The Girl on the Cliff

by Lucinda Riley

  “I know you will. And I should warn you . . . it’s difficult to know how to put this . . . but Aurora sometimes talks about her mother still being here, in this house.” Alexander shook his head. “We both know this is simply a fantasy of a bereaved child. I assure you there are no ghosts here, but if Aurora chooses to be comforted by the thought, then I really can’t see the harm.”

  “No,” Grania agreed slowly.

  “Well then, I think that’s everything. I’ll be leaving in approximately an hour. A taxi is taking me to Cork airport. You may, of course, have full use of my car, the keys to which hang on the key rack in the pantry.”

  “Thank you.” Grania stood up. “I’ll go and see where Aurora has got to, and try to persuade her to put her nose in some books.”

  Alexander nodded. “I’ll call as often as I can, but please don’t worry if you don’t hear for a while. And Aurora mustn’t either. Oh, by the way”—he indicated the top left-hand drawer of his desk—“if by any chance something should happen to me, all the papers you might need are locked in here. My solicitor will direct you to the whereabouts of the key.”

  Grania shivered suddenly at the look on Alexander’s face. “Let’s hope I don’t need to make that call. I’ll see you in a month. Have a safe trip.”

  “Thank you.”

  She turned to walk toward the door.

  “Grania?”

  “Yes?”

  Alexander gave her a sudden, wide smile. “I’ll owe you dinner when I get back. You’ve saved my life, literally.”

  Grania nodded and silently scurried out of the room.

  • • •

  Grania and Aurora sat on the window seat in the child’s bedroom and watched as Alexander’s taxi snaked its way down the hill. Grania put an instinctive arm around Aurora’s shoulders, but the little girl seemed calm. She looked up at Grania. “It’s all right, I’m not sad. I’m used to him leaving me when he has to go away to work. And this time it’s better, because I have you here.” Aurora knelt up and threw her arms around Grania’s neck. “Grania?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you think we could go into the sitting room, light a fire and toast marshmallows on it, like they do in the Enid Blyton book I’ve just read?”

  “I think that sounds like a wonderful idea. As long as you spend an hour doing sums at the kitchen table while I make supper. Deal?” Grania held out her hand.

  Aurora grasped it and smiled. “Deal.”

  • • •

  Later that evening, once Grania had settled Aurora into bed for the night, and had been cajoled into reading to her for far longer than they’d originally agreed, Grania walked back downstairs and went into the sitting room. As she knelt in front of the fire to stoke it she listened to the silence in the house, and wondered what on earth she had done by agreeing to this. Grania realized it was simply a knee-jerk reaction to the shock of hearing Charley’s voice in her loft the other night. Was imprisoning herself in a house for a month, alone with a little girl she hardly knew, a sensible thing to do?

  She wanted Matt to call her parents’ house, wanted her mother to tell him she was no longer there, needed him to know that what he had done to her would not destroy her, that she was already moving on . . .

  With effort, she replaced Matt’s face in her mind’s eye with that of Alexander’s. Had she imagined the look on his face when he’d offered her dinner on his return? And was she so vulnerable that she’d cling on for dear life to a few words that could have been spoken out of politeness without any other resonance? Grania sighed, realizing that whatever Alexander’s motive, she had at least a month to ponder it without resolution.

  Turning off the downstairs lights, she made her way up the stairs to her bedroom. She took a long soak in the deep, clawfoot tub adjacent to her room, before donning her pajamas and climbing into the big, comfortable bed. She lay back on the pillows, luxuriating in its space after weeks in her narrow one.

  Tomorrow, she thought, as she switched off the light, she would start to sketch Aurora, get a feel for the shape of her face, decide which expression appeared most often in her eyes . . .

  Grania settled herself down for sleep and closed her own eyes.

  • • •

  Kathleen sat at the kitchen table, nursing a mug of tea. She could hear from next door that the ten o’clock news had just finished. Once he had listened to the weather forecast, John would switch off the television along with the lights, and make his way through to the kitchen to fill a glass of water to take up to bed.

  Kathleen stood up and went toward the back door. She opened it, and peered out to her left. There were no lights on at the house on top of the cliffs. Grania must have already gone to bed. Kathleen closed the door behind her and shivered slightly as she locked and bolted it, wondering at the sense of unease she had about her daughter’s whereabouts tonight. As she walked back into the kitchen, John was standing by the sink, running the tap for his glass of water.

  “I’m for my bed, pet. You too?” He glanced down at his wife and gave her a gentle smile.

  Kathleen gave a big sigh, and rubbed her face with the palms of her hands. “Oh, John, I hardly know where to put myself.”

  John placed his water glass down on the draining board, came toward his wife and took her into his arms. “What is it? It’s not like you to be in a state. You’d better tell me what the problem is.”

  “It’s Grania . . . up there in that house, all alone. I realize you’ll say to me I’m being silly now, but”—she raised her eyes to her husband—“You know my feelings about that family and the bad it has brought us.”

  “Yes, I know.” John gently tucked a graying tendril of his wife’s hair behind her ear. “But it was all long in the past. Grania and the child are a new generation.”

  “Should I tell her?” Kathleen entreated him with her eyes to provide her with the answer.

  John sighed. “I’d not be knowing whether that’s a good idea or bad. But not saying anything to her is clearly unsettling you. If it would make you feel better, then you should speak to her. Not that it will make any difference to the outcome. You know as well as I do that the next generation can’t be blamed for the sins of their fathers.”

  Kathleen laid her head against her husband’s broad chest. “I know, John, I know. But what they did to our family . . .” She shook her head. “They almost destroyed us, John, so they did.” She looked up with fear in her eyes. “And I’ve seen Grania’s face when she talks of Aurora’s father. Two generations ruined because of the Lisles, and now I’m seeing it happen again in front of my very own eyes.”

  “Come now, pet, our Grania is made of stronger stuff,” John comforted. “You know as well as I there’s no persuading our daughter of something she doesn’t want.”

  “But what if she wants him?”

  “Then there’ll be little you can do about it. Grania is a grown woman, not a child, Kathleen. But, surely, you’re fearing the worst? He’s not even in the house with them, she’s only minding his daughter while he’s away, there’s nothing to suggest that—”

  Kathleen pulled away from John, and wrung her hands in despair. “No! You’re wrong! I’ve seen that look, John, and it’s there in her eyes for him. What about Matt? Perhaps I should call him, tell him to come . . . she doesn’t know, doesn’t understand.”

  “Kathleen, calm yourself.” John sighed. “You can’t be going around interfering in our daughter’s affairs. There’s something she isn’t saying about Matt, and it’s not our business to know until she does. But perhaps it would make you feel better to tell her of the past. It can do no harm and Grania might understand why you’ve taken it so hard she’s up there.”

  Kathleen raised her eyes to him. “You think so?”

  “Yes. Then she can make her own decisions. Now, my decision is that it’s high time we were away to our bed. And as long as I’m her father, I swear to you I’ll let no harm come to our daughter.”

  Calmer now,
Kathleen smiled weakly at her husband.

  “Thank you, pet. I know you won’t.”

  • • •

  Grania was awoken by a loud bang. Sitting up and reaching for the light switch, she wondered whether the noise had been part of a dream. She checked the time on the clock by her bed, and saw that it was a few minutes past three. There was total silence now, so she turned off the light and settled back down to try and sleep.

  The faint sound of floorboards creaking on the landing beyond her bedroom made her sit up again. She listened, and heard the sound of footsteps, then a door being opened somewhere along the corridor. Climbing out of bed, Grania tentatively opened the door to her bedroom and peered out. A door at the end of the landing was ajar, letting a faint chink of light through. Grania walked toward it, hearing the floorboards creak under her own footsteps. Reaching the door, she pushed it open and saw that the bedroom was bathed in moonlight, coming from a set of French windows that led on to the small balustraded balcony beyond. The room was freezing cold and Grania noticed the French windows were ajar. Walking nervously toward them, her heart now beating fast against her chest, she stepped through the doors and onto the balcony.

  And there was Aurora, a ghostlike figure in the moonlight, arms outstretched toward the sea, just as Grania had first seen her. “Aurora,” Grania whispered, her senses alert to the fact that the balustrade separating the child from a drop to the ground of at least twenty feet only rose to her thighs. “Aurora,” she called gently, again to no reaction. Instinctively, she reached out and grabbed her by the arm, but still she did not respond. “Come in now, darling, please. You’ll catch your death out here.” She could feel the iciness of Aurora’s body beneath her thin nightdress.

  Suddenly, Aurora pointed her hand toward the sea. “She’s there, just there . . . can you see her?”

  Grania followed Aurora’s fingers to the edge of the cliffs and caught her breath. A shadowy figure, silhouetted against the moonlight, standing just where she had first seen Aurora . . . Grania swallowed hard, closed her eyes and reopened them. She looked again and saw nothing. Panic seizing her, she tugged at Aurora’s arm.

  “Aurora! Come in, now!”

  In response, Aurora turned, her face as white as the moonlight. She smiled up at Grania wordlessly and let her lead her inside, through the bedroom and along the landing to her own room. As Grania tucked her in, adding an extra blanket from the end of the bed to try and warm her, the child said nothing, merely rolled over and closed her eyes. Grania sat with her until she heard her breathing was steady and she knew Aurora was asleep. Then, shaking with cold and fear herself, she tiptoed out and went back to her own bedroom.

  As she lay there, the silhouetted figure on the cliffs was clear in her memory.

  Surely . . . surely, she’d imagined it? She’d never been one prone to fear of the unknown; she’d always laughed at her mother when she talked of the spirit world she believed in, putting it down to an overactive imagination.

  But tonight . . . tonight . . . out there on the cliffs . . .

  Grania sighed. She was being ridiculous.

  She closed her eyes and tried to sleep.

  7

  Grania woke to find a weak sun lighting her windows. She stretched, rolled over and saw that it was past eight o’clock. Normally, at home, she’d be woken by the sound of her father and her brother leaving at dawn for the milking sheds. She lay back on her pillows and remembered the strangeness of last night with a shudder. Surely it had simply been her imagination? And, in the brightness of the morning as she climbed out of bed and got dressed, it was easy to believe it must have been.

  Aurora was already in the kitchen, eating a bowl of cereal. Her face dropped as she saw Grania. “I was going to bring you breakfast in bed,” she said, pouting.

  “That’s very sweet of you, but I’m happy to make it myself.” Grania filled the kettle and put it on the range. “How did you sleep last night?” she asked carefully.

  “Very well indeed, thank you,” Aurora answered. “And you?”

  “Yes, fine,” she lied. “Would you like some tea?”

  “No, thank you. I only drink milk.” Aurora paused, with a cereal-laden spoon between her mouth and the bowl. “Sometimes, Grania, I have very strange dreams.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes”—the spoon was still hovering—“sometimes I dream I see my mother, standing out there on the cliffs.”

  Grania said nothing, but continued to make her tea and watch the cereal spoon enter Aurora’s mouth. As Grania sat down, Aurora chewed thoughtfully. She looked up at Grania.

  “But it’s only a dream, isn’t it? Mummy’s dead, she can’t come back because she’s in heaven. That’s what Daddy says, anyway.”

  “Yes.” Grania put a comforting hand on Aurora’s thin shoulder. “Daddy’s right. People who go to heaven can’t come back, however much you want them to . . .”

  It was Grania’s turn to feel the sudden pain of loss. Her precious, tiny baby had never had a chance to experience any form of life, had died inside her before taking its first natural breath. But that didn’t mean to say she hadn’t imagined who her baby would become . . . the life he or she would live. Tears came to her eyes and she did her best to blink them away.

  “But sometimes I feel she’s here,” Aurora continued, “and I’m sure I see her. But when I tell Daddy, he gets cross and sends me to a doctor, so I don’t tell him any more,” she added sadly.

  “Come here.” Grania reached out her arms and pulled Aurora on to her knee. “I think, Aurora, that your mummy obviously loved you very much, and you loved her too. Even if Daddy’s right and people can’t come back from heaven, you can still feel as if they are with you, looking after you and loving you.”

  “And you don’t think that’s wrong?” Aurora looked at her earnestly for reassurance. “You don’t think I’m mad?”

  “No, I don’t think you’re mad.” Grania stroked the red-gold ringlets and twisted a coil around her finger. “Now”—she kissed Aurora on the forehead—“I was thinking that this morning we’d do some schoolwork to please Daddy, and I can take sketches of you for the sculpture I’m going to make for him. And then this afternoon is ours to do what we want. Any ideas?”

  “No.” Aurora shrugged. “You?”

  “Well, I thought we might pop into Clonakilty for a sandwich, and then go to the beach.”

  Aurora clapped her hands together in delight. “Oh! Yes, please. I love the beach!”

  “That’s settled then.”

  Aurora sat at the table, diligently doing sums, then working through a geography question sheet. Grania sketched her swiftly from different angles until she had a feel for Aurora’s bone structure. Halfway through the morning, as Grania was making herself some coffee, she realized what was missing. “Aurora, do you have a radio or a CD player in this house anywhere?” she asked. “When I’m in my studio, I love to listen to music.”

  “Mummy didn’t like music,” she stated without looking up.

  Grania raised an eyebrow, but did not pursue it. “What about television?”

  “We had one in our house in London. I used to like watching it.”

  “Well, Daddy’s left me some money, so how about we go and buy one? Would you like that?”

  Aurora’s face lit up. “I’d love it, Grania.”

  “You don’t think Daddy will mind?”

  “Oh no, he used to watch it in London too.”

  “Well then, we’ll get one in town before we head to the beach. And I’ll ask my brother, Shane, to come and set it up for us later. He’s good at things like that.”

  “And can we have ice cream at the beach?”

  Grania smiled. “Yes. We can have ice cream.”

  Having bought a television, the two had lunch in Clonakilty, then Grania drove them to the nearby magnificent Inchydoney beach, for which the town was famous. She watched as Aurora twirled and danced along the deserted expanse of clean white sand, bes
et by an urge to capture the sheer grace of the child’s movement. For a young girl who professed never to have had a dancing lesson in her life, her natural ability was breathtaking. Her arms moved about her, forming beautiful shapes and exquisite lines as her legs lifted her effortlessly from the ground in a perfectly formed jeté. Aurora arrived next to Grania and flung herself down on to a sand dune, a healthy pink flush coloring her cheeks.

  “You love dancing, don’t you?” Grania commented.

  “Yes.” Aurora put her hands behind her head and looked up at the clouds skulling across the sky. “I don’t really know how to do it, but I . . .” she paused.

  “Yes?” Grania prompted.

  “It’s as if my body knows what to do. When I’m dancing, I can forget everything and I’m happy.” A sudden shadow passed over Aurora’s face and she sighed. “I wish every moment could be like this.”

  “Do you think you would like to learn to dance? Properly, I mean, at a ballet class?”

  “Oh, I would love it. But Daddy once suggested it to Mummy, and she said no. I don’t know why.” Aurora wrinkled her tiny, upturned nose.

  “Well,” said Grania carefully, “perhaps it was because she thought you were too young. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you tried it now, don’t you?”

  Grania knew it was vital that this be Aurora’s decision, not hers.

  “Maybe . . . but where could I go to learn?” Aurora asked doubtfully.

  “There’s a ballet class in Clonakilty, every Wednesday afternoon. I know because I used to go to it.”

  “Then the teacher must be very old.”

  “Not that old, young lady.” Grania giggled at her cheek. “And nor am I. Well? Should we give it a try tomorrow?”

  “Won’t I need some ballet shoes, and one of those things that dancers wear?” Aurora enquired.

  “You mean a leotard?” Grania thought about this. “Well, I think that we try it tomorrow, and if you think you’re going to like it and want to carry on, we could go to Cork city again and find you the things you need.”