The Girl on the Cliff (43 page)

‘You know, I was thinking the other day,’ Aurora said in her quaint, adult way, ‘how much more I like my life now. I was so lonely before I met you and Kathleen and John and Shane. And I love living on the farm. And now you’ve married Daddy, they are my real family too, aren’t they?’

‘I’m going to sit down for a bit now, Aurora,’ said Grania as they reached the grassy rock overlooking the sea. ‘Will you come and sit with me?’

‘Yes.’ Aurora sank gracefully to the ground and Lily came to snuggle into her lap. She looked up at Grania’s solemn face. ‘What is it? You have something to tell me, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I do, Aurora.’ Grania reached for the child’s hand.

‘Is it about Daddy?’ Aurora asked earnestly.

‘Yes. It is. How did you know?’

‘I don’t know, I just … 
did
.’

‘Aurora, darling, I’m not really sure how to tell you this, so I’m going to say it very quickly …’

‘Daddy’s gone, hasn’t he?’

‘Aurora … yes, he has.’

‘Up to heaven?’

‘Yes. He was very ill just after we got married and … he died. I’m so, so sorry.’

‘I see.’ Aurora’s eyes concentrated intensely on stroking the puppy on her lap.

‘But I just want to tell you, my darling, my darling Aurora, that you’re going to have all of us – your new family – to look after you. And,’ emphasised Grania, ‘not only am I your stepmother, but Daddy and I signed the papers which mean I will legally adopt you as soon as possible. You will be my daughter and no one will ever be able to take you away from me.’

So far, Aurora was showing no visible signs of distress. Grania’s own vision was blurred by tears. ‘You know I love you like my own child. I always have … somehow,’ Grania continued, wishing she could show the same amount of strength as the little girl in front of her. ‘Aurora, do you understand what I’m telling you?’

Aurora raised her eyes from the puppy and looked over the cliff top, out to sea. ‘Yes, I understand. I knew that he would be going soon. I just didn’t know when.’

‘Aurora, how did you know?’

‘Mummy –’ Aurora checked herself – ‘my
old
mummy told me.’

‘Did she?’

‘Yes. She said the Angels would be coming to take him to heaven, to be with her.’ Aurora turned and looked at Grania. ‘I told you she was lonely.’

‘You did.’

Aurora sat in silence for a long time before she said, ‘I’ll miss him. Very much. I would have liked to say goodbye.’ She bit her lip, and Grania saw the first glimmer of tears.

‘Darling, I know I can’t replace your mummy and daddy, but I promise you, I’ll do my best.’

Aurora was looking out to sea again. ‘I understand Mummy wanted him with her, but why does everyone I love leave me?’

Then she cried, great sobs that wracked her body. Grania pulled Aurora into her arms and sat her on her knee, rocking her like a baby.

‘I won’t leave you, darling, I promise,’ she murmured over and over again. ‘And Daddy didn’t want to, believe me. He loved you so very much. He loved you enough to make sure that you’d be safe with me and my family. That’s why we got married.’

Aurora looked up at her. ‘I think he loved you a little bit too.’ She wiped her tears away with her forearm and asked, ‘Are you sad, Grania? That he’s gone?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Grania, ‘I’m terribly, terribly sad.’

‘Did you love Daddy?’ asked Aurora.

‘Yes, I think I did. I’m just sad I didn’t have very much time with him.’

Aurora reached for Grania’s fingers and clasped them tightly. ‘So, we both loved him. And we’ll both miss him, won’t we?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then we can help cheer each other up when one of us feels sad about it, can’t we?’

Aurora’s bravery and strength was far more poignant than her tears. ‘Yes,’ Grania said as she held Aurora tightly to her, ‘we can.’

‘Where’s Aurora?’ Kathleen asked as Grania walked back into the kitchen.

‘She’s putting Lily to bed and she says she wants to go with Shane and check on the sheep.’

‘Really?’ Kathleen raised an eyebrow. ‘You did tell her? Didn’t you?’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘And how did she take it?’

‘Mam,’ Grania shook her head in confusion and amazement, ‘she said she already knew.’

Yes. I did know.

Though to explain ‘how’, exactly, is almost impossible. If I say I heard voices telling me, you will almost certainly, and with good reason, think I’m as mentally unstable as my poor mother, Lily. Let’s just say I had a ‘premonition’. Lots of people have those, don’t they?

Still, it was an awful shock, just as everything was going so perfectly. Grania married to my father … what I had wanted, and yes, I admit, had helped to engineer.

The change between joy and sadness happened in the blink of an eye. There was no time to ‘tread water’, to savour the moment for a few months, or even weeks.

Daddy had done all he could to protect me by marrying Grania and making it easy for her to adopt me. He showed his love for me in practical ways, as many men do. But I would have liked to have said goodbye in person, however awful he looked.

I wouldn’t have minded, because I’d known he was ill all along. And if you love someone, it’s not at all about how they look … it’s feeling their ‘essence’, one last time.

In retrospect, it was probably just as hard for Grania. Her life had been tossed into the maelstrom of our family’s storm, forced to adapt by a father desperate to protect his beloved child.

I read a book recently that explained how spirits travelled in
‘groups’ through time. They change roles, but are endlessly drawn to each other through an invisible connection.

Perhaps that could explain why Kathleen felt history was repeating itself with Grania and me. After all, she was kind-hearted and needy for a child to love when she met me, and I was the ‘orphan’ she took under her wing. Oh dear, Reader, I hope I’ve never behaved as callously as my grandmother, Anna, did to Mary. The Buddhists say we must come back to earth until we’ve learned our lessons and I hope that I’ve always treated Grania with gratitude and love. As, actually, I would quite like to move on to the next level after this. Nirvana sounds very pleasant. Perhaps I have some way to go yet, but I’ve always tried to be a good person. And I could certainly do with a new, stronger body …

I’m going to return to New York now, to the mess Matt is currently making of his life.

At this stage, I feel I can categorically say it’s all going horribly wrong. The question is: can Matt make it right … ?

Charley had moved into Matt’s bedroom the night they’d agreed to give their relationship a shot. She had, however, vetoed any form of physical contact due to her pregnant state. Matt had been relieved at this – at least it had provided him with a stay of execution. As he couldn’t remember the last time they’d made love due to his drunkenness, his mind could only flit back to when they’d previously been an item. He remembered their couplings as uninspiring and, for him, mechanical. Unlike the exquisite love-making he’d experienced with Grania, when he’d literally felt as if their souls were joined …

Matt checked himself from that train of thought, climbed out of bed and went into the bathroom to take a shower, thinking that Charley’s new status had other, annoying, consequences. For a start, her vast array of cosmetics – lotions and potions that could stock a beauty counter at Saks cluttering up the sink and shelves. Grania’s low-maintenance beauty regime – a pot of face cream had been her nod to it – not to mention that his clothes now inhabited an eighth of the wardrobe due to Charley’s vast array of designer garments, only underlined the differences between the two women.

As Matt searched out his razor, managing to knock a make-up bag into the sink at the same time, he tried to stem his irritation. He was the one, after all, that had said
they should give it a try. Charley had not pressurised him or even made him feel guilty. He mustn’t blame her.

However, she had already made noises about moving – suggested buying a house in Greenwich near to their parents. Matt was not enthusiastic about the idea. Yet, the fact that he and Grania – faced with similar issues only a few months ago – hadn’t given a thought to moving out of the city, didn’t make Charley’s wish to have her child breathe fresher air abnormal. When Matt had mentioned there was no way he had the money to provide that kind of home for them, Charley had dismissed his objections with a flick of her wrist.

‘Mom and Dad will help us, Matty. You know they will.’

Matt understood a little of what Grania must have felt when his own parents had offered to provide some help. He didn’t want Charley’s folks to give him anything. Charley had also turned to him the other night and asked him whether he really was set against going into his dad’s business.

‘I’m gonna have to stop work when this one comes along, even if only for a few months. And maybe,’ Charley had shrugged, ‘forever. I hate to say it, Matty, but what you earn will just about buy us a Filipino maid three times a week, not the kind of live-in support I’m gonna need.’

Matt dressed swiftly, glad that Charley had taken herself off to her apartment uptown to pay the final cheque to her interior designer. She’d taken Matt to see it last week, and Matt had goggled at the über-chic interior. Full of glass, chrome and white, its starkness was as welcoming as an operating theatre. Matt wondered how Charley could bear to slum it here with him in the loft. He fixed
himself a coffee and found an out-of-date bagel in the fridge. Charley was no cook – they’d eaten take-out solidly in the past two weeks – and Matt felt his juices flowing as he remembered the delicious ham and colcannon Grania had cooked for him regularly.

‘Shit!’ Matt checked himself. He could not continue comparing the two women. They were different, that was all. The real problem was that, to him, Charley measured up unfavourably every time. Matt sat himself down at his desk and switched on his laptop. He was writing a paper that should have been finished three weeks ago – what with everything going on, his concentration was all over the shop. He read through what he had written and knew it wasn’t up to scratch. He sat back in his chair and sighed. He could see very clearly where his life was heading. After all the years of avoiding an existence similar to his parents, he was already on his way towards it. He wished he had somebody to talk to … he was desperate. And the only person available to him since Grania was gone was his mom.

He grabbed his cell phone and pressed her home number. ‘Mom? It’s Matt here.’

‘Matt, it’s a pleasure to hear from you. How are you?’

‘Look, Mom, I was thinking I could do with a few hours out of the city. You got a busy weekend?’

‘We have some friends over for a barbecue tomorrow, but today your father’s playing golf and I’m here alone. Want to stop by and have some lunch?’

‘You’re on, Mom. I’ll leave now.’

The Westside Highway was clear and Matt arrived in his parents’ Belle Haven drive within forty-five minutes.

‘Hi, sweetheart.’ Elaine was on the doorstep to greet him with a warm hug. ‘What a lovely surprise. Not often I get my boy to myself any more. Come in.’

Matt followed his mom through the spacious entrance hall and into the large kitchen, stuffed with every conceivable appliance. His father, Bob, loved gadgets. He bought them for his wife every Christmas and birthday. Elaine would open them with a resigned smile, say ‘thank you’, then hide them away with the rest in one of the capacious kitchen units.

‘Can I fix you a drink, sweetie?’

‘A beer will do just fine.’ Matt stood uncertainly in the kitchen; now he was here, he wasn’t sure what to say. His mom knew Grania was gone, but nothing more.

‘So how’s life in the city?’

‘I … shit, Mom!’ Matt shook his head. ‘I’m not gonna lie to you, I’m in a real mess.’

‘Well, then,’ Elaine put the beer in front of her son, her eyes full of motherly sympathy, ‘you tell your mom all about it.’

Matt did so, and was as honest as he could be about the situation, though he avoided mentioning the fact he couldn’t even remember the night in question. He didn’t think Elaine’s sensibilities would cope.

‘So,’ Elaine recounted, ‘let me catch up. Grania disappears soon after she arrives home from the hospital. She takes off to Ireland and won’t tell you what it is you’ve done. There’s silence between you for months. And then you hear she’s married to someone else?’

‘Yup, that’s the bare bones of it,’ Matt agreed with a sigh.

‘Next, Charley moves into your apartment to keep you company, while hers is under renovation. You two become close and start a relationship.’ Elaine scratched her head. ‘And what you’re saying is you’re not sure of your feelings for her?’

‘Yes,’ agreed Matt. ‘Can I have another beer?’

Elaine went to fetch it for him. ‘So, you think you might be on the rebound?’

‘Yup. And,’ Matt took a deep breath, ‘there’s something else.’

‘You’d better fess up, honey.’

‘Charley’s pregnant.’

Elaine gave him an odd look before she said, ‘Really? You sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure, Mom. She’s booked in for a scan in a couple of weeks’ time. I’m going with her.’

‘OK,’ Elaine said slowly. ‘I’ve prepared a salad for lunch. Let’s go eat it on the terrace.’

Matt helped transfer the salad, plates and cutlery outside. As they sat down, Matt could see his mother was shaken.

‘I’m real sorry, Mom.’

‘Don’t be, Matt. I’m a big girl, I can take it. It’s not that, it’s just …’ she frowned, ‘something that doesn’t make sense. But let’s put that to one side. The question is, do you love Charley?’

‘Yes, I love her as a friend, maybe as a partner … I don’t know yet, Mom, I really don’t. I mean, sure, we grew up in the same place, know the same people … you’re friendly with her folks … what’s not to like? It’s easy,’ he sighed.

‘Marrying someone in the same world as you is always
easier. Of course it is, Matt. It’s what I did.’ Elaine smiled as she served the salad. ‘It’s comfortable, and familiarity can breed love. But it’s not –’ Elaine searched for the right word – ‘exhilarating. It’s a “safe” ride.’