The Girl on the Cliff

by Lucinda Riley

  Expecting it to pass, she’d spent the day in her studio, immersing herself in molding the malleable brown clay into her latest commission, but the feeling hadn’t alleviated.

  At six, she’d left her studio, showered and changed into something suitable for the opening of an art gallery she was attending that evening. She’d poured herself a glass of wine and walked to the window that looked across to the twinkling lights of New Jersey on the other side of the Hudson River.

  “I want to have a baby.”

  Grania had taken a hefty gulp of wine. And giggled at the absurdity of the words she’d just spoken. So she’d said them again, just to make sure.

  And they’d still felt right. Not only right, but completely natural, as if the thought and the need had been with her all her life and all the reasons “not to” had simply evaporated and now seemed ridiculous.

  Grania had gone out to the gallery opening, made small talk with the usual mix of artists, collectors and envelope-openers that made up such events. Yet, in her mind, she was running through the practicalities of the life-changing decision she had made earlier. Would they have to move? No, probably not in the short term—their TriBeCa loft was spacious and Matt’s study/spare bedroom could easily be turned into a nursery. He rarely used it anyway, preferring to take his laptop into the sitting room and work there. They were up on the fourth floor, but the freight elevator was quite big enough to take a pram. Battery Park, with its well-equipped playground and fresh river air, was easily walkable. Grania worked from home in her studio, so even if a nanny had to be employed, she’d only be a few seconds away from the baby if she was needed.

  Grania had climbed into the big, empty bed later and sighed with irritation that she’d have to keep her plans and her excitement to herself for a while longer. Matt had been away for the past week, and wasn’t due home for another couple of days. It was not the kind of thing one could just announce over the phone. She’d finally fallen asleep in the early hours, imagining Matt’s proud gaze as she handed him his newborn child.

  When he’d arrived home, Matt had been just as excited about the idea as she was. They’d made an immediate and very pleasurable start on putting their plan into action, both of them loving the fact they had their own secret joint project, which would bond and cement them, just as it had her own parents. It was the missing piece that would unite them once and for all into a homogenized, codependent unit. In essence, a family.

  • • •

  Grania lay in her narrow childhood bed, listening to the wind howling angrily around the solid stone walls of the farmhouse. She reached for a tissue and blew her nose, hard.

  That had been a year ago. And the terrible truth was, their “joint project” had not united them. It had destroyed them.

  2

  When Grania woke up the next morning, the storm of the night before had blown away like a memory, taking the gray clouds with it. The sun was making a rare winter appearance, lighting the rolling landscape beyond her window, giving definition to the endless green of the fields that surrounded the farm, interspersed with the white, woolly dots of the sheep that grazed on it.

  Grania knew from experience that this state of affairs was not likely to last long; the West Cork sun was akin to a temperamental diva, gracing the stage for a cameo appearance, bathing all in her glory and then disappearing as quickly as she had arrived.

  Having been unable to complete her normal routine of a morning jog because of the incessant rain of the past ten days, Grania jumped out of bed and rifled through her still unpacked suitcase to find her hoodie, leggings and sneakers.

  “Well now, you’re up bright and early this morning,” commented her mother as Grania arrived downstairs in the kitchen. “Porridge?”

  “I’ll have some when I come back. I’m going for a run.”

  “Well, don’t you be tiring yourself out. I’d say the color on you isn’t healthy—no flush in those cheeks of yours.”

  “That’s what I hope to achieve, Mam.” Grania suppressed a smile. “I’ll see you later.”

  “Don’t be getting a chill now, will you?” Kathleen called to the disappearing back of her daughter. She watched from the kitchen window as Grania ran down the narrow lane cut into the fields by an ancient drystone wall, which led eventually to the road and the path up to the cliffs.

  She’d been shocked at the sight of her child when Grania had arrived home; in the three years since Kathleen had last seen her, her beautiful, bonny daughter—always a head-turner, with her peaches and cream complexion, curly blond hair and lively turquoise eyes—seemed to have diminished in vitality. As she’d commented to her husband, John, Grania currently resembled a bright pink shirt that had been put by mistake in a dark wash. And emerged a dulled, graying relic of its former self.

  Kathleen knew the reason. Grania had told her when she’d called from New York to ask if she could come home for a while. She had agreed, of course, delighted at the unexpected opportunity to spend time with her daughter. However, Kathleen could not understand Grania’s motive—surely, this was a time when she and her man needed to be together, to support each other in their grief, not have half the world separating them.

  And that lovely Matt telephoned every night to speak to her, but Grania stubbornly refused to take his calls. Kathleen had always harbored a soft spot for him; with his clean-cut good looks, soft Connecticut accent and impeccable manners, Matt reminded Kathleen of the movie stars she’d mooned over as a girl. A young Robert Redford—that’s what Matt looked like to her. Why Grania hadn’t married him years ago was beyond her. And now her daughter, always stubborn, was surely on the verge of losing him altogether.

  Kathleen did not know much about the ways of the world, but she understood men and their egos. They were not built as women—did not have the same capacity for rejection—and if there was one thing she was certain of, it was that his phone calls would soon stop coming nightly and Matt would give up.

  Unless there was something that Kathleen didn’t know . . .

  She sighed as she cleared away the breakfast dishes and dumped them in the sink. Grania was her golden girl—the one Ryan of the clan who’d fled the nest and done everything possible to make her family, especially her mother, proud of her. She was the child the relatives wanted to hear about, poring over the cuttings Grania sent from various newspapers detailing her latest exhibition in New York, fascinated by the well-heeled clients who commissioned Grania to immortalize their children’s faces or animals in bronze . . .

  Making it in America—it was still the ultimate Irish dream.

  Kathleen dried the bowls and cutlery and stowed them away in the wooden dresser. Of course, no one had the perfect life, Kathleen knew that. She’d always presumed that the patter of tiny feet was something Grania had never hankered after, and had accepted it. Did she not have a fine, strong son to give her grandchildren one day? Yet it seemed she’d been wrong. For all Grania’s sophisticated lifestyle, living in New York, at what Kathleen saw as the center of the universe, the babies were missing. And until they came along, her daughter would not be happy.

  Kathleen could not help thinking Grania had brought it on herself. For all those newfangled drugs, used to help and abet the miracle of nature, there was no substitute for youth. She herself had been nineteen when she’d had Grania. And brimming with the energy to cope with another baby in the space of two years. Grania was thirty-one. And whatever any of these modern career women believed, it was impossible to have everything.

  So, although she felt for her daughter’s loss, it was her way to accept what she had and not pine after what she didn’t. And on that thought, Kathleen climbed up the stairs to make the beds.

  • • •

  Grania sank down on to a damp, moss-covered rock to catch her breath. She was puffing and panting like an OAP; obviously the miscarriage and a recent lack of exercise had taken its toll. Grania put her head between her legs as she caught her breath and kicked at the coarse cl
ods of rough grass beneath them. They stubbornly refused to be dislodged from the strong roots which held them fast beneath the ground. If only the little life inside her had done the same . . .

  Four months . . . when she and Matt had finally thought they were fine—everyone knew you’d usually reached a safe place by then. And Grania, paranoid up until that point, had begun to relax and give in to the fantasy of becoming a mother.

  She and Matt had announced the news to both sets of grandparents; Elaine and Bob, Matt’s parents, had taken them out to L’Escale, near their enormous house in the gated community of Belle Haven, Greenwich. Bob had asked bluntly when the two of them would get on with their long-awaited marriage now that Grania was expecting. After all, this was their first grandchild and Bob had made it blatantly clear it must take the family name. Grania had stonewalled—when pushed into a corner her hackles rose, especially with Matt’s father—and she’d replied that she and Matt were yet to discuss it.

  A week later, at their TriBeCa apartment, the intercom had announced the arrival of a Bloomingdale’s van, delivering the contents of an entire nursery. Grania, too superstitious to have the goods placed inside the loft, had directed them down to the basement, where they would be stored until nearer the time. As she’d watched the assortment of boxes being stacked into a corner, Grania knew Elaine had forgotten nothing.

  “Bang goes our trip out to Bloomie’s to choose a cot, or which brand of diapers I’d like,” Grania had murmured ungratefully to Matt later that evening.

  “Mom’s only trying to help us, Grania,” Matt had answered defensively. “She knows I hardly earn anything and your income is healthy, but sporadic. Just maybe I should consider going into Dad’s business after all, now that the little one is on the way.” Matt had indicated Grania’s tiny but visible bump.

  “No, Matt!” Grania had expostulated. “We agreed you never would. You’d have no life or freedom at all if you went to work for your dad. You know how overpowering he can be.”

  Grania gave up trying to dislodge the grass from its roots and stared out to sea instead. She smiled grimly at the understatement she’d used in that conversation with Matt. Bob was a full-time control freak when it came to his son. Although she understood the disappointment he must feel that Matt had no interest in taking over the family investment business, she couldn’t understand his lack of interest or pride in his son’s career. Matt was doing very well, and had become a renowned authority in the field of child psychology. He held a chair at Columbia University, and was constantly asked as guest lecturer to other universities across the States. Bob also patronized Grania constantly, making small but pointed comments about her upbringing and level of education.

  Looking back, Grania was at least relieved they’d refused to accept handouts from Matt’s parents. Even in the early days, when she was trying to make her name as a sculptor and Matt was completing his Ph.D. and they’d struggled to pay the rent on their tiny one-bedroom apartment, she’d been paranoid. And with good reason, Grania thought; the shiny, immaculately dressed Connecticut girls whom she’d met through Matt and his family could not be a greater contrast to an unsophisticated, convent-educated girl from a small Irish backwater. Maybe it had been destined to fail . . .

  “Hello.”

  Grania jumped at the sound of the voice. She looked around her, but could see no one.

  “Hello, I said.”

  The voice was behind her. She turned one hundred and eighty degrees to view the owner. And there was Aurora Lisle, standing at her back. Thankfully, dressed today in a pair of jeans, an anorak that hung from her thin frame and a woolly hat hiding all but the occasional wisp of her magnificent red hair. Her face was tiny and prettily heart-shaped, her huge eyes and full pink lips out of proportion to the miniature canvas in which they were set.

  “Hello, Aurora.”

  Grania’s greeting engendered a look of surprise in Aurora’s eyes. “How do you know what my name is?”

  “I saw you yesterday.”

  “Did you? Where?”

  “Here on the cliffs.”

  “Really?” Aurora frowned. “I don’t remember being here yesterday. And certainly not speaking to you.”

  “You didn’t speak to me, Aurora. I saw you, that’s all,” Grania explained.

  “Then how do you know my name?” Aurora spoke in a high, clipped English accent.

  “I asked my mother who the little girl with the beautiful long red hair might be. And she told me.”

  “And how would she know?” the child asked imperiously.

  “She’s lived in the village all her life. She said you’d gone away years ago.”

  “We had. But now we’re back.” Aurora looked out to sea and swept her arms to embrace the coastline. “And I love it here, don’t you?”

  Grania had the feeling Aurora’s question was a statement with which she was not allowed to disagree. “Of course I love it. It’s where I was born and where I grew up.”

  “So.” Aurora settled herself gracefully on the grass next to Grania and her blue eyes bored into her. “What is your name?”

  “Grania, Grania Ryan.”

  “Well, I can’t say I’ve ever heard of you.”

  Grania wanted to smile at Aurora’s adult way of expressing herself. “I suppose there’s no reason why you should have done. I’ve been away from here almost ten years.”

  Aurora’s face lit up with pleasure and she clapped her small hands together. “Then that means we have both come back to a place we love at the same time.”

  “I suppose it does.”

  “So, we can keep each other company! You can be my new friend.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Aurora.”

  “Well, you must be lonely.”

  “Maybe you’re right . . .” Grania smiled. “And what about you? Are you lonely here too?”

  “Sometimes, yes.” Aurora shrugged. “Daddy always has so much work to do and is often away, and there’s only the housekeeper to play with. And she isn’t very good at games.” Aurora wrinkled her delicately freckled retroussé nose in displeasure.

  “Oh dear,” commented Grania, for want of anything better to say. She was both disarmed and discomfited by the child’s quaintness. “You must have friends at school, surely?”

  “I don’t go to school. My father likes me at home with him. I have a governess instead.”

  “So where is she today?”

  “Daddy and I decided we didn’t like her, so we left her behind in London.” Aurora giggled suddenly. “We simply packed up and left.”

  “I see,” said Grania, although she most certainly didn’t.

  “Do you have a job?” Aurora asked.

  “Yes, I do. I’m a sculptor.”

  “Isn’t that someone who makes statues out of clay?”

  “You’re along the right lines, yes,” answered Grania.

  “Oh, do you know about papier-mâché?” Aurora’s face lit up. “I love papier-mâché! I had a nanny once who showed me how to make bowls, and we’d paint them and then I’d give them to Daddy as a present. Would you come and make some papier-mâché with me? Please.”

  Grania was charmed by Aurora’s eagerness and genuine excitement. “All right.” She found herself nodding. “I don’t see why not.”

  “Will you come now? We could go up to the house and make something for Daddy before he goes away.” Aurora reached out her hand and tugged at Grania’s hoodie. “Please say yes!”

  “No, Aurora, I can’t just now. I’d need to go and get the things to make it. And besides, my mammy might think I’d gotten lost,” Grania added.

  Grania watched Aurora’s face fall, saw the light disappear from her eyes and her body sag. “I don’t have a mummy. I did once, but she died.”

  “I’m so sorry, Aurora.” Instinctively, Grania reached out and patted the child gently on her shoulder. “You must miss her a lot.”

  “I do. She was the most beautiful, special person in the world.
Daddy always says she was an angel, and that’s why the other angels came to take her, so she could go to heaven where she belonged.”

  Grania quailed at Aurora’s obvious pain. “I’m sure your daddy is right,” she agreed. “And at least you have him.”

  “Yes, I do,” agreed Aurora, “and he’s the best father in the world, and the most handsome. I know if you saw him, you’d fall in love with him. Every lady does.”

  “Well then, I shall have to meet him, won’t I?” Grania smiled.

  “Yes.” Aurora jumped up suddenly from the grass. “I have to go now. You will be here again at the same time tomorrow.”

  This was not a request, it was an order.

  “I . . .”

  “Good.” Spontaneously, Aurora launched herself into Grania’s arms and hugged her. “Bring all the things for the papier-mâché, then we can go up to my house and spend the morning making bowls for Daddy. Bye-bye, Grania, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Good-bye.” Grania waved, and watched as Aurora skipped and danced like a young gazelle along the cliffs. Even in her anorak and sneakers, her movements were graceful.

  When Aurora had disappeared from view, Grania drew in a long breath, feeling almost as if she’d been under an enchantment; held in thrall by a small, ethereal being. She rose, shaking her head to clear it, wondering what her mother would say when she announced that tomorrow she was going up to Dunworley House to play with Aurora Lisle.

  3

  That evening, when her father and brother left the table—and their used plates and cutlery upon it for her mother to clear—Grania helped Kathleen with the washing-up.