.

  ‘Want Daddy,’ he calls out from the darkness of the passageway.

  ‘Daddy’s not there,’ I say, lowering my voice as I reach the hallway, half expecting someone to jump out at me.

  Then I hear a noise, a low, persistent thud. I look up and see him. He’s standing at the front door, smacking his head against the frame.

  ‘Joe, don’t do that,’ I say, rushing to him. ‘You’ll hurt yourself.’

  I try to prise him from the door but he elbows me away.

  ‘Joe, please stop it, darling,’ I say, terrified that he’s going to seriously injure himself.

  ‘Want Daddy,’ he says as he stops abruptly and slumps on the floor. He looks worn out, defeated somehow.

  I crouch down next to him on the floor and stroke his cheek. His skin is soft and warm, just like it was the day he was born. I will never forget the heat that emanated from him as they placed him on my chest. It burned through my skin and in doing so brought back to life something that had been slumbering inside me for so many years. Happiness. Pure, unconditional happiness. The kind I’d had as a child, when I’d sneak into my parents’ bed and curl up behind my mother’s sleeping form. There was no safer or warmer place, as far as I was concerned. I knew that happiness had stayed inside me, waiting to be reclaimed, and as I held my newborn son in my arms that morning I could feel it flooding through my body, nourishing it from within. The rest of that day is a blur to me now, though I vaguely remember Mark telling me to ‘be careful with the baby’s head’ and his bullish mother warning me that I might find breastfeeding an awful bind so ‘it might be best to ask for a couple of bottles of formula just to be safe’. Neither of them trusted me to make my own decisions. But I was so exhausted I didn’t care. And, anyway, I knew I wouldn’t need their advice. Joe was my baby. I knew instinctively what to do. Feed him, change him, comfort him, love him. Now, looking at him with his angry face and folded arms, I feel so removed from him he might as well be a stranger. How has it come to this, that my child, my flesh and blood, is pushing me away?