Читать книгу Chameleon - Mark Burnell - Страница 13

You can make a home for yourself, you can make a life for yourself, but don’t make anything for yourself that you can’t walk away from in a second.

The man who’d taught her that was Iain Boyd, a reclusive figure cut from Sutherland granite. Boyd’s past lay with the military. The details of that past were consigned to files that had been conveniently lost so that his career was now a matter of sinister silence. More than any other individual, he’d been responsible for turning Stephanie Patrick into Petra Reuter. He’d taught her how to survive in the harshest conditions, how to kill, how to feel nothing. Under his supervision, she had become stronger, faster and fitter than she’d ever imagined she could be. As teachers went, Boyd had been harsh, sometimes cruel. As curricula went, the lessons had been distasteful, sometimes brutal. As pupils went, Stephanie had never been less than exceptional.

She saw him through the carriage window as the ScotRail train slowed to a halt at Lairg Station. Big-boned but lean, with weather-beaten skin, he was leaning against a Land-Rover, arms crossed, a stiff wind raking thick blond hair. He wore old jeans, hiking boots and an olive T-shirt.

Stephanie was the only passenger to disembark. Boyd opened the Land-Rover door for her but made no attempt to help her with her rucksack. They pulled away from the station, passed through Lairg and travelled along the east flank of Loch Shin. Boyd drove fast, squeezing past other vehicles in the narrow passing spaces, occasionally allowing two wheels to chew the sodden verges. Stephanie clutched the door handle tightly and hoped he wouldn’t notice.

The clouds raced them north, allowing occasional patches of brilliant sunlight. For a moment, there would be a shimmer of gold, purple, emerald green and rust, then the reversion to slate grey. The wind made the white grass a turbulent sea. They drove past the crumbling shells of stone houses left derelict since the early nineteenth century, past the boarded windows of houses more recently abandoned. The scars of progress. Intermittently, near the road’s edge, they passed stacks of peat, cut in rectangles, piled high, awaiting collection and a slow burn in some local grate.

As they overtook a yellow lorry – the local mobile public library – Boyd said, ‘Alexander tells me you’ve been living in the south of France.’

‘Yes.’

‘Under the surname Schneider.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Your mother’s maiden name.’

‘Yes.’

He shook his head. ‘That’s very disappointing. You of all people, Stephanie.’

At the Laxford Bridge, they turned right, then right again, onto a rough track. It twisted and turned, compromising to the demands of the terrain. Over jagged ground, around vast boulders of granite sheathed in soggy moss, through pools of peaty water, across uneven bridges constructed from old railway sleepers.

She knew what lay ahead: bruises, strains, cold, exhaustion. Despite that, she felt at home. Or rather, she felt a connection. The further north she’d travelled, the clearer her mind had become. It was three days since Martin Palmer’s failed assessment of her. She’d seen the resignation in Alexander’s eyes; Boyd had been the only option. She was under no illusion about the regime but she was glad to be back.

The lodge was close to the loch, on a gentle grass incline, high enough to be safe from floodwater. Fifty yards away were three long cabins with new tarpaper roofs. Between them and the lodge, a large garage doubled as a workshop. Behind the lodge, there was a general outhouse and a second, smaller outhouse containing a diesel generator.

When she’d been here before it had been winter and she and Boyd had been alone, but during the summer months he ran corporate outward-bound courses, designed to foster teamwork among jaded office workers. Sometimes, the company client asked him to identify specific qualities among individuals in each group. Who’s a natural leader but doesn’t know it? Who thinks they’re a leader but won’t carry the others? Who’s the subversive troublemaker?

The courses ran from May to the end of September. The men and women Boyd hired as help were all former colleagues from the armed services. During the winter, when the place was closed, Boyd remained open to friends. That category included special requests from the military. Or from climbers looking for tough physical conditioning. Or from Alexander.

Boyd brought the Land-Rover to a sharp halt outside the lodge.

‘We’ve got a group in just now so you’ll be staying with me. You might see them from time to time, but you’re not to speak to them. Understood?’

‘Yes.’

‘Same goes for the staff. Not a word.’

‘Whatever you say.’

His look was withering. ‘That’s exactly bloody right, Stephanie. Whatever I say.’

The first fortnight was a routine that didn’t vary; the bedroom door banging open in the darkness, the cold dawn run, the medicinal heat of the shower, breakfast at a scrubbed wooden kitchen table. Boyd tended not to eat with Stephanie. Between breakfast and lunch, they sparred, self-defence or attack, mostly with hands, sometimes with blades. He reminded her how to transform a household implement into a weapon, how to kill with a credit card, how to incapacitate with a paper clip. They studied points of vulnerability: joints, arteries, eyes.

These sessions usually occurred in the garage, a space large enough to take three trucks. There were kayaks stacked on racks along two walls. At the far end, there was a wooden bench, a heavy vice, trays of oily tools. A punchbag was suspended from the ceiling. He began to instruct her on elements of Thai boxing. He had no interest in the sport itself but admired it for the flexibility and speed of its best practitioners.

Lunch tended to be meagre, a little vegetable soup, some bread, water. Too much food and Stephanie knew she’d throw up during the afternoon. Which most often happened anyway. Boyd didn’t feel he’d worked her hard enough unless she was on the ground, retching. They ran through coarse thigh-high grass that hid the treacherous ruts beneath, up and down scree slopes where even the surest footing failed constantly. Each tumble was marked by a new graze. They ran shin-deep through peat hags of liquid black earth. Stephanie remembered now what she had discovered then: nothing saps energy faster than a peat hag.

They ran in howling winds, through horizontal rain, under crisping summer suns. Even when cold, a northern Scottish sun tanned a skin as quickly and painfully as any other she’d experienced. Mist was the only exception, confining them to areas close to the lodge and loch. There were no patterns in the weather. It was not uncommon to experience all four seasons before lunch and another full year in the afternoon.

Knowing what to expect made it no less painful. The muscles she had allowed to soften burned in protest. Aches matured into cramps. Grazes and cuts were constantly aggravated and so never healed. Boyd kept her on the edge of exhaustion and she understood why; he wanted to provoke a reaction. Physical or emotional, either or both.

Four years before, Boyd had bullied her. That had been his task – to make her quit. The regime had been executed to a score of abuse. This time, it was different. Too much had passed between them the first time. From RSM and raw recruit, to mentor and understudy. Behind the granite façade, Boyd had been proud of her then. And she had felt some pride, too. In the end, he’d treated her with respect. There’d been equality. And with that, there had been something else. A subversive sexual undercurrent.

Neither had acknowledged it. Neither had wanted to.

Now, Boyd retained the power to intimidate but not indiscriminately. He’d tried to break her once and failed. They understood something of each other. They were not so different. The element of hostility upon which Boyd’s training regime relied felt contrived. He knew that Stephanie would never do anything less than he ordered. She would always try to do more to show that her spirit had always been beyond his reach and, by proxy, beyond Alexander’s.

In the evenings, Boyd allowed her to have a bath instead of a shower, to cleanse and soothe her collage of cuts and bruises. While she was soaking, he prepared supper. Some nights he ate with her, most nights he didn’t. Afterwards, he read by the peat fire in the sitting room, or went to his small office, shutting the door on her. She was free to do as she pleased. That meant going to bed as early as possible because she knew that in the morning the routine would resume and that there weren’t enough hours in the night for her to recuperate fully.

I’m sitting on a stone beside a cluster of mountain ash trees. Slender branches sag under the weight of dense clusters of brilliant red berries. According to Boyd, this is the sign of a harsh winter ahead. He might be right, but I predict some severe frost far sooner than that.

The weeks roll past as the tension between us grows daily. I know that I’m not helping matters because I react badly to his continual provocation. But that’s the way I am. I use aggravation as a spur.

I can feel the metamorphosis. The body I had is reducing, hardening, changing shape. I preferred myself as I was – happy, healthy, feminine – but there is another part of me that celebrates the new condition. It toughens me mentally to see the physical change. It’s difficult to rationalize. Perhaps it’s the sense that Boyd is only making his task harder. The more I improve, the less his jibes matter. And the more distracted that seems to make him.

Within the parameters of our narrow existence, this should give me some pleasure. But it doesn’t. I would like to ask what the matter is but I can’t. Just as when he asks me about my time as Petra, I refuse to give him an answer. Not because I don’t want him to know but because I don’t want Alexander to know. Perhaps part of the reason for my discomfort lies there; I don’t like to see a fiercely strong and independent man like Boyd acting as a mouthpiece for a snake like Alexander.

I’m watching from afar. He’s by the cabins, flanked by three assistants, two men and a woman, all ex-Army. By the edge of the loch, the latest batch of guests have congregated around half a dozen kayaks. They’ve come from Slough. They work in telesales, peddling advertising space in magazines specializing in second-hand cars, DIY, computing, kitchens and bathrooms. I wait until Boyd steps forward to address the group before retreating to the lodge.

Inside, it’s cool, dark and still. I hear the murmur of the Rayburn in the kitchen. Nothing else. I step into Boyd’s office, the only room in his home from which I am expressly forbidden. It’s a small cube with a single window onto the loch. A sturdy seasoned oak desk occupies much of the floor-space. Along one wall, there are four filing cabinets, all locked, which seems strange considering Boyd rarely bothers to lock his front door unless he’s away for a matter of days.

I sift through the papers on the desk; a phone bill with no numbers I recognize, some correspondence from Sutherland Council, a receipt for a Caledonian MacBrayne ferry ticket to Islay, several letters from companies booked with Boyd over the summer. I ignore the computer, suspecting he’ll know if I’ve tampered with it. Instead, I dial 1471 on the phone to see who his last caller was but they haven’t allowed their number to be passed on.

Some of the shelves are occupied by books, mostly history, no fiction. There are two dozen CDs above a mini-system. They’re all classical. Above the CDs, there are two rows of box files, each with headings down the spine. Most of them appear to be business accounts stretching back over a decade. On one shelf there are two small silver samovars. On the shelf beneath, there are framed photographs; Boyd in combat gear, hot scrub for a background, three other soldiers in the foreground, machine guns clutched as casually as friends; Boyd looking younger and with longer hair, Manhattan behind him – a snap from the top of the Empire State Building, I think; a head-and-shoulders portrait of a woman with light brown, shoulder-length hair, grey eyes, a petite nose and thin straight lips. I pick it up. Rachel.

There are other photographs of her, some with Boyd, some alone. In the ones that feature him, I see an entirely different man to the one I know. A man who used to smile, a man without emptiness for eyes. He looks warmly happy in every one. He hardly looks like Boyd.

All I’m aware of is the ticking of the carriage-clock on his desk.

I’m still holding Rachel. Something seeps out of the frame, through my fingertips and heads for my chest. Shame. Boyd has his reasons for banning me from this room and now I have my own. I watch him through the window. He’s still talking. I wonder what it was that Rachel possessed to make Boyd fall in love with her. And then I wonder what kind of woman would fall in love with a man like Boyd.

Boyd had his back to the sink. Stephanie was leaning close to the Rayburn, letting its heat warm the backs of her thighs. Outside, a storm rampaged. Earlier, she’d watched the clouds gather. The rain had arrived as the light died in the west. Four hours later, the tempest was intensifying.

‘When I heard you’d run after Malta, I wasn’t surprised. I warned Alexander. I said you would, right from the start. I told him, if she gets a chance, she’ll take it. But you were so good, he didn’t believe me. He thought I’d trained you too well for that.’

‘But you hadn’t?’

‘Depends on how you look at it. I take the view that I trained you well enough to think for yourself. Once you were out there, you weren’t a programmed machine. You were versatile. Imaginative. Beyond containment.’

‘Am I supposed to be flattered?’

‘You’re supposed to ask what went wrong.’

‘Maybe nothing did.’

‘You became Petra, didn’t you? That was never supposed to happen. Once you’d vanished, you should have stayed vanished.’

‘Nobody stays vanished. Not from them.’

‘You could’ve.’

‘They found me, didn’t they?’

‘Living under the surname Schneider,’ Boyd said, making no effort to disguise his contempt.

Stephanie wasn’t sure that had anything to do with it.

‘If you’d been more careful, you could’ve made it work. You could’ve created a brand-new life for yourself. A good life.’

‘I did. In the end.’

‘It should have happened straight away. You had enough talent to do it. Once you were free, you could’ve done anything …’

‘Like what? Settle down in Sydney or Reykjavik? Get a job, have children?’

‘Why not?’

‘I guess you don’t know me as well as you think you do.’

‘Maybe you didn’t try hard enough.’

Goaded, Stephanie retorted, ‘You mean, like you? Let’s face it, we’re not that far apart, you and I. Both of us are screwed up, neither of us able to live in the real world with real people, doing the nine-to-five.’

Boyd refused to rise to the bait. ‘Mentally, you’re in worse shape than when we first met. Then, you were just out of control. You were angry and aimless. Now? I don’t know what it is but it’s something more complex …’

His regret was wounding to her. Upset, she resorted to cheap sarcasm. ‘A shrink as well as a soldier. You’re a man of many talents.’

‘And you used to be a woman of many talents.’

‘If you see damaged goods, you should take a look at yourself. You made me.’

‘I know. And I’m aware of that responsibility. Now more than ever.’

‘It’s a bit late in the day, isn’t it?’

‘Why did you become Petra after Malta?’

‘That’s none of your business.’

‘You can’t carry on like this forever.’

‘Like what?’

‘Avoiding the only issue that matters.’

‘You mean, like you have? Look at you, living here in the middle of nowhere, trying to forget that Rachel’s no longer alive.’

He contained himself but only just. After the silence, he said, ‘I think we’d better call it a night.’ He turned his back to her. ‘Before one of us says something we’ll regret.’

She lay on her side, curled into a ball, wide awake despite her exhaustion. Rain rattled the window. In the darkness, she could hear the curtains creeping on the draught. She felt the chill of loneliness. There was confusion in her mind, anger in her heart.

She rose from her bed, pulled on a large black sweatshirt, and tiptoed slowly down the passage. The floorboards were cold against the soles of her feet. Boyd’s bedroom was over the kitchen. She opened the door. It creaked and she paused for a response. Nothing. Boyd was a man who heard whispers in his sleep; sure enough, when she put her head round the door, his bed was empty. She went downstairs and heard him in the kitchen. He was heaping coke into the Rayburn. She waited silently in the doorway. He sensed her before he saw her. He put the bucket down, stood up straight and turned around.

She said, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Forget it.’

‘The way I’ve behaved isn’t the way I feel.’

‘You’re trained not to behave the way you feel.’

‘I know. But I don’t need to make any more enemies.’

She stepped forward and kissed him on the mouth. He neither embraced her, nor pulled away. When she broke the kiss and retreated, he said nothing.

‘I’ve spent all my adult life not talking about the things I feel.’

‘Stephanie …’

‘Are you going to tell me this is a bad idea? Because if you are, don’t bother. This isn’t some reckless impulse. It’s been in the back of my mind for the last four years. When we’re running through the middle of nowhere, you shout at me but I can hear that your heart isn’t in your voice. When you glare at me, your eyes give you away. Tell me it hasn’t been on your mind, too.’

When he spoke, she knew his throat was dry. ‘This is a bad idea.’

She pulled the black sweatshirt over her head and let it drop to the floor. It was warm in the kitchen, the heat welcome on her naked skin.

‘Is this some kind of game, Stephanie?’

‘It’s no game.’

‘What, then?’

‘We’re just two similar people in a situation. With nothing to lose.’

‘Nothing to lose?’

‘Do you know what I want more than anything?’

‘What?’

‘I want someone to see me as a woman. I want you to see me as a woman. I’m not a man masquerading as a woman. I’m not a robot, I’m not a killing machine. When Alexander looks at me, he sees a device. When I was Petra, the people I met looked at me and saw a threat. When I looked at them, all I ever saw was fear. That’s not what I want.’

‘Are you sure this is what you want?’

‘I want someone to know me.’

‘What about your friend in France?’

For a second, there was guilt. Then there was perspective. ‘Laurent was lovely. We had a good time but it was a casual arrangement. It could never be anything more than that because I could never show him who I really am. He didn’t know me at all. But you could.’

A silence grew between them.

Boyd hadn’t allowed his eyes to leave hers.

She said, ‘For Christ’s sake, look at me.’

He couldn’t.

‘I’m a twenty-seven-year-old woman. I’m standing naked in front of you. Do something.’ She was amazed at how small her voice sounded. ‘Please.’

‘It’s not that simple. I … I … don’t know what to think.’

It seemed a strange thing to say. It made him sound helpless.

‘You’re not supposed to think.’

‘I’m not like you.’

‘Which is one of the things that makes it easier for me to like you.’

‘You don’t like me.’

‘You’re wrong,’ Stephanie insisted. ‘I do.’

‘If you saw me on a crowded street in a city, you wouldn’t see me at all.’

‘We’re not in a city.’

‘Put the sweatshirt back on, Stephanie.’

‘Make love with me.’

‘No.’

She felt the onset of panic. ‘Then fuck me.’

He winced. ‘No.’

‘Then let me fuck you.’

‘No.’

‘You won’t have to do anything.’

‘Go to bed.’

‘You’re humiliating me.’

‘You’re humiliating yourself.’

Stephanie took a step forward. Boyd stood his ground by the Rayburn.

‘I know you want me.’

‘I don’t want you.’

‘Liar. I’ve seen the way you look at me. When we’re running, when I’m stretching, when we’re both drenched to the skin. I know what you’re thinking. The same thing I’m thinking.’

‘Stop it.’

She moved closer. ‘Has there been anyone since Rachel?’

‘That’s enough.’

She was within touching distance. ‘Has there?’

‘I mean it.’

The Rayburn door was still open. She saw dark orange flicker across her stomach.

‘You don’t want me to go away. I know you don’t.’

‘Stephanie …’

She reached for his hand and pulled it close so that his fingertips brushed her pubic hair. ‘If you want to, you can pretend I’m her.’

The light went out in his eyes.

He snapped his hand free of hers. Stephanie lurched backwards, caught her hip on the corner of the table, and stumbled. She clutched the sink. The moment fractured, her nakedness felt clumsy and cheap. Boyd gave her a look that was as full of hatred as any she’d ever seen.

‘You’ve got sixty seconds to get dressed.’

They started along the track. By dark, it was treacherous. Then Boyd told her to veer right and they left behind the only relatively even surface for miles. It was a foul night; torrential rain, thunder, a piercing cold, flashes of sheet lightning. As the incline grew steeper, the grass began to cede to heather and rocks. They tripped and slid, jarring ankles and wrists, grazing shins, knees and palms. Only when she fell would Boyd allow himself words.

‘Up! On your feet! Get up!’

She tumbled down a grassy slope to a rocky ledge fifteen feet below, landing on soaking granite, winding herself. Boyd scrambled to her side.

‘Don’t just fucking lie there! Run!’

She tried to get to her knees. Boyd bent down, grabbed her by the hair and started to drag her over stones. Despite herself, Stephanie yelped. When she clawed at his wrist, he kicked back with the heel of his boot, hitting her on the elbow. She cried out again.

‘What are you squealing for? Isn’t this what you wanted?’

On they went, Stephanie losing all sense of time and location. Somewhere amid the confusion, it began to occur to her that Boyd wasn’t merely content to force her past the point of collapse; he wanted to force himself past it too.

They were climbing higher, the gradient growing steeper. They pressed along a ledge two feet wide, a slick wall of stone to the left, an incalculable drop into darkness to the right, loose scree beneath their feet. Scrawny trees sprouted from beneath slabs of black rock, spindly branches and twigs slashing at skin and cloth alike. Squinting fiercely through the rain, Stephanie slowed to try to make out the route ahead, only to feel the heavy prod of Boyd’s fist in her back.

‘Faster, not slower!’

When she fell, he made no attempt to catch her. She reached out blindly, her left arm clattering against a branch. She wrapped herself around it. Bark shaved skin off the crook of her arm. Her feet were airborne. Blinking furiously, she saw Boyd on the track, hands on hips, watching. She slowed her swing, steadied herself and climbed back to the ledge. On her hands and knees, she looked up at him. She expected an insult but he said nothing. He didn’t have to. The message was in his stare; there’s no safety-net out here.

They reached a plateau. Stephanie guessed it was the saddle between two peaks because suddenly the wind was stronger, the rain horizontal. With the incline gone, he forced her to go faster still. At the higher altitude there was no thick grass, just greasy tufts between slivers of sheered rock and sheets of smooth stone. Her T-shirt clung to her body like an extra skin.

Recklessly, they ran without direction, burning the last of the air in their lungs, the wind moaning in their ears. When she retched, she didn’t stop. She just spat the last of her bile and saliva into the night. Sometimes she fell, sometimes he fell. She’d hear the grunt as he hit the ground and the crackle of loose stone beneath him. She never looked round. She carried on, forcing him to make up the lost ground. Will-power drove her on when her stamina began to fail.

Until she twisted her ankle.

It was a flat slice of land but her right foot skidded and then wedged itself between two rocks. She went over on it, felt the wrench in the joint, the searing heat up her calf and shin. The foot broke free as she fell.

She came to a stop close to the edge of a small pool of icy black water. She lay on her back, her spasmodic breathing beyond control. Boyd barked at her to get up. She did nothing and felt his boot in her ribs again. She rolled onto her side and then dragged herself to her feet. But when she placed the weight of her body on the right ankle, it folded. Boyd yelled at her once more.

‘I can’t!’ she panted.

He grabbed the collar of the T-shirt, squeezing cold water from it. ‘You will.’

‘My ankle … it’s sprained … twisted …’

‘I don’t care if it’s broken! Run!’

Three times she tried, three times she fell, but Boyd was having none of it. As she lay on the ground, he stood over her and pressed the sole of his boot onto her right ankle. She squirmed but refused to cry out.

‘The next time you fall down I’m going to stamp on this bone until it’s fucking paste! You understand, you shilling slut?’

She staggered to her feet once more. The strike caught both of them by surprise. Stephanie wasn’t fully aware of throwing it and Boyd had no time to avoid it. Her right hand cracked against the side of his face, loud enough to over-ride the cacophony of the storm, strong enough to put him down. But like a rubber ball, he was on his way up the moment he hit the ground. Stephanie never even raised her hands. He threw a punch, not a slap. It caught her on the right cheek, just below the eye. As she collapsed, stars erupted on the inside of her eyelids, the only spots of brightness in the night.

For a moment, there was nothing but rain and cold.

When Stephanie opened her eyes, Boyd had moved away. He was sitting on a mossy ledge, his head in his hands. She watched him, as still as stone, water dripping from him. Eventually, he looked up at her. Despite the darkness, she could see that the hatred was gone. In its place, there was sorrow.