The House on the Cliff

She’d dreamt of owning that house ever since she was little and nothing was going to stand in her way

- BERNADETTE JAMES

THERE’S a house on a clifftop near my childhood home that I ’d always believed to be mine. It hangs above the cliff edge as though it would like to take flight but can’t, anchored as it is by its granite foundations. Instead it gazes out to the sea and the sky above it with its square glass eyes, watching the seagulls whirling and the fishing boats bobbing on the white-capped waves.

The reasons why I believed that this was my house are numerous.

I’d known it since I was a child, from the outside at least, and had coveted it. We went to the beach below the house on most days in the summer, but I never saw anyone enter or leave. Other children were reluctant to go home from the beach, with backwards glances at half-finished sandcastles or the lure of one last dip. My wistful look was always to the house.

I loved its stature, the way it stood on the promontory as though it were in charge of its surroundings. It seemed to ignore the little people on the beach and the cliff paths, knowing that they’d come and go while the house would remain. It was almost arrogant in its posture.

No one else, at least among my family and friends, appeared to even notice it was there, much less comment on it or desire it. I didn’t dare to draw their attention to it – what if they took note of it the way I had and saw its charms for the first time? But I did once, when I was a little older, ask a friend what he thought of the house.

“That old thing?” he said. “It’ll be cold and draughty, probably end up in the sea before too long.”