Cliff Edge: a gripping psychological mystery

by Florrie Palmer

  Sara had the sense to remain quiet.

  Finally Bette shrugged. ‘It was confirmed as sudden infant death syndrome. That’s it. I can’t talk about it now and never will. I just feel hollow. Simply hollow. Like the frame of a person with nothing inside. But that frame will never stop aching. Never. Life since that day has been the most desperate and frightening time. At times it has been unbearable. I couldn’t believe that a healthy baby could just die. I was convinced I must be responsible in some way. I remember thinking, It’s my fault.’

  Bette’s eyes welled and she looked away as tears cascaded down her cheeks. Sara held her while she wept on her shoulder.

  6 October 2017. Bette Davies’ Five-Year Diary

  Met a lovely woman today called Sara on Magog who I hope may become a good friend. She too has a dog and we had a lovely walk together. The dogs got on extremely well and we have agreed to meet again soon. It would be great to have a female pal in Cambridge. I really am in need of someone as Mike is no longer my soulmate. I miss him so much but I have lost him along with L. He has turned against me. I know it is because, like me, he is so unhappy. He seems to hate me. Always so angry.

  One day I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t do away with–

  No, I won’t allow myself to think it, let alone write it down.

  13

  19 November 2017. Trumpington, Cambridge

  Sara was feeling low again. She was just recovering from one of the migraines that had started when she’d left home. They knocked her for six for a couple of days and she generally had to take time off to sleep in a darkened room. They had become rare until he had broken off their affair. Since then they had started to come back more regularly.

  When she got like this, she had a tendency to overthink, convolute everything and dwell on her unhappiness. She recalled her childhood town, never able to obliterate those memories.

  One of the main memories was walking with her mother who was wearing a boxy white cap that covered her ears. She had a plaid shawl around her shoulders over a long black dress. Her father in a dark suit was beside them as the family hurried to church for one of the three Sunday services.

  In the church, she felt her knees rub against the rough prayer cushions as they prayed together in their black clothes.

  She sat again at the kitchen table with her family while Father read the Bible before and after every meal. The Bible, the only truth in their world. She knew her family were known as ‘black-stockings’ in reference to the clothes the women wore. They lived for God who only approved of Christian music, who disapproved of gays, drunkenness, immunisations and insurance… and, apparently, laughter and fun. These things, she was taught, were in opposition to the perfection of God who was the only one to know what was good for his children.

  When a child herself, she had been taught to feel guilt for wanting to laugh, for wanting to run and play, for wanting to enjoy herself. No matter how good she had tried to be, she had felt constantly disapproved of, and self-reproach had been ingrained into her along with introspection.

  Sara felt that old familiar ache of shame for deserting her sorrowful family. She remembered and grieved for all her siblings and for leaving them behind. She tried to think of her mother with that same sympathy for inflicting the loss of herself on her. But however bad she felt for what she had done, she could not feel sorry for her. This woman who, for the sake of conformity and pleasing her community and her husband, had put her children through a life of guilt-ridden unhappiness. As so many others in that town had done also.

  Now, though, Sara had another reason to feel bad. No matter how hard she tried to imagine otherwise, she was jealous of Bette. Why, she asked, did she feel like that? Because Bette has a man, she answered herself.

  The neurotic insecurity now enveloped her, making her feel even lousier. Poor Bette, she knew, was far worse off than she; not wealth-wise, that was certain, but the hurt her friend had experienced was definitely crueller than her own. She felt bad too because even though their new friendship had become a lifeline to her, she had in a sense profited from someone else’s misery. The onus this put on her made her want to help Bette over the stile to the next stage in her recovery. She tried to think what might help.

  Surely it would be an idea to sell the house the baby had lived in. It must hold some terribly sad memories of that loss. She made a note to suggest it. Also that perhaps it would be an idea for the couple to get away from Cambridge at Christmas. Perhaps they should go to that place of theirs in Wales. A change, the brilliant scenery and walks in the sea air with Brynn could only be good for Bette and her partner. It might even help her marriage which sounded as though it was unlikely to recover from the huge blow the couple had endured.

  Sara wondered why Bette never spoke about her partner. She realised she didn’t even know his name. Could this be because Bette herself didn’t want to think about him? But why? She pondered this and wondered whether Bette might in some way blame him for the baby’s death. She had never hinted at this, but then she had never told Sara anything much about her marriage. Even if she was married. Sara did find this rather strange.

  Much as she liked the charming Bette, she was not exactly easy to get to know. But then, Sara remembered, neither was she. Perhaps that was why they got on so well. Peas in a pod, happy to share a pod but to remain firmly in their own skins and attached to their separate compartments.

  As she forced herself to take Gin out for a short walk on the lead, all it would be that day, her spirits lifted a little and she resolved to speak to Bette about her ideas when they next met. That time came later that week.

  As she and Bette strolled over the top of Magog hill, Sara tentatively asked, ‘I wonder whether you have contemplated selling your house. Might it be an idea to start afresh somewhere else?’

  For the first time since they had met, Bette was clearly annoyed, even angry. ‘We’re perfectly all right where we are, thank you.’ She quickened her pace and stumped along ahead of Sara, her angry figure speaking volumes.

  ‘I’m so sorry. I’ve clearly upset you, Bette. It was the last thing I intended.’ Sara half jogged to catch up with and keep alongside her. ‘Forgive me. It was none of my business.’

  ‘No,’ said Bette who seemed a little less cross now, ‘it wasn’t.’ She sighed and shrugged her shoulders. ‘But you were only trying to help, I know.’

  They walked on in silence for a few minutes before Bette stopped Sara, turned to her and beamed her lovely smile. ‘So sorry, Sara. Sore point. Hope you understand?’

  ‘No, no, it’s me who should be sorry. I shouldn’t interfere, I had no right.’

  Contrary to what she had imagined, the couple obviously felt tied to the place that had been the only home their child would ever know. She changed the subject. ‘Any plans for Christmas? I was wondering whether you were going to Wales?’

  ‘Always wondering, aren’t you, Sara?’ Bette replied, the brusque edge back in her tone.

  Sara simpered. ‘I thought it might be a nice getaway for you.’

  They walked on a few more paces, Bette deep in thought when she said, ‘Actually, that’s not really a bad idea. In fact, I might just do that. I’ll suggest it to my partner.’

  Still the nameless partner, Sara noticed. She presumed Bette found it easier to distance herself from him by not referring to him by name. She stopped walking and waited for Bette, who was ahead of her, to turn.

  When she did, Sara slowly approached her, her arms wide in readiness to hug her friend. Bette seemed happy for her to do this and in the warmth of their embrace, Sara brought her head close to Bette and kissed her friend’s pretty mouth.

  Bette quickly sprung back. ‘Got me wrong on that one, Sara. I didn’t have you down as a dyke. Thought you liked the boys.’

  Red with embarrassment, Sara hated being called a dyke. She didn’t care to consider herself as such. This was the first time since all those years ago in Holland that she had touched another wom
an. She couldn’t forgive herself but nor could she forgive Bette for making her feel foolish. She went quiet and kept her distance from Bette as they walked back to the car park. When they parted, Bette smiled at her. ‘Chin up! It won’t affect our friendship, I can assure you, Sara. See you Monday?’

  Later, when she got home, Sara congratulated herself on planting the seed in Bette’s troubled mind. Now she just had to hope…

  It was made of aluminium. A good implement to smash over a head.

  ‘How fucking dare you lie to me? See what happens, you deceitful, fucking, lying degenerate, when you do? This is what happens,’ the manic voice yelled as the blows came down. ‘This!’ Blood spurted from the side of the head. ‘This!’ Bone cracked on metal. ‘And this!’ The frontal lobes took the brunt.

  The raging words fell on the auditory cortex that was the last of the brain to die.

  14

  15 December 2017. Cambridge

  Mike and Bette were sitting in their normal chairs, not talking as usual, when Bette suddenly said, ‘How about spending Christmas and New Year at Cliff Edge? We haven’t been up there for ages. There’s no one renting it, I checked with the agents.’

  He looked up from his book. ‘Suppose we could.’

  It would be the first time for quite a while that Mike could get away since he had started work on the biggest project of his life, the private school on the outskirts of Cambridge. If he had felt better about life, it would have been very exciting for him. It was sad that the breakthrough he’d been waiting for had come at such a bad time in his life.

  He could now do with a holiday to unwind and recover from what was turning out to be a stressful and long job. The fact that it had taken up so much of his working time had helped him more than he knew to begin to face life without Lucy. The problem he had was that every time he looked at Bette, she reminded him of that night and the trauma and guilt rose within him almost to the point of nausea.

  I’d have to spend all the time with her, he thought. At least in Cambridge, I can get away. Then he remembered the walks. Ah, the walks. He could go off for hours alone and get away from her quite a bit. She did like walking, but not to the extent that he did: he was happy to do twelve- to fifteen-mile hikes on a daily basis. And since the change in their relationship, she had stopped wanting to walk with him anyway. She can stay in the house with her books, he thought, and she can cook and draw…

  She broke that train of thought by adding, ‘I wondered whether you’d mind my inviting Sara, the friend I’ve made walking Brynn? She also has a dog and is a bit sad as she lives alone, has no family here, hardly any friends and recently got dumped by her boyfriend. I just feel sorry for her being alone at Christmas.’

  He sighed with relief. It was just the result he could have hoped for. It would keep Bette happy; and would be someone to break the miserable silences that had become the norm for them. Besides, it was time she made a friend. ‘Why not? Be a kind thing to do and in the spirit of the season, et cetera. Good idea. Ask her.’

  Phoning Sara that evening, Bette transferred her enthusiasm to her friend. ‘It’ll be such fun, darling. We can walk the dogs in total freedom. It’s so beautiful and wild up there. I know you’ll just love the place and it’ll be so good for you. Dogs’ll love it, too.’

  ‘Bette, you know I can think of nothing better but I feel you and Mike should be together without anyone else.’

  ‘Capswabble! Mike and I don’t want to spend much time alone. You’ll be doing us both a favour. Just say yes, silly, and let’s hear no more about it.’

  ‘Put it like that, how can I say no? Except what did you actually say?’

  Bette giggled. ‘When I talk about Pembrokeshire, I do that sometimes. Go back to the old ways, you know. Capswabble… It means nonsense.’

  They chattered happily on about arrival times, routes and what to bring. ‘Your warmest gear,’ said Bette, ‘As it’s always chilly and windy on the coastal path and apparently, we’re in for a cold front over Christmas. So it’s quite likely to snow and you may have to watch you don’t get blown off the cliffs… But seriously, it’ll be huge fun and I’ll look after you. Don’t you concern yourself with anything except making sure to get there. By the way, I’ve got loads of spare warm clothes there so don’t worry too much about that: you can always borrow mine.’

  Sara put her mobile back on the edge of the sofa where, as usual, she was sitting alone watching television. She stared at it for a while. How well she had done. She had made it sound as though Bette’s idea had surprised her, when in fact, of course it was her own idea, perfectly planted in Bette’s mind. Her plan to get invited to Wales had worked, too. Everything was going just as she had hoped it would. She could now really look forward to Christmas.

  Mike and Bette were now both off the hook about spending the long holiday alone together and neither of them could have been more relieved. They had been quietly dreading the time off. In fact, now Mike thought about Wales, which they hadn’t visited since last Christmas, he began to really look forward to seeing the place again. Perhaps, he even dared to hope, it might help repair their marriage to some degree.

  Since Lucy’s death, he had taken to spending as much time as possible away from home. Every time he walked through the front door and went into the living room, the trauma of her death flooded back to him.

  The memory of breathing into the tiny cold mouth, the difficulty of not putting weight on her in case it hurt her and of the horrible silence in the room when all he wanted to hear was her cry, haunted him.

  He experienced regular nightmares of Lucy crying and in most of the dreams, he could not reach her or if he could, was unable to help her. He would wake sweating in the middle of the night to realise that she was not alive to cry. What he would have given to hear that sound again could not be underestimated.

  His misery followed him wherever he went. He had secretly visited the doctor in despair as he had experienced the hopelessness the parents of deceased children feel. The doctor had recommended grief counselling but that was not a thing Mike would go for. He felt it was an intensely private matter and could not see how talking about such a miserable event and dragging up the blame and horror of it all would make him feel anything but worse. After a few weeks he had begun to feel more able to cope with life than before. But it remained empty and he ached and ached for the child he had so longed for and lost so fast.

  The few friends they had had disappeared from their lives. They had no desire to see or speak to any of them and their lives became hollow memories of the real thing.

  For some reason Mike had not been able to explain to himself, he had taken to using prostitutes. All the desire he and Bette had shared in the bedroom had disappeared in a second after Lucy died. Neither had any wish to touch the other. The prostitutes finally allowed his masochistic side to surface but they were not so much there to assuage his sexual needs as these had more or less evaporated, but more to remind him that he was still able to operate as a man even though sometimes he failed to get erections. But when he left them after this happened, he would not feel ignominious, he would feel justified: for who would want to sleep with an unattractive prostitute? These encounters were simply a way for him to express being alive in spite of feeling guilt and shame about what they were doing to him and what he was paying them for.

  For that was the trouble; he did feel half-dead most of the time. In fact, life and death had become a subject he pondered a lot, his own death notwithstanding. He had lost all desire to live a long time and had developed a devil-may-care attitude to most things apart from his work in which he buried his head. This was why he had joined a climbing club and had been taking flying lessons at Cambridge Airport. He had a longing to be able to take a small plane up into the sky alone and to have his own life in his own hands and be in a position where it would be easy to choose.

  A couple of days before they left for Wales, Mike said, ‘I hope that woman is making her own way there. I
don’t really fancy the journey with three people, two dogs and all the gear.’

  Even now, though he was sure he had fallen out of love, he felt the same old stab of jealousy about Bette choosing to be with someone else. Just as he now called Bette ‘my partner’, he dissociated himself from this Christmas guest.

  ‘That woman, as you choose to call her, is bringing her own car… if it makes it.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘It’s a bit old and dilapidated. Besides, we’ll need two cars. We’ll want to do different things some of the time.’

  Thank God, he thought. And most of the time, he hoped.

  ‘She’s got her walking gear with her and the dog’s bed.’

  ‘You could have just invited her for Christmas instead of a fortnight. We’ll get no alone time together and I shall feel like such a gooseberry.’ He was lying through his teeth, but he knew he had still to make some effort to let Bette think he loved her. He was a conflicted man, for underneath he knew he still did really. It was just so difficult to know how to get the relationship back on track. He was pretty sure they both felt the same way but he simply couldn’t find the way to get it there. Their mutual sadness meant that so much distance had come between them. So much of the time they had to force smiles, force politeness, force tolerance of one another.

  He wondered whether she blamed him. His heart told him she should. In fact, she quite often gave him the impression that she did. It never occurred to him to attach any blame to Bette whatsoever.

  In a short time, Bette had become a part of his life. It may not have been obvious, as most people thought of her as a gregarious person, but she was actually not at all. In fact, she was quite a mystery; full of contradictions. She liked quiet, she liked long, silent walks, she liked reading, drawing, design and art but not particularly going out. Of course, she had made a few Cambridge acquaintances but she had no intention of joining in local activities and was probably considered stuck-up. But Mike knew she wasn’t really. It was simply that she was not someone people found easy to stay friends with. Although ebullient, her outspokenness and sometimes slightly false ‘life of the party’ air she put on, scared most females away. Mike thought Bette probably presented a threat to other women, the way she so enjoyed male attention.