‘It won’t,’ says Lily. ‘I don’t feel quite right. I’m going to my room to try to find my diabetic kit.’
Nancy nods. ‘I can feel one of my migraines coming. I’m going to get a glass of water and some pills from the kitchen,’ she says, heading for the door like the rest of them. My mother thinks there is a pill for any and all situations.
‘Well, I might just get a bit of air,’ I say, not wanting to be left behind. I think we’re all feeling a little claustrophobic trapped in this house together, but also all scared of being alone. I stand in the hallway and can hear different corners of the house creaking with quiet activity. The noise does nothing to calm my nerves. I have always preferred the sound of silence.
I notice that the front door is slightly ajar and step out onto the porch, but there is nobody there. The roar of the sea and the melody of the wind chimes remind me how isolated we are out here, cut off from the mainland for several hours every day. And night. When you’ve spent as much time alone as I have, it can be hard to be around people for too long. Even family. Especially one like ours.
I was the last to leave the room, but think I’m the first to return to the lounge a short while later, and I spot something unfamiliar on the coffee table. The rest of the family come back before I can take a closer look. Conor is the last to return, but he’s the first to see what I saw, and from the tone of his voice, it’s as though he’s accusing me of putting it there.
‘What’s that on the table?’ he asks.
‘It’s the tape we just watched,’ Lily replies.
‘I don’t think it is,’ I say, taking a step back.
‘No. It isn’t,’ Rose confirms.
We’re all looking at the tape now. It wasn’t there before, and the Scrabble letters stuck to the case of this home movie spell a different message:
HEAR ME
‘What the hell?’ says Conor. ‘Who did this?’ He looks around the room at each of us.
‘You’re the one who noticed it, maybe it was you,’ says Lily.
Rose picks it up carefully. ‘The last tape said WATCH ME. This one says HEAR ME. This is super messed up. Who would do this, and why?’
We are all staring at one another, silent accusations exchanged in the form of wary glances.
‘We should watch it,’ I say, and then everyone starts arguing about the pros and cons of doing so.
‘Enough!’ Nancy says, and the rest of us are quiet. ‘No more games. Nana and your dad are dead. There’s nobody else here at Seaglass and I don’t believe in ghosts. Who left that tape on the table?’
Nobody answers.
‘Maybe the only way to find out is to watch it,’ Rose says, and when nobody argues, she slides the video out of its case and into the machine, then presses play.
Eighteen
SEAGLASS – 1982
Christmases at Seaglass were always magical, until my parents got divorced. Nana made a bigger effort than ever to welcome my mother, my sisters and me, but it didn’t feel quite the same without Dad there. I’ll never forget the Christmas of 1982. I was seven, Lily was eleven, and Rose was twelve. We had a huge tree that year – delivered by boat – which we all helped to decorate. We made paper chains, and a wonky chocolate yule log, then on Christmas Eve, the Darker family women watched ET. It was my first ever trip to the cinema, and I loved every minute of it. But the home movie I can see on Nana’s old TV now didn’t capture any of that. It starts on Christmas Day 1982 and, as usual, begins with Lily.
If Father Christmas really did make a naughty list every year, then my sister would have been at the top. But she still got all the gifts and toys she wanted as a child, even when money was tight. I think Nancy thought that the tantrums would cost her more in the long run. High on Lily’s wish list that year was a Walkman. As soon as she had unwrapped it, Lily listened to it everywhere, even when she was eating, or roller-skating, or watching TV, which made little sense to me. And she was always singing along to something, normally very badly. The song I most remember her murdering that year was ‘Physical’ by Olivia Newton-John.
‘I’m bored of filming this now,’ says twelve-year-old Rose from behind the camera.
‘One more lap, I’m getting faster every time!’ says Lily, whooshing past the outside walls of Seaglass on a newer, bigger pair of roller skates.
‘The slush puppies are nearly ready!’ I hear seven-year-old me say, and it’s a shock when the camera turns in my direction. We’re in the garden that my mother loved so much, and it looks freezing cold. I’m wearing a fluffy bobble hat and one of Lily’s hand-me-down coats. I remember the wooden toggles that I found inexplicably difficult to fasten. I’d had two operations on my heart that year, and I do not look well. I’m far too skinny and there are dark circles beneath my eyes. But I do look happy, playing with my Mr Frosty toy and making syrupy crushed ice drinks for the Care Bears my sisters were too old to play with. The bears had been gifts from Nana. Mine was pink with a rainbow on its tummy. Lily’s was blue with a raincloud, and Rose’s bear was turquoise with a shooting star – she was obsessed with the solar system that year.