by Liz Eeles
Taking a deep breath, I push fear from my mind and start making my way up what will hereafter be known as the Track of Terror because Path of Doom doesn’t do it justice. Warm weather has dried out the rock, loosening stones that slide under my feet and scuff the palms of my hands. And Toby’s scrambling has dislodged half the cliff which is raining down on my head.
But at last I reach Freya, who’s crouched down against Toby. He gives her a cuddle.
‘I’ve told Freya there’s nothing to worry about and we’re going to get her down. Or up,’ says Toby, glancing at the rest of the cliff towering above us and blanching. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got a phone signal, have you?’
Very carefully I pull my phone from my jeans pocket and wave it around my head. ‘No signal as usual. How long until Peter comes back for us?’
‘A couple of hours.’
We both look at Freya, whose head is buried in Toby’s chest. She’s shaking with fear and needs to get off this cliff as quickly as possible. If she starts panicking and moving, she’ll fall and it’s a long way down. For the first time since I started climbing, I take a peek at the beach far below and the rocks which are dark shapes in the yellow sand.
‘I’d better keep climbing, Toby, and get help. I’ll be as quick as I can.’
‘No, I’ll go. She’s my daughter and I should have been keeping an eye on her.’
Toby’s face is white with fear and anguish.
‘So should I and you’re not the best climber.’
‘I know but Freya will be calmer with you and your wedding’s on Saturday. Pasco will kill me slowly if anything happens to you. So I insist.’
He gives a wobbly grin and slowly unpeels Freya’s arms. She whimpers and grabs hold of my legs until I slide down beside her.
‘We have to be really brave.’ I say softly in her ear. ‘Your dad’s going to get help so all we have to do is sit here and be really still. Can you manage that?’
Freya’s button nose, all snotty from crying, slides across my T-shirt when she nods. ‘Sorry, Auntie Annie. I wanted to get high but I got stuck,’ she mumbles.
I put my arms around her and pull her face into my chest. She really doesn’t need to see her father scrabbling terrified up the cliff or – I can hardly bear think about it – hurtling past her if he loses his footing. I’m not that keen on witnessing it either but looking up is better than looking down.
Toby starts climbing, more slowly and measured this time but with lots of huffing and puffing and the occasional half-scream when his feet slide. My heart’s in my mouth as he gets higher and higher but, give him his due, for a man who’s terrified of heights, Toby’s doing a bang-on job.
After what seems an age, he reaches the top and manoeuvres the last tricky bit over the lip of land that pokes out beyond the rock face. All I can see are his legs sticking out when he collapses on the grass. Then he scrambles to his feet, yells ‘I’ll be back with help’, and disappears.
Seagulls wheel above and below us while Freya and I wait for the Salt Bay cavalry to arrive. She’s stopped shaking but is sucking her thumb for comfort. I’m quite tempted to shove my thumb into my mouth, but a strange thing happens while we’re sitting with our backs to the hard rock.
A deep sense of peace descends and I’m able to appreciate the vista in front of me – the grassy headland jutting out into deep-blue water, white-crested waves rolling into shore and tiny red flowers growing out of the cliff-face. If this is my last ever view, at least it’s a magnificent one in gorgeous Cornwall and so much better than dropping dead one day in a grimy London backstreet.
I’ve lost all track of time when Josh’s worried face appears over the edge of the cliff.
‘Are you both OK? Peter and Toby are going to hold the rope and I’m coming down.’
‘OK but please be careful.’
Stones tumble past us when Josh walks backwards off the cliff edge with nothing but a thick rope tied around his waist. And all calm deserts me as the man I love – the man I’m supposed to be marrying in forty-eight hours’ time – hangs suspended in thin air. I’ve stopped breathing and Freya’s tiny fingers are digging into my arm.
Bit by bit, Josh abseils down the cliff, his long legs banging against rock when he scrabbles for a foothold. And at last he arrives on the ledge where Freya and I are sheltering.
‘Are you all right, sweetheart?’
He might mean me. He might mean his niece. But we both nod.
‘Now, Freya,’ he says, stooping down beside her. ‘I need you to be really brave and put your arms around my neck and your legs around my waist so I can get you up the cliff. Can you do that?’
Freya nods again and throws her arms around his neck, making him wobble alarmingly.
‘Whoah!’ shout Peter and Toby way above us, pulling on the rope to make it taut.
Josh secures Freya to him by tying another piece of rope around his waist and hers. Then my gorgeous brave fiancé loops his arm around my shoulder.
‘I’ll come back for you. I promise. So don’t move,’ he says, kissing me hard on the lips. He feels so solid and reassuring and I don’t want him to go but he pushes his feet against the rock, steadies himself against the taut rope and starts climbing. Freya clings to him like a limpet all the way up, her head on his shoulder and her eyes firmly closed.
When they reach the top, Josh hands Freya into Toby’s outstretched arms before starting to descend again towards me. Great, it’s my turn.
I don’t like being stuck halfway up a cliff. It’s pants, to be honest, even with a view to die for – though I’d rather not. But it’s got to be better than climbing the cliff and I’m too heavy to be carried.
‘Are you ready?’ Josh is back on the ledge and unfastening the rope around his waist. He loops it around mine and ties it tight. ‘You need to take it slowly ’cos the path is so slippery. Heaven knows how Toby made it without breaking his neck. But the rope will stop you from falling so you’ll be fine.’
He pulls me so close my thighs are tight against his. ‘Don’t look down and just keep thinking of the wedding. On Saturday you’ll be walking up the aisle and looking beautiful.’
‘Yeah, it’s amazing how attractive a p-p-plaster cast can look these days.’
My teeth are chattering with fear even though I never knew that could actually properly happen.
Josh cups my face in his warm hands and smiles. ‘Listen to me, sweetheart, it’ll be fine. But you need to go now. Thinking about it will just make it worse.’
So I signal to Toby and Peter that I’m coming up and I step into space.
It isn’t fine. It’s utterly terrifying but the rope keeps me from tumbling to my death while I’m scrambling my way to the top. At last, I climb over the lip of land and collapse face-first on the grass.
‘Auntie Annie!’ Freya launches on top of me, knocking all the air from my lungs.
‘Give her a minute, lass,’ says Peter, lifting Freya off me and untying the rope around my waist with hands gnarled by years of salt water. He throws it down to Josh before helping me to my feet and stands back when Toby pulls me into an awkward hug.
Toby isn’t soft and warm like Josh. He’s rigid and embarrassed and smells of stale sweat but he sounds like he means it when he says quietly: ‘Thank goodness you’re all right.’
‘Come on, Toby,’ calls Peter, poised at the cliff’s edge. ‘There’s still Josh to come up yet so grab the rope and brace yourself.’
I’ve never been so pleased to see Josh in my whole life when his lanky frame appears at the cliff edge. He hoists himself feet-first onto the grass and I throw my arms around his waist from behind and snuggle into his back while he shakes Peter’s hand. Then he and Toby hesitate slightly before brushing hands for the briefest handshake ever.
Peter saunters off back to his boat while Toby starts coiling up the thick rope that came from our shed. He keeps stealing glances at Josh and finally blurts out: ‘This would never have happened if I’d kept a
better eye on Freya. So go on, Pasco, let me know what you think about my appalling parenting skills. You know you want to.’
Josh hesitates and a range of emotions flit across his face – anger, dislike, years-long enmity. Then he shrugs his broad shoulders. ‘Kids wander off, these things happen and climbing that cliff to get help for Freya and Annie was pretty brave when you’re petrified of heights.’
‘Hardly petrified,’ bristles Toby, who presumably considers the word un-manly, ‘but I was apprehensive, to be honest.’
‘Apprehensive? I’d have been terrified without a rope to keep me from falling.’
‘Would you?’ Toby puffs out his chest, manliness restored. ‘I didn’t have any choice because Annie’s the only Trebarwith family I’ve got left and I’m Freya’s father. I couldn’t let my fear put my daughter’s life at risk.’
‘And that, Toby, is why you are a good parent when it really matters,’ I say, stroking Freya’s hair. ‘Don’t you think so, Josh?’
Oops, this might be an affirmation too far, but Josh gives a grudging nod. ‘You did all right this afternoon.’
‘Thanks, I appreciate that.’ Toby hands the coiled rope to Josh and holds out his hand to his daughter. ‘I’d better get her back home to her mum, who I don’t suppose will be as understanding about our little adventure. Though we don’t necessarily have to tell her what happened, do we, Freya.’
‘I got stuck on a cliff higher than the birds and Uncle Josh came down on a big rope and saved me,’ squeals his daughter, pushing her tiny hand into Toby’s.
‘I see. I’d better take her home and face the music then. This parenting thing takes a lot of practise.’ Father and daughter amble off together but Toby stops and turns when they reach the low white wall of the cemetery. ‘By the way, I’d be grateful if you don’t gossip about what happened this afternoon. The locals will only blame me for not keeping a better eye on Freya and my reputation around here is already shot to pieces. Have a good wedding on Saturday.’
‘Why don’t you come?’ I ask him without properly thinking it through.
‘I wasn’t invited.’
‘I never thought you’d want to be there with all the fuss going on about the house.’
Toby shrugs. ‘You don’t want me at your nuptials, do you, Pasco?’
Josh and Toby’s eyes lock together and they stare at one another in silence. Above them, midges swarm and seagulls swoop but neither man moves. It’s like the climax of a Western where the sheriff and outlaw are seeing who’ll draw a gun first and blast the other one to death.
Josh is the first to speak. ‘You might as well come. Freya’s being a flower girl and I expect you’d like to see her.’
‘I would.’ Toby swallows and ruffles the top of his daughter’s hair. ‘Thanks. I’ll be there.’
Thirty-One
After the stressful day I’ve had, all I’m planning when Josh nips to the pub is a long soak in the bath until I resemble a prune, followed by an early night. You can keep your cocktail bars and night clubs and cultural evenings at the theatre. All I need is peace and quiet, hot water and my comfiest PJs – I’m a woman of simple tastes.
So I run a bath, pour in a frankly obscene amount of scented oil and I’ve just stripped naked and put my toe in the water when there’s a tremendous commotion downstairs.
Tremendous commotions aren’t that unusual with Storm around so I stand frozen, like a Roman statue with a cocked leg, hoping that it – whatever it might be – will die down. But no such luck.
‘Annie! Are you in there?’ yells Storm, galloping up the stairs and hammering on the bathroom door. ‘Kayla’s downstairs and going proper mental so you’d better sort it out. Emily’s getting her a cup of tea – like that’s gonna help!’
She snorts at the very idea of caffeinated comfort and stomps off along the landing to her bedroom.
Please don’t slam the door.
Storm’s door crashes shut and the film of amber oil on top of the bathwater sloshes up the side of the enamel.
Fantastic! I spend two long hours with Toby, almost die on a vertical cliff-face and now I have to talk down a bonkers Australian. This is turning into a right pigging pain of a day.
Shrugging on my long cotton dressing-gown, I venture downstairs and discover Kayla with swollen red eyes in the sitting room. She’s sitting slumped in Alice’s chair while Emily flaps around trying to force-feed her tea.
‘Don’t worry, Em. I’ll make sure she drinks it.’
Emily mouths ‘thank you’ at me when I take the steaming cup and backs out of the room at speed.
‘It’s all terrible,’ wails Kayla the second Emily has disappeared from view. ‘Ollie and I had a terrible argument and he’s leaving me.’
‘What sort of leaving you?’
‘Leaving me to go to the stupid Lake District.’
‘Is that all? I thought you meant that you’d split up for good.’
‘We might as well have. He’ll be up there and I’ll be down here.’
‘But you knew he was going.’
A draught is whistling up my dressing gown, my bath water is rapidly cooling, and I’m starting to lose my patience.
Kayla leans forward and rubs the back of her hand across her nose. ‘I know. But I didn’t know know. Not for sure. I still thought he’d change his mind.’
‘He took you on a mini-break to the Lake District where he’ll be living and he’s been looking for flats.’
‘That’s all true but I still never thought he’d really go and leave me. I think I’ve been in denial.’
Which is exactly what I’ve been telling her for weeks, but I find her a tissue in my dressing-gown pocket and do my best to look sympathetic.
‘What’s changed today then? Why do you suddenly know this move is for real?’
‘A lettings agency rang while Ollie was in the loo so I took the call. And it turns out he’s paid a deposit on a flat and the first month’s rent. He’s really going and breaking up with me. What a bastard!’
She suddenly jumps up and starts jabbing her finger at the window. ‘Oh no, he’s here.’
‘You what?’
‘He’s here. He must have followed me like a stalker.’
‘Or like a man who’s in love with you. I can’t see him anywhere.’
There’s no one in the garden when I peer through the glass or standing at the front door waiting to be let in.
Oh, no. Please don’t come in through the kitchen, Ollie, because I need time to run upstairs and put on some pants.
Too late.
Ollie bursts into the sitting room, red-faced and panting.
‘Kayla, there you are! Um, hi, Annie.’
‘Hi, Ollie.’ I give a little wave and pull the V-neck of my dressing gown closed. Underneath this thin covering of cotton I’m completely naked and – I glance down – yep, my flaming nipples are showing.
I start edging towards the door while Kayla and Ollie launch into what’s best described as an intense discussion. And I’ve just wrapped my fingers around the door handle when Kayla demands: ‘What do you think, Annie?’
Aargh, so close!
‘What do I think about what?’
‘About Ollie breaking up with me?’
‘For the millionth time, Kayla!’ Mild, gentle Ollie is shouting. ‘I am not breaking up with you. I’d love you to come to the Lake District with me but if you won’t we’ll have to try a long-distance relationship.’
‘But you love Cornwall so why are you going?’
‘Because I’m good at my job and want to be promoted but also because of you. You’re always telling me about your adventures abroad and it’s made me realise there’s a big, wide world out there beyond Cornwall. Keswick’s not exactly Kathmandu but it’s a big deal for me. A big, exciting deal and I want to give it a try.’ He pushes both hands into his blonde hair, which is standing on end. ‘Oh, whatever.’
With a final tut of despair and frustration, he does a magnific
ent sweep out of the room. I swear he’s been taking lessons from Josh, who was a serial sweeper before he settled down with me and became less angry at life.
Kayla settles back on the sofa, totally spent, and I join her to demonstrate sisterly solidarity although I’ve no idea what to say.
‘Sorry,’ she murmurs after a couple of minutes. ‘You’re getting married on Saturday and don’t need all of this drama.’
‘Don’t worry about it. My whole day’s been kind of dramatic so it doesn’t matter.’
‘What kind of dramatic?’
‘Nothing important.’ My bath is calling and Kayla’s not in the mood for tales of daring cliff rescues. She’d only call Toby an idiot for letting Freya wander off in the first place – and that was my fault too. ‘Do you want to stay here tonight?’
Kayla’s still staring at her lap. ‘No, thanks. I’ve ruined enough of your evening. I’ll go home, grab a few things and stay at the pub so I can have a proper think. Roger won’t mind.’
‘Look, whether you decide to leave with Ollie, stay here or go globe-trotting again is up to you but, if it helps, I used to be terrified of commitment and here I am about to get married.’
Kayla sniffs. ‘That’s different ’cos you’re much older than me and you’re less adventurous.’
Which I’m pretty sure means more boring.
Thirty-Two
Cornwall weather gives new meaning to the word ‘unpredictable’. It can be gloriously sunny first thing but pouring down an hour later, and it varies widely from coast to coast.
Salt Bay lies on the thin strip of land that leads to Land’s End. We’re on the east coast and the west coast is only half an hour’s drive away – but some days they might as well be different countries. Nip over to the other coast if you wake up in Salt Bay to grey skies and mizzle, and often as not you’ll find sun sparkling on blue seas.
Fortunately, I wake on Saturday to bright sunshine. Sunbeams are pouring through the open curtains of our bedroom and coating the wooden floorboards in light. I often sleep with the curtains open because falling asleep looking at the stars is awesome. They were hidden by light pollution in London but here the stars are scattered like brilliant diamonds across the inky sky.