The Forgotten Village

The bell above the door had sounded as another customer entered and queued politely behind Melissa. And so, without really thinking, Melissa reached over to the newspaper rack and took a copy out for herself, glancing quickly at the headline: Forgotten Village Returned. She paid for her magazines and the paper and stepped out into the sunshine to read the lead story. She was no longer interested in the celebrity gossip and overpriced fashion; instead it was the potted history of a long-abandoned village that kept Melissa’s eyes on the page. Perhaps it wasn’t her usual kind of holiday activity, but it was something to do.

Armed with the paper and the crumpled map she kept in the glove compartment, Melissa had ventured into the countryside expecting a quiet day wandering around the so-called forgotten village, perhaps with a handful of pensioners doing the same. But by the time she finally parked, guided into a makeshift parking bay, Melissa fancied she might have made a mistake coming to Tyneham. If the hundreds of cars were anything to go by, it was going to be busy.

The launch day was evidently a big deal to the local area. She wondered if anyone here had been among the people who, the paper had reported, had felt robbed every single day since the winter of 1943 when the army had requisitioned the entire village, every single home and all the surrounding farmland.

Melissa fell in to step with the other tourists along the gravel path and down to a small stage, where she was handed a leaflet and welcomed warmly by a kindly elderly man wearing his luminous yellow jacket with an air of pride. She returned his smile as she took the leaflet and he moved on to the myriad people behind her to offer the same.

Melissa looked past the stage and saw a large red ribbon stretching from one new-looking gatepost to another. She sighed, realising there was going to be a big song and dance going on before she’d be allowed in to have her five minutes nose around the few decrepit buildings. After that, she’d leave. Maybe Liam would be back from the beach early today and they could go out for dinner or just sit in the cottage garden and drink wine, watching the sun go down. They hadn’t done that once since they’d arrived in Dorset.

She was pulled from her thoughts as a man walked on to the stage. The riotous round of applause that accompanied his entrance stopped her thoughts of make-believe wine and sunsets.

Melissa stole a glance at the leaflet she’d been handed. Tyneham will officially be reopened to the public, for daily summer visits, by TV historian Guy Cameron, it said. Next to the text was a smiling black and white photo of Guy Cameron: floppy brown hair and laughing eyes. She folded the leaflet up and thrust it into her jeans pocket, none the wiser as to who he actually was – some kind of celebrity, apparently.

History on TV wasn’t really up her alley, except maybe in the form of a costume drama. Bonnets and corsets and strapping gents striding in and out of lakes in white shirts were far more her thing.

Clapping along with everyone else to welcome Guy Cameron onto the stage, she slowly edged her way out of the crowd and stood to one side, grateful for a bit of space in the heat.

It seemed this historian was a popular choice as the clapping went on a bit too long in Melissa’s opinion. While he talked, Melissa pulled her hair off her sticky neck and up into a high ponytail and pushed her sunglasses back up her nose.

‘For so many years I’ve heard tales about Tyneham and it’s always intrigued me,’ he started. ‘The people who used to live here, what happened to them? Where did they all go? What did they do? How did they react when they were told they had only a month to pack up and leave, not knowing when they’d be allowed back? Not knowing that they wouldn’t be allowed back. A whole community, displaced …’ He paused for a few seconds and the drama of his sentence lingered over the entranced crowd.

Melissa looked around briefly as he cast a spell over his audience.

‘The village was requisitioned in its entirety,’ he looked down at his notes briefly, ‘with a promise to be returned during peacetime. Perhaps there should have been a tad more contractual detail about exactly when in peacetime.’ He gave a smile and the crowd laughed enthusiastically. Melissa pressed her lips together, stifling a smile.

‘Tyneham holds a special place in my heart.’ He was sombre now, and the crowd’s mood changed with him. ‘I was brought up only a few miles from here. My grandmother came from Tyneham, and she was here when the announcement came that she, her friends, family, and employers would all have to leave. I’ve heard first-hand how she felt, but for everyone involved it was different. I’ve always thought the coming together of a community as it was being ripped apart was tragically ironic.

‘But now we get to see the village once again, not as it was, but as it is now. While you can walk the streets, the buildings are damaged by time. Only the church and school are intact and open to the public and I encourage you inside both, to see photographs of the way the village used to be and other exhibits. But for now, seventy-five years after it was requisitioned, I’m happy to declare Tyneham Village officially open.’

With the sound of clapping once again, he stepped off the stage and a young woman, visibly overjoyed to be part of the proceedings, handed him an enormous pair of ceremonial scissors. He looked taken aback at the sheer size of them and said something to the woman, which made her roar with laughter and flick her hair. He snipped the ribbon and it fluttered to the ground.

At that, the surge started and visitors were shown through by guides in luminous yellow jackets. Melissa watched the crowd head through the gate, but waited for the bottleneck to disperse before she entered the fray. She watched the TV personality as he chatted affably with a handful of visitors. He posed easily with people for photos and signed copies of books, which Melissa assumed he must have written. He smiled throughout and she thought it must be exhausting being a celebrity: the permanent smile and the demands on you by the public. As soon as one doting fan left Guy Cameron’s side, another appeared. Melissa cast him a final glance before she slipped past him and through the gates, into the forgotten village.

An hour and a half later, a golf buggy whizzed by Melissa and took a turn ahead past the derelict village square. She was rifling inside her bag looking for a non-existent bottle of mineral water to quell the beginnings of a headache. Her head snapped up to see the historian, whose name she had already forgotten, on the buggy, looking incredibly embarrassed as he overtook the tourists. He gave a few of them a little wave of recognition and Melissa laughed, half wondering why he didn’t just go the whole hog and give them a royal wave.

Melissa trudged on up the hill and stopped to look at her map. She was now ragingly thirsty as she wiped stray strands of her ponytail off her neck. All that was left up here was Tyneham House, more affectionately known as the Great House, the leaflet told her. The note against it simply stated that it had been home to the Standish family, who had owned it for over three hundred years until they, like the villagers, had found their home commandeered from underneath them. They had been given a month to leave.

What’s good for the goose, Melissa thought as she folded up her map and tucked it into her back pocket. She’d been walking for ages and had become ridiculously hot while looking inside the farm buildings and dilapidated cottages. Many of the ramshackle buildings were hidden within the woodlands that surrounded the village and the whole atmosphere was proving deliciously eerie. Wiping her forehead with the back of her hand she chastised herself that in the impromptu act of getting in the car for a day out, she had forgotten water. Her mouth was dry, but there wasn’t a café or gift shop on site from which to buy a drink. She couldn’t believe what an oversight it was given the amount of tourists present. They were never going to make any money this way. She resigned herself to giving the church and school a miss and calling it a day – just after she’d had a little peek at the manor house.

Two tourists on their way back passed Melissa as she arrived at the end of the tree-lined avenue that led to the house and she smiled at them politely, envying them their bottled waters. There was no one else up here and she was grateful for the peace and quiet. She was ready to soak in the atmosphere, undisturbed.

As with most of the other houses in the village, a permanent display board had been placed at Tyneham House, positioned by the entrance to the front drive. There was a potted history of the house and where the bricks used to build it had come from, which Melissa skipped over.

There was very little detail about any of the prior residents, which seemed odd. But there was a picture of the last owners, Sir Albert and Veronica Standish. At least that’s what the picture caption said. There was no information printed about them other than the fact they had been the last residents of the house, and with the image printed crudely onto the strange plastic board they could have been anyone.

Melissa stepped forward to look closer. The couple in the small black and white photograph looked unremarkable. But, despite the heat, she shivered. Her mum would have said that someone had walked over her grave. Melissa wasn’t sure she believed in that sort of thing.

She pushed the thought away and walked through the wide red-brick entrance into the front drive. She could see holes in the brick walls on both sides where wrought-iron gates would once have been fixed but had long since been removed. She put her hand against the warm brick wall to steady herself for a minute or two as the sun beat down on her head. The heat was making her nauseous and she fanned herself with her leaflet for a few seconds before ploughing on. She wasn’t usually this feeble. Just a few quick minutes glancing in the windows of the house if they weren’t boarded up, and then she’d head off.

But as she let go of the wall and walked towards the large pale-bricked Elizabethan building in front of her, her vision blurred and her stomach churned. Melissa reached out to grab the wall again, but it was too far behind her and her fingers grabbed pointlessly at the air. She started to stumble forward, her legs gave way and the ground rushed up to meet her. As her eyes flickered shut, she was only vaguely aware that a strong pair of arms had grabbed her, breaking her fall.

CHAPTER 2 (#ulink_4a4dce66-bbc9-568c-9ae6-4aa2d323a9c4)

Melissa opened her eyes slowly and looked up into a man’s face.

‘Are you all right?’

It was the historian. He was crouched over her; his face full of concern, laced with a hint of panic. He was very attractive up close, but then Melissa wondered why he was so close. And why was she on the ground?

‘Are you all right?’ he repeated. ‘I could see you falling from all the way back there.’ He pointed over her head towards the avenue. ‘I don’t remember the last time I had to run that fast.’

Melissa nodded. ‘I’m fine,’ she said out of good old-fashioned British politeness, although it was clear she wasn’t fine at all. Her head still hurt and her raging thirst hadn’t diminished. And she was still on the ground.

He narrowed his eyes. ‘Hmm. Stay still for a few minutes at least,’ he said. ‘You just passed out. There must be a first-aider here who can take a quick look at you.’

She sat up slowly, ignoring his protestations. ‘How long was I out?’

‘Not long. About thirty seconds or so.’

‘Oh.’ Melissa coughed dryly.

‘Here, have this.’ He offered her his chilled bottle of water and Melissa sipped, then offered it back. He shook his head. ‘It’s yours.’

She put it on the ground, where it rolled to one side and came to rest against a piece of fabric. ‘What’s that?’ she asked.

‘My sweater. I put it under your head when I laid you down.’

‘Did you catch me?’ She looked into his eyes. They were a startling shade of blue that the photograph on the leaflet hadn’t done justice.

He nodded. ‘When I caught sight of you wobbling, I ran so fast I almost careered into you.’

Melissa spied her sunglasses a few feet away. She felt lucky they hadn’t smashed. They must have fallen off her face as she passed out.

He looked in the direction of her gaze; stood and scooped them up, then handed them back before looking at his mobile phone.

‘There’s no signal out here. No phone mast for miles; the village never needed one. So I can’t summon any help. You’re stuck with me, I’m afraid, until you feel well enough to walk.’

‘I feel fine now,’ she said, only half-fibbing. ‘I think I was just a bit dehydrated.’

Melissa looked around, hoping the golf buggy might return for its celebrity passenger so she could hitch a lift, but she didn’t mention it.

He sat down next to her and eyed her carefully. ‘OK. Well, we’ll give it a while before we move. Just rest for a bit.’

Melissa nodded and reached for the water again before taking another sip. ‘That’s much better,’ she said, screwing the cap back on. She looked at the house properly and felt a strange kind of sadness.

‘Are you interested in this sort of history?’ Guy nodded towards the house.

‘Not usually,’ Melissa admitted and then felt a bit guilty admitting this in front of a historian. ‘I was curious about this though and I had the day to kill. I seem to have accidentally come on a surfing holiday, but I hate surfing, so I’ve been finding other things to do with my days. I’ve never even been to Dorset before. I had no idea about Tyneham.’