The House on the Edge of the Cliff Read online

  Carol Drinkwater

  * * *

  THE HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE CLIFF

  Contents

  The Present

  Two Weeks Earlier

  1968

  The Present

  1968

  The Present

  1968

  The Present

  1968

  The Present

  1968

  The Present

  1968

  The Present

  1968

  The Present

  1968

  The Present

  1968

  The Present

  1968

  The Present

  1968

  1968

  January 1969

  The Present

  The Early Nineties

  The Present

  November 1990

  The Present

  Christmas 1990

  The Present

  April 1993

  The Present

  Recovery

  Acknowledgements

  Reading Group Discussion Points

  About the Author

  Carol Drinkwater is a multi-award-winning actress who is best known for her portrayal of Helen Herriot in the BBC television series All Creatures Great and Small. Her quartet of memoirs set on her olive farm in the south of France have sold over a million copies worldwide and her solo journey round the Mediterranean in search of the olive tree’s mythical secrets inspired a five-part documentary film series, The Olive Route. She is also the author of novels The Forgotten Summer and The Lost Girl. She lives in the south of France where she is writing her next novel.

  By the Same Author

  NON-FICTION

  The Olive Farm

  The Olive Season

  The Olive Harvest

  Return to the Olive Farm

  The Illustrated Olive Farm

  Crossing the Line: Young Women and the Law

  TRAVEL

  The Olive Route

  The Olive Tree

  FICTION

  An Abundance of Rain

  Akin to Love

  Mapping the Heart

  Because You’re Mine

  The Forgotten Summer

  The Lost Girl

  FICTION FOR YA

  The Haunted School

  Molly

  Molly on the Run

  The Hunger

  Twentieth-Century Girl

  Suffragette

  Nowhere to Run

  The Only Girl in the World

  KINDLE SINGLES (E-BOOK NOVELLAS FOR AMAZON)

  The Girl in Room Fourteen

  Hotel Paradise

  A Simple Act of Kindness

  The Love of a Stranger

  For Michel, my gentle, loving husband, as always. Also a salute to my wonderful agent and friend, Jonathan Lloyd at Curtis Brown. Jonathan, you are the most supportive of men.

  Thank you both for being the wings in my life, and helping me to learn to fly.

  ‘I think it’s perfectly possible to be a good man Monday to Friday and then, one terrible Saturday, to do something bad that haunts you for the rest of your life.’

  Philip Kerr

  ‘Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!’

  William Wordsworth

  The Present

  Late May, departure

  Frenzied activity.

  Calls, shouts, giggles echoing along the corridor, bouncing off the whitewashed walls and finding their way into sunlit room after sunlit room. Plimsolls, muddied socks, semi-damp swimming togs forgotten beneath the beds or abandoned on the stairs beyond the guest bedrooms. Taps running, loos flushing. Doors opening and closing. Feet charging to and fro.

  ‘Hurry with your washbag, please, Trish! I’m closing up your case. Now.’

  ‘MUM! Get it together! I gave it to you twenty minutes ago.’

  I was in the hallway, one foot poised on the second step, listening, feeling sad about their departure. ‘Sam!’ I called up the stairs to one of my two step-daughters, while noticing that the walls all the way to the first-floor landing had been scuffed by the children’s comings and goings. Toe marks, fingerprints. Traces of their days on the beach. Grains of fallen sand crushed into the wooden steps.

  ‘Sorry, what did you say, Grace? Just leave that, Trish, please. I’ll pack it last.’

  ‘You were going to give me your reservation number so we can print out your tickets.’

  ‘Damn, I forgot. Sorry, Grace, can you give me five more minutes?’

  ‘Whenever you’re ready. You’ve got bags of time.’ I returned to the kitchen where I was preparing a stack of sandwiches. My fingers were greased with butter and streaks of fat from the salami I’d been slicing. Two rolls of tinfoil, three paper carrier bags, two loaves, pre-sliced by the baker, a Thermos flask of black coffee, a boiling kettle, which I had switched on and forgotten for whatever reason, and several cartons of fruit juice greeted me.

  Peter was out on the veranda, or so I had assumed, but when I walked through into the living room to ask him to turn on the printer, I couldn’t find him. ‘Peter, chéri,’ I called softly, not wanting to wake him if he had nodded off in the shade somewhere. I knew he was feeling downhearted at the prospect of the imminent departure of one of his daughters, along with three of his beloved grandchildren. The medley of emotions he must be facing, along with his inability to handle them, frequently sent him to his desk behind a firmly closed door or somewhere else quiet where he could brood without being observed. He might have gone for a walk. It was a beautiful morning, with nothing to disturb the equanimity of the rich blue sky.

  Yes, he’d possibly set off for some gentle exercise along the clifftop.

  ‘Harry! Harry!’ Samantha was calling from one of the first-floor rooms to the youngest of her three. ‘Grace, have you seen Harry?’

  ‘No, sorry.’ I yelled up to her again. ‘Last time I spotted him he was coming down the stairs, all dressed, ready to go. It must have been about half an hour ago. Forty-five minutes, maybe. Might he be down at the beach with Jenny and her two?’

  ‘I hope not. He’ll need another shower if he is. Harry!’

  I could hear the tension rising in her voice. None of us wanted her to leave, to return to England, and it was a long journey alone with her three youngsters. The timing was unfortunate, what with her father’s heart surgery looming, but she had her career and a husband in London, patiently awaiting the overdue return of his family. Initially, she had intended to stay just a week.

  ‘I’ll go and have a look outside,’ I called up the stairs. ‘You’ve hours till the train, Sam. No need to worry.’

  ‘Why does he always go missing when …?’

  ‘I’ll have a scout about. He won’t have gone far.’

  If Peter had set off on a walk, he might have taken his grandson with him. Neither he nor Harry was on the veranda as I passed through and stepped outside onto the narrow ledge of grass, bright with wildflowers and carpenter bees, that led to the roughly hewn flight of steps that swept zigzag down to the beach. I hung back at the top and waved to Jenny, Sam’s twin sister. She was wading out of the sea, squeezing the water out of her long curly hair. Her two girls were sitting cross-legged on towels, making daisy chains, necklaces and tiaras out of the flowers they had been picking earlier in the morning. I signalled again to Jenny who, glancing upwards, caught sight of me.

  ‘Have you seen your dad?’ I was cupping my hands to make a megaphone with them. ‘Or Harry? He seems to have wandered off somewhere.’

  Jenny shook her head as she bent low for a towel.

  Where could the pair
of them have got to? It was then I noticed that Phaedra, our boat, was missing. Our little seafaring yacht. In the season, it was always moored in the cove directly in front of the villa, anchored and bobbing just beyond the shoreline, and that was where I had abandoned it two days earlier. Surely Peter and Harry hadn’t taken it out.

  Due to Peter’s health problems, the boat had not been used all that frequently this year, except by me, of course, but the family knew nothing of my illicit early-morning trip along the coast. Might I have forgotten to take out the keys? I’d been alone, at a little after dawn in the soft violet light, in an emotionally unstable state, freaked by the threats I was facing, the veiled blackmail. Had I left them in the ignition? I scanned the sparkling sea vista in all directions. There was no sign of the boat on the calm water. Where could it have got to? Had it somehow become untethered and drifted out to sea, unnoticed from the bay, or was it trapped in a rock crevice? Had I, in my distress, been careless in parking it?

  The keys must have remained in the boat for the last couple of days and no one the wiser. I was puzzled, trying mentally to retrace my movements, and momentarily forgot that I was supposed to be searching for Harry.

  Harry. The youngest of my grandchildren and, yes, the apple of my eye.

  And who knew that?

  Who knew that if I refused to do his bidding …

  One other explanation crept into my mind. Might he have stolen the boat? Might he also have cajoled my grandson, charmed or threatened the unsuspecting child into setting off on an expedition with him?

  ‘Harry!’ I yelled, with fierce force from lungs trained to project. ‘Harry, can you hear me?’

  I had to find Peter.

  Could I have been so foolish, so scatter-brained, as to have moored the boat within wading distance of the beach and then, the following morning, left the keys in it? I spun on my heels, hurrying back into the house to confirm whether they were in the cupboard or not. As I did so, I stopped short, thinking I’d caught sight of Harry. Out of the corner of my eye, possibly half a kilometre distant, standing inland of the edge of the high cliff face. That summit zone was a national beauty spot. It towered perilously above sea level.

  I was puzzled. Was it Harry? Oh, God, yes, yes, it was, and far too close to the rim for safety. Sam had already dressed her six-year-old for travelling. There he was in his neatly pressed shorts and the new dusty-red flexi-trainers he and I had purchased together at the market in La Ciotat a few days earlier. His feet planted firmly on the limestone surface, his back to me, his head was lifted. He appeared to be listening, transfixed. Semi-hidden behind one of the giant boulders, was the silhouette of a man. Him. It was him. No doubt about it. Where had he appeared from?

  He must have been waiting for this opportunity. Hanging about, close to our property, spying on us, biding his time … Living in our shadow.

  ‘What the …?’

  The man was wearing a Panama hat and dark sunglasses. It was late May. Even so, the Van Morrison lookalike was in his flimsy black raincoat and was engaged in conversation with my grandson. Peter’s grandson. I felt a sharp pain tighten around my chest. Every muscle, every nerve in my body contracted.

  ‘You bastard,’ I screeched. My curse was lost on the air. ‘Harry!’ I yelled.

  Both boy and man were too far from me to hear my calls. The sound dissipated on the breeze and drifted, unanswered, out to sea.

  I backed up and started running round the side of the house to gain the cliff-side path. I stumbled, losing my footing in my determination not to take my eyes off the pair.

  ‘Harry, if you can hear me …’

  The man raised a finger as though about to perform a magic trick. Harry lifted his arms to applaud and then, quick as a flash, the man locked both his hands round our grandson’s wrists and began to pull – drag – the child towards the precipice.

  ‘Dear God, no!’

  Harry appeared to be resisting, tugging himself free. He had shoved his face into George’s left leg and was swinging his small squat body from side to side. He stamped his feet and let out a muffled cry, which I could only just make out.

  I yelled his name again – ‘Hold on, Harry, I’m coming!’ I was running for dear life. The ascent was steep. The man latched more forcefully onto my darling boy and swung him off the ground into his arms. Harry was kicking his feet, beating his fists. His resilience was remarkable. I lost sight of them as I rounded shrubs, then boulders and leaped upwards to gain the limestone path. By the time they were within my view again something had happened.

  The man was backing up towards the craggy brink, dangling Harry in his arms.

  ‘Stop!’

  He danced towards the cliff edge, then pulled back, jogging on the spot. Was this a game? Was he intending to jump and take my grandson with him? Or throw the boy over?

  Something bad.

  This was no game.

  I was screaming, hoarse with fear and anger. I had wings on my feet. One purpose. To reach Harry. Nothing else.

  I sped up the ascent, far from the house, hit the dust trail, thrashing my way beyond our boundary fence into what, for some years now, had been designated national parkland. There, I pounded the sand track that led to the highest point, a well-known beauty spot where hikers, tourists, pause to admire the magnificent surroundings.

  As I drew close, so close to the edge, glimpsing the rocks and the drop to the swirling sea, the gaping, shocking space, my head began to spin.

  ‘George,’ I roared. ‘It’s Grace. I’m here.’

  The man, George, registered my arrival and clutched Harry tighter.

  ‘Give me the boy, George.’

  I moved in closer. Stealthy gestures. George took a step backwards. He was perilously close to the edge, the yawning crevice.

  ‘I’m taking my grandson, George. Just hand him over to me, and then we can talk if you want to. Just you and I, quietly.’

  ‘Nanny Two,’ whimpered our child. His nose was running. I wanted to wipe it. I reached out gingerly for Harry as an arm, the back side of a hand, slapped me away.

  ‘You let me down, Grace.’

  I stumbled, lost my balance, head smarting, sickened by the distance to the rocks and the sea.

  Fury powered me. ‘If you harm one hair …’

  I lifted myself up to my full height again, flesh stinging, and charged at the man. ‘Give me the boy,’ I was bellowing. My arms were pulling at Harry. I was trying to gain a purchase on my grandson, whose round eyes were chasms of terror.

  ‘Come to me, Harry, don’t be scared.’

  Harry, with a presence of mind and force of will I would never have given him credit for, somehow kicked himself free and dropped like a log to the scree-faced ground, inches from the edge, scrambling to safety, as the interloper, the man who called himself George, moved to me, looming over me, dribbling and sweating, furious.

  My petrified features were mirrored in his sunglasses.

  ‘Listen, we can talk …’

  A fist rose to smack me again. An image, a memory, came to me from long ago. My father’s hand raised in anger.

  In self-defence, I jumped a step backwards. ‘If you come near us again, I’ll kill you.’

  Breathless, I swung towards the ground, lurching for my grandson. I grabbed his arm. ‘Don’t be frightened, sweetheart, we’re going back to the house.’ Harry staggered to his feet.

  George came after us.

  I spun around, letting go of the boy. ‘Run on ahead, Harry. I’m right behind you.’ I nudged Harry onwards, and he headed off obediently. I stood my ground, facing George, whose fist was still menacing me.

  ‘You lied to me, Grace. Just deserts, remember?’ With a lizard’s speed he gripped my wrist.

  ‘Let me go!’

  Tears of rage stung and blinded me as I struggled with my opponent, attempting to wrench myself free. ‘You’re mad – you’re out of your mind.’

  Before I knew what was happening, George was staggering sidewa
ys. He was bent double, as though he’d suffered a blow to his abdomen, as though I’d punched him. Had I? Had I punched him? He seemed to be deflating, spent of strength and purpose. Stones underfoot shifted and slid. He was losing his footing. One of his old trainers slipped loose and rolled away. Shoulders pitched forwards, George let out a curious gurgle, then a rasping sound, like a low-pitched rattle.

  I tried to grab him, to pull him upright, to help him regain his balance. What was happening? ‘George!’ My fingers were gripping his coat. I was attempting to pull him towards me, but eventually I was obliged to let go or the power of him would have knocked me off balance and sent me over the cliff-face.

  ‘Nanny Two! Nanny Two!’ my grandson was screaming. I spun in the direction of our land, towards the child. The line of dark pine-forest mountains rose up behind us towards a bright spring sky. I was too distant to comfort him and took uncertain steps in his direction. ‘I’m on my way, Harry, keep going.’

  I glanced back to George to confirm he wouldn’t come after us, but he had disappeared. Vanished. Nowhere to be seen. Only one sneaker remained in the dust and stones. I stared out, horrified, towards the horizon. ‘George!’ I yelled.

  Heaving in the salted air, choking on phlegm, bent low from the waist, I gazed down upon the distant rocks and crashing waves. No one in sight. I swung round. Was he hiding behind a rock, readying to pounce on me? The clean scent of resin sharpened the air. Stillness, high-altitude trees and scrub, but not a soul in sight besides one anxious boy thirty metres removed who desperately needed me. I was alone on the cliff at the edge of the world. George had vanished.

  Was the nightmare finally over?

  Two Weeks Earlier

  Beyond gently billowing muslin curtains, the windows were open wide, exposing a waxing crescent moon hanging midway in the sky. It was a little after five in the morning, and I was awake. My head resting on Peter’s chest, I tuned in to his heartbeat. Its speed was alarming. In spite of his daily medication, it still beat disconcertingly fast. By comparison, my ticker is an old plodder. I lifted myself to a sitting position. Peter was sleeping, sighing and moaning. ‘My darling, please get well.’