The House on the Edge of the Cliff

by Carol Drinkwater

  There was energy, resistance, a sense that the cauldron would soon boil over. Everybody was as mad as hell about the closure of the Sorbonne. People, not only the students but the majority of citizens, were waiting to know what would happen next. What position de Gaulle would take.

  I craved new experiences and I longed to be included. However, the current situation made me feel very uncomfortable. I abhorred violence. But I also abhorred injustice and I had witnessed examples of it during the rally outside the Sorbonne, so my emotions on whether to stay or leave were seesawing back and forth.

  I was stuffing my belongings into my rucksack when I heard a soft knock on the door. I hesitated. I was in my nightdress. I opened the door a crack. I had taken to turning the key whenever I was in the room to protect myself against Peter’s father.

  It was Peter. I let out a deep sigh.

  ‘You look awful,’ I whispered. He was pale, eyes red-rimmed. For a moment I thought he’d been crying, or possibly drinking.

  ‘May I come in?’

  I nodded and opened the door, checking as I did that his parents weren’t spying on us. Peter had never entered my room before. He slipped in, secured the lock and made his way to the desk at the window where my diary was open with a pen placed on the page of today’s date, 4 May 1968.

  He glanced at it without registering it, peered out into the courtyard and swung back towards me. It was then he noticed my clothes piled on the bed and my rucksack on the floor at the foot. He frowned. ‘What are you doing?’

  I shrugged guiltily. A part of me felt as though I was deserting my friend, making a run for it to save my own skin, skipping off, like I’d done from home. Leaving my mum … ‘I think I should be on the road.’ My tone was apologetic.

  ‘At this groundbreaking moment?’

  ‘I’d always intended to spend the summer in the south, get some sun, get fit before I start college. We never discussed it, and well …’ Peter was staring at me with an expression of incredulity as though I had lost my marbles.

  I babbled till I ran out of steam.

  He crossed from the window, lifted his hands and settled them firmly on my shoulders. ‘There’s no reason for you to leave. Please. I’m sorry you had to hear such an ugly exchange. He’s a pig. Narrow-minded, anti-Semitic, and beyond conservative. And, what’s worse, he wants to cast me in the same mould. I hope you understand?’

  ‘Of course I understand, but …’ But this was not my fight. I didn’t want to get further implicated. Yet these people, this upper class, out-of-my-league family, had welcomed me into their home, given me a bed and a jolly comfortable one at that.

  ‘Please don’t leave. Fight at my side. I need you. We’re changing the world, Grace.’

  I was speechless. I stared at Peter gormlessly. He was asking me to fight at his side. Suddenly this was real. The revolution wasn’t just something people were debating in coffee bars.

  Obviously, like everyone else with half a brain, I wanted the US to get out of Vietnam and was willing to demonstrate for it, and I hated to see people working for next to nothing and all of that, but I was sixteen. I was there for my own experiences. Selfish? Yes, totally selfish. Aren’t we all at sixteen? I wanted to change the world, like most of my generation. The idealism was thrilling, infectious, potent as any drug, but was I prepared to engage in the violence it seemed to be demanding?

  Make love not war. That was my motto, even if I was still a virgin.

  Peter was watching me intently, his eyes moving from side to side, his frown set like tram lines on his forehead. He looked puzzled. ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘It’s better I go. Honestly, I’m a bit –’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Out of my depth.’

  ‘We’ll leave together. How about that?’

  ‘Don’t be daft! You can’t do that. This is your dream.’

  ‘Where do you want to go to? That’s what I came in here to tell you – we’re staying with Pascal tonight.’

  ‘Who’s Pascal?’

  ‘You’ve met him several times, a friend, fellow student. We spent an evening at Aux Trois Mailletz, remember?’

  I nodded.

  ‘I’m not sleeping one more night under the same roof as my father.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll leave with you and … I’ll find a hotel for tonight and tomorrow I’ll hit the road.’

  His body tensed. His face was earnest and pained. I couldn’t bear to spurn him, if that was what I was about to do.

  ‘You’re going south?’

  I nodded.

  ‘My aunt Agnes – she’s an artist and absolutely nothing like my father. In fact, it’s hard to believe they’re brother and sister. She has a house on the coast close to Marseille. I’ll telephone her. What do you say? It stands on a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean. You’ll love it. Tonight we’ll get out of here, and at the end of the month, we’ll go south together.’

  I didn’t need a house. I wanted to be free, to be my own person again. I had allowed myself to be swallowed into a world not of my own making. ‘It’s a terrific offer, Peter, but …’

  ‘But?’

  ‘I think I should be making tracks. We’ll stay in touch, of course we will, and I’m immensely grateful for everything you’ve offered me. You’ve been the best pal and your parents have been so generous. Even your dad –’

  The rest of my sentence was lost as Peter pulled me clumsily, rather more roughly than I was prepared for, into his arms. I was taken aback. This was the first real physical overture he had made towards me, aside from holding hands. I had taken it for granted that he had filed me in the box that said ‘friend’, ‘comrade’, that he was not attracted to me in any sexual way, and that had been fine because I had no idea what I felt about him, besides really liking him, caring for him, looking forward to our evenings together and respecting him as a person. Although I was dead keen to lose my virginity, we had been so busy discovering Paris together and the worlds of jazz, student revolution, political thinking and all the rest that I had put the sex bit to the back of my mind. Well, not quite. We’d been having a tremendous time. Now, he was holding me so tight I thought I would suffocate.

  ‘Peter, you’re hur–’

  My arms hung loosely at my sides. I could smell the sweetness of his sweat, his body odour heightened after the arguments and high emotional tension. It wasn’t unpleasant. On the contrary. His skin, the skin of his neck, which was pressed against my lips as he held onto me in his bear-hug, was smooth. His shirt rubbed against me, my upper arms, which were bare because my nightdress was sleeveless, and it was possibly see-through. From where he had been positioned at the window looking across to me standing by the bed with the light on just behind me had, no doubt, illuminated my flimsy clothing. The shape of my naked silhouette beneath my nightdress must have been revealed. Tits, nipples, the auburn triangular shadow of pubic hair.

  He bent his knees, dropping in height, and his right hand slipped up under my gown. I gasped. A tingling in my down-there privates followed. The sensation was more galvanizing than I would have expected. I let out a cry. My reaction encouraged him. He nudged the right side of my clothing higher, to waist level, baring my intimate self. His hand slid upwards to my thigh, my buttock and across to the lower part of my abdomen, just above my pubic hair. So many physical sensations within me seemed to have been activated, as though a light show had been switched on and it was going bonkers all at once. I felt juice between my legs. Mine. Peter gently negotiated my body so that the backs of my knees were pressed against the bed and slowly he tilted me backwards, folding me down upon the mattress. I was now lying rather uncomfortably at an angle on top of the layers of clothes I had stacked there earlier. The studs on my leather jacket dug into my shoulder. My legs were spread loose. I had slid them apart as he fiddled urgently with his belt and flung it to the carpet. I watched, mesmerized by the peeling of clothes and the revelation of his body, which was muscular and a little more downy than
I had envisaged when I had imagined him in the buff, which I had. Often.

  His body was beautiful. Well crafted, like a Rodin sculpture. His erection impressive, daunting – would it fit? – as he stood over me, touching himself, enjoying the moment before bending forward to enter me. A quandary grabbed hold of me. Protocol. Was it my duty to let him know I was a virgin? Clearly, he wasn’t. Was there an etiquette to this? Like the correct knife and fork to use for the appropriate dish. I shouldn’t be thinking about table manners now. Not during sex.

  I wished I was someone else, someone with skills and sophistication. Jeanne Moreau.

  ‘W-wait a minute,’ I stammered.

  Peter paused for the briefest of seconds, then lowered himself onto me gently. I felt the power of him, of his nudging genitals.

  He began to push himself, the tip of his penis like a big blind worm, against me and inside me. It pierced, stung, seemed to tear me. I felt as though I was all stitched up and it took him several attempts to gain any access.

  ‘I haven’t done this before,’ I confessed. ‘I’m a b-bit scared.’

  ‘Don’t be. I won’t hurt you.’

  ‘But you are,’ I nearly screamed at one point, until he rested his fingers over my mouth.

  ‘Let’s not excite my father.’ He chuckled in my ear. And then he was inside me – it had happened. It was all at once easier, slippery, lacking in resistance, and he was beginning to ride me. I closed my eyes and, once the stinging pain had subsided, I tried to relax my muscles, dissolve the anxiety and fear and surrender to the experience, make the most of it. It was my first time. This was it, I was having sex, and it would never, ever, be my first time again. I should give myself over to the pleasures of it, yes, because it would be an occasion that one day I was sure to look back on, confide to others. The loss of my virginity. One of those ‘How did you lose yours?’ conversations.

  Peter began to moan in my ear. His body was trembling, almost shivering. He was coming. At the very last moment he pulled himself out of me. I opened my eyes and there he was on his knees over me. His penis, moistened, dripping, was beginning to deflate.

  He lowered himself onto the bed alongside me and drew me into his arms, beaming, wrapping a leg over my sticky stomach. I smelt different, of him, his seed, like newly mown grass or freshly crushed almonds.

  ‘Wait till the end of the month,’ he whispered. ‘We’ll have won our revolution by then, and we’ll leave together, you and I. We’ll make our way south to Agnes’s. She’ll be delighted. I can’t wait to introduce you to her and Heron Heights. Stay with me. We’ll do this together. I want you with me.’

  I was committed.

  The Present

  With Gissing at my side, I drove in terse silence. I refused to engage further in any form of discussion with him. He offered a few sentences but I remained tight-lipped, obdurate. I couldn’t stomach the realization that ‘Pierre’ had transformed into this ‘George’. It was not his physical appearance, although that was sufficiently shocking, but his bitterness. The sordid calculations. The cloaked threats. The wretchedness of him.

  I deposited him in the main square in Cassis close to the quay, which was, understandably, eerily deserted, given the weather. His parting words were, ‘I’ll be in contact with you again soon and I expect you to give me your time. No arguments. We have matters to discuss, to finalize. You know that, don’t you, Grace?’

  I made no response, turning away from him standing there, coat flapping, sopping wet, at the half-open door.

  ‘I won’t let you off the hook, Grace. Not now I’ve come this far.’

  Without looking back, I scudded off, taking myself to the small grocery store on the opposite, north-facing, corner. Here I parked directly outside and hurried through the door clutching my purse.

  I had offered to drop him wherever he was staying but he had sidestepped any answer, clearly not happy to reveal to me his holiday address. Holiday? I wondered how long he had been in the small fishing town, if this was indeed where he was lodged. It was not yet full season, way off by a couple of months, so strangers are more noticeable among the rest of us regular inhabitants. I recalled then the man I’d seen several days earlier when I’d been sitting in the sunshine at a café and Peter had telephoned to let me know the girls were arriving sooner than had been planned. Of course. That was where I had seen Gissing before. George Gissing. Was that all there was about him that had seemed familiar? A man passing by me in the street? Was I being hoodwinked into …? And yet his velvet voice, his Yorkshire accent, certain gestures, his knowledge of my, our, secret past. It had to be him. But I couldn’t bear to equate him with the lover of my younger days. It was heart-breaking to accept that this was the same human being.

  He might have been better off dead.

  Had George been watching me, following and scrutinizing us, our lives, movements, for some time now, or had he recently arrived? How structured was his plot, his scheme? What ‘deserts’ was he after? Should I go to the police? Should I have delivered him to them now? But on what grounds could I report him? For menacing me, veiled threats of blackmail – my word against his – for lifting my grandson to safety when he had fallen?

  I was shaking, distracted, as I grabbed a loaf off the shelves, a baguette wrapped in plastic, which Peter and I had agreed not to buy any more – no more plastic – but that afternoon I couldn’t face making a stop at the boulangerie as well as the grocery. I wanted to get back on the road and to the sanctuary of home, behind locked doors as quickly as possible. I craved the love and physical presence of my sane, well-balanced husband.

  Was I intending to impart to Peter the reappearance of this visitor? What would I say? A man, a ghost from our past, has walked back into our lives? Such improbable information and the worry it could cause might kick-start a malfunctioning, an acceleration of the rhythms of Peter’s heart, which was precisely what we were working to protect him against. On the other hand, if George Gissing turned up at our villa, rang the bell, forced an entry when I was out or down at the beach, swimming, and Peter answered, or one of his daughters … Such a scenario did not bear contemplation.

  How, in Heaven’s name, could ‘Pierre’ have survived? And why had he waited so long to make contact? Had something triggered his emergence now? No, no, Gissing’s claim was implausible.

  I was arguing in circles with myself until, with one swipe of my baguette, I clumsily knocked the entire load of stacked bread sticks to the floor. The units tumbled and rolled as I bent low to pick up the first. The young store owner, Ali, ran to my assistance.

  ‘Please don’t worry about them, Madame Soames.’ He was kneeling at my side. ‘I will gather them up in a jiffy. I stacked them in a hurry. My fault.’

  His grace as always was endearing.

  ‘I’m having a bungling day,’ I fretted, trying to make light of my clumsiness. ‘It’s this damn wind, makes me a little edgy. I’m so sorry. If any are damaged, I’ll take them, or pay for them at least.’

  ‘No damage. Yes, this wind is fierce, fiercer than usual, I agree. Level seven, the newscaster announced. It does jangle the nerves, doesn’t it? You know, here in Provence, in the past when these winds gathered such force, it was when married people murdered their spouses and they did not have to face prison sentences because the wind was given as an extenuating circumstance.’

  I laughed.

  Outside, a metal sign advertising Magnum chocolate lollies, swinging on its pedestal, took off and was whipped across the square, bouncing, bumping its way noisily and clumsily along the cobbles towards the water’s edge. A grocer ran, arms open wide, to save it. An elderly lady with a small dog, a frantically barking spaniel, was turning in circles, trying to redirect herself.

  ‘Look at the force of that,’ I remarked, as I emptied my purse in search of small coins.

  ‘Will you be safe to drive back? Crossing over the hill in this wind is more than dangerous, in my opinion.’

  I was silently wonderin
g the same, but I had no desire to hang around the little town today.

  ‘It’s due to calm – according to the Météo man on this morning’s breakfast television – soon after lunch. You’d be better to sit in a café and wait it out for a short while. I could telephone Monsieur Soames for you if you don’t have your mobile with you. Forewarn him that you won’t be back till it calms down a bit.’

  Stay with me for a while, Gissing had asked, while I was driving the car over here, gripping tightly to the steering wheel, overcoming my desire to plunge us both over the cliff-side into the sea.

  Keep me company.

  It was impossible to explain even to myself, to comprehend, why dying, a self-induced end, with Gissing seemed to be the least complicated option. For how many years had I wished ‘Pierre’ hadn’t drowned? Now I wanted nothing more than to thrust his ghost back to the bottom of the sea.

  But surely to God this man was not Pierre. How could he have survived? It was a fact that no trace of his body had ever been recovered. If I went to the police station in town, would they have retained the records? Or was it all too long ago?

  ‘Madame?’

  I spun back to the till to where gaunt-faced Ali with his tobacco-grilled voice was calling to me. ‘Sorry, Ali, yes?’

  ‘You have forgotten your shopping.’ He was holding a white plastic bag between two fingers, swinging it lightly back and forth. ‘You see how this wind affects the mind. We are not responsible for our actions when the mistral takes hold. Shall I telephone your husband for you?’

  ‘Please don’t worry, Ali, I can do it, but thank you for the offer and your concern.’

  I sat alone in the Café du Port for almost an hour, biding my time. It was currently occupied by four people, including myself, aside from the proprietor-barman, Thierry. The trio of male customers was hunched over the bar, le zinc, downing shots of cognac. I recognized the face of one, and could tell from their weathered skin and features that they were all local fishermen. They must have returned to shore at some point in the middle of the night if they had wished to avoid being caught out at sea in this foul weather. I hoped for their sakes none of their comrades were still out there. I was at a table by the window, looking out at the bleak wet afternoon. In my haste to pick up the shopping and return home, I hadn’t paid attention to the direction Gissing had taken when he had stepped out of the car.