Page 42 of Family Secrets in Inishbeg Cove

Seconds later, they heard the slam of the front door.

‘Do you think we should go after her?’ Madeleine asked.

‘She just needs some fresh air and space to process it all,’ Lucy said quietly.

Madeleine gulped. ‘She wouldn’t do anything stupid, would she?’

Lucy shook her head. ‘No, never.’

‘You two know each other so well,’ Madeleine said sadly. She sat back down again, knowing that Lucy was right. What she had told them had altered their universe. She had always felt an outsider with her own daughters – they seemed to know one another inside out; they instinctively knew what the other was thinking or the right thing to say or do, whereas Madeleine was always second-guessing herself. When had this distance crept in between them? she wondered. When the girls were small, they had been so close. It had always been her and her girls, they were a unit, but then everything had changed. With the loss of their father, Madeleine had had no choice but to step up. Suddenly the carefree young mother was replaced by a stressed woman trying to navigate life as a single mother, keep a roof over their heads, and pay off the mountain of debt that had landed on her doorstep. She threw herself into work and her efforts were recognised with a promotion, which had motivated her to work even harder. Each hard-won promotion, each rung of the ladder she had climbed, had been a chance for security for her and her daughters. When the time came for them to go to secondary school, she had chosen boarding school as it meant she could work longer hours and earn more money without worrying about childcare – but perhaps, with hindsight, she should have kept them closer. It had fostered their independence, which she had always seen as a good thing, but maybe she could have focused less on work and more on their bond. Perhaps she had been so absorbed with her job that she had overlooked her daughters.

‘Oh, Mum,’ Lucy wept. ‘So that’s why you hate this place so much.’

‘I don’t hate this place, but I guess I do associate it with a lot of bad memories.’

‘It’s a lot to take in. This has come as a big shock to both of us,’ Lucy said, wiping her nose.

‘I’m sorry.’ Madeleine wept. ‘I never intended you to find out like this, especially when you’ve just lost your grandmother.’

‘I’m sorry too, Mum. I said some nasty things tonight. I didn’t mean them, I promise, I was just overwhelmed by everything. And I’m sorry for how we’ve treated you over the years. I guess we have this version of you in our heads. We thought we knew the full story, but this changes everything. I’m so sorry, Mum.’

Madeleine pulled her elder daughter into a hug, feeling her heart beating in time with her own. ‘Oh, my love, we’ve all made mistakes.’

32

Faith marched over the rough terrain, picking a path across the stiff marram grass. A soft mizzle was falling and, as she ascended the headland, it settled into a mist. Her calves were burning from the climb but she didn’t care – nothing could hurt as badly as the pain in her heart right now. She was so consumed by her thoughts that she didn’t see a large rock that was hidden in the long grass until she had tripped over it. She stumbled and almost fell, but managed to steady herself at the last minute. She kept going as the wind howled and swirled in her ears. She passed the ruins of the famine cottage, its crumbling stone walls still standing strong after almost two hundred years in the face of the Atlantic gust. She continued climbing and soon she had reached the clifftop. The wind sucked her breath away and, the roar of the ocean made a cacophony. She stood on the edge, looking down at the waves whipping up a froth beneath her as they crashed and licked the sandstone cliffs. She took another step forward so that she was right on the precipice. She could feel the cool sea spray on her face and taste the salt on her lips. Her heart was pounding. She squeezed her eyes shut. She was so close, so close to the edge: she knew that just one wrong step could see her tumbling into the raging waters below, but she needed to feel it. She needed to feel what he had felt. She wanted to retrace his steps. Was this the spot where her father had stood? Was this the very place he had done it? Had he thought about everything he was leaving behind as he had worked up the courage to plunge off the cliff? she wondered bitterly. Had he considered how his wife and daughters might feel? Had they even crossed his mind at all? Or had he jumped without so much as a second thought about his family? She had so many questions that would never be answered. Had he been scared, just like she was now? Maybe his stomach was knotted, his body shaking, adrenalin coursing through him like electricity. Or had he thrown himself over with wild abandon, welcoming the free fall into the Atlantic? Had he felt free? Had he felt a release from the weight of his worries? she wondered. What if he’d had a change of heart at the last second, but a gust had taken him over the edge anyway? On a stormy day, a person could easily be swept into the wild Atlantic … but then she remembered the letter he had left for them. It was no accident; it had been deliberate.

‘Don’t jump!’ she heard a voice call out from behind her. She struggled to hear it over the roar of the sea.

She swung around to see a man running up the headland towards her. A black and white sheepdog was with him, running off its lead.

As he got closer, she realised it was Jack.

‘Faith?’ he said, cupping a hand over his eyes to see her better through the mist. ‘W-what are you doing up here?’

‘Leave me alone!’ she shouted back at him.

‘Look, whatever’s upsetting you, it can be fixed, I promise you.’ He moved closer towards her and stretched out a hand to her. ‘Please don’t do anything stupid⁠—’

‘I wasn’t going to jump!’ she cried indignantly, stepping back from the cliff face and away from his grip.

‘I’m so sorry … I-I thought … but why are you here?’

The dog came over and began sniffing around her ankles. ‘You were so close to the edge. You could have been swept over by a gust of wind!’ he admonished her.

‘I’d never do anything so selfish!’ she retorted. She might be her father’s daughter, but she could never do something like that.

‘Well, that’s a relief.’ He grinned. ‘I thought I was going to have to jump in after you, and I didn’t fancy leaving poor Setanta on his own.’

She narrowed her eyes, trying to figure out whether he was joking. ‘Hardly.’

‘So, what are you doing up here?’

‘I could ask you the same question,’ she retorted.

‘Well, I’m taking Setanta for a walk. He loves chasing the rabbits up here.’

‘I just needed to clear my head,’ she said.