The House on the Lake

by Nuala Ellwood

  She sits down on the opposite sofa and pours a cup of coffee for us both. I try not to stare at her eyes as I take the cup from her. The strange thing is that she seems completely unaware of what she looks like. Part of me wants to tell her that her mascara is smudged but I feel I don’t know her well enough to do that so instead I sip my coffee and pretend not to notice.

  ‘You’ve got a beautiful house, Isobel,’ I say, gesturing to the room. ‘It must take some looking after.’

  ‘It is a beautiful house but it’s not mine,’ says Isobel. ‘It’s my father’s place. Though I’ve lived here all my life. My mother died when I was young and … well, Dad’s quite frail and he needs me.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say. I try to focus on what she’s saying but I can’t stop looking at her face. It’s so pale she’s almost translucent.

  She goes to speak but is interrupted by a sharp voice calling her name.

  ‘Isobel. Is that you, Isobel?’

  It’s the vicar. I jump from my seat.

  ‘I have to go,’ I say, unplugging my phone and throwing it into my bag.

  ‘Don’t be silly. You can’t dash off yet. Your phone’s not fully charged,’ she says, getting up slowly from the sofa. ‘I’ll just go and check on him.’

  ‘Honestly, Isobel, I should go,’ I say, feeling nervous now. ‘He told me he didn’t want me here.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ she says, her face serene. ‘Listen, how about we go for a proper drink at the Golden Lion?’

  Every part of me knows I should say no, that going to the pub is a bad idea. But the thought of returning to the house with just Joe for company makes me feel ill. I need some adult company, some light-hearted conversation.

  ‘Okay,’ I say, smiling. ‘That would be lovely.’

  ‘Excellent,’ she says. ‘I’ll just see if Dad’s okay. I won’t be a minute.’

  She walks out and I stand up and head into the playroom where I’m met with a scene from every child’s dream. There are floor-to-ceiling bookshelves stacked with books of all shapes and sizes, teddy bears and wooden building blocks scattered around the floor, and in the corner, in pride of place, stands the most beautiful doll’s house I have ever seen. It has a pointed red roof and perfectly symmetrical windows; a shiny black door with ivy creeping round the top. And then I realize. It’s a recreation of this house, the vicarage. It must have been a present for Isobel when she was a child. What an amazing thing to be given. Your own house in miniature, your own life in doll form.

  Then I hear chattering. I look round the back of the house and see Joe lying on his front. The back is opened up and there are a series of exquisitely decorated rooms. I recognize the living room, with its Chesterfield sofas and oak table. The bedrooms all have four-poster beds with embroidered silk curtains in blues and greens and pinks. I look down at Joe. He’s holding a dark-haired doll in his hands.

  ‘Now, dolly, find your friend,’ he says, taking the doll and leading her up a flight of wooden steps. ‘Dolly’s sad.’

  He pushes the doll through an arched doorway and into a tiny bedroom where a blonde-haired doll in a long white dress is sitting on a wooden chair.

  ‘There,’ says Joe, grabbing both dolls. ‘Dollies have cuddles now.’

  ‘Ah, you’ve found it.’

  I turn round and see Isobel standing at the door. She’s reapplied her make-up and is wearing a more casual outfit of jeans and a black woollen sweater.

  ‘Do you want to help me tuck the girls up in bed, Joe?’ she says.

  Joe nods his head as Isobel comes towards him.

  ‘This dolly go to bed,’ he says, handing her the dark-haired doll. ‘She tired.’

  ‘Okay,’ says Isobel, taking the doll and putting her in the bed with the blue curtains. ‘That’s it, Grace. You go to sleep now.’

  She closes the back of the doll’s house and looks up at me.

  ‘Right. Let’s go to the pub, eh?’

  20

  Soldier Number 1

  Rowan Isle House, 23 September 2004

  I’ve never felt so scared as I have these last few days. Even now it’s over and I’m back in my bedroom with my journal my hands still shake when I think of it.

  I remember waking up in a dark room, as dark as I imagine the bottom of the lake to be; a place where nothing can live or grow, where no light can get in. And it was hot, so hot that I was wet all over with sweat. The darkness and heat made me feel dizzy, like I was spinning in the air above myself. After a few minutes I started to feel a terrible ache in the back of my head. When I put my hand to it I had felt a lump, the size of an egg, though I had no idea what happened. Maybe I’d fallen. That must have been it. When Sarge came into my room while I was writing I must have got such a shock that I fell over, hit my head on the ground and knocked myself out. That’s the only explanation because he can’t have hurt me. Not Sarge. Anyway, keep writing. Keep writing it down. That’s what I need to do. It might not make any sense but just feeling the pen scratching at the paper is making me feel better.

  So where was I? Woke up. Lump the size of an egg. That was it, I woke up with a terrible pain in my head and saw that I was lying in the middle of the floor in this strange room. After a while the darkness lifted and sunlight came pouring in. It seemed to be coming from above me, though when I looked up I couldn’t see a window. The ceiling was very high and there was a thick ledge running all the way round the top of the walls. The window must have been hidden behind the ledge. That’s what I reckoned.

  I thought I was alone cos it was so quiet but then, as I came to, I saw Sarge. He was sitting on the floor in the corner of the room with his knees pulled up to his chest. I noticed he had his army uniform on, his proper one, the one he keeps in a special bag hanging up in his cupboard. I’d never seen him wearing it before. I wanted to ask him why he had it on but before I got the chance he stood up and came towards me.

  ‘You know why you’re here, don’t you, girl?’ he said. He put his hands on his hips and kind of spat out the word ‘girl’ like it was a dirty word, which in a way it was because only a few hours earlier I’d been Number 1, a soldier, one of the elite. Now I was nothing but a girl.

  At that point I had no idea why he’d brought me here so I shook my head in answer to his question. When I did that he laughed but it wasn’t a funny laugh because his eyes were cold.

  ‘You have been brought here because you have committed a serious transgression,’ he said. ‘What do you have to say for yourself?’

  I realized that he was talking about Isobel again and I knew that I should apologize for swimming in the lake with her, tell him what he wanted to hear, but I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t betray Isobel like that, say that she wasn’t important to me, because she was. She is. So I just sat there and said nothing.

  Then Sarge put his head down and made this weird humming noise that went on for several minutes. It got louder and louder then he stopped and looked up at me. ‘Well, your silence speaks volumes,’ he said. ‘So I’m afraid you’ve left me no choice.’

  He stared at me for a few moments then his eyes softened and he looked sad, sadder than I’d ever seen him before. He carried on staring at me, like he was willing me to speak. But I couldn’t. My throat was so dry and tight that even if I’d wanted to I wouldn’t have been able to get the words out.

  Then, keeping his eyes on me, he stood up and said: ‘Interview terminated at sixteen hundred hours. You fool. You stupid little fool. You have no idea what you’ve just done.’

  He whispered the last bit and shook his head. Then he turned and walked towards the door. When he got to it he looked up at the ceiling and muttered, ‘Forgive me.’

  I don’t think he was talking to me because he never looked back at me and I wondered if he was hearing the voices, whether they had got inside his head again. I didn’t know and I couldn’t ask him because after that he opened the door, stepped outside and locked it behind him.

  21

  Lisa


  The pub is empty when we arrive save for a couple of elderly men standing at the bar nursing pints of the local ale and grimacing at the Christmas hits medley playing in the background. It feels strange to be in a pub, to be anywhere halfway normal, anywhere that isn’t the house. I’ve been there barely two days and already I feel like it’s the only world that exists. I can smell it on me as Isobel leads us to a table by the window; a mix of dead animal, damp and something else, something bad. I try not to think about it as we take our seats but the smell remains lodged in my nose.

  ‘Right, what will you have to drink?’ asks Isobel, clapping her hands together. The noise makes Joe look up. When he sees it’s Isobel making it, he smiles.

  ‘’Gain,’ he says, clapping his own hands together. ‘Do it ’gain.’

  Isobel does as he asks once, twice, three times, then gives up and tells him she’ll die of thirst if she goes on clapping. This makes Joe laugh even more. He’s taken a real shine to her. I should be happy that Joe is finally relaxing but why can’t it be me who makes him smile instead of this stranger?

  ‘So, what are we having?’ says Isobel, standing up and pushing her blonde hair behind her ears.

  ‘I’ll just have a Diet Coke,’ I say. ‘And Joe will have an orange juice, please.’

  ‘Can I not tempt you with something a little stronger?’ says Isobel, wrinkling her nose. ‘It is Christmas after all. Or at least it will be soon.’

  ‘Okay,’ I say, relaxing a little. ‘I’ll have a white wine. A small one.’

  ‘Great,’ she says with a smile. ‘And would Mr Joe like some crisps?’

  ‘Cripps,’ cries Joes, clapping his hands together again, all memory of Mark and his rigid dietary rules evaporating. ‘Cheesnunion.’

  ‘Cheesnunion, good choice,’ says Isobel. ‘They’re my favourites too. Right, won’t be a sec.’

  I watch her as she walks over to the bar. She looks elegant, even in just casual jeans and sweater. Strange to think that less than an hour or so ago she was standing in the street in an ill-fitting dress and smudged make-up. But then she hadn’t been expecting us and, anyway, I’m not really in a position to talk. I look down at my creased clothes, the smell of damp rising off them, and try to imagine what Mark would say if he saw me. ‘Jesus, Lisa. Ever heard of an iron?’

  I feel his eyes on me as I sit in this unfamiliar place, judging me, waiting for me to slip up. I look at Joe as the opening bars of ‘Merry Christmas Everybody’ strike up and I remember Mark’s face bearing down on me as I desperately tried to untangle the fairy lights to put on to the Christmas tree, remember what I’m running from. A bit of damp and a weird house is a small price to pay for freedom, surely?

  ‘Do you like this song?’ I say, tapping my fingers on the table and singing along with Noddy Holder. Joe scowls at me. I obviously don’t have Isobel’s touch.

  ‘Nice rendition.’

  I look up. The man we met in the shop the other day is standing holding a tray with our drinks on. There’s no sign of Isobel.

  ‘I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced,’ he says, setting the tray down on the table and handing Joe his crisps. ‘I’m Jimmy. I run this place.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say, just wanting him to go away. ‘Nice to meet you properly. It’s a lovely pub you’ve got here.’

  ‘Don’t lie,’ he says, his top lip curling into a smirk. ‘It’s a bog-standard Yorkshire boozer. Bet you’re used to more classy affairs where you come from. Where did you say that was again?’

  ‘She didn’t,’ says Isobel, squeezing past him to get to her seat. ‘Now, Jimmy, what did I tell you about badgering newbies? Lisa’s just come out for a quiet drink.’

  ‘Sorry, I’m being nosy,’ he says, his eyes still firmly on me. ‘But you’d tell me if you minded, wouldn’t you?’

  I take a sip of my drink, ignoring his question.

  ‘Isobel tells me you’re staying up at Rowan Isle,’ he says, leaning forward so that I can smell the peppermint on his breath.

  ‘That’s right,’ I say, gulping down my words.

  ‘For a holiday?’ he says, his voice incredulous.

  ‘Er, yes,’ I say, my voice trembling.

  I feel like I’m back with Mark, being tested and found wanting.

  ‘Strange time of year to take a holiday,’ he says. ‘Especially with a little ’un. You staying for Christmas, I take it?’

  ‘I … well, I’m not sure,’ I say, my chest tightening. ‘I haven’t really … we’ll have to see.’

  ‘Come on, Jimmy,’ says Isobel, noticing my shaking hands. ‘That’s enough questioning, eh?’

  ‘Forgive me,’ he says, holding his hands in the air. ‘Like I said, I’m a nosy beggar. But I must say, I don’t blame you for being on edge. I’d be the same if I had to stay in that house after everything that went on there.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I say, putting my drink down.

  ‘Jimmy,’ says Isobel sternly. ‘Enough, eh?’

  She gestures to Joe, who is sitting on the banquette next to me, munching his crisps.

  ‘Hey, Joe,’ she says, holding out her hand towards him. ‘Would you like to meet Big Tom?’

  Joe shakes his head and Isobel pulls a face of mock horror.

  ‘You don’t want to meet Big Tom?’ she says, her eyes widening. ‘The lovely marmalade cat? He’s just over there by the fire keeping warm but I know he would love to have a cuddle from you.’

  ‘Pusscat,’ says Joe, jumping up from his seat and sending the crisps flying. ‘Go see pusscat.’

  ‘Okay, darling,’ I say. I go to stand but Isobel has already swooped him up.

  ‘I’ll take him,’ she says. ‘You stay there and enjoy the peace.’

  I smile, hearing Joe’s excited chattering as they walk towards the fire.

  ‘Not a big drinker, eh?’ says Jimmy, gesturing to the glass of wine I’ve barely touched.

  ‘Not really, no,’ I say.

  I glance across at the fire where Joe is sitting on a stool with a fat ginger tom perched on his knee. Isobel leans forward to tickle the cat’s chin and Joe lets out a squeal of contented laughter.

  ‘Well, that’s certainly a rarity around here,’ says Jimmy with a smile. ‘Not that I’m complaining cos if this lot didn’t like their drink I’d be out of a job.’ He gestures to the room. It’s got busier since we arrived and the young barmaid is looking frazzled as a group of elderly men bark their drinks orders at her.

  ‘So, where were we?’ says Jimmy, seemingly oblivious to the chaos ensuing behind him.

  ‘You were telling me about the house,’ I say. ‘About something that happened there.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ he says, folding his arms and leaning forward. ‘Well, I don’t like to alarm you but Rowan Isle House has a dark history. So dark that it’s known locally as the House of Horrors.’

  I look at him, try to read his face for a sign that he is joking, but his expression is deadly serious.

  ‘What happened?’ I say, shivering as the door opens and a gust of freezing air drifts in along with a middle-aged couple in puffa jackets and hiking boots. I keep my head lowered, glad we’re tucked away in a corner.

  ‘A bloke got murdered,’ he says, lowering his voice.

  My mouth goes dry as he tells me how this man, an ex-soldier, had moved to Rowan Isle House with his young daughter in the early nineties.

  ‘He’d fought in the first Gulf War,’ he says, drumming his fingers on the table. ‘High ranking, so they say, maybe even SAS. But he’d lost his mind. Isobel says how he was known locally as a madman on account of him wandering into the village and waving his gun around. Nowadays I guess he’d be diagnosed with PTSD but back then he was just the local nut job.’

  I look down at the table, memories of that room and her gentle voice swirling round my head. Then I recall the name the others had for her: the nut job. But she was my friend. Why had she not told me about this? About her past?

  ‘The girl was troubled,’ h
e says, raising his eyebrows to emphasize the point. ‘Feral even, some might say. The father had kept her holed up in that house, wouldn’t let her mix with other kids. She was basically a prisoner.’

  The word slices into my spine as thoughts of a darkened room and a feral girl lying on a bare bed, shouting expletives to the ceiling, creep unbidden into my head. Stop, Lisa, I tell myself, don’t let them in, whatever you do, don’t let those thoughts in.

  ‘Anyway, one night, just before Christmas, the girl snapped,’ says Jimmy. He clicks his fingers and the noise makes me jump.

  ‘Snapped?’ I say, trying my very best to remain calm. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She killed him,’ says Jimmy, his voice deadpan. ‘Guess she must have had enough of it all. Apparently, the police found her shut up in a room in the house, muttering away to herself about how she’d shot him. His body was never recovered but police found his blood soaked into the snow in the woods and it was all over her clothes too. People say when they brought her out of that house she didn’t look human. She looked like some kind of rabid animal.’

  ‘What … what happened to her?’ I ask, though I already know the answer.

  ‘The girl?’ says Jimmy, drumming his fingers on the table again. ‘She confessed to killing her father and ended up in some place for young offenders. After they took her away, they shut up that house and no one ever set foot in it again until you turned up a few days ago. Mind, some of the kids from the village go up there for a dare on Halloween to scare themselves shitless. And there’ve been “sightings” of the madman over the years too. Some say he haunts the crag above the house, others say they’ve seen his shadow in the window of the house. It’s all nonsense though, daft small-village banter designed to put the frighteners on people. Nothing for you to worry about.’

  He looks at me as though expecting me to respond but I’m distracted by the sound of a woman screaming. I jump, staring wildly around the room, but nobody else seems to be hearing it. It’s then I realize that the screaming is coming from inside my head. I’ve returned to that room, that dark place. Beside me, Jimmy starts to tell me about the party he’s planning for New Year’s Eve but his voice is drowned out by hers and I’m back there, lying on the bed, hearing her scream over and over again.