.

a perverse delight in it. I was the archetypal ‘difficult second child’.

      I never cried. I was sullen and cold. When provoked or angered, my resentment was usually silent and ran deep. I rarely forgave, I never forgot. I preferred my company to that of anyone else. The social aspects of family life held no attractions for me. Independence was what I craved. I longed for a future free of the family.

      It wasn’t that they were unpleasant. It was that I was unpleasant.

      My teenage years must have been a particular form of Hell for my parents. I rarely missed an opportunity to anger or disappoint them. I found academic work much easier than anyone else of my age but I frequently failed exams as an absurd act of rebellion. When my parents lectured me on the perils of alcohol, I went through a phase of getting drunk at every available opportunity and, if possible, in public. Even losing my virginity was an act of spite. It was genuinely nothing more. I treated the boy who took it as contemptuously as I treated my parents, whom I told the following morning. They were disgusted, then distraught. I was delighted.

      I think about these things now – the pointlessness of it all, the needless irritation and sadness for which I was responsible – and I try to console myself with the fact that at least there was a reason for it, an explanation. But there isn’t. And now it’s too late to apologize. They’re gone. Dead. And if I hadn’t been such a spoilt bitch and refused to go with them, I’d be dead too.

      There really is no justice in this world.

      ‘How did you find out what had happened?’

      Stephanie cupped her glass of wine between both her hands. ‘It was when I was at Durham University –’

      ‘So you didn’t totally under-achieve, then.’

      ‘I was smart enough to know when it mattered and then I’d always do enough to get by. And I wasn’t going to miss out on a place at university. It was a chance to move away.’

      ‘What were you reading?’

      She smiled. ‘German – I was already fluent. My mother was Swiss-German. We were all brought up trilingual. My father was fluent in French.’

      ‘Why didn’t you choose something more challenging?’

      ‘Because I wasn’t really interested. If I had been, I’d have made sure I went to Oxford or Cambridge. But for me, university wasn’t about degrees leading to professions. It was just a phase to be endured.’

      Stephanie poured a small amount of walnut oil into the wok and then moved it over a flame. The vegetables were on the wooden board beside the chopping knife. Proctor was behind her and in this moment, she preferred it like that.

      ‘The night before I found out, I was with this second-year student. He was living in a rented cottage in Sherburn, an old pit village a few miles outside Durham. There was a party, we all got drunk, I stayed over. I didn’t get back to Hild and Bede – my college – until eleven the next morning. I was in my room, changing, when there was a knock on the door. It was another first year, like me. She was ashen-faced, she looked sick. I hadn’t heard the news or seen a paper, but she had. She said the Principal was looking for me so I went across to his office and he told me. I remember how hard it was for him, how he struggled to find the right words.’

      Stephanie turned around. Proctor said, ‘How did you react?’

      ‘Predictably. No gasps, no tears. It didn’t seem real until I saw it on TV. Even at the funerals, I couldn’t absorb it. I kept expecting it to end, for someone to say that it had just been a macabre practical joke.’

      ‘And when that wore off, what then?’

      ‘Then I had to get away. From Durham, from Christopher and his family. From myself. And so I came down here. The rest … well, you know most of that already.’

      ‘You stayed with friends at first?’

      ‘They weren’t really friends, just people I knew. I moved from one place to the next – a couple of nights here, a couple of nights there. To ease the pain, I drank and took drugs. I’d done a bit of both at Durham, but when I got to London, I started to do more. Before long, and without really being aware of it, I gravitated towards similar people. Instead of wine and beer, I started drinking cheap cider and stolen spirits. Instead of a sharing a couple of social joints, I started scoring Valium, speed, coke, heroin. Anything to take me up or bring me down, I didn’t really care which. You know how it is. The habit gets worse, the crowd becomes seedier, the circle becomes more vicious. It didn’t take long for me to run out of money – six weeks, maybe two months, I don’t remember – so that was when I started trading sex for cash.’

      ‘That must’ve been hard.’

      ‘Not as hard as you might think. I was wrecked most of the time and I’d already been screwing a heroin dealer in return for a steady supply of tranquillizers. That was like a stepping-stone to the real thing. I got away from everyone else by moving to London and then I got away from myself by getting out of my head. Selling myself was the price I had to pay for that.’

      Proctor shook his head. ‘I can’t even begin to imagine what that’s like.’

      ‘Oh, I’m sure you’ve tried.’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘I mean the reality’s not as titillating as you’d like it to be.’

      He looked indignant. ‘I’ve never thought there was anything titillating about prostitution.’

      ‘No?’

      ‘No.’

      He saw that she didn’t believe him. She said, ‘Whatever you say. The truth is, it’s dirty, monotonous and depressing. Occasionally, it’s dangerous. But most of the time, it’s as routine as any nine-to-five. Except we tend to work p.m. to a.m.’

      ‘How many days a week did you work?’

      ‘I’d say four to five, averaging five clients a day, at thirty to eighty pounds a go. Some days you get no one, other days you lose count.’

      ‘What kind of people?’

      ‘A mixture of regulars and one-offs.’

      ‘Can I ask you the most obvious question?’

      She guessed what that was. ‘How do I do it with someone I find repellent?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘The same way a lawyer does his business with a criminal he’s sure is guilty. Dispassionately and professionally.’

      ‘But this is your body we’re talking about.’

      ‘Exactly. It’s not my soul – my spirit – so it’s not the real me.’

      This time it was Stephanie who saw that her answer was doubted.

      ‘What do they tend to be like?’

      ‘They’re mostly middle-aged, mostly married. There are one or two who are nice enough – they tend to be the regulars – but the rest are wankers. Especially the ones who try to bargain. I mean, it’s bad enough without having to explain to some tosser that I’ll open my legs for eighty but I won’t for forty. Then you get the guys who can’t get it up or who can’t come. They’re the ones who are most likely to get abusive. They’re also the ones most likely to cry. But the ones I like the least are the macho ones who insist on the full half-hour – not a minute less – and are determined to try to break some kind of ejaculation record. It’s like some kind of virility test they have to pass. They’re pathetic.’

      ‘Do you have to see so many of them?’

      ‘Why? Do you think I enjoy it?’

      ‘No. But five clients a day at eighty quid a session, that’s four hundred pounds. Five days a week makes two grand.’

      ‘Let me explain