Random Writing: Raven's Edge, Chapter Four.

Later that evening Ann set out to end her period of celibacy. She called a friend and they went to nightclub on the front, like a pair of modern Moll Flanders, with a mercenary glint in their eyes. Her friend soon met up with a man she had softened up once before, and faced with the prospect of sitting and nodding at words she couldn’t hear all evening she set off on a prowl, to try and identify an acceptable mate. 

The more she prowled, however, the more depressed she became, and the more deeply ingrained became her prejudices against the inhabitants of the town. The men all seemed too fat, or too thin, or too tall, or too short, and over it all wafted a smell of stupidity that stifled the atmosphere, made the air sour and uncomfortable.

Eventually she collapsed on a stool and nursed a drink, and a man sat down beside her who was no better and no worse than any of the others, and proceeded to make a very direct and rather coarse sexual overture. Ann surprised herself by responding in kind and, feeling like an actress in a play, she left the club with him. She directed a taxi back to the hotel, asked him in for coffee, and with very little effort at all negotiated him into her bed.

She lay back and masochistically amused herself by observing his amateurish lovemaking, that pulled and prodded her in all the wrong places, accentuating the parts of her she preferred to ignore, ignoring those wished to be stimulated and caressed. This, she thought, is how a prostitute must feel, and for a while she enjoyed that fantasy far more than the reality. 

After what seemed like an age he finally heaved himself into a climax, and then, in what he probably considered to be his first romantic act of the evening, he kissed her deeply and passionately, his tongue exploring every corner of her mouth. For the first time she felt violated, and was disgusted, more at herself than him, and had to turn away to stop him seeing the bitter expression that she could not prevent from appearing on her face.

Ann tried to pretend she was asleep while he tried to get dressed without waking her up. She listened to him grunt for an eternity that saw her resort to playing show tunes in her head to pass the time. He even grunted putting on his socks. When at last the door snicked closed she let out a long breath and reached across for the clock, holding it high above her head to focus on it without her glasses. 3:37.

Although she was tired the bed felt hot and sticky, and an alien aroma filled the room, reminding her of the man just gone. She rolled over into the depression he had left, and the sensation briefly reminded her of Charlie. What time was it in New York? Would he be asleep right now?

Would he be making love to Jan, on her sheets, the ones she’d been so proud of, the ones that matched the curtains so well, such a bargain, everyone else seemed to have missed them...?

...Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn!

She kicked off her blankets so that they fell in a heap at the end of the bed, jumped up and stamped to the double window and threw it open, letting the march winds blow full into her face straight from off the sea. It was a breezy night, and the sea was smashing up against the cliff and showering up a fountain that came crashing down on the lawn below the house. Ann made a mental note to tell their neighbour why his lawn fertilizer wasn't working. She was surprised to find that some drops of the spray were landing on her, and for the first time it occurred to her that the house really was quite worryingly close to the edge of the cliff. For all Doreen’s reassurances that the house had been the same distance from the sea for over a hundred years, when the far end of the quarry finally gave in to the sea, it made her feel a little uneasy.

She moved to stand by the window’s edge and looked out. If she looked down, over the cliff edge, she could just see odd flecks of white foam, and further out the sea was a deep black. To her left the lights of the town twinkled and lit up the cloudy sky a dull orange. Looking to her right she saw…

A man. On the very cliff edge, standing there in the moonlight, naked from the waist up, the wind blowing through his hair, arms outstretched, looking like a character from the cover of a cheap romance novel. The spray from the sea was splashing him and rocking him, and every plume threatened to pull him down with its fall.

Ann paused for a brief moment whilst she considered what to do. She felt she should ring someone, but didn't know which emergency service to call. She leaned over back to her bedside table and grabbed her mobile, pressing the emergency button as she did so. She would make up her mind whilst it was connecting her. Back at the window she looked back out at the cliff edge.

There was no one there.

She stood staring out at the cliff for a while, until a voice on the other end of the phone shook her out of her reverie.

‘Erm. Er. Well, coastguard, I guess’. Ann was uncertain. Were her eyes playing tricks on her? It was dark outside and she was very tired. Images of public ridicule flashed through her mind. ‘No, actually, scratch that. Erm…. I’ll call you back’. She put down the phone in a panic. What should she do?

She threw her ugly pink dressing gown on, the one her mother had given her after being described in painstaking detail the one she actually wanted, and the nearest pair of shoes, which happened to be the red high heels she had been wearing earlier, and then ran to the stairs. Then she ran back again, and quickly searched through her wardrobe ‘till she found her old trainers, which she could slip on without untying, and swapped them for her heels. After all, there was no point in rushing out to save someone if you fell down three flights of stairs and broke your neck in the process.

She got to the back door and shuffled cautiously over to the cliff edge. She looked left and right to check whoever she saw hadn't run some other way before cautiously getting on all fours and peering over the cliff edge. She soon had to rear back, however, as an arch of salt water rose up towards her, sending her sprawling out on the grass.

Quickly she got up again and ran back to the house. Hang public ridicule, she had to call someone.

Just under an hour later there was a knock at the door. The police wanted to check on the details. 

Did she recognise the person? 

No. 

Would she recognise them again from a photograph? 

No, it was too quick. 

Did she actually see the person jump? 

No, just somebody who was there and then not. 

Had she been drinking at all that evening?

Ah.

And what time had she arrived home? 

 Had she been having any emotional problems recently?

Hmmm.

Was there any chance someone could survive a fall like that? ‘Not on those rocks, and especially not at high tide. No, If there somebody’s jumped there they’ll wash up in Scarborough tomorrow. They always do.’

They would let her know if they heard anything.

They left, leaving Ann feeling like she might at any time receive a letter claiming expenses. She prepared to mount the stairs to bed, and then stopped. Her brother occasionally had some disturbed nights, he had said. Perhaps he had seen it?

Ann knocked very softly on the door before realising that was ridiculous. She then quietly turned the doorknob and peered into the room. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the light before she realised with some surprise that David wasn't there. The sheets from his bed were in a heap on the floor.

She turned round to find him just coming out of the bathroom behind her. He was wearing a towelling dressing gown and rubbing a pink flowery towel on his hair.

‘ Couldn't sleep. Too hot.’ He said, by way of an explanation.

‘Yes, I know what you mean.’

‘Took a quick shower to see if it would cool me down a little.’

‘Has it?’

‘A little.’

‘I don’t suppose you were looking out at the cliffs about an hour ago?’

‘The cliffs? No. Why?’

‘Oh, I just thought I saw something, that’s all.’

‘What?’

‘I just thought I saw somebody on the cliff edge.’

‘What, jumping, you mean? We've had that before. Usually daytime, though. One man jumped carrying his daughter. That was horrible. Did you see them jump?’

‘No. I'm... I'm  not really sure I saw anything. Neither are the police, by the sound of it.’

‘Oh. Don’t let it worry you, It was probably nothing then. I've thought I've seen lots of things out there at night.’

‘Right. Well, goodnight then.’

‘Goodnight.’ He went into his room and closed the door.

Ann sat on the stairs, staring at his closed door. Maybe it had been a vision, or just a trick of the light, but she knew now what the vision was.

It was David. Her supposedly weak, sickly, terminally ill brother.