Monday 18th August 1952

She hadn’t told her mother where she was going but had slipped out early before she woke. Betty had been easy to persuade; the housekeeper was far too soft a touch. She tied Jenny’s hair into a loose plait and tapped her on the back of the legs, telling her not to be too long. She did the smile that Jenny knew meant she was complicit in her secret.

She set off down the path behind the house, the air already warm, the ground giving off that sweet damp smell, soft from the recent rainfall. The sun was leaking across the sea as she looked down the garden and out over the cliff edge to the water beyond. There were oranges and pinks and a pale blue shimmering above it all. It always made her suck in her breath, how wide it was, how enormous, and there she was, this little ant, a speck really, sneaking down the garden and out onto the cliff path.

She looked back towards the house, guilty for a moment for not kissing her mother good morning. Her mother was up later and later these days, since her father had gone away. Her bedroom curtains were still closed, the dull cream fabric hanging still, Betty’s silhouette moving past the downstairs windows as she bustled about preparing for the day. Jenny swallowed the feeling that she shouldn’t be leaving her, desperate to be out and exploring. She loved the clifftop and the coves at this time of day; she had seen two dolphins the week before, splashing out of the water at the same moment before plunging under and doing it again. They had crossed the cove, the early-morning sun glistening on their backs slick with water. Jenny thought she’d never seen anything more incredible.

There was no one up on the clifftop in either direction, the path fell away from her on either side and she could see along it for ages. A shadow appeared on her side, startling her, a hand flying to her chest, moving quickly across her, a seagull, its enormous beak hooked and orange. Jenny felt her shoulders drop as it came to rest a little way off, on the top of a fence post, one wary eye watching her. She saluted it and ran off down the path that led to the little cove below their house. Perhaps she would find more shells for her collection. She wondered where the tide would be, how much of the sand would be exposed.

She dodged puddles, patches of mud drying at the edges, small pools of water collected in the bottom. Clumps of grass made the path uneven as she picked her way down to the rocks that formed a jutting, wonky staircase to a shelf overlooking the bay. There she could take off her shoes, jump down, and get sucked into the sand, the wet grains squelching right over her toes and feet. Sometimes she imagined sinking down further and that thought would make her heart pitter-patter a bit faster and she would scold herself for thinking it at all.

She was always careful when she made her way down, putting both hands out to hold onto the grass and rocks that seemed to emerge from the cliff face to help her. She would cling to the clumps of soil, find her footing and lean her weight into the cliff. She could hear the waves crashing against the rocks somewhere beneath her, relentless and unstoppable. Sometimes they sounded enormous, sometimes pathetic, as if they had no energy for it. Last week’s waves had been high, spitting white foam into the air to land back down on the already darkened wet rocks. She could smell the change in the air, the stench of seaweed and salt; she could taste it on her lips.

The sun was firmly in the sky now, pushing aside clouds. It was going to be hot and Jenny hoped her mother would want to sit outside today. She pictured the curtains shut again and then tried to push that thought aside as if she was the sun. She felt for the next rock, always careful here as it was the steepest part, checking the rock with her foot, making sure it was safe and secure before she lowered her weight down. She went to stand, moving her hands to find the next place, when a gentle gust seemed to brush past her and her left foot wobbled, her hands shooting out desperately to grasp onto something. She righted herself, sweat breaking out in her hairline as she seized a patch of long grass firmly in her fist, took a breath, surprised that she could hear it in her own ears. Careful, Jenny. She thought of her mother then. Just them now. Careful, Jenny.

She made it to the bottom and a smile stretched across her face as she saw that most of the cove was uncovered. She unbuckled her shoes, took her socks off quickly and left them on the shelf of rock, feeling the warmth of the stone as she prepared to jump down. Underneath the shelf to the left was a semi-circle of rocks, a deep pool carpeted in seaweed, a tempting place for crabs and smaller fish. She peered down to look at it, frowning when she saw something trapped between the rocks in the gulley where the sea washed in and out.

She jumped off the flat stone, felt the sand give and gasped at the sudden shock of cold up to her ankles. There was a strip of beach ahead of her still wet from the water rolling in and getting sucked back out again. Two birds flew high above, coming to rest on the ledges of the cliff with others already nestled in the walls. She felt they had come to watch and turned her body towards the rock pool.

Whatever was trapped was large, bumping up against the walls of the gulley in the froth and white of the surf. Jenny stepped towards it, her body in shadow as a rock ahead of her blocked out the sun, plunging the space into a dull grey light. Her eyes had to adjust to the sudden change and she blinked, freezing for a second as she thought she saw something impossible.

She could feel goosebumps breaking out on her skin now the sun had disappeared and she hugged herself to warm up. As she neared the rock pool the sea swept in, nearly reaching her toes and moving through the gulley, lifting the object to the surface. The sound she made was drowned out by the water draining away. A leg, she thought. A monster’s leg. She stepped backwards quickly, once, twice, falling down into the sand on her bottom, the water instantly seeping through the thin cotton of her skirt and underclothes. She scrambled backwards, not wanting to turn her back but needing to get away. Her hands sank hopelessly, her fingers covered in the grainy sand that stuck to her skin, speckled her legs and arms. The leg again, not at all the colour of human flesh, but a leg definitely.

Jenny finally managed to stand, wavering on the spot now, wanting to lift herself back up onto the shelf, clamber up to the clifftop, run up the path, through the garden, to the back door and into a warm embrace from Betty, who would smell of cinnamon and cigarettes. She would stay firmly nuzzled into Betty’s chest as her breathing calmed and she was able to tell her the story. They would telephone the policemen from the telephone box on the road by the lookout point.

But she would have to be sure of what she had seen; she couldn’t very well run all the way back and then make her mother get the police if she wasn’t sure. It didn’t look like a leg, it was double the size really and the wrong colour entirely. Perhaps she had dreamt it, confused things in the light.

She would have to check; she knew that now. She licked her lips and wiped the hair off her forehead. She heard the waves flood in, and back, taking their next breath, waiting for her.

Do it quickly, Jenny, she thought. As when Betty had pulled that thorn out of her foot in one quick swipe rather than tug at it and drag on the skin. She stepped forward, determined, quickening her pace and looping around wider so she could see right down the gulley. And there it was, trapped between the two rocks, the feet facing her, a whole body, no underclothes, a sleeve of pink mater­ial, hair fanned out over where the face should have been. It was enough. It wasn’t natural, didn’t look like anything she had seen or even imagined before. She knew that the image wouldn’t leave her. For her whole life it would be the worst thing she’d ever see.

She turned then, fast, diving onto the shelf, lifting her legs up quickly and pushing her feet into her shoes, abandoning her socks; they would slow her. The leather protested and stuck to her wet feet, there was sand all over her, coating her. She climbed swiftly, the clifftop impossibly far away, hands reaching, pulling herself up, not looking back at what she had left.

She couldn’t get the image out of her mind though. Her hand on the rock; the feet, blue and stiff, toes swollen huge like bumblebee stings. Her hand on the grass, heaving herself up; the hair splayed in strips across the skin. Her hand clutching weeds; the leg that didn’t look like a leg. Right up onto the clifftop, grateful for the whistle of the wind then, the sound of the water on the rocks fading, replaced by the cry of a bird. Jenny ran; the body rotating in the gulley, no clothes. She ran all the way to the house. The body in the water always with her.

Her mother’s face in the kitchen window, blank at first and then worried as she saw her daughter’s expression, her wet clothes. Greeted at the back door, urgent, hands on her shoulders. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

Jenny panting, snatching breaths, pointing behind her; the body bumping up against the walls of the gulley, again and again.