Sker House

by C. M. Saunders

  What could it be?

  All at once she identified the source of the noise, and instantly cursed herself for taking so long to do so. It was the sound of somebody hitting keys. Typing. Dale. Just to be sure, Lucy opened her eyes a fraction and peeked out from under the covers.

  Sure enough, Dale was sitting at the little desk furiously tapping away on his laptop, no doubt working on the Sker House article. It seemed to be going well; his brow was creased in concentration and his lips moved silently as he mouthed the words he wrote, fingers gliding across the keyboard with practised precision. He must have found an angle, some kind of hook on which to pin the feature. Good. She had a little experience of writing articles and knew that could be the most difficult part. Try as you might, the right words just wouldn't come in the right order. Then something just clicked, the pieces fell into place, and you were away. From the looks of things Dale had made the breakthrough, and that was not only good news for the article but good news for her. Dale could be a proper little bitch when he couldn't crack a story. She sat up and stretched.

  Dale stopped writing and turned to her. “Ah, sleeping beauty arises. I was wondering how long it would be before we could get some brekkie.”

  “Is that all you think about? Food?”

  “Pretty much,” replied Dale. Then his smile faded and a peculiar expression took its place; something like a mixture of curiosity, concern and wariness. Cocking his head to one side he asked, “How are you feeling now?”

  “Fine, I guess. No worse than I usually feel when I wake up. You know I'm not a morning person.”

  “Who is?”

  “You, obviously. I can see you're busy over there. Working on the Sker feature? How's it going?”

  “Pretty good. But there's stuff we should talk about later. We need to compare notes.”

  “Sure thing, but lets get you fed and watered first.” Lucy started getting out of bed, then stopped and added, “What do you mean by, 'How are you feeling now?”

  “That's one of the things we need to discuss. After I'm fed and watered...” Dale turned back to the computer and started typing again, showing Lucy his back.

  The urge to remove the yucky film of fur coating the inside of her mouth and a literally burning desire to pee cut short her contemplation time and Lucy bounded for the en suite. Inside, she did her business, brushed her teeth and took a quick shower, all the while turning Dale's words over in her mind. What did he want to discuss? Maybe she'd had a coughing fit or something during the night. He could be a worrier.

  But there was something else. Some nugget of information hovering tantalizingly just beyond her reach. Was it a memory? She made a mental grab for it, missing by fractions, and was left with nothing more than vague abstract images of being alone and walking in dark hallways. The memory, if that's what it was, had the same wafer-thin translucent texture as a dream.

  When Lucy exited the bathroom Dale was still tapping away at his laptop, but with less urgency now. Lucy sensed that his creative discharge was beginning to subside, at least for the time being. He must really have been hungry because he was waiting at the door even before Lucy had finished putting her trainers on.

  “Do you remember anything about last night?” He asked, almost bashfully.

  Lucy stopped midway through the act of doing up her left shoelace. That was a good question. Did she? Again, that chunk of orbiting knowledge loomed into reach. Again she grasped at it, and again she missed. “Er, I remember coming up here and going to sleep, if that's what you mean.”

  “Anything else?” A gentle prod. Whatever it was, he was cautious of going there.

  “Oh God. We didn't have sex did we?” Asked Lucy, feigning alarm. She wanted to lighten the mood a little. No matter how tired she got, sex was something she always remembered.

  “Sadly not.”

  “Who's sad about it?” Lucy couldn't resist a little giggle at her own joke.

  Dale shook his head. “One day you will regret your cruelty, woman. Mark my words.”

  “Yeah, yeah, and this time next year Rodney, we'll be millionaires...” As they left the room, Lucy happened to glance back at the desk and noticed that Dale had laid out one of his notebooks, opened to a blank page, and left one of his pencils lying across it. Nothing odd about that. He was always scribbling in notebooks. But the way the notepad and pencil were positioned just so seemed so precise, so deliberate. There was also something about the look he gave the carefully positioned stationary before he closed the door, almost as if he were checking the notebook and pencil were still there. Odd.

  They made their way down the stairs to the bar where they hoped to find 'Don't call me mister' Machen. However, en route they found the front door hung wide open allowing a fresh salty sea breeze and the harsh squawk of seagulls to circulate around the lower reaches of the building. They paused for a few moments to fill their lungs, gazing out across the distant hills and listening to the gentle murmur of the sea. Later, when Lucy looked back upon her time at Sker, those precious few moments stood out against the horrors that came later like sparkling diamonds in a wall of granite.

  The spell was broken when Machen suddenly appeared next to them like some goofy cartoon character. “Up early, I see!”

  Lucy wasn't sure if it was meant as an observation or an announcement. The landlord was wearing the same clothes as the day before, and a patchy white stubble covered his cheeks and lower face. The lines around his watery, deep-set eyes seemed deeper and more pronounced. There were no two ways about it, the guy was a mess.

  “We thought we'd get an early start,” Dale said.

  The landlord smiled broadly. “Early start, is it? And what have you young 'uns got planned for today, then?”

  Lucy noticed for the first time how meandering clusters of broken blood vessels littered the landlord's red cheeks and nose, and a nervous twitch tugged at one eyelid. Trying not to stare, she said, “We want to get some work done on the article. Perhaps learn a little more about the history of Sker. You know, try to capture the mood of the place.”

  “Oh that's right, I forgot about the article you're writing.” Machen managed to look both thrilled and apprehensive at the same time. He paused, then added, “Listen, I think I know what you're after now. You want some juicy gossip, right?”

  “We just want to know the truth,” replied Dale. “It doesn't have to be salacious gossip. Solent News is a long way from being the Daily Star. With a history this long, I don't think there'll be any need to over-dramatize anything.”

  The landlord's brow furrowed further. “Yeah, you could be right there. Look, I'll tell you some stories about the place later, when I've done my chores. Okay?”

  “Sure thing,” said Dale. “Maybe we'll take a walk on the beach, give you some time to do what you have to do. After we've had a bit of breakfast, that is.”

  Machen stared at them for a few seconds, his eyes going from Dale to Lucy and back to Dale again as he processed the information. Finally the penny dropped with an almost audible chink and his whole face lit up. “You want breakfast? Now, like?”

  “If it's not too much trouble.”

  “Too much trouble? No, no trouble at all. Right this way!” Machen beamed as he led them into the bar. When they entered, Champ the guard dog gave a limp wag of his tail in greeting.

  “So what would you like?” asked the landlord. “I can knock up a continental if you want, but I recommend the traditional Welsh breakfast.”

  “Which is?” asked Lucy.

  “Sausage, baked beans, egg, bacon, tomato and fried bread.”

  Dale shot Lucy a look that said don't say it! But it came too late. Lucy was too busy playing with Champ's ear to notice. “Sounds more like a traditional English breakfast to me...”

  Machen chortled contemptuously. “You think you invented the fry-up, like?”

  Though she was slowly adjusting to the landlord's fiercely patriotic disposition, Lucy was taken aback by anger in his voice. “No, I.
.. Erm, was just wondering what makes it Welsh...”

  “Local produce! Sorry, we're all out of lava bread and cockles at the moment, luv. And you can probably blame over-fishing by your lot or them bloody Spaniards for that.”

  “Overfishing?” said Lucy, perplexed. And then, “What's lava bread?”

  Dale stepped in to save her. “It's a kind of food made from sea weed. Baked in an oven.”

  “You eat seaweed for breakfast?”

  Machen huffed and disappeared into the kitchen, no doubt to prepare their traditional Welsh English breakfast, so Dale answered the question for him, lowering his voice slightly so the landlord wouldn't be able to hear. “Lava bread is a traditional Welsh food. I don't think many people eat it these days, not when there are McDonald's and KFC's on every street corner, but it's still popular with tourists. Lots of restaurants and guesthouses do it.”

  “Mmmm... sounds delicious!” replied Lucy in the sarcastic tone she knew Dale detested. Mind spoken, she went back to playing with the dog.

  The breakfast was just what she thought it would be. English. Not a sliver of seaweed in sight. Thank God. You'd have to be pretty hungry to chow down on floating plankton, baked or otherwise. During the meal, Lucy and Dale made small talk about the weather and reality shows the way British people are supposed to. It was comforting. However, there was a dark undercurrent running beneath their trivial ramblings that they knew they would have to face eventually. They were just delaying the inevitable, and would work their way around to this mysterious something sooner rather than later. So she laughed in all the right places until eventually curiosity got the better of her. During a lull in the conversation she took an extra-long sip of coffee, set the mug back down and said, “Okay Dale, what did you want to discuss with me? Is this the part where you confess your undying love?”

  To her mild disappointment, Dale didn't. Instead, he pursed his lips and said,“Did you know you sleepwalk?”

  Lucy guffawed so hard a half-chewed piece of bacon flew out of her mouth and landed on the table between them. Belatedly covering her mouth with the back of a hand she said, “I so do not! Where did you get that idea?”

  But Dale wasn't laughing. Reading his expression, she saw nothing but concern. He quickly related the events of the night before; his waking up from a bad dream to find her gone, the search, and her eventual discovery on the out-of-bounds fourth floor. The story he told matched the snippets of memories she recollected and had misinterpreted as fragments of dreams. As he talked, Lucy felt a peculiar sinking feeling. “Why the fourth floor?” she asked. “What's up there?”

  “Dunno. You were standing outside one of the rooms. Do you know you could have gotten hurt?”

  She looked up to see Machen ambling over, dirty cleaning cloth in hand, almost as if he had been watching and waiting for them to finish breakfast. Not wanting to spurn the opportunity to engage the landlord in conversation, Dale said, “Machen... I was wondering, is there any reason why the refurbishments haven't been finished yet? We were talking to Izzy yesterday and she said there were some legal issues?”

  The landlord rolled his eyes as he picked up the empty plates and wiped the table with his cloth. “I wish that girl would stop being so bloody over-dramatic. There are no legal issues as such. It was more a case of cowboys passing themselves off as professionals. I have to take them to court to get back the money they owe me. How can it be my fault if a guy falls off a ladder and breaks both his legs? I wasn't even here.”

  “So there was an accident? Here at Sker?”

  “Yes. Up on the fourth floor. Workmen all walked off the job and refused to come and finish it. Well, the guy with the broken legs didn't walk off, obviously, ha! Bloody foreigners. I didn't want to hire them in the first place, but they were half the price of anybody else. And now I know why. They only did half the bloody job. Can you believe they actually tried to blame the working conditions? Unless something was lost in translation. I mean, what did they expect? The Ritz? If the place was all pucker I wouldn't even have needed them, would I? Workmen are responsible for their own safety, everyone knows that.”

  “All because one of them fell off a ladder? Surely, that's par for the course when you're a builder?” Dale said, obviously trying to align himself.

  “Yeah, you would think so, wouldn't you? Other things happened as well as the ladder episode. They're a superstitious lot, the Polish. And the Romanians are even worse. They were living here, see. Gave me a discount on the work if I let them stay until the job was finished. I'm sure half of them were illegal and had nowhere else to go. Anyway, it was more convenient for them, and no skin off my nose, like. At first they seemed like a decent bunch. Good workers. But then they changed, they did.”

  “Why?” asked Dale.

  “How the hell should I know? If you ever get the chance, ask them for me, would you?”

  “There must be something you can do,” Lucy said.

  “Well yeah, the solicitors are working on it. We'll just have to wait and see what happens. But you don't want to hear about that, do you? There's not much of an article in a bunch of cowboy builders.”

  “Not really,” Dale said, “Though it certainly helps give us more of an idea about Sker. We'd like to know as much of what goes on here as possible. It all helps build a picture for the reader.”

  Machen's tone dropped conspiratorially. “Would you like me to tell you the real story of Sker?”

  “Of course, if you feel like sharing,” said Dale, ever the diplomat. He seemed pleasantly surprised that the landlord had suddenly decided to willingly impart some knowledge.

  Pulling up an empty chair from a nearby table, setting it down and sitting on it, he said, “I'll tell you what I know, and you can pick the bones out of it yourselves.” The landlord's voice dropped a few more octaves. “Well, you know Sker House used to belong to a man called Isaac Williams?”

  “Yes, you said yesterday. The Maid of Sker's father, right?”

  “Yes, that's right. Forced his daughter to marry someone else and all that. Well, by all accounts that wasn't the only bad thing he did in his life.”

  “Yeah, I remember. He used his connections to fit people up, too,” Dale said.

  “He did. But I'm not talking about that.”

  “Then what else did he do?” asked Lucy and Dale in unison.

  Machen ran a hand through his thinning hair, then continued on what seemed like a different tangent. “You know in every country's history there are parts that modern people would rather forget? Sometimes when you look back on things, they look bad. People have a habit of modifying history to suit themselves, dressing it up, like.”

  “Selective teaching is the government's way of instilling national pride. You know, make people less likely to start a revolution or something,” Lucy said.

  “That's as may be,” Machen continued, rubbing his stubbled chin. “Anyway, point is... For the most part Wales is working class, always has been and always will be.” The landlord gave Lucy a look that suggested she might not know what 'working class' meant. She wanted to set him straight, but was reluctant to interrupt his train of thought for fear that he may never get it back on course again.

  “Have you ever heard of something called wrecking?” Lucy looked at Dale and thought she saw a flicker of recognition on his face. She thought the word sounded familiar, but in that ambiguous way that words often did. It definitely sounded like a real word, but she didn't want to guess at its meaning. Instead, she shook her head.

  “Wrecking is part of Wales' secret history,” Machen said. “Imagine how heartbreaking it must have been in the olden days for poor locals to watch ships packed with bounty and precious cargo sail around the coast. Never stopping here, never bringing anything to Wales, just passing by on the way to somewhere else. All the ships were sailing between England and the continent, see. Some folk 'round here barely had enough food to feed their children, yet watched the wildest riches pass within a mile or two. Eventuall
y, the underclasses decided to strike back.”

  “How?” asked Lucy.

  “They started hanging banks of lanterns and lighting fires on the beach at night. Sometimes, they would tie lights to grazing cattle. In the dark the passing ships, most of which came from Europe and were unfamiliar with the area, would mistake the lanterns and fires for the lights of ships safely anchored in the harbour. Thinking it was a safe passage, they would be lured onto rocks.”

  “That's awful!”

  Machen pulled back a little. “No more awful than some of the things your ancestors did, miss. Like I said, every country has a secret history. And when your belly's empty, there's no limit to the things you would do to fill it. It was law in them days that landowners could claim Right of the Wreck, meaning they could keep anything that washed up on their land.”

  “What about the sailors, the crew? Didn't they just tell the authorities what the local people did?”

  “Most of the sailors drowned when their ships went down. The few that were left, well, they also met a sticky end. The locals didn't want any witnesses, see.”

  “You mean, they killed them?”

  “This was the eighteenth century, miss. Seafaring was a dangerous business. Ships went down all the time, so when they did nobody asked too many questions.”

  “But what does all this have to do with Sker House?” asked Dale.

  “Isaac Williams was a notorious wrecker. And a very powerful man. Story goes that when he lived in this house, he was on the verge of bankruptcy. He owned lots of land, but his farms were failing. He also owned Sker beach, and realized he could claim Right of the Wreck on anything that ended up there, so he would send his workers down whenever they saw a passing ship. They were usually too late, either that or the captains on those ships weren't stupid. But sometimes, especially in bad weather, they would succeed in luring ships on to the Black Rocks where they were smashed to pieces.”

  “Oh God.” Lucy said.

  “You haven't heard the half of it yet, miss.” Machen said with a knowing wink. “Isaac Williams had a son called James,” he continued. “His first-born. The apple of his eye, he was. Isaac was a well-to-to landowner and local magistrate, so he could afford to send his son to Italy to study. James would make the journey home at the beginning of each summer. One year he decided to come over for Christmas, but didn't tell his family. He wanted to surprise them, you see. In those days, before airplanes and Eurostar, the only way to travel to the continent was by sea. It wasn't uncommon for the captains of merchant ships to take the odd passenger for a cash fee, their names and details never recorded.”