Fear of Falling

by Cath Staincliffe

  Bel’s phone sounded. She read the text and pulled a face. ‘Oh, God. I knew this would happen.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Work. I’ve a big client based in Newcastle but he spends most of his time abroad. I’ve been trying to arrange a meet-up for weeks. It’s small fry to him but for me it’s a big deal. I could be looking at a whole portfolio of properties to add to my books. Anyway, he’s back in the country and he wants me there this afternoon.’

  ‘In Newcastle?’

  ‘Yes. I can’t say no.’ She sighed. ‘I’d better get moving.’

  ‘But Freya . . .’

  ‘She’ll be fine. Take them to the movies?’ She was rummaging in her shoulder bag, checking things.

  ‘We’ll save you some tea.’

  ‘I’ll have to stay over. These meetings, you’re expected to socialise. Takes hours. And I don’t want to be driving back in the dark.’

  She went to tell Freya, and to fetch her overnight bag. And was back almost straight away. ‘At least Freya can have the bed tonight.’

  Bel was almost running. Her bag was packed and ready.

  My mouth went dry. I felt a shiver, then a flush of heat. She was lying to me. ‘Bel?’

  ‘I’ll be back for lunch, maybe sooner. Make an early start.’

  ‘It’s not work, is it?’ I said. ‘It’s Barnaby.’

  ‘Don’t be daft.’

  All of this, the visit, the jollying me along, so she could dump Freya and go to shag her secret lover. Had she run out of people in Leeds to leave Freya with? Had there been some uncertainty whether Barnaby could make it so she’d engineered this trip and waited for his signal?

  ‘Show me your phone.’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, Lydia.’

  ‘It’s not fair. You lied to me.’

  She made a ‘gah’ sound, lifted her bag and headed for the door.

  ‘You selfish bitch,’ I said. My tongue felt fat in my mouth, my ears were buzzing, and my head was full of wasps, angry, stinging. ‘That’s all I am, is it?’ I followed her. ‘A bloody babysitter? A cover story?’

  Bel opened the front door and went out, raising a key fob and triggering the lock release on her car. The lights flashed, just visible through the fog.

  ‘All so you can go shag your toy-boy? Have you ever thought about his poor bloody wife?’

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘No, of course not. You never think about anybody but yourself, do you?’

  ‘Don’t be so bloody melodramatic.’

  I thought she’d defend herself, maybe even apologise, try mollifying me, admit that she was out of order and ask for my understanding, but she just got into the car, switched on the headlamps and reversed out of the yard. I was biting my cheek, the back of my eyes burning.

  There were footsteps. Chloë coming back in. How much had she heard?

  Bel had betrayed me. The anger rose like a storm inside me, making me tremble. Just like when she had got pregnant and I’d been so hurt.

  She’d gone too far this time. Yes, people had affairs, lots of people. Marriages ended or didn’t, new ones started. It wasn’t her seeing the man that rankled, it was her lying to me, using me, pretending their visit was anything other than a ruse for her to get laid.

  As I went inside, Freya said, ‘What do you think?’ She’d put on her new suede jacket, caramel-coloured, fringed, and with it some black skinny jeans and a broderie-anglaise blouse. She tipped her hat back, face open and smiling.

  ‘Great.’ I cleared my throat. ‘It all looks lovely. You look lovely.’ I felt a stab of pity for her. At least I could walk away from my friendship with Bel. And I would. Once and for all. But Freya was stuck with Bel. Bel would always be her mother.

  Chapter Forty-three

  There were only two tickets left for the evening screening of Ghostbusters. I almost let the idea go then. Chloë’s mood was so very volatile, her behaviour unpredictable. Freya had seen her rages when they were younger and understood, I think, that she was unable to control her emotions at times, but it wouldn’t be fair to expect Freya to have to deal with it.

  But Freya was so crestfallen when I told them about the tickets that I reconsidered. Chloë loved the cinema: we’d never had to leave early, unlike other social occasions, because interaction with other people was minimal. And the girls would only be unaccompanied for two and a half hours while they were absorbed in the film.

  ‘You two could go,’ I said. ‘I can drop you off and pick you up.

  Chloë?’

  ‘OK,’ she said.

  ‘Yes!’ said Freya.

  Patches of fog obscured the road, forcing me to drive slowly, and when we began the descent into town it thickened, muffling the whole valley. The coloured lights that zigzagged over the main streets were fuzzy blobs of red and blue and green coming into and out of view.

  It was just dark as I pulled in and let them out on North Terrace opposite the cinema. I could see a queue at the entrance. Chloë had a backpack with her.

  ‘You really need that?’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘Right, I’ll be back at ten. Have fun.’

  I watched them cross the road. A gap between them, no linking arms or nudging shoulders, Freya with her trilby on, and Chloë looking like her little sister, her bright hair catching the light from the streetlamps.

  At home I put the leftovers in the fridge and cleared up the kitchen. I tried watching television but couldn’t concentrate, my thoughts distracted by Bel. I wished Mac were here to talk to about it. He wouldn’t be back till Monday, though.

  I imagined Bel swanning back in, blasé and lying through her teeth. Of course I wouldn’t do anything to undermine her in front of Freya and she probably knew that. No doubt she would engineer it so that we had no time alone together before they set off back to Leeds. I’d been such a fool thinking she was coming to support me, have a heart-to-heart, help me deal with the prospect of my marriage falling apart.

  Maybe I’d have to write her an email or a message. Or a letter. A good old-fashioned letter. Something she couldn’t just delete with the click of a mouse or a swipe of her finger. Dear Bel. A dear-John letter. Postmarked Whitby. The prospect saddened me. After all these years. Thirty – I worked it out. After everything we’d shared together. They say that there’s an imbalance in every marriage, that one party loves more, but perhaps that’s true of friendship as well. That ours meant less to Bel than it did to me. That she loved me less. That I loved her more.

  The fog was lifting as I drove back down into town. I caught glimpses of the church and the abbey across the valley, and a full moon, large and creamy, rising above. A harvest moon: there’d been a feature in the paper about it, named because its light allowed farmers to work on into the night gathering their crops. It would make a striking photograph, the last rags of mist on the hillside, the large white disc, the bones of the abbey, like a whale.

  I parked and waited.

  The streets emptied. I turned the radio on and caught the news, headlines about flash-flooding and disruption in the southern counties, ongoing reactions to nuclear testing in North Korea. I turned it off again. Then I became impatient.

  I rang Chloë, but there was no answer. She’d perhaps have switched it to silent for the film but I’d have expected her to turn it back on by now.

  I left a message.

  Were they still inside? Gone for a milkshake or something? Though I wasn’t sure the café would be open at this time.

  Locking the car, I crossed the road and went into the foyer.

  ‘We’re closed,’ the woman said, the only person in the lobby.

  ‘I’m collecting someone. My daughter and her friend. They might be in the loos?’

  ‘Have a look if you like.’

  No one there.

  Walking down to the whalebone arch, where steps switch back and forth down towards the beach road, I could see there were still people out and about on the piers, and along Mar
ine Parade. The tide was up, the waters slapping at the harbour walls. The lighthouses flashed, one red, one green, marking the harbour entrance.

  I couldn’t see Chloë or Freya.

  Beginning to feel anxious, my breathing uneven, I rang Chloë again, swearing when it cut out.

  And I didn’t have Freya’s number.

  I tried Bel. The phone rang out, then went to voicemail. I could imagine her looking at the display and deciding not to answer, returning her attention to Barnaby, who was solicitously refilling her champagne glass. Or in bed, oblivious. Losing herself in the sex. Her phone discarded along with her clothes.

  A fog horn sounded out to sea, mournful.

  At least they were together, Freya and Chloë. If it was Chloë on her own I’d be more worried, already thinking about reporting her missing to the police.

  A pair of herring gulls landed a few yards from me, searching for scraps. All along the harbourside there were signs advising against feeding the seagulls. The creatures raided bins and had been known to dive at unlucky individuals, sometimes causing injuries. The birds’ shit splattered everything in town.

  Where were the girls?

  Could they have misunderstood our arrangement?

  I rang Chloë a third time. A wave of relief washed through me when I heard her speak. ‘Mum?’

  ‘Where are you?’

  Silence.

  ‘Chloë? Where are you?’

  ‘In the graveyard.’

  ‘Jesus! You were supposed to wait at the Pavilion. Come down the steps now. I’ll drive round to the Co-op car park. Chloë?’

  There was a shudder of breath. My blood ran cold.

  ‘Chloë?’

  ‘I didn’t—’ She broke off. There was such anguish in her voice.

  ‘Is Freya there?’ I said. ‘Let me talk to Freya.’

  The phone went dead.

  And I ran.

  Chapter Forty-four

  Something was terribly wrong. Running, I didn’t think, couldn’t think, what might have happened. Whenever my mind inched towards possibilities it veered away, like approaching a force field, a black hole, primed and ready to shock me into oblivion.

  My thighs chafed, my breasts hurt as I raced over the swing bridge and into Church Street. I kept bumping into people who were moving between the bars and eateries. The cobbles were slippery, treacherous underfoot.

  There was a stab of pain in my heart. Sharp as glass. Forcing me to stop, sipping breaths, one hand on the wall of a shop-front for balance.

  A group of young people stared at me as they passed. Thinking me mad or drunk, I guess.

  The pain eased a little, an icicle melting, and I carried on, half running until I reached the bottom of the old steps. High above hung the moon with its senseless smile.

  I froze. Dread at the ascent crawled up my back and through my blood, thick as tar.

  Chloë.

  I began to climb, the metal rail was cold to touch, slick with dew, the broad stone steps gleaming in the moonlight. They were worn smooth, concave in places, from all the centuries of use. All the parishioners climbing to demonstrate their faith, the burial parties who would carry the corpse of the departed up to the top for the funeral.

  I couldn’t stop shaking. Every few steps, I paused for a moment, panting, my heart a wild animal, cornered and frantic.

  On I went, sweat prickling under my arms, on my scalp. My breath ragged.

  The bitter tang of grass was in the air and wood smoke from someone’s stove. The steps wound up the hill. Soon I could see St Anne’s church listing towards me. And all around it the ranks of gravestones stood sentinel, highlighted by the silver of the moon.

  She was there. By the iron gates, sitting on the step.

  Just Chloë.

  I reached her, ignoring the chittering fear in the back of my head, terror at what I would see if I turned to face the drop behind me matched by the fear of seeing her alone.

  ‘Chloë?’

  She looked catatonic. Unseeing.

  ‘Chloë? Where’s Freya?’ I touched her, she didn’t even flinch as I crouched and held her by the shoulders. That wasn’t right. That lack of reaction. I could smell alcohol on her.

  ‘Chloë? Where’s Freya?’

  Nothing.

  ‘Chloë?’

  I shook her. ‘Where’s Freya?’

  She finally looked at me with dead eyes. ‘She’s gone.’

  ‘What do you mean “gone”?’ Hysteria edged my voice. ‘Gone where?’

  Chloë breathed out. A tired sigh. Tears sprang into her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.

  ‘Chloë?’

  She turned her head, looked to her right and nodded to the far corner where the graveyard met the cliff’s edge. Where barbed wire and warning signs cautioned danger, and bunches of flowers in cellophane marked a place of sudden tragic deaths.

  ‘She fell,’ Chloë said.

  Oh, my God. I pulled out my phone, hit 999.

  ‘How did she fall?’

  The fog horn howled again.

  ‘Chloë, how did Freya fall?’

  Chloë bowed her head to her knees, her hair luminous in the moonlight. I had no trouble making out the words.

  ‘I . . . Mum . . . I pushed her.’

  ‘Show me.’ She sat still as stone.

  ‘Show me. Show me where,’ I screamed. Then I used all my energy to moderate my voice and repeated the question. ‘Come and show me.’

  She got stiffly to her feet. Sniffing.

  We walked along the edge of the graveyard. It was muddy underfoot.

  The operator answered and I said, ‘There’s been an accident, on the cliffs by the abbey. Someone’s fallen.’ I hung up.

  The land rose up high towards the far corner. There was a broken gate and a narrow strip of clifftop hemmed in by wall and wire fencing. Little more than a passageway. At the far edge I could see a bottle, the vodka Bel had brought, and Chloë’s backpack.

  ‘That’s where?’ They’d have had to climb over the wall or the gate and avoid the barbed wire.

  The pain came back in my heart and I was holding my breath.

  I had to look. I had to see. I had to try to find Freya. I kicked the gate again and again, the wood splintering and snapping until I could get through. Holding onto the stone wall I edged along the little tract of land. I was shuddering, great waves. I’d never been so cold. I stopped when a sudden rush of nausea made me vomit, the bitter liquid spewing through my nose and mouth. Nearing the very edge I could no longer walk but had to get onto my hands and knees and crawl forward.

  Where the cliff dropped away, the raw earth was exposed, falling down to the ink-black sea.

  I could see nothing but the water, ruthless and unforgiving.

  The police alerted the coastguard, the lifeboat was deployed, and Chloë and I were taken to the other side of the graveyard where an ambulance waited.

  A police officer recorded our details and asked us to stay where we were, perched in the back of the ambulance.

  Was Freya a good swimmer? I’d no idea. The fall itself . . . hypothermia . . . She had been close to the shore, near enough to swim to the rocks or the barriers of concrete boulders at the corner of the harbour. The moon would help show her the way.

  A distant clattering sound grew louder and a helicopter came swinging over the headland, creating turbulence in the air above our heads, blowing our hair out of control.

  The helicopter dipped and flew down over the water, cones of light beaming onto the sea.

  I rang Mac. He didn’t answer. He’d be in a bar somewhere, music on, the group shouting to be heard. Laughing and joking.

  I texted him. Ring me.

  Bel. What could I . . . how on earth . . .?

  ‘Lydia.’ Someone was talking, a trim man with a neat moustache. He was wearing a suit.

  ‘We’re taking you and Chloë to the police station in Scarborough,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We need to
establish what happened. And whether a crime has been committed.’ A crime. He said it so calmly, matter-of-fact, like he was talking about something insignificant.

  ‘Please, can we wait till they find Freya? Please?’

  ‘You have to come with me now,’ he said.

  ‘But if we’re not here,’ I said, ‘her mum’s away and—’

  ‘As soon as there is any news we’ll get word.’

  ‘You need to understand. Chloë – she has a disorder, an attachment disorder, she was adopted—’

  A blur of movement and Chloë was running up across the grass towards the coastal path along the edge of the plain. She ran like the wind.

  ‘Chloë!’ I yelled, darting after her.

  Several of the police officers ran too, gaining quickly.

  Someone grabbed her and put her on the ground; another bent to hold her. She was face down, bucking and twisting.

  I was calling as I ran, ‘Don’t hurt her, please don’t hurt her.’

  She was screaming, a terrified high-pitched sound.

  ‘Let her go. Leave her alone,’ I shouted.

  ‘She needs to calm down.’

  I reached them. ‘She will, but only when you stop touching her. Please take your hands off her.’

  The officers looked to the detective who gave a nod.

  They moved back, one rocking on his heels and standing swiftly, the other getting up slowly, coughing and spitting.

  Chloë was still screaming. I sat on the grass. ‘I’m here, Chloë. Come on now, I’m here. I’m going to stay with you. We’ll go together.’

  Chloë’s spasms weakened. The screams quietened at last. She got up. Mud on her face and hands.

  We walked back to where the detective had parked his car.

  Behind us the giant moon illuminated the great skeleton of the abbey. A behemoth in stone.

  And the helicopter bobbed and wheeled over the cold dark sea.

  Chapter Forty-five

  At the police station I felt numb as I answered all the questions they needed for their forms: Chloë’s personal details, current living situation, any health issues. I told them about her emotional and behavioural difficulties, trying to make them understand how vulnerable she was. Chloë sat quietly beside me, apart from moments when I didn’t know what to say. Then she spoke. Yes, she’d been drinking, yes, she’d taken drugs, cannabis.