The Soulmate by Sally Hepworth
For Alex Lloyd,
for all the last-minute changes.
1
PIPPA
NOW
‘Someone is out there.’
I’m standing at the kitchen sink, my hands plunged in warm soapy water. Gabe is beside me, supposedly drying dishes but mostly drinking red wine and singing to ?dith Piaf. He made coq au vin for dinner using every pot in the house, but if there is one thing to be said for my husband it’s that he knows how to create a mood. He’s dimmed the lights, lit some candles, even trotted out his best French accent. If not for the kids and my older sister Kat – who is perched at my kitchen counter – it might have been romantic.
‘Where?’ Gabe asks.
I lift my gloved hand from the water and point through the window. It is a woman, I think, though it’s hard to be sure, with the sun setting behind her. In any case, I have a clear view of a figure, twenty-odd metres away, beyond the edge of our property where the lawn gives way to a sandy walking path. On the other side of the walking path is a sheer drop down to the jagged rocks and the beach thirty metres below. It’s not uncommon for people to stop here and admire the view, particularly at sunset, but when they linger it always gives me pause.
‘There.’
I keep my voice quiet, steady. I don’t have the privilege of hysteria given the proximity of the curious four-year-olds.
‘Where are you going, Daddy?’ Freya asks, as Gabe reaches for his coat.
‘Going to catch frogs, poppet,’ he says without breaking stride.
Gabe is entirely unflappable. He’s your classic run towards a burning building kind of guy. He might emerge a hero. He might not emerge at all.
‘Call the police,’ he says to me, as he slides open the back door.
I remove my gloves and drape them over the tap to dry. Sometimes I wonder if I should be a little more like Gabe. More of a hero. Instead, I am a helper. In times of crisis, I am a creator of meal rosters, a procurer of goods, a collector of donations, a dispenser of information. Last year, when news of the pandemic started to filter through, my entire family – parents, sister, sister-in-law, sister-in-law’s parents – all called me to get my take on social distancing, masks and vaccinations, hanging on my every word and taking notes as if I were an epidemiologist rather than a wills and estates lawyer. I rose to the challenge, dishing out advice gleaned from reputable verified sources and subduing family panic. But the kind of emergency happening outside right now? That is Gabe’s domain.
I call the police from the next room – they don’t need much in the way of an explanation from me anymore. I’ve made seven phone calls like this since we moved to the cliff house, a year ago. Now, I merely say, ‘It’s Pippa Gerard – there’s someone on the cliff,’ and it’s sufficient.
It’s hard to believe now that we’d bought this house because of the cliff.
‘Imagine sitting outside on warm nights and watching the sun sink into the sea,’ Gabe had said the first time we saw it. ‘What a dream.’
It did indeed seem like a dream. A cliffside home in Portsea, a sleepy coastal town a couple of hours out of Melbourne, the last in a procession of increasingly exclusive beach towns at the very tip of the Mornington Peninsula? It seemed unfathomable that we’d be able to afford such a place, even if it was a ramshackle cottage rather than one of the sandstone mansions that flanked it. We were shocked to discover we could afford it. Being from the city, we weren’t aware of the notoriety of The Drop, where the tall cliffs had become popular among those wishing to end their lives. By the time we realised this was the reason for its relative affordability, Gabe was too in love with the place to let it go.
‘Do we really want the girls to be around this, Gabe?’ I’d asked him. ‘How are we supposed to explain it to them? And what if they wander too close to the edge themselves?’
‘We’ll put a fence up. And if they have questions about the people who come to The Drop, we just answer them in an age-appropriate way.’
Gabe had been so calm, so pragmatic, that it was hard to argue. And to his credit, he practised what he preached. The day we moved in, he had a fence erected around the perimeter of our land and warned the girls they couldn’t go beyond it unless they had a grown-up with them. And in the year we’ve been here, they’ve never gone beyond the fence, and they’ve certainly never seen anyone jump. They couldn’t have, because out of the seven souls who have come to the cliff since we moved in, seven have walked away. Gabe has saved them all.
‘What does he say to them?’ Kat asks, joining me at the window. She’s been working today, and her tracksuit pants and fluffy slippers are oddly incongruent with her fully made-up face. This is the first time Kat has been present when someone has visited The Drop, and she is clearly exhilarated by the drama, while trying to remain appropriately sombre.
‘He asks if he can help them with anything. Or, he might ask if they like the view. Anything to force them out of their thoughts and back into the world. Then he tries to get them chatting.’
We watch as Gabe approaches the woman, and she turns to face him. She is further back from the edge than they usually are, which I hope is a good sign.
‘The view?’ Kat says. ‘That really works?’