by Helen Walsh
‘Is he always like that?’
There’s a mocking glint in his eye. A defensive jolt shoots through her.
‘Like what?’
He shrugs. ‘Childish. Stubborn.’
She takes a step back.
‘Greg knows the paths inside out. We’ve been walking here for years.’
‘What? Knows them well enough to put his daughter’s life at risk?’
He strides towards the cliff ledge. A thunderclap rips the skyline. He points to the cove below and traces a path back from it with his finger.
‘That’s where he’s heading to, down there?’
She follows his eye line to the flimsy steps, which end abruptly halfway down the cliff. A landslide has left a bronze-coloured rubble scree sloping down to the rocky beach. Again, a protective lurch, deep in her guts. She shrugs. ‘I’d imagine so. Who knows?’
‘Madness,’ he mutters.
Even in the sheltered cove below them, the sea is rough, wild with bobbing gulls. There’s the shimmer of a tin roof; a fisherman’s shack. Small wooden boats strain at their moorings. Yes, she thinks, madness – and follows Nathan sideways, one foot planted carefully after the other, down the narrow path then slowly down the cliff steps.
There is no sand, no shingle, just boulders and rocks, stones and pebbles of various shapes and textures; some as smooth and huge as prehistoric eggs, others jagged enough to shred the soles of her feet. The stony cove is empty save for two women, one sitting between the other’s legs, both staring out across the stormy sea. Jenn selects a rusty rock, wide and flat, just back from the water’s edge. She squats down and unpacks the food. Nathan narrows his eyes as he watches the older woman kiss her girlfriend’s neck. Is that disapproval in his look? Or is he, like most young men, beguiled? She taps his shoulder with a bottle of water. The face that greets her is neither leery nor judgemental – just wistful.
The sun comes out, yet rain spatters their shoulders. The sky bellows. Nathan does a 360-degree sweep of the horizon.
‘It’s the mountain climate,’ she says. ‘Sometimes the sky can be pure blue, not a cloud … and then, just like that, downpour. Absolute torrents of rain. One summer we were sunbathing on the terrace, early June, then, next thing …’
His body is twisted away from her; he’s not listening, she thinks; not remotely interested in this middle-aged woman, prattling on about family sojourns gone by. She stops mid-sentence, removes her shoes, closes her eyes and lies back on the rock, her head turned away from him. She hopes Greg will be here soon.
‘Listen!’ he says. He gets to his feet, blocking the sun.
She sits up.
‘Shhh,’ he says and holds up a finger. ‘Did you hear it?’
Greg is calling her name. It is coming from somewhere high above.
‘Over there,’ he says.
He’s pointing up the cliff face, way back down the coast. She can see them now, two squints of colour at the top of the cliff. How did they get there? They are still on the wrong side of the ravine. Momentarily, she’s vexed by his foolishness; but then he calls out again – ‘Jenn!’ – and there’s a desperate edge to his voice, now. Nathan starts clambering back across the rocks. Jenn stumbles after him.
She can see them clearly, directly above, stuck on a ledge. Emma is lying sideways, crying.
‘Come back!’ Greg shouts. His voice echoes around the ravine. ‘She’s broken her ankle.’
‘Oh for fuck’s sake …’ Jenn mutters. Nathan shoots her a look. She shouts up to them.
‘Emma, darling, can you stand?’
Emma tries to push herself up, screams, concedes defeat and sits back down. Greg’s red face comes leering down at them.
‘Don’t be fucking stupid! Can she stand. She’s broken her ankle.’
Jenn shakes her head at Nathan.
‘She won’t have broken it. I bet you – just be a sprain.’
‘How come?’
‘I know Emma.’
And she does. She knows Emma; a girl predisposed to melodrama; a girl who cannot breathe unless she’s the centre of attention; who would rather let you run her to hospital than let you know the pain has subsided. With Emma a headache is always a migraine, a difference of opinion is always a fight. Once, Jenn had stormed into school after Emma had rung her at work, in floods of tears, claiming the sports teacher had forced her to play netball in her underwear. The reality, as it transpired in the headmaster’s office, was that Emma had forgotten her kit and had been loaned a pair of gym briefs which, Jenn was forced to concede, were exactly the same as the blue nylon ones she wore – without protest – for cross country. Nathan looks at her, surprised. Jenn finds herself wondering whether he’ll snitch on Emma’s uncaring, disbelieving stepmother. Right now, she doesn’t give a shit.
‘I’m taking her back,’ Greg shouts. ‘Got to get this looked at.’
He scoops his daughter up in his arms. There’s a martyred tone to his voice and it is underscored by accusatory sub-notes. Somehow, this has become Jenn’s doing: if only she’d taken his route, if only she hadn’t defied him, she’d be there to attend to Emma.
She doesn’t have to say a word to Nathan. They begin packing up the plastic plates and food; the picnic futile, now. The two women are frolicking in the sea. The wind is whipping cold, and the waves are buffeting them this way and that, but they are laughing, fearless, absolutely lost to the moment. Jenn shifts herself round to watch them, vicariously enjoying the spray and tug of the water, the sense of liberation that comes from being out there, in the wild open sea. That would have been her, once upon a time; she would have been first in, and she’d have swum way, way out.
She stands up on the rock. At first, she isn’t sure she’s going to do this. She eases her arms out of her vest-top then suddenly, speedily, begins to undress; she delves into the rucksack for her costume and disappears behind a boulder.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Going for a swim.’
‘Now?’
She emerges in her red bikini, the one she’s brought on holiday year after year, but which she’s seldom had occasion to don; no fussy swimsuit for Jenn, today. His eyes roll across her, up and down.
‘Shouldn’t we head back?’
‘You can, if you want.’
She scrambles across the rocks and lets her momentum take her headlong into the sea, grazing her knee on a reef as she kicks outwards. It’s even colder than yesterday, but she’s taken over, immediately and completely, by a tremendous onrush of well-being. Every few strokes the thermal changes – fresh, freezing, bracing – but the slap of the sea on her skin is divine. She pauses, swirls salt water around her mouth and spits it out, ready to take on the might of the ocean. Only her battered lungs protest.
She rests up on her back, the waves stinging her cheeks as she lets the swell take her weight. She cranes her head back awkwardly to view the crag, careful this time not to drift too far from the shoreline. Nathan has gone. She feels a stab of betrayal, quickly eclipsed by a pervading exasperation – at him, at the whole bloody thing; the way their holiday has been derailed. This will not happen again, she pledges. Next year, she and Greg will come away together. Alone. End of story.
She can sense the rain before it falls. A heavy gauze hangs above the sea. She strikes back for the shore. Fat, solid raindrops pelt her scalp – then comes the downpour, just like she’d told him; just like that. She pushes harder, her arms heavy, numbed by the cold. The cove is in sight, but she’s viewing it through a blurred and streaky lens. Her foot trails and scrapes hard against a rock. It’s uneven, but she can stand, just – and, from there, she can launch herself across to another submerged ledge. The swell knocks her back into the sea, and she has to use all her upper body strength to clamber back onto the rock. She catches her breath, then wades the final few metres to the shoreline. Once she’s in the shallows, she has to sit until her heartbeat slows. It takes her three determined efforts to haul herself out of the water
. She sits on the serrated edge of a rock, shivering as she struggles to catch her breath. The rain is dancing off the sea.
The towel is placed across her shoulders with such tenderness and care that, for a second, she thinks the women have come to her rescue; but the arm that gently helps her up is slender but muscular. She takes his hand and allows herself to be pulled to her feet. She stays close to him as the rain slams down in sheets and the slick rocks turn slippery.
There is a hollow in the cliff face no more than four or five metres deep and just high enough to stand.
‘You’re shivering,’ he says. ‘You need your inhaler?’
A ripple of anxiety beneath the skin. This is no time to be vulnerable. She takes the towel and rubs her hair, vigorously. He drops to his haunches, rifles through the rucksack. Functioning, now, she takes the rucksack from him, delves for her inhaler. She drags on it and leans against the dank limestone, waiting for her airways to stretch open again. Nathan stands back, a bemused smile playing on the corners of his mouth.
‘You’re mad, you.’
She ducks away from his gaze, fishes in the rucksack, brings out two paper bags; passes one to him. She squats against the wall, and he hunkers down next to her. She eats hungrily, without restraint or embarrassment. The starchy inner flesh of the pastries has cooled and solidified, smearing her fingers in orange grease. The explosion of flavours, one after another – spinach and anchovies and olive oil – is good, each mouthful restoring her.
The thunder rumbles again, closer, directly above them, lifting Nathan’s eyes to the roof of the cave – and then onto her. The air is fat and tight. Their knees keep touching in the darkness. There can be no room for ambiguity. She stands and shuffles to the back of the hollow with her clothes. She squats down among the rubble of beer cans and papers and the charred remains of a camp fire. Outside the rain slams down harder, bouncing high off the rocks and starting to flood into the cave. Jenn puts on her trainers and swings the rucksack onto her back. She leans back against the cave wall, using the rucksack as a buffer. In the half-light, she can feel Nathan’s gaze, seeking her out. She fixes her eye line outside, following the rolling clouds with a wilful concentration. The rain abates as suddenly as it came. She drops the rucksack; moves to the mouth of the cave. There is a suggestion of silver brightness pushing at the horizon. Though her chest dictates they should sit it out a while longer, common sense urges her to press on.
‘Rain’s cleared.’ She squints. ‘We should make tracks while we can—’
She turns – he is just standing there, dead still, staring at her, his hands hanging down by his slender hips. His expression is intense, his eyes slowly picking over her ribs, one by one, all the way up to her face; his eyes on hers. When she can stand it no longer she ducks back into the hollow and passes round him to grab the rucksack. The moment they draw level, his hand reaches out to grab her wrist. He moves his fingers down over her palm and slots them through hers. She can’t look at him. She stands there, letting him stroke her hand, staring out to sea; he is looking back into the cave. His touch feels like hot, wet earth. Her breathing is staccato; too loud. It fills the entire cave.
Gently, firmly, she untwines her fingers from his. She stumbles out of the cave, climbs down over rocks and away. She grapples her way up the scree slope. She doesn’t look back.
12
Her heart sinks when she reaches the top of the dirt track. Benni’s white van is in the driveway; their hire car is nowhere to be seen. Benni is perched on a small ladder, picking the last of the lemons. At the creak of the gate he swivels, almost overbalancing in his eagerness. He comes down the ladder, smiling. Jenn increases her pace over the last few yards and bounds up the front steps. She can feel Benni, hard on her heels.
‘Tomorrow, I ask Maria to make you the most spectacular lemon tart. A gift from us.’
He’s talking to her as he holds up the basket of lemons, but his eyes are fixed on Nathan. The tart is just a smokescreen; a subterfuge. Jenn doubts it will ever materialise. He nods at Nathan – she does not introduce them.
‘That’s very kind of you,’ she says, then turns away from him and opens up the door.
‘I see you have new guest. I don’t think we have met, have we?’
‘Nathan, Benni; Benni, Nathan.’ She ushers Nathan across the threshold, gives Benni a valedictory smile and resolutely shuts the door.
He leans back against the oak frame as he flips off his sodden trainers. For one moment her gaze rests on the light ripple of muscle beneath his soaking T-shirt. She can’t bear it, can’t bear him. She turns and walks.
Upstairs, she locates her phone, still attached to its charger, which is hot to the touch. She dials. Gregory’s phone rings out from downstairs. She dials Emma’s. It runs on to answer. When she comes back down, Nathan is sprawled across the settee in his boxers. His wet clothes are strewn across the backs of chairs. He is leaving Emma a message. Jenn hangs on to the bottom spindle of the stairway.
‘Can’t get through,’ he says. ‘Fancy a coffee?’
As though nothing happened, back there. As though the silence they endured all the way back, the contrived distance they maintained, right to the bottom of the dirt track, was completely normal. Perhaps it didn’t happen. Perhaps this is all in her head.
He goes through to the kitchen, snaps on the kettle. She stands at the patio doors, stares out across the pool, wondering if she should bite the bullet and ask Benni to drive her up to the hospital. The sky is blackening over once again; there’s the distant rumble of thunder. The kettle is whistling. Benni moves into focus among the trees, raking bruised lemons into a pile. His eyes keep darting across in shifty, sidelong glances. No way can she ask for his help. Gregory is right to dislike the obnoxious old pest. Why does he keep turning up like this, day after day? There’s always some excuse – he’s picking fruit or he’s cleaning the pool. It’s his house, of course, he owns the place; but for these two weeks it is theirs. Yesterday, he was here when they got back from Valldemossa. They watched him, from the kitchen, ogling Emma sunbathing by the pool. Greg was ready to march outside and have it out with him, but she’d stopped him. Joked, bitterly, that he had no qualms about Benni seeing his wife in her bikini. Next time her husband threatens to chase him, she will not stand in his way. The next time her husband asks her to do something, she will do it. She is deeply sorry; she wants him home. She wants everything back to normal.
She moves away from the patio doors; hovers at the bottom of the stairs. Hears the suck of steam as the kettle is upended into the cafetière. A little wince of pain as the plunger is shoved down in haste, squirts hot coffee onto his hands. Strong, masculine hands; soft, slender fingers. Her stomach lurches.
He comes into the room, sips at a mug of coffee.
‘There’s plenty in the pot if you change your mind.’
As though he were talking to his flatmate. His dad. He slumps down on the sofa, puts his legs up on the table, picks up his iPad and starts typing with both hands. What is he writing? What is he saying?
‘Going for a shower,’ she says. ‘Can you try Emma again?’
He doesn’t even dignify the request with a nod. She peers down as she goes; he’s almost filled up the page.
Upstairs, she locks the bedroom door, then the bathroom door. Turns on the shower – as hot as she can bear it. She soaps and soaks the loofah and sets about sloughing off the salt, the sea, everything from her skin. His skin touching hers. A stabbing within. She removes the shower head from its hook, directs the water spray between her legs. Gasps at the shock of the touch, the alien sensation radiating out from deep within. A hot, scratchy sound in her throat as she drags the shower head up and down, once, twice, its length, its hardness too much to bear. She stops. Latches the shower head back onto the wall. Gets out. Wipes the steam from the mirror to observe herself; to chide herself. She traces a finger along the soft, dimpled flesh of her thighs and buttocks; touches the tired appendix scar; cups her
breasts – squeezes them together then lets them drop. Still that urgency; the pulsing throbs between her thighs.
She is surprised to hear music coming from his room – ‘Unravel’ by Bjork; an all-time favourite track. Could he possibly know that? Of course not. Why is he playing it so loudly? What message is he sending her? None. Nothing. Drive this folly out. She dries, dresses, creeps past the door, wanting to get downstairs; get as far away as possible. The door is half open. An invitation. The thought intoxicates her. She crushes it, steps quickly past and strides downstairs.
She goes into the kitchen. Busies herself. The rain has stopped. A wind shaking the lemon grove, sun-scorched leaves dropping from the trees. She hears the drone of a moped as it takes the hill. She ventures outside to hang the wet clothes. Benni is loading up his van. She comes back in. Just the two of them. Is this what she wanted? No. No. He is in the lounge now. She goes upstairs and puts away the washing. She lies flat out on the bed. She can’t settle; can’t find peace to do anything.
Downstairs. She is in the kitchen, reading Walden, the same sentence over and over, taking none of it in. He walks in and pours a glass of water, lingering long enough for her to take in his hard young body. Impossible. Unfair. Fuck you, she thinks. Fuck Emma. She turns away, goes back to her book.
He comes over. Places the glass of water on the table in front of her, forcing her to look up at him.
‘What?’ she snaps. She slaps shut her book, gets up, the chair scraping the floor, an unceremonious screeching, a rebuttal. He follows her through the archway, into the lounge. His hands are at her waist, pushing her up against the wall, the prow of his dick digging into her buttocks. He sucks her shoulder. Lifts the hair from her neck. She keeps her eyes trained to the whitewashed wall in front; will not look at him. Maddened by his audacity; devastated when he pulls away.
