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better of it. My head was clear and, for the first time in years, I was happy. Although the gaps between our lovemaking were irregular — in itself not unusual for a marriage of a dozen years, I had read — Ronnie’s stamina on these occasions was always short, something I could live with, but with which, I imagined, a succession of mistresses might be impatient. I tried to remember him as I had first met him, his nonchalance with the everyday things of life, his sense of humour and his easy charm. For despite everything, we still had times of sweetness together. They coincided in the main with Ronnie’s business catastrophes. Stripped of his tricks by worry and impending disaster, I saw another Ronnie, devoid of winning ways or the need to dissemble. My wish in those times was perverse: that we could always be like this, an aspiration which involved never-ending misfortune; but at least then I would have him alone, which is to say, a man without pretensions, in need of love, who stayed at home and close to me, who came out the cliffs for walks and who listened as well as spoke.
    ‘Hector’s getting on well.’
    We inched through a herd of port-bound cattle at the top of Captain Penny’s Road.
    ‘He likes his school.’
    ‘Not right for an only child to be at home on his own. Needs company.’
    ‘His every move is a mirror of you.’
    ‘Boys are like that. I remember how it was with my own father. Wanted to be him.’
    We made our way forward as drovers beat and shouted.
    ‘May I say something?’ Ronnie asked. ‘I’d like to start again, you and me. From scratch. Go back to the very beginning. What do you say?’
    I could not conceal my frustration. ‘I don’t know, Ronnie. Really, I don’t.’
    ‘Please.’
    ‘I’ll think about it,’ I said.
    A few nights later I was reading in bed when a knock came to the door of the lantern bay.
    ‘May I come in?’
    It was clear Ronnie had been drinking — not a common occurrence, but now manifested in a fixed, Langley-type grin. He sat on the side of my bed.
    ‘Big changes.’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘You know. Me drawing a wage, Langley peeing himself, Hector gone. Big, big changes.’
    ‘Change can be good.’
    Ronnie grinned. ‘You don’t change though. You just get more beautiful.’
    I felt my eyes brim. Ronnie sat on the bedside, then bent down and we kissed.
    ‘That was good,’ he said.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘D’you want to know something? D’you know when I wanted you the most?’
    ‘I can’t imagine.’
    ‘When we fought… you know, before Hector went away. I thought you were magnificent. I couldn’t work out why we hadn’t done it before, got all the bad stuff out in the open. I wanted to come up that night, break down the door and ravage you. Sorry, but it’s the truth.’
    ‘You’ve been drinking, Ronnie.’
    He was now lying on the covers, stroking my neck.
    ‘Sometimes drink brings out the truth.’
    I looked at him, at his warm eyes, his still somehow inviting skin. With drink, he lacked the guile of the day-to-day Ronnie, so that all was left was a quite charming if tipsy, middle-aged man.
    ‘I don’t want to be hurt again, Ronnie.’
    ‘You won’t be, ever, I swear.’
    ‘I wish I could believe you.’
    ‘That’s all finished. I was a fool, I know I was, but I’ve changed. And apart from being even more beautiful, so have you, I think.’
    He had a tenacity at such moments lacking in all the other aspects of his life.
    ‘You are beautiful,’ he murmured, baring my shoulders and kissing them. ‘So bloody lovely.’

CHAPTER EIGHT
    1963
    It was a time of change. Factories were built outside Monument, people acquired cars and houses began to appear on recently green fields, almost as far as the holy well on Captain Penny’s Road. When Hector stepped from the boat at Easter, it took me a moment to recognise him, six feet tall and twice as broad as I remembered. I saw girls on the wharf suck in their breaths.
    ‘Hector!’
    He smiled and