The House Beneath the Cliffs

by Sharon Gosling

Old Robbie smiled. ‘Not so much distress as blissful ignorance.’

  ‘It’s funny how often adult life is made bearable by that very combination, isn’t it?’ she said, and he laughed.

  In that moment, Anna wanted to say something about Cassie – how sorry she was for their loss, and also to apologize for the way she had mentioned her so bluntly when they’d first met. But how could she, with their son there, sitting in Bren’s boat and looking up at her so attentively? Then there came the sudden crunch of footsteps behind them, accompanied by the sound of a familiar, bitter old voice.

  ‘You’re tae late, Auld Robbie,’ said Douglas McKean. ‘Saw the foreign lad sneaking out of Bren’s bothy nae four hours hence. Field’s already ploughed.’

  Anna felt her face burn scarlet with an equal combination of humiliation and rage as she registered the meaning of the old man’s words. She opened her mouth to bark a response, but Old Robbie beat her to it.

  ‘Well, that wouldn’t be my business now, would it, Dougie, any more than it is yours,’ he said, his face giving away no hint of emotion, though his eyes were flinty cold. He turned his attention to Anna, ignoring the old man completely. ‘Razor clams do you?’

  Her head was still so buzzing with rage that Anna couldn’t fathom the question. ‘I-what?’

  Robert MacKenzie nodded at the bunch of leaves in her hand. ‘To go with the purslane. Razor clams.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Razor clams would work perfectly.’

  ‘All right. I’ll take you to collect a bucket later. Now I’ve got to get this one to school.’

  Anna barely watched them leave, the sound of the revving motor echoing around the cliff. Douglas McKean was watching her with dark, narrowed eyes. She looked at him in disgust and shook her head, not trusting herself to speak for fear that her words would be laced with rage. Anna walked away, the purslane clutched in her hand so tightly that it left an impression of leaves across her palm.

  Thirteen

  Pat was hanging up washing as Anna came back along the narrow path.

  ‘Morning,’ she said, cheerfully, and then saw Anna’s face. ‘Oh – is something wrong?’

  Anna shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’ll get over it. Have you got time for tea? I’ve got plans – with a capital P – to tell you about.’

  ‘I can’t this morning, I’m afraid. Frank’s got a hospital appointment and I’m going with him to do some shopping in town while he’s there.’

  ‘Oh?’ Anna asked, worry immediately clouding her thoughts. ‘He’s all right?’

  ‘Just a check-up, love, on his pacemaker.’

  ‘I didn’t realize he had one.’

  ‘Ah well,’ said Pat, with a sigh, ‘he’d prefer to pretend he doesn’t. He had a heart attack two years ago. You’d think that’d be a wake-up call for him to slow down a bit, but no, not our Frank. Likes to think he’s still thirty and tries to act like it, too.’

  ‘Oh Pat, I’m sorry. That must be a worry.’

  Pat reached out and squeezed Anna’s arm. ‘Old age, love. Gets to us all in the end. He’s mostly right as rain, and who knows? Perhaps the doctor will be able to talk some sense into him.’ Her neighbour nodded at the overflowing basket of washing. ‘Give me a hand and you can tell me all about these plans of yours as you do.’

  Most of Anna’s anger had evaporated by the time the last of Pat’s sheets were pegged to the North Sea wind.

  ‘I think a pop-up restaurant is a fine idea,’ Pat said, picking up the empty basket and resting it against her hip. ‘Anything you need from Frank and me to make it work, let us know.’

  ‘Well – and do say if this is too big an ask,’ Anna began, ‘but I wondered whether it would be possible for any customers I do have to use your downstairs bathroom during my service period? I’d worry that if I let people use mine I might get them wandering into the kitchen. Not something health and safety would approve of if they were ever to turn up.’

  ‘Not to mention that you don’t want to be worried about strangers nosing about in your home,’ Pat agreed. ‘Let me check with Frank, but I don’t see why not. We can always turn the key to the kitchen if we need to.’

  ‘Thanks, Pat,’ Anna said, relieved.

  ‘No problem, dear. Let us know if you think of anything else.’

  ‘You can be early standby customers!’ Anna said. ‘I’m planning to make sure the table’s full of friends, if no one else.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think filling your table will be a problem,’ Pat said, heading indoors. ‘Look at the customers you had without even trying. Pop over later for a tipple if you fancy it.’

  Anna spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon making notes and lists of tasks she would have to accomplish before the lunch club could open. The kitchen would need some reorganization. She needed a complete set of matching flatware – from Rhona, of course. There was cutlery to think about, too, glasses, napkins – a multitude of considerations beyond the food itself.

  She was so engrossed in her plans that she completely forgot Robert MacKenzie’s early morning declaration about razor clams until he banged on the door at two o’clock that afternoon. Anna opened it to find him in his customary yellow jacket, hands on his hips.

  ‘Tide’s heading out now,’ he said, by way of greeting.

  ‘Oh!’ Anna was momentarily flummoxed. ‘Yes – of course. Thanks. What do I need to bring with me?’

  ‘A coat, your wellies and yourself.’

  ‘I don’t have any wellies.’

  He shrugged, ‘Boots will be fine, then. The ones you were wearing earlier?’

  Anna pulled her coat from its peg and shoved her feet into her boots. She hesitated on the step. ‘Give me a second,’ she said. She dashed back inside, scrabbled around for a moment and then dashed out again, pulling the door shut behind her and turning the key, feeling entirely unprepared.

  Her embarrassment of earlier returned as they walked to the harbour in a silence that felt intensely awkward. She wondered if she should say something, but what, exactly, could she say? And anyway, why should she feel obligated to say anything?

  The boat that waited for them at Crovie’s pier was not the skiff she had seen that morning, but a larger boat clearly made for fishing. It was about six metres long with an open cabin over the steering wheel and an enclosed prow. It was navy blue and white and on its side, painted in red and gold, was its name: Cassie’s Joy.

  Less than five minutes later and for the second time that day, Anna found herself speeding over the waves, the coastal cliffs rearing into the cloud-specked sky.

  ‘We’re not going far,’ Robert said, once they’d taken a long, wide curve out of the bay and left Crovie behind. ‘There’s a cove out towards Rosehearty, beyond Pennan, that’s usually full of them. Have you ever harvested razor clams before?’

  ‘No,’ Anna shouted back, over the sound of the outboard motor and the ubiquitous roar of the wind. ‘I’ve cooked with them, but that’s it.’

  He nodded. ‘It takes some muscle.’

  ‘And some salt.’

  Robert looked over at her, surprised. ‘You do know a bit about it, then.’

  ‘I know the theory of many things,’ she said, ‘but the reality of very few.’

  He smiled, the first such expression she’d seen on his face since he’d knocked at her door. ‘Sounds familiar,’ he said.

  The hop around the headland was brief. The cliff here was another monolith of sheer rock, reaching skyward in ragged clefts. Anna noted that there had been landslides here, too – signs that she was beginning to learn. They looked like shallow channels in the rock and mud, almost like streambeds run dry.

  Robert tied off the boat, though there was still a foot or so between the Cassie’s Joy and the beach, and Anna could see why he’d recommended wellington boots.

  ‘Right. Grab that,’ he said, pointing to a galvanized bucket near her feet. ‘The salt’s in the box inside. Bucket, salt, and over the side. Okay?’


  In the next moment, he had hopped into the water, holding out a hand for the bucket. She passed it to him and then clambered inelegantly into the cold North Sea. The water splashed up to her knees, soaking the walking trousers she was still wearing from her earlier walk.

  She waded after Robert, who had reached the shore and turned to wait for her. He waved at the wet sand beneath their feet.

  ‘Just a few here to choose from.’

  In ridges of sand left by the outgoing tide were hundreds of holes. Some had piles of ejected sand beside them, but others – small circular indentations that disappeared beneath the shallow film of brine caught by the motion of the tide – were clear, denoting the hidden clam’s air holes.

  ‘There are so many!’

  Robert nodded. ‘I’ll pour, you catch.’

  He opened the box of salt as Anna pulled out her gloves. They were gardening gloves that Geoff had given her years ago, despite the fact that she’d never actually had a garden of her own. At the time she’d had the feeling that it was some kind of barbed statement concealed as a joke at her expense. She was glad now that she hadn’t thrown them out.

  Robert looked at her with amusement as she put them on. ‘Don’t tell me the hardened chef is a wee bit squeamish?’

  Anna grinned, pushing her hair back behind her ears to stop it dancing wildly in the wind. ‘I want to be prepared, that’s all. I’ve never done this before.’

  He nodded, then crouched over one of the air holes. ‘I’ll let you into a secret,’ he said. ‘Neither have I.’

  Anna laughed, astonished. ‘What? But—’

  He looked up at her with a quick grin. ‘Theory, not reality, right? Anyway, what is it the kids say? Fake it ’til you make it?’ He jutted his chin at the sand. ‘Ready?’

  She gave him a thumbs up and he tipped some salt into the hole. They watched in silence for a few seconds as it dissolved. Then came the reaction: a sudden bubbling of water being expelled before a tower of shell erupted as the creature tried to clear its airway.

  ‘Quick,’ Robert exclaimed, leaning back to give her space, ‘grab it!’

  Anna wrapped her fingers around the shell and pulled. The clam resisted, but she dragged it from the sand and held up the fat shellfish, watching the foot search for purchase and finding none.

  ‘It worked,’ Robert said with surprise, and then laughed, the most heartfelt she’d yet heard him give: a good sound, alive and free. ‘Well, would ye ken that?’

  Anna dropped the clam into the bucket, laughing too, although as she watched the animal still searching for its home a familiar feeling of guilt washed over her, followed by a swell of sadness in her chest. Poor thing, she thought, watching it struggle.

  ‘Hey,’ Robert reached out, touching his fingers to her arm. ‘You all right?’

  She looked at him, at the way the wind had dealt so roughly with his sandy hair, at the concerned look blooming among the lines on his face, at how right he looked here, now, in this place he knew so well. ‘Yeah. I guess you could say I’m a sentimental chef, rather than squeamish.’ Geoff certainly would have – had done so frequently, in fact.

  Robert looked down into the bucket. ‘It’s not sentimental to care,’ he said. ‘Not even for something that’s going to end up in the cooking pot. I can do this, if you like.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘They’re for my kitchen, my cooking pot. It’s my responsibility.’

  He said no more about it.

  ‘How did you find this beach?’ Anna asked, an hour or so later. They were sitting on a rock, sipping coffee from a flask that Robert had produced from the boat’s cabin. The full bucket was stowed away.

  ‘I didn’t. It was Cassie. She knew this coast like the back of her hand. She loved this place.’ Robert smiled, a lopsided gesture as he looked up to stare out over the waves. ‘We came here on one of our first proper dates. She borrowed her dad’s boat after school one day to bring me here – she could already handle it like a pro, even at fifteen. I’d sailed past this place myself since I was small, but I’d never noticed it enough to bother exploring. She was like that, though. Noticed everything. Interested in everything.’

  Anna looked over at the boat they’d come in; at the name so proudly painted on its hull. ‘The Cassie’s Joy,’ she read, again. ‘This was your wife’s boat?’

  Robert MacKenzie nodded. ‘I bought it as a wedding present. We couldn’t afford a house but I bought Cass a boat of her own,’ he shook his head as if in wonder at his youthful foolishness. ‘We were out in it every spare moment we had.’ His face took on an uncomfortable expression and he glanced at her. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Sorry? For what?’

  ‘Here I am going on about my dead wife.’

  ‘I was the one who asked,’ Anna pointed out. ‘I’ve been trying to find a way to apologize to you, anyway, for bringing Cassie up the way I did when we first met. I didn’t know that you had lost her. I’d never have been so insensitive if I had.’

  Robert shifted beside her, their shoulders brushing together. ‘It wasn’t insensitive. You didn’t know.’

  ‘Still,’ Anna said. ‘I’m sorry. And I would never stop you talking about Cassie, if you wanted to. Talk about her as much as you like.’

  He gave a slight smile. ‘Be careful. That’s a big thing to offer.’

  ‘Is it?’

  He looked out at the water again. ‘It’s a difficult thing to listen to, isn’t it, other people’s grief? People want to believe they can, but… usually they find it’s too much. Besides, Cassie’s been gone for five years. Most people around here think I should be over it by now. That I should have moved on.’

  Anna watched his profile for a moment. ‘What do people mean,’ she asked, ‘when they say you should be “over it”? Over what? The fact that you loved your wife? That’s not how it works, is it? Are you supposed to somehow forget that feeling? I don’t think you ever do that. All you can do is learn to make it a part of your life. How and when you manage to do that isn’t down to anyone else. There’s no time limit on grief. There’s no road map to guide you through it, either. Everyone deals with loss differently.’

  He turned to look at her. ‘How did you get to be so wise?’

  She looked away.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘Now I’m the one putting my foot in it. You’ve been through it yourself.’

  ‘It’s not that long since my dad died,’ Anna admitted. ‘I hadn’t lived at home since I went to college, and thanks to my ex I hadn’t spent nearly enough time visiting as I should have in the past few years. His passing has hit me really hard. I miss him such a lot. It keeps catching me out when I least expect it. The realization that I’m never going to see him again. It was only the two of us for so long.’

  She wasn’t looking at him, but from the corner of her eye, Anna saw Robert nod in understanding.

  ‘It’s brought back how I felt when Mum died, too,’ she went on. ‘I saw my dad go through what you’ve experienced. She died when I was ten and my dad… I don’t think my dad ever got over her passing. Not really. They were the way I think you and Cassie must have been – perfect for each other. That’s not to say he was never happy after she’d gone. He was, often. But it took years, and most of his time was taken up with me. He put everything into raising me, and I’m not sure that left him enough time for himself. He was so young when she died, really. Looking back now, I do wish he’d met someone else. But I never would have told him that he had to leave my mother behind to do that. I don’t think he’d have been able to even if he’d tried.’

  Robert nodded. ‘My problem is that I don’t know how to be without her,’ he said. ‘We’d known each other since we were children. We grew up together, we shared all our friends…’ He shook his head. ‘There is still so much around here that reminds me of her. Every place I go, I remember her being there. It sometimes makes me forget that she’s… not still here. Robbie, too. Sometimes I look at him and all I can see is her. Wi
thout Robbie I might have sunk completely. Having him meant I had a reason to get up every day. If it had just been me… I’m not sure I would have bothered. It must have been the same for your dad.’

  They lapsed into silence, finishing their coffee.

  ‘I’m also sorry about this morning,’ Robert said, a few minutes later, in a tone that suggested he’d been trying to work out how to bring it up for a while. ‘About Douglas McKean, I mean. That was unforgivable.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘No, but…’ He shrugged, uncomfortable again. ‘What he was suggesting… that’s not why I said I’d bring you out here. I don’t want you to think I’m sniffing around looking for… Well. You know. That’s not – me.’

  ‘I know.’

  He tipped up his coffee cup, letting the dregs drip onto the sand. ‘McKean’s a cantankerous, misogynistic old bastard. There’s no excuse for how he spoke. But he’s got troubles that aren’t of his own making.’

  ‘Right.’ Anna did not feel inclined to care about Douglas McKean’s troubles, whatever they were. This must have been clear in her voice, because Robert MacKenzie smiled slightly and gave a nod. His words did make Anna think about the Fishergirl’s Luck, though, and what Pat had said about its ownership. ‘Is it because of the Fishergirl’s Luck?’ she asked. ‘Pat said something about him always complaining that it should have belonged to him.’

  ‘Ach, that old chestnut,’ Robert laughed. ‘That’s what he’d have everyone believe if he could, but there’s no truth in it. Bren owned that place fair and square. She had no brothers, you see. Only a sister, and she died young. Bren’s father was a fisherman. To hear Barbara – that’s Cassie’s mum – tell the story, they were herring lassies together as young girls, but Bren always wanted to be out in the boats with the men, doing the fishing instead of the gutting.’

  Anna wrinkled her nose. ‘Can’t say I blame her.’

  ‘Nope,’ Robert agreed, with another smile. ‘But women gutted, mended nets and tended home. Men went out to fish. That was the way of things. Anyway, Bren’s dad might have been willing to leave her the boat – from what Barbara’s said it sounds as if he might have been pretty forward-thinking for his time. But though she might have been able to own and manage it from shore, there was no man who’d crew it with Bren aboard, and without that it would have become even more of a money pit. When her dad got sick, he sold the family home and the boat to Douglas McKean to clear the last of his debts so that Bren wouldn’t have to deal with them herself. McKean’s family were spread between Crovie and Gamrie, and owned several boats. They were doing well for themselves.’