Emma Stonex - The Lamplighters

Thanks to my brilliant editors Francesca Main, Andrea Schulz and Iris Tupholme for their insight, intuition and improvements to the manuscript; and to Sophie Jonathan for steering it so ably, and with such cleverness and kindness, out to sea. To the teams at Picador in the UK, Viking in the US and HarperCollins in Canada for their enthusiasm and expertise, in particular Jeremy Trevathan, Camilla Elworthy, Katie Bowden, Katie Tooke, Laura Carr, Roshani Moorjani, Claire Gatzen, Nicholas Blake, Lindsay Nash, Carolyn Coleburn, Molly Fessendon, Lindsay Prevette, Kate Stark, Nidhi Pugalia, Sona Vogel, Bel Banta, Amanda Inman, Meighan Cavanaugh, Claire Vacarro, Tricia Conley, Sharon Gonzalez, Nayon Cho, Jason Ramirez and Julia McDowell.

To my agent Madeleine Milburn and all at MMLA, especially Anna Hogarty, Liane-Louise Smith, Georgina Simmonds and Giles Milburn. Maddy, you’ve known this story for as long as we’ve known each other. Much like the lighthouses when they were a glimmer in a Stevenson’s eye, many drafts were built and fell, but we got our lantern shining in the end.

Mimi Etherington, Rosie Walsh and Kate Reardon, thank you: I hope you know what for. I’m grateful to Kate Wilde, Vanessa Neuling, Caroline Hogg, Chloe Setter, Melissa Lesage, Jennifer Hayes, Joanna Croot, Emily Plosker, Sam Jenkins, Chioma Okereke, Laura Balfour, Sarah Thomas, Jo Robaczynski and Lucy Clarke for their friendship and support. Love to my sister Victoria, my nephew Jack, and my parents, Ian and Katharine, to whom this book is dedicated.

Thank you, Mark, for encouraging me towards my beloved lighthouse, in life and imagination. But most of all, to Charlotte and Eleanor, who are forever my brightest lights.

Emma Stonex was born in 1983 and grew up in Northamptonshire. Before becoming a writer, she worked as an editor at a major publishing house. The Lamplighters left harbour after a lifelong passion for lighthouses and everything to do with the sea; it has been translated into more than twenty languages. She lives in the South West with her family.

First published 2021 by Picador

This electronic edition published 2021 by Picador

an imprint of Pan Macmillan

The Smithson, 6 Briset Street, London EC1M 5NR

EU representative : Macmillan Publishers Ireland Limited, Mallard Lodge, Lansdowne Village, Dublin 4

Associated companies throughout the world

www.panmacmillan.com

ISBN 978-1-5290-4733-2

Copyright © Emma Stonex Ltd 2021

Cover illustration © Max Ellis

Author photo © Melissa Lesage

Cover design by Katie Tooke, Picador Art Department

The right of Emma Stonex to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Grateful acknowledgement to the trustees of the Wilfrid Gibson Estate for permission to quote the lines here We stood a moment still tongue-tied, And each with black foreboding eyed The door ere we should fling it wide To leave the sunlight for the gloom Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, ‘Flannan Isle’ Two different men; I’ve been two men so long now. From Tony Parker, Lighthouse AUTHOR’S NOTE In December 1900, three lighthouse keepers disappeared from a remote rock light on the island of Eilean Mòr in the Outer Hebrides. Their names were Thomas Marshall, James Ducat and Donald MacArthur. The Lamplighters is inspired by, and written in respectful memory of, this event, but is a work of fiction and therefore bears no resemblance to these men’s lives or their characters. .

The epigraph here Two different men; I’ve been two men so long now. From Tony Parker, Lighthouse AUTHOR’S NOTE In December 1900, three lighthouse keepers disappeared from a remote rock light on the island of Eilean Mòr in the Outer Hebrides. Their names were Thomas Marshall, James Ducat and Donald MacArthur. The Lamplighters is inspired by, and written in respectful memory of, this event, but is a work of fiction and therefore bears no resemblance to these men’s lives or their characters. , ‘Two different men; I’ve been two men so long now’ is from Lighthouse by Tony Parker (Eland Publishing, 2005).

‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’, quoted here His wife was still at the bar; she wouldn’t come back of her own accord, he’d have to go out there and fetch her. They danced to ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’, there in the cloakroom, the only two people in the world. In the sooty darkness he drew her to him, or she went without persuasion, it was hard to say, and they held each other, her cheek on his, and the room was humming harder as the ceiling flew away. , lyrics by Keith Reid, published by Onward Music Limited, Roundhouse, 212 Regents Park Road Entrance, London NW1 8AW

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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