had sunk into it. Rocks of the same increasingly omnipresent colour protruded from it, some wearing wigs of moss or seaweed, some warty with barnacles. The tops of a few had been hollowed out by waves and held water as if, Ellen thought, they were fonts for a primitive baptism or a more mysterious ritual. Did she need to quell her imagination until it was safely home? The calls of seabirds had begun to sound like the cries of children in a panic if not worse. They seemed oddly muffled, so that she wondered if any mischievous children were lying low in the rusty hull of a boat at the foot of the cliff, but it was full of clay and rocks. Ahead of it she saw the rounded bulge up which the trail snaked towards the dark stained lid of the sky, and she was making for the path so hastily that she almost failed to notice a movement within the cliff.
There was a hole in the clay, about the size of her head and slightly lower. She had the unwelcome notion that a face had peered out of it before withdrawing like a worm. It could have belonged to an animal, since the hole went deep into the cliff. It could hardly have grinned at her, displaying a mouthful of clay. She tramped towards it, holding her shaky breath, to quash the impression. Something moved as she did, back there in the dark.
Was it a rabbit? As she stooped with some reluctance to peer into the burrow, its denizen advanced to meet her. It was no wild animal, and Ellen recoiled, almost sprawling on her back. The tenant of the burrow shrank away just as vigorously, and when Ellen risked ducking for another look she was able to distinguish that the face was her own.
The reflection wasn't flattering. Surely it was blurred by the dimness or by the surface that was acting as a mirror. Had erosion exposed some uncommon species of rock? Ellen crouched, gripping handfuls of thigh, until she was certain what she was seeing. A mirror was buried at arm's length inside the cliff.
She was able to discern most of the oval frame and some of the handle, which was propped among the subterranean roots of a tree or bush, but her image in the smudged glass remained puffily shapeless. She couldn't really look like that. To prove it she planted one knee on the yielding sand, which made her feel yielding too, and reached into the burrow.
She hadn't fully grasped the implications of an arm's length. She had to grope blindly inside the narrow tunnel, catching earth under her fingernails, until she could almost have imagined that someone was inching the mirror out of reach. Her cheek was inches from the cliff, which filled her nostrils with a heavy smell of clay. She wobbled on her knee, and as her shoulder bumped against the cliff, her fingertips nudged a flat surface – the glass of the mirror. By stretching her arm as straight as it would go she was able to touch the handle among the bony roots. She strained her thumb and forefinger to dislodge it, and the bunch of scrawny objects shifted in response.
Ellen sucked in a breath that tasted of clay. The next moment she lost her balance, and the side of her face slammed against the cliff. Beyond the impact she thought she could feel the thing she'd mistaken for roots flexing itself, rediscovering liveliness. Perhaps it was preparing to seize her by the hand. It took her a dismaying effort to remember that she had another one – that she could use it to fling herself backwards. She barely saved herself from falling as her arm emerged from the passage. She wasn't certain that she saw the five discoloured twigs move, but the mirror did. It tilted just enough to trap her face, displaying how deformed it was, not only by terror, if indeed that could be blamed at all.
She didn't quite scream. She released an ill-defined cry that made her lips feel as unhealthily swollen as her entire face looked. It failed to rescue her from her nightmare, because she wasn't asleep. The mirror tilted further, turning her reflection into clay, and for a crazed moment she was tempted to reach for it again, to examine her face until she was sure of her appearance. Or might the remnants of a hand adjust the mirror? When she realised she was waiting for this – waiting like an animal pinned by headlight beams – she floundered away along the beach.
She couldn't use the path up to the field. It passed directly above the burrow, from which she could imagine an arm thinner than flesh sprouting to clutch at her feet the instant she strayed close. As she fled towards a road that descended to the shore, the sand kept slipping aside, twisting her ankles, until she had to hobble like an old woman. Eventually the beach grew firmer, but it was a trick: when she trod on it her feet sank deep into packed sand that was well on the way to becoming mud. She felt as if it were dragging her weight into her legs, swelling them out of proportion, except that they were no heavier or more unmanageable than the rest of her. Surely only her toil and the heat as thick as the low clouds were weighing her down. When she held out her hands as if beseeching an invisible companion, she was almost certain they were more or less the size and shape they ought to be.
Nevertheless when she finally arrived at the road up the cliff she was wary of encountering someone at the top – anyone at all. She didn't want to be near people while she couldn't tell the difference between humidity and her own sweat or as long as a thick smell of clay seemed to cling to her. The road was deserted, and she put on speed once it flattened out alongside the field where she'd slept. A hedge blocked her view, but the occasional gap let her see that the field was unoccupied. If anyone was hiding, so they should, given how their hand had looked. While Ellen wished she hadn't had that thought, she gave in to whispering the rest of it. 'Worse than me.'
Perhaps she imagined the muffled distant voice – if it was both, how could she hear it? – but she couldn't doubt its message, which felt buried in her skull. 'No,' it said.
FOURTEEN
The schoolchildren on the back seats of the bus found Hugh's ringtone hilarious. Even though they were sharing the kind of cigarette Rory had once offered him, they made him feel childish. Perhaps he ought to substitute the Frugo ringtone, the melody of 'We're cheap so you'll be cheerful'. As he cut the
'What's going to stop me?'
'You aren't busy at work.'
'I won't be there for . . .' He peered at the two-storey houses packed together on either side of him. Surely he'd slept off his bout of disorientation, which must have been some kind of summer virus, even if he was glad that the bus stopped at the end of his road. 'We've got plenty of time,' he promised Ellen as well as himself.
'Can I ask you a question, then?'
'Anything,' Hugh said and held his breath.
'What do you remember about Thurstaston?'
This was so much less intimate than he'd hoped or feared that his breath emerged in a kind of tentative gasp if not exactly a sigh. 'What sort of thing?'
'I don't want to prompt you. Whatever comes into your mind.'
'Us all being together. I wish some of us could be more often.'
'Just some?'
'I see quite a lot of Rory. Not so much lately.' Hugh tried to detain his retreating pluck by admitting 'It'd be nice to see you.'
'Do you think so?' With a weightiness he didn't understand Ellen said 'You're kind.'
'I'm not. I mean, I hope I am, but I'm not being now.'
'Anyway, we're talking about Thurstaston.'
Hugh felt rebuffed if not rebuked. 'So what do you remember?'
'I said I didn't want to prompt you.'
'I expect we all remember Charlotte sleepwalking best,' he said and risked adding 'I wouldn't have minded if it had been me.'
'Why not?'
Her voice had grown sharp, and Hugh's was ready to falter. 'Never mind. Just a silly idea.'
'Tell me anyway.'
Hugh could see no way out except to speak. As his face continued reddening he mumbled 'I might have wandered into your tent. That'd have been my excuse.'
He didn't realise the schoolchildren were listening until they dawdled giggling past him and looked back from the stairs to aggravate his mortification. 'Go away,' he blurted. 'Leave me alone.'
'I'm sorry if you think I –'
