live in such a place. In whatever house people have lived, there will have been suffering, and happiness too, and if someone has gone so far as to kill themselves, then there has been extreme suffering. That I can accept, for I feel pity, not horror. To live freely and at peace in such a place is to show solidarity with the suffering of the past.’
Years had passed since that day which she now remembered, huddled on the clifftop. There were so few places left that were not steeped in blood, which you could say with certainty had not been the scene of some atrocity in the past. She liked this spot because she felt that it was not saturated with human experience in this way. She wondered where Markus was now, and what he was doing. It was years since she had seen or heard from him, and she regretted having lost contact with him. She had loved Markus.
The ground where she sat was turfy and springy. She leaned over a little tussock and examined it carefully, teasing out with her fingers the tiny plants of which it was composed, the mosses and the lichens. The combination of smaliness and complexity in the plants fascinated her. She put her head right down on the tussock as though it were a pillow, and closed her eyes, listened to the sea, the birds, the wind. She never regretted having come to live here. She opened her eyes and saw, inches from her face, a tiny spider scale a bladeof grass. Where was Markus now? She sat up and looked out over the ocean. Claire thought of the woman she had left back in the house, and hoped the period of time they were to spend together would go well. She wondered what Nuala was doing. Would she still be drinking tea? She imagined her sitting by the kitchen table, her hands around the teapot for warmth, looking out of the window at the headland which would be vividly green against the sky’s soft grey. Would she notice that? Claire knew already what she would find when she returned: the obscurity, as if a room could be flooded with darkness, just as it could be flooded with light. The dim warmth of her house suddenly seemed enormously desirable to her. Coming back here had been the right thing for her to do. She stood up and started to walk back.
3
AFTER DINNER THAT EVENING , they sat by the fire. Nuala leafed through some of Claire’s art books, while Claire pretended to read. She found it impossible to concentrate, and kept looking over the top of the book she held, to scrutinize her visitor.
It was less than a week now since her father had rung. She’d known at once that something was up, but could never have guessed what he was about to say to her.
‘Nuala wants to come and stay with you.’
‘Who?’
‘Nuala,’ he said. ‘You know, your cousin. Auntie Kate’s daughter.’
‘That’s who I thought you meant. She’s the only Nuala I know. Or rather, don’t know.’ Claire was mystified as to why her cousin would want to come and stay with her. ‘How long was she thinking of spending here?’
‘A couple of months,’ he replied.
‘Daddy, is this some kind of a joke?’
‘I wish it was,’ he sighed.
As he started to explain, the door behind Claire creaked open. She turned around and stared from the hallway where she stood back into the sitting room she had just left. A painting hanging there caught her eye. Itwas a small canvas: a still life in oils of a draped doth, some fruit, and a brass jug. It was an austere work, the objects imbued with the moral rigour of Alice, who had painted them; Alice, who had been prodigiously gifted; Alice, who had been in Claire’s class at art college, and who died within two years of having graduated. Claire continued to look at the painting as she talked to her father.
‘What exactly is the problem?’ she asked.
‘Well, it’s hard to know for sure. Kevin says she needs a rest, she’s very tired.’
‘Are you saying she’s depressed?’
‘No, not exactly. Kevin says there’s more to it than that.’
‘Oh great,’
Terry Ravenscroft, Ravenscroft