The Cliff House: A beautiful and addictive story of loss and longing. Amanda Jennings
it over my hips and waist, the crepe fabric rough against my skin. Mum kept her make-up in a flowery wash-bag on a wire vegetable rack below the basin along with her shower cap, a soap-on-a-rope we’d never used, and a pot of Oil of Ulay which Jago and I gave her for her last birthday. Inside the wash-bag was a pressed powder she’d had forever, a drying mascara and her lipstick. I took out the lipstick and removed the lid, then turned the base to reveal the scarlet innards. Lifting it to my nose I breathed in. The smell conjured memories of when I was younger, my parents dressed up to go out, perhaps – if it was a special occasion – to the Italian restaurant in Porthleven they loved so much. I pictured her turning a circle for him. Saw him smile, eyes alight, as he leant in to kiss her cheek. It was painful remembering how it was back then. Back then when our house felt like a home.
Home.
Just a memory. Vague and fading. I stared at myself in the mirror above the basin and searched for the ten-year-old girl who’d lived in that happy place. But she was long gone. I drew in a deep breath and touched the tip of my finger to the blood-coloured lipstick, dabbing first its waxy surface and then my lips to add a blush of colour. I dropped the lipstick back into the wash-bag and zipped it up. Then, looking down, I swung left and right to make the rainbow dress swish, imagining my father watching on and smiling.
I went downstairs and glanced into the sitting room as I passed. Her bed was stored neatly behind the settee. The folded duvet and pillow lay on top of it, struck through by a line of sunlight from a gap between the curtains. As I walked into the kitchen I saw two mugs on the table, one with a smudge of lipstick on it, the other without. A sudden sweep of anger washed over me and I snatched them up and marched them to the sink where I turned the tap on, squirted washing-up liquid into the mugs, and reached for the scouring pad. I attacked the one without the red smear the hardest. How had he squirmed his way into the kitchen? I scrubbed, wanting all trace of him gone, then dried the mugs and returned them to the cupboard before squeezing bleach on the table and meticulously cleaning every inch of it, rubbing all the way into the corners and along the edges.
The kitchen hung with the pungent tang of bleach and my mind returned to thoughts of getting out. I stood on tiptoes and reached for the battered biscuit tin on top of the fridge. Inside was a collection of odds and sods, as Mum called them: safety pins, pencil stubs, an assortment of rusted screws and nails, and a variety of keys. Excitement wriggled along my arm and down to the pit of my stomach as I pulled out the key with the green fob. I slipped it into the pocket of the rainbow dress, replaced the tin, then grabbed my bag from the hook in the hallway.
As the front door closed behind me every muscle in my body began to relax. I turned out of our road and headed down towards the Cape, smiling as the breeze took my hair and tossed it playfully about my face. That day the sea was the very same navy as Granfer’s favourite knitted Gansey sweater and sprinkled with diamonds of sunlight. High above my head, a handful of seagulls flew in sweeping circles, their distant cries jubilant. An almost perfect day.
As ever my thoughts drifted to Dad. It was impossible to walk down this stretch of road to the Cape without remembering the feel of his hand gripping mine. Or how I’d had to half-run to keep up with his stride. I could still picture the book folded into his back pocket, dog-eared, marked on the cover with a single perfect tea-ring. I recalled him reaching for it when he spotted a bird, leafing quickly through the pages before pulling me in close.
Do you see it?
My cheek rested against his stubbled face as he pointed. I didn’t care much about the bird. All that mattered was being in his arms.
A golden plover.
Then I’d listen quietly as he told me all about it. That its name came from the word for rain in Latin – or maybe it was Greek – because plovers flock when the weather draws in. After he died, any smidgen of interest I might have had in seabirds waned, but sometimes, when I missed him the most, I’d pretend I loved them and would watch them through the binoculars as they balanced on ledges or dive-bombed for fish, trying to recall their names, population numbers, and the colour of their eggs.
There were only four cars in the car park at Cape Cornwall. It was early though. Later in the day it would be full, vehicles jammed bumper to bumper, with National Trust stickers on their windscreens and woollen picnic rugs folded beneath raincoats in their boots. I joined the coastal path and walked up onto the clifftop where the wind was stronger and my skin spread with goosebumps. I wrapped my arms around my body and told myself off for not bringing a sweater.
The footpath was well worn by walkers who strode from Botallack to Cape Cornwall and on to Sennen Cove in their special boots with canvas sides and long laces double-knotted for safety. My body tingled with excitement as the fields of lush grazing on my left changed to unruly moorland. Pillows of heather and fern stretched away from me in a carpet of green and purple patched with spiky yellow gorse. If I stood still and closed my eyes, I’d be able to hear the rustling of voles and mice which hid from the sparrowhawk circling on the thermals above.
When the footpath bent sharply to the left my body fizzed with anticipation. Four steps until the heart-stone. I counted them. Eyes fixed on the ground in front of me.
One. Two. Three.
Four.
Then there was the stone. The shape of a perfect heart. Grey and polished, with grass kissing its edges like the sea surrounding an island. I placed both feet on top of it then looked up.
My breath caught.
The house gleamed white in the sunshine. A beacon on the cliffs. As always its beauty jolted me like a slap on the face. I saw my father ahead of me, his long legs pounding the path, arms swinging with purpose at his sides. He turned and smiled. Beckoned to me.
Hurry up!
The wind blew his hair and made his eyes glint with weather-tears.
Isn’t it beautiful?
‘Yes, Dad. It is.’
As he turned to walk onwards, I smiled, then broke into a run to catch up with him.
Tamsyn
July 1986
I scrambled up the grassy slope that led from the path to the lichen-coated rock on the point. I opened my bag and pulled out my father’s binoculars, looping the leather strap over my head and caressing the cool metal with the edge of my thumb.
This was our spot. It was where he took me to watch the sea and the birds. A protrusion of cliff with rocks to shelter us from the wind and weather, and views out to the horizon a thousand miles away, with Sennen Cove to the left and The Cliff House to our right.
It was here that my memories of him were the strongest. Sitting in this spot I could recall him in such Technicolor detail. The patches of sweat which darkened his T-shirt. The individual beads of moisture glistening on his forehead. I could hear his voice telling me to make the most of the sunshine. Warning me the weather wouldn’t last. That storms were coming. As I sat and watched the house I felt him beside me.
Isn’t it beautiful, Tam?
He jumped to his feet and grabbed my hand, pulling me down to the path and the iron railing which encircled the garden. When he reached over to open the latch on the gate I pulled back.
Are we allowed?
Nobody’s home.
Are you sure?
I raised the binoculars to my face and scanned the house and the driveway. There was no movement, no lights or opened windows, no car parked outside. I didn’t rush. I gave myself time to make certain nobody was home. When I was sure, I unhooked the strap from my neck and wrapped it around the binoculars and tucked them back in my bag, then stood and walked down to rejoin the footpath.
The