Читать книгу The Cliff House - Amanda Jennings - Страница 13

CHAPTER FOUR

Tamsyn

July 1986

‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’

My stomach turned over.

There was a figure silhouetted against the sun, features obscured in shadow, standing at the edge of the pool.

My heart pounded as I heaved myself through the water towards the steps.

‘I’m… I… Sorry…’ The words wouldn’t form and my voice stumbled as I clambered out of the swimming pool. I tried to hide my underwear with my hands. Why hadn’t I worn a proper swimsuit? Why had I swum in my bra and pants, which were old and baggy and turned see-through with water? ‘I’m… I…’

Panic muddied my thoughts. The voice had been female. Who was she? It was a Thursday. The Davenports never came on a Thursday. Was it her? Mrs Davenport? Blinded by the sun, it was hard to be certain, but surely that was the only person it could be?

‘Answer my question.’

I bent to pick up my dress from the ground and drew it up to my chin to hide my body.

‘I’ll leave,’ I whispered. ‘Sorry. I’m sorry.’

She didn’t speak. A soft, rhythmic tapping echoed across the terrace. I glanced at the house. The back door was ajar, a breeze worrying it gently against the frame. Everything inside me screamed run. I looked down towards the gate and path, my route to freedom.

‘Don’t even think about it.’

As I looked back at her she blurred like an out-of-focus picture. I swallowed. My throat was dry and my palms sweating, my body numbed by guilt and fear. When she stepped towards me, I readied myself for Mrs Davenport to shriek at me, demand an explanation before calling the police and firing my mum.

But she didn’t shriek.

As the figure stepped out of the glare of the sun her face became visible. It wasn’t Mrs Davenport. It was a girl, about my own age, maybe a year or two older. She stared at me with her hands on her hips, head cocked to one side. Her eyes were heavily made up with thick black eyeliner dragged upwards into arrowheads. She wore a black skirt that trailed the floor, a black top with holes worn into the sleeves, and a thin leather chord encircling her neck which threatened to throttle her. Her dyed white-blonde hair was cut into an aggressively short bob, framing her elfin face and razor-sharp cheekbones. She radiated an aristocratic confidence that made my breath catch. My mother would have disagreed. She would have hated her make-up and the fact she was so painfully thin. She’d think she looked like an addict. But this girl’s skin was too perfect – too porcelain – for that. Eyes too clear. I knew which kids from school did drugs. Their acne, gaunt faces, and wide staring eyes gave them away.

This girl was nothing like them.

Her eyes scanned me as if I were something she was thinking of buying. I cringed beneath her scrutiny, painfully aware of how spongy and uncared for my body was. Shame swept over me and I desperately tried to arrange the fabric of the dress so it covered more of me.

On her wrists she wore a collection of silver bangles like Madonna and when she crossed her arms they jangled tunefully.

‘Who said you could swim here?’

My mouth opened and closed as I grappled to find a reason – any reason – to justify me being there. I thought of my dad. Tried to imagine what flawless excuse he’d have given for our trespassing. Somewhere above me I could have sworn I heard a raven cry and a shiver wriggled through me.

‘For God’s sake,’ she said, tapping her toe against the paving impatiently. ‘Put the dress back on if you’re that cold.’

I didn’t move for a moment or two, but then turned my back and shook out the dress, biting back tears of humiliation as I felt her eyes on my body as I bent to step into it. The fabric clung to my damp skin so I had to tug hard at it, risking tearing the delicate material. I pulled the zip up and faced her. My wet hair dripped down my back as I bit my lower lip to stop myself crying.

The girl raised a single dark and perfectly plucked eyebrow. ‘If you don’t say something soon, I’m going to call the police and have you locked up.’ Her voice oozed with money. ‘Who are you and what are you doing here?’

Mum was going to lose her job. I felt sick as I pictured her sitting at the kitchen table, a ragged piece of toilet roll clutched in her fist, red-topped bills surrounding her.

‘I’m… I...’ My voice stuttered and waned.

The girl looked irritated. ‘Well?’

Something caught my eye. Eleanor Davenport’s silk scarf fluttering in a gust of wind, half-lifting off the sun lounger as if, like me, it was desperate to escape. I glanced at the girl. Her eyes narrowed. Her patience was visibly running out.

‘My… mother…’

‘What? Speak up, for God’s sake.’

‘My mother,’ I said more loudly. ‘She… She cleans here. She’s the cleaner. I think… I mean, she said… She left her scarf here. She gave me the key.’ I pulled the key with the green tag out of my slightly soggy pocket and held it aloft as if this small piece of metal was my passport to being here. ‘I looked for it. The scarf. But couldn’t see it. I was leaving. And, well, I was hot…’ My voice wilted as the little bravery I’d mustered evaporated. ‘And the pool… I thought nobody… I’m… I’m sorry.’

For what felt like a century the girl with peroxide hair didn’t speak. I shifted on my feet, willing her to send me away with nothing more than a sharp warning never to show my face there again.

‘Who were you speaking to?’

‘What?’ My throat was dry and tight and trapped my voice so it came out in a rasp.

‘When you broke in to look for this scarf. I heard you having a conversation. Is there someone else here?’ Her eyes flicked from me to the house and back again.

My cheeks burst into flame. ‘No… I… I was… Talking to myself.’

‘How strange.’

She turned and walked back towards the door. Was this my signal to go? Was I free? I hesitated, about to turn away, but she glanced back with narrowed eyes. ‘Don’t even think about leaving. If you move an inch, you’ll be sorry.’

My stomach hardened to a tight ball. Who was she? Why was she here? As I did what I was told and stood stock still, water collecting at my feet, I was hit with the sudden idea that perhaps she might also be trespassing and that in a remarkable twist of fate we’d both arrived at the house, uninvited, at the same time. Perhaps I wasn’t the only girl who watched this place from an out-of-sight vantage point and snuck in when nobody was home.

This thought bought a little clarity with it. My mind seemed to de-mist. Whoever she was, whatever reason she had to be here, the most important thing was to convince her not to tell the Davenports. If Mum lost her job she’d have to do more hours at the bloody chip shop or, worse still, sign on, something I knew full well she’d rather die than do.

The girl walked back out of the door. She held two bottles in her hand and an opener in the other.

‘I like your dress,’ she said as she neared me.

I wasn’t sure if I’d heard her correctly so didn’t say anything in return.

‘Where did you get it?’

‘My dress?’

She made a face like I was stupid. ‘Er, yeah, your dress.’

‘It’s my mum’s. From the Sixties. She wore it to a Rolling Stones concert.’

‘Retro?’ Her eyes blinked slowly. ‘Très fashionable.’

I let my breath go with a nervous laugh. I was struck again by how pretty she was. Not pretty like Alice Daley or Imogen Norris – who were universally acknowledged to be the prettiest girls in school, all pushed-up boobs and bum-skimming skirts. No, this girl was graceful and poised and pretty like Princess Di, if Princess Di wore black make-up, a hundred bangles and had a silver stud in her nose.

‘Très… cool,’ she said.

I managed to nod.

‘You’re very lucky to have a cool mother. Mine,’ she said deliberately, ‘is very, very, uncool.’

I thought of the photograph of my parents, the one that had his writing on the back:

Angie and Me. Odeon Theatre, Guildford, March 1965.

In the picture my mum wore the rainbow dress. She was seventeen, not long engaged, delirious with love. Her hair was held back by a thick red scarf, feline eyes outlined with liner, her lips and skin pale as was the fashion. My dad wore a white shirt and a thin black tie. His hair was slicked back and he held a cigarette loosely in his fingers. I closed my eyes for a second, caught a flash of him singing me to sleep, smelt the cigarettes stuck to his skin.

‘Would you like a drink?’ She gestured to the bottles in her hand. Coca-Cola – the real thing, in curvaceous glass bottles like the ones I’d seen shiny, happy Americans with white-toothed smiles selling on the television.

‘Who are you?’

She gave no indication of having heard me. Maybe I’d spoken too quietly. She walked over to the table and put the bottles down, then using the opener she flicked the caps off each in turn, the cola fizzing loudly as she threw them onto the table. One bounced across the iron fretwork and fell with a tinny clink against the paving stones.

‘I think I should go.’

‘If you leave, I’ll tell my mother you broke into our house and I found you rifling through her jewellery box.’

Horror mushroomed inside me so violently I thought I might be sick.

‘Your mother?’ I didn’t understand. They didn’t have a daughter. Mum had never mentioned one. There was nothing in the house that indicated they had children − no photos, no clothes, no posters in any bedrooms. Was she lying?

‘Yes. My mother. More’s the pity.’ She sat on one of the chairs and lifted her bare feet onto the table and crossed them at the ankle. I’d never seen toenails painted purple before and never heard of people wearing rings on their toes, but she wore three and her nails were the colour of autumn plums.

‘Are they here?’ My voice quivered. Why had I been so careless? How stupid could I be?

‘My mother’s shopping while my father gets something fixed on the Jag. A tyre or, God, I don’t know, something dull. My mother will already be in a filthy mood because she won’t have found anything worth buying and will be moaning about Cornwall being stuck in the Dark Ages and wondering why anybody ever leaves Chelsea.’

‘My mum can’t lose her job,’ I whispered.

She stared at me for a moment or two, her expression flat, but then her body seemed to soften.

‘Relax.’ Her voice had lost its sharpness. ‘You don’t need to worry. I’m not going to tell them. I don’t give a shit about you swimming in the pool. I mean, why wouldn’t you? It’s hot as hell today.’

I could have cried with relief.

‘Go on. Stay for a bit. I’m literally dying of boredom. You can leave before they get back.’ She pushed one of the bottles towards me. ‘Have a Coke.’

‘I’ve never had a real Coke, only the one they do at Wimpy.’ And even then I’d only tried it once, though I didn’t tell her that.

She furrowed her brow and a bemused smile flashed across her face as she reached for the bottle nearest her and tipped it up to her lips. I inhaled sharply, shocked by how much she resembled Mrs Davenport in that split second. As I stared at her I noticed other similarities between her and her parents. Her face was the same shape as his. The sweeping curve of her neck was identical to hers. How stupid not to see these things immediately. Stupid not to have guessed who she was. Their daughter. Her house. A surge of irrational jealousy shuddered through me like an electric charge.

The girl looked up at me whilst shielding her eyes from the sun. ‘For God’s sake sit down.’ She kicked the empty chair and it scraped against the paving.

The movement jolted me into action and I walked towards her. I hesitated as I reached the table, wondering if it might be a trap and when I sat down she’d laugh and say, ‘Ha! Idiot! As if someone like you could actually sit with someone like me?’

But she didn’t. She smiled.

From nowhere a waft of her perfume swept over me. I had a vivid recollection of Truro. The shopping centre. My mother rummaging through the bottles and sprays in The Body Shop. Taking lids off. Pumping scent onto her wrists. Then mine. Ignoring the hard stares of the lady behind the counter.

‘White Musk.’

‘Sorry?’

Had I said that aloud? ‘Your perfume,’ I said quickly. ‘It’s White Musk.’

‘You’re quite unusual, aren’t you? Not that it’s a bad thing. I like unusual.’ She blew upwards over her forehead. ‘Christ, it’s hot.’ She took hold of her top and flapped it.

We were silent. She didn’t seem to mind but it made me itch. When the awkwardness became unbearable I turned my head to look out over the sea. The wind had painted dashes of white across its surface and a small boat sat out near the horizon. So far away. Little more than a dot. I thought of the day my dad died. How quickly the squall had rolled in, turning sunshine and blue skies to driving rain and treacherous waves within moments. A crack of thunder echoed in my ears as I recalled snatching hopelessly at his legs to stop him leaving the safety of our house.

‘My name’s Edie, by the way.’

She waited expectantly but when I didn’t reply I saw her expression fade to boredom.

For God’s sake speak.

‘I like it.’

‘What?’

‘Your name. I like it.’

She stared at me for a moment then burst into laughter which sounded like sleigh bells. She tipped her head back. Exposed her throat. Pale and delicate. It struck me how vulnerable that part 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 friends? The thought made my skin tingle.

‘I mean, Jesus,’ she said. ‘The thought of being stuck in this place with nobody to talk to for six weeks is unbearable.’

I looked up at the house and wondered if there was anywhere on this planet I’d prefer to be stuck.

Edie gave an impatient sigh. ‘Well then?’ Her question was laced with irritation. It dawned on me she might be reading my silence as lack of enthusiasm so I nodded quickly.

From nowhere a gust of wind blew. Dust and bits of last year’s leaves were lifted off the terrace in a flurry. Eleanor Davenport’s scarf again caught my eye as it was scooped up and tumbled through the air. The wind dropped as suddenly as it had picked up and the scarf fell. It floated downwards to settle on the surface of the pool. The material darkened as it sucked in the water and sank slowly until it hung suspended as if trapped in aspic.

As I stared at the scarf, the stillness was torn in two by a screech. The noise was instantly recognisable. I jumped and grabbed the table instinctively, catching the edge of one of the bottles with my hand. It fell and Coke spilled through the fretwork and collected on the paving slabs below the table.

‘Oh, I’m… sorry…’ I reached for the bottle and quickly righted it whilst casting my eyes about in search of the raven, which I knew was lurking somewhere close.

My skin prickled. I scoured the lawn, the trees, the railings, but there was no sign.

‘I have to go.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes. My grandad. I need to get back to see him. He isn’t well.’ I glanced up and scanned the sky and the roof of the house. I let out a breath. There it was. The raven. Perched on the guttering of the roof. Black feathers buffeted by the wind coming off the sea. It screeched again and the sound cut through me like a shard of glass.

I had a vivid flash of the raven on the path. The one Dad and I had seen that day as we hurried home beneath a darkening sky, the first drops of rain spattering our faces.

My lungs tightened.

It’s just a bird.

I could feel the heat of its eyes on me. Polished black marbles. Charcoal beak shining.

‘Will you tell your parents about me?’ I said as I stood.

She didn’t answer immediately.

‘Please don’t.’

‘I said I wouldn’t,’ she said a little crossly. ‘So I won’t.’ Then she gave me a teasing smile. ‘Not today anyway.’