by Cole Moreton
His fingers make two lines in the condensation. ‘There’s a car coming down that long road from Beachy Head, running along-side the cliff edge. I wonder if he knows how close it is. He’ll dis-appear in a minute and go round the bottom of this hill, past
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the wood, towards the Gap. If he doesn’t turn in there he’ll have to head inland again, climbing up towards East Dean. That’s when they put their foot down. It’s like a racing circuit some-times. I have seen a million cars in my life, but before I came here I never stopped to watch them. Let them pass through. Like feel-ings. Mindfulness – the teachers tell you to become aware of your emotions, let them pass through you and go on their way. It’s like that. I can sit and watch the cars – it’s better out of season – and my mind clears. Never thought of it like that before. Weird. It’s the interruptions that show you how peaceful it is.’
‘Sorry.’
‘I don’t mean you. You’re . . . welcome. I’m just saying it’s sim-pler here, I can practise gratitude. Even though, you know, I’m on my own. There is electricity, heat and light, water. You’ll strug-gle for a phone signal but it’s warm, dry, snug. When the storm comes, it’s like a giant cuffing the tower about the ears. You prob-ably heard it. But the tower stands. There is strength. We are on the edge – who knows when the land will slip and the tower will start to go? – but for now it stands, strong. So, there was a sense of refuge here when we came. We thought we’d make a home in this unlikely place. Such beauty. To begin again. I’m sorry, you don’t need to hear all this. You can go, you know.’
Gabe looks back at her, and all of a sudden feels exhausted. He’s had enough of this talk. More than enough. What’s the point? ‘Look, can you go? Sorry. I’m not . . . just go.’
Sarah reaches over and puts a hand on his good arm, but he pulls it away quickly, which confuses her. ‘Sorry, I did not mean . . . please. Tell me about Maria.’
They are locked into this now, he realizes. She won’t tell him anything unless he talks to her. He wants her to go, she seems to want to stay for some reason, but the only way to break the lock is to talk. That’s how it works.
‘What if I don’t want to?’ But even as he says this, he realizes it is probably time he did. He wants to. That’s a surprise. Why not talk to this stranger, this woman who will go then and leave him alone and never come back? ‘Okay. When we came here she was always
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banging on about how it was a thin place, where the space between this life and whatever happens next is so thin. Do you know what I mean by that? No. I didn’t. I know what that means now. She was a therapist. As her job I mean, not just for me, although that too, probably. That’s how we met. I went to interview the mother of a child who had brain damage because of some terrible mistake in the hospital. Rí was there in the kitchen, helping him paint. Big sploshes of colour, it was everywhere, all over the table, the floor. She was laughing, the boy was laughing, the mum was laughing. I felt like an intruder, coming into the room, all that laughter. I was hoping for tears. Isn’t that awful? Hoping that the mother would cry and I could write about that, and make the reader cry too. I was a tear-maker, a one-man raincloud, but that day I stepped into a room full of sunshine. Rí didn’t notice. I came, I went; she says she didn’t even see me . . .’
‘That’s not what I was expecting.’
‘No. I should tidy that bit of the story up really, if I’m going to start telling people. Not that anyone else is interested. Thank God. I should make her fall in love with me at first sight. I still don’t know if she . . .’
Yes you do. You really do.
‘I saw her again a couple of weeks later, in a bar. By then I had quit. She didn’t know who I was, of course. She was singing with a band but we got there late and didn’t see that. I was with friends, but they were all talking and I was just sitting there, looking over at her. She had shaved her head since we met – you know, like Sinead O’Connor? She’d hate me for saying that, but there it is. Ironic really, she did it long before she had to, but if anything she looked even more amazing that night. Magnificent. Last orders had gone. There was a guy up at the bar giving her the chat and when she tried to walk away he sort of reached out and scooped her up. I couldn’t have that. Weird, isn’t it? We had never spoken to each other but I already felt like she was mine. I had been drink-ing, though! I was worried for her. This guy was big, heavy.’ Should he do the voice this time? Ah hell, why not? ‘“Awright darlin’? You gonna sing me a song, aintcha?”’
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Sarah laughs – that’s great, she’s laughing – covering her mouth. ‘No, I know, it’s okay. I’m not great at accents. That was Cockney
with a bit of Welsh.’
‘Maybe some Italian?’
‘Yeah. EastEnders, Napoli style. Thing is, Rí didn’t need me. That’s how she signed her name, with the Irish fada. Rí to rhyme with free. She stood back from him, and his arm fell. Then she stepped back into his space. Right in his face. She looked right into his eyes and began to sing. He didn’t know what he was mess-ing with. She did this.’
He stands there with his legs apart in a strong stance, as Maria did, and brings one hand up past his chest, opening the fingers like a flower in front of his face as if drawing something out of himself. ‘I didn’t have a clue what she was singing, but nor did the guy either.’
The language of the mountains and the hiding places.
‘It was Irish. The old way, it’s called. You’re supposed to call to mind all the people who have sung the song before, over the centuries, so that they are in the room. It was like that, Sarah. Such a sound. I couldn’t believe it was coming from her and I’ve never seen anything like this, as if the song was a sword hovering over this creep and it fell, cutting him in two, right down the middle. He fell apart. Slid off the chair, threw his glass down and got out of there, shouting out: “You’re a nutter!” as he ran away. I thought, this is the one, here she is, right here. I mean, wow. She picked up his beer and drank it. Finished it, wiped her mouth. She saw I was looking at her and she said in this really heavy accent, comedy Irish, “Yer man wanted a song!”’
I did recognize you, very well. I just didn’t want to show it.
‘I was smitten.’
Sarah smiles at him.
‘I’ll just say this. She saw me. She understood me, more than I thought was possible. She helped me heal. I had been moving around for so long, following the story, being one thing to this person and something else to another, listening and writing, like a mirror, never thinking about who I was beyond the story and
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never wanting to face it, and she said: “Stop. You’ve been looking for home. Here I am. This is home.”’
Pacing the edge of the circular lantern room, he trails a hand along the window rail. ‘She showed me how to see differently, too. We came to the coast and walked for miles at weekends and she would paint and draw, and I would read and sleep and watch her. She taught me how to sit and wait and watch and let the shapes and the colours settle until you see what is there, properly. Then I saw that there was more than suffering. I knew that, but I hadn’t stopped to look. So much more. Such beauty.’
They both look beyond the glass, to the landscape that sur-rounds them in their tower, wrapped in the darkening arms of the Downs.
‘You were lucky,’ says Sarah, smoothing down a cushion cover and picking at the zip.
‘I was,’ says Gabe. ‘I really was. So I quit work – or rather accepted voluntary redundancy – with a glad heart, and came here with her.’
She waits for him to say what he needs to say next. He doesn’t know if he can. The room trembles in the wind. The world out-side is turning blue. Sarah thinks of the long, difficult walk to the cottage, where her stuff is waiting. She won’t go. But if she is to stay, and be here when it is time to test, when she finds out what to do next, there are things to ask.
‘How did she do it?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Did she leave you a note? Did she say goodbye?’ He looks at her blankly.
‘Was it quick? Did you . . . did you watch?’
He laughs a little, and feels so tired again. What can he say to that? Stupid. Why doesn’t she just piss off? ‘Okay, that’s what you think this is? She just jumped or something? You could not be more wrong. She lived every moment of her life, every single moment, with a passion. Fought for it – no, that’s not right – held on to it. Tight. Right to the end. Can you go now? Please, go. I mean it. Go.’
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‘No!’ She panics, wanting to stay here and be safe, even if it is with him, but he means it, she has really upset him. There is no choice. Sarah stands up, and starts for the steps. She is shaking. What has she done that is so bad? Why does she feel silly? Worse than that, she is scared. Really scared. ‘Sorry. I don’t know . . . can I stay? Please?’
‘Just go,’ says Gabe with a weird calm that really spooks her. ‘That is the safest thing, for both of us.’
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Thirty Eight
So to hell with him, that man, that broken, awful man and his creepy tower. Sarah is glad to be out of there, striding hard down the hill away from the lighthouse, wondering if he is watching her, knowing that he is. That bloody man with his stories and his soup and his skin tight on the bones and his blue eyes that never look at you and when they do they see right through you. The late afternoon is absurdly still; she can hear her breathing in time with the crunch and slip of her boots on chalk and grass. The sea is a flat grey snakeskin, sliding into a slightly lighter sky. All the walk-ers have gone home, there are no cars on the road below. The thud of a farmer’s gun echoes over the Downs from a field somewhere, followed by a crack. And the cry of a child . . . no, it’s the mocking call of a gull, away out of sight where the nests are, on the sheer cliff edge below the line.
As she walks on the broad green back of the hill, there is a dip to the left where the ground falls, then rises again to the edge like a wave. And in among the bushes a woman dressed in green and black, almost hidden but for a red cloth folded over her arm. It’s a sweater, with gold lettering. She’s a Guardian. Calling out something to Sarah. What is it? She can’t hear. Too late to turn away.
‘Hi! Please, I am not a busybody, it is my job. Are you okay?’ ‘No. Not at all. I’m thinking of throwing myself off.’ ‘Oh! My name is Magda—’
‘I was joking,’ says Sarah, walking on. ‘But thank you.’
Magda is there in front of her, alongside her. ‘Let me help, please. I can. You see.’
Her grip is strong. This Magda is wiry, hard. She has full, flushed cheeks, a button nose, dark-rimmed eyes that dart across the Downs as she takes the lead. Her bright white hair flicks into Sarah’s eyes. ‘You come. Here. Sit.’
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Seriously? It’s a mound of grass sheltered by shrub and gorse, out of the wind . . . but right on the edge. Three, four steps away. The drop looms, it’s giddying.
‘It is safe,’ says Magda. ‘A quiet place.’
No, thinks Sarah, but she’s so tired, so empty, she sits down anyway.
Magda holds out a white paper bag. ‘Fudge? I make it myself.’ It tastes good, sweet, rich. There is tea to drink, from a flask. The steam curls straight, there is barely any wind in this moment. Sarah has not seen it like this up here before. Is Gabe still watch-ing, from the tower? He will be thinking she is safe now. Who is
this woman?
‘Where are you from?’
‘London.’
‘No, where from?’
Oh please, not that again now. ‘London.’ ‘Yes. Okay. I can help. More tea?’
It’s thick, dark, laden with sugar and it makes Sarah feel sick, but she does want more. She’s so tired.
‘Would you like to lie down?’
Yes, she would. She feels safer that way, with her face to the sky. If this great chalk wave collapses into the sea, then she will go with it. But Sarah feels bonded to the earth.
‘Better? More comfortable?’
She could sleep.
She could.
Sleep.
Magda is beside her. Speaking. Slowly. Softly.
‘Now that is better. You are very beautiful. I like your hair, it is very special. My mother, she was beautiful. Different to you, of course, she is from Poland, but so beautiful, even when she was old. Full of life, you say, zywa.’
Sarah feels breath on her cheek but her eyes are closed.
‘That is better. You should rest. We are not to suffer, God does not want that. I know this. He has shown me, through my mother. She got sick. It begins with her fingers. She cannot feel. Then her
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arm, two arms. Legs. She is a bird in a cage, she is, unable to fly. Pain all day, all night. I cannot stand to see her but I must be in the room, to feed her. Clean her. Everywhere. She cannot speak but she begs me, you know?’
Magda is so close, but Sarah is lost in a light, a blinding light from long ago.
‘I saw that it was kind to help her go on, woli Bozej, will of God. You are so lovely, like her.’ She moves closer still, cheek to cheek. ‘I want to help you. There is no shame. It was good for me to come to this country, away from the talking. The priests do not understand. God is peace. Love. Mercy. No more tears. No more suffering. We go to a better place. Perhaps it is better while you are still young and strong and beautiful, while you can choose. Before the pain.’
A gust of wind is like a slap in the face that wakes Sarah, just enough, but Magda’s hand is firm on her shoulder, pressing her back down into the earth.
‘Hey! Hush, now. Be still.’
‘Stop!’
‘I am doing nothing. I am a Guardian, I am here to help. Is God’s will. He loves you. He tells me, after my mother. You miss your mother, yes? She waits for you.’
Magda stands, and pulls a wobbly Sarah to her feet.
‘See, the light shining on the water?’
She does. Far out to sea. As if through a fog.
‘Your mother is there. She is happy, she wants you. This is the door. Take a step. Good, now again. You can go through to her. She is waiting—’
‘Sarah! Sarah!’ The lighthouse man is calling, from far away. ‘Magda, is she okay?’
He’s running over the slope towards them, approaching fast, barefoot despite the stones. Sarah feels Magda’s grip tighten and she is yanked back, away from the edge and down, manhandled like a sickly patient.
‘There is something wrong with her,’ Magda tells him urgently. ‘She is not sensible. She was here by the edge and I saw her, I came
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across to stop her, I pull her back,’ she says, talking fast, wrapping Sarah in the red sweater that smells of heavy, sickly perfume. ‘Is this the one who is missing? Jack, the husband, he is in the pub. London today, but we have the booking, so he will return this evening, I think. Shall we take her there, to the pub?’ There is des-peration in her voice. Whatever this is, whatever it was Gabe saw that made him run, he suddenly doesn’t trust Magda like he did.
‘The lighthouse is closer. I’ll take care of her.’ ‘Until Jack comes?’
‘Yes, okay,’ he says reluctantly, stopping himself from saying any more.
Sarah feels fuzzy. Her head is so heavy. Magda whispers in her ear: ‘Your mother is waiting.’ Then the lighthouse man lifts her up and off the ground and walks with her in his arms. She can smell the sweat on him and something else, darker, stronger. What is that? What is it? Wondering, she sleeps.
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Thirty Nine
He waits in the lantern room in the gathering dark, looking out for the blue lights, seeing himself reflected back in the glass. This room was built to look outwards in all directions at once and it holds on to the view until the last embers of the day have gone out. Then it snaps shut. The darkness comes rushing in and wraps around the wi
ndows as if there is nothing more worth seeing. This is the still moment, the claustrophobic moment. The moment that makes his pulse rise every time. The panic.
His face looms up in the glass. God, he looks knackered. More than ever. There will be no sleep when the police come and ask what Sarah is doing here and why he didn’t tell them. He’ll be in trouble for that. Magda was frightened. Should he have called an ambulance? They will be here soon. If Sarah is lucky, she will wake up in a hospital, in a bed with clean white linen, under the care of someone who knows how to treat her properly. That’s what she needs, not to be hiding here with him, for reasons he does not understand. It will be over soon anyway. Magda will tell them. She will have done so by now. Why are the police taking so long?