Mark Burnell - Chameleon

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.’