“Mainly because it’s so open,” I answered. I plucked a sheet from a pile of clean washing and totted up all the myriad reasons why this was the only place I’d ever want to live. “Help me fold this, Kate. Let me see, I love the rusticity of the landscape, that we’re surrounded by such a sense of natural power, it—it makes me feel part of something big. Something so much bigger than myself. Something infinite. Maybe it sounds corny but, well, I feel closer to God, whatever, whoever God is.”
“Don’t you feel the woods closing in on you from behind sometimes, though? At night? When it’s dark? I mean, there are no curtains, and when the lights are on anyone could, if they were—”
“We can always draw the blinds.”
“But we never do, do we?” Kate said. We took a step towards each other in unison, touching hands as we folded the king-size sheet. I took the corners, matched them together and then we stepped back and shook out the wrinkles, before we stepped forward again.
“No, you’re right,” I said, concentrating on the folding. “We don’t ever close the blinds, do we? And I didn’t before you came, either. I can’t bear feeling closed in. Can’t bear the absence of light. Even when it’s dark, you’ve got the stars and the moon, the light from the Milky Way.”
It was true; the blinds were electric and could work as shutters against possible storms, but they were on the outside of the house, hidden behind stone, so I never even gave them a thought. Who wants to wake up in the morning enclosed in a box? Not me. I never pressed the button to draw them down. Ever. Now that the gate and fence were fixed, the only onlookers that could possibly get in were wild animals. Raccoons, skunks, wild turkeys, black-tailed deer, or maybe the occasional bobcat. Certainly nobody was going to crawl up from the side of the precipitous cliff below. Our only audience was the great ocean and the sky above, or condors gliding on an eddy of air. And, at the side of the house, the cathedral-like redwoods, pine trees, bays, and oaks. We were at one with nature. The wind would whisper through the canyons, through the forest, up from the ocean, as if it were talking to me.
“It’s like being outside, really,” I continued, now folding some T-shirts that I’d washed for Dan the day before. “I mean, when you’re on a walk, you don’t worry about being seen by invisible elements—the wind or the spray of the ocean. You blend in. You’re part of nature. Am I talking nonsense?”
“No,” Kate said, touching the diamond stud on her nose. “I totally get what you’re saying.”
It was the first time I’d had such a personal conversation with Kate. “I mean, this house is like an extension of outside, isn’t it, Kate? You’re simply inside nature, just a bit cozier, because you’re protected by her glass walls. The house is part of the view, blending in organically with the woods and rocks. The interior’s a shelter, I suppose, a sort of refuge. I feel safe here.”
“I love the way you make Cliffside feminine.” Kate threw her head back and laughed. I couldn’t get over how like the photo of her mother she looked in that pose.
“Feminine?”
“You said her walls. Her glass walls.”
“Did I?”
“Yeah, you did.”
“Also,” I went on, “there’s another reason I love this place so much.” I hesitated. Sharing traumas of my past was something I rarely did.
“Go on, you can tell me, I won’t bite.”
“I freak out in small spaces. When I was at primary school, I got locked in the art department cupboard by some classmates—”
“Class mates? You mean class bullies,” Kate said. She pushed her dark bangs away from her eyes and paired a couple of socks together.
“I think the lead bully girl regretted it though.” I didn’t elaborate. Didn’t let Kate in on the rest of the story, how I got my revenge with a pair of scissors. Chopped off pretty Emma Staunton’s long, silky braid when she had her back turned. I had always dreamed of having a hairstyle like that. But my mother wouldn’t let me have long hair, kept it pudding-bowl short—she cut it herself—because it was more practical, and she refused to pay for a hairdresser. The crunching sound—as I passed scissors through Emma Staunton’s hair—was so satisfying after years of her taunting,