The Secret by the Lake

by Louise Douglas

  ‘The old darling! Is he still taking care of himself? Still dapper?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘He’s the best-dressed man I’ve ever known. My father always said he was the epitome of a gentleman.’

  ‘He’s certainly very personable.’

  ‘He always wore a suit, even when he was lancing a boil or cutting out an infected tick. His shoes were always polished. He had very clean fingernails. And do you know what he used to do, Amy, to make himself less frightening to children? He used to wear coloured socks and he always had a handkerchief folded in the front pocket of his suit to match his socks. It was a joke for his young patients. Whenever we saw him, my mother used to say: “What colour handkerchief will the doctor be wearing today?” And we tried to catch him out but his socks and his handkerchief always matched. He took great care of that. He was always so gentle with children.’

  Julia’s smile suddenly faded. ‘Caroline never found it funny, though.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘She used to sabotage the socks.’

  I laughed. ‘How did she do that?’

  ‘She was so naughty! Mrs Croucher used to do the washing every Monday and she’d hang the coloured socks and hankies out to dry on the clothes-line, all paired up, seven sets of each, one for every day of the week. Caroline used to sneak over the fence and mix them up: a red sock next to a blue one, or else she’d turn alternate socks over so they were pegged at the ankle instead of the toe. Sometimes she stole a handkerchief. We’d hide behind the hedge and watch Mrs Croucher come out and we’d see the confusion on her face when she unpegged the mismatched pairs. And Caroline would be watching with a kind of glee but I was terrified – terrified – that Mrs Croucher would realize what was happening and that Caroline would be in the most awful trouble. The fear made the whole thing funnier. I used to have to stuff my cardigan sleeve into my mouth to stop myself shrieking with laughter.’

  Her face had softened at the memory. She looked younger. I could see behind the mask of middle age the pixie-faced child who used to hide with her sister.

  ‘Why were you so afraid that Caroline would be in trouble?’ I asked. ‘Mixing up the laundry is hardly a capital offence.’

  Julia winced at that phrase, but recovered quickly.

  ‘I didn’t want there to be any more upset. Caroline had already caused a dreadful stink for the doctor.’

  ‘Goodness. What did she do?’

  Julia pushed her hair back from her face and clasped her hands on the table in front of her.

  ‘I haven’t thought of it in years. Perhaps if I tell you, you’ll understand more what Caroline was like.’

  I nodded encouragement and she continued. ‘It was crazy. Completely and utterly crazy. She made this stupid accusation … it was just ridiculous. I never understood why she did it but then I never understood the half of why Caroline did what she did.’ She sighed. ‘My father had a pocket-watch that had been passed down through his family. It was his pride and joy and one day it went missing. Mother and I searched the house, searched high and low, but we couldn’t find it. Father was in a terrible state. While we were hunting for the watch, Caroline took it upon herself to walk all the way to Chew Magna. She went into the police station there and told the officer behind the desk that Dr Croucher had stolen her father’s watch. She said she’d seen him take it and hide it in his black bag.’

  ‘No! What happened?’

  ‘The police officer drove Caroline back to Blackwater. He parked the car outside the cottage here – you can imagine the commotion that caused – then he came in and told our parents what Caroline had said. I was sent next door to fetch the doctor and ask him to bring his bag round to our house, which he did. Everyone was in the kitchen, right here at this table, my mother and father, the police officer and Dr Croucher. Caroline was standing where you are now. I was watching her. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks were flushed. She seemed … oh … excited. The police officer asked Dr Croucher to open the bag and empty it. He took everything out, one item at a time, all his instruments and bottles and jars, and he laid them on the table. It seemed to take for ever. It was excruciating. And Caroline … Well, as soon as the bag was opened, the excitement disappeared. As each item came out of the bag she became paler. I thought she might cry, or faint. By the time the bag was empty, it was as if she had shrunk down inside herself, become a shadow of the girl she’d been earlier.’

  ‘So the watch wasn’t in the bag?’

  ‘Of course it wasn’t.’

  ‘But it sounds as if Caroline really believed the doctor had taken it?’

  ‘She knew perfectly well that he hadn’t. Once everyone had left, Father asked her directly, he said: “Do you know where my pocket-watch is?” and she said: “It’s in my satchel,” and he looked and it was.’

  ‘Why would she do that? What did she possibly have to gain from hiding the watch in her satchel and then accusing Dr Croucher of its theft?’

  ‘Attention? Notoriety? You’re the one who’s studied Psychology – you tell me. Everything Caroline said was a lie. She had a compulsion to lie. I don’t know why, perhaps these days it would be recognized as some kind of condition.’ Julia sighed. ‘Anyway, Father took off his belt and he beat her. He said he would beat the badness out of her.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘Oh dear indeed. It was awful. Father was weeping as he hit her.’ Julia covered her face with her hands and shuddered. ‘And Mother was begging him to stop but he said he didn’t know what else to do. He said it was for her own good. I was upstairs in my room. I had my hands over my ears but I could still hear. Father was weeping and Mother was pleading and Caroline … I don’t know what Caroline was doing. She didn’t cry out; she didn’t make a sound. Oh God.’ Julia trailed her fingers through her hair. ‘Dr Croucher was terribly good about it, you know. He consoled my parents, told them that he didn’t hold them responsible, that young teenage girls were prone to fantasies and that nobody should make too much of it and so on and so forth – but of course they were still hideously embarrassed.’

  ‘And after that you were afraid of something similar happening again?’

  ‘Yes, I was. I can only have been eight or nine years old but I was concerned about my sister. I didn’t know why she was behaving as she was, but these battles she insisted on fighting were battles she could never win.’ Julia reached out for my hand. ‘Do you see, Amy, how difficult it is to talk about Caroline? Are you beginning to understand how troubled she was?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, I am.’

  Later, when I was alone, I took Caroline’s satchel out from under my bed, and I removed the gold pendant from the matchbox. I held it in the palm of my hand, the light shining through the ruby making pinpricks of red like spots of blood on my skin. It was such a lovely thing. I closed my eyes and I tried, once again, to make myself feel as Caroline must have felt when she held it in her hand.

  ‘Caroline,’ I whispered, ‘were you going to blame the doctor for this one, too?’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  VIVIANE CAME HOME from school humming ‘Once in Royal David’s City’. Her eyes were alive and happy but when she looked about the cottage, the joy drained from her face.

  ‘It’s so miserable in here. We need to get ready for Christmas,’ she declared, shrugging off her coat and hanging it up. She looked about her again; I followed her eyes and sympathized. There was nothing joyful in the hallway of Reservoir Cottage, nothing bright or cheerful at all. Julia looked too and I knew what she was thinking; I could read her thoughts by the expression on her face.

  ‘Oh darling,’ she said gently, ‘not this year. Let’s let Christmas pass us by this year. We have nothing to celebrate.’

  And no money to celebrate with.

  Vivi’s face was a picture of consternation. ‘But we must have a proper Christmas, Mummy. We must – it’s our tradition! And Papa would be mortified if he thought we were letting things
slip.’

  Julia laughed. ‘Mortified? Since when have you used the word “mortified”?’

  ‘Everyone says “mortified” at school, Mummy,’ Viviane said primly. She turned to me. ‘Remember what Christmas was like in France, Amy?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  The lavishness of those French Christmases! The lights, the candles, the greenery, the food, the wine, the parties. The apartment in Paris was red, green and gold, gifts piled beneath the tree, people coming and going, beautiful people, little girls in bows and barrettes come to play with Viviane, and adults dressed up to the nines, those glamorous women in their heels and silks and stoles, the men in their suits, the cigarettes and perfume and hair oil, the conversation, the seduction, the dancing. And we’d all come from that to this chilly, dark cottage, not one single decoration, not one single card. Was it really only a year that had passed? Paris felt, to me, like a lifetime ago. I looked at Vivi’s urgent little face and I thought: She’s right. We should make an effort for Christmas.

  I turned to Julia and I could see that she was thinking the same.

  ‘There were some trimmings,’ she said, ‘a few bits and pieces – fir cones that Caroline and I painted when we were children. We used to keep them in the loft.’

  ‘The loft’s empty now. Where else might they be?’

  ‘The shed?’ Viviane suggested.

  ‘The shed’s not been used for thirty years.’

  ‘I’ll go and have a look anyway,’ Viviane cried. She pulled her boots back on, grabbed her coat and ran outside, calling to Bess. I followed her into the kitchen and stood at the back door watching as she skipped down to the bottom of the garden, the dog following.

  Julia stood beside me, leaning on her stick.

  ‘She won’t get it open,’ she said. ‘After Father died my mother and I tried. We couldn’t find the key to the padlock and the window is so well sealed it’s bombproof.’

  Julia filled a glass with water from the tap, took a sip, then held it in her hand, gazing out. ‘I used to play in that shed. It used to be my hideaway.’

  ‘Did your father build it?’

  ‘No, it belonged to the reservoir superintendent, who lived here before we did. There’s a plaque inside that says Bristol Water Company. Father used to show it to people who came asking about the history of the lake. He never used it. He kept his tools in the garage so he turned the shed into a playhouse for me. Mother trained a climbing rose up around the door and I put a rug in there, a little table, cushions, blankets and curtains at the window. I cut out pictures from magazines to decorate the walls. It was where I went when I was lonely or unhappy. I loved it. I had tea parties for my toys. It was my favourite place until …’

  Her voice fell away. I looked at her. Her eyes were full of sadness. She smiled at me.

  ‘I feel as if I’m always telling tales on her.’

  ‘Caroline?’

  ‘Yes, Caroline.’

  ‘What did she do this time?’

  ‘She set fire to the shed. It wasn’t long after the pocket-watch incident. Father used to store petrol in the garage. One day, Caroline came home from work and she took a can, went into the shed and doused everything that was inside, with petrol. I was next door with Dr Croucher – I had earache, I think. We heard my mother’s screams. He ran out to see what was going on, but before he could stop her, Caroline lit a match and threw it into the shed and she stood there and watched it burn, all my toys, the blankets, everything.’

  Julia finished the water and put the empty glass back in the sink. Outside, Viviane tugged at the shed door handle, rattled it and then, frustrated, kicked it. She put her hands in the pockets of her coat and walked around the building, looking for weaknesses.

  ‘It was a proper blazing fire,’ Julia said. ‘Dr Croucher and my father tried to put it out, but Caroline had been thorough. Nothing inside could be saved. The structure was sound but all the toys and furnishings were ruined. Mrs Croucher wouldn’t let me go outside. We watched from her kitchen window. I was crying. She had her arms around my waist and her chin on my shoulder and she was rocking me. “There, there,” she was saying, “never mind.” Father was scuttling around like a lunatic, trying to douse the flames with spadefuls of soil and Dr Croucher was helping but they couldn’t do anything really. In the end they gave up and waited for the fire to burn itself out. Caroline was just standing there, where Vivi is now, watching. I could see her face – it was glowing in the light of the flames and sometimes the smoke blew towards her and she’d disappear for a moment. I couldn’t understand her. I could not, for the life of me, work out why she would do such a thing.’ Julia sighed and crossed her arms about herself. ‘I never played in the shed again. Father sealed up the window and put a padlock on the door. I don’t believe anyone has been inside since.’

  ‘Where did she work?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘You said Caroline had come home from work.’

  ‘Oh yes. Yes. She used to be a housemaid for the Aldridges. She stayed there during the week but came home at weekends.’

  ‘Daniel’s parents?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Viviane came back into the kitchen, her cheeks rosy with cold.

  ‘No luck, Vivi?’ I asked.

  ‘I can’t make it budge at all.’

  ‘The decorations wouldn’t be in there anyway,’ Julia said. ‘My mother wasn’t much of a one for Christmas. She must have thrown them away.’

  Viviane didn’t say anything else, but I could feel her disappointment. Somehow or other, I promised myself, I’d find a way to decorate the cottage for Christmas.

  That evening, Julia took a sleeping pill and went to bed early. I sat downstairs, in the back room beneath the master bedroom because I couldn’t bear to sit alone in the living room, beneath the empty bedroom, even though the living room was the only warm place, the only room with a fire. I wrapped myself up in jumpers and a scarf with socks over my stockings and tried to read my book, but my mind wouldn’t settle. Instead, I started to make a list of the things I needed to buy before Christmas, substituting cheaper alternatives for expensive items, but my heart wasn’t in that task either. I was sick of potato and onion soup; I was cold and I was bored and I was lonely.

  I decided to telephone Daniel. We would see each other tomorrow evening anyway, in the pub, but if he was free, perhaps he would drive up and come to sit with me and talk for a while. Perhaps he would bring some of his father’s apple brandy. I went into the living room, doing my best to avoid eye contact with Jesus on the wall, and dialled Daniel’s number, but there was no answer. My disappointment was crushing. I stood beside the telephone table with the receiver in my hand, the darkness of the room gathered around me, the only sound the pattering of raindrops on the window and the wind, desolate, in the chimney. There was nobody else I could call. My father would be at work by now, the Sheffield house would be empty. I would try Daniel’s number again.

  I held the receiver to my ear. Now there was no dial tone. I jabbed the cradle a few times with my finger but still nothing. I depressed the cradle one last time and something changed: now I could hear a voice on the line through the earpiece. It had the otherworldly, disconnected sound of a call being made a long way away: a crossed line.

  I tried to disconnect the other call, but I couldn’t. The woman – it was a female voice – was still there. The tone and pitch of her voice had become higher and more urgent; she sounded distressed. I put the handset back in the cradle and wandered around the room, pacing its four walls. I did not want to talk to the woman, but what if she was in serious trouble? What if nobody else could hear her?

  I picked up the phone again.

  ‘Is someone there?’ the voice called. ‘Are you there? Can you hear me?’

  ‘Hello?’ I replied. ‘Hello?’

  ‘They’re watching,’ the woman called, distant as if she were on the other side of the world.

  ‘Who is watching?’

  ‘They
pretend they’re not looking but they’re watching all the time.’

  ‘Who is this?’ I asked. ‘What’s your name? Where are you?’

  ‘They’re still there!’ the woman cried. ‘They never went away.’

  The line, suddenly, went dead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  FRIDAY BEGAN AS a miserable day. The sky was surly, with the early darkness that presages the worst of winter, and the storm that had set in the day before had not blown itself out. Rain came down in torrents, shrouding the valley and the reservoir, drumming relentlessly on roofs and windows, whipped about by a fractious wind. The cottage felt more isolated than ever. When the coalman came, creaking in his oilskins and dragging his sacks to the bunker at the back of the cottage, he said some of the lower lanes were already flooded, that the old Bristol Road was impassable.

  I wrapped up well and walked through the wind to the village store where I used the dregs of my money to buy an exercise book for Julia to transcribe Alain’s notes, and some glue, a tube of glitter, cardboard and cotton wool. None of this cost much, but it was money that could have been used for food and the extravagance made me feel guilty. Before I went into the cottage, I knocked on Mrs Croucher’s door and explained that I would be going out for a couple of hours that evening.

  ‘Would you mind coming round to sit with Julia and Viviane while I’m out?’ I asked.

  Mrs Croucher’s face lit up with pleasure. ‘Oh, there’s nothing I’d like more,’ she said. ‘I’ll make a fruit cake and we can play cards. Perhaps little Viviane could join in?’

  ‘I’m sure she’d love that,’ I said. In my mind I was thanking God for the gift of Mrs Croucher’s cake, a treat that wouldn’t cost us a penny. It was so long since I’d tasted something rich and sweet that my stomach almost growled with anticipation.

  Inside Reservoir Cottage, Julia was in a restless mood, pacing the kitchen with a letter in her hand, her face tensed into a frown.

  ‘It’s from the bank in France,’ she said, slapping the letter down on to the kitchen table. ‘They say I’ll have to go to court to challenge the legality of freezing Alain’s assets. It could take months, years even, to sort it out. And it will cost money to hire the lawyers I’ll need and I have no money. I am stuck, Amy. What am I to do?’