The House Beneath the Cliffs

by Sharon Gosling

  ‘I’d hope so, yeah. It’s worth asking the question. There could be somewhere not too far away from here looking for a chef.’

  ‘Right,’ said Cathy. ‘If you could stay local and that would make it easier to keep living in the Fishergirl’s Luck, wouldn’t it?’

  Anna lay back amid the cushions, staring up at her quirky bookshelves overhead, full of her own collection of colourful cookbooks. ‘It would.’

  ‘So promise me you’ll forget about Geoff’s offer.’

  ‘It’s already forgotten. I promise.’

  ‘All right,’ Cathy sighed, and then changed the subject. ‘Now tell me about Robert MacKenzie. How did he take the news?’

  ‘He was absolutely fine. To be honest, it’s kind of a relief that it came out the way it did. I… didn’t really know how to tell him myself.’

  ‘Oh? Why not?’

  Anna shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It felt – awkward, somehow.’

  ‘Are you falling for him?’

  Her heart leapt into her throat. Anna swallowed, hard. ‘No! Of course I’m not. He’s a friend, that’s all. A good friend.’

  ‘Would you miss him?’ her friend asked. ‘If you had to leave Crovie now?’

  ‘I’d miss everyone here,’ Anna told her, thinking of Robert standing on her doorstep in the wind. ‘Everyone.’

  Selkie lass,

  Sometimes I wonder if you’re still here. Whether all you did was go back to where you always belonged, back to the sea, but no further than that. Do you watch us from the waves, me and the wee lad? Was it you who took her up there on that cliff, got her to risk herself to climb down it to our boy? Or is that just who she is?

  Do you laugh at the tangles we tie ourselves into?

  The tangle I’ve tied myself into.

  The wee lad seems fine. He’s still as much into dolphins as he ever was. There’s no dampening that spirit, thank the fishes. It’s me that feels… I don’t know.

  I don’t know what I feel.

  Twenty-Eight

  The rest of July passed peacefully for Anna. The lunch club continued to be fully booked out every day she opened her kitchen. As the month turned over into August, though, the weather closed in. It began to rain, lashing against the Fishergirl’s Luck in harsh torrents that sounded more like rocks being thrown at the walls than water falling from the sky. The waves churned, the sea’s swirling colours melding into a blanket of dull grey that fused with the indistinguishable horizon. The forecast was not promising – this was not going to blow out soon – and so Anna used the social media accounts she had set up for the Fishergirl’s Luck to cancel lunch club for the week. She was glad of her decision when, three days later, the rain was still falling and the road down into the village had turned into a river.

  Anna cooked evening meals for those of Pat and Frank’s guests who did not want to brave the road, and for a few other holiday makers stuck in the village. She dashed back and forth to the Fishergirl’s Luck for equipment and ingredients and was drenched every time she set foot outside the door. By Friday though, when the forecast showed the rain was going to continue for longer yet, the last of the village’s guests decided to cut short their stay and leave.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ Pat said, as the three of them sat at the kitchen table in the Weaver’s Nook, listening to the rain. It was already dark, though it was barely touching three o’clock. ‘I’ve never known it like this.’

  ‘I’m worried,’ Frank muttered over his mug. ‘The cliff can’t take much more of this.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ Pat shivered.

  ‘I’m serious. I even asked Douglas to come and stay here, to be out of the way if it does come down.’

  ‘What did he say?’ Anna asked.

  Frank snorted. ‘What do you think? Daft old sod.’

  On Sunday Anna was sitting at her breakfast bench working on the cookbook project for Melissa Stark when Robert MacKenzie appeared at her door, the yellow of his fisherman’s waterproof glistening with rain. Anna brought him into the warmth of the bothy.

  ‘I wanted to check on you,’ he said, as she made tea. ‘Robbie wanted to come too but I wasn’t going to bring him out in this if I could help it.’

  ‘You didn’t come out in the boat?’ Anna asked, the thought of him navigating the raging waves between Gamrie and Crovie sending a visceral shiver down her spine.

  ‘No, I’d never risk it in the Cassie’s Joy,’ he said. ‘I came by road. How are you? Is there anything you need?’

  ‘Running low on milk but I’m otherwise fine.’

  ‘Give me a list,’ he said, as he took the mug. ‘I’m going to do a supply run for anyone who doesn’t want to brave that road if it’s still raining. I’ll aim to come down tomorrow.’

  ‘You don’t have to do that,’ Anna told him. ‘You must have more than enough to worry about.’

  ‘I’ve got to come over for Dougie anyway. It’s no trouble.’

  Anna thought that couldn’t possibly be true, but she wrote a list nonetheless. As she did they talked, the constant roar of rain a backdrop to their conversation.

  ‘Look,’ he said, as Anna passed him the piece of paper she’d scrawled on. ‘There’s always room at ours if you want to get out of Crovie for a while. Or I’m sure Rhona will offer you a bed at hers. I can take you back with me now.’

  Anna looked at him over the rim of her mug. ‘Do you think it’s that bad?’

  Robert shrugged. ‘I’ve never seen it like this before, and the forecast’s showing another storm blowing in behind this one.’

  ‘The council must have plans to evacuate if it gets really risky. Won’t they let us know if they think it’s time to go?’

  ‘Probably.’ He smiled, despite the trace of worry in his eyes. ‘You really don’t want to leave, do you?’

  Anna smiled too, looking around her home. ‘I feel safe here. I think the Fishergirl’s Luck could withstand anything.’

  ‘Aye, well. Bren was the same.’ He took another mouthful of tea and once he’d swallowed it, said, ‘I’m glad to hear you say it. I wondered whether this would be the last straw and you’d leave us after all.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He hitched one shoulder. ‘Liam’s made it known that he asked you to go home with him.’

  ‘Oh, he has, has he?’

  ‘I think he wanted to make it clear he wasn’t abandoning you in your time of need.’

  Anna snorted. ‘My time of need?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘I’m not going to New Zealand,’ Anna told him. ‘And I want to stay in Crovie if I can. But I have to get some kind of job. Especially now.’

  ‘Because of the weather?’

  Anna laughed. ‘No! Because my savings will run out quickly now there’s a baby to provide for. What I’m hoping is that I can find something in the area, or close enough to it that will make it possible to commute. But if I can’t…’

  He nodded silently as she left that thought to finish itself.

  ‘What I need is to win the lottery,’ she quipped. ‘Or for a fairy godmother to turn up with a pot of gold so I can buy the Crovie Inn.’

  Robert clasped his hands together between his knees, smiling at the floor. ‘I’d give you the money if I had it,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ve changed this place by being here. Just by doing what you do. It’d miss you if you go.’ There was a pause, and then he said, very deliberately, as if forcing it out despite some instinct that told him not to, ‘I’d miss you.’

  Anna’s heart pulsed a strange beat. She put down her mug, not knowing what to say. She watched his downturned head, and for a moment it seemed that Robert didn’t want to look up at her again. When he did, he gave a lopsided smile as their eyes met.

  ‘I’d miss you too,’ Anna said quietly. ‘You’re one of the reasons I came here in the first place. You, Bren and the Fishergirl’s Luck. Without you, I might have visited, but I wouldn’t have had a reason to stay.’

&
nbsp; Robert said nothing, but the way he looked at her made Anna feel as if there was no air in the room. Then he blinked and stood.

  ‘Robbie, I—’ he said, his voice hoarse for a moment, until he’d cleared it. ‘I have to make sure he’s home. He promised, but—’

  Anna swallowed her heart, dislodging it from where it seemed to have beat its way up into her throat. ‘Dolphins?’

  ‘Aye. Dolphins.’

  Robert went to the door, where he hesitated for a second, half turning back to her. ‘This old place,’ he said. ‘I hope it stands forever.’

  They said goodbye, though there was a moment when what Anna wanted most was to ask him to stay. If he hadn’t mentioned Young Robbie, perhaps she would have. Instead Anna shut the door and imagined him battling his way out of the village through a storm that seemed to have grown exponentially worse since he arrived, the memory of that look in his eye making her heart expand and contract so quickly that she had to take a breath.

  The village locals clubbed together with what they had for a joint supper at the Weaver’s Nook. David had driven over to check on their place, leaving Glynn and Bill in Inverness. Terry and Susan were there too. Rhona was absent, and no one would wish her there given what she’d have had to come through to join them. The wind raged outside, the rain hammering the village hard.

  ‘Perhaps we should have gone, as Old Robbie said,’ Pat fretted, reaching over to grasp Anna’s hand. ‘Or you should have, at least. He’ll be worrying about you.’

  Anna squeezed Pat’s hand. ‘He’ll be worrying about all of us.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s different with you, love, isn’t it? You know that.’

  ‘Pat,’ Frank warned, gently.

  ‘What? With Liam going—’

  ‘Pat,’ Frank said, again.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Anna said, covering his hand with hers. ‘Pat, Robert and I are friends. That’s all. You know that.’

  Pat looked downcast. ‘But I’ve seen the way he looks at you, love.’ She glanced around the table. ‘We all have.’

  Anna laughed, as much to cover the echoing pulse of her heart than anything else. ‘I’m carrying another man’s baby.’

  There was a brief, uncomfortable silence.

  ‘It’s not blood that matters,’ Pat said quietly into it. ‘That’s why I think of you as our family, Anna. Mine and Frank’s. And I don’t think I’m wrong when I say you’ve become part of Robert MacKenzie’s, too.’

  When she stepped outside the Weaver’s Nook to go home, the rain lashed Anna’s face hard enough to drown her tears. The inside of the Fishergirl’s Luck was warm and snug, the stove still alight. The walls were so thick that the ferocity of the storm outside seemed so much less. It was there, though, throwing its rage at Anna’s home, making sure that she couldn’t forget what was lurking outside. Inside the Fishergirl’s Luck the rest of the world seemed far away, but Anna knew it was waiting there, pressing close, trying to get in.

  She flopped down on the sofa and reached for the phone, wanting to call Cathy, but the line was dead. A few moments later her lamp flickered off. Anna looked out of the door into pitch-black darkness. The electricity to the whole of the village was out.

  It must have been around 3 a.m. when she was woken by a sound so loud and so deep that Anna thought it felt like movement. She sat up in bed and reached for the light switch, but the power was still off. She wrapped herself in a blanket, so used to the howl of the wind now that she barely heard it as she made her way downstairs. Anna opened the front door of the bothy a crack, but the sound had ceased, or at least lessened enough that the rage of the storm had swallowed it completely. There was no light anywhere, no sign of activity in any of the houses. Thinking she must have dreamed it, Anna went back to bed.

  The next morning, though, Frank rapped on her front door, his face pale beneath his drenched hair. The sun had failed to rise at all, the clouded sky squatting heavily over the village, dark as bruises. The rain was still pelting everything in its way.

  ‘Frank? What is it?’ Anna asked, alarmed by the grim look on his face as he stepped inside out of the storm. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘It’s the cliff. It’s bad. The worst slip we’ve had so far.’

  ‘Oh no – the rental?’

  ‘I think the roof’s gone, maybe the whole of the back wall, too. Can’t see how it’ll be saved, to be honest.’

  Anna grabbed her coat from the peg. ‘What can I do?’

  ‘Nothing, love. There’s no point worrying about that old place now. I think we all need to leave. Pat’s packing a bag – you should too. When Old Robbie gets here, you should be ready to go with him.’

  ‘What?’ Anna said, shocked. ‘But – the Weaver’s Nook isn’t in danger, is it? Or David’s place, or the others?’

  Frank’s face was grey with worry and fatigue. ‘I don’t want to think so, but there’s another storm coming in, and with no power we can’t call for help. If there’s another slide, and heaven forbid if it’s worse than the one last night, we could be in real trouble.’

  ‘What about Douglas McKean? Is he all right?’

  ‘I couldn’t rouse him. I came back to get a crowbar and David – he’s going to help me knock the door in if there’s still no answer when we go back. But I wanted to let you know what’s going on first. It’s not safe to stay, love. Not anymore.’

  Anna nodded. ‘I’ll pack now.’

  ‘Good lass.’ Frank reached for the latch. ‘I’ll knock again in a bit, or you can head over to Pat when you’re ready to go.’

  He stepped out into the storm again, and Anna followed him to the door. ‘Are you well enough to be doing this?’ she asked. ‘I can go with David.’

  Frank squared his shoulders beneath the rain and grinned. ‘I’m fit as a fiddle,’ he said. ‘You don’t want to listen to everything Pat says. She’s a born worrier. Wants to wrap a man in cotton wool.’

  Anna shook her head. ‘She loves you, that’s all.’ She had to yell the words into the wind and rain.

  Frank smiled again as he headed into the rain, shouting back at her through the storm. ‘Get back in the warm. Pack that bag!’

  Anna shut the door and went into the living room. For a moment she looked around. She’d only lived here for six months but the idea that she had to leave, and like this, when the Fishergirl’s Luck might not be here to come back to, felt like the worst kind of abandonment. Bren would never have left, she knew. She’d have stayed here no matter how bad the storm. She’d have felt safe inside the four walls of the Fishergirl’s Luck.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Anna whispered, wondering if anything of Bren was still left here, whether any wisp of her existence had imprinted itself on these stone walls. ‘I don’t want to go. I don’t.’ If it had only been her, maybe she’d have stayed and waited out the storm. Maybe she’d have trusted that this place would stay standing, no matter what the elements threw at it, as Bren had in 1953, when it must have seemed as if the world outside was ending. But Anna’s life wasn’t just hers anymore. She had the baby to think of.

  ‘I’ll come back,’ she said. ‘As soon as it’s safe. As soon as I can.’

  Anna went upstairs and quickly packed her overnight bag. The last things she put into it were her precious family photograph and three notebooks – Bren’s, her grandmother’s, and the one in which she had been writing down her own recipes. Then she went out into the hallway and pulled on her coat, checking that her utility torch was in her pocket. As she was opening the door there came another almighty sound. It sounded like one mountain shearing against another. She looked up at the cliff behind the houses, but she could see nothing. The wind was stronger than she’d ever felt it, and seemed to be blasting harder by the second. The rain was blinding, sharp, cold slashes through a gloom dark enough to be night.

  Anna flicked on her flashlight and hesitated on the doorstep in its blue-white glare, her heart pounding. If the cliff was coming down right now—

  ‘Anna! A
N—!’

  The swallowed yell came from the sea path. Anna saw a figure ducking through the slashing waves, almost knocked off its feet by the force of the water. At first she thought it was Robert MacKenzie. She dropped her bag in the doorway and ran out into the storm, grabbing one outstretched arm and pulling whoever it was into the lee of the bothy. Water sloshed around their ankles – the path was flooding anew with each new wave that broke against the wall.

  ‘Anna,’ the person gasped, and she realized that it was David. She glanced into the darkness over his shoulder, looking for Frank, but there was no sign of him. The rumble came again and Anna looked up, half expecting to see an avalanche of rock and earth rolling towards them.

  ‘It’s not the cliff,’ David shouted through lips blue with cold. ‘It’s the road. The road’s gone. We can’t get out, not even on foot. And no one can get in to help us.’

  Another sound came, another rumble, louder even than before and right over their heads.

  ‘Oh, God,’ David shouted, horror on his face. ‘That’s the cliff!’

  The noise of this latest landslide was deafening, terrifying, amplified by the blind confusion of light lack and storm. The door to the Weaver’s Nook opened and Pat appeared, her face a mask of terror as she ran out into the rain, trying to see what was happening.

  ‘The Fishergirl’s Luck,’ Anna bellowed, right into David’s ear. ‘If the landslide really hits the houses, it’s the only place that might stay safe. Get everyone here. Quickly!’

  Twenty-Nine

  Pat wanted to go after Frank, but Anna stopped her.

  ‘David will get him,’ she promised. ‘He’s going to get everyone. Please, Pat. I need your help. We need to get as many supplies as we can carry into the Fishergirl’s Luck. Food, blankets, fuel, matches. Whatever you’ve got that might be useful.’

  They started ferrying goods from the B&B to the bothy, drenched every time they stepped outside. The worst of the roar from the cliff had lessened, but it was clear it hadn’t yet stopped falling. Terry and Susan appeared, both distressed, but ready to pitch in. As they stacked the floor of the Fishergirl’s Luck with supplies, Anna began to fill containers with water in case the pipes gave out. Then she ran upstairs to dig out what blankets she had to add to the pile. By the time she came back down again, David and Frank were dripping water on her floor.