Dark Days Read online

  “This was where you two used to stay?” Ella said.

  Martin took another deep breath. “Yes. It’s nicer inside than outside.”

  “It better be,” Ella said.

  He looked around at her. Caught her looking at him with wide eyes, a smirk to her face. Testing him again, that’s all this was.

  He cleared his throat. Forced a smile again. “Why don’t we take a look inside?”

  Ella sighed. “If we must.”

  Martin unlocked the door. Felt himself flashing back again. It was strange, visiting somewhere you used to frequent so often. There was a real sense of deja vu about it. And at the same time, it didn’t feel like it was his life he was looking back at. It felt like he was visiting somewhere he’d seen in a film. It was different in person. More... flawed.

  He pushed the door open.

  The dust hit him right away. He felt it tickling his nostrils. He could smell something in the air: damp, like an old person’s house. The cabin looked dark. The dull decor hadn’t been updated since he’d last visited. A lounge and dining area, with an old wooden table, four rickety chairs around it. A small old black CRT television in the corner of the room, a VHS player underneath it with an old Bond collection beside it, several of the films missing. A stack of board games in the wardrobe, the cardboard rotting away.

  Ella walked around the room with an even more disgusted look on her face as before. “Wow,” she said. “I can see why you stopped coming here.”

  Martin knew he shouldn’t react, but Ella was starting to get to him. “You should be more appreciative.”

  “More appreciative that you’ve brought me to a dump? Thanks. I really appreciate it.”

  She pulled her phone out of her pocket. Then she groaned. “Please tell me there’s signal here. Or WiFi at least.”

  Martin shook his head. This generation’s reliance on technology still bugged the hell out of him. Sure, call him a Luddite or a hypocrite, but he just found it refreshing to get away from technology. Sometimes, when he was driving lorries on the road, he fantasised about getting away from the busy-ness of urban life and throwing himself into a self-sustainable lifestyle. He read a lot of books and did a lot of study on the topic. He knew how to grow food. He knew how to hunt. He knew a thing or two about farming, and what he didn’t know, he could always learn. And his brief stint in the RAF when he was younger taught him a thing or two about defending himself if he had to.

  But really, it was just taking that step that was the hardest part.

  “There was life before technology, you know. A pretty decent one at that. Anyway. It’ll do you good to get away from phones and social media for a bit.”

  Ella stuffed her phone back in her pocket. Her pale, gaunt cheeks flushed. “How am I going to keep in touch with my mates if I don’t have any signal?”

  “I don’t know. But from what I hear, it might do you good not to keep in touch with them for a while.”

  He regretted it the moment he said it. He’d heard things about Ella’s friends. Really bad stuff. He saw the way Ella looked at him. The way she frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Martin couldn’t back down now. He squeezed the bridge of his nose. “I’m just saying. Maybe they’re not always the best influence.”

  Ella’s cheeks flushed some more. She yanked her rucksack back from the creaky wooden floor and stared right at Martin. “At least they are an influence.”

  She turned around. Walked away, leaving Martin standing alone in the middle of the lounge.

  All he could do was watch as she headed up the creaky stairs.

  All he could do was stand there.

  He couldn’t even argue because Ella was right.

  He looked across the room. Looked at the leather sofa. At the large open fireplace. Felt the crackle of the flames again. Smelled the smoke in the air, like he was back there, all over again.

  And then he sighed and lifted his rucksack.

  “This weekend’s going to be fun.”

  Chapter Three

  Martin walked alone in the woods.

  It was early afternoon. The skies were grey. Pissed him off a little bit because the forecast said it was going to be alright. It’d make things a lot easier between him and Ella, too. It might sound stupid, but the sun had a weird way of making everything seem okay, even if just on the surface. Besides, there were a hell of a lot more things you could do when it was sunny in the Lakes than when the weather was miserable.

  He walked along the slushy pathway. Soggy orange leaves stuck to his Dr Martens boots. The idea of autumn was always nice. Feet crunching through leaves and acorns. But the truth was, it was mostly a damp mess in Britain. Leaves stuck to your boots. You struggled to stay on your feet as you slid around on the mud. Every now and then, you’d stamp down on a fallen apple, and as nice and fresh as the smell was, it was just a nightmare to clean from your boots.

  He wondered whether he was always so damned miserable.

  He wondered when things went so wrong.

  Deep down, he knew exactly when.

  He clambered further through the woods. He was off-path, so the ground he waded along was uneven and unsteady. He hadn’t set off from the log cabin with any real direction in mind, but he knew where he was heading now. He knew exactly what he was trying to find.

  He thought back to Ella. He hadn’t spoken to her after they’d arrived and had their little spat in the living area. He heard her banging around upstairs, unpacking, then she went quiet. It worried Martin, as stubborn as he felt. He wanted to let her sulk it out, but he couldn’t. He’d gone on up there and asked her if she wanted to go for a walk. She lay on her back, shook her head as she buried her face in some mobile game or other.

  He wanted to push her. He wanted to tell her that some fresh air would be good for her. A walk would be good for her. Hell, it might be good for both of them.

  But he didn’t want to push her too far.

  So he’d come on this walk on his own. He knew what Moira, Ella’s grandma, would say if she heard that. Irresponsible. Always has been irresponsible.

  It was always the way when it came to Martin. Sarah’s parents never liked him. Always thought a lorry driver just wasn’t up to scratch when it came to dating their precious daughter. It wasn’t like he’d always been a lorry driver. He’d served in the RAF for a good five years right out of school. Struggled to find a proper job after that, so bounced between roles, mostly as a security guard or a bouncer. The lorry driving was the most settled he’d ever felt, though. People turned their noses up, but he enjoyed sitting behind the wheel, music full blast, losing himself in all kinds of thoughts and ideas.

  But regardless, Sarah’s parents were a tough nut to crack. She had rich parents and inherited a jewellers from her dad when he passed away. Right in the heart of Kendal, made an absolute dime.

  But Martin couldn’t deny it, much as he wanted to. They were a different class of people. They came from different backgrounds. His mum worked part-time in a chippy for the bulk of her life, and his dad was a builder. Martin and Sarah weren’t a typical couple that most would’ve put together.

  Maybe that should’ve been a sign of things to come.

  He clambered down a steep hill covered in foliage. Kept his feet side on as he worked his way down it, trying not to slip. He thought he knew which way he was going. Truth be told, he was starting to question himself. Maybe he’d taken a wrong turn. Maybe his memory was failing him.

  He just hoped he hadn’t lost what he was looking for.

  He needed it right now.

  He thought back to Ella, alone at the cabin. He wished he knew how to connect with her better. They weren’t always so distant. When she was a little girl, they were close. They went watching football matches together. Played golf together. Ella wasn’t a normal little girl. She preferred doing more “masculine” activities, if you can even say this in this snowflake, trigger-happy world.

  She was a tomboy.
r />   But when she was six, Martin got a new job doing deliveries all over Europe, and that’s when things started going south. He spent more time away from home. Longer periods away. He’d call Sarah and speak with Ella as often as he could in the early days. It was painful, but he was doing what he had to do.

  And then Sarah started seeing someone else, and everything changed.

  It hurt Martin at first. Especially when she stopped answering his calls. And then started having other plans for her little family with “Steve” whenever he was back. It got to the point where he waited outside Sarah’s door for her to get back one day, about two years after they’d split, and confronted them both.

  He wanted to see his daughter. He felt like he was being pushed out.

  And, yeah. He might’ve flipped a little at Steve. Cracked him across the face. Tried to drag Ella away.

  The courts had a lot to say about that.

  After that, he’d spent longer periods away from home. He tried ringing Sarah to speak with Ella a few times, but there was often no luck. And when they did speak, things were different. Ella saw her dad as a different man. She didn’t sound as interested as she used to. She sounded... unsure of him. And that’s what hurt him the most.

  He didn’t know what her mum was telling her about him. He couldn’t control that.

  So he threw himself into his work and his booze, and as more time passed by, he drifted further from Ella.

  He staggered to the bottom of the hill. Looked around. He saw trees all around him, shedding their leaves. The grey sky above, threatening rain. Mud slipping beneath his caked boots, dragging him down.

  He was a strong man. But he wasn’t strong enough to handle the rigours of raising and looking after a child. That much he was certain about.

  He went to turn around. He might as well give up on his search. Wasn’t leading anywhere.

  When he turned around, he saw something, and he stopped in his tracks.

  It was a tall beech tree. Some of the bark had chipped away, and it was mossier than he remembered, but there was no denying this was exactly what he’d been looking for.

  He swallowed a lump in his throat. Walked over to that tree.

  And he saw exactly what he was looking for.

  MA

  SA

  EA

  A heart around them.

  Etched into the tree.

  Martin Alexander. Sarah Alexander. Ella Alexander.

  Their family.

  He remembered when he came here. Ella’s first visit here, fourteen years ago.

  He remembered leaning on that tree, Sarah laughing by his side, and etching their names onto it before some snotty walker told him he was committing a “crime against nature,” and he’d duly report him to the National Trust.

  Martin laughed it off.

  He found himself smiling now.

  The memory of holding that penknife in his hand.

  The memory of carving it, so deep, hoping it never went away.

  He looked at those initials, and he felt his eyes welling up.

  Because things were different now.

  Things would never be the same again.

  Because how could anything ever be the same?

  Sarah was gone.

  She’d taken her own life.

  It was just MA and EA left now.

  And those two sets of initials had a large space between them...

  Chapter Four

  Martin watched Ella chew down on a piece of pasta, and he knew he’d messed the food up.

  It was evening. Martin had spent a long time out walking that afternoon. When he’d got back to the cabin, he found Ella sitting in front of the old television watching some cartoon, only it was all coated in white noise and mostly in black and white. The wind had settled, but the sky had that dark grey tone to it that threatened a storm. That’d be bloody typical. Decent weather forecast ruined by a frigging storm. Always the way in Britain.

  He looked at the mac and cheese before him. Sloppy, and slightly burned. Tasted a little sour, too sour to be appetising. He’d made it before he came on this trip. He had this vision of setting up his portable stove outside the cabin and enjoying a campfire-style meal. But the portable stove was playing up, and the fire he’d started barely warmed through some parts of the pasta and burned the rest to a crisp.

  He knew a few ways of starting fires without matches or a lighter. Not that he needed that right now, but he liked to keep his skills up to scratch. The most common method was the hand drill, but that was actually the trickiest to do. All it required? A nest of dry leaves and bark. A small fireboard with a v-shaped notch cut into it, and a small dint adjoining it. Then, whack the bark underneath the notch to catch the ember caused by the friction. After that, put a small spindle into the fireboard and get rolling it between your hands. It took time, but as soon as an ember starts to glow, you drop the ember onto the bark below, move it over to your nest of leaves, and bam—fire started.

  But that could be a tireless task. There were other methods. More effective methods, albeit ones that took a little more setting up. The bow drill was Martin’s personal favourite, but it required a socket and a bow as well as the spindle and fireboard of the hand drill. The socket could be anything from a hard piece of sappy wood or a stone. The bow should be pretty long, using a flexible piece of wood, slightly bent. You could use anything for the string, but Martin preferred shoelaces. String up the bow, prepare the fireboard the same way as before, string up your spindle into the loop of the bow string, then place one end in the fireboard and put some pressure on the other end with the socket. Then, using the bow, move back and forth, and keep going until you get an ember.

  Simple. But not easy.

  He was grateful for a lighter and some damned matches right now.

  Ella didn’t have to say anything. Martin could taste how grim the mac and cheese was himself. It even smelled bad, like milk that’d gone off. Maybe that’s what it was—off-milk. Maybe he’d put some old milk into it. He didn’t know. Wasn’t in a habit of checking whether his milk was off or not. If it was mostly edible, he ate it. Sell-by dates and best before tags were mostly something he ignored.

  It was only him living in his third-storey flat, after all. Didn’t have anyone else to look after. Didn’t have anyone else to feed. It wasn’t exactly the nicest place in the world. Kids hung around in the corridors. Loud music and sirens woke him up in the middle of the night. Last year, some crackhead tried to start a fire and got everyone evacuated.

  But hell. He didn’t care. Spent most of his time on the road anyway, tucking into Ginsters pasties from service stations and discounted Little Chef meals.

  Ella opened her mouth. Went to speak.

  “Don’t say it,” Martin said.

  Ella closed her mouth. She wiped her thin black hair from her face. A little smirk rose at the corner of her lips. “I was just going to say...”

  “Well don’t. I know it’s not perfect. I’m no James Martin.”

  “James who?”

  “You don’t know who... bloody hell. Kids these days. So uncultured.”

  “I was just going to say, Grandma does mac and cheese sometimes.”

  Martin lowered his fork. “Oh yeah. I bet she does. And I bet it’s fantastic, isn’t it?”

  Ella shrugged. “It’s alright. Warm at least. And not burned in places.”

  Martin looked away at the vast hills. They were in a particularly remote part of the Lake District. You could go days without seeing anyone up here. A proper taste of remote living. A no-frills treat for the soul, even more important in this interconnected world.

  “It’s okay, anyway,” Ella said, toying around with her barely eaten bowl of food. “For cold, burned mac and cheese. I’ve had worse. I think.”

  She put a little stringy piece of pasta in her mouth. Chewed it a few times, turned her nose up, then spat it back out.

  “Actually,” she said.

  Martin shook his head a
nd put his bowl down. It was no point pretending he liked the food either. He looked over at Ella’s desperately thin frame, and he wanted to get to know her again. He wanted to know about her life. About her friends. He wanted to know about that weird music critic she seemed to idolise with a yellow flannel and “the best teeth in the game.” He wanted to know what she liked and what she didn’t.

  But every now and then, he saw the scars on her arms, and he backed away. He didn’t want to know. Because he didn’t want to accept just how much his daughter was struggling. How much she was suffering.

  He didn’t want to make things worse for her.

  It was a month since Sarah died. Martin was away in Calais when he found out. Moira called and told him it happened suddenly. And by suddenly, she meant she’d walked into her house one day and found her hanging from the stairs. No suicide note. No final goodbyes. Nothing. Just a decision to take her life.

  There had been stuff come out since, though. Apparently, Sarah had been seeing someone for bipolar disorder, a silent battle she struggled with herself. Ella told of nights and nights she’d spend with her grandma. It turned out Ella moved out of her home months ago and had been staying at Moira’s ever since. Moira kept a close eye on Sarah, who preferred the space.

  And Martin felt nothing but anger that nobody reached out to him sooner. That nobody told him what was going on.

  He felt anger that Sarah had been left alone to fight her own battle.

  He felt angry about a lot of things.

  In the months that had passed, Ella had lived with her grandma. Steve had disappeared a year or two earlier. Turned out being a cheating wanker after all. Martin knew he needed to step up. Sarah’s death hit him hard. They might’ve finished, but there’s no getting over something like that. The woman he’d loved. The mother of his child. Gone. Just like that.

  He knew he needed to step up, then. For Ella’s sake more than anything.

  “So what’ve you been up to lately?”

  Ella frowned. “What? This last month since my mum topped herself? Or the eight years you didn’t see me before that?”