The nights were black and impenetrable when they first came to live in the tower. She would stand in the doorway talking ten to the dozen about the view but he could see nothing, as if there was a hand over his face. Tight. It was that dark. Rí was frightened by the darkness – that was why she burbled away – but he was frightened of it too in this place, for the first time in his life. He knew that about her, she knew it about him. They knew each other. Now there is nothing to know but a man on the same step in the same broken-down fairytale tower, in the absence of a princess. A lighthouse keeper without a light.
At least his eyes have become accustomed now, so he can see the night sky as she did: rich in billowing shades of blue, cut through with black. Ahead are the blinking lights of freighters in the Channel. Far away to his right, down the long slope for a mile or more, is the little settlement of Birling Gap, with a coastguard hut, a telephone, a few cottages and a very tired pub. Beyond that there is a gate opening on to a path that leads over the backs of the Seven Sisters: seven hills rising and falling with their flat white faces to the sea. There are no roads that way; you can only walk over them or not go at all. And way beyond the line of darkness is an orange glow, low in the sky. The city of Brighton.
That’s what the Great Fire of London must have looked like.
‘Maria . . .’
Rí, like free.
Is he making it up, her voice? He hopes not, but then he doesn’t really care, as long as she is there. The voice comes and goes like the French radio stations that blow over the Channel and fade away again. Down in the sweep of the valley where the sheep wait out the night in folds of downland, there used to be a secret listening post. An underground bunker, where some poor soul had to sit in darkness through the Battle of Britain, listening to the crackle of words as men high above him were dancing, diving, spiralling for their lives in the bright blue sky. Roger that, Tango Charlie.
You should eat better.
He looks down into the gloom. Sausages and beans glowing faintly, melted cheese reforming into a lump. ‘At least it’s not out of the tin this time.’ There’s a hunk of crusty bread in the crook of his spoon hand, a mug of tea chilling fast on the step in the dark with the frost coming. ‘It’s not bad.’ He can see her sceptical smile, the tilt of her head, as if she is there. ‘I didn’t say it was good.’
Be kind to yourself.
He gives up and puts the bowl down. The mess is cold. There’s a sound beyond the wind, beyond the sea, and it’s growing louder.
‘Really? Again?’
Now it’s loud: not the sing-song sound of a Spitfire but the ugly, insistent chukka-chukka of a helicopter flying low overhead – too low, it will take out the lantern room. He braces himself, but does not duck any more. There have been six searches like this in just the last week; there seems to be more people going over than before. The searchlight is blinding for a moment then sweeps away, falling down through the dark. The chopper turns over the sea and comes back, blind red eyes blinking, downdraught whipping up an invisible spiral of dust, dirt and gravel, and he throws his filthy bread away and covers his face and curses, then it’s gone.
The coastguards are looking for someone. The helicopter is off to his left, a couple of miles away, hovering over the next great hulking headland. That’s the place they all go, the lost and the lonely, the despondent and the suicidal. Beachy Head. The place where lives are ended. That’s where the drop is highest. You can be sure of death there, or so they say. He has heard of one young man who survived somehow and who is completely paralysed now, his mind in more torment than before he jumped. That is a kind of hell. He prefers not to think about it and to keep his distance from the Head, stay up here on his own hill where jumpers seldom come. The old lighthouse puts them off, they don’t want to be watched by anyone, and he is glad of that. He came here for the beauty, not the misery. For a new life, together in their tower. Just the two of them under the huge sky, with the sea spread out before them as a feast for the eyes and the dark earth at their backs. Elemental. They loved the landscape and she felt a powerful sense of belonging, so strong that it moved him to be here too. They had no desire to disturb the life or even death of anyone else; this was to be their sanctuary.
Now it feels like his prison tower sometimes, as if the lighthouse is keeping him and not the other way round. It’s a strange thing to be, a lighthouse keeper, when nobody is paying you and there is no light to shine. It’s so hard to be here without her, but he can’t leave, because she is still here, at least in his head. His heart. Her things in the tower, the art she made. Her voice on the wind. Soon the helicopter will be back, with a searchlight and a device that can spot the heat of a body that is still alive, or at least has not been dead for too long.
‘Lord have mercy,’ he says, a remembered prayer. The last one he has left, for a god he has never trusted. ‘Christ have mercy.’ It’s what he used to say, back in the day, in those moments before the medics came in their Chinooks. ‘Lord have mercy. Be with them, whoever they are.’
The first room he has tried to make his own in this mighty, empty building is the kitchen. There’s a good, solid pine table bearing the marks of life and a wood-burning stove, which should be warmer than it is. A pair of half-spent church candles, waiting to be lit. Copper pans that might glow like a page in Country Life, if he could be bothered to polish them. A big fridge with hardly anything in it, and no booze. He will never drink at home again. If this is home. It has to be home. God though, he needs a drink. On a good night, with the moon lighting the way, he can walk down towards the Gap for a pint. The back of the hill is broad and flat with a carpet of grass; it’s an easy walk if you avoid the rabbit holes, but this is not a good night. There is no moon, and no stars now the clouds have closed over, and no way of knowing how far you are from the edge. It would be safer to stay indoors, but he needs that drink, he needs some company more like, so he finds the car keys and walks out over the gravel to his old red sports car, the Triumph Spitfire with the soft top that lets in the rain, and the suspension that sends every bump and shudder through the base of his spine. She starts at the second attempt and noses out through the gate and down the hill. There’s a metal track half buried in the grass, then he finds the road at the bottom and turns, accelerating past the copse at the back of the hill. The road winds round to the Gap and what he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt, after exhaustive research, to be the worst pub in the world.