The Cliff House: A beautiful and addictive story of loss and longing

A triumphant holler from Granfer intruded on my thoughts. He patted my knee with excitement and launched forward to slot the piece of puzzle he’d found into the space that matched it in the jigsaw. It was a section of sky, half-cloud, half-blue, and he jabbed it vigorously into place.

‘Well… that’s one step… closer to finishing. Only another two… hundred and fifty-seven… to go.’ He beamed at me, revealing his crooked stained teeth, and a glint of gold from an ancient filling. ‘I’ll have… it done in a… jiffy.’

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

‘Ta, love.’ His eyes drifted back to the pieces again. ‘With two and a half… please.’

‘Mum says no more than one.’

He made a face.

‘So don’t tell her, okay?’

He winked and tapped the side of his nose. As he did he erupted into a fit of coughing. Though I’d seen this a hundred times – coughing, spluttering, fingers bent into claws as they dug into the arms of his chair – it still shocked me. You’d have thought I’d got used to it, but each time, with each attack, I was terrified it wasn’t going to stop until his oxygen-starved body collapsed dead on the floor.

I reached for his hand and rubbed it helplessly. His eyes widened and the whites turned bloodshot as the effort of pulling air into his ravaged lungs popped capillaries in tiny scarlet explosions. He struggled to get his handkerchief from his sleeve and to his mouth.

I jumped up and went to the bed. Dragged the oxygen tank close enough to get the mask over his head. As I moved his hand out of the way to position it over his nose and mouth, I tried not to look at the blood on the cotton of his handkerchief.

‘Breathe, Granfer.’ His body was rigid as if somebody was sending an electric charge through him. ‘Breathe.’ The plastic mask misted and cleared with the breaths he managed to draw in. I chewed my lip, wondering if I should leave him to shake Jago awake, but just as I was about to stand up, the tortured gasps seemed to abate and Granfer’s face lost its violent purple hue. I glanced down at the smear of dark blood on the handkerchief. He caught me looking and balled it up to hide it.

When I was younger I used to daydream he had a transplant, that his black and shrivelled lungs were cut out and fresh pink ones sewn into their place. I’d imagine him waking from the anaesthetic with silent breathing, air slipping in and out of him discreetly and without pain. I’d see him flying kites on Sennen Beach with me and Jago, or rowing us out to catch mackerel and ling which we’d later bake into a stargazy pie, little fish heads poking out from the pastry with their eyes cooked to a cloudy grey.

‘I’ve met a friend,’ I said, when his body lost the last of its rigidity. ‘She lives in the white house on the cliff. You know the one? The one Dad loved.’

He gestured for me to lift up his mask and I did, leaving it on his forehead like a jaunty Christmas party hat. ‘Is she as nice… as Penny?’

Granfer had only met Penny once. It was a few years ago when she knocked on our door with a school sweater of mine.

This is Tamsyn’s.

My heart had skipped when I recognised her voice. Someone from my school at our house? It felt dangerous and unsafe, as if two planets had veered off orbit and crashed into each other.

She’s here… Do you… want to see… her?

No, it’s fine—

Tamsyn!

Then he’d collapsed into one of his fits and I’d run out from my hiding place behind the door in the sitting room to make sure he was okay. Penny was eyeing my grandad with thinly veiled revulsion. I noticed he had a globule of mucus threaded with blood on his sweater. I wiped it off with my sleeve then slipped my hand into his and squeezed. I faced her, pushing back my shoulders and raising my chin. She thrust out my sweater.

I picked it up by mistake.

I gave her the evils as I took it but she didn’t notice because she’d gone back to staring at Granfer.

Thanks then.

Penny forced a tight smile and stepped backwards off the doorstep.

Mum said to say hi to yours.

Then she was gone like a dog from the traps. Penny was the only person from school who’d ever come to our house and because of this Granfer had decided she was my best friend.

‘She’s nicer than Penny,’ I said.

‘Must be… a cracker then.’ He smiled and lowered the mask and went back to the jigsaw pieces, with the sound of oxygen hissing softly in the background.

I left his room and stood outside Jago’s door. I paused to listen. I wanted to wake him so he could tell me not to worry about Granfer’s fit. He always managed to calm me. But I knew if I dragged him from sleep he’d be cross and would probably refuse to talk to me, so instead I went back into my box. I called it my box because that’s what it was. A room with only enough space for a bed and a small bedside table. The door didn’t open fully and hit the bed before it was even halfway. There was a shelf that ran around the top of the room which Dad had made before I was born when they decided to use the box room for my cot rather than make Jago share with a baby. It held my clothes and although I could only get to it if I stood on my bed it was fine as long as I kept them in neat folded piles. My underwear was under the bed in a wooden crate that had once held oranges from Spain, and beside it was another box which contained all my other bits and pieces including my scrapbook.

I slid the box out and retrieved the scrapbook then sat cross-legged on the bed and slowly leafed through it. There was the yellowed newspaper cutting that made the announcement of the date and time his memorial plaque was to be unveiled at the RNLI station in Sennen. Then the small red flower I’d picked from a bush at the churchyard on the day we buried him, which was now dry and crispy. There were photographs too. One of me on his shoulders, his hands clasping my ankles, the remains of an ice cream smudged over my face. My favourite was the one of me and Jago, arms around each other, heads tipped close with Dad behind us, all posing beside the sandcastle we’d built and smiling at Mum behind the camera. Three sets of happy eyes squinting into the sunshine.

I made the scrapbook when I was twelve. Nineteen months and twenty-three days after he died. Mum had taken me to the Cape surgery, desperate for anything which might help me sleep through the night.

She has nightmares.

Mum had paused and rubbed her face hard, tears welling in her exhausted, bloodshot eyes.

The doctor glanced at the clock on the wall and cleared his throat impatiently. He leant forward, elbows on knees, close enough to suffocate me with his nasty aftershave and told me to fill a scrapbook with things which reminded me of Dad. Happy things. Memories. Mum was unconvinced and grumbled about the quack doctor all the way to Ted’s as I jogged to keep up with her. But she did as she was told and bought a scrapbook made of coloured sugar-paper and a glue stick. It didn’t stop my nightmares but I loved making it and when I felt tense it definitely calmed me. I was glad the doctor suggested it.

My brother’s door creaked open and I heard his footsteps going towards the bathroom. I closed the book and slipped it beneath my pillow for later, then went into his room. I sat on his unmade bed – still warm from his body and smelling of cigarettes and unwashed sheets – to wait for him.

‘Morning, half-pint,’ he said as he came back in, hair ruffled, eyes gummed up with sleep.

‘You know it’s after lunchtime, don’t you?’

He ignored my comment. ‘First day of the holidays?’

I nodded.

‘Bored already?’

‘No.’ I reached for the copy of Playboy which lay on the chest of drawers beside his bed and idly flicked through it while he dressed. I paused to look at a dark-haired girl with wet lips the colour of bubblegum who splayed her legs to reveal her privates without any shame at all.

‘Blimey,’ I said. ‘Not leaving much to the imagination is she?’

‘Get off that,’ he snapped, as his head emerged from his faded AC/DC T-shirt. He snatched it from me then opened his top drawer and stuffed it under his pants and socks.

‘Why do you want to look at pictures like that anyway?’

‘I don’t look at the pictures. I buy it for the stories and articles.’

I laughed. ‘Yeah, right.’

His irritation slipped for a second or two to reveal a brief smile. He smiled so rarely these days which was such a shame because when he did it made his eyes sparkle and he looked even more handsome. His eyes were definitely one of his best features. They were hazel, and the exact same shade as his hair. Colour-coordinated, according to Mum. But they were nearly always dulled by sadness. Laughter replaced by melancholy. His spirit sucked out, leaving just the pretty packaging. Dad dying was bad enough, but then the mine closed and took his job and in the months since then he hadn’t been able to find work. The guilt bore down on him. Dad had been big on work and responsibility, believed with passion that everybody should pay their own way in the world.

Graft, he called it.

Graft. That’s all I expect. You can’t hold your head up if you’re not willing to graft.

Mum had tried to hide her fear when Jago told her the mine was done for. White faced, she’d sat at the table and leafed through the red-topped bills to work out which ones needed paying soonest.

It’ll be okay, love. You’ll get another job soon. I know you will.

Wracked by the weight of responsibility, his face had fallen. I’d seen that look on him before. The day after our father died. I’d walked into the kitchen and found him huddled on the floor with his arms clutched around his legs and his cheeks stained with dirty tear-tracks. I was ten, mad with hunger, and even though I’d knocked and knocked, Mum hadn’t come out of her room. I told him I was starving but he didn’t reply. He didn’t even move, not a muscle, and it scared me. It was as if he and Mum had stopped working. As if their batteries had run out.

Jago?

I knelt down next to him and put my hand on his knee.

Jago? Can you hear me? It’s like rats gnawing my belly up.

Maybe it was because I used Dad’s words – what he used to say to us when we were starving hungry – because Jago seemed to click back on. He turned to look at me and I could see his brain whirring behind his eyes. Then he gave a purposeful nod and stood. I sat on the floor, stomach rumbling, and watched him silently walk to the cupboard and get out a pan. Then he took a wooden spoon from the drawer and three eggs from the rack, and set about scrambling them, cracking each into a mug and whisking them with the fork. After he’d heated the eggs on the gas he tipped them onto a slice of toast on a plate and put the plate on the table with a fork beside it. Then he walked back to me, reached for my hand and led me to the table. I stared at the eggs. Two tiny bits of shell decorated the top.

He noticed me looking and picked them out with his fingers.

Eat up, Tam.

The eggs weren’t bad, but I couldn’t take more than a mouthful. I think my tummy was hurting because of crying not hunger, because the food was too hard to swallow and got stuck in my throat like lumps of rock. Jago squeezed my hand and we both sat and stared at the cold egg.

I’m the dad now, aren’t I?

His whispered voice had cracked the silence in two.

I often look back and wish I’d told him, No, of course not, you’re a child who’s lost his father. But I didn’t. I was frightened and sad and missed my dad so much I could hardly breathe. Right at that moment, having Jago as my dad was a better prospect than having no dad at all. So I looked at him and nodded solemnly.

Yes, you are. You’re the dad now.

Jago and I heard the front door open then close, and then Mum call up to tell us she was home.

‘Right, I’ll see you later, half-pint. If she asks just say I’m doing a shift at the yard, okay?’ He grabbed his jacket and pouch of tobacco from the chest of drawers.

‘When are you going to tell her?’

‘Tell her what?’

‘That you don’t actually have a job at the yard.’

He stopped dead, defences up as if I’d flicked a switch. He glared at me. ‘You serious?’

‘You shouldn’t lie to her.’

‘I’m not lying to her.’

I raised my eyebrows.

‘I’m giving her money, aren’t I? She doesn’t need to know where it comes from.’

I didn’t reply, hoping my silence would convey my disapproval.

‘Jesus, Tam. What? You’re the honesty police all of a sudden?’ He gave me a look. ‘I know you lie too, so don’t get all high and mighty.’

I had a flash of the key with the green tag which I’d slipped back into the tin and the rainbow dress that hung in her wardrobe, still damp from my swim, so I relented, nodding, and said,‘Sure, if she asks me, I’ll tell her.’

Mum’s footfalls sounded on the stairs and he swore under his breath. The door opened and he moved to go past her with muttered words I couldn’t decipher.

She stepped in front of him. ‘Can I have a quick chat?’

‘I’m late.’

‘Jago—’

But he was gone, feet hammering down the stairs, ears closed to her. The front door slammed and the walls around us shuddered.

‘Don’t slam the door!’ she shouted. Then she turned to me and forced a light smile. ‘What’s he late for?’ Mum was trying her hardest to sound casual and disinterested.

‘The yard.’ I fixed my eyes on the floor.

‘Again? That’s good. Maybe Rick’ll offer him something full-time.’

I nodded, knotting my fingers into the duvet on his bed, then glanced up at her. She stared at me for a moment or two, waiting, I think, for more information, but then she took a weary breath and gave a quick nod.

‘Cup of tea?’ she asked as she scooped up an empty mug and a sausage roll wrapper from his chest of drawers.

‘That would be nice.’ I was relieved we were safely off the subject of Jago and Rick. Tea was safe. ‘I said I’d get Granfer one, but I haven’t made it yet.’

I followed her out of his room but as we reached the stairs she glanced back at me briefly with a sudden air of awkwardness. ‘Gareth dropped me home. He’s come in for a cup too.’

My stomach leapt up my throat and I stopped dead. ‘But why?’

‘It seemed rude not to ask him in.’ Her eyes flickered from side to side avoiding mine as her lips twitched with obvious discomfort.

I suppose I shouldn’t have been so shocked. Gareth had spent years trying to wheedle his way into our house and he’d clearly succeeded in wearing her down.

‘Oh, love, no need to look like that. It’s not for long.’

‘You know, I don’t want the tea now. I fancy a walk. Will you put two sugars in Granfer’s tea?’ Emotion sprung up and choked my words so I had to fight to stop from crying. ‘I know you don’t like him having more than one, but I promised. And he… he had a pretty bad turn earlier so—’

‘Tamsyn—’

‘It’s fine. I need some air, that’s all.’ I tried to move past her but she grabbed my arm. We looked at each other, neither of us said anything for a moment or two, until finally her eyebrows knotted and she forced a weak smile.

‘It’s just a cup of tea,’ she said softly.

Biting back tears, I eased my arm out of her grip, and ran down the stairs. As I passed the kitchen, I caught the shape of him out of the corner of my eye, and bolted my gaze to the floor as I grabbed my bag off the hook.

‘Tamsyn!’ Mum called.

As soon as I was safely out of sight of the house, I leant back against the wall and kicked it a couple of times with my heel.

It’s just a cup of tea.

Irritation needled through me. I’d been so excited coming back from The Cliff House and now all I felt was angry. Gareth bloody Spence in our bloody kitchen having a-bloody-nother cup of tea.

I pushed myself off the wall and walked back to the corner of our road. Our front door was closed with no sign of Mum looking for me and Gareth’s crappy car was still parked outside. They were probably sitting at the kitchen table having a good old laugh about teenagers and hormones and slamming doors.

‘Get out of our house, Gareth bloody Spence,’ I whispered through gritted teeth.

I wasn’t going to go back. Not while he was there. No, I was going back to The Cliff House.

The car park was now filled with vehicles parked in obedient rows. I made sure to keep my eyes on the floor as I passed people. I had neither the time nor desire to exchange pleasantries with idiot visitors whose only concern was whether they’d prefer a pub lunch or pasties on the beach.

Relief flooded me the moment I pressed the binoculars against my face. Gareth bloody Spence was gone and she was there, Eleanor, on the terrace of The Cliff House.

‘Hello,’ I whispered. ‘I met your daughter this morning. Isn’t she beautiful? Just like you.’

Eleanor was lying on her sun lounger with a glass beside her and a glossy magazine in her hand. I twisted the dial to make her bigger, then refocused on her outstretched legs, which were scattered with beads of water like glitter. Her scarf was wrapped around her body and I felt the phantom touch of the silk against my skin. I imagined lying beside her, my leg bent like hers, my toe stroking the lacquered surface of the pool.

A movement over by the house caught my attention. It was him. Max Davenport. My stomach knotted as I watched him stroll over to her. He wore a pink collared shirt, beige shorts, and his blue shoes, and he carried a newspaper tucked under one arm. He stood above her, speaking words I couldn’t hear. She tilted her head to look at him, raised her sunglasses on top of her head.

‘You look comfortable, darling,’ I said under my breath. ‘Oh, I am, darling. Isn’t it bliss? Would you like me to fetch you anything? No, my love, I’m perfectly happy. I do love you so. Oh darling! I love you too. Who in the world could be happier than us?’

Eleanor Davenport lowered her sunglasses and returned to her magazine and he crossed the terrace to sit at the table where he shook open his newspaper.

Then I remembered Edie.

I lifted my sights to the windows on the first floor. Scanned them from left to right. Which was hers? I knew the one with the largest window on the far left was her parents’, but which of the other three rooms was Edie’s?

I moved the binoculars across and inhaled sharply. She was there. Standing at the window two along from theirs. Her palm rested against the glass. Was she looking at me? I dropped the binoculars as if the metal was molten and threw myself forward to flatten my body against the grass. I held my breath and, keeping myself hidden, I slowly lifted my head and raised the binoculars up again. I parted the grasses and manoeuvred so I could see through the vegetation for a better view of her window. I focused on her face. I exhaled. She wasn’t looking at me. She was looking down at her parents on the terrace below. Her gaze fixed. Face blank. As I watched she turned away from the window and slipped backwards into the shadows behind her.

I rolled onto my back and stared up at the sky. White clouds raced across the blue. I rested the binoculars on my stomach and coiled my fingers into the grass. I closed my eyes and the sun danced in patterns on my eyelids as I listened to the seagulls and insects scurrying in amongst the heat-dried grasses. I conjured Edie and allowed my mind to drift into daydream. I pictured her back at the window and instead of slipping into the darkness she caught sight of me and waved. Then she opened the window and leant out to call my name. My chest swelled with joy as I waved back at her. Then she beckoned to me. I heard myself laughing as I skipped down the grassy slope and ran along the path to the gate. I threw it open and strode up the lawn. Edie burst out of the house and ran down to greet me whilst Mr and Mrs Davenport stood arm in arm, her with the silk scarf wrapped around her, him in his soft blue leather shoes. They were telling me to hurry up. Telling me how pleased they were to see me. Then in the background I saw my father. He was sitting at the table on the terrace. He held a cigarette in his long slim fingers, a ghostly trail of smoke wending its way upwards, the sun draping him, lighting him up like an angel.

He smiled at me and, as I approached, he nodded his approval.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Tamsyn

July 1986

All I could think about was going back to The Cliff House to see Edie again. Reasons to go tumbled over and over in my mind as I lay in bed and stared at the cracks that fractured the ceiling.

Perhaps I could tell her the green-tagged key had fallen out of my pocket and my mother was furious and had ordered me to retrace my steps? Or I could tell her I’d lost a ring, or a bracelet, or a pair of socks. Maybe I could offer to show her around? Be her guide. Take her to Porthcurno and the Minack, to St Ives and Logan’s Rock, to Land’s End, or to Penzance to buy paper bags of penny sweets and watch the helicopters take off on their way to the Scilly Isles. I imagined walking her around St Just, our postcard-pretty town. Imagined my patter: Population four thousand, most westerly settlement in mainland Britain, until recently home to a thriving mining industry…

But even if I found the perfect excuse I still couldn’t go. It was Friday morning and on Friday mornings Mum cleaned at The Cliff House in preparation for their possible arrival. Of course, she had no idea they were already there, that they’d arrived early and with a daughter she didn’t know they had.

I lay on my bed and watched her through my open door as she got dressed on the landing. She took her cleaning clothes out of the airing cupboard, her stone-washed denim jeans, white T-shirt, a grey sweatshirt over the top. For work she always tied her hair into a tight ponytail, high enough to be out of her way, and her earrings were simple gold hoops. She didn’t wear any make-up, just some briskly applied Oil of Ulay.

‘You okay?’ she asked with a warm smile as she caught me watching her.

I turned on my side on the pillow and nodded.

‘You look happy snuggled up there,’ she said. ‘I wish I could come and jump in with you. But’ —she sighed— ‘no rest for the char lady.’

I was desperate to share the fact they had a daughter. A girl with white-blonde hair who was called Edie after très glamoureux Edith Piaf. But I stayed quiet. If I told her, she’d ask questions and I might let slip I’d been taking the key and letting myself in, which I knew would send her mental.

She closed the front door and I listened to her footsteps ringing on the pavement until they faded to nothing. My immediate thought was to get out to the rock with my binoculars and watch her in the house with them, but it wasn’t worth the risk. She knew about the spot where Dad used to take me. He’d taken her there too. Even as a boy it had been his favourite place to watch the sun set over the sea and spy on the gulls and kittiwakes and choughs. The chances of her glancing in the direction of the point were significant and if she saw me I’d have to explain why I was there. So I tried to ignore the gnawing lure of the house by keeping myself busy. I cleaned the kitchen, washed-up and dried, changed the sheets on Granfer’s bed then sat with him a while, listening to him attempting to breathe whilst grumbling about the godforsaken government who murdered the tin mines and this being the hardest jigsaw he’d ever tried to do. Then I made him a cup of tea with two and a half sugars in which made him wink and flash me his gap-toothed smile.

When I finally heard the latch click and the front door open, I ran to the top of the stairs, desperate to hear about the house and the Davenports and Edie.