The Forgotten Village

by Lorna Cook

  ‘I’ve never managed to open up to anyone I’ve ever liked,’ she continued, ‘and now, because I’m obviously so distant when it comes to anything resembling a human emotion, I just seem to push people away, instead of addressing the issue, scared of it ending in a blazing row. So it festers and then ends anyway. I don’t want to do that to you,’ she confessed. ‘I really don’t. I don’t want to push you away if there’s an issue, simply because it’s easier than having a discussion.’

  She looked up at him, expecting him to look shocked and worried as to what he’d got himself into. But he looked at her in a way no man had ever looked at her before. She had no idea what the look was or what it meant, but he nodded.

  He pulled her towards him. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For telling me that.’ He pushed her rain-soaked hair back from her face. They looked at each other through the rain and as a taxi pulled up, a couple ran out and made a mad dash towards the hotel. Guy and Melissa ignored them, remaining rooted to the spot.

  There was nowhere else she wanted to be right now but the car park, soaked to the skin in the relentless rain, with him. He kissed her and as his arms wrapped around her waist she felt all the weight and the agony of the past few hours lift from her shoulders and disappear into the atmosphere. Without realising how, the pair of them had inched gently towards his car. Their bodies were pressed together as they kissed and she felt a deep stirring within her.

  It was as if he’d realised it was happening to him too and he looked at her, his eyes heavy, his look longing. Without speaking, they held hands and made their way into the hotel and up to his room. They peeled their wet clothes from each other and left them scattered on the floor of his suite. With the rain lashing at the windows, he made love to her so differently to the night before. She couldn’t explain how, but it felt more honest, as if the two of them really knew each other now. They held on to each other for a long time afterwards and as she trailed her fingers along his smooth back, they gently drifted off to sleep.

  A short while later, Guy’s stirrings next to her woke Melissa. The duvet was in a tangle around them.

  ‘Your hair’s gone wavy,’ he said as he gently pulled a lock of her hair and watched it spring back.

  ‘It’s the rain,’ she groaned.

  ‘There is something about kissing in the rain that will tend to lead to this kind of thing.’ He gestured towards the crumpled bed sheets before leaning over and kissing her. He pulled back and looked into her eyes. ‘Thank you for allowing me to explain.’

  Melissa had no time to reply. Guy’s phone vibrated on the bedside table and he grabbed it. He made a face and stabbed at it, rejecting the call.

  ‘My publicist,’ he said. ‘Probably giving me her damage-limitation report.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Melissa said. ‘You should probably speak to her.’

  ‘I know,’ Guy nodded. ‘Just not at this moment.’

  *

  Melissa returned from her room where she’d put on dry clothes just as Guy finished dressing. He picked up his wet trousers to shake them out and hang them on the back of the chair, but something fell out of the pocket and onto the carpet. It was the brass key from Anna’s memory box. He picked it up and held it in his hand. In the other hand, his phone vibrated again. This time it was a text message. He read for a few seconds and then paraphrased.

  ‘It’s my assistant, Philippa. She’s asking me if I’ve seen the papers today.’ Guy coughed nervously. ‘Anyway, she also says she’s got copies of both Freddie and Albert’s birth certificates. She’s sending copies by email when she’s back in the office. She said it was quite easy to find Freddie when she realised that wasn’t his real name and that it was Albert’s certificate that helped her.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Melissa asked.

  ‘I have absolutely no idea whatsoever. She gets into the spirit of a mystery though, doesn’t she? We’ll have to wait for the email, but you were right about Freddie not being his real name.’

  ‘I knew it.’

  Guy walked over to the window and looked out at the incessant rain. ‘I think it’s clearing.’

  Melissa wasn’t so sure.

  He looked down thoughtfully at the key. ‘I think we should head back to Tyneham.’

  Melissa looked from Guy’s face to the key and then back again as she realised what he had in mind.

  ‘Oh no.’ Melissa covered her eyes. ‘You can’t be serious.’

  He nodded, raising an eyebrow. ‘How do you feel about a spot of breaking and entering?’

  CHAPTER 33

  Tyneham was almost deserted as the rain fell heavily. Only a few vehicles were left in the car park and as Guy and Melissa arrived, the last few tourists were making a dash back towards their cars. The inclement weather had put paid to any more visitors today.

  Guy rummaged in the boot for his large golfing umbrella and pulled it out with him, dashing round to cover both he and Melissa as she climbed out of the car. The rain lashed down around them at an almost horizontal angle and they were quickly getting soaked through.

  ‘This is biblical,’ Guy muttered.

  ‘We’re just going to have to run for it,’ Melissa replied. ‘Have you got the key?’

  Guy tapped his pocket. ‘Come on then.’ He held the umbrella over them with one hand and Melissa’s hand in his other as they broke into a run.

  By the time they arrived at the front door of Tyneham House, they were drenched. The umbrella had flipped inside out in the strong wind that was whipping up from the coast and Guy had been forced to fight it closed while they ran the remainder of the avenue.

  In the sanctuary of the large, brick and wood porch, they stood and caught their breath. Melissa wrung her hair out, thick strands of which had clung to her face and neck. She grabbed her band from her wrist and put her hair up into a high ponytail, wringing it out for a second time. She looked at Guy and laughed while she continued to catch her breath. He was shaking the water out of his own hair like a dog.

  Melissa leaned against the gothic-arched porch and the stones moved, forcing her to leap away from it and turn to look at the failing structure.

  ‘How is this place still standing?’ she asked. In a way, she was glad it was chucking it down so she’d been forced under cover. It meant there had been no time to stand in the driveway and admire the building. If there had been any thinking time, she wasn’t so sure she’d be doing this now. There was something still so desperately sad about Tyneham House. Melissa felt a strange mix of something pushing her far away from it, while at the same time she was also curiously drawn towards it. ‘Remind me why we’re doing this?’ she asked.

  Guy put his head to one side. ‘We don’t have to, you know. You asked me where my sense of adventure was. Well, here it is.’ He brandished the key. ‘Do you want to do the honours?’

  ‘No,’ she said, still making the same face. But she reached over and took the key gingerly. ‘Here goes.’

  There were two keyholes in the large, dark wood front door. One looked as if it might be original and the kind of key that would fit it was not like the one Melissa was holding. She imagined the kind of key that might fit that keyhole would be a ten-inch long wrought iron that would be so oversized that even she wouldn’t be able to lose it. The second keyhole, slightly further down the door, was a more modern addition, perhaps Victorian or Edwardian.

  As Melissa slipped the key into the hole, she was amazed that it fitted. It felt a little loose, but it slipped in easily. She tried to turn it, but it wouldn’t budge more than a millimetre or two. She tried the other direction, but still no joy.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. She’d been expecting to feel relieved, but was actually disappointed.

  Guy watched. ‘Can I try?’ he asked.

  Melissa moved aside as Guy tried to turn the key. He swore when he realised it wasn’t going to move.

  ‘It’s not the right key,’ Melissa said.


  Guy stepped back, taking the key out of the lock with one hand and running his other hand through his wet hair. He sighed and looked out of the porch as the rain continued to fall around them. ‘Well, that’s that then,’ he murmured.

  ‘I guess so,’ Melissa agreed.

  Neither of them moved for a few minutes. Melissa was waiting for the rain to slow before they headed off and she assumed Guy was doing the same.

  But he stood up straight. ‘It may not be the end of the adventure.’

  ‘No?’ Melissa was wary.

  ‘There’s a loose window panel further round the house.’ Guy raised an eyebrow suggesting mischief.

  ‘You really want to break in?’ Melissa asked. This was a side to Guy that she hadn’t seen. She liked it.

  ‘I do now, yes. We’re here, aren’t we? We aren’t going to do any damage. Just have a little look.’ He dangled the key in front of her. ‘And see if this opens anything … interesting.’

  Melissa scoffed. ‘It probably opens an old silver cabinet or a larder where they kept the tea hidden from the servants back when it cost a million pounds a spoonful.’

  Guy laughed, then pulled out his phone. ‘Damn,’ he said. ‘I forgot there was no signal down here. I was going to check to see if Philippa had emailed. See what Freddie’s birthdate is so we can track him down. We’ll just have to look later. That will be something fun to do while we dry out at the hotel.’

  Melissa wasn’t sure Guy’s idea of fun and hers were completely the same.

  He put his phone away, looked at her and smiled. ‘So, are we doing this then?’

  Melissa thought for a moment and then groaned. ‘Oh God, all right then.’

  Guy propped his umbrella into the recess of the porch and looked around in case they were spotted. But there were very few tourists remaining in the village and the guides were presumably all busy in the church and the school, staying dry.

  They reached the side of the house, where Guy remembered the loose panel had been.

  ‘What are you looking out for?’ Melissa asked. ‘Afraid of getting caught?’

  ‘Of course.’ Guy laughed. ‘However,’ he said, locating the panel board in question, ‘as of this morning, my public reputation is now that of a total bad boy so why not add breaking in to Ministry of Defence property to my charge sheet?’

  Melissa laughed nervously. What kind of sentence did breaking in to MOD property carry? She wasn’t keen on the idea of going to prison.

  Guy pulled up the ‘Danger, Keep Out’ board. The nails were missing from the bottom left-hand corner and those that remained were loose, so the board had some give in it when Guy lifted it up.

  ‘I’ll hold it while you climb through first,’ he said.

  Melissa peered inside. It was pitch-black. All the other boards were doing their job of keeping the window areas tightly shut. The glass was missing, however, and the interior stank of damp. She took her phone out of her pocket and put the torch function on, shining it inside, but she had no time to assess before climbing in.

  ‘I don’t mean to hurry you, but this is not easy to hold up.’ Guy’s voice was strained.

  Melissa shoved one end of her phone between her teeth, leaving the torch-end shining into the house as she climbed in. Small shards of glass stuck up on the window pane and she avoided them as best as she could, kicking one dangerously sharp-looking piece out of the pane altogether to avoid either of them slicing their hands.

  She leapt down on to the floor and felt the crunch of broken glass underneath her feet where the window had given in some time ago. The board was heavy, but Melissa pushed it out from the inside as hard as she could so that Guy could climb in.

  When both were inside Tyneham House, they held their phones out, shining the torchlights around the room. It was a pathetic attempt to brighten a large, pitch-black space. Melissa looked down at the broken glass and wished she wasn’t wearing sandals now. Her toes were dangerously close to the shards, where almost all the windows had given in over time.

  ‘Be careful.’ Guy shone his phone torch down.

  ‘The wood must have warped in the panes, smashing the glass out,’ Melissa said.

  She was expecting a repeat of the devastation of the beach hut but reminded herself that kids with spray cans were unlikely to have been able to get into the village over the years, let alone the house. The village had only just been reopened and before that it was under heavy guard to protect citizens from being shelled on the gunnery ranges. She still kept an eye on the floor for needles as she walked. Just in case.

  Melissa tried to remember the photographic boards in the church – one of which had shown the layout of the house. But it was hard to make sense of her surroundings in the dark. The room they were in was empty of furniture, giving no hint of what its purpose had once been. ‘Where are we?’ she asked.

  ‘It looks like a sitting room or a dining room perhaps? The wood panelling is exquisite,’ Guy replied. He started to move off to take a closer look, then turned back to take Melissa’s hand. ‘We don’t want to lose each other in this place,’ he said.

  Every move they made echoed around the empty room. The wooden floor looked relatively intact and as she shone her torch upward Melissa was surprised to see the ornate plasterwork ceiling still held the ceiling roses and intricate details. Bits had crumbled to the floor over the years, but the majority was intact. She looked up at it until her neck started to hurt.

  Guy whistled. ‘That’s beautiful.’ He squeezed her hand.

  ‘Let’s see what else there is,’ she said.

  The door that led off to the entrance hall was wide open and they cast their lights around the hallway. Like the first room they’d been in, the floor was thick with dust. Melissa smoothed some away with her shoe to expose large black and white tiles. She looked up to see that Guy had moved a short distance away, shining light onto the large fireplace. Melissa could imagine a huge mirror hanging above the stone surround, but now there was nothing but flaking paint on the walls. The fire and grate had survived decades of abandonment. Above her, in the centre of the hallway, an ornate chandelier was heavy with cobwebs. Melissa shuddered. There was something about this house that Melissa couldn’t quite put her finger on.

  The stairs at the end looked more inviting, holding promises of treasures upstairs. Melissa touched the bannisters. Underneath the dust was smooth mahogany. The feeling of desolation struck her again. She thought of the elusive Veronica. Where did you go? Veronica would have touched this as she moved on the stairs. So would her husband – Melissa wasn’t so keen on that thought.

  Behind them, the door to the first room creaked as it slowly started to close, stopping just shy of the door catch. A chill went through Melissa and her eyes widened. Guy spun round from his position by the fireplace to look.

  ‘It’s just the wind,’ Guy broke the silence. ‘It’s blowing a gale out there.’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ Melissa said, unconvinced.

  They climbed the stairs, which were sturdier than Melissa had thought they were going to be, and went to look in some of the upstairs rooms. Most of the rooms housed the same panelling as those downstairs. Where once there had probably been rugs and carpets, there were now only the exposed floorboards. Doors that were sticking, Guy shouldered open, taking care not to break them off the hinges. But there was nothing exciting in any of the bedrooms.

  Melissa fell in love with an en suite bathroom that housed a claw-footed cast-iron bath. The thin marble tiles that lined the floor and walls made the room feel even colder than the rest of the house and were in stark contrast to the dark mahogany that lined almost every other room.

  The middle floor held no other riches and at the end of the long corridor a small door led to the servants’ staircase.

  ‘I still haven’t asked Gran if she lived in or if she travelled in daily,’ Guy said.

  ‘Shall we go up?’ Melissa looked up the stairs.

  Guy might have nodded, but in the dark
ness Melissa could barely see.

  ‘I take it that’s a yes?’ Melissa laughed as he started up the stairs.

  When they reached the top of the stairs and entered the servants’ landing, fragments of light were cast onto the corridor from some of the open doors where the MOD hadn’t bothered to place window boards this high up. The corridor was narrow as they reached the top and ran through the middle of the house, with rooms shooting off either side.

  Even with the marginal daylight, they kept their torches on. Where there should have been summer sun filtering through the windows at this time of day, there was only black cloud and the relentless clattering of rain on the gabled roof outside. The initial excitement had worn off and now all Melissa felt was cold. She and Guy wandered in and out of rooms, finding nothing of interest until they came to the room on the far end of the corridor. With a bit of effort, Guy shouldered it open and said ‘Wow’ as the door banged into the wall behind it.

  ‘This must be the luggage room,’ he said. Stacks of leather suitcases, old dressmakers’ dummies, a gramophone, school travelling trunks and various other detritus of days gone by met their eyes. In the corner, various cricketing paraphernalia including kneepads and moth-eaten jumpers were discarded on the floor. Guy picked up one of the cricketing jumpers and as he did so they both jumped as a door slammed downstairs.

  CHAPTER 34

  Melissa said a very unladylike word.

  ‘It’s still the wind,’ Guy said, replacing the dusty kneepads. But Melissa could see the unflappable Guy Cameron was now slightly on edge.

  ‘Okay.’ Melissa wasn’t at all sure it was the wind. ‘I wonder if we should leave?’

  Guy reached for her hand. ‘Getting spooked?’

  ‘A little bit.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Don’t say that. I’m relying on you to be the strong one.’

  Guy laughed. ‘Why did I suggest we do this? Let’s just peer around the kitchen and then make ourselves scarce. I doubt there’s much more to see, but the old Victorian range cooker will probably be there still.’