The House on the Edge of the Cliff

by Carol Drinkwater

  The wind was lessening, as Ali had predicted. The force of the storm was abating. I closed my eyes in a form of prayer, wishing that the phantom from my past might also dissipate.

  I glanced towards the bar where the three men remained almost static. Immense broad shoulders, the muscles only in movement when glasses were lifted or placed back on the counter. Gone were the days when they would light cigarettes and fug up this space. For one fleeting moment, I recalled Paris in ’68 and the smoky bars Peter and I used to inhabit.

  That heady month before Pierre walked into our lives, before I caused so much damage.

  Now, for the pleasure of a smoke, the fishermen were obliged to saunter outside. If any of them did so, I would ask the question, but none moved, backs to the weather, backs to their rigorous lives beyond this snug. I caught Thierry’s eye. As barmen always seemed to be, he was drying glasses, tea towel tossed over one shoulder. I made a signal for my bill. Two coffees during the space of an hour. Thierry nodded and I returned my attention to the empty square, then sent a swift text to Peter to say I would be back shortly.

  Thierry was in front of me, lowering the saucer with my bill to the small wooden table. ‘Quite a storm, eh, Madame?’

  I nodded. ‘Business too quiet. Keeps the customers away, eh?’

  ‘Mais oui.’

  ‘Are there many tourists about at the moment?’

  Thierry shook his big head. ‘My flat’s rented upstairs on an annual lease to a German family, but they’re not here at present. We’re expecting them back early June, or so they wrote to the missus. A couple of the houses along the Strand, towards the Cap Cable, have been taken. But it’s not good, Madame. Business has been quieter all round since the attacks. The Nice one damaged southern tourism badly. Slowly, the foreigners are coming back in dribs and drabs. Except for the Brits, of course, with their Brexit concerns. What a madness that is, eh?’

  ‘Any idea who’s taken the houses along the Strand?’ I probed, drawing coins from my purse while trying to hit a nonchalant note.

  ‘François might know. One of the properties belongs to his wife’s family. François!’ The barman swung back to the men at the counter, all still in their tall rubber boots.

  François turned and nodded in my direction. We knew one another. I had bought fish from his landed skiff on many a fair morning. ‘You looking for somewhere to rent then, Madame?’

  I shrugged. ‘A friend was asking. She’s thinking of coming over from the UK for a few weeks a bit later in the season,’ I lied, hating myself for offering any false financial hope to these hardworking men.

  ‘My sister-in-law’s rented hers,’ he said. ‘The man doesn’t know how long he’ll be staying. Indefinite, he said, so I wouldn’t like to promise anything there. I can ask her, though, to give you a call. Or she can talk to one or two of the other proprietors in the street for you. Cheaper than doing it through one of the agencies in La Ciotat.’

  I nodded, caught at the sentence about the man who was in residence indefinitely. ‘Her rental is alongside the house she lives in. Is that correct?’

  François nodded. ‘Number eleven, that’s right.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ I smiled. ‘I’ll drive over there and have a word. Thanks so much.’

  I lifted myself from the table, my limbs still trembling. The men, Thierry and François, were watching me, not with any suspicion but simply because there wasn’t very much else to concentrate on and I had brought a moment of diversion to the boredom of the afternoon. Their second day grounded, without hope for a catch.

  ‘Tell all your English friends, Madame, to come and spend the summer here.’ Thierry smiled when I reached the door. The bell clanged as I opened it and stepped outside.

  Number eleven, along with all the other pastel-coloured terraced houses along the Strand – once the abodes of the local fishing community – faced out to the sea, which was gradually growing calmer. Its hue was a manganese turquoise. I loved the casts and tones of the water after a heavy storm, when the sands had been roiled and nothing was tranquil or limpid.

  I was in the car, inching forwards at a snail’s pace, checking every now and then that no one was behind me, growing impatient. I was keen to avoid a waspish driver, whose hooting and ill temper would draw attention to my presence. I had decided that to walk this strip, which in any case was too blustery, would leave me wide open to the view of anyone within the houses looking out of the windows or seated on a terrace. If it was Gissing who had rented François’s sister-in-law’s place, and I was guessing it was, the last thing I wanted was that he knew I was out looking for him. That he had successfully spooked me.

  And when I had confirmed that Gissing was staying there, what was I intending to do? I had no answer to that question. It was one step too far ahead. My objectives were plain to me: to make certain he never came close to our house again, nowhere near the grandchildren, above all, and that either with money, persuasion or threat, I didn’t know which yet, I could somehow prevail upon him to decamp. It seemed a tall order, mostly because I had no inkling of the level of sanity of the mind I was dealing with.

  Was he violent? Fanciful? His mention of murder? Was that some fantastical nonsense he was intending to use to construct a blackmail threat against us? Was extortion his game? Did he believe any of his trumped-up story? Did I? How much money was he after? And who was George Gissing? What nature of man had he, ‘Pierre’, become?

  I had reached number eleven. I crawled forwards the distance of another two houses and then, outside number fourteen, I drew to a halt. That particular property was shuttered and sported a sign, A Louer – To Rent, attached to a post in the front garden. Number thirteen was also closed up, but numbers twelve, eleven and, by the look of it, ten were all open, not shuttered, so probably occupied.

  My telephone pinged a text. I glanced across to the passenger seat where the mobile was lying. A message from Peter: Where are you? I thought you were on your way back.

  I picked it up and typed: Stayed and drank a coffee, waited for storm to die down. Back shortly. Please don’t worry. X

  I had disengaged the gearstick but not switched off the engine. I should head off, be on my way. There was nothing more I could achieve here in the immediate future, not unless I aimed to go knocking on the doors demanding certainty, and that was not my intention. Not yet. First, I wanted to know where he was stationed and what I was dealing with. From there on, I would formulate a master plan. I pushed the car into first, crept forward, swung the Renault across the street to make a U-turn, now facing the sea and the narrow strip of beach sullied with bracken and driftwood, then turned the wheel for the town and from there the upper road to home.

  Reflection must be my strategy. And afterwards a clearly formulated counter-attack.

  An unnerving silence ensued. I heard no more. There were no more sightings of Gissing. The storm endured, settling for an hour or two before erupting once more. On it belted for more than seventy-two hours. Afterwards, the bright days returned, as though a switch had been flicked, back to their spring glory, which meant the youngsters returned to the beach. Peter’s operation drew closer. Just one or two more weeks. I spent my free hours walking in the hills, swimming in the early mornings before the household was out of bed, reading, contemplating and remembering, jotting down memories, reliving my past. My encounter with Gissing, I had disclosed to no one. Better to keep the interview to myself until I knew what we were up against. I felt a deep-seated swell of grieving in the pit of my stomach.

  I forced myself not to return to the Strand to verify whether or not Gissing was still in residence. I tried to persuade myself that our meeting had been all he needed, that he had been appeased. I talked myself into believing that once he had seen me, spoken to me face to face, threatened me and observed the fright he had caused me, he was satisfied, had enjoyed his petty thrill, and would return to his own life back in England. Back in England? I didn’t even know that for a fact. And if his fantasies
had not been gratified, what was I to expect? I had no precise idea what I was waiting for, or up against, what menace would be served up next. And why this silence when he had clearly said, threatened, that he would be in touch?

  What if I were to fly back to England, to accept the role in the play Ken, my agent, had telephoned me about? Would that take the heat, the spotlight off Peter’s family? Would I be refocusing Gissing’s crazed mind on me and only me? I could promise to meet him in London. Would I release the children from any dangers they might be in the line of? The downside of this plot was that if I committed myself to the play’s six-month run I would be absent throughout the summer and I would not be here to support Peter, to see him through his operation, to be at his side – my hand holding his – when he regained consciousness. And it was that I desired more than anything else. To be with the man I loved when we learned that his operation had been a success and his life was no longer endangered by a defective heart.

  What an irony. Peter, of all men, had no emotional defects of the heart. No one was kinder, more amorous or loyal. Peter’s heart was so full of generosity and concern for others.

  Those were the options, the arguments, the points of defence that turned over and over in my mind as I hiked or strolled the hills and observed the May days inching towards June and early summer. Buds unfolding, scents deepening. The maquis, the Mediterranean scrubland that climbed the mountainous elevations directly behind Heron Heights, was reaching its aromatic zenith. A cornucopia of perfumes wafted around our isolated house, enveloping it, lulling me into a false sense of security. He is silent because he has packed up and gone. Lounging on the veranda of an evening, when the perfumes were at their most potent as the sun set, was almost like imbibing a drug.

  Drugged out of your pretty little brains. Wasn’t that how it was? That’s the story. What do you know of the truth? What can you possibly remember?

  1968

  The May Riots

  We were outside in the street awaiting the arrival of Daniel Cohn-Bendit along with seven of his fellow students from Nanterre for their disciplinary meeting at the Sorbonne.

  ‘There he is.’ Peter pointed. ‘That’s Cohn-Bendit. The ginger-haired fellow.’

  ‘Good luck, Dany!’ Voices hailed him.

  We watched as the group of eight passed through a police cordon, voices raised in a rousing chorus of ‘L’Internationale’. I glanced about me at the clusters of students lining the pavements, waving their arms and chanting, ‘Debout, les damnés de la terre’, lyrics from the first stanza of the famous left-wing anthem written in 1871.

  I couldn’t follow everything because there was so much shouting and cheering. Peter had his left arm hanging loosely over my shoulders. Since we’d quit the luxury of his parents’ pad, we’d been sleeping on Pascal’s floor by the stove. Our standard of living had certainly nose-dived, but we were happy. In any case, I was getting excited at the prospect of leaving the city shortly and moving south.

  My Summer of Possibilities had taken a major leap forward.

  The revolution was the big story, of course, but while Peter, his friends and comrades discussed, ad infinitum, strategies, philosophical concepts, I was coming to terms with my new status. Womanhood. I wiled away time in the toilet cubicle at Pascal’s, staring into the broken strip of mirror hanging from a nail above the stained sink. I was searching for signs, tracing the contours of my face, hoping to spot some indefinable transformation shining out from within me, but as far as I could see, I was the same old young Grace.

  Peter’s chocolate-brown wool scarf flapped in my face as his right arm was held aloft in a salute. The mood was upbeat, in spite of the police presence, and I felt elated. So many of my generation surrounded us, calling for a better, fairer world. Peter’s words: ‘the demise of capitalist greed’. I was being drawn into his cause although I didn’t fully understand the demands, and I certainly wasn’t prepared for the brutality that attended us when Paris was transformed into a battlefield.

  In my dreamy, growing-up state of mind, I didn’t see what was coming. I had never taken part in any demonstrations before, not even peaceful ones. It was only another couple of days before the aspirations of the young spiralled out of control and were transformed into something seriously ugly.

  And, unwittingly, I found myself caught in the eye of the storm.

  Once Dany and his comrades had disappeared from sight there was a bit of a lull, as though no one knew what to do next. Then a male voice, deep and rusty, from within the crowd, bellowed, ‘Allons-y.’

  He was bidding his fellow protesters to start marching, waving their banners. Cries of approval rang out and we began to shuffle through the streets of the Left Bank. Peter took my hand. It was too easy to get jostled and lose one another. Basically, we were moving in the direction of l’Odéon. Peter shouted in my ear that we’d keep step with the crowds for a bit and, later, catch up with a few of his gang back at Pascal’s.

  Little worked out as planned.

  When the demonstrators arrived in rue Saint-Jacques, we came face to face with a battalion of police officers. They were waiting for us, lined up along the pavements and street. They had rigged up lengths of temporary fencing, a railing to block our route forward. Students called out to them, ‘Let us pass.’ A few others, I admit, yelled more provocative comments. These caused the gendarmerie to raise their shields and step towards us. It was not a goose-step exactly, but it was threatening and brought to my mind images I’d seen of Hitler marching in victory in Berlin in 1933. This was on a smaller scale, I agree, but when ranks of armed, uniformed men, trained for combat, are trooping towards you with weapons … Well, it scared the living daylights out of me.

  Someone hurled a stone. It might have been a brick – I couldn’t see. We were too far back in the lines and, at five foot five, I’m not that tall. The police were prepared for defensive action with their batons at the ready. As a unit they began to advance in earnest. On the offensive. An order was called and tear gas was shot into the crowds.

  It didn’t happen at once, the response. It was almost like a slow-motion clip from a film, as though the gas was frozen in mid-air before it reached us, its target. Our lines began to break up – many had been walking with arms linked until this point. Now chaos was unleashed. Half the demonstrators, those in the front rows, began to cough. Those same protesters were temporarily blinded, hands pressed up to their faces, or tears running down their cheeks. I was able to get a fuller picture now because the ranks had been divided.

  ‘Shit, man! I’m burning!’

  ‘Help!’

  ‘I’m on fire!’

  ‘My eyes!’

  ‘Fuck it, I can’t see.’

  The provocative language escalated. People were running to and fro, back and forth. They scattered, shouting, swearing, some hysterical, running, turning in circles. A few became aggressive, attempted to counter-attack, but without weapons … This incited the police. Our front ranks were stumbling, pushed backwards, losing footing. I twisted my ankle while attempting to stay upright as bodies fell over me. Peter and I dropped hands. I think he was covering his face.

  ‘Hide your eyes, Grace!’ he shouted, from behind fingers pressed to his. ‘Take my scarf.’

  I felt sick, woozy. I was desperate to get away, to escape as fast as possible – this was too vicious for me – but we were hemmed in, blocked, encircled within animated panic.

  I assumed it was over, that the police had made their point, but, no, this was just the beginning. The law must have called for reinforcements because, within no time, crocodiles of navy-clad officers appeared, piling out of vans, arriving from around street corners. I will never forget the incessant thud of marching boots. There were dozens and dozens and dozens of them. All flaunting weaponry. In Britain, the police were rarely if ever equipped with arms, nothing besides truncheons. To stand face to face with so many handguns and rifles put the fear of God into me.

  The National Police and th
e crowd control unit, the CRS, were wearing tin helmets with visors down to protect themselves against the gas and smoke they were spraying on us. They were brandishing shields and batons. I spotted assault rifles, which freaked me. The air was opaque with clouds of tear gas. It created an eerie, haunting atmosphere, apocalyptic, and it became almost impossible to follow, with any clarity, what was going on.

  People were in all directions, shouting, bleating, handkerchiefs pressed over mouths and noses, or arms stretched, like distress signals, above their heads. The street was raining bodies. Another round of tear gas was released. I was standing in a fog sound-tracked by yelping, coughing, wheezing.

  I had lost sight of Peter, lost him altogether. I yelled his name, coughed, spluttered it again. I spun in blind circles, bodies banging up against me, knocking me this way and that. Scared doesn’t describe it. I wanted Away From Here Now. This was terrifying. Suddenly an image of my parents fighting, tearing at one another, flooded my brain. I screamed, pressed my knuckles into my eyes … They were stinging, weeping, burned by gas. My vision was deteriorating.

  Close by, students began pulling up paving stones. Others behind me were heaving a parked Citroën, rocking the black car until it was upright, balanced precariously on its back bumper, engine pointing skywards, until it lost balance, spun fast and crashed onto its roof, sending whorls of dust and broken parts in all directions. Metal, mirrors smashed and splintered. People were jumping out of range of the shards of glass. I didn’t understand what this senseless destruction was about until I clocked that the students were creating their own blockade to protect themselves against the police.