The
last selfie of Arthur Cave
Ovingdean
Gap is a hidden gem. Cars and buses leaving Brighton for
Eastbourne whiz past a dent in the cliff top where steps with green
iron railings spiral down to the sea; as you descend you can pause to
admire the view from landings like the stages of a high diving board.
At the bottom is a row of beach huts featuring a wavy modernist
roofline. A hut with a hatch serves coffee and cake; people sit at
tables in the shelter of the sea wall while their dogs fossick on the
beach. There are walkers from Rottingdean and cyclists from Brighton
but mostly the locals have had the place to themselves. Until last
week, when Ovingdean Gap hit headlines all over the world.
Two
days earlier, Brighton's paper, The Argus, printed a picture of some
teenagers insouciantly perched on the cliff at Seven Sisters, a
beauty spot further down the coast. Young legs dangling over a
precipice. Every year, at the start of the long holidays, stories
like this appear; children emerging from computer-game worlds need
reminding that the real summer landscape has real edges – given to
crumbling in the case of Sussex cliffs – and real falls onto real
rocks. Within 48 hours, driving home the lesson with excessive
brutality, the Argus announced that a 15 year old boy had been found
dying on the undercliff path at Ovingdean.
Next
day, we learned that the dead boy was Nick Cave's son. His parents
were pictured visiting the place where he fell; black clothes, black
glasses, dyed black hair among the white and purple moon daisies
growing wild on the cliff top. Statements rapidly assured us that
the death was not suspicious, though that is for the Coroner to
decide.
All
along this stretch of the coast, the cliff edge is fully fenced to
the height of a teenager's head; here and there are signs saying TALK
TO US and a number for the Samaritans. Near a broken and leaning
concrete post, the strings of a shopping bag are tied to the fence
wire. Inside the bag is a black hat, costume from a school
Shakespeare. Amid the cards and stooks of long-stemmed flowers, an
open letter in careful writing begins: Arthur, words cannot describe
how much I will miss you...
Half
a dozen teenagers in new teeshirts and shorts come along the path,
examine the tributes , then stand looking out to sea. They might be
the classmates who talked to the Argus about skating with Arthur and
riding home with him on the bus. One of them received a last phone
message, a selfie, smiling, with Rottingdean Windmill in the
background. Sadness, cliché, bewilderment. Nothing that wouldn't
be done and felt for a child whose father wasn't the poet laureate
of violent death.
At
the beach cafe the numbers are back to normal. There were flowers
on the shingle but the tide has washed them away and Ovingdean has
kept its secrets. Though its cliffs have the radiance of Sussex chalk
they are featureless and relatively low. Ugly fences are not such a
detraction here, but no one is suggesting putting obstructions in the
famous views at Seven Sisters, or Beachy Head. We are left with
safety warnings, Samaritans signs and, where people have fallen
despite out best efforts, mysteries.
Arthur's
father is at Ovingdean again. Wearing a sky blue shirt and not
being photographed, he passes the cafe with a lopsided stride;
youthful, Australian, impatient. A big shaggy man who looks more
like a musician keeps pace with him. It was about this time, four
days ago,that Arthur fell. The sky and the sea were like this.
A
few minutes later, the child's mother comes, walking with a friend
whose arm is around her waist. In a colourful summer skirt today,
she is pacing out a slow march.