A CUP OF COFFEE, EVA?
by Alan Ram

I�m standing on the path trying to keep warm, thinking is this a way to start a holiday?

I should have stayed in bed. I should have kept on nudging Eva till she woke up. I was wide awake, and I was nudging and fondling but she wasn�t stirring, and I was thinking it�s a pity to waste it, but on the other hand will she thank me if I wake her up? Probably not, it�ll save.

So I get up and go for a walk. Which turned out to be a mistake. I should have ignored her. I should have had the sense, or presence of mind, or the strength of mind or what would be the right term to ignore the woman. I should have walked on by thinking my thoughts, another ten minutes and I�ll be back and make myself a cup of coffee, and a cup for Eva, here Eva, Oh that�s nice, you�re kind. I was walking along the path doing five miles an hour, a young man enjoying a serious early morning walk, but I was thinking I�ll crawl back under the duvet, that�s what I�ll do, my mind was elsewhere, Eva was sucking on me gently, then I come around the bend and there�s the woman.

She didn�t know I was there. I don�t believe so. She didn�t turn. She had her back to me. How would she have known I was there? She was twenty yards off the path, say twenty yards, about that. She�d have had to be psychic.

Should I say something? But if I say good morning, hello, good morning, lovely morning, she�ll jump out of her skin. Oh, a man, a man on his own, the sky and sea in one direction cutting off my means of escape, and him in the other, I�m trapped, what will I do?

If I�d had a dog it would have been fine, oh it�s only a man with a dog. And if she�d had a dog as well that would have been perfect. We could have had a conversation about dogs.

I shouldn�t have slowed down. I should have walked faster if anything. What�s she standing there for? She must be cold, she�s wearing almost nothing, a tee shirt clinging to her and a pair of jeans, and there�s nothing of her, a little skinny woman. How old is she? She could be fourteen she could be forty from the back, she�s all bones, her neck is like a twig. I had a thought, if the wind gets up you�ll be blown away, if the breeze turns round for a second you�ll be blown off the edge, and there�ll be no problem because you�ll fly, you�ll float away on the updraft.

Having this going on, having my head divided between the woman on the one hand and Eva�s lips on the other slowed me down, and that was the trouble. If the man with the dog had come along half a minute earlier that would have been perfect. He could have stepped in. He would have stepped in and taken charge. � Excuse me, but what do you think you�re playing at?

Another ten or fifteen yards. If I�d been fifteen yards further on I wouldn�t have heard the bang. I hear the bang. Fuck it, what a start to a day.

What to do? Eva�s lips are nowhere by this point. That�s that finished for the time being.

Walk on. Keep going. If she wants to throw herself off a cliff that�s her prerogative, she must have her reasons. Whatever. She has no one in her life who loves her. She is a lonely and friendless young woman, scarcely more than a girl, with a habit, and no relatives to fall back on. She�s lost touch with her family for whatever reason. She�s walked out. She got kicked out. She had a mother, but the mother had a fellah and then another fellah, and so on, and one of the fellahs said I�ve had enough of her thieving off me all the time, she�s an untrustworthy little junky, make your mind up, it�s her or me. So the mother kicked her out. She was just a child, how could she? And later the girl lived with a fellah of her own. She had fellah and a habit, then she had a baby, and the baby cried all the time so the fellah left, it does my head in the crying, he said. And the child was taken by social, you�re not doing a great job of looking after little Chelsea, what kind of mother are you? And at that point the girl had a go at getting off the stuff, but it was terrible, and she thought fuck this for a game of soldiers and she found a cliff and she threw herself off.

She must have her reasons. Whatever. She�s a thirty nine year simultaneous translator, with a wardrobe full of labels and a desirable riverside apartment with views of St Paul�s and two balconies. But sadly no children or a man in her life, on a permanent, or semi-permanent, or regular basis, or any basis at all in fact, not recently. And also a history of depressive illness and self-harm. And she lies awake till the early hours one Friday night thinking, in summary, another forty years of this? No thanks. So she drives to Cornwall, to her favorite cliff she remembers from childhood holidays � happier times indeed - and throws herself off.

I hear the bang and I tell myself keep going, but it�s no good, I have to see what�s what.

- Were you going to climb down the cliff and give her mouth to mouth? Says the voice in my head.

- No. I reply

- Were you going to climb down and put your sweater under her head, hold on two ticks, darling, the ambulance is on its way, you�re going to be fine?

- No. It would have been impossible. The cliff was too steep. Also she was dead. She�s dead. She�s lying on her back with one leg sticking out at an odd angle and the other tucked up under her. She�s fallen smack down onto granite rock onto her head, or her back, or both, back first then the head by the look of it.

Death is instantaneous. She�s standing on the cliff top, not feeling the cold in spite of the wind, thinking this will be a blessed release, it will soon be over, the suffering of my barren life, the events of my sad barren life, my pointless sad life will soon be at an end. And then she launches herself off, and the air rushes past and she has no chance very much to frame any thoughts on the way down probably, it�s all a blur.

- Did she fall?�

The man crept up without me noticing. I�m looking down at her body, she�s nearer forty than fourteen, and I don�t hear him or his pit bull, or pit bull cross, probably cross, I�m not an expert. He has his dog on the end of a chain. The two of them are well-matched, man and dog.

- Did she fall, or did she jump?

- She jumped. I think.

- You don�t�?

- I don�t know who she is.

I call the emergency and I�m talking into my phone, yes, I�ll stay here, no I�m not going anywhere, fifteen minutes, right, and that sets his dog off.

- Shut the fuck up! Shut the fuck up and sit! Now stay there. And he gets down on his stomach and he he�s peering over the cliff � She�s dead. She looks dead. And then he stands there talking. Is it talking to me? Is he talking to himself? - How are they going to get her up? They could do it with a helicopter, they could winch her up, or a climber could go down and they could pull her up the cliff.

Then he turns to me. He rolls over on his back and he looks up at me. - It�s not what you want before breakfast. Are you on holiday?

- We arrived last night.

- That�s the trouble. She thinks, I�ve had enough, I�m going to top myself, fine, you should be allowed to if you�ve had enough, why not? But don�t do it in a way that inconveniences every other fucker.

Then he stands next to me, talking bollocks.

- I had this friend killed himself. Why? I don�t know. It was a mystery. He was playing pool. And then he put on his jacket and walked out the pub went home and slashed his wrists, which you�re not supposed to be able do very easily. For what reason? No one knows. He suffered from depression, his girlfriend said. Depression. What�s that? Is that any reason to kill yourself? Is it?

- I don�t know.

- I don�t think so. He had a lovely girlfriend, and she came home, she�d been out with friends, she went back his flat let herself in and found the body in the bath in a pool of blood. Was that very nice? He should have considered that. Never mind his state of his mind, what about her state of mind after seeing that? It did her head for quite a while.

If he carries on like this much longer I�ll chuck myself off. I�ve had enough already for one morning without having to listen to this.

- Anyway, I�ll be off, he says finally.

- Right.

- There�s no point in me getting involved.

- No.

- I don�t suppose they�ll be long.

Then he�s gone, and I have my ear cocked listening for the police, or the ambulance, or whichever turns up first, and I�m walking up and down trying to keep warm. Shall I give Eva a ring? She�ll be sleeping still, what�s the point? Let her sleep.

I�m thinking to myself this feels like a long fifteen minutes, it certainly does. And I�m wondering can I salvage anything from the morning? Possibly, we�ll see. But the edge has been taken off it, that�s for sure.

� Alan Ram
Reproduced with permission