‘That’s him.’
‘You been together a long time, you and Marco?’
‘Just over a year.’
‘That sounds serious.’
‘It is. We’re engaged.’
‘Congratulations.’
I look down at the ring on my finger. The Tudors believed that a vein ran from the fourth finger of the left hand directly to the heart. The thought of it makes me uneasy.
‘He’s a good man, and he works hard. I owe him a lot.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ Frankie says. ‘Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll take you into town for breakfast and then we can drop in to that friend of mine. I’m sure he’ll know about the gremlins in your pipes. Deal?’
‘I’ve already had my breakfast . . .’ I say.
‘So have another breakfast.’
‘And town is so far away.’
‘It’s five minutes in the van.’ He looks at me with mischief and good humour. ‘Come on, for goodness’ sake. It’s only breakfast, not a witch burning. It’ll do you good to get outside for a bit. Change of scenery and all that.’
‘All right,’ I surprise myself by saying, ‘but just give me a second to get ready. I warn you, I am deranged through lack of sleep.’
‘Well,’ Frankie tells me over his shoulder, ‘sounds like you need some bracing sea air.’
Upstairs I pull a brush through my hair and rub blusher into my cheeks with the tips of my fingers. It stands out in vivid circles against my pale skin like a sickness. I change my jumper for a T-shirt and cardigan and go to the bathroom. I feel surprisingly happy. I take the pills from the cupboard, tipping two into my hand. I put them on the windowsill while I brush my teeth.
Walking down the landing I notice for the first time the loft hatch at the end of the hallway. It is set into the ceiling, a little to the left of the door to the spare room. There is a bulky-looking silver padlock on it, looped through the catch. I stand beneath it with my head tilted back, wondering if there are rats up there. Squirrels perhaps. It would explain the scratching sounds I’ve been hearing, pattering like footsteps. It makes me think of a child running the length of the hallway in a nightgown, hands trailing along the thick cottage walls. I make up my mind to ask Frankie to go up there and see. When I spit my toothpaste into the sink there is a little blood, a pinkish hue. I pull down my lip and study my gums. They are pale, fleshy. There’s a knock at the door and I turn, surprised.
‘Are you coming, Stella?’
Frankie has a large white van, slightly dirty and smelling of dog and engine oil. The front seat is covered with a violently colourful blanket. (‘It’s from Mexico,’ Frankie explains when he sees my doubtful face, ‘and I suppose some would call it a bit garish.’) The back is full of tools and coils of wire and ladders which rattle around as it jolts along the country road. I lean my head against the glass. Frankie asks if I am comfortable and points out the distant shape of the tin mine and the naked trees like stitches embroidered against the landscape.
‘See that beacon over there?’ he asks. ‘There’s a legend that a giant called Bolster could stand with a foot on that beacon and his other foot on Carn Brea six miles away. They said he ate sheep and cattle and sometimes children. He died, of course, in the legend. Died because of love. Bled out into a bottomless hole.’
‘Yikes.’
‘Yup, legends are gory as hell most of the time. The good ones, that is.’
He pulls up in the deserted seafront car park, opposite a café. The wind charges the waves to shore, sending spray and foam crashing over the rocks. There is a scatter of dog walkers on the sand, which is as dark and glossy as treacle. Lifeguard flags flutter in the high wind, black-and-white like a chessboard.
‘What do the flags mean?’
‘Surfing, but no swimming. There are nasty rip tides along this coast, could pull you out a good way. Know what to do if you get caught in a rip tide, Stella?’
I tell him no as I climb from the van.
‘Swim at an angle towards the shore. Don’t try to swim against it. If all else fails float on your back and go with it. We’ve had a lot of tourists get into trouble because you can’t see the rip. It’s under the surface, sneaking up on you. Know what I mean?’
I stare at him pulling on his hoodie in the wintry sunshine. I can’t help feeling that he is teasing me. When he emerges he grins, his eyes glittering.
‘You want to go in the water, you come to me first. I’ve got a wetsuit that’ll fit you. The cold will kill you quicker than anything else.’
Sand, blown in from the beach, scratches underfoot as we cross the road.
‘What’s the deal with all your tattoos?’ I ask. ‘Do they have some sort of significance?’
‘Uh,’ Frankie says, his face hidden beneath his hood, ‘I actually got them in prison. An inmate called Tito from Guadalajara did them for me as a mark of how much time I served.’ He winks at me as he opens the café door. ‘But don’t worry. Those old people I killed were going to die soon anyway.’
I hang back, just for a second.
He grins. ‘Stella, come on. I’m joking. As if I’d kill old people.’ He leans closer, almost whispering. ‘Just those two hitchhikers but that was it, I swear.’
We pass through the café doorway, and I smile weakly to show I can take a joke. Overhead the bell jangles. Frankie raises his hand to a man reading a paper who nods back. As we reach the counter side by side Frankie says, ‘You know I’m kidding, right? You know that. I’ve never hurt anyone. Never killed anyone. I haven’t even had a parking fine.’
‘Frankie!’ The woman behind the counter leans across and hugs him, making a noise like a slow puncture, a high-pitched wheeeeee.
I stare at her red hair, the colour of a freshly painted pillar box, twisted up in an elaborate roll. She has a ring through her nose and a smattering of freckles across her cheeks, one of which has a deep scar running across it. It puckers when she smiles. A crease in the skin like she has been hacked at.
She smiles at me. ‘Hi!’
Frankie introduces us. ‘Stella, Heidi, Heidi, Stella. Heidi runs the café here,’ he tells me, taking a menu from the counter and handing it to me.
‘It’s my baby,’ she says, smiling.
‘How long have you had it?’
She looks at Frankie, frowning in concentration. ‘A few years, maybe? It seems longer.’
‘Every second I spend with you seems like an eternity, my dear,’ Frankie says without looking up, but smiling just a little.
‘Ha. Ha,’ she deadpans, rolling her eyes at me as if to say how do you put up with this?
I can’t take my eyes off her. She looks like a comic-book heroine, richly pigmented. I feel a sudden stab of envy. I will never look that exotic, that abundantly confident. Once, maybe, when I was younger and brighter. Not now. Heidi bends forward, the bright plume of her hair like an exclamation mark. Frankie is saying something which makes her laugh and I feel a painful jealousy at their intimacy, a needle slowly inserted into skin.
We order breakfast and two coffees and take a table by the window looking out to sea.
‘How’s the not drinking going?’ he asks.