The sun is bright. The cliff edge lies beyond a wall of gorse. There is a breeze, carrying the heavy coconut scent, making the air seem malignant, and so intense I can almost taste it. The yellow flowers are too abundant, the bushes too dense.

I squint. Again, I crouch low, trying to see the world from Alice’s perspective. There is a natural break in the gorse. I crawl through it, partly to stop myself from a rushed panic that will make me lose Alice’s trail, partly to maintain her vantage point. Above, there is the deep-throated cry of a gull, the dark tips of its wings visible. I want it to shut up, so I can listen for Alice, who must be near.

My progress is so slow, but the crucial thing is to follow accurately, rather than risk going in the wrong direction and losing her. A metre ahead, caught on a thorny branch, is a scrap of white and pink jersey. It must have come from Alice, so I am likely to be close. I rise, stumble through the last of the gorse, and come out the other end.

Now
The Miniature

Yorkshire, Wednesday, 10 April 2019

It is as if I have stepped through a tear between two worlds. After the silence, the sea seems to roar at me from below. The grass is so green and unexpected that its proximity to the salty water is impossible to take in. Crumpled beside a large rock to my right is a little girl. She is wearing white pyjamas sprinkled with pink fairies, and her feet are bare and bleeding. She is a metre and a half from the cliff edge.

She isn’t moving. I stifle a cry, smacking my hand against my mouth, and twist myself into a change of direction, towards her. There is the sound of a pop, from deep inside my own body. I hurtle downwards, breaking my fall with both hands. I lift my leg. My foot is dangling, as if whatever internal strings that attached it to the rest of me have broken. It ignores the signals my brain is sending to try to operate it. My ankle is tingling as if the worst case of pins and needles I’ve ever had has been multiplied a million-fold.

It happened in a heartbeat, a fluke because I turned too fast, at the wrong angle at the worst possible time. I have to bite down hard not to scream, because I don’t want to startle Alice. Did she see how close she was to the edge, and know enough to pull back from it?