Strangers Read online

  ‘That’s it,’ Scott said. ‘Perfect, eh?’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘Feels like we’ve dropped off the edge of the planet,’ Tammy said unhelpfully as they drove up and over an unnecessarily ornate stone bridge. She looked through the gaps between grubby balustrades and saw a quiet stream where she’d expected a river. Big bridge, little trickle. It seemed to sum this place up perfectly.

  ‘Come on you two,’ Michelle said, doing what she could to keep their spirits up. ‘It’s not that bad. Anyway, it might be quiet around here, but Edinburgh and Glasgow are only about an hour away, probably quicker if we take the train.’

  ‘So there’s a station?’

  ‘Of course there’s a station,’ Scott said.

  ‘There it is,’ Michelle added quickly, spying the distinctive Network Rail sign at the side of the road just ahead. She saw a largely empty gravel car park and a single platform, a tin shed wedged neatly between the two. So where exactly was the station? Wait, unless that shack was the station...?

  ‘I think we missed your school,’ Scott said. ‘I’ll double-back and try find it.’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ Tammy grumbled. ‘Let’s pace ourselves. Can’t take too much excitement in one day.’

  ‘There’s no need to be like that, Tam,’ Michelle warned.

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘Ignore her,’ she told Scott. ‘How about we just head for the house? I think we all want to see it.’

  ‘Look, I know what you’re thinking...’ Scott said.

  ‘If you knew what I was thinking you’d have kicked me out of the car,’ Tammy said quickly.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking, but you need to give this place a chance, you all do. It’s important. It’s a fresh start for all of us.’

  ‘But I didn’t want a fresh start, remember? I was happy in Redditch.’

  ‘Tammy, leave it,’ Michelle said, feeling herself tensing, anticipating conflict.

  ‘It was out of my hands, you know it was.’

  ‘No it wasn’t. You just decided you couldn’t handle—’

  ‘That’s enough!’ Michelle shouted, her voice loud enough to silence Tammy but wake George. ‘Arguing isn’t going to do any of us any good. We are where we are, and we’re all going to make the most of it, right?’

  No answer from the back.

  ‘Right?’ she asked again, a little firmer this time.

  ‘Whatever,’ Tammy said grudgingly.

  ‘Just wait ’til you see the house,’ Scott said, unperturbed. ‘It’ll blow you away.’

  #

  They kept driving until they’d left the town, then followed a wildly twisting road which narrowed to little more than a track in places. ‘Where are we going?’ Michelle asked, confused.

  ‘To the house,’ Scott replied. ‘I found this route last week. I did some exploring. Thought I should get to know the area before you lot got here. Beautiful, isn’t it?’

  He was right, this was beautiful. In the space of less than half a mile the grey dereliction of Thussock had been well and truly left behind, hidden by the curves of the road and the undulations of the land and temporarily forgotten. The landscape opened up again. Scott followed the road as it meandered between two hills, one a lush, grassy mound, the other more craggy, covered in bracken and gorse. The greenery was just beginning to show the first signs of autumn browning.

  Michelle, feeling unquestionably insignificant, dwarfed by the panorama, clung onto the sides of her seat as the car clattered along. An unseen pothole caused them all to lurch to the left. ‘Don’t fancy this route in winter much,’ she said, already picturing long walks into town for supplies and then having to dig themselves out of snowdrifts.

  Around the next bend, the road began to climb again. They were halfway up the rise when Michelle saw an odd-looking industrial construction in the distance. It was in the middle of an otherwise barren field alongside a forest, miles away from anywhere. And like the brewery in Thussock, it too appeared completely out of place. A tall metal tower loomed up over Portakabins and storage tanks. ‘I’m going to see if there’s any work going there,’ Scott said.

  ‘What is it? They drilling for oil or something?’

  ‘Not quite. Fracking.’

  ‘Whating?’

  ‘Fracking. Something to do with drilling down to extract natural gas I think.’

  ‘That’s supposed to be dangerous, isn’t it?’ Phoebe said from the backseat. ‘We learnt about it in geography. Causes earth tremors, I heard.’

  ‘If it was that dangerous they wouldn’t let them do it,’ Scott said. Michelle just looked at him and bit her tongue. Christ, he could be so naïve at times.

  ‘What’s going on over there?’ she asked, keen to end the debate before it began.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Right over there,’ she said, pointing out of her window. ‘Past the fracking or whatever it is.’

  Scott slowed down then stopped, perching the car almost at the very top of the hill. A well-spaced line of figures were walking across the countryside, scouring the fields, beating their way through bracken. And then she saw even more of them, so far they were barely discernible as people, their cagoules bright in the distant late afternoon gloom. Above them all hung a helicopter, appearing to match the methodical pace of the walkers down below. ‘Probably looking for that woman,’ he said.

  ‘What woman?’

  ‘Some old girl’s gone missing. Heard it on the radio.’

  ‘Sure she didn’t escape?’ Tammy mumbled.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Are we nearly there?’ she asked. ‘I’m desperate for the loo.’

  Scott pulled away again. ‘Very close.’

  The sun bounced off the rippling surface of a small lake hidden between two low peaks. Scott wound down the window and all they could hear was the noise of the car and the rushing of the wind. ‘Lovely,’ Michelle said. ‘It’s so peaceful. Just what we need.’

  ‘I walked up here from the house last week,’ Scott told her, accelerating up one final climb. ‘We’re just over this rise.’

  And he was right. Another couple of minutes and they’d reached a junction in the road, having completed a single large loop. He turned right, heading back towards Thussock, and in less than a quarter of a mile they were there. Home. He pulled up outside the house and stopped the engine.

  Absolute silence. No noise from anyone. Nothing.

  ‘Well?’ he asked.

  Michelle got out first and walked up to the front of the building. ‘It’s much bigger than I thought it would be.’

  ‘Looks good,’ Phoebe said, sounding surprisingly upbeat. Although Tammy didn’t say anything, Michelle took her silence as a positive sign too.

  The pictures Scott had shown her hadn’t really done the house justice. It had been a farmhouse once, apparently, though all but a thin strip of land around the back had long since been sold off. Its grubby double-frontage appeared unloved and neglected, but she could definitely see potential. It had originally been rendered off-white, but over the years it had darkened to a uniform murky grey. There were three identical windows on the first floor and two more below, one either side of the front door. To the left of the house as she looked at it was a single-storey extension which, whilst it didn’t exactly match either the colour or the overall look of the building, she thought looked spacious and useful. Over on the far right was a separate garage-cum-workshop. In front of the house was a large gravel driveway, big enough for several cars, and a patchy lawn wrapped around the side of the building. The place was massive. Far bigger than their old house.

  ‘Happy?’ Scott asked her.

  ‘It’s huge.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘We’ll have to put up some kind of fence to block the garden off. Stop George wandering off.’

  ‘Plenty of time for that.’

  ‘And maybe a gate across the drive. It’s a bit open.’

  ‘Christ’s sake, C
helle, stop looking for faults.’

  ‘I’m not. I’m just being practical.’

  ‘Well don’t, at least not for a few minutes. Just look at the potential of this place.’

  ‘It’s certainly got potential, I’ll give you that.’

  ‘Don’t sound so surprised. See, you lot should trust me more.’

  ‘We do trust you.’

  ‘A place like this in Redditch would have cost a bloody fortune. Three times the price at least, I reckon.’

  ‘I know. That’s why we’re here.’

  ‘Probably because of the fracking,’ Phoebe said.

  Scott went to open the door. George was awake. He started moaning, then crying. ‘Sort the lad out, love,’ Scott told Michelle. ‘I’ll show the girls around.’

  Michelle went back to the car and unbuckled George and lifted him from his seat. ‘What do you think, Georgie?’ she asked as she carried him to the door. ‘This is your new home.’ George buried his face in his mother’s shoulder, too tired and grumpy to care. Michelle looked up at the house again, feeling like she was here for a viewing, not to move in. It was a lovely place, she had to admit, and though Thussock itself had been initially underwhelming, the surrounding area was glorious. Beggars can’t be choosers, she reminded herself. And though I’m not a beggar yet, for a while it was a close run thing.

  She took a breath – excited, nervous, heart fluttering with anticipation – and went inside. She could hear the rest of her family exploring already, their footsteps echoing from different rooms and different directions, but she couldn’t see any of them. She was standing in a large square hallway with the staircase, the kitchen, and three other doors ahead of her. A downstairs bathroom, the ground-floor bedroom she and Scott would share, and the living room all looked like they hadn’t been decorated in decades. Scott had already brought a load of their furniture up from Redditch, but rather than making her feel more at home, seeing their things in these unfamiliar surroundings made her feel even more disconnected. She ran her hand along the back of her sofa in the living room, and all she could see was the place in the house in Redditch where it used to be. She sat George down and left him to wake up fully while she continued to explore.

  It wasn’t a particularly well-planned house, she decided. In fact, parts of it looked like they’d barely been planned at all, just tacked on to cope. The girls and George all had rooms upstairs, but there was just a toilet up there, no bathroom, and down here there was no way into the dining room from the living room, nor from the dining room into the garden.

  The others had met in the kitchen, an impressively well-sized room. ‘So what do you think, girls?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s big,’ Tammy said, stating facts rather than expressing an opinion. That was usually a safer option.

  ‘Bit cold, isn’t it?’ Phoebe said.

  ‘That’s just because no one’s been here for a couple of days,’ Scott said. ‘You wait, there’s a real fireplace in the living room. I had it going in the week. I’ll stoke it up again later if I can find enough wood.’

  ‘You could burn some of this furniture,’ Tammy suggested. Much of the previous occupant’s stuff had been left behind and whilst he’d already thrown a lot of it out, Scott had simply assimilated the rest.

  ‘We might be able to salvage some of this,’ Michelle suggested, looking at a dresser and gently pushing it, checking its sturdiness. ‘Might even be able to sell bits of it.’

  ‘Nah,’ Scott told her. ‘It’s all crap. I’ll burn the lot of it.’

  ‘Might be some antiques here.’

  ‘I told you, it’s all crap.’

  She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Every penny helps.’

  Tammy and Phoebe disappeared upstairs again to choose rooms, taking George with them. Michelle went to the kitchen window and looked out over the yard.

  ‘So what do you think?’ Scott asked.

  She looked over her shoulder at him, then faced the window again. ‘It’s big. We’ll be rattling around here.’

  ‘That all you’ve got to say?’

  ‘It’s a lovely house, Scott. It will be, anyway.’

  ‘Told you I’d see us right, didn’t I? When I say I’m going to do something, I do it.’

  ‘I never doubted you, love.’

  ‘You’re going to be happy here then?’

  ‘We’ve only just arrived.’

  ‘I know that, but just look at this place. Much more space than we had before. All those fields... the countryside.’

  A pause. Careful consideration. Say the right thing. ‘We are where we are.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s what I keep telling the girls. We are where we are, now it’s down to all of us to make the most of it.’

  ‘And we will. This is the start of a new chapter, Chelle. Turning over a new leaf, all that stuff...’

  ‘Lay off on the clichés, love,’ she said. ‘Don’t you know that’s how ghost stories always start?’

  ‘You’re taking the piss.’

  ‘Of course I am. I don’t believe in ghosts. You should know that by now.’

  Michelle walked around the battered wooden table which took up most of the kitchen floor. She went back through to the hall and looked up. She could hear the kids thumping on the floorboards above her. It sounded familiar and normal, though none of it felt normal yet. It will in time, she reassured herself. Give it a chance.

  She followed Scott into the living room and peered through the rattling, single-glazed French doors into the overgrown back garden. It too had plenty of potential. Sort the lawn out, put in a couple of flower beds, maybe some decking or a patio by the house... The garden was certainly much bigger than the small square patch of grass they’d left behind. With no visible boundaries, no fence or wall, it seemed to go on forever, stretching towards the hills. Scott put his arms around her from behind. She flinched. ‘You made me jump.’

  ‘You wait, Chelle,’ he said, ‘once the rest of our stuff’s in here it’ll feel like home. The truck’ll be here Monday afternoon.’

  She nodded and gently freed herself from him, keeping hold of one hand for a few seconds longer. Her attention was caught by a pile of clutter in the corner of the room. ‘What’s all this?’

  ‘Some of the old guy’s stuff. I was going through it before I chucked it out. I’ll keep the magazines for the fire.’

  ‘You said you’d cleaned this place up,’ she said, running her fingers along a dust-covered dado rail.

  ‘I have cleaned it. You should have seen it before I started. Some rooms hadn’t been touched in years. I swear, I was flat out all week. I dumped three loads at the tip. It’s a sixty mile round trip, you know. There’s still more down the side of the house to get rid of. Once that’s all gone and the rest of our gear’s in, we’ll be sorted. This time next week...’

  ‘I think it’s going to take a while longer than that. It’s not all about decoration and furniture, you know. The kids are—’

  ‘The kids are going to be fine.’

  ‘I know that, I’m just saying it’ll take them time to adjust. In some ways it’s been a bigger move for them than us. They’ve had to change school, leave their friends...’

  ‘We’ve all had to make sacrifices. But I’ll tell you something, Chelle, we’ve made a bloody good long-term move here. I was looking in an estate agent’s window in town the other day. You should see the prices some of the properties like this one are up for. Once I’ve done it up, we’ll make a killing on this place. We’ll double the value of it in no time, I reckon. Think how much stronger a position that’ll put us in.’

  ‘One step at a time, love.’

  ‘I’m serious. I’ve got big plans...’

  ‘You’ve always got big plans.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I’m gonna start down here,’ he said, oblivious to her reticence. ‘I’ll knock the kitchen through into the dining room, make it more o
pen plan, then I want a conservatory coming off the living room on the back and a decent-sized patio. All the windows need replacing, there’s no double-glazing, it’s all the original glass by the looks of it. Then I was thinking about extending our bedroom back and putting in an en suite, maybe even a walk-in closet if there’s space. You’d like that. You always said you’d like more room for your clothes.’

  ‘It’d be nice, sure, but I don’t need more room.’

  ‘Structurally the house is sound. The extension could do with a few minor repairs, but nothing much. I want to get someone in to look at the rendering.’

  ‘Slow down, love.’

  ‘The rendering’s important. It’s not just about keeping the place looking nice, you know.’

  ‘I understand that...’

  ‘We’ll need to re-carpet throughout, but it’s not worth doing that until I’ve done the interior alterations.’

  ‘But...’

  ‘Probably be a good idea to get the drive tarmacked too. The gravel’s okay, but it’s so bloody noisy, you know? And we’ll be constantly dragging it into the house.’ He stopped. She was staring at him. ‘What?’

  ‘Where are we going to get the money for all of this, Scott? Just because we’ve got a little in the bank at the moment, doesn’t mean we can afford to let ourselves go wild.’

  ‘You have to speculate to accumulate.’

  ‘Yes, but the business is gone, remember? That money’s all we’ve got to live off until we’re earning again.’

  ‘I don’t see the problem. It’s a sound investment. We use the cash in the bank to increase the value of the house.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Then we’ve got an asset worth double what it is now. We’d never get that kind of return from a bank.’

  ‘I know, you’re right.’

  ‘So what’s the problem?’

  ‘How do we live in the meantime?’

  ‘We’ll manage. We always do. Fuck’s sake, wish you’d have a little more faith in me.’