The Cliff House: A beautiful and addictive story of loss and longing. Amanda Jennings
of her was and I hurriedly banished the thought of my hands encircling it and squeezing until her white skin bruised.
I thought she might let me in on the joke but she didn’t. ‘My mother chose it,’ she said. ‘It’s short for Edith. Piaf. Eleanor thinks it’s glamorous. Anything – and everything – à la France est très glamoureux, cherie according to Maman.’
The accent she used on some of her words reminded me of my French teacher, Madame Thomas, who came from Widemouth Bay but turned puce with rage if we failed to pronounce her surname ‘Toh-maah’. Thinking of ridiculous Madame Toh-maah made me braver and I ventured a smile in return.
‘And yours?’ Edie Davenport lifted her bottle and studied the Coke inside as she tipped it from side to side like a pendulum.
I hesitated. Should I make something up? Re-christen myself something très glamoureux? Esmerelda perhaps? Or maybe Ruby or Anastasia?
‘God,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘It’s not a difficult question. Someone tells you their name then asks you yours and you reply. Didn’t your mother teach you any manners between cleaning jobs?’
Edie brushed something, a fly perhaps, off one of her knees. I noticed how smooth and free of blemishes her legs were. Hairless with skin as white as a china doll except for the soles of her feet which were soft and pink like the inside of a kitten’s ear. I thought of my own legs covered ankle to thigh in fine hairs bleached by the sun, the skin peppered with scratches from brambles and mysterious bruises, my feet hardened and cracked and my toenails uneven and in need of a trim.
Edie cleared her throat and raised her eyebrows as she sipped her drink. Her eyes were bolted on to me.
Speak.
‘Tamsyn.’
‘Tamsyn.’ She rolled my name around her tongue like the Coke she swilled in the bottle. ‘Yes. It’s the perfect name for a thief.’
My stomach pitched. ‘No! I’m not a thief! I was here to find—’
‘Yes, yes.’ Edie gave a dismissive flick of her hand. ‘The cleaner’s scarf. You said.’
‘I should go.’ My voice trembled and when I lowered my eyes, I saw the tremble mirrored in my quivering hem.
‘You can’t. I’ve already taken the lid off the Coke.’ Edie gestured at the second bottle on the table. ‘You’re being rude again.’
‘Rude?’
‘Yes. Rude. I invited you to sit down with me and you haven’t. That’s rude.’
So I sat quickly because the last thing I wanted to be was rude. She flashed me a half-smile and tipped the Coca-Cola to her lips. I’d have given anything to have a fraction of her confidence and swagger, to have what she had, her father’s casual indifference, her mother’s grace and sophistication.
Even though the silence bore down on us like ten tonnes of lead, Edie didn’t seem to care one bit. But I did. I was desperate to speak but it was as if my lips were sewn together with fishing twine which looped through my skin. I imagined wrenching my mouth open so I could say something, the stitches ripping my lips to blood and tatters.
I ran my finger down the length of the bottle, traced the ridges, the gathered condensation wetting my skin.
‘Try it.’
I raised the bottle and sipped. Bubbles exploded on my tongue and the cloying sweetness made me smile involuntarily.
She shifted in her chair and tucked her legs beneath her body. ‘Have you swum here before?’
‘No.’ My dishonesty flared hot beneath my skin. I thought of my father and I in the pool. His arms wrapped around me. His eyelashes laced with droplets of water like tiny pearls. ‘I didn’t know they had a daughter,’ I said, wanting to steer away from the subject of my trespassing. Talking about Edie was safer. I just had to keep her talking about anything other than me.
She seemed amused by this. ‘Do you know much about them then?’
I shook my head. Another lie. I knew lots. I knew what newspaper he read, what clothes they wore, the position he sat in when he wrote at his typewriter. I knew she turned her sun lounger to follow the arc of the sun and when, every now and then, a sparrowhawk cried out he’d look up and search the sky for it. I knew they let food go to waste. That vegetables were left to blacken in the fridge beside sour milk, and that abandoned bread grew mould in the shiny steel bread bin. I knew they left their bed unmade when they left for London and I knew where they kept the sheets my mother would change for them. I knew what books were piled up on his bedside table and what her night cream smelt like and how soft her silk dressing gown felt against my cheek.
Edie lifted the Coke bottle and drained the last inch. ‘To be honest, I wouldn’t expect anyone to know they have a daughter. They’re barely aware of it themselves. They keep me in a boarding school so they don’t have to think about it.’
‘A boarding school?’
Edie nodded.
I had visions of great Gothic buildings and Malory Towers, hockey sticks and midnight feasts and huge panelled dining rooms where hundreds of these girls, identikit clones, gathered to sip soup from round silver spoons.
‘That must be amazing.’
‘It’s the pits. I loathe it. Every single girl there is a bitch and the teachers are idiots. Literally everybody there hates me and I hate them.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘The head says I’m trouble. Rude and difficult. But,’ and here she paused and leant forward, ‘what the flying fuck does she fucking know about anything anyway?’
I couldn’t help but smile, and as I did the tension I’d been feeling since we first laid eyes on each other finally started to fade.
Then she needled her eyes at me and pointed. ‘You don’t hate me, do you?’
‘No!’ I said quickly. ‘Not at all.’
She sat back. ‘Anyway,’ she said. ‘It’s probably a good thing the ’rents keep me in a boarding school. If they didn’t I’d be tempted to murder them. Maybe not him but definitely her.’
She smiled at me and I smiled back and as I did invisible strands of friendship began to stretch out between us.
‘Where do you go to school?’
‘The local comp. It’s a dump.’
‘I’d give anything to go to a comprehensive. Boarding school is so lame. Being at a comprehensive is cool, isn’t it? I bet you don’t even have to work. Our teachers are obsessed with results and the girls spend most of their time bingeing and chucking up. You’re actually really lucky.’
I thought about my school – teachers drowned out by constant chatting, blocked toilets with permanent Out of Order signs on them, the stench of the canteen – and shrugged.
‘Anyway, I’m imprisoned here for the holidays which is beyond dull. Are you in Cornwall for the summer too?’
I wondered where she thought I might be going. France, maybe? On one of those exchanges where you swap families? Or New York or Tokyo or India? I didn’t answer immediately, allowing myself to enjoy a few precious seconds where as far as Edie Davenport was concerned I was someone who could have a life beyond St Just.
When the pause grew uncomfortable I nodded. ‘Yes, I’m here the whole time.’
‘And presumably you have no friends?’
Her assumption took the wind out of me. I opened my mouth to protest but then decided not to. She was, after all, correct.
‘Good,’ she said emphatically. ‘Then you and I will hang out. We’ll be holiday friends. It’ll be fun.’
Holiday