And the gull that has been hovering in the air in front of the woman – only a swoop away, but out over the edge in the void – turns as if it cannot bear to watch what happens next. The wind lifts its wings and the seabird slides, riding the rise and fall of the cliffs, away to the west. First a long, slow glide down into a dip, then the land swells again into another half-cut hill. This one has an old granite tower at the summit, a lighthouse whose light was put out a long time ago. It used to be safe, but time has passed and chalk has fallen away and now the ground is almost gone from under the feet of the tower, which stands hard by the side of a very long, white drop.
This is a lonely place in winter, but on spring days like this there is no more beautiful place in the world. The ripped clouds reveal a deep blue sky, the sunlight spills over everything, glittering on the sea or flashing on the bright face of the cliff, and the air is alive with brilliant energy. You are gorgeous, thinks a man who wishes he could do justice to the glory of it all, as he stands at the base of his tower. There’s a low flint wall that was built to enclose the lighthouse garden, but bits of it have gone skittering and scattering out into space and down into the sea far below at some point, and where he’s standing the chalk, grass and gravel just disappear. The man is scared of the edge and there’s nothing irrational in that. Most of the time he keeps away, but today there is a task to perform.
So this tall, slender man with hair whipping into his wearily handsome face stamps the ground beneath him and kneels down carefully, palms against the chalk and grass. This is the man who lives in the lighthouse, who is trying to make it a home even though his stomach turns every time he thinks of the drop. So he lays on the floor and wriggles like a snake with his belly in the dirt and the dust, slowly moving forward, a few inches at a time, arms stretched out ahead of him. His legs are spread, his back arched, his pelvis is pressed into the earth as they taught him during hostile environment training a long time ago, in another life. His neck hurts as he looks past his arms and hands to a small wooden stake, just beyond the broken wall but before the empty space. He is as flat as he can be in this wind, spreading his weight as widely as possible to keep safe, but shaking anyway. The sweat blurs his vision, or maybe it is not sweat, as he offers a fistful of yellow flowers to the stake and ties them, clumsily – failing and trying again – with a twist of green garden twine. There. They are tied to the wood, tightly, so the wind cannot snatch them, at least for now, and he wriggles back, breathing hard.
‘This would be so much easier with your help,’ he says to nobody but the wind or a wisp of a memory, a face and a scent and a feeling of skin on skin that can never be again. Resting by the wall with his back against the stones and his feet towards France, he thinks of her inky fingers moving quickly over a page, making marks, creating a world out of nothing. The stuff of the sea, the sky, the wind, the waves, the light, was caught in her head as in a refracting glass and spilled out transformed on to canvas and paper in remarkable drawings and paintings. Her name was Maria but she signed her work Rí, the Irish word for king. A male word. She was stealing the power, because names matter, and she told him how to say it properly.
‘Ree. Like free.’
The name is strange in his mouth now. Love brought him to this place, but she is gone and there is no freedom. He wants to stay but he can hardly bear it. He wants to leave but she is here. His eyes are closed by the rub of grief. A weary man, so dog-damn weary. Lighter, much lighter than he used to be, with a fluttering heart. Every meal is a struggle with matches and gas and a turning, churning stomach. It’s easier to light a cigarette and suck down smoke than finish a Fray Bentos pie from the tin. He will become smoke himself one day soon and be glad of it, disappearing into the air as she did.
You’re wasting away, she would say, but he smiles at the thought that she might also like the way he looks. He’s back to the man he once was, running through the streets in war zones, dodging the bullets and the bombs, seeking out the stories that needed telling, living on adrenaline, coffee and cigarettes but knowing it was right to be there. Not the man he became, working from an office, walking the streets of a sick city, sucking it all up as a crime reporter, sitting with people whose sons and daughters, lovers and friends had been hurt or murdered, helping them to cry on camera, all those grieving people. Making money from misery. He could never turn away or turn it off until Rí, as in free. The girl who cut off all her raven hair and shaved her head and whose bright blue eyes could be as calm as a tropical sea one moment, as wild as the waves in a storm the next. Now, thanks to her, he’s a crazy, broke bloke living in an old lighthouse without a light, on the edge of everything.
‘Thanks, love. At least it’s quiet.’ People come up here on good days to see the staggering views and they are surprised to see him moving about in or near the tower, but they keep their distance and they don’t know his name. He likes that. They must wonder at his life, but then so does he. His surfer-long hair is tangled and bleached by the salt and sun. The little blue lucky stone she gave him with the hole right through it is tied on a thin leather around his neck.
‘I’ve got my cheekbones back now,’ he says with a hand up to his sandpaper face. ‘That’s a win, then.’ Somewhere at the bottom of everything is the ghost of a laugh. Be kind to yourself, she used to say. Be mindful. ‘Live it, breathe it, be here, be present,’ he recites. ‘See it. Wake up and be thankful. I know. I know . . .’
He breathes deeply, coughs, then begins again.
‘Come on. Where are you?’
He’s trying to keep a record of his thoughts. Talk it all out, get it all down, as he was told to do by a counsellor he no longer wants to see. He no longer wants to talk to anyone but her, and yes he does know that she is not here. No, he does not care. The dictaphone tucked into a breast pocket, little red light showing, is just a prop really. It makes him feel less awkward about talking.
‘What do I say about today?’
There’s no answer. Of course not.
‘The eighteenth of April. A blustery day. The wind pokes you. “Get up, boy; don’t get comfortable, get on with it.” The wind is a woman. A proper nag . . .’
What a clout he would have got for that. The wind sighs. She sighs all the time up here. All day long and all through the night, whispering or wistful, in agony or ecstasy, gasping and moaning, murmuring, sighing. Nuzzling the tower, never letting him forget.
‘I’m sitting on my coat here, because of these . . . I don’t know what they are. How bad is that? I should know.’ He ruffles the grass and moss and heather or whatever it is at the base of the wall, but pulls away quickly with a tiny black thorn stinging in his thumb. ‘I should know the names of these things. Not the sheep droppings; I know them, they look edible. Things are not what they seem here.’ The wind thickens, roughs him up, steals his breath. ‘I am not what I seem either. Not a tourist, not passing through any more, thanks to you. This is my place. Our place. This is our home.’
That is strange to say and stranger to live. This is the brim of England, right down at the bottom, the last place to be before you fall into the sea. ‘So. I spend the nights awake with the wind around me. I sleep-walk through the days. The hours are shortening. I’d rather be out here with you than back in there, however much there is to do. Look at this view. How do I describe it? You were always better than me at that . . .’
He forces himself to look again, squinting into bright light.
Say what you see.
‘Ah, hello.’
Silence again.
‘Okay, so. Say what you see? The sun coming through again, over there. Picking out that fishing boat. The storm on the horizon, above that freighter. A cloud like a fist. The ship must be massive.’
Tell me the colours.
‘The colours? Okay. Dark on the skyline, almost purple. Coming closer, the sea is a wine-bottle green; then a duller, flatter jungle green, maybe, with slashes of black from the deep water. Or the fish, or the shadows of the cloud, I don’t know. I should know. The sunlight is silvery today, not glittering but still slippery with traces of the winter; silver draped on the water, rippling with the waves. Papery white at the edges. How could you get that look in a painting? I don’t know. Maybe with a splash of mercury?’
Yeah, mercury.
‘I knew you’d laugh. I love that sound.’
Loved.
‘No. Love.’ He closes his eyes, hearing the shush of the waves far below. Breathing out. Breathing in.
Good. That’s enough for now.
‘That’s enough.’