The House on the Edge of the Cliff

by Carol Drinkwater

  My throat was knotted. I felt a treacherous tear well up and begin to fall, but I didn’t move my hand from his to wipe it away.

  ‘What I haven’t previously mentioned is that I’ve left an envelope locked in the top drawer of my chest of drawers. You know where the key is. It’s addressed to you. Confidential, to be opened only in the … well, the worst-case scenario.’

  ‘An envelope?’

  ‘A letter I’ve written to you.’

  ‘What does it say? Is it not something we can discuss together? Let’s discuss it now, this evening, while we have time and are quiet.’

  ‘Not now, Grace, please. Bear with me. Let me handle this my way.’

  I nodded, at a loss and disquieted.

  ‘The essential point is the following. You are the very best thing that has happened to my life. I’ve loved you since I first set eyes on you. You know that, of course you do. There wasn’t a day when I wouldn’t have done whatever it took, any damn thing, to win your love.’

  I let out a feeble laugh. ‘“Any damn thing”? Surely, Peter, there was not an act so terrible you can’t divulge it to me now.’

  ‘Let’s leave it there for tonight, Grace, please. I’m not proud of that moment in my past.’ His face grew flushed.

  ‘So ashamed that you can only write it to me?’

  ‘The letter is there, Grace. Let us hope that …’ He sighed. He appeared to be troubled.

  Tears began to fall and my throat felt as though I was being strangled. I doubted anybody could have loved me with more passion, generosity and loyalty.

  If your Peter hadn’t tried to kill me …

  I had dismissed Gissing’s accusation as nonsensical. Words from the mouth of a man who was bordering on lunatic, who was a blackmailer and … My head was turning in circles. Gissing had led me in circles. I was tired and afraid for Peter, of what lay ahead for both of us.

  Had Peter’s love for me, his young hot-blooded heart, pushed him to such a fever pitch of jealousy that he had attempted to kill for me?

  My decent Peter whose moral compass never faltered?

  I couldn’t confront him with Gissing’s accusation, flood him with the troubles of my heart. Not tonight, when tomorrow he would be facing the precipice.

  Gissing, who had drowned in these same unpredictable waters.

  I drove Peter to Marseille, to the clinic, this morning. He insisted on being much too early, which meant a long and rather draining wait in Reception clutching one another’s sticky hand. After he had been checked into his room and the first of the most minor of the examinations had taken place, I sat at his bedside with him for a while. We spoke little. Blood pressure, heart rate, the basics had been ticked off, functioning as expected. Later, when the consultant dropped by to talk his patient through his upcoming procedure, a nurse requested that I leave. Peter and I kissed goodbye in the presence of the medical team. A witnessed moment, not an intimate au revoir. I love you, I mouthed. He nodded. So much more not said. The thought was not lost on me that this was our final moment of intimacy that side of anaesthetic, operation, recuperation period and return to consciousness. Unless a slip, an arrest of the heart, stole him from me for ever.

  I had intended to stay in a hotel close to the clinic in the old part of the city of Marseille, to spend today visiting a museum, keeping my thoughts occupied, dinner somewhere down by the port. The hotel was booked and paid for, but the room was bleak, the city full of ghosts, and I felt so afraid for tomorrow’s outcome that I checked out, got into the car and drove back here. I decided that I’d stay at home tonight, in our bed, and return to Marseille early tomorrow morning. The hotel booking was still available should an emergency arise and I was called back to the hospital.

  I had rarely felt so edgy. Everyone had assured me that there was nothing to worry about, that the operation – I hate the word ‘procedure’ – was straightforward, yet no one had denied the percentage of risk, which, though slight, still existed. Who knew where the finger of Fate, of miserable Fortune, of a surgeon’s split-second loss of concentration might deal its blow?

  A motor’s engine pulled me back to the here and now.

  It was Sunday. I wasn’t expecting anybody. I rose from the chair to watch the unfamiliar Peugeot draw to a halt a few yards along the lane.

  Out stepped Moulinet. He was dropping by, he apologized for the intrusion, with information regarding the contents of George Gissing’s suitcase. ‘I hope I am not disturbing you?’

  My apprehension rose at his approach.

  Aside from a few items of clothing, a change of underwear, Gissing’s case contained a rather substantial collection of photographs.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Most are portraits of you, Madame.’

  I stared at the man now seated opposite me, who had refused the offer of a coffee or cold drink.

  Two were of Peter and me together. They had been cut out from newspapers, articles reporting on our marriage.

  ‘On these two, Gissing, or perhaps it was someone else, had drawn a circle with a black felt-tip pen round your husband’s head. Through the circles he had made in each a cross.’

  An act of annihilation of Peter’s identity? Retribution?

  ‘Do you have any idea why?’ Moulinet asked me.

  I shook my head, alarmed. The timing of this revelation was ghastly.

  You’re surely not talking about the Gissing fellow?

  ‘You have stated that you were the only witness to the victim’s fall. Is that correct?’

  Still lost in my musings on what this was all about, recalling Peter’s recent words.

  You’re surely not talking about the Gissing fellow? Whatever brought him back to your thoughts? No reason to dredge all that up again after all this time.

  ‘Madame Soames, you seem to be in a world of your own.’

  ‘Apologies, excuse me. As I explained to you when we first met, I didn’t actually witness his fall. I saw him stumble and then … then he was gone.’

  ‘Are you certain that Gissing was alone, that he was not pushed?’

  ‘Pushed?’

  My heart was in my mouth. Might I be accused of pushing George when he lost his balance? He stumbled because we were fighting.

  ‘No, no, he stumbled. He stumbled and I … think he – he fell, though … I … I …’

  ‘At some distance, was how you originally described the circumstances to me. Where was your husband, Madame, at the time of Gissing’s plummet to his death?’

  My mouth fell open. ‘Peter? He has nothing …’

  ‘It seems rather possible, judging by the photographs, that Gissing was harbouring a vendetta against your husband. Any idea why? Was your husband personally acquainted with the victim?’

  I was speechless.

  ‘Did Gissing visit your property either on the day of his death or beforehand?’

  ‘No … no, he never came to our house.’

  ‘Can you be sure of that, Madame?’

  ‘Sure? Yes, yes, I’m sure.’

  ‘Is it conceivable that your husband was in the company of George Gissing during those last minutes of the man’s life? A row ensued and a man was pushed?’

  The Early Nineties

  New Year’s Eve, 1989

  New Year’s Eve 1989: the eighties were making their exit and, along with them, the twenty-seven-year-old Berlin Wall had fallen.

  I was arriving at a party in Hampstead, squeezing sideways along the hall and through into the high-ceilinged rooms packed with partygoers, sliding by corners where bodies hovered, whispered, laughed. Filming had wrapped in Dublin on a low-budget picture in which I had played the principal role. I had returned to London the week before Christmas, spent a few days with my widowed mum, then kept myself in hiding for a day or two.

  I had been filming in Prague when my father died, three years earlier: a stroke had taken him within hours. It had obliged me to get myself back to the UK and, as an only child, offer all the emotional and
practical support I could. The loss of him, which touched my mother more deeply than I would ever have expected, had reinforced the natural bond between us. Two lone women closing the gap.

  It seemed to be a lively crowd present tonight, made up mainly of theatricals: thespians, some household names, lesser-known actors still hoping for that longed-for break, designers, production folk, directors. Friends from drama-school days, others I had got to know or encountered along the way. Mostly I had been looking forward to catching up with Connor – terrific to see him again, or I thought it would be.

  I had been anticipating some convivial time in his company, chit-chat and laughter, having enjoyed snatched conversations only by telephone on a few occasions throughout the closing year. My schedule had been hectic but I’d had an uncomfortable feeling I’d neglected him. I knew his last, short-lived, relationship had ended. He had mentioned it on the phone several months earlier but I was not aware, until I set eyes on him now, that it had affected him so profoundly. My heart sank when I glimpsed him. He had lost weight, was gaunt and so much paler. Never had his light skin against the ginger-red hair appeared so blanched. He was as dapper and well turned-out as he habitually was, but something about his bearing had taken a turn for the worse, as though the confidence had been zapped out of him.

  He clocked me from across the room a few minutes after I had elbowed my way through to the dining room, in search of a decent glass of wine. I was cradling two unopened reds in my arms and needed to dump them somewhere. He called my name, took a few steps towards me. His opening line: ‘I thought you might have decided not to put in a show. Standing me up again.’

  ‘Would I ever?’

  ‘If someone gorgeous came along, like a shot.’ This and similar quips were the basis for perennial jokes between us, given that lovers, any who lasted more than a couple of months, were few and far between in my life. My excuse: career woman, dedicated to the job.

  Jolted up against one another by an unsteady reveller, we both smiled, a little shyly. I don’t know why. We knew the bumps and curves of each other’s bodies almost as well as our own. ‘Someone gorgeous. Like who? Name him and I’ll hunt him down with ruthless endeavour,’ I joshed, picking up a glass from the table, lifting the bowl to eye-level to confirm it was clean before I poured myself a generous measure of Rioja. It was the best on offer other than my gifts, but I couldn’t be bothered to search for a corkscrew.

  Connor was watching me, scrutinizing me.

  ‘Want one?’

  He shook his head. I intuited something, an energy shift. I couldn’t put my finger on it. I took a slug of wine and smiled. ‘Hey, that’s no way to say hello.’ We laughed, embraced, hugged hard, kisses brushed against cheeks. I inhaled his sandalwood cologne, with notes of mandarin and another I could not identify. Patchouli. I hadn’t smelt that one in a long time. It took me momentarily back to the sixties. God, the sixties, how long ago was that?

  I felt safe within Connor’s radius. Always had. His humour, his hidden vulnerabilities, his ability to love and care for those close to him. His steadfastness.

  My back was to the wall, Connor’s to the room where behind him a few couples were dancing lethargically to Simply Red, ‘If You Don’t Know Me By Now’.

  We broke apart and Connor stepped to the right of me, opening up for me a better view of the carousing crowd. A friend waved. I raised my glass, nodding an acknowledgement.

  ‘How was the filming?’

  I lowered my head, recalling the exhilarating yet tough working sessions I had been enjoying over the past few months. I was cautious, though, about expressing too much enthusiasm, all too aware of how indifferently the profession had been treating my dearest friend. Was that at the root of what was bringing him down? In two decades he had clocked up a few classy commercials, one film in Rome, which had sunk without trace, stints of modelling for Vogue, both Italian and British, photo shoots for high-ranking fashion houses, and a few lines here and there in plays in London’s West End. Since, it had all dried up. And in the modelling game, age was against him. I was thirty-eight, Connor forty. His rich-red curls were greying at the edges and now cropped short. It suited him but the dreaded shift towards middle-age roles was creeping inexorably towards us both. We would soon be competing in different markets, obliged to rethink our presentation. Even tougher for women, of course, but I, thankfully, had built a reputation. I was ‘recognized’.

  ‘Fun, good people, an important subject,’ was my brief appraisal of my three months’ work in Dublin. I flicked a glance in Connor’s direction, noted how tightly he was fisting his drained glass and the flaky, papery aspect of his ghostly-white skin. He was uncharacteristically tense. His sea-green eyes, as I viewed his profile, darted about the room anxiously. ‘And you? What trouble have you been making?’ I asked, attempting light-heartedness.

  ‘How much time have you got to spare?’

  I frowned. ‘For you, as much as you need.’

  ‘Connor, darling!’ a female voice squealed. A woman, thin as a paper clip, swathed in black with dyed-black shorn hair: Betsy, a set designer Connor had worked with on several Vogue shoots, wriggled and gesticulated her way towards us. Others approached, encircling us, screaming with seasonal and theatrical jubilation. Our private moment had been swallowed. We were both engulfed, dragged off in different directions and barely set eyes on one another over the next couple of hours.

  Some time after midnight, as I was standing alone in a bedroom piled high with coats, a photographer I had bumped into here and there over the years pushed open the door and made his way towards me. Into the room burst the vocals of Carole King crooning ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?’.

  ‘You’re not leaving?’

  I nodded.

  ‘It’s a tragedy for a beautiful woman like you to be going home alone on New Year’s Eve, no one to escort you.’

  ‘Is that a proposition, Laurie?’ A stupid thoughtless off-the-cuff wisecrack made after a couple of glasses of wine, which I immediately regretted and wished I could bite back down. Laurie had been married to a mutual friend of Connor’s and mine, a production manager called Bonnie, but he had serially cheated on her over the years until finally she’d got sick of it and kicked him out, much to resounding applause from all her friends. Now he haunted our social get-togethers, as a guest once removed, because he had been invited into our crowd by virtue of his marriage to Bonnie. Whatever, when he came too close I felt my skin crawl. From the start, I had not much cared for him. He gave me goose bumps. He was pressed close against me now and lust was radiating from his slippery bedroom eyes.

  ‘Don’t even think about it, Laurie.’ I spoke the words commandingly with the timbre of one centre stage. I had been there too many times before, with too many unsavoury men. I grabbed my knee-length leather coat, a recent present to myself, and swung right by him. His hand, fast as a gunslinger’s, reached out, barring my exit with iron muscles pressed firmly across my midriff.

  I took a beat to maintain control. ‘Just let me pass, Laurie, and we’ll say no more about it.’

  He hesitated. My intention was clear. His gesture was violent, intrusive, misogynistic.

  ‘You’ve become a bitch, you know that? Hard as nails. Everyone knows it. I wouldn’t fuck you if …’

  ‘Goodnight, Laurie.’ And with that I was out of there. His parting shot, just audible as I pulled the door to was, ‘I wonder what all your adoring fans would say if they knew the true you.’

  The true me.

  I sighed, clicked tight the door, closed my mind, glanced everywhere in search of Connor who, I deduced, must have disappeared without looking for me to say goodnight. No problem, we were scheduled to meet in the morning. A New Year’s Day ritual we had adhered to since year three at drama school, broken only by stints of pantomime in far-flung repertory theatres. In the kitchen I gave our bedraggled hostess a hug, kisses and thanks, wished her once more a happy new year, then braved it out into the cold, long night.
In the distance, drunken shouts, and a late firework was set off. 1990 was upon us. A new decade. Promising what?

  My car was parked a couple of streets away in Keats Grove. I descended the wrought-iron stairway at the side of the capacious Victorian house converted into three fashionable and ludicrously expensive flats, worrying about Connor. I stood alone on the stone path that led to the gate, debating whether I had drunk too much to drive. The answer was almost certainly yes, even if I had taken it steady by the standards of the majority of the other guests. The cops would be everywhere, crawling the streets, waiting to breathalyse. I would never be able to hail a taxi on this night at this hour. A glance at my watch told me it was close to two a.m. I lived in Primrose Hill, a hike from the nearest Tube station – in any case at this hour there were no Tubes running – so I was in for a fair walk. It was chiefly downhill and I was in no hurry. There was no rain or snow and, as Laurie had cuttingly observed, there was no one at my home waiting for me, nor had there been in a very long while. My forays into romance had been ill-fated.

  Was I a bitch, too tough, demanding rigorous standards? Or was I just trying to get along alone?

  I strode out beyond the gate, pulled up the lambswool collar on my leather coat and turned right. I’d return and pick up the car in the morning before I met Connor.

  When we were flush, Connor and I had frequently lunched or dined together at Lemonia, a family-run Greek taverna in Primrose Hill, our friendly neighbourhood hangout. It reminded us both of our early post-drama-school era. Eating Greek in Primrose Hill was a bond with our history, with our youthful carefree days, of early twenties angst let off the leash for a few hours when our grants, or dole cheques, had arrived and we’d had a few bob in our bank accounts for fifteen minutes. It was Connor who had called yesterday morning and left a message on my answer-machine suggesting this much-cherished location for our first lunch of the year. It was he who had made the booking.