Chapter 12 #2
Lucy must have sensed that she didn’t want to talk about it, because she fell silent, but as the sheep pasture gave way to neat rows of Whitehaven’s terraced houses, Claire found herself remembering more than she wanted to.
The push and pull of friendships she didn’t really understand.
The feeling that she was underwater and everything was happening on dry land.
The poor reports from school, the teachers with their pitying smiles, saying in hushed voices to her parents, “Claire’s not really an academic girl, is she?
” Her father’s compressed mouth, his hand heavy on her shoulder, her mother’s fluttering movements, and over all of it the sense of always disappointing people that rested on her like a leaden mantle.
Those years in primary school with Rachel had been the one bright light amidst all that oppressive darkness.
But she’d turned away from it, for no good reason.
Not that Rachel had really minded. They’d both dropped their friendship as if it hadn’t meant anything, and maybe it hadn’t. They’d been little kids, after all.
Whitehaven with Lucy was far more enjoyable than the pointless afternoons and evenings Claire had spent with a gaggle of Wyndham girls, standing by uncertainly while they nicked makeup and tried to get in to the dance clubs with fake IDs.
Lucy regaled her with a story of how she’d had to buy a bra for the head teacher’s daughter, which made Claire both laugh and shake her head in amazement at Lucy’s determined meddling and endless good cheer.
“But it all worked out in the end, because we’re dating now,” Lucy finished.
“You’re dating the head teacher?”
“Alex, yes. It’s still somewhat early days, though, so . . .”
“If you’ve bought his daughter a bra, you have a deeper relationship than I ever did with my fiancé.”
Lucy looked at her with a cringing mixture of compassion and curiosity. “Why do you say that?” Lucy asked, her voice terribly gentle.
“Oh, it just wasn’t that deep a relationship,” Claire said, trying to sound dismissive. “Which makes me sound terribly shallow, I realize. I’m sure Hugh is an interesting and dynamic person, but I never really got to know that part of him.”
She snuck a glance at Lucy, who was now looking both fascinated and appalled. “But why did you agree to marry him, then?”
“Because . . .” Claire bit her lip. There was nothing she could say that would make her come out looking good in this scenario. “Because I knew my parents wanted me to,” she finished. “And I haven’t had too many real romantic relationships. We got along on the surface, and that seemed enough.”
Lucy nodded slowly. “I spent years trying to impress my mother. Trying to win her love, really. I’ve finally stopped, mostly, but it was hard. I think it’s human instinct to want to gain our parents’ approval and love, especially if they seem reluctant to give it.”
“Maybe,” Claire agreed. She’d never had her parents’ approval, but she thought she’d had their love. Their overwhelming, suffocating, sacrificial love.
She and Lucy spent a happy hour in the art shop, buying supplies for the Easter crafts at the fair, and then over huge cups of coffee at the Costa on King Street Claire worked up the nerve to tell Lucy about her idea of the shop having a stall at the Easter Fair.
“I think that’s fab,” Lucy exclaimed.
“Dan doesn’t—”
“Let me work on Dan. He’s had a hard time, you know.”
“Has he?” Claire was curious about her boss, but she kept herself from asking for details. “Don’t pressure him into doing it,” she said. “He seemed quite . . . final. I think it would annoy him, actually, to know I’d been talking to you about it.”
“He could come around. . . .”
“I’ll talk to him again,” Claire said. Even if the thought of it made her toes curl in trepidation.
Sunday Claire spent pottering around the house, tidying up even though Rachel had left everything spotless and then making herself a curry from scratch.
She’d bought the ingredients while she’d been in Whitehaven with Lucy, and she’d enjoyed cooking for herself.
When she’d lived with Hugh, they’d always eaten takeaway or in restaurants.
Everything about their life had been glamorous and yet transient; Hugh’s flat had come furnished in a lot of black leather and marble and chrome, and Claire hadn’t put much of a stamp on it.
When he’d asked her to move in with him, after they’d gotten engaged, she’d put her clothes in the guest bedroom’s cupboard because Hugh’s perfectly pressed shirts and hand-tailored suits had filled the one in the master bedroom.
She’d kept her toiletries in her wash bag and had only put her toothbrush in the glass with Hugh’s with trepidation.
Her carbon footprint on Hugh’s apartment, even on his whole life, had been incredibly light.
She suspected it was already gone. And even though it made her feel a little bit ashamed, she didn’t mind.
Losing Hugh had never hurt; in fact, it had been almost a relief.
He still hadn’t rung her, and Claire recognized that she would have to call him at some point. She wondered what he would say, if he would prevaricate or bluster or just plain lie. She decided she didn’t want to find out. Not yet, anyway.
After she’d cleaned up her curry, she decided to take a walk along the coastal path that ran along the sea for the whole length of the village.
It was spectacular on a sunny spring evening; although the wind off the water was chilly, the sunlight was brilliant, gilding the sea in gold.
In the distance Claire could see the violet smudges of the Isle of Man.
The cliffs leading down to the beach were yellow with budding gorse; rabbits darted in and out of the tussocks, and the waves crashed onto the shore below.
Claire couldn’t see a single person anywhere, and she felt herself relax, her breathing evening out, her shoulders losing the tension she felt as if she’d been carrying forever.
This was so much better than a hot rock massage at Lansdowne Hills.
She sat down on a weathered bench by a lookout point, the tufty gorse-covered cliff jutting out towards the sea.
Gulls wheeled above, their cries still audible over the crash of the surf.
At that moment Hartley-by-the-Sea seemed like one of the most beautiful places on earth, and she wondered why she’d ever left.
Then Claire saw there was a person sitting right on the edge of the cliff, legs dangling down towards the beach fifty feet below.
Alarm jolted through her, because she might feel like an offcomer, but she knew the cliff eroded a few inches or more every year, and if you walked too close to the edge, the clay soil could crumble beneath you.
“Excuse me . . .” she began uncertainly, fearing some ignorant tourist was about to meet an untimely end. When the figure turned to look over her shoulder, the words died on Claire’s lips. It was Rachel.
Rachel’s shoulders sagged and she let out a sigh that even Claire could hear. “Oh,” she said flatly. “It’s you.”
“Yes. Me.” Claire managed a smile. “What are you doing out here?”
“It’s a free country.”
“Of course. I know. I’m sorry.” She cut off the pointless apologies. “I meant, sitting out there, right on the edge? It’s dangerous—”
“I’m fine.” Rachel turned back to stare at the sea, and Claire sat there for a moment, wondering if she should try to make conversation. Rachel looked small and vulnerable sitting on the edge of the cliff, the sea spread out before her in an endless, undulating, slate-gray blanket.
“It’s a bit like the rhododendron bush, isn’t it?” Claire blurted. She didn’t know where the words came from; the memory felt like snatching at a snowflake, slippery and fleeting and yet possessing its own beauty.
Rachel had stiffened at her words. “I didn’t think you’d remembered that.”
“I do.” Scrambling under the bush, trying not to get her knees dirty.
Whispering to each other, gossiping about the other kids, making up stories.
Blissful solidarity. Claire swallowed hard, and then, after a moment’s hesitation, she rose from the bench and started picking her way through the gorse, the thorns snagging on her jeans. “How did you get through all this?”
Rachel glanced back at her, lips pursed. “Not easily.”
Claire finally made her way through the bushes and stood about a foot away from the edge of the cliff, not sure if she should join Rachel by sitting down, or even if she wanted to. It didn’t seem like Rachel wanted her to.
Then Rachel scooted over, and Claire saw she was actually sitting on the thick, twisted roots of the gorse patch.
They’d jutted out from the soil and provided a nature-made bench.
With seeming reluctance Rachel patted the space to next to her, and gingerly Claire sat down.
She didn’t like the sensation of her legs dangling down, touching nothing, but Rachel didn’t seem to mind it.
“So what do you remember about the rhododendron bush?” Rachel asked.
“I remember us sitting under there,” she began. “Talking.”
“Right.” Rachel stared out at the sea. “Do you even remember us being friends, Claire?”
“Yes, of course I do.”
“But not much.”
“Do you have a lot of memories of when you were seven?” Claire asked, slightly stung.
“Enough,” Rachel answered flatly, and looked away.