Cliff Edge: a gripping psychological mystery

by Florrie Palmer

  Encouraged by her GP, she began to look for a new job with a clinic. There were no free positions going for a massage therapist and she didn’t have the resources to rent a place she could work out of. But one clinic had suggested she should reapply after Christmas, since they knew someone was leaving in January. She was fairly certain she would be given the job and decided to go on Jobseeker’s Allowance in the meantime.

  The only thing that remained of her bitterness was the hatred she felt for the man who had dropped her. Most of the time now she watched television. One evening, a new advertisement appeared for a dog rescue place. This gave her an idea.

  Now there she was, blonde head washed and shining, a lovely, long-limbed woman stepping out of an old grey car at Wood Green near Huntingdon. Dressed in blue jeans and a pale-blue polo neck, that tall, slim woman walked into the main entrance to emerge about fifty minutes later with a pretty but nervous collie-cross on a lead.

  A worker from the rescue centre walked with her as they gently led the scared animal round the grounds, giving occasional titbits and talking quietly to it in calming, soft voices. By the time Sara got the dog into the back of her car, it was starting to consider trusting its rescuer. They drove home and she felt happy for the first time for ages. ‘Because you are female with an attractive long face and nose and you’re both clever and brave in spite of your nervous disposition, I shall call you Virginia Woof.’ There was a delay while she thought then added, ‘But you’ll be Gin for short. And I tell you this, Gin, life anew begins for both of us today. And if I have anything to do with it, it will be a good one.’

  For a moment, she recalled the smell that filled her nostrils as she had attempted to wipe away the blood and amniotic fluid flowing down her legs. But the memory passed more quickly than usual.

  ‘Lovely girl,’ she murmured. The dog leant over the back of her seat and licked her ear. She had known the moment they met she was going to love this dog. What was more, she had known she would receive it back in spades for the rest of the dog’s life. More than she could say for any man. All the ones she had ever met had turned out unreliable. She was sick of them. She thought back to her earlier lesbian experience and wondered whether that might be the way forward. At least women could talk. Unlike that last man who had finished with her. So repressed. He would never talk about his life, no matter how hard she had tried to get him to open up.

  He had said he was a long-haul pilot who flew to America, Jamaica and Dubai from Stansted Airport. She had completely believed it at the time, but she now told herself she’d never believed it for a moment. He was just not like she imagined a pilot to be. She was now sure he had been lying to her all along. She caught herself raging again and then stopped herself. She must concentrate on her new charge.

  It would take some work to get Gin used to normal life. This was good. It would give Sara something other than herself to think about. And in time the dog would relax and start to enjoy life again. Sara congratulated herself on the idea. For now she would concentrate on the dog.

  Score settling could come later.

  12

  6 October 2017. Magog Down, Cambridge

  Named after the cannibal giant, Gogmagog, twin hills called Gog and Magog, are divided by a busy A road that leads from the south to the city of Cambridge. These gentle slopes are supposedly the highest hills in Cambridgeshire above a city on a plane that merges north into the dead, flat country that is the Fens. Magog Down is where dogs can run free and get a decent walk.

  One surprisingly warm, early October day, the temperature around eighteen degrees, a pretty, blonde young woman drove about six miles out of Cambridge until she reached Magog Down where she turned into the car park. She got out of the car, walked round to the boot which she opened and grabbed a collie attached to a lead. The excited dog jumped out and the pair crossed the road. They walked to the first paddock where she let the dog loose. It immediately ran up to another smaller dog that was sniffing about in the field.

  The two owners, both blonde women, watched the pair of dogs chase one another in circles. One turned to the other. ‘What a beautiful dog you have there.’

  ‘Yes, indeed he’s gorgeous,’ said the younger woman. ‘So is yours. Will she mind me saying hello?’

  ‘Well…’ The other owner faltered and seemed taken aback as though that sort of thing didn’t happen to her. ‘But she’s a timid one. Rescue dog. She’s gradually learning to relax more. I don’t know what happened to her. You’ll need to go gently.’

  The younger woman decided the dog’s owner was older than she, probably by ten or eleven years. She squatted down on her haunches to the smaller dog’s level, bowed her head and avoided looking in her brown, untrusting eyes. Murmuring sweet nothings, she put out her hand and let the nervous animal sniff her. In no time, she was stroking the dog’s head and tickling its chest. They had made friends.

  ‘Most people don’t even ask,’ said the older woman. ‘They intimidate her by going straight to pat her and she’ll either shy away or nip in fear. What a natural you are. Where did you learn such a knack?’

  The younger blonde rose from her crouch to see wide-apart, grey lozenge eyes in a broad face with striking cheekbones. She supposed this woman might be called beautiful. There was something Scandi about her looks and the slightest hint of an accent. Her hair was bunched at the nape of her neck and tucked under a floppy hat. Close up, she could see it was light blonde and guessed it was as long as her own. She beamed broadly at the woman. They walked together across the small grass paddock towards woodland.

  ‘I grew up on a sheep farm with collies. I know how nervous they can be. You get that in the breed. Some are plain neurotic. I can see the collie in this one. A cross, I imagine. What do you call her?’

  ‘Virginia Woof,’ said the woman, ‘I couldn’t resist the pun…’

  Virginia. What kind of pretentious name was that? What’s more, for a collie? Where she came from, they were called short, sharp names like Bel, Gyp, Rhys – words that can be easily heard across a windy field.

  ‘…but she’s known as Gin,’ continued the woman.

  Relief; that could be handled.

  ‘And what a delightful boy,’ continued the older woman. ‘A sweet beauty he is. What do you call him?’

  ‘Brynn,’ she replied, bending down to stroke Gin again. The little crossbreed was also beautiful but had that highly-strung look about her that shepherds both distrust and avoid.

  ‘Brynn and Gin. How funny.’ The women walked together to the end of the meadow and turned left onto a path that led into a copse. ‘So where was the sheep farm, if you don’t mind me asking?’

  ‘Pembrokeshire in Wales.’

  ‘Oh how wonderful. You must miss it.’

  ‘I do, but my partner and I bought a deserted old house on the north coast that we’ve made habitable. We try to visit as often as possible. We’re keen walkers.’

  ‘I envy you. I’ve never been but would love to go some day.’

  ‘You should,’ said the younger woman confidently. ‘You won’t regret it.’

  ‘Does your family live up there?’

  ‘My parents have both passed on and unfortunately I was an only child.’

  ‘Oh, I am so sorry. How dreadful for you.’

  ‘Shit happens.’ She offered her hand. ‘I’m Bette. You are?’ Bette had learned the blunter the better and never skirted around telling people her mother and father were dead. It backfooted them and generally ensured they dropped the subject. It was much easier than having to go into explanations. Fortunately, the woman let the subject go. Bette flashed her charismatic smile.

  ‘Sara.’ Taken aback by Bette’s use of the word ‘shit’ when they had barely met, the woman gently took Bette’s proffered hand. ‘Nice to meet you. I’m originally from Holland. I’m an only child too. My father departed a few years back and my poor mum suffers from Alzheimer’s. She’s in a home and doesn’t even recognise me when I visit. Strange not hav
ing parents or siblings, isn’t it? Reminds one of one’s own mortality.’

  Bette wondered whether departed meant left or died. Undeterred by tact, she asked.

  Sara looked down as though in deference to his memory. ‘Sadly, I meant he passed on.’ From her demeanour and the way she looked at her hands, Bette decided that Sara was clearly a private person and that she should watch what she said.

  ‘What do you for a living?’ asked Bette.

  ‘I’m a massage therapist and Reiki practitioner.’

  ‘Day off?’

  Sara smiled. ‘Yes. I’m my own boss so can pick and choose when I work.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘And may I ask what you do?’

  ‘I’m an interior designer. I’m not working quite as hard at the moment as usual. Can afford to be picky about which projects I take on. It’s quite liberating.’

  They discussed their lives as they strolled along together towards the top of the down, the dogs chasing each other round the woods. Sara asked Bette more about her holiday place in Wales and talked about her own beliefs in healthy living. While Bette appeared interested to hear how much store Sara put in not eating certain foodstuffs such as butter, carbs and red meat, it was feigned. Her Welsh upbringing had ingrained dairy produce and lamb as the norm and she held no interest in challenging that custom.

  At the end of the walk, Bette suggested that since they had got on well and the dogs had worn one another out, they should meet again. There was something about Sara that smacked a little of desperation. She seemed eager to befriend Bette who had a sharp radar when it came to analysing others. She decided Sara was a people-pleaser, a non-confrontational woman with little inner strength or self-belief. In other words, that the woman was weak. Correct in her perception of the impression Sara gave, Bette was not aware of what lay behind that impression. She was, in fact, altogether wrong.

  What started that day soon became a regular thing. The women often drove out to the down. Sara was, seemingly, free most days. Bette also was seldom busy since work had dried up that summer.

  On a wet day in late October, walking on a country estate on the other side of the main road from Magog, they plodded together through dank, dripping woodland. Sara confided that earlier that year she had suddenly and inexplicably been ditched by someone she had loved deeply. She had then miscarried his baby.

  The woman had had to stop and sit on a fallen tree trunk where she had explained how tragic the loss had been to her, made worse because she had decided to keep the child.

  Shocked, Bette said nothing but sat down next to the weeping woman, linking her arm through hers and squeezing it tightly in a show of understanding and affection. Sara grabbed her nearest hand and pressed it back. Then she kissed Bette on the cheek and let her head drop onto her shoulders. For a moment Sara then lifted her head and tried to look Bette in the eye. Bette wondered whether the woman was a lesbian but dismissed it as she knew about her affair with the man and put this ultra-show of affection down to gratitude and loneliness.

  These past events had apparently spiralled Sara into a depression from which she was still recovering, and thereafter she had found she had been unable to cope with such a physically and emotionally demanding, client-facing job. There was a bitter edge to her words. Her experience had gone deep. Something apparently stopped Sara from finding an easy way through life.

  When Bette tried to get her to open up, she clammed up. Bette knew well how the inclination to repress things is easier than having to discuss them. But still, she pushed her new friend. Was it, in some way, her alter ego she was really getting at? She wondered what Sara now did with her life but there was something so guarded about the woman that even Bette felt she couldn’t ask. The opposite to herself, Bette was thought of as outgoing although that was only in a certain sense, for she was more of an introvert than people believed. She had learned to mask it as she had realised when young that it wouldn’t help her get along in life.

  ‘How did you meet?’

  ‘He came to my practice as a patient needing massage. His back was giving him problems. We kind of went on from there. Oh, I know it was thoroughly unprofessional but he used to book in as my last patient and we would make use of the massage bed. Later on, as it became a serious thing, he would come to my flat.’

  When Bette enquired how long the relationship had lasted, Sara had said it had been for about ten months. Surprised she couldn’t have by now picked herself up and carried on, Bette decided that this seemingly normal, people-pleasing woman was a lonely, nervous person. Apparently, this had been the first time Sara had ever fallen deeply in love.

  ‘What was so special about him?’ Bette asked.

  ‘Oh, he was intelligent, interesting and loving. I can’t say exactly… he was very good-looking…’ She shook her head. ‘It’s hard to talk about. It still hurts too much.’

  ‘And he knew you were pregnant?’

  ‘No. I was planning to tell him when I was sure at twelve weeks. But he ditched me a month before. That was soon before I miscarried.’ Her face pained by these intimate questions, Sara rubbed her temples intensely to try to rid herself of this horrible memory.

  ‘He sounds like a bloody rat.’

  ‘I suppose, after all, he must have been. He certainly didn’t seem like one. I don’t know whether he’d have done that if he’d known about the baby.’

  ‘Rats never seem to be rats; they don’t look like rats, they don’t even smell like them until you really get to know them.’ Bette watched the poor woman who, head down, was holding back tears.

  ‘Perhaps he was married?’

  ‘Oh no! Definitely not.’

  ‘Did he ever invite you to his home?’

  ‘Well, no, he didn’t, but he was away a lot, you see.’

  ‘In that case, he was using you. He was only after you for one thing.’

  Sara burst into tears again and Bette realised she mustn’t go too far, that she’d better leave the subject of the rat alone for now.

  Bette had been surprised to discover that Sara had a sense of humour and was relieved when together they had hooted with laughter about how they had both changed their lives. Their shared experience and the coincidence of their lives did seem somewhat extraordinary.

  But Bette saw that although Sara may have been all right on the surface again, she was still unable to come to terms with what had happened. She believed her boyfriend had left because she was not fun enough or attractive enough to keep him.

  The women had become close but Sara didn’t invite Bette to where she lived, nor did she seem willing to even discuss where it was, beyond that it was in the south end of Cambridge. The non-existent invitation was happily reciprocated. Neither woman wanted anything to spoil their neutral friendship in which there were no comparisons made about where they lived, their levels of income or their lifestyles. They were happy to leave their friendship in its own bubble, unadulterated by the pressures of the material world.

  In a sense, the friendship was similar to the relationship some women have with their long-term hairdresser. They acted both as one another’s listeners and counsellors. Although Sara hadn’t struck Bette as a person who would mind what people thought, she could only imagine the woman might be embarrassed by where she lived. Bette had once asked her whether she lived alone and Sara’s answer had been snappy.

  ‘I certainly do.’

  Bette had crossed her line and Sara hadn’t liked it. Bette imagined a chaotic, small suburban house or flat. Perhaps, she thought, Sara couldn’t bear to take people back to her home because she hates them to see what a real mess her actual life is. This way she can at least keep up some pretence. Bette imagined that many therapists are probably not well-off and judging from the state of Sara’s ancient car that she had bought second-hand seven years ago, she never had been.

  So Bette made an early decision never to enquire about the whereabouts of Sara’s home, and she never hinted that she would like to be
invited there. She didn’t want to lose this friendship. It had become vitally important to her.

  When she guessed at the sort of place Bette might live, Sara was closer to reality. She thought her friend probably lived in a tasteful, expensive house with immaculate décor, interesting artefacts and pictures dotted about. She presumed the popular shades of expensive paint on the walls, though she failed to envisage the dark-blue shade that Mike had picked, but that was not Bette’s choice and nor was much of the décor of the house.

  Sara and Bette were both beautiful blonde women who loved dogs and walking. But the similarities stopped there.

  Where Bette was loud and sometimes brash, Sara was quiet and self-effacing. Where Bette could be called pushy and determined, Sara came across as non-confrontational and a person who would do much to keep others happy.

  Bette had quickly taken the lead as the one who called the shots. That being said, there was more to Sara than met the eye and under that soft exterior lay a hidden capability to be cunning as well as devious.

  The next time they met was what Bette called a watercolour day. The leaves and berries in the woods on the down starred in magnificent colour below the palest of suns just visible behind bulging clouds that appeared glued into place on soft blue skies. Bette decided it was a suitable day to tell Sara about Lucy. She had never talked about it to anyone but she wanted Sara to know. She felt she needed to redress the balance by putting Sara in the true picture.

  ‘I loved my job and then I fell pregnant,’ said Bette. ‘It was sooner than I had wanted to have children. But my partner wanted them as soon as possible and kept pressing me to stop taking the pill. Anyway, as soon as Lucy was born, I fell in love all over again. I had never felt like that before and couldn’t believe how strong my love was for that little mite. It was all-consuming and I completely adored her. I suppose I shouldn’t say it, but I was the most devoted mother, absolutely besotted with that little angel. Then, when she was just four months–’ A break in her voice and she stopped. Her head drooped.