The Island House

by Amanda Brittany

  *

  ‘Hey, guys,’ Faith says, poking her head out from the TV lounge as Alice and Leon leave Christine adjusting her silver-thread cardigan. Alice wants to keep walking, pretend she hasn’t seen her. She wants some time out away from everyone, to get out of her wet clothes – to get her head straight. She’s tempted to run up the stairs and into her room, ignore Faith, but she knows she can’t. Faith is her friend.

  She and Leon pad over to the TV lounge. Faith has changed out of her heels and little black dress, and looks more like the woman Alice knows, in her dungarees and trainers, her hair pulled into a high ponytail. Is her change of clothes an act of rebellion against Mitch? She hopes so.

  They make their way into the lounge, and Faith freezes Jamie Lee Curtis’s petrified face on the huge TV screen with the remotes.

  ‘I’ll get rid of Jamie entirely, shall I?’ she says, looking back at Alice, seeming to pick up on her anxiety.

  ‘Thanks,’ Alice says. ‘I’m not in the mood for a horror movie right now.’

  Faith ends the film, and puts on a news channel, lowering the volume.

  ‘So how did you get on out there?’ Faith says. ‘You’re both drenched.’ She peers past them towards the door. ‘Where’s Mitch?’

  ‘At the bar downing a double brandy,’ Leon says.

  ‘Typical, Mitch – he loves his brandy.’ She looks at the dress draped over Alice’s arm.

  Alice fiddles with the damp collar, not in the mood to go through everything that happened again, but knowing she has to. ‘We found it down on the rocks,’ she says. ‘This was the yellow ghost – my dress was the yellow ghost.’

  ‘Oh God. How did it get down there?’

  ‘We’ve no idea. It was locked in my room.’ Alice is trying to be strong, but tears are close. ‘I want to go home,’ she whispers. ‘I hate this place.’

  ‘Oh, Alice, if you hate it here that much you should leave,’ Faith says, taking her in her arms.

  ‘We can’t,’ Leon says. ‘It’s not as simple as that. The boat has slipped its mooring. It’s out in the middle of the sea.’

  Faith releases Alice, moves her gaze to Leon. ‘How the hell—?’

  ‘We’ve no idea. We saw Christine tie it up. And from what I remember, she moored it pretty well,’ Leon says. ‘I’m surprised it worked its way loose, if I’m honest.’

  ‘We’re going to get changed into something dry,’ Alice says, turning to leave. ‘Then we’ll call someone to get us off the island.’

  ‘OK, well, if there’s anything I can do.’

  ‘There isn’t. But thanks.’

  As they go to leave the room, Faith’s eyes drift to the TV screen. ‘Oh God,’ she whispers.

  Alice’s eyes dart to the screen. ‘Jesus, that’s Tegan Matthews.’

  Faith waves the remote towards the TV, turns up the volume. There’s a picture of Tegan behind a young newsreader, her stunning features and dark curly hair unmistakable.

  ‘Tegan Matthews,’ the newsreader is saying, ‘the literary agent who discovered E. H. Membrose, best-selling author of Where Doves Fly and Raging Fires, was found dead in her home earlier today. A friend raised the alarm after not hearing from Tegan for several days. Police are treating her death as suspicious.’

  Alice’s heart hammers, as the newsreader switches to a story about storms hitting the UK’s eastern coastline. ‘This can’t be right. She can’t be dead. She can’t be.’ She hasn’t been a fan of Tegan since she deserted her after her father’s death. She even suspected her of telling the media that her father was E. H. Membrose, but to hear she’s dead is horrifying. Her chest tightens.

  Faith moves towards Alice, puts her arm around her waist. ‘God, you’re shaking, lovely,’ she says. ‘You knew her well, didn’t you?’

  ‘I thought I did, at one point,’ Alice whispers. She turns to Leon, who is drained of colour. He looks as bewildered as she feels. ‘We have to go home,’ she says. ‘We need to call a boatyard on the mainland, or something. Get someone to come and take us off this bloody island.’ Alice pulls away from Faith, and races out of the TV lounge, almost tripping over her own feet in her haste to get away. Leon is right behind her.

  ‘I’ll see you in the bar in a bit, yeah?’ Faith calls after them.

  Alice doesn’t reply, her breath raspy as she leaps up the stairs two at a time, and heads along the corridor towards their room.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Leon says, catching up with her and grabbing her hand.

  She stops, bats away the tears now streaming down her cheeks. ‘OK?’ she cries. ‘You did just hear Tegan’s dead, right?’ She hates that this is turning her into a crumbling wreck. ‘You did just see my dress on the rocks, when it should have been in my room?’

  ‘Yeah, I get the dress thing. It’s weird. But Tegan’s death has nothing to do with your dress.’

  ‘I know.’ She looks about her; catching sight of the picture of Felix Flynn on the wall. ‘It’s this place, Leon. If there’s a way we can go home—’

  ‘I agree. I don’t like it here either. I don’t want to stay here any more than you do.’ He takes her in his arms. ‘We’ll call someone,’ he goes on. ‘I promise.’

  But as he puts the key into the door of their room and turns it, she knows she’s yet to face the ventriloquist doll once more.

  Leon

  Leon leads the way into the room, turns on the light, sensing Alice’s tension as she follows him. He wants to talk to her, tell her what he knows about Tegan, what she told him that night in the pub. But now isn’t the right moment. It will have to wait.

  ‘Oh God. Where is it?’ Alice drops her coat and dress to the floor with a thud.

  Leon swings round to see her standing statue-still, eyes wide and watery as she stares at the bed. ‘Alice?’ He’s worried about her. Yes, things have been weird, but it’s more than that, Alice isn’t herself. It’s the possible link this place had to her father too. The sooner they can call the mainland and get off the island, the better. ‘Where’s what?’

  Her gaze is fixed on the pillow. The vacant look in her eyes chilling. He runs his hand over his chin, feels the prickle of stubble, the tension in his jaw. Her anxiety is catching.

  She finally looks at him, eyes wide. ‘There was a ventriloquist puppet here, and now it’s gone.’

  ‘What?’ He shudders, the idea making the hairs on his neck stand on end.

  ‘Maybe it was one of Felix Flynn’s puppets. It was here in our room, before we went outside.’ She runs her hand over the duvet, and up towards the pillow. ‘It was right here, staring at me. And the window was open, as though …’

  ‘As though what, Alice? You’re officially freaking me out, here.’ He rubs his neck. It aches – whiplash? Tension?

  She sits down on the edge of bed, and buries her head in her hands. ‘It was here, Leon, I swear it,’ she says through her fingers. ‘When I came up to get my coat, it was here. But now it’s gone.’

  Leon turns on the spot, dragging fingers through his damp hair. ‘There was a puppet in our room?’

  She nods. ‘Yes. I know it sounds crazy, but I swear it was here on the pillow.’

  ‘OK.’ He shudders again at the thought. ‘So if what you’re saying is true—’

  ‘You think I’m lying?’ She looks hurt, her eyes a deep shade of blue.

  ‘No.’ He sits beside her, takes her hand, and squeezes it within his own. ‘But Alice, if there was a puppet, how did it get here … Where’s it gone?’

  ‘It was here. It really was.’ A tear zigzags down her cheek, and he holds her close to him for some time.

  Once she is calmer, he rises to his feet. ‘We need to go home,’ he says. ‘I’m sure Christine will know who we can call. Let’s get changed and go back down.’

  ‘OK.’ She rises, pale and exhausted, her face wet from tears. ‘I need a tissue,’ she says, almost childlike, looking about her.

  Within moments, she’s frantically looking under the bed. ‘My handbag,’
she cries. ‘It was here, but it’s gone. It has my phone in it. Oh God, Leon, what the hell is happening? I’m not sure I can take any more.’

  Chapter 21

  1988

  Verity

  Flynn House felt cold and musty after standing empty for seven years – a miserable place, though that was nothing new. Verity had thought she might renovate the place. Cover the past with fancy wallpaper and Dulux paint. She had enough money. But as she rattled around the house alone, the past crawled under her skin, and sucked the small amount of life she had left from her. It was as though Felix was watching, laughing from the grave.

  She had hoped Hugh and Pippa might move into the big house with her, but her brother had insisted from the off that the two of them would live independently in the cottage on the island. ‘Pippa’s got great plans for the place,’ he’d said. Verity couldn’t help the anger that bubbled inside her. After all she’d done for him. She couldn’t stay there any longer, watching Hugh and Pippa’s love grow stronger. Her stomach knotted each time she saw them together, nausea rising at their happiness, rubbing like sandpaper against her own despair.

  It was a month into their return that Verity packed her bags, and left Flynn House. She dropped a note through the cottage door for her brother, explaining how she intended to backpack around Europe. That she wouldn’t return for maybe a year.

  She hoped the separation might free her mind of him, break the claustrophobic bond they had, because she knew, deep down, it was wrong to be so dependent on him for her own happiness. Time apart was what she needed. Maybe she would find someone – fall in love.

  She’d booked a hostel in Paris to kick off her trip. She could afford better, but she wanted to mix with other young people, maybe make friends. She’d picked up brochures from Dunwold’s travel agents on the high street, chosen destinations. Cut out glossy photos of the Eiffel Tower, Cologne Cathedral, and Wieliczka Salt Mine, and slipped them inside the pages of her diary.

  She would stay in Paris for three weeks, maybe four, then travel to Cologne, and Kraków. She would learn about a world outside of Flynn House and Bristol, outside of England. She would teach herself how to be happy.

  But her knowledge of the world was limited, and arriving at Norwich Airport alone felt daunting. She headed straight for the bar. Knocked back two vodkas. This was going to be harder than she thought.

  By the time she climbed up the metal steps of the plane, surrounded by couples and families heading off on holiday, her heart was giving out warnings, and Hugh’s voice whispered in her head, ‘What the hell are you doing, Verity?’

  But as the plane rumbled down the runway, and took off into the blue sky, something happened inside of her. A strong feeling engulfed her: hope. She’d never felt it before, but maybe – just maybe – she was leaving the worst of her life behind her.

  *

  Three months had passed since Verity left the UK. She hadn’t made any friends, not really. A few drunken nights with strangers in Paris, and Cologne, but that was it. It was her own fault, she suspected. She wasn’t great at letting anyone close. And although she’d left Flynn House miles behind her, the place was still there, inside her head, crushing any attempt to move on. She’d been wrong to be positive, hopeful. She didn’t deserve happiness.

  She clicked her seatbelt across her lap, and looked out through the round window next to her. The plane would soon land in Kraków. Would Poland be any different? Would she ever be able to let go of her past? Let go of Hugh?

  Kraków Airport was tiny, no more than a shed – so much smaller than the airports in England, France and Germany. She’d read somewhere that the airport had once been a military site. She could only imagine how much better it would be for Poland when the new terminal was finished.

  She queued for almost an hour for her passport to be checked, before a large woman in military uniform frisked her. By the time she was outside in the cool, autumn air, her holdall by her side, she desperately needed a drink.

  Without thinking, still not used to cars being driven on the right, she stepped out into oncoming traffic. A Lada almost hit her, and the driver hooted as she jumped back onto the pavement.

  A taxi took her to the main market square, where she bought a bagel from a cart, from an old woman wearing a headscarf. There were a few decent, cheap hotels, and Verity booked a room in one of them for two weeks.

  Once showered, she pulled on a black sweatshirt, jeans and low-heeled boots, and headed out once more.

  Poland had changed since the Berlin Wall fell. Some of the traditional shops had been taken over by entrepreneurs selling goods coming in from Germany.

  Verity made her way along the pavement looking in shop windows, all closed up for the evening. She slowed outside a shop selling music cassettes, her mind drifting to Hugh – maybe she would buy one for him. He liked Madonna and Cher. The shop was bound to have one or the other. She pressed her hand against the shop window, and lowered her head. God, she missed her brother. She’d only spoken to him on the rare times she could get a call past Pippa, and it was never enough to quench her need.

  She headed down some steps into a jazz bar in the basement of a building, approached the bar. ‘Vodka, proszę,’ she said. ‘Double,’ she added, holding up two fingers.

  She found a table in the corner; sat down with her drink. She planned to leave as soon as the music started at nine; unable to cope with happy couples writhing to the sound of a saxophone, the intoxicating voices of jazz singers.

  Maybe she should go home to England. Face Flynn House.

  An hour later she knocked back her third drink, was about to rise.

  ‘Czy to miejsce jest zajęte?’ The man was average height, muscular, his dark hair cropped short, his eyes piercing blue.

  She knew a little Polish from her phrase book, but he spoke fast. Her face must have shown her confusion.

  ‘Is this seat free?’

  She nodded, expecting him to take it to another table. But he sat down opposite her, placed his glass of clear liquid on the table.

  She had been about to leave, hadn’t she? She should really get back to her accommodation. But something made her stay. This man, whoever he was, stirred something inside her she’d never felt before. She raised her hand to catch the waiter’s eye.

  ‘Vodka, proszę,’ she said as he approached.

  The man looked at her smiled. ‘My name is Mikolaj.’

  ‘Verity.’

  She soon learnt he was a builder, working on the new airport terminal.

  ‘I’m staying in a crappy bedsit nearby,’ he said, his English good, his accent twisting her stomach in a good way. She sensed he could see inside her head, knew what she was feeling. And as the evening drew to a close, he brushed her hair from her cheek, and told her she was a beautiful English rose.

  *

  ‘Pippa’s pregnant,’ Hugh told Verity in the December of 1988, his voice full of emotion. ‘We’re so happy, V. Be pleased for us.’

  ‘I am! That’s great news.’ She meant it. She was pleased for her little brother, because she now had her beautiful Mikolaj. Hugh and her past were slotted away at the back of her mind. She was happy. Convinced her new lover – her new obsession – would never let her down.

  Chapter 22

  Halloween Weekend 2019

  Alice

  The tick, tick, tick of the grandfather clock greets Alice and Leon as they make their way back down stairs, his arm around her waist giving her comfort. But still her mind buzzes as she attempts to unpick her thoughts. So much has happened in such a short time: The portrait of a young man who looks so like her father, a footless puppet in her room, her missing bag and phone, her dress floating in the wind to the bottom of the cliff.

  Did Cameron invite her here for a reason? If he did, where is he?

  And now Tegan is dead.

  The clock chimes once. It’s 10.30 p.m. Christine sits behind the reception desk; her head drooped as though she might nod off in a moment, h
er glasses slipping down her nose, revealing dark pillows of tiredness under her eyes.

  As they approach, Alice wonders again about this woman who Cameron has given full responsibility of running the hotel to, despite, it seems, never meeting her. Why had he chosen her? Running this bizarre place seems too much for the woman. She cooks, cleans the kitchen, mans reception, even pilots the boat. She’s taken on everything. Is it to simply escape her empty house somewhere on the mainland, where she and her beloved Terry once raised their son? Or is there another reason why she’s here?

  Leon coughs, and Christine jerks awake.

  ‘Oh my word, I almost dozed off. I do apologise.’ She looks at her watch, a cumbersome thing with a huge face and large numbers, squinting her eyes as she peers through her glasses. ‘Only another hour, and it will be time for bed.’ She gyrates her shoulders and straightens her silver-thread cardigan, eyes back on Alice and Leon. ‘How are you both after your terrible shock?’ she says. ‘Faith mentioned your father’s literary agent is dead. Murdered she said.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Leon says.

  Alice stares at the side of Leon’s face. ‘We don’t know for sure she was murdered. They say she died in suspicious circumstances – that doesn’t mean murder.’

  Leon looks at Alice, takes her hand in his. ‘And because of that,’ his eyes return to Christine, ‘we need to get back to the mainland as soon as possible. The police may want to talk to us.’

  ‘What? Like now?’ Christine says. ‘Tonight?’

  Leon nods, and Alice continues to stare at him, comforted by his hand entwined with hers. She hadn’t thought the police might want to talk to them, but is glad Leon used it as the reason rather than her fear of this place, her desperation to leave.

  ‘Well, it’s still blowing a gale out there,’ Christine begins, ‘and it won’t be the safest of journeys. But I guess if needs must. I’ll get the key to the boat.’ She eases herself from her stool, and reaches for her anorak and beanie hanging on the door behind her.