The House on Cold Hill

by James, Peter

  He kissed her neck. ‘You.’

  She turned to face him. ‘That was the right answer!’

  As they went back downstairs, Caro said, ‘It’s such a beautiful evening, let’s take a walk down to the lake and see the ducks. I was talking to one of the partners who lives out in the country and has ducks on his lake. He said the way to encourage them to stay is to feed them – at least once every day. He keeps an old metal milk churn at the edge with duck food pellets that float. He’s given me the name of the stuff to get and a place you can order from online. He said if we throw them a few scoops of food every day we’ll soon have a large colony in residence.’

  ‘Milk churn?’

  ‘It stops rats getting the food. You can find them on the internet, apparently.’

  ‘Great, I’ll have a look tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll go and put some jeans on.’

  Whilst she did so, Ollie unplugged his clock radio alarm, took it up to the attic room, and reset it.

  Ten minutes later, holding hands and wearing wellies, Ollie and Caro walked up to the edge of the lake. A solitary coot paddled coyly away from them, its head nodding like a clockwork toy, towards the little island in the middle. A pair of mallards eyed them warily and also moved away, to the far side of the lake.

  They walked around, behind tall reeds, then stopped and stared over the wooden rail and post fence at the overgrown paddock, and at the hill rising steeply beyond.

  ‘This would be ideal for Jade’s pony,’ Caro said. ‘But if we got one, we’d need to put up a stable.’

  ‘She seems more into dogs at the moment – a labradoodle,’ Ollie said. ‘She’s not mentioned a pony since we came here.’

  ‘She asked me to book her a lesson for this Saturday. There’s a good riding school, apparently, at Clayton – I’m going to see if they can fit her in. I hope she takes to it again – she’s not ridden in a while.’ She shrugged. ‘I was madly into ponies – until I started dating, then I lost all interest. Do you think that’s what’s happened with her?’

  ‘I don’t think her seeing Ruari is exactly dating,’ Ollie said. ‘Going for milkshakes in the afternoon is more a kind of play dating.’

  ‘I hope so. I don’t want her to lose her innocence too soon. She’s a happy soul.’

  ‘And boyfriends make you unhappy?’ he said with a quizzical smile.

  ‘God, I remember teenage angst over boys.’

  Ollie nodded. ‘Yep, same over girls.’

  Above them a flock of migrating swallows were heading south, passing high over the roof of the house. Heading to the sun. How nice that would be right now, Ollie thought, envying them the simplicity of their lives.

  Caro stared at the house. ‘Strange just how different the front and rear look.’

  He nodded. Compared to the handsome front, with its finely proportioned windows, the back of the house really was a mishmash. It seemed even more so than when he had last looked at it: partly red brick and partly grey rendering, with windows of different sizes seemingly placed here and there at random, and with an ugly single-storey garage block and assortment of dilapidated outbuildings, some brick, some breeze block and some wooden.

  Caro pointed with her finger. ‘I still haven’t got the hang of the geography. Over to the left, those two windows are the scullery and that’s the scullery door. Then the two kitchen windows and the door into the atrium, and the dining room windows to the right.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Going left to right on the first floor is Jade’s bedroom. Then the two back spare bedrooms, then our room at the right?’

  Ollie nodded.

  Then she pointed up at the row of dormers. ‘That one – that’s where we’re sleeping tonight, right?’

  Ollie did a calculation. ‘It is.’

  ‘Then the three to the left?’

  ‘They’re the other side of the loft space. You get to them via the staircase next to Jade’s room. I think they’re all part of the old servants’ quarters. I’ll check.’

  ‘Incredible to be living in a house where we can’t even remember all the rooms!’

  He grinned. ‘Just think how beautiful this place is going to look in a few years’ time when we’ve finished all the restoration!’

  She smiled, then said a hesitant, ‘Yes.’

  ‘You sound dubious?’

  She shrugged. ‘No – it’s just – it – it’s all still so daunting. I hope we haven’t taken on too much.’

  ‘We haven’t! In a couple of years we’ll be laughing that we even worried about it.’

  ‘I hope you’re right, darling.’

  ‘I’m right, trust me.’

  She gave him a strange look and grimaced.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Tell me?’

  ‘Nothing. You’re right. And we don’t have much option, do we?’

  ‘We could move.’

  ‘With our mortgage? The vendors had dropped the price three times because no one was mad enough to take it on. I don’t think we’d find a buyer very easily at all. Not until we have improved it one hell of a lot. So we don’t have an option. We’re here and we’ve just got to get on with it.’ Again she gave him a strange look and shrugged.

  ‘Don’t you love it, though, darling?’

  ‘Ask me in five years’ time,’ she replied.

  27

  Wednesday, 16 September

  Caro prepared a simple supper for the three of them, of baked potato with tuna. She made her own version of a tuna salad filling with chopped spring onions and capers, which Ollie particularly loved – and always felt to be a healthy meal.

  Ollie’s rule – that Caro totally agreed with – was that they turned the television off for meals and talked. They both made a particular effort to instil that in Jade.

  ‘So,’ Ollie said, ‘tell your mum and me a bit about your new friend, Charlie?’

  ‘New friend, darling?’ Caro said.

  Jade nodded thoughtfully, as she mixed some tuna into her potato. ‘I don’t know if she’ll be a best friend yet, but she’s nice.’

  ‘Did she just join the school, too?’

  ‘Yes. Quite a lot of them have been there since they were eleven, so they can be a little bit cliquey.’

  ‘Do you want to invite her to your party?’

  ‘Well, I think so. There’s another girl I might ask also, called Holly.’

  Ollie and Caro caught each other’s eye and smiled. This was a good sign that she was making new friends.

  Afterwards, Jade went up to her room, and Ollie and Caro sat in front of the television, with a glass of white wine, watching an episode of Breaking Bad from the box set he had given her last Christmas – they were still less than halfway through the second season. Caro joked that they’d still be watching it well into their old age.

  After the episode had finished, Caro stood up, yawning, then walked round the house on her obsessive tour of inspection, exactly as she had done when they lived in the city. She couldn’t sleep until she had checked that every door and downstairs window was secure. Then she went round for a second time, double-checking. Ollie let her get on with it. He knew from past experience that otherwise she would wake in the middle of the night in a panic and go downstairs to start checking.

  Tonight he joined her, wanting to make sure none of the workmen had left any dangerous electrics on that might cause a fire. There was no sign of improvement in any room so far – wherever the workmen were at the moment looked in a considerably worse state than when they had moved in. They were still at the ripping out and stripping down stage.

  ‘I bloody love you!’ Ollie said, as they reached the top of the stairs to the attic bedroom, sliding his hands round Caro’s waist.

  She turned towards him. ‘And I bloody love you, too!’

  They kissed. Then kissed again, charged with sudden deep passion. He pushed her T-shirt up her back, then slid his fingers down inside the rear of her jeans. />
  ‘Did I ever tell you that you have the most beautiful bum in the world?’ he whispered.

  ‘No, Mr Harcourt,’ she said, busily unzipping him. ‘No, Mr Harcourt, I don’t believe you did.’

  He worked his hands around her front, then slowly down inside her thighs. As he did so she unbuckled his belt, popped the stud fastener of his trousers and pulled them down, sharply. Then his boxer shorts. She knelt in front of him and cupped him in her cool hands.

  He gasped, delicious sensations rippling through him. Then he helped her back to her feet, tugged at the zip of her jeans, pulled them down, too, then her lacy underwear. They staggered through the bedroom door, in a clumsy manoeuvre that was part embrace, part dance, tripping over their trousers, then he eased her backwards on to the bed.

  Afterwards, lying on top of her in the dark of the room, lit only by the weak yellow glow from the bare bulb hanging over the staircase, he grinned. ‘Hmmmn, I quite like this bed.’

  ‘It’s not shit, is it?’ she grinned back.

  Ten minutes later, their teeth brushed and clothes discarded, they fell asleep, comfortably and happily spooned. ‘I love you, babes,’ Ollie whispered.

  She murmured back, contentedly.

  He woke from a nightmare some while later, his entire body pounding, disorientated. Where the hell was he? Something dark, undefined, a terrible dark dread, engulfed him. Then he had the sensation that the bed was moving. Jigging, very slightly. An intense pressure was pinning him to the mattress. It was as if the air had suddenly become leadenly heavy and was pressing down on him, crushing him, smothering him.

  He tossed his head wildly from left to right in panic, unable to breathe. Terror spiralled through him. He fought to breathe. Sucking through his mouth, his nostrils. It was as if he was breathing in cloying soot.

  Then everything was fine. He could breathe normally again. Beside him he heard the steady rhythm of Caro breathing. His heart hammering, he rolled over and looked down at the clock radio he had placed on the floor last night.

  00.00.

  He stared at the flashing green digits. That happened when there was a power cut. Were they having one now – or had there been one earlier?

  Then something moved.

  There was someone in the room.

  Jade?

  A shadow moved beside him. Shit. Oh shit. Someone was standing over the bed, looking down.

  He began to shiver. Was it an intruder? A burglar?

  The shadow moved a fraction.

  Caro, beside him, did not stir.

  He clenched his fists, thinking, his heart hammering even more now, as if it was trying to break out of his chest.

  Then a small boy’s voice rang out, shrill and crystal clear and excited. ‘Are we nearly there yet?’

  The voice sounded like it was coming from the end of the bed.

  Then a small girl’s voice, equally shrill. ‘Are there dead people in there, Mum?’

  Ollie listened, paralysed by fear. He was dreaming, he had to be.

  Then he heard a blood-curdling cry of shock and pain, then screams.

  Moments later a man with stark raw terror in his voice howled, ‘Oh Jesus!’

  Suddenly, Ollie could smell cigar smoke. Not a faint whiff carried on the night breeze from a distant dwelling, but the thick pungent smell of someone smoking a cigar inside this house. Inside this room.

  The figure still stood beside the bed, moving a fraction, just enough for Ollie to be certain it was a person and not the shadow of a piece of furniture.

  Then he saw a small ring of glowing red, right above him.

  It was this man by the bed who was smoking a cigar.

  Who are you? Who are you? WHO ARE YOU? WHAT DO YOU WANT? Ollie tried to scream, but the words were trapped in his gullet.

  An Arctic gust of fear ripped through him. Christ. Oh Christ.

  Then the bed began to rock.

  ‘Ols? Ols? Ollie?’

  Caro’s voice, gentle, anxious.

  ‘Ols? Ols, darling? You’re having a nightmare. You’re screaming. Ssshhh, darling, you’ll wake Jade.’

  He opened his eyes, bewildered, feeling Caro’s warm breath on his face. His whole body was pounding, and he was shaking. The bedclothes felt sodden with perspiration. ‘I’m sorry,’ he gasped. ‘I’m sorry, darling. I had a – horrible – horrible—’

  ‘Go back to sleep.’ She stroked his face tenderly.

  He lay for some moments breathing deeply, too scared to close his eyes in case he returned to the dream. His whole body felt heavy, as if gravity was pulling him down deep into the mattress.

  Slowly he felt himself drifting away. Lying on a raft on an ocean with Caro beside him, beneath clear blue sky and the yellow disc of the sun. ‘So many windows, so many.’

  ‘Lots.’

  She was pointing up at the sky. ‘So many to count.’

  The raft began to rock in the gentle swell. Then the sky darkened and the swell deepened, pitching them up and down, rocking the raft so much they were struggling to cling to it.

  Peep . . . peep . . . peep . . .

  The alarm was sounding. He opened his eyes, sleepily, blinking. The room was filled with early-morning light. But something was wrong. Where was he? Of course, it was coming back to him now. Of course, in the attic bedroom. But even so, something else was wrong.

  Peep . . . peep . . . peep . . .

  He suddenly remembered that there had been a power cut in the night, hadn’t there? Zeroing the dials on the clock? Shit, what was the time? He reached a hand down to the clock to hit the snooze button, to give him another ten minutes of sleep, but all it hit was the wall. Frowning, he realized he was lying right beside the wall. The concentric circle pattern of the stained Anaglypta wallpaper was inches in front of his eyes.

  Where the hell was his clock radio?

  Still befuddled by sleep, he remembered the figure standing by the bed, in his dream. Smoking a cigar.

  Had they been burgled in their sleep?

  Then he heard Caro’s voice, sounding very disturbed.

  ‘Ollie?’

  ‘Yurrr.’

  ‘Ollie. What – what – what the hell’s happened?’

  ‘Wasshappened?’ he said.

  ‘Shit!’ she said. ‘Shit, shit, shit!’ She dug a finger hard into his back.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look!’ There was real terror in her voice.

  ‘Look at what?’

  ‘Look out of the sodding window!’

  He stared at the end of the bed, where the window was. Except there was no window.

  Slowly, dimly, his memory put things into order. They were up in the attic because their bedroom ceiling had collapsed from the flooding. The window, which had no curtains, had been just beyond the foot of the bed when they had gone to sleep.

  Now all he could see instead was the wall to the landing, and the closed door beside it.

  He frowned.

  The memory was returning. They’d made love with a crazy, urgent passion, last night. Had they slept at the wrong end of the bed?

  He sat up with a start and cracked his head against two upright bars of the iron bedstead.

  ‘Ollie,’ Caro said, her voice trembling. ‘Ollie, what the hell’s happened?’

  Clarity was returning. A terrible clarity. And with it the realization.

  The bed.

  The bed had moved during the night.

  It had rotated one hundred and eighty degrees.

  28

  Thursday, 17 September

  Shaking, Ollie and Caro stood, naked, beside the bed.

  ‘Are we going mad?’ she said.

  He lifted each corner of the mattress in turn and stared down at the corroded nuts securing the frame to the legs. He tried to turn each one with his fingers but none of the four of them would budge.

  ‘It’s just not possible, Ollie,’ she said. ‘It’s not possible.’

  He could hear the tremor of terror in her voice. He
looked up at the ceiling, around at the walls, then up again, his brain a vortex of confused thoughts. ‘Are we sodding dreaming?’

  ‘No, no, we are very definitely not dreaming.’

  The clock radio was on the floor, where he had left it last night. The dial said 6.42 a.m. Somehow it had reset itself. The room seemed to tilt sideways, suddenly, and he had to steady himself against the side of the bed to prevent himself from falling over. He looked at his wife, her eyes wide, her face pale with confusion and fear, then he pulled on his jeans and T-shirt.

  ‘I’ll be back in a sec.’

  He opened the door.

  ‘I’m not staying in this room alone, wait for me.’ She tugged on her jeans and sweatshirt, and followed him as he padded, barefoot, down the narrow wooden treads of the steep staircase.

  ‘Go and make sure Jade’s awake, darling,’ he said, as they reached the first-floor landing.

  She nodded and headed, as if in a trance, along towards Jade’s room.

  Ollie went down into the atrium and hurried through the kitchen to the scullery, where he kept his toolbox. Then he lugged it back up to the attic, took out an adjustable spanner, lifted up a corner of the mattress, and tried to move the corroded nut with the tool. It would not budge.

  He put all his strength into it and levered the spanner again. With a protesting groan, the nut moved a fraction of an inch.

  ‘Is this some kind of a joke?’ Caro asked, suddenly by his side again. ‘Is it?’

  Ollie tried again. He tried with each of the four nuts in turn. ‘No. No, it’s not.’

  ‘A bed can’t rotate, Ollie. What’s going on, tell me? Is this some kind of a fucking joke? Tell me if it is because I’m really not finding it funny. Is this your idea of some stupid game to try to spook me out?’

  He looked up at her. ‘Why the hell would I want to do that? Oh sure, I got up in the middle of the night, unscrewed our bed without waking you up and reassembled it in the opposite direction. You really think that, Caro?’

  ‘Do you have a better explanation?’

  ‘There has to be one.’ He looked up at the ceiling. Then at the walls, then down at the bed, trying to do the maths. The geometry.