“Night,” she says before turning in his arms to gaze into the blackness of the bedroom. Dan is wrong. She knows she won’t feel better in the morning. She has spent the last ten years willing each morning to be better…to feel better. And each morning she awakens to the sickening knowledge that she is to blame for the disintegration of her family. She feels, sometimes, as though they’ve all abandoned her, as though she’s been cut loose and left to drift through life on her own. But then she remembers she is to blame for that. It is her fault they have been scattered like the floating debris from a shipwreck. She feels the guilt of it like a deep, throbbing pain.
As Dan begins to gently snore, Dora closes her eyes. She wants sleep to claim her too, but she knows it is a long way off. Instead, she lets her mind wander down the pathways of her past. Slowly, it drifts down a wide tree-lined drive. She can almost hear the wind rushing through the tall sycamore trees and smell the salt carried on the breeze. She rounds a corner in her mind and there it is, a rambling old farmhouse standing high upon the Dorset cliffs, its whitewashed walls gleaming like a beacon in the sunshine. As she draws closer she sees the tangle of ivy creeping up its exterior, curling around the eaves of the gray slate roof. She drifts closer still and sees the solid oak front door, bleached with weather and age. She pushes on the door, the warm smooth wood familiar under her fingers, and enters a hallway, cool and dark and haunted with the footsteps of a generation of Tides. She walks past an open door, ignoring the elegant dark-haired woman bent over a desk of books and papers. She turns away from the sound of giggles echoing down the creaking staircase and passes a handsome, fair-haired man seated in the drawing room peering at the newspaper spread across his lap. Instead she makes for the conservatory where the scent of roses and lilacs wafts enticingly through the open doors. Drifting through, she wanders down the sprawling lawn toward the siren’s song of the sea, crashing far away onto the cliffs below.
As she reaches a twisted old cherry tree down in the orchard she turns and studies the house, gazing up at the wide sash windows. She stares at them, searching for answers deep within their shadows, but the glass is blackened by the glare of the sun.
Clifftops. The house she once called home.
Dan shifts and sighs in his sleep and as Dora moves her hands onto her still-flat belly and contemplates her future, she suddenly understands. She cannot hide any longer. She must return to Clifftops.
Chapter 2
Helen
Sixteen Years Earlier
Helen stood in the hallway and surveyed the ever-growing pile of suitcases, bags, shoes, and coats. It would be just fine by her if someone decided to cancel Easter. The packing was bad enough. There were the piles of washing to sort through, a fridge to clear, the airing cupboard to dig around in for long-lost beach towels, and then the challenge of squashing everything into the groaning trunk of the car. Add to that the fact that Richard was still sitting in the study on a last-minute work phone call and it was enough to make Helen want to scream long and loudly at someone.
She entered the kitchen to empty the trash and found Dora sitting at the kitchen table gazing dreamily into the garden over her bowl of cereal.
“You’re not still eating those cornflakes, are you?” she asked as she wrestled with the overflowing garbage bag.
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, hurry up,” she said, finally pulling the bag from its holder and tying it off. “I need to get the dishwasher on.”
Dora nodded and raised a token spoonful of cereal to her lips. Satisfied, Helen left the room and went to find Cassie. She’d assumed she was upstairs packing but when she finally came upon her, she found her elder daughter sprawled across her bed, half dressed and reading a paperback while she sucked lazily on the ends of her hair. It was the final straw.
“I thought I told you we had to be on the road by ten?” Helen yelled. “We’re going to get stuck in traffic.” She looked around at Cassie’s messy room in exasperation. “And didn’t I ask you to tidy this up last night? You haven’t even started to pack!”
“Relax, Mum. It’ll take me five minutes. I really don’t know what the big deal is. It’s just a week at Nana and Granddad’s. You and Dad are acting like we’re going on some polar expedition!”
Sarcasm, that was new. Helen saw Cassie’s eyes flick back to the book in her hands and had to resist the urge to fly across the room and hurl it out of the bedroom window. Instead she took a deep breath and counted to three. At eleven, Cassie was a bright girl, and she already knew how to push her buttons.
“Well, I’m not going to ask you again,” Helen warned as she left the room. It was a weak parting shot, but she couldn’t think of anything better to threaten her with; as attractive as the thought was, they couldn’t exactly leave her behind.
She closed the door on Cassie and retreated down the corridor to her own bedroom. A battered old suitcase lay open on the bed. She still needed to decide whether to pack a dress or another pair of trousers. Trousers would be more practical, but she knew her mother-in-law expected them all to make an effort on Easter Sunday. Helen eyed a green silk dress hanging in the closet, then a pair of black cords, before caving in and placing the dress on top of the growing pile of clothes. She could at least attempt to keep the peace with Daphne this year.
“That’s nice; have I seen it before?” Richard asked, entering the room and glancing at the dress now lying on top of the open suitcase.
Helen rolled her eyes. “Only about a million times.”
“Oh…well it’s lovely. Are we nearly ready to go?”
Helen bristled. She wasn’t the one who had been on the phone all morning. “The girls are still dawdling,” she said, struggling with the zipper on the suitcase until Richard came across and leaned heavily on it for her, “but we should be on the road in half an hour or so.” It was optimistic, but she realized there was a silver lining to their delay. She really wasn’t in any great hurry to get down to Dorset and start the week of polite chitchat, country walks, and sedate cups of tea with Richard’s parents. She knew it was a Tide family tradition, everyone together at the big house for Easter, and she knew how much Richard loved taking her and the girls to his childhood home, but just once, she longed to spend the holidays quietly at home, a bit of shopping, some reading, puttering around the kitchen, maybe even some gardening. Still, there was no point dreaming; it would never happen. When it came to family traditions, Daphne always got her way.
“Mum’s very excited about our visit,” said Richard, as if reading her mind. “Apparently she’s been baking all week. And Dad’s thinking about taking the girls sailing.”
“Lovely,” said Helen, forcing herself to return her husband’s smile. She would go along with it, as she always did, for the rest of them. It was only a week at Clifftops, after all.
Forty-five minutes later, after a final sweep of the house, a reshuffling of the trunk, and a last-minute panic over Dora’s missing bathing suit, the Tides locked up their North London home and clambered into the car. Miraculously, they made it all the way to Winchester before the first sounds of bickering broke out in the backseat.
“It’s not fair,” whined Dora. “I never get to choose the music.” Helen could see her wielding a new boy band album in the rearview mirror.
“That’s because you’ve got rubbish taste,” said Cassie.
“I have not.”
“Have too.”
“Your turn to referee,” Richard muttered under his breath as he indicated and overtook yet another trailer creeping its way west for Easter.
Helen twisted round in the passenger seat and regarded each of her daughters in turn. Cassie was hunched in the far corner of the backseat, her head turned toward the window, her face obscured by a curtain of blond hair. She was stubborn and Helen already knew she wouldn’t look at her. She turned instead to regard Dora, her younger daughter, who stared up at her with imploring green eyes from beneath her wonky home-cut hairstyle. Helen sighed. “Will you t
wo settle down? Your father’s trying to concentrate on the road.”
“But it’s my turn to choose…” Dora’s cheeks blushed red.
“If you girls don’t stop squabbling there’ll be no music at all.”
“B-b-but…” Dora fell silent under her mother’s glare, and Helen turned back to the front.
“You okay, love?” Richard lifted a hand from the steering wheel and placed it on her arm.
“Uh-huh.” She nodded, watching an endless ribbon of cats’ eyes speed toward them. She was getting one of her headaches and frankly, she’d have preferred a bit of peace and quiet to the relentless thud of pop music; still, it was definitely preferable to one of Cassie’s tantrums. She sighed quietly to herself; in twelve years the trip had never gotten any easier.
She could still remember the very first time she had traveled with Richard to Clifftops. It had been a bleak day in March, the sky so thick with clouds you wondered whether the sun would ever shine again. She’d sat in the car nervously braiding and rebraiding the leather fringe on her handbag as Richard drummed percussion on the steering wheel with his fingers and they sped ever closer to the house he had grown up in, to meet the parents she would soon, should everything go according to plan, be calling her in-laws.
“They’re going to love you,” he reassured her. “Almost as much as I do.”
“And the baby?” she asked, stroking her barely there bump protectively.
Richard’s glance followed her hands before returning to the road. “Let me handle that. It’ll be fine. Trust me.”
And she had, implicitly, which was strange because they’d only really known each other a matter of months. Helen had been in her final year of university, studying as a classics undergraduate. Richard—a little older—was finishing up five years of his architecture degree to start a placement at his father’s firm. They’d met, predictably, where most students did: in the pub. And they had hit it off right away.
Richard was tall and fair-haired with clear blue eyes, broad shoulders, and the sort of grown-up confidence that comes from being a beloved only child. Helen had noticed him watching her from across the bar. She’d gambled and smiled at him and he told her later that it was that first smile that had got him, hook, line, and sinker. Love at first sight, that’s what he called it. He’d made his way over to their table and introduced himself. She’d liked the way he did it, straightforward and honest, no corny pickup lines, no leering and winking at his friends. Right from the start, he had seemed good and honest and kind. And if what little experience she’d had with men up until then had taught her anything, it was that those qualities were very rare indeed.
They’d dated for a few weeks and it had been fun. He’d taken her to rugby matches and offered her his coat as she’d shivered in the stands. He booked tables at romantic candlelit restaurants and gave her a crash course in architecture by escorting her around the city pointing out the buildings and styles he particularly admired. They’d argued bitterly over politics and could never seem to find a film they both wanted to see, but all was forgotten when they drew together at the end of the night, their differences seeming to ignite a passion that was best served in bed. Dating Richard was a new experience for Helen; he seemed far more grown up than her previous boyfriends, more attentive and self-assured. Even when she had discovered, with stomach-clenching terror, that she was pregnant, he’d been a rock. She could tell from the pallor of his face and the slight tremble in his hands that it was a shock, yet he’d immediately said all the right things. It was her decision to make. He would support her no matter what. And once she’d decided to keep the baby, his proposal had followed just a week later, a beautiful antique diamond ring winking up at her from across the table of a local Italian restaurant.
“It’s the right thing to do, Helen. Let’s give this baby the best start we can. Let’s create a life together. You and I.”
Helen hadn’t been sure at first. It was scary enough deciding whether to keep the baby. Motherhood was one thing…did she really need to be a wife too? “Lots of people have children these days and don’t get married,” she’d said. “We can be one of those terribly modern couples who—”
“No, Helen,” he’d insisted, “I love you. If we’re going to have a child, let’s at least do it right.”
“Where will we live? What will we do for money? I was going to travel…get a job…”
“I’ve got some savings. My family…well, we’re comfortable. We’ll manage. We’ll have this baby and then you can start your career when the baby’s a bit older. It’s not a life sentence, you know,” he’d tried to joke. “You don’t have to give everything up.” He had been so reassuring. He’d slipped the ring onto her finger with a broad grin and almost immediately begun to discuss the arrangements for a trip down to Dorset to meet his parents, leaving Helen with nothing to do but stare in disbelief at the large jewel sparkling extravagantly on her ring finger.
They’d driven straight to the beach, that very first time, so they could stretch their legs after the long journey. Richard had been hoping for a romantic walk along the shore, but the lead-colored sea lashed against the rocky beach and a bitter wind raged at them, tearing at their coats and clothes. They stumbled and shivered their way along the shoreline until they both admitted defeat and hurried back to the car, heads bowed.
“Well, that was a great success,” joked Richard, fiddling with the car heater. “Nowhere quite like England in the spring, is there?”
Helen laughed, despite her nerves, and put one hand on his warm knee.
He drove them back through the sleepy seaside hamlet of Summertown, past tiny candy-colored cottages and down treacherous, twisting lanes until at last they passed through a set of discreet wrought-iron gates and up a long and winding driveway. Their tires crunched loudly on gravel as they sped past the wind-whipped sycamores lining the route up to the house.
“There she is!” Richard exclaimed, pointing to a large stone building looming in the distance. “There’s Clifftops. We’re home.”
Helen could still remember how her breath had caught in her throat. She wasn’t exactly sure what she’d been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t the beautiful old house that had darted in and out of view between the branches of the windswept trees. It was a wonderful nineteenth-century farmhouse, perfectly proportioned and spread across the promontory in an attractive L-shape, as if the long stone building had tired of the sea’s buffeting embrace and turned one shoulder away from it. Much of the white stone exterior was adorned with trailing ivy, which wrapped its way across the front of the house and all around the wide sash windows. In the exact center stood a carved stone arch that framed an ancient oak front door, worn smooth over the years. The house glowed from within, a warm orange light radiating from every visible window, while at either end of the long slate roof a chimney sent promising plumes of dove-gray smoke curling up into the darkening sky. Down the hillside Helen could just make out a long, sprawling lawn leading off to a gated fruit orchard, beyond which lay the whitecapped wash of the sea. She knew, without even stepping one foot inside the house, that the views would be spectacular. The house alone was heart-stoppingly lovely, the kind Helen had only read about in children’s stories, but it was made all the more dramatic for its isolated position on the windswept bluff overlooking Lyme Bay. To Helen it screamed of romantic, windswept trysts and secret smugglers’ encounters.
“You could have told me you were lord of the bloody manor!” she cried, cringing inwardly at the thought of her parents’ cramped suburban home.
“It’s not that big.” Richard laughed. “This angle is deceptive.”
“Huh!” she snorted.
He reached across and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze but as they approached, the house seemed to sprawl farther and farther across the promontory, rising up proudly against the skyline.
“I can see how it got its name,” she managed finally in a small voice, suddenly terrified at the prospect of m
eeting his parents and of spending two days in such imposing surroundings.
Thankfully, the reception inside the house was warmer than the one down on the beach. Daphne and Alfred Tide were delighted to see their son, and Helen found Richard’s father charming. Alfred was an elder version of his son: tall, broad-shouldered, with silver hair, an easy smile, and the same kind blue eyes as Richard. He pumped Helen’s hand up and down enthusiastically as she walked through the oak front door and gave Richard a cheeky, approving wink when he thought she wasn’t looking. Helen then turned to Daphne, Richard’s mother, and knew with just one look that the attractive, gray-haired lady standing before her would prove more difficult to impress. She had a strong, serious face, cornflower-blue eyes, and the sort of posture that suggested training at a Swiss finishing school. She wore a chic blue wool dress with a string of pearls and Helen, standing next to her in the best dress she owned, felt cheap and shabby by comparison. Daphne’s welcome had been warm enough, but Helen could feel the woman’s cool, appraising gaze sweep over her as she turned to answer more of Alfred’s exuberant questions; it was the predatory gaze of a mother scrutinizing her son’s partner for signs of weakness or incompatibility.
They’d taken afternoon tea in the drawing room in front of a roaring log fire that crackled and spat in the large stone hearth. “It’s a little indulgent perhaps,” Alfred had half apologized as they’d settled themselves on the faded chintz sofas, “but it’s such a chilly day out there I thought a nice fire would be just the ticket.”
Helen had smiled and held her hands out to the flames, grateful for the warmth emanating from the grate as the four adults settled into the required social niceties. They covered off Richard and Helen’s drive down to Dorset, Daphne’s new appliquéd cushion covers, and the wild weather outside before Richard cleared his throat and told them he had a little announcement. Helen tensed and tried to ignore the worried glance Daphne threw Alfred.
The House of Tides Page 2