Page 49 of Together Again at the Cornish Country Hospital

‘Nathan!’ She screamed his name again, despite the futility of the effort, pushing forward once more, just as she spotted a flash of red about two metres below the top of one of the rocky outcrops. Edging close, she could see it was Nathan and he looked like he was clinging to the side of a narrow ledge.

‘Oh God. I’m coming, Nathan, just hold on.’ He wouldn’t be able to hear her, but she hoped he would somehow sense she was there and keep holding on.

‘Amy!’ The sound of her name was almost a whisper on the wind She was imagining it, she had to be, because she was certain she wouldn’t be able to hear anyone calling out. Yet when she turned to look over her shoulder, she realised she wasn’t imagining it and that Lijah was running towards her. Relief flooded her body and not just because it meant they had more chance of finding Nathan. She hadn’t realised just how much she’d wanted to see him again until that moment. She couldn’t think about why for now, she just knew she wanted him there.

Amy raised a hand to greet him, but she couldn’t wait, the wind was getting more and more vicious, making it almost impossible not to be propelled along and her chest ached when she tried to breathe. It was probably even worse for Nathan, it would be getting harder and harder to hold on, and if she waited for Lijah, and watched her brother slip away, she’d never forgive herself.

‘Amy, wait!’ This time she knew she wasn’t imagining it, but she had to keep going, picking her way over the rocks as the cliff top jutted further out into the water and the surface became more treacherous. She half-expected Lijah to reach her before she got to where Nathan was, but he was still about thirty feet away when she reached the place above were her brother was clinging to the ledge.

‘Nathan, don’t move. We’re going to help you get back up here, just hold on.’ She almost screamed the words, but thankfully he heard her, his head jolting back in response.

‘Chunks of the ground keep dropping off and I don’t think I can climb up the way I came down, the rain is washing the hand holds away. You’ve got to get me up.’ Nathan tried moving and another huge lump of mud, sand and rock broke away, dropping into the sea below. The water was now almost black, mirroring the sky above it.

‘Amy stop!’ Lijah repeated his plea, but she still couldn’t wait; the next piece of ground that broke off could take Nathan with it. Instead, she lowered herself down on to another ledge, just a couple of feet above Nathan’s head, and about four feet to the left of him. She could see the footholds and grooves in the cliff face that Nathan must have used to climb down, but the weather was changing everything. The ledge wasn’t that far below the cliff top and it looked like plenty of people had used it for climbing practice. Getting back up to the top would probably have been easy in dry weather, but Nathan seemed to be paralysed with fear and for good reason. One false move could be disastrous now that the rain had made everything so much more treacherous.

‘It’s okay I’m here.’ Amy flattened her back against the cliff, trying not to look down and gingerly removing the ruck sack she’d grabbed when she left her parents’ house. She had no idea what she was going to do now, she’d just felt an instinctive need to get closer to Nathan. As she reached down to try and get her mobile phone out of the pocket of the borrowed coat, she realised one of Bernie’s extendable dog leads was in the pocket on the right-hand side. Her parents always bought the strongest leads on the market for their English Bull Mastiff, and anyone who’d ever been on a walk with him when he spotted a squirrel, would know why. The webbing of the lead was about an inch wide and there was a quality sticker on the handle describing it as a twelve-metre lead that guaranteed to restrain a dog of up to seventy kilograms. Whether it was strong enough to hold Nathan’s weight was doubtful, but if it gave him the reassurance to keep holding on until the rescue team got there, it had to be worth using. She just needed him not to panic and try anything stupid, that was all. Amy pulled out about four metres of the lead before locking it in place, so it wouldn’t suddenly retract back into the handle.

‘I’m going to throw you the end of this lead, try and grab it.’ Amy was amazed when the clip end of the lead landed just inches from her brother’s hand. It helped that she was above him, so gravity had more to do with where it landed than any skill on her part.

‘Amy I’m coming down,’ Lijah called out to her.

‘No, I might need you up there, and we’ve got to let someone know where he is. Can you do that, please?’

‘Okay, but if anything happens, I’m coming straight down.’

She didn’t answer, looking towards her brother instead. ‘Try to wrap the lead around your waist and clip it in place. I’ll hook the other end over something stable.’ Amy searched around her, looking for a tree stump or anything else that was secure enough to fix the other end of the lead to, but there was nothing. It seemed to take forever for Nathan to put the lead around his waist, but there still wasn’t anything she could tie her end to.

‘I’m coming down,’ Lijah called out again, but Amy looked up and shook her head.

‘I don’t think the ledge will take it. I need to get the other end of this lead up to you and there’s plenty of length if I extend it to the full range, but I don’t think I’m good enough at throwing, and if it goes down instead of up…’ She couldn’t finish the sentence, closing her eyes for a moment to try and work out what on earth to do. When she looked up again, Lijah was lying on his stomach leaning down towards her. He couldn’t reach her, though, even with both their arms fully extended, and she tried not to think about what that meant for her chances of getting up on the clifftop again.

‘I’m going to see if I can find something up here to use.’

Lijah edged away again and it was a couple of minutes before he reappeared, dangling down a length of orange baling twine towards her. It was just about long enough for her to reach and tie around the handle of the lead, which she’d extended to its full length. Within seconds, Lijah had pulled the handle up and was holding on to it as another huge clod of earth broke away from underneath Nathan and hurtled into the sea, making both him and Amy scream. Time was definitely running out, the torrential rain fast eroding what was left of the ledge where Nathan was sitting. They couldn’t hold on any longer, and Amy couldn’t bear to think about what might happen if any more of the ledge where her brother was sitting fell away.

‘We’re going to have to get you up now, Nathan,’ Lijah called down. ‘We can’t wait for the rescue team to get here.’

‘It’s not strong enough.’ Nathan sounded terrified, and Amy could hear the blood whooshing in her ears, even above the sound of the storm.

‘The webbing is really tough, it’s as good as any rope,’ Lijah called down again, his voice steady. ‘Just make sure you’ve tied it around your waist as securely as possible, and then I want you to use the same footholds that you used to climb down to get back up. Don’t worry about slipping, because I’ve got you if anything happens.’

‘I’ve knotted it three times and put it through the clip. Do you think that’s enough?’ Nathan suddenly sounded like a little boy and tears stung Amy’s eyes.

‘You’re going to be fine, I’ll feed my end around a rock, so there’s no risk of me letting you go. You’ll be up here before you know it.’ Lijah paused for a moment. ‘Right, are you ready?’

‘Okay.’ Nathan nodded and very gingerly stood, getting to the first foothold, just before another piece of ground fell away, making him scream again. Lijah called out encouragement and instructions every step of the way. He was as good as his word, too, and within minutes he’d hauled Nathan up onto the cliff top beside him.

‘I’m going to undo the lead from Nathan’s waist and send it back out to you,’ Lijah called down to Amy again, and then it was her turn.

‘I’m scared!’ She looked up at him and he nodded.

‘I know you are, but I won’t let anything happen to you. You can trust me.’

‘I can trust you.’ She whispered the words to herself over and over as she secured the lead around her waist, repeating them on a loop until she’d climbed back up to the top of the cliff, finding each foothold slowly and carefully, moving at a pace that had felt agonisingly slow, when all she’d wanted to do was get back up as quickly as she could. She’d only slipped once, and Lijah held fast to the rope until she righted herself again, with Amy silently repeating the mantra that she could trust him until she finally got up to where he was.

‘Thank God.’ Lijah held on to her like he never wanted to let go, and for a moment she let herself be held. There was so much she wanted to say, all the stuff that had gone through her head as she’d been on that cliff face, despite trying to block it out by repeating those same four words over and over:I can trust you. But, before anything else she needed to make sure Nathan was okay, so she pulled away from Lijah, stepping backwards without looking. All she heard was a terrible crack, before a searing pain ripped through her, and the darkness of the storm closed in completely.

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