Satisfied the bottle was completely drained, Machen kicked off his filthy sheets, sat on the edge of his bed and stretched, groaning aloud as his spine popped and crackled. Then he crossed the litter-strewn floor to the window, opened the curtains wider to let the sunshine stream into the room, and took a few moments to drink in the scene. This window overlooked the sea. At this early hour, the water was still a seething deep blue mass broken by occasional slivers of white froth and topped by a swirling sea mist through which gulls swooped in search of breakfast. Glancing at his watch, he realized it was time to go downstairs.
Why? A voice in his head demanded. Are you expecting a sudden rush of customers? Perhaps a passing circus troupe?
The voice had a point. There were no new arrivals booked in today, and it was unlikely there would be much in the way of passing trade. The two new guests he did have, those journalist kids, didn't look the kind of people to get up early so he doubted breakfast would be required for a while. But what else could he do? Sit up here and hide from the shadows all day? Not likely. If he was going down, he was going down fighting. It's amazing the amount of positive energy one can draw from daybreak. Besides, he needed a drink.
On his way out of his room, Machen snapped off the lamp on his bedside table. He had to minimize the electricity bill. Every little helps. Then he paused and turned it back on. He hated coming back to a dark room.
Decisions, decisions.
Even something as simple as turning off or on a light was beyond him some mornings. It was just typical of the bewildering array of conflicting interests that blighted every facet of his life since Sandra left. She was the glue that held all the strands of his existence together, and without her things had a habit of unravelling. Although some would say that outwardly Sandra lacked confidence, the reality was very different. Behind closed doors she was always the strong one, the adept mind that worked so well in tandem with his business connections and work ethic. She did all the banking, bill-paying, financial records and what-not, leaving Machen to concentrate on stocktaking and odd jobs. That was why he so often struggled when she wasn't there to guide him through life's numerical minefields. She had even taught herself how to use a computer, doing a course at the local college. In her absence, it took Machen a whole morning just to figure out how to log on to the damned Internet. Even when he managed it, he didn't know what the hell to do.
“You can do everything on the Internet!” Sandra would say. The problem was, 'everything' was too much. It was overwhelming, like walking into the biggest library in the world, where the answers to every question you could ever ask were kept.
Everything reminded him of Sandra. This was still their life, the one they had planned and executed together. It was a life made for two, yet here he was alone. It just didn't feel right. Even the anger he harboured for so long, the sense of injustice that drove him forward, was starting to fade. All the bad things floated at the top of his mind like shit in a septic tank, and he had to dig through the festering layers before reaching the happier memories that offered a more balanced assessment of their marriage. They were there, bright and vivid. All he had to do was wipe off the shit.
One afternoon, while Machen busied himself around the house, Sandra went for a walk. She was gone a couple of hours, and when she came back Machen hadn't seen her so happy in years. She was beaming from ear to ear, and took on the manner of an over-excited schoolgirl as she related her adventures to her astonished husband whilst doing a little jig of joy right there in front of the caravan. She had found a secret garden, she said. An old forgotten place hidden behind high walls accessible only through a rusted metal gate. She even described the pond, and various plants and flowers.
Machen knew no such place existed. He had explored every inch of Sker House and the expanse of adjoining property that radiated out in all directions a dozen times or more, and spent endless hours poring over detailed plans and maps of the area. If the grounds contained any kind of garden, secret or otherwise, he would know about it. Yet, when she described it, Sandra was so convincing he had a hard time disbelieving her. Her enthusiasm and sheer exuberance was infectious. The next day, they awoke to the sounds of builders at work as usual, and Sandra suggested visiting the garden together. Intrigued, Machen agreed and off they went. But Sandra couldn't remember where the garden was. Her excitement gave way to confusion, and then despair when she realized that things weren't what she thought they were. It was heartbreaking to watch, and it was then Machen started worrying.
After that day, Sandra became fixated with that bloody garden, and spent long hours roaming the surrounding fields, moors and sand dunes looking for it. Each day when she came home she would be a little more disappointed, a little more defeated. Machen often wondered if he was witnessing the gradual mental deterioration of the only woman he had ever loved. Was this how it started?
As if to prove his wife's sanity, or his own insanity, since Sandra's departure Machen had taken on the mantle of finding the secret garden himself. Armed with a walking stick he went out searching a couple of times a week, when time permitted. It became like a sacred quest. If nothing else, the exercise and fresh air was good for him. But so far, he hadn't found anything remotely resembling a secret garden. With all these thoughts and more tumbling around his head, Machen made his way downstairs to begin work, leaving the lamp burning brightly on the bedside table.
Chapter 14:
Barren Soil
A few miles away from Sker House, Ruth Watkins opened her back door and filled her lungs with crisp, clean air. She loved early mornings. It was a special time of day, ripe with promise and possibilities. There was just enough time to do a few chores before she and Izzy, who was right then doing her make-up if she wasn't still in bed, had to leave for work. Machen wouldn't be best pleased if they were late.
Slipping on her gardening gloves and clutching a trowel, Ruth stepped out into the sunshine. She had always been blessed with green fingers. There was something magical about planting a seed, watching it take root in the earth, and nurturing it as it matured and flowered. Her obsession with growing things began when she was given a little potted cactus by her uncle as a teenager, and ever since then her life had been filled with greenery. Or brownery, depending on the season. She and her husband Dennis moved into their little detached house in the tiny village of Nottage soon after their wedding in ’88, where they waited patiently for little Izzy to come along. Setting the pattern for the rest of her life Izzy was in no hurry, and they ended up waiting almost a decade. Still, she was worth the wait.
In the early days, while her husband worked shifts at Port Talbot steelworks, Ruth filled the empty void in her life by ploughing all her time and resources into the tiny garden at the back of their cottage. Single-handedly, she transformed it from the overgrown dump it had once been, to the lush showcase it was today. At first she grew all the usual things; roses, violets, petunias. Before moving on to what she considered altogether more constructive endeavours. In a bid to become more self-sufficient in case the people Dennis referred to as Bloody Towel Heads finally succeeded in bringing Western civilization to its knees, she began growing a selection of seasonal vegetables and fruit. Within two years, she was hauling in small but regular crops of potatoes, turnips, carrots, runner beans, rhubarb, apples and various other foodstuffs which she regularly used in her cooking. Nothing could be as satisfying as growing something from scratch, eating it, then planting more in its place. Birth, life, death, rebirth. It was the circle of life, the cycle of the universe, played out on a miniature scale before your very eyes.
Ruth's appreciation of the circle of life was further underlined when Dennis dropped dead of a massive heart attack at work in '09. He was just fifty-four. That came as a shock. The death of a loved one always does, no matter how well prepared you think you are. Even if you had to watch someone waste away in a hospital bed for months on end as cancer ate them from the inside out, their death still came as a shock. A small p
art of you always clung to some shred of hope. A miracle cure, or some Lazarus-like recovery. What bothered her most was that she never had the chance to say goodbye. One day Dennis was there and everything was normal, and the next he was gone and everything changed. It often occurred to her that the fortunate ones are taken first, leaving the luckless behind to pick up the pieces of their new lives and rebuild it as best they could. In those dark times, Ruth had to be strong for Izzy's sake. She had to set an example, show her daughter that when the people around her died, it wasn't an excuse to shrivel up and hide. Death was a fact of life, and as unpleasant as the thought might be, Izzy had to be ready for the time when Ruth herself would be snatched away. If she wasn't married by then, she would be left on her own.
After Dennis died, Ruth had wanted to die too. But she could never allow her tattered and shredded emotions to get the better of her. After a brief mourning period, she set about rebuilding. It was what Dennis would have wanted. She went back to the garden, and even went back to work. Despite the life insurance payout, most of which went to cover the funeral costs, funds were low so it made financial sense. Not only that, but it gave her something else to think about. She carried the grief around like a rotting egg in her pocket, trying to compensate for the sadness by seeking out things that either challenged her or made her happy. Sometimes, both at the same time.
Cooking was her other love, and her other main pastime. To her, it comprised the same basic elements of creation and destruction as displayed in her garden. The same dance played out on a different stage. She was fortunate that her hobbies dovetailed together so smoothly, saving money and even, recently, generating money. Ordinarily, she would have considered herself lucky to find a job not too far from home that allowed her to indulge her two main passions, even if the pay wasn’t great (Machen promised to review the pay structure at the end of the season when the business had stabilized). But the feelings of dread she experienced each time she set foot inside the creepy old house by the sea tempered her enthusiasm. It was more than a simple case of lethargy. This was something she felt deep in her bones, like the rumblings of some innate early-warning system.
Of course, she knew the place was supposed to be haunted. You couldn't live in and around the area all your life and not hear the stories. So what? Depending on who you listened to, lots of places were haunted. Especially centuries-old buildings in superstitious places like Wales. If every ghost story you heard was true, you'd constantly be rubbing shoulders with the earthbound spirits of the wronged and restless. Still, she pondered, maybe the stories had an effect on her subconscious. It was true the prospect of coming face-to-face with the supernatural filled her with trepidation. Doesn't it everyone? But she was more inclined to believe in some higher, or at least unseen, power since Dennis passed away. It comforted her to think that there was some other existence after what we call life. The alternative, that all that ever was and ever will be was just a result of atoms randomly clashing together with no rhyme nor reason, was too bleak a prospect.
Crouching down in the garden, Ruth buried her trowel in the soft earth and delicately turned it over. It was almost seeding time. When her tasks were complete, she would get the bag of vegetables she put aside and leave. Today, if there was time (and there should be, considering that there were only two guests this weekend – three if you included Old Rolly) she would do some work in the tiny allotment Machen had given her in the grounds. Wiley as he was, the landlord made out that he had given her the patch out of the goodness of his heart. But Ruth wasn't stupid. She knew the real reason was that Machen thought by growing their own vegetables to serve up in the kitchen he could cut overheads a little.
She had been tending the patch for a couple of weeks now. But despite her best efforts, hadn't managed to grow so much as a single shoot. That bothered her. It bothered her a lot. There was no practical reason for it. It was just earth. But the soil around Sker House was dry and lifeless. Nothing grew there except the most stubborn weeds. She'd tried everything, using fertilizer from her own supplies and turning the top layer periodically so the sun's rays could work their wondrous magic. But whatever she did, the soil remained mulishly barren. Several times, she even carefully transplanted bulbs and fledglings from her own garden, where they had been growing happily. But each time, the plants mysteriously withered and died. If Ruth didn't know better, she would say the earth there had somehow been poisoned. She didn't know how it could happen, but there could be no other explanation.
But she wasn't going to give up just yet. She sensed a breakthrough. Each day, except her day off, Ruth spent every spare minute at the allotment tending and willing those plants to grow. In many ways, it became symbolic of her fight to build a new life. It was a struggle at first. Oh yes. But she never let tragedy beat her, and there was no way she was going to be beaten by a patch of bloody soil. Standing up defiantly, she brushed her gloved hands off on her gardening apron and took one last, lingering look at her bountiful garden before going back inside. It was time to go to work.
*
As her mother lovingly tended the garden, Izzy was getting ready in her room. Glancing at her radio alarm clock, which was playing some cheesy old eighties tune, she saw it was already after nine-thirty. Almost time to leave. She let out a sigh. She planned to go to college in September, and had allowed herself to be persuaded that it would be a good idea get a job to save some money before she went. Her mother was very big on teaching her the true value of things. Especially money. She thought that if Izzy earned it herself, she'd be more independent and sensible. That was why when mam found the job at Sker House, she'd managed to get Izzy in there too. Things worked out quite well most of the time. They both worked the same hours, which meant Izzy got a lift there and back, and she didn't exactly have to do a lot. The only problem was, she hated working there.
It's only temporary, she constantly told herself. Deal with it.
It wasn't like she was adverse to working for a living. In fact, she couldn't wait to save up enough money to pass her driving test and buy a car of her own so she wouldn't have to rely on her mother and public transport. Then she would be able to drive herself to college, a different job, or even right out of Wales if she wanted to.
At first she thought working in a bar near the beach and having a steady flow of new and interesting people introduced into her life would be fun. Living in Nottage village was like living in a goldfish bowl. She thought she might even meet a nice boy there. A cool surfer dude or something. In the beginning, it had been fun. It was all fresh and exciting, and it did feel good to be earning her own money. She couldn't help but feel proud of herself.
But that was then and this is now, as they say. Reality soon kicked in. The place was practically deserted most of the time, so she never met anyone cool. Plus, all the ghost stories about Sker House the local kids told must have made her paranoid. Now, she couldn't relax there. Not even for a minute. And she hated being by herself. The place gave her the creeps, plain and simple.
She tried not to think about the weird stuff that happened. Lights and taps turning off and on when no one was in the room, things disappearing then reappearing. The shadows that seemed to crawl along the walls by themselves without anyone there to cast them. One night, when she and mam had been cleaning the kitchen, they both realised there were three shadows on the wall when there should only have been two. There was something standing between mother and daughter, something tall and slender. Something that didn't belong. Then there was the time...
Don't think about it.
“Isabel! Are you ready yet?” Mam's shrill voice called up the stairs.
Shit! When she stopped being 'Izzy' and became 'Isabel' it meant there was a rush on. Either that, or she was in serious trouble. One of mam's little traits. “Yeah, just coming!”
Mam always tried her best, fair play. Especially since dad passed away. Right now, she was trying her best not to show her true feelings, but Izzy knew her too well. Her mother
was just as reluctant to go to work as she was, which wasn't like her. When they first started the job she'd been so excited. 'Everyday is a happy challenge!' She would say. But somewhere along the line, the days stopped being happy challenges and became arduous tests of the human spirit. Not many people could actually lay claim to enjoying their work, but you should at least derive a little satisfaction from it. Otherwise, what was the point? You may as well go out and do something else instead. Which was exactly what Izzy intended to do just as soon as she passed her driving test.
For the time being, however, she would just have to bite the bullet. As weird as the stuff that happened in Sker was, she knew her mother wouldn't let anything happen to her. Stuffing her phone and some mints into her bag, she slung it over her shoulder and took one last lingering look at herself in the full-length mirror covering one wall of her bedroom. Then she clicked her heels together three times, a ritual she had undertaken every morning since she'd seen the wizard of Oz as a kid, and made for the door.
Chapter 15:
Secret History
Lucy awoke to a strange sound. A tapping? She lay motionless for a few seconds, giving herself time to shake off the shackles of sleep and come back to her senses. It was almost as if unseen hands were pulling a veil from over her face. She listened. The sound was familiar, even comforting. It ebbed and flowed with a soothing rhythm, and she was sure that if she listened to it long enough it would send her tumbling back into the abyss of sleep.
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