The Retreat

  ‘Lucas! Why aren’t you working? Naughty boy.’

  I closed the door behind me. ‘Have you seen Suzi this morning? Any idea if Max tried to get into her room again last night?’

  She turned the radio down. ‘No. I saw him, though, on the phone to his wife. Arguing. Again. He told her he’s going to stay here for another couple of weeks.’ She paused. ‘You’re a horror writer.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Well, I think you’ll like this. I had a spooky experience last night.’

  ‘Really?’ I pulled up a chair. ‘Tell me more.’

  ‘It was about midnight and I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d sneak down and make myself a snack.’ She smiled. ‘Don’t judge me.’

  ‘I’m not. Sounds like a good idea.’

  ‘It’s the country air. It makes me hungry. Anyway, I made myself a cheese sandwich – and yes, I know cheese at bedtime is a bad idea but there was this delicious-smelling cheddar in the fridge which I couldn’t resist – and then I heard something. A bang from the hallway. It made me jump out of my skin.’

  I pictured it. Karen, about to bite into her sandwich, frozen with her mouth open.

  ‘I went out to investigate.’ She shook her head. ‘I was carrying the knife I’d used to cut the cheese, trying to kid myself I’m awfully brave. And it was that blasted cat.’

  ‘Oh, good. He came back.’

  ‘Good? The bloody thing nearly gave me a heart attack. Anyway, he shot into the sitting room and I went after him, here kitty kitty, all that. Thinking I’d give him a piece of my mind, not that I’ve got much to spare. Eventually I gave up and went back to the kitchen. And that’s when the weird thing happened. My sandwich was gone.’

  I laughed. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes! The plate was there, with crumbs on it. But no sandwich.’

  ‘Had you been drinking?’ I asked.

  ‘I might have had one or two nips of gin. And a few puffs on a spliff.’

  ‘You were stoned?’

  ‘Don’t sound so shocked. I smoke it for medicinal purposes.’

  I must have looked doubtful because she said, ‘No, seriously. I suffer with terrible arthritis, especially in my fingers when I’ve been writing all day. My knees too. It’s awful, but weed helps a lot.’

  ‘Oh, sorry.’

  She shook off my apology. ‘Anyway, I was slightly stoned. But not enough to hallucinate that sandwich. And I hadn’t eaten it and forgotten, if that’s what you’re thinking. My tummy was still rumbling.’

  ‘Hmm.’ I tried not to sound too sceptical. ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I made another sandwich.’

  I laughed, but Karen wasn’t smiling.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked. ‘Could it have been a ghost?’

  ‘I’ve never heard of a ghost stealing someone’s supper.’

  ‘Yeah. I guess.’

  ‘Perhaps the cat took it,’ I said. ‘He might have dragged it off your plate and under a cupboard.’

  Or maybe, I thought, you got stoned, ate it yourself, then forgot.

  ‘That bloody cat,’ she said, then laughed.

  I left Karen staring at her laptop and explored the cottage. There was a tiny kitchen, with nothing but a kettle and basic tea-making facilities, a small living room and a toilet. Stairs led up to the second floor, but a chain had been strung across the staircase, barring entry.

  There wasn’t much else to see, and I really needed to get on with some work, so I left the cottage. I waved goodbye to Karen but she didn’t see. She was frowning with concentration. Probably thinking about her missing sandwich.

  ‘How’s everything going so far?’ Julia asked later that afternoon when I popped down to the kitchen to make a coffee. She was leaning against the Aga for warmth, Chesney the cat on the worktop beside her. I was about to repeat Karen’s story about the cat and the sandwich when I realised Julia might not appreciate her guests smoking weed in their rooms. If she wouldn’t allow alcohol, drugs were almost certainly a no-no, medicinal purposes or not.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘I thought it was going well yesterday but now I’m not so certain. I’m trying not to think about the sand running out of the hourglass.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll get there.’

  She tucked a long strand of her chestnut hair behind her ear. Since finding out about Lily, I had been struggling not to look at her with obvious sympathy. She gave off a strong vibe of wanting to be left alone, but I wasn’t in a hurry to return to the silence of my room – and, well, I liked Julia. I barely knew anything about her – save what I’d learned from the Internet – but I wanted to know more.

  ‘I was going to make myself a coffee,’ I said. ‘Would you like one?’

  ‘I don’t drink coffee. I’m one of those boring people who only drinks herbal tea.’ She nodded at a long line of boxes on the side, chamomile and rooibos and lemon verbena. In fact, she had a mug on the go now.

  No alcohol or caffeine. Had she always been clean-living, or was it a recent change?

  ‘What do you think of the retreat so far?’ she asked.

  ‘I like it. Though it feels strange being back here. I’m wondering if my Welsh accent will return.’

  She smiled. ‘Like I said before, I’m going to start organising talks, getting in a resident writer, having discussion groups, when things get going properly,’ she said.

  ‘Good idea. Not that I’m into being critiqued by other writers. It’s bad enough reading my reviews on Amazon.’ The kettle whistled and I lifted it from the hotplate. ‘I’ve been wondering, what made you open a writers’ retreat?’

  ‘Money.’

  ‘Always a good reason.’

  ‘The best. I just . . . well, I thought about setting up a bed and breakfast, but then a friend who works in publishing suggested doing this. She said there was a lot of demand for it and I’d meet lots of interesting people.’

  ‘You have friends in publishing?’

  ‘I used to be an illustrator. Children’s books. Have you heard of Jackdaw Books? I did a lot of stuff for them.’

  I stood with my back to her, stirring milk into my coffee. ‘Used to be? What made you stop?’

  I was hoping she would mention her husband and daughter but she didn’t reply. When I turned around she met my eye and said, ‘I looked you up.’

  ‘Oh. Really?’

  ‘Yeah. You didn’t tell me you were a bestseller. I read it’s being made into a movie.’

  I adopted my modest face. ‘Hopefully. It’s stuck in development hell.’

  I paused. It would be easy to carry on the charade and pretend I didn’t know about her history. I knew that bringing it up might cause her pain. But I also wanted to be honest. I wasn’t going to get a better chance than this.

  ‘I have a confession,’ I said.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I know . . . I know what happened to you. To your husband and daughter.’

  She had been lifting her mug to her lips. Her hand froze and she placed the mug on the counter. It rattled against the Formica. I immediately wished I’d kept quiet.

  ‘Is that why you came here?’

  ‘No, of course not. I only found out yester—’

  ‘You like writing about missing children, don’t you? Are you researching a sequel? Are you going to write about how my daughter was eaten by a fucking monster?’

  She glared at me, then abruptly left the room. I stood there, the cat blinking at me accusingly, stunned by how quickly she’d gone from calm to furious, as if I’d flipped a switch.

  After a moment of hesitation I followed her into the sitting room – the Thomas Room, I reminded myself – where she stood by the bookcase, her chest visibly rising and falling, a thunderous expression on her face.

  ‘Julia, I promise I didn’t know until yesterday. A taxi driver mentioned it when I said I was staying here.’

  She stood with her back to me, staring through the window at the cloud-choked sky. ‘And t
hen what did you do? Google me?’

  My silence was confirmation.

  She turned. ‘Do you know how many journalists I had coming here, day after day, week after week? All of them pretending to be concerned, wanting me to give my side of the story. It took months to get rid of them. And now I’ve got an author staying here who specialises in writing about missing children—’

  ‘I don’t specialise in it.’

  ‘I should never have opened this place. I’m not ready.’

  She covered her reddening face with her hands. She was silent and I didn’t know what to do or say. Eventually, I managed, ‘I swear, Julia, that my new book has nothing to do with missing children. I have no interest in writing about you or your family. I feel terribly sorry for you, that’s all.’

  She shook her head, as if the sight of me made her sick.

  ‘If you want me to go, I will.’

  ‘I think that would be best.’

  ‘Okay.’ I felt sick, but what else could I do? ‘Now?’

  She wouldn’t meet my eye. ‘You can stay tonight. But first thing tomorrow, I want you to go.’

  Chapter 6

  I dreamt I was drowning, being dragged to the bottom of a river by clutching hands. All I could see beneath me was hair, swaying like fronds, and I swallowed mouthfuls of dirty black water. I could hear music, muffled and soft. A girl singing on the riverbed, sweet but distorted, the melody bent out of shape.

  I woke up gasping – but the singing continued. I lay there, still half in the dream, listening, thinking I must still be asleep. Stupidly, I pinched myself. I was definitely awake.

  I got out of bed and pressed my ear to the wall that separated my room from the one Julia had stopped me going into. Lily’s room. That’s where the singing was coming from, just as before. Now, in the silence of the night, it was clearer – but I couldn’t make out the words. I strained to hear and then it struck me. The words weren’t in English.

  I hadn’t studied Welsh since I was five years old but was sure I recognised the first few words. Un, dau, tri. One, two, three. The rest of the words, though – and the tune – weren’t familiar.

  What was a girl doing in Lily’s old room, singing in the middle of the night?

  I was about to leave my room to investigate further when I realised: it must be Julia. Yes, it sounded like a child singing, but it was conceivable that it was a woman. Or it could even be someone playing a recording . . . That must be it. Perhaps Julia was in there now, listening to a recording of her daughter singing. It was unusual behaviour, but people deal with grief in many different ways.

  The singing stopped. I waited for the sound of Julia leaving the room. But all was silent.

  Eventually, I got back into bed and pulled the covers up to my chin. I had come up with a solid, rational explanation for what I’d heard, but I was still spooked, and I lay there for hours, the melody from the song repeating inside my head, burrowing deeper into my brain with every loop, until eventually I entered a hypnogogic state where I could hardly tell the difference between imagination and reality. I pictured myself getting out of bed again, crossing the room and touching the wall. It was warm, pulsing, and I became convinced the wall was made of flesh and bone, that the house was alive. I dug my fingernails into the wallpaper and tore holes in the pattern. As the melody from the little girl’s song went round and round in my head, blood trickled from beneath my fingers and ran down the walls. The house shuddered as if it were crying.

  It didn’t take long to gather my stuff and pack my suitcase. Although I felt guilty about looking into what had happened to Julia’s daughter and invading her privacy, I also thought I was blameless to some extent. It was, surely, a coincidence that I’d written about the topic that most hurt Julia.

  I yawned, exhausted from my disturbed night, haunted by my waking dream. As I checked to see if I’d forgotten anything, I couldn’t help but glance over at the walls, expecting to see them bleed. Maybe it was a blessing that I was leaving. One thing had struck me in the morning light: when the house cried in my dream, it had sounded like Priya.

  I opened my bedroom door – just as Karen came down the stairs from her room on the top floor.

  She spotted my suitcase. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I’m leaving.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  Sensing that she would bombard me with difficult questions if I wasn’t honest, I gestured for her to come into my room and take a seat. I told her everything, keeping my voice low.

  ‘Oh, that poor woman,’ she said. ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘Do you remember seeing it on the news at the time?’

  ‘No. I was living in Italy then. It’s dreadful. I don’t have children but I can imagine . . .’ She trailed off. ‘It’s not right for her to chuck you out, though. I mean, you didn’t come here because she had a missing child, did you?’

  ‘Of course not!’

  She got up. ‘Let me have a word with her. Maybe I can persuade her that you’re a good egg, and not a creepy voyeur with a dead child obsession.’

  Before I could protest, she left the room. I sat there, feeling like a schoolboy whose mum has gone to talk to the head teacher to plead his case.

  Five minutes later, Julia appeared in my doorway.

  ‘Can we have a chat?’ she said.

  ‘Of course. Come in.’

  She closed the door behind her. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail and, fresh-faced and makeup-free in her baggy jumper and leggings, she looked younger than her age. But she had dark smudges beneath her eyes and her skin was so pale it was almost translucent. She was so thin too, as if grief had melted the meat from her bones.

  ‘Listen, Julia, I promise you I had no idea about Lily before I came here. It’s a total coincidence that I wrote a book about . . . missing kids . . . I would never ever dream of exploiting—’

  She cut off my babble. ‘Lucas.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry. I overreacted. You can stay, assuming you still want to.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Good. That’s settled then. Let’s forget it ever happened.’

  She went to leave, but I stopped her by saying, ‘Do you want to talk about it? About Lily and Michael?’

  She focused on a spot on the carpet. ‘Not really.’

  ‘I understand. It hurts to talk about it.’

  She looked at me curiously and I added, ‘I lost someone too, someone I loved, and it still causes me pain just to think about it, let alone talk about it. For you to lose two members of your family . . .’

  She shook her head. ‘One. Only Michael. I mean, yes, Lily is lost, but she’s not dead. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Oh.’

  She made an exasperated gesture. ‘Everyone assumes she’s dead. The police, all the people in town, my friends. Everyone. But they don’t . . .’ She sat down on the bed. ‘Okay, I’ll tell you. But you have to promise you won’t put it in a book.’

  ‘On my mother’s life.’

  ‘Okay.’ She turned her face towards the window. ‘It was New Year’s Day, two years ago . . .’

  The path along the riverbank was slick with mud. It sucked at the soles of Julia’s wellies. The wind caught her from behind and she almost lost her footing – heart flipping, arms windmilling – until Michael grabbed her arm.

  ‘Careful.’

  ‘I’m fine.’ She wriggled free of his grip and pulled her coat tightly around herself, shivering. She called out to Lily, ‘Stay where I can see you!’

  Their daughter was a little way ahead. Eight years old and skinny as a snake, the coat she’d got for Christmas unzipped and hanging from her bony shoulders. She’d refused to put on her hat or gloves, insisting she didn’t need them. And it was true: Lily was like a human radiator; always had been. On bitter winter nights, when drafts invaded their house – the house that, Michael liked to say, had its own weather system – Julia would steal into Lily’s bed and bask in her glow.

&
nbsp; Lily was clutching her favourite toy, Big Cat, which she’d had since she was a baby. She raised an arm and carried on along the bank at her own pace. She was at the point where the path descended towards a copse of trees that hugged the bend in the river. She glanced back occasionally, an unreadable expression on her face. Lily had been studying her parents closely today, watching them as if trying to see inside their heads.

  Most likely she was watching them because she didn’t trust the peace between them.

  Julia opened her mouth to call out again, to tell Lily to stay where she could see her, but Michael said, ‘Leave her. She’s happy.’

  ‘I know. I just don’t like her going into the trees on her own.’

  ‘Stop fretting. She’ll be fine.’

  He put his arms around her and pulled her into a kiss. He still smelled of last night’s alcohol and the kiss was brief – but, after a dry spell that had threatened to turn into a drought, it was still something.

  Julia made her way down the final stretch of the slippery path, glancing at the river as she went. All that recent rainfall had made the water level rise and it was fast-flowing here, churning white as it swept around the bend. This was a popular spot for white-water rafting, groups of tourists heading downstream from Beddmawr. Julia shivered again and decided her New Year’s resolution on the spot: she would conquer her long-held fear and learn to swim.

  Lily was still ahead of them, approaching the copse at the bottom of the slope. Julia turned to speak to Michael – and saw him sneak something into his pocket.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  She stepped closer. ‘Show me.’

  ‘Come on, Julia, it was nothing.’ He went to move past her but she stepped into his path, making him slip. As he snatched at her arm, she stuck her hand into the pocket of his fleece. He tried to stop her, but she was too fast.

  She held up the hip flask. The evidence.

  The broken promise.

  ‘It’s for the cold,’ he began, before trailing off. She expected him to be apologetic, sheepish, but his eyes flashed with defiance. In that moment, he looked just like Lily, when Julia told her to tidy her room or do her homework. I don’t have a husband and child, she thought. I have two children.