My Sister's Bones(50)

Climbing up to the wide path that will take us towards the cliffs, we are met by a trail of bright pink mussel shells that crunch underfoot as we walk. I stop to pick one up and marvel at its fuchsia hue. Turning it over in my hands, I lay it in my palm; it looks like a tiny broken heart. I scrape the sand from its centre and place it in my pocket. As we continue up the path I put my hands inside the warm folds of material and rub the coarse shell with my fingers. It is strangely comforting.

Paul has gone striding ahead and I run to join him, the blood pumping vigorously through my body. The air is clean and I drink great gulps of it down into my lungs as I go, feeling myself opening up with every breath I take. Up ahead, I see Paul standing on a narrow wooden bridge that connects the path to the steps that lead to the clifftops.

‘I remember this bit,’ I say as I catch up with him and we climb up the steep steps into a narrow country lane fringed with bracken. ‘It always used to scare me.’

‘Why’s that?’ asks Paul.

He has fallen in behind me and I can hear the quick puffs of his shallow breath as he walks.

‘It’s just so enclosed,’ I say. ‘It’s like, now, I can feel you behind me, but that’s fine because I know it’s you. But if I were here alone and felt someone walking behind it would spook me. There are too many curves, too many hiding places for people to jump out of.’

‘What, you mean people like Alexandra?’ says Paul, putting on a silly voice. ‘Woo, woo.’

‘Stop it,’ I say, without looking back, ‘or I’ll summon her. Then you’ll be sorry.’

I am relieved when the path opens up into a wide stretch of meadow and we pick up our pace. Gorse bushes cluster amongst the grass, with tiny shimmering yellow flowers dotted across their stubby fingers like jewels. In the distance a cockerel crows and I stop to listen.

‘The farms,’ says Paul, nodding his head to the east. ‘There are loads of them beyond the hedge.’

I smile as I remember going to visit the farm with Mum. We got a guided tour from the farmer’s wife and ended up having our tea there. I think Mum had been to school with her. We left with a basketful of eggs and cheese and fresh milk. Mum was so happy that day; genuinely happy, not like the pretend smile she wore when we went to the beach.

The low groan of a cow answers the cockerel’s call and as we walk on I think of my mother, the country girl who had spent her life trapped in suburbia. She deserved more than what she got.

‘There they are,’ cries Paul.

He puts his hand out and points towards the shoreline. ‘The towers. Aren’t they spectacular?’

I look up and see the two towers of Reculver rising ominously out of the cliffs, the only remains of the Roman fort that had once guarded the bay from unwanted intruders.

‘The sisters,’ I whisper as we start to walk again with the towers as our guide. ‘That’s what we used to call them. I’d forgotten how beautiful they are.’

The wind pummels our faces as we walk towards the towers and I pull my hood up round my face to shield it from the biting cold. The site is heaving with day trippers and we have to wriggle our way through groups of tourists and harassed parents who are guiding their small children away from the edge of the cliff. It is a lot busier than it was when I was a child. Back then the only attractions had been the towers and the beach below where the bouncing bomb had been tested in 1943. Now there is a visitor information centre with a shop selling T-shirts and mugs and bottles of striped humbugs, and further up the hill an ice-cream van is doing a roaring trade from the queue of small children snaking its way around the path.

Paul goes on ahead and climbs over the low wire fence heading for the side of the towers. The wind is fierce up here and I steady myself as we walk towards what would have been the main entrance of the fort. From this angle it doesn’t look like a ruin but a beautiful complete building, its V-shaped facade dwarfed by the towers on either side. An optical illusion that’s just as breathtaking now as it was when I first saw it. I see Paul’s head darting in and out of the stones and as I walk towards him the building appears to crumble, spilling its rubble behind it like entrails hanging from a slaughtered body.

I step back to let a group of tourists past. They are following a tall man in a black trilby hat and frock coat. He speaks in a loud theatrical voice as he leads them deeper inside the ruins.

‘It’s been said that these towers are one of the most active sites in Kent for paranormal activity,’ he booms.

The tourists follow him, open-mouthed, as he continues. ‘You must agree there is a deeply disturbing presence here.’ He looks at them expectantly and they nod in unison. A woman in a purple waistcoat takes a photograph but the guide puts out a gloved hand. ‘Perhaps later. We don’t want to disturb the inhabitants.’

Paul jumps down from the rock he is standing on and comes to join me by the information board.

‘He’s talking about the children,’ he whispers, leaning towards me, and I shiver at the coldness of his breath on my neck.

‘Oh, that old story,’ I say, turning to face him. ‘Are they still trotting it out?’

I remember the tales of the children that were supposedly buried alive in the foundations of the fort. The legend was that they had been offered up as a sacrifice to consecrate the building. On dark and stormy nights their screams could be heard in the grounds of the fort. It was the usual fodder designed to lure tourists to the site.