The Rose Garden

‘I did.’

Felicity said that was likely why he had his eye on me. ‘Men always chase after the women who treat them the worst. You treat them nicely, they don’t notice you.’

Her tone was light, and yet there was a wistfulness behind it that I heard and understood.

I said, as casually as I knew how, ‘To change the subject, if I may, Mark said he’d take me on a field trip later, if the two of you would like to come.’

Felicity perked up. ‘Oh, yes? To where?’

‘The cave below the Cripplehorn. I’ve never seen it.’

Susan frowned. ‘What cave below the Cripplehorn?’

‘A smuggler’s cave, apparently. You’ve never seen it?’

She had not. Felicity was fascinated. ‘When would you be going?’

‘Just after lunch,’ I told them, ‘if the rain holds off.’

The rain held off. And after lunch the four of us, with Mark in front, trekked off on our adventure.

The dogs had howled a protest at Mark’s leaving them behind, but he’d been right. We couldn’t bring them. While the path along the coastal cliffs was not too hard to manage, when we neared the Cripplehorn itself the path became a challenge, slippery rocks descending in uneven steps towards the beach, with a red-lettered ‘Danger’ sign warning the rocks were unstable and that those who passed this way did so at their own risk. As if to drive home the point, a large red-painted box the same size as a mailbox stood next to the sign, with the words ‘Cliff Rope’ lettered in white on its front, a reminder that several times yearly some tourist who took this path had to be rescued.

But Mark went down with the sure steps of a mountain goat, and I went after him, carefully putting my feet in the same places he had.

Around us the black rocks rose higher and sharper, more slippery because of the spray from the sea. And the sound of the sea itself grew even louder as wind-driven waves hit the beach.

The beach would not have met the Californian definition of a beach – there was no sand in sight, just hard round rocks and pebbles worn to smoothness by the water, shifting crunchingly wherever I set foot on them, all grey and black and lighter grey with clinging strands of dark-green seaweed trailed across the stones.

I’d never been down here. I stood a moment on the slipping pebbles and breathed in the sharp, wet, salty scents of sea and stone, and found I liked the feeling of the wind-flung mist against my face. There was no ship in sight today, but I could very easily imagine one – the Sally, maybe – sliding darkly past the Cripplehorn and coming in to anchor while her men cast off the smaller boat to bring her smuggled goods to shore. I raised a hand to shield my eyes and squinted at the vision while I tried to make my mind up who to give her as a captain, Jack or Daniel … who would be the taller figure moving in among the others on the deck, a silhouette against the sails …

‘So,’ said Felicity, as she came crunching up behind me, ‘where’s this cave?’

Mark pointed. ‘There.’

In front of us the waterfall that tumbled down the Cripplehorn and hit the beach below in an uneven, narrow spray was flowing fast and full today, the streams that fed it swelled by all the recent rain. At times in summer it was no more than a trickle, but today it was impressive, as though it had somehow known there would be someone to show off for.

Susan, who’d taken her time down the cliff path, caught up to the rest of us now and moved past, looking hard at the waterfall, then at her brother. ‘Why didn’t you show me this ages ago?’

He gave her the same answer he’d given me, sort of – that she’d been too young when he’d played here, and when she’d been old enough he’d left off playing in caves. He seemed game to recapture the fun of it now, though. It was hard to keep up with him, dodging the worst of the wet of the waterfall, balancing carefully on the slick rocks. I looked down for a moment, unsure of my footing, and when I looked up Mark had vanished.

I stopped in my tracks in surprise. ‘Mark?’

His voice seemed to come from the solid rock. ‘Here.’

Then I moved to the left, and I saw it. The cleft in the rock was concealed by the fact that the opening faced the sea, sideways, so when it was viewed from the front all that showed was the unbroken rock of the cliff. And from the sea no one would notice it either, because of the cascading screen of the waterfall.

Mark waited till he was sure I had seen him before he moved forward and into the cave, and I followed. The sudden close of darkness was unsettling, but as my eyes adjusted to it I could see that it was not complete. Faint shafts of filtered light from somewhere overhead showed me the inward curving walls, the deeply worn and pitted floor that, while it lay above the tide’s reach, was still flecked with shallow pools of moisture everywhere; the remnants of a row of barrels, little more than bits of wood and badly rusted metal now, that had been left to moulder in the shadows.

More unsettling than the darkness was the sudden change in sound, as though I’d cupped a hollow shell against my ear and shut out everything except the rushing echo of the sea and the more stealthy and insistent dripping of dark water into unseen pools within the cave.

And then Felicity came in and broke the silence with a voice that echoed, too. ‘This is incredible.’

Behind me, Susan asked her brother, ‘Did you bring a torch?’

‘Don’t need a torch,’ he said. ‘It spoils the effect.’

I knew what he meant. Any light, let alone the hard beam from a flashlight, would ruin the secretive feel of the cave. I could see the appeal this would have to a boy playing pirates.