The Lake

by Louise Sharland

  After a bit of wandering, I find a sign for the coastal path to Cagdwith Cove. The rain is lashing down, but I grit my teeth and push on. I make my way along a wooded path that shelters me from the worst of the rain and find myself going steadily downhill. To my left I can see a small cluster of stone and slate roof buildings. The narrow streets are empty: the tourists have escaped to a warm pub for lunch and the locals are far too sensible to be wandering about in this weather. By the time I make it to the village, the wind has eased, and the sun has managed to battle its way through the clouds. It doesn’t take long for me to find the gig club, a small, squat building that faces the bay. The wide doors have been thrown open to welcome the emerging sun, and from inside I can hear hammering. I move forward. I can see a man, tall and lanky, bending over what looks like an oversized rowboat.

  ‘Can I help you, Missus?’ comes a muted voice.

  The man has extracted himself from the boat and is wiping his hands on a faded handkerchief. He must be in his late fifties with a lean body and heavily lined face that speaks of hard work and long hours in the open air. He has a shock of white hair and the most piercing green eyes I have ever seen.

  ‘I, ah …’ I’m having difficulty finding words. ‘Is this the Cadgwith Cove Gig Club?’

  The man doesn’t reply, only points to the sign above the door. I stand silent and still, uncertain of what to say.

  ‘Is there anything I can do for you then?’ asks the man, studying me with a mixture of curiosity and impatience.

  ‘Ah, yes, well, the thing is … I’m looking for someone.’

  ‘Aye,’ he says. ‘And who might that be?’

  ‘It’s a girl, a woman I mean. Her name is Lisa, Lisa Edwards.’

  Try as he might, the man can’t conceal the look of recognition on his face. Instead of answering, however, he turns and resumes working on the boat.

  ‘Can’t say that I knows her,’ comes his reply.

  ‘I have a photograph.’ I take a printout from my bag and walk over to stand next to him. The gig boat is in the process of being sanded down before painting. I am mesmerised by the pale beauty of the wood, and the streamlined perfection of the structure. At least eight metres long, it’s large enough to hold six rowers, a cox and pilot.

  The man turns to me, his striking green eyes seeking mine.

  ‘Why do you want to know about her?’

  I take a breath. I have been working out my story for the whole two-hour journey from Calstock.

  ‘Well … this is my son Michael; well, was my son Michael.’ I point to the photograph, and I must swallow hard before I can continue. ‘He passed away six years ago.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that,’ says the man, studying the photograph.

  ‘Michael and Lisa were at Edgecombe Hall together, you know, the school near Falmouth? They were swimmers. She was a couple of years above him.’ Even though I have practised the speech in my head numerous times, I still feel as if it sounds stilted and unconvincing. ‘Now that a little time has passed, I’ve decided to put together a sort of memory book of his life.’ I hadn’t realised how hard it would be, saying it aloud. ‘I’ve got plenty of things from his childhood, but not so much from later years. I thought if I could speak to a few of his classmates …’ My voice cracks. I’m furious at myself for getting so emotional. This will require careful planning and clear thinking I had told myself only a few hours before. When I look back at the man, however, his wary expression has been replaced by one of kindness.

  ‘She’s Lisa Gannon now,’ he says. ‘Married a few years ago. Not long started as a Teaching Assistant at St Michael’s C of E Primary in St Keverne.’ He indicates back towards the car park. ‘Eight mile or so inland.’ I give him a grateful smile but cannot speak. He nods and returns to his work. ‘Not easy losing a child,’ he says softly. ‘You never get over it.’

  18

  The school is a solidly built stone and slate building, which sits on a busy street corner. Against all odds, I find a spot directly across from the school, and watch as a seemingly endless parade of cars park on the pavement and double yellow lines as parents arrive to collect their children. I wait until the playground is completely empty before approaching, and catch the main entrance door just before it shuts. The earlier rain showers have died away leaving the air thick and humid, but inside the school feels fresh and cool. A large display about the Lizard lifeboat crew adorns a wall near the entrance, and next to that are rows of class pictures framed in colourful displays. I look around nervously. I’d considered telling a story about being a concerned relative, or saying I’m from the scholarship committee at Edgecombe, but it seems it won’t be necessary. The receptionist’s office, secured behind glass, is empty. The computer is still on and there are papers on her desk suggesting she’s just stepped away for a moment. The double safety doors leading to the staff offices and classrooms are blocked open. Somewhere in the distance I can hear an electric floor polisher. I don’t have much time – the longer I loiter, the more suspicious I’ll look. I just need to find Lisa.

  I turn towards the wall of class photos and study the faces of the teachers and teaching assistants before finally spotting her. Lisa Gannon isn’t much different to the girl in the photo Siobhan sent me. There is still the guarded look, softened slightly now with a tentative smile and a good haircut, but the eyes are still wary, and the sense of overwhelming vulnerability almost too much to bear. I feel that ever-present tug of regret as I contemplate what Michael would have looked like, what he would be doing right now.

  A sign next to the office points to the first year and reception classrooms. I slip through the open doors and make my way down the empty hallway.

  Lisa is wiping down the whiteboard when I finally find her classroom. Hearing me enter, she turns and smiles, clearly thinking I am a parent of one of her pupils.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Lisa Ed … ah, Gannon?’

  Her smile falters slightly. ‘Yes,’ she replies, caution creeping into her voice.

  ‘My name is Kate Hardy.’ I close the door behind me. ‘My son was Michael Penrose.’ There is a moment of absolute stillness and then Lisa’s face starts to change. First there’s a noticeable widening of the eyes and lowering of the jaw, and then the slow depletion of colour from her skin, as if a sheet is being pulled across her face.

  ‘I wondered how long it would take for you to find me,’ she whispers, and then bursts into tears.

  ‘I don’t understand why you’re so upset,’ I say, handing Lisa a tissue. It’s unlikely I’ll get anything out of the blubbering young woman until I can calm her down. I wait until she’s seated before I continue. ‘I got the distinct impression that you and Michael weren’t particularly close.’

  ‘We weren’t,’ says Lisa through a gulp of tears. ‘I hated him.’ She wipes her eyes, and seeing my shocked expression attempts to explain herself. ‘Well, I suppose I didn’t really hate him, Mrs Hardy. It was just teenage stuff. He was okay.’ She lowers her head in humiliation. ‘I was just jealous.’

  ‘Jealous?’

  ‘He was so talented and good-looking. Everybody loved Michael. He had everything.’

  ‘Is that why you threatened him? Because you were jealous?’

  The girl’s mouth forms itself into a silent ‘o’.

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter who told me anything.’ I slide my mobile phone across the desk. ‘Read it.’

  I can see Lisa’s hand beginning to shake as she reads a copy of the threatening email that she sent to Michael six years before.

  ‘It’s not what it looks like, Mrs Hardy. I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just angry.’

  I take a chair from the corner and bring it to where Lisa is sitting. Placing it directly opposite, I sit down. ‘How angry?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  I reach into my shoulder bag. Along with a copy of the photograph Siobhan has sent me, I also have the file folder wit
h copies of the police and coroner’s reports. I make a point of ensuring that Lisa can see all the documents, photos, and official logos before I begin sorting through the paperwork.

  ‘The police report says there were a few anomalies.’

  ‘Anomalies? What anomalies?’

  I pretend to read from the file in front of me. ‘It says here there was some suggestion that Michael may not have been alone at the lake that night.’

  Lisa’s already pale complexion turns ghostly. ‘Oh my God, oh my God.’

  I have one more trump card to play to break down her flimsy facade.

  ‘And who is Diving Fish?’

  Lisa makes a retching sound. ‘I can’t,’ she wails. ‘I can’t!’

  I grab my phone and begin scrolling through my contacts. ‘I’ve still got Devon and Cornwall Police on speed dial.’

  ‘Don’t,’ she whimpers. ‘Please don’t.’

  The young woman is a wreck. Her nose is bright pink. There’s a damp patch on the front of her blouse, and mascara has streaked its way down her cheeks.

  ‘Well, then, you’d better tell me everything.’

  It takes a few minutes before Lisa can collect herself and continue.

  ‘First of all,’ she says, dabbing at her streaming nose with a tissue, ‘I don’t know anything about that night.’

  I find my voice rising. ‘Then why did you get so upset when I introduced myself?’

  ‘Please be quiet,’ Lisa begs. ‘The head teacher is in her office. I’m still in my probationary period. I don’t want any trouble.’

  I take a breath and steady myself. ‘Just tell me what you know.’

  ‘That day, before Michael, well, you know … he was really on edge.’

  I try not to think of that period in his early teens when Adam thought Michael’s behaviour was so extreme that he had tried to medicate him.

  ‘He was a wonderful guy – really he was – but he knew exactly how to get under your skin – especially when he wasn’t feeling right in himself.’

  I’m not interested in her feeble attempt at shifting the blame. ‘Is that why you went for him with a kitchen knife?’

  ‘Who told you that?’ Lisa makes a small hiccupping sound as if unable to breathe, and I realise I’m going to have to take it slowly if I want to get any useful information out of her. ‘It was a bread-and-butter knife, Mrs Hardy, and I put it away almost as soon as I’d taken it out.’

  Looking at the whimpering young woman in front of me now, I’m finding it hard to believe that she could be capable of any actual violence.

  ‘But what made you angry enough that day to get the knife out in the first place?’

  Lisa’s bottom lip trembles. ‘Michael was winding me up, making fun of me, making fun of the fact that I …’ she places a hand over her mouth to try to stifle her sobs.

  ‘What?’ I demand. ‘That you what?’

  ‘That I was in love,’ she blurts out finally. ‘Desperately in love.’

  ‘With … Michael?’

  She shakes her head vehemently and I make the connection. In those eight simple words the truth begins unfolding itself to me like an origami swan. Lisa wasn’t jealous of Michael; she was jealous of his relationship.

  ‘Diving Fish,’ I whisper. ‘You were in love with Diving Fish.’

  Lisa rests her head in her hands and wails. ‘Diving Fish’ – she spits the name – ‘took everything, absolutely everything – and then threw me away like a piece of rubbish!’

  ‘Because of Michael?’

  ‘Michael!’ She snorts. ‘He was just one more toy!’

  Suddenly I feel very cold. I lean in closer. ‘Who was Diving Fish?’

  She looks up at me with wide, wild eyes and chews on her fingernail so fiercely that it tears away, then whispers, ‘I promised I’d never tell.’

  Her voice has that faraway tone that reminds me of a time when as a trainee nurse I had been working an overnight shift in A&E. A woman in her early twenties had been brought in accompanied by two policewomen. One eye was bruised, her nose bloodied. As I helped her out of her clothes and into a hospital gown, I noticed clearly delineated finger marks around her neck. ‘Fell over,’ she had muttered numbly as I applied a butterfly closure across a gash on her forehead. That was all she would say until the police had no other choice but to let her go home.

  ‘Lisa, were you hurt?’ I ask, gently.

  She leans her head back on her chair and stares up at the ceiling. I can hear her laboured breathing, see her chest rising in tiny intermittent jumps. ‘More than that,’ she says. ‘I was destroyed.’

  It takes a few minutes before Lisa can compose herself so that we can continue our conversation.

  ‘I was going through some pretty awful stuff at the time.’ Now that she’s calmed down a bit, she can’t seem to stop talking. ‘My parents were divorcing. I got into a bit of trouble.’ She tilts her chin forward so that her hair forms a soft curtain in front of her face. ‘Michael wasn’t the one using performance-enhancing drugs; I was.’

  Conscious of her reluctance to divulge any details I decide to tread carefully. ‘And this Diving Fish person found out? Used it against you?’

  There is a slow, steady nod. I think of my fourteen-year-old son vulnerable, needy, away from home for the first time, trying to integrate into a new routine, make new friends; estranged from his natural father, furious with his stepfather, and unwilling or unable to seek support and solace from the most important person in his life: me.

  ‘I tried to speak to someone about it,’ she continues, ‘but …’

  ‘They didn’t believe you?’

  ‘I wished I’d never opened my mouth.’

  ‘How could they not believe you?’ I’m still desperately struggling to take it all in.

  ‘They said I was treading on very dangerous ground.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Said making false accusations could get me in big trouble.’

  I feel that familiar, painful sting of injustice. Even though I’d been determined to break the girl, I’m becoming aware that the truth surrounding Michael’s death is much more sinister than I could ever have imagined. Attacking her won’t help. ‘I want to help you, Lisa.’ I reach out for her hand, but she pulls away.

  ‘It’s too late.’ Her voice is lifeless, flat.

  ‘It’s never too late,’ I reply, and believe it.

  She looks up at me and gives a slow, sad smile.

  ‘He was a lot like you, you know.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Michael. Willing to put himself out to help others.’ She stares into the distance. ‘Do you know he used to stay after evening training sessions to help the junior swimmers?’ She shakes her head in a mixture of exasperation and wonder. ‘He could have been back in the house watching telly, or at the gym doing strength training, but instead he would stay late to help the year seven scrotes perfect their front crawl.’

  I find myself smiling. ‘He was always doing things like that.’

  ‘Do you know, Mrs Hardy, even though we didn’t always get along – well, I really admired him.’

  Something about the way she says the words suggests deeper feelings. For someone who supposedly hated Michael, she certainly had a lot to say about him.

  I force my thoughts away from my dead son. For the moment there’s something more important that needs my attention. ‘Why don’t you come with me to the police station right now?’

  Lisa stares at me, incredulous. ‘You think I haven’t tried that? The first time I tried to get help it was just after I got married.’ She absent-mindedly twirls her wedding ring around her finger. ‘Joe and I were already thinking about having kids … and I wanted to make sure I’d be a good mum. To be free of the past.’

  ‘Is Joe your husband?’

  ‘Was.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be.’ Again, that sad, resigned voice. ‘The truth is we got married way too fast and way too young. I’d
just turned nineteen, not long left school. I guess it was a bit of an escape route for me, after everything that happened.’ I’m not sure if she’s referring to Diving Fish abandoning her or Michael’s death. ‘And anyway,’ she gives a little shrug, ‘he’d been messing around the entire time. While we were dating, afterwards. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had screwed the maid of honour on our wedding night, except of course that she was my sister.’

  ‘I’m so—’

  ‘Please don’t say you’re sorry.’

  ‘No, of course.’ I can feel the words slipping away. ‘I just want to help you,’ struggling to offer some form of reassurance, I find myself repeating my most hated phrase, ‘to move on in some way.’

  ‘I don’t have the luxury of moving on, Mrs Hardy. I’m living in a house I can’t afford – which is just about to be repossessed, by the way. I’m doing a shitty part-time teaching assistant’s job, and I’m surviving on a diet of anti-depressants and alcohol just to get to sleep every night.’

  Ah, something in common.

  ‘Well, if not me, then what about friends? Are there others – people that were there – that you could talk to?’

  ‘There were a couple of friends in the house, but I don’t think they’d want anything to do with someone who was considered mentally unstable.’ She gives a long, jittery sigh. ‘Ever since I tried to come out about it, everything has gone wrong.’

  I fight back the fury that threatens to overwhelm me, and instead I think of the eager and hopeful teenage Lisa opening herself up to such cruelty and exploitation.

  ‘So, you see,’ she says, ‘there’s nothing I can do. Nowhere I can go.’

  I look at the Lisa in front of me now: broken, traumatised, with a failed marriage behind her, a life in ruins, and nowhere left to go.

  The words come out before I can stop them. ‘You could come and stay with me for a while.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘At my mother’s house in Calstock. Until you get things sorted. The last thing I want is for you to be out on the street. I’ll even try to help you find a better paying job.’