The house on the cliff

He spoke in a formal, old-fashioned way, with some sort of faint accent, not foreign, but not ordinary either. “No-one knows I come here. I’m not allowed. I’d be in big trouble if they found out.” “I won’t tell anyone,” he said calmly. “I know.” We sat silently. I made an effort not to look around me, but even with my peripheral vision, I could see a lot. He had tidied the area in front of the opening. He must have picked up all sorts of detritus, pine needles and feathers, twigs, pinecones, and whatever else the wind had brought in the months of my absence. A clay water jug sat in the shade, stoppered with a closed pinecone. In a patch of sun, a grey shirt was spread out to dry. The stranger was living here…hiding here. He had more reasons than I did to fear discovery. I knew what I should say, but I was in no hurry. “I won’t tell anyone about you, either,” I said, at last. “Thank you.” He smiled and leaned more comfortably up against the rock behind him. He seemed entirely relaxed and at ease as he looked me carefully up and down. I tried to avoid his gaze, looking down at my battered tennis shoes which had string for laces and rust around the eyelets, at my tanned legs all covered with scratches and dried salt. The embarrassment! “You know you have nothing to fear from me, right?” The question itself confirmed it. “I was a bit afraid before, but I’m not frightened now.” “I haven’t touched your things. They’re all here.” My things, my silly little treasures; a paraffin lantern with a cracked pane, a faded blanket - the one Loxándra used to hang between two trees as a hammock and rock me in, telling me stories while the grown-ups took their afternoon nap - a yellowed black-and-white photograph cut out of a magazine, showing a three-mast schooner in full sail, a bottle of paraffin oil for the lantern. A biscuit tin containing a box of matches, several stale cigarettes, a notebook and a worn-down pencil, a faded deck of cards, some stones with holes through them, a few pieces of coloured glass frosted by the sea, an unfinished model boat hull made from pine bark. From the roof of the cave hung the prize of my collection, a stuffed kingfisher, looking moth-eaten, bald in many spots from the ravages of time, with the bright blue of its wings and gold breast-feathers faded. According to tradition, hung up this way it could forecast the weather by the direction of its beak. Once it had been the most precious thing I