side of the road to the walled churchyard. Stephanie said she wanted to look inside. He shrugged and said he’d wait for her by the gate onto the beach.
The tiny stone church had no roof. Its walls were coated in ivy. The graveyard was crowded. Most of the headstones were old, their engraving partly erased by decades of ferocious weather. Many commemorated men and women who were not buried in the cemetery: those who’d been lost at sea, or in colonial wars fighting for the expansion of the British Empire, or those who’d emigrated to Australia, India and South Africa, in search of a life less gruelling. Scattered among the old graves, there were a few more recent.
Including Rachel’s.
It was in the far corner, by the stone wall. A small, unremarkable square headstone laid down the basic facts of her life. Dead at thirty-five. It made no mention of the cause but Stephanie knew that it had been breast-cancer. Beloved wife of Iain. The bottom half of the headstone was blank, leaving enough space for another entry.
She looked across the cemetery. He was facing the sea.
She joined him at the gate and they walked onto the beach in the direction of Faraid Head, the farthest tip of the headland. The tide was coming in, but still low. The sand was hard, wind blowing a thin film of it across the rippled surface. They stepped over squelching beds of seaweed and scattered rubbish: a single shoe, part of a seat-belt, strips of slime-coated plastic. At the far end of the beach, a concrete track rose between dunes. In some places sand obscured it, but the direction was clear and they followed it. Between the dunes the wind died, in the open it was fierce.
As they crossed a cattle-grid, Stephanie said, ‘There was a man in London before Malta. Frank White. I was in love with him. He was in love with me, I think. But it was a strange kind of love. I couldn’t tell him anything truly personal. It was a love built on lies, except at the end. Then, I told him everything, and he accepted it. He’d known there was something about me right from the start.’ She shook her head at the memory. ‘After Malta, I disappeared. But I sent messages to him. I gave him the opportunity to follow me, to meet me. To vanish with me.’
‘But he didn’t?’
‘No.’
‘Any idea why not?’
‘I guess he didn’t love me as much as I thought he did. Or as much as I loved him.’
‘Maybe he had too much to lose by following you.’
‘Believe me, he didn’t.’
‘Have you tried to contact him again since you’ve been back in London?’
‘No. It’s been four years. He belongs to another part of my life. A part that … well, the idea of it’s just too complicated.’
‘I know what you mean.’
Stephanie doubted that. She took a deep breath. ‘Anyway, when I realized there wasn’t going to be a future with him, I didn’t feel there was any future at all. I didn’t disappear to escape from Magenta House. Not really. I disappeared to be with him.’ Boyd had stopped walking so she stopped too. She smiled sadly. ‘My first broken heart. I was twenty-three but I took it like a fifteen-year-old.’
‘And became Petra because of it?’
‘I didn’t become anybody. I was already Petra.’
‘I’m not with you.’
‘I didn’t choose to live Petra’s life because my heart got broken. But I was confused and angry. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s self-pity, but when I look at the way I was then I don’t see that I had much of a chance. Trained to perfection – to breaking point – I was bound to fracture sooner or later.’
‘Probably,’ Boyd conceded.
‘In the end, all I did was not change. There was no real decision. Instead of Alexander, there was money, although it wasn’t about the money. It was about the work. The day-to-day existence; rejecting contracts, accepting contracts, planning them, executing them, getting away with it. Attention to detail in all things.’
‘What were you looking for?’
‘Mechanical perfection. I wanted to be a machine. To feel nothing at all.’
‘And did you succeed?’
‘I think so. For a while …’
Beyond the cattle-grid, the road was tarmac with grass on either side, sheep roaming freely. In the distance, at the tip of the headland, Stephanie saw a small building, a look-out tower with black and yellow squares painted on the walls. An old Ministry of Defence facility, Boyd told her, with a concrete helicopter pad. Useful for air-sea rescue.
As they approached it, the incline grew steeper. Dozens of rabbits ran wild. Stephanie walked to the cliff’s edge and peered at the two-hundred-foot vertical drop. She watched raucous waves hurling themselves onto the rocks below, cracking, foaming, receding. She felt the vertiginous pull, as familiar to her as the desire to succumb to momentary madness and to make the leap herself. She leaned further over and sensed Boyd tensing beside her.
‘Why did you stop?’ he asked.
She described Bilbao. ‘I don’t know why it happened. It just did. In the first few weeks after it, I thought it was some kind of nervous breakdown. But now, when I look back at it, I think it was some kind of breakthrough. I think the nervous breakdown came before Bilbao. And after Malta.’
‘And lasted for two and a half years?’
‘Yes. I think my whole independent career as Petra was one long nervous breakdown. And that Bilbao – well, Arkan, to be specific – was the snapping point.’
Boyd was placing squares of peat onto the dying embers of the fire. He stood up and collected his glass from the mantelpiece. When he turned round, he found Stephanie at his side. She took the glass from his hand and returned it to the mantelpiece.
‘Are you going to tell Alexander what I’ve told you today?’
‘Not if you don’t want me to.’
‘He’ll want to know.’
‘He wants to know whether you’re up to scratch.’
‘And am I?’
‘You’re more vulnerable than you used to be.’
‘That’s not an answer. Am I up to scratch?’
‘Yes. I’m afraid you are.’
She kissed him and tasted Pomerol. Boyd had produced a dusty bottle of Clos René at dinner. Stephanie had looked surprised and he’d said that he’d been saving it for a special occasion.
‘You mean like finally getting rid of me?’
‘No. Nothing like that.’
‘What, then?’
‘You work it out.’
She’d blushed instead.
Now,
