‘Maybe he got talking to the man,’ offered Marcus, nervously.
‘Which man?’ I was digging for my wretched telephone, hands shaking. Had I left it on the sand?
‘There was a man sitting on the rocks over there.’
I twisted round. The clouds shadowing the rocks caused them to look like a herd of hunched black bison. They were no longer glistening white salt crystals in the sunlight. There was no one there, no silhouette I could make out.
‘You saw a man over on the rocks. Are you sure? There’s no one there now, Marcus.’ This seemed an unlikely explanation. This place was always deserted.
Marcus confirmed that he couldn’t see anyone now but he had done earlier.
‘I’m going over there. Marcus, gather up our things here, please – don’t leave any litter, take it with you – and carry everything back up to the house. If Harry is there with Anna, shout down to me. I’ll listen out for your call. Otherwise, stay there. Give a yell to Trish and Christine to join you back at the house. Then, none of you go out from the villa till I get back. Do you understand me? Stay in the house. You are in charge till I return.’
The eldest boy nodded gravely.
‘Point to me precisely where the man was.’
‘Sitting there, up on that high rock. That one. He wasn’t doing anything spooky, not watching us or anything, just looking at the sea and smoking.’
‘What did he look like?’
Marcus shrugged. ‘I couldn’t see his face. I d-don’t know, Granny. I wasn’t paying attention.’
‘Was he there for a long time?’ I was beginning to feel physically sick, dread washing through me. My hands and knees were shaking. How had I let this happen on my watch? A stranger on our beach, a child missing, and I’d been oblivious to it because I had been gossiping on the fucking telephone when I was meant to be taking charge of the young ones. Where was my phone?
‘Where the hell is my phone?’
The girls had all disappeared off to their various points. Marcus stood stiffly, staring at me. His face expressed a slow gathering horror. His features were almost frozen.
‘I j-just had a quick dip,’ he sobbed, tears welling like puddles in his eyes. ‘I was sticky from the ball game. I thought Harry would be there with the ball. Is this my fault, Granny?’
‘No, my darling, of course not.’ I stopped rummaging, took a deep breath and wrapped my arms around his solid stock-still frame. I hugged him tightly. ‘We’ll find him. Hurry with all of the stuff. Go and take care of the girls. I’ll be back shortly.’ I turned to run off, then dipped into my bag and miraculously pulled out my phone where it had been all the time. ‘Marcus, if you can carry everything, take my bag too, please. Good chap.’
Should I call Peter? What could they do? This would unnerve them, put stress on Peter’s heart. Peter’s heart. Jesus. If anything had happened to Harry … I was clutching the phone in my right hand and running towards the rocks. ‘Harry,’ I was yelling. ‘Harry.’
The distance was a matter of a few hundred metres, but I was retching for breath when I reached the rocky barricade that enclosed the eastern wing of our bay from the one that neighboured us. ‘Harry.’ I clambered up onto one of the rocks. They were slippery. At the menace of my shadow, a small flesh-pink crab fled for cover, disappearing like magic into a defect, a fissure in the rock.
‘HARRY!’
I must have called five or six times without any response. Only the sound of the waves behind me. And then, from somewhere beyond the flat echo of my voice, I heard a frail murmur.
‘Here.’
‘Harry! Oh, my God – Harry?’
Silence. Had I imagined his answer, his husky reply?
‘For God’s sake, where are you, darling?’
‘In here.’
‘Where, Harry?’
I shoved my phone into my shorts pocket, freeing both hands. I was climbing clumsily on all fours, cutting and scratching my legs, peering between the unrelenting rigidity of the rocks, dark and austere.
And then, buried low in a crater between two mighty granite stones, was my grandson. ‘Oh, thank God.’ His tear-stained face was staring up at me. He was as pale as death, the colour exaggerated by the darkness of the rocks, and he was shivering, teeth chattering.
‘I slipped and twisted my ankle.’ He sobbed. ‘And I’ve burst Marcus’s ball and lost my armbands.’
Alongside him, squashed, punctured between his shoulder and one of the stone surfaces that were imprisoning him, was the deflated beach ball. Harry’s shoulder was bleeding.
I scrambled over the rock and lay on my stomach in an attempt to reach him.
‘Give me your hand,’ I ordered, reaching down into the crevice. But either because his arms were too short or he was wedged so deep that it hampered his movement, his fingers could not grasp mine. I inched my splayed body closer to the rock’s edge – I feared falling, tumbling in and landing on top of him.
‘Try again,’ I huffed, extending both arms to the limit of my reach. ‘Can you stand up, Harry? Can you lift yourself up?’
He shook his head and started to cry. ‘I’ve gone to the toilet in my trunks, Nanny Two.’
‘It doesn’t matter, darling. Let’s just get you out of here. Can you lift yourself up a little bit and try to take hold of my hands?’
The distance between us was not so great but it made the difference. We tried again, stretching for those extra inches. Still, he could not reach me and I dared not lean my flattened self further into the rock hole.
I was trying to think, think fast. I needed a rope, or a stick, a branch. Something solid for the boy to latch on to. There was no chance that the tide would travel this far inland but I had no idea what poisonous life or other dangers might be lurking close by. A sea urchin beneath him. His legs might cramp – he must already be getting cold and paralysed. How long had he been stuck there? I had to get him out of the cleft but I couldn’t manage it alone. If I ran back to the house for Marcus? But I didn’t want to abandon Harry, leave him trapped. I began to scrabble my prostrate body into a crawling position. I was deliberating about what to do next, deciding that my best plan was to telephone for les pompiers, a fire-brigade rescue, when a shadow gathered to my left and paused, poised above me.
Marcus?
My gaze settled on a pair of shoes, scuffed navy-blue trainers, adult size, planted on a boulder a few metres from the one I was squatting on.
‘Do you need help?’ The question was asked in English, a male voice, gruff, throaty. I drew myself to a squatting position and looked up. An older man in sunglasses was staring down at me. Where had he come from?
‘Hello … My grandson has slipped between the rocks and I can’t lever him out.’
‘Let me try.’
‘You’re very kind.’ I clambered backwards out of the way, vacating the space for the stranger. Although he was overweight, beer tubby more than fat, he stepped lithely across the rocks, dipped down and plunged both arms into the hollow where Harry was trapped.
‘Take my hands, Harry, and hold on tight, there’s a good lad.’
Harry? How did he know the boy’s name? He must have heard me calling, must have been within the vicinity. Was this the fellow Marcus had spoken of? Must be. Had he been there all the time? If so, why hadn’t he come to Harry’s rescue before now?
I glanced across to the bay on the eastern side of ours and was astonished to see several small groups of people dotted here and there on the beach, children and adults. Several were sunbathing, others wading and jumping in and out of the sea. Holidaymakers or locals enjoying a day out. A couple of German Shepherds were capering in the waves at the water’s edge. No doubt, it had been one of those I had heard barking earlier. How perfectly daft of me to have imagined it to be Agnes’s Bruce, gone for decades. Groans drew my attention back to the present. Harry was being raised by his armpits to light and safety.
‘There you are, lad, safe and sound,’ said the man, planting hi
m on a curved rock, holding him steady because he seemed a little faint or dizzy. ‘Nothing to fear now.’
The stranger’s accent was northern. It sent a shiver through me. I bent low and wrapped my arms about my grandson, hugging him far too enthusiastically. ‘Thank God you’re safe.’
‘Ouch,’ he mewed.
‘Come on, let’s get you back up to the house and clean you up. Thank you so much. Say thank you, Harry, to this kind gentleman.’
Harry obeyed with a shy inaudible word.
‘What a stroke of good fortune that you were close by.’ I was addressing Harry’s saviour, whose mirrored sunglasses hid his eyes but, disconcertingly, reflected mine. Dressed in urban clothes, certainly not beach attire, his outfit struck me as odd, ill-fitting and out of place. I had an idea I’d seen him before but I couldn’t place him. I stared at him to the point of rudeness as though I … There was a familiar note that nagged at me but I could not put my finger on it.
‘Have we …?’
As we stood facing one another, he lifted a calloused hand and removed his shades. It was a slow, rather affected gesture, which exposed his naked face.
‘Oh …’ My reaction was out before I could contain it.
An ugly scar exploded from his balding head, running like an arrow to the mid-point of his cheek, disfiguring the placement of his left eye, which was semi-closed and crooked. The revelation was unexpected, shocking. Too intimate. Dare I admit it? Repellent. I instantly dropped my gaze, feeling the urge to swing away from him, but pulled myself together, quickly realizing the rudeness of my behaviour.
‘We really are most grateful, Mr … er … May I – may I offer you something?’ My whole body was trembling.
‘Like what?’ he snapped back. ‘Were you thinking of giving me money? Or did you have it in mind to invite me up to your villa for a cup of tea? And then we could chat.’
The forthright nature of his questions took me aback. I wanted to look up, to read his meaning in his features, search beyond the damage, but I kept my eyes lowered, to avoid staring at him in the way he was staring at – into – me. His attitude was intimidating, as though he were challenging me. After a few moments he replaced his glasses, masking his injury.
I was struggling for words but could form none.
Harry pressed himself against my leg, trembling, arms grasping my thigh.
‘Forgive me, I – I must get the boy home, into a hot bath. I don’t know. I meant …’ I had no idea what I had intended, certainly not money or an invitation into our home. ‘Perhaps you need a lift somewhere?’ My proposal was ludicrous, an inept attempt to rectify my rudeness, cover my awkwardness.
I was desperate to be gone. However, the Englishman had saved my grandson further trauma and discomfort. I owed him courtesy, at the very least, but there was a presence about him, a tenor, that was rattling me. He was standing directly in front of me now, an inch too close, invading my personal space, as though attempting to trigger some manner of reaction in me.
Why had he taken off those glasses and revealed himself in such a theatrical fashion? What had he expected of me?
‘Look, I – I really must get my grandson home.’ I was repeating myself. ‘Come on, Harry. Thank you so much. If I can … if there’s anything … Goodbye. Enjoy the rest of your holiday.’
I was nudging Harry forward. ‘Can you walk? Nothing broken? Take care as you climb down not to slip and fall.’ I was fussing, maladroit.
At my words, the man leaped, almost vaulted, onto the sand on our bay side and held out his arms to ferry Harry to safety. Harry must have picked up on my discomfort for when he landed on terra firma he skidded off at a lick, bad ankle or not, heading for the safety of the house without a glance backwards.
I jumped to the sand, nodded stiffly at the man and sped away with equally bad grace.
Trish and Anna took Harry off to bath him while Marcus brewed tea. I discreetly helped myself to a large whisky from the drinks cabinet on the veranda after I had telephoned our local GP to know whether I should drive Harry over to see him for a check-up.
‘Anything broken?’
‘I don’t think so. He was running on the beach the moment he was free.’
‘That sounds positive. Let’s see how he is tomorrow. If necessary we can organize X-rays then.’
When I’d replaced the receiver I stepped outside with my glass onto the grass to look over towards the eastern bay. There was not a soul in sight, no sign of the Englishman. I let out a sigh. He had not hung about as I was dreading he might.
I realized that it was gone five o’clock and I needed to gain some semblance of composure before Peter returned with his daughters. Of all the events that had woven through the afternoon, I couldn’t work out which had most thrown me. One phone call, a quarter of an hour of neglect, and I had nearly lost us a child. I was appalled at myself. Accidents happen in the blink of an eye: such a platitude. Even so, nothing altered the fact that, without a stroke of good fortune and quick thinking on Marcus’s part, Harry might have come to far greater harm. Visitors were such a rare occurrence at this time of year. The tourist – with that northern accent, that northern accent – knew Harry’s name. Most likely he heard me calling. It must have been my alarmed cries that had alerted him to the fact there was a problem and a child was in danger. Why else would he have been on the spot?
Whisky downed, I ran up the stairs and along the corridor to the second guest bathroom, where there was a bath as well as a shower. Here Trish and Anna were tending their youngest relative. The girls were singing softly. I knocked before entering.
‘It’s Nanny Two,’ I whispered into the wood, hoping they would all forgive me and love me as they had done in the past. ‘May I come in, please?’
Anna opened the door. ‘He’s all scratched,’ she informed me, with a solemn adult bearing, ‘but we think he’ll be fine.’
Harry was in the bath, covered with bubbles, excitedly holding aloft a model of a wooden sailing ship he must have purloined from the windowsill. Peter’s. Its sails were soaked and drooping, but Harry appeared restored, full of good spirits. Relief swam through me.
‘Hello, big boy,’ I said, as I bent low over the lip of the bath. ‘All good?’
He nodded a little bashfully but his eyes were shining bright. The resilience of the little ones, I was thinking. Thank God for it.
‘Will Mummy be cross with me because I burst Marcus’s ball?’ he asked. ‘And lost my horrid armbands.’
I shook my head. ‘No one will be cross with you. Nanny is the naughty one. I shouldn’t have let you wander off so far on your own. I’m sorry, Harry, that you fell when I wasn’t there to help you and you were frightened.’
He stared at me curiously, eyes scanning my face. ‘There were crabs in the rocks,’ he remembered, ‘walking about sideways, like crabs do, then popping out of sight. I was frightened they’d bite me or pinch me, or a snake would come out of one of the big holes and gobble up my willy.’
Anna, behind me, hooted.
‘A snake? Lord, I never thought of that.’ I laughed nervously. ‘I don’t think there are any snakes on this beach. Aren’t we lucky, eh?’
‘After I’ve dried myself properly, please can I have ice cream and the rest of the chocolate cake?’
I lay awake almost the entire night, tossing, turning, getting up, pacing, staring out of the window at the rocks, then back into bed. Sam, understandably, had been mad as hell with me, at the revelation of the day’s events. She’d ripped into me about my lack of responsibility. My ‘lack of prudent guardianship’.
She and Jenny had spoken with their father and the consultant, and no doubt her concern for her father’s impending operation exacerbated her explosive reaction. Even so, her anger shocked and grieved me.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I repeated, like a fool.
‘Sorry! For Heaven’s sake, Grace, he could have died.’ There were tears of frustration in her furious, puffed features.
T
he children were in bed. Sam had been stewing with her mood, waiting to tear a strip off me, but she had held back until after dinner, until we four adults had been settling to a nightcap on the veranda. I noticed that during the meal she had downed more wine than was her habit. Usually she was a temperate drinker.
‘But he didn’t, Sam,’ interrupted Peter. ‘Harry is right as rain. Hunky-dory, except for a scratch or two. Within a couple of days he’ll have forgotten about it, so let’s not overexcite ourselves, please.’ There was an emphasis in my husband’s voice, an even keel, that I knew was for me. He was supporting me, sending out his love as he always had done, even in the years before I had appreciated it.
That night, and every night, I loved him for the loyalty he had always shown me. Even when, once upon a time, I had so uncaringly rejected him.
I turned now in my insomnia and stroked his shoulder. Nothing comes between Peter and his sleep. ‘I love you so.’ I mouthed the words so I didn’t disturb him. He seemed peaceful and I was grateful. If it were me facing the challenging operation that lay ahead for him, I would be terrified.
Thunder growled from the hinterland, curdling in the mountains. On this night with its gathering banks of clouds masking the stars, the misgivings that were keeping me awake, that wouldn’t go away, did not only concern Peter’s future. It was the past, rising up to ensnare me.
The man who’d rescued Harry: had his presence been fortuitous, or had he been on those rocks for a purpose? To watch us, stalk us, to gain entry into our lives? He, with his partially crushed face and awkward questions. I had been rude to him, ungracious, but that was not the qualm that was preventing my sleep.
I closed my eyes, allowing my memory to trawl back in time. He had addressed me in English. He spoke with a trace of a northern accent. Those twisted, battered features, how had they looked in youth? A few wisps of hair remained on his bald head. Had it once been blond hair? Lustrous locks of blond hair. Wet from the sea, embedded with sand.
Why had he removed his sunglasses? The act was a disclosure. Was he silently saying, ‘Look at me, Grace? Remember who I am?’
The House on the Edge of the Cliff Page 5