Emma Stonex - The Lamplighters

The nights before Bill went off again were the worst. I felt sick about him going as soon as he came ashore, which was a waste because I didn’t enjoy him like I should have when he was at home. I was too caught up in the idea of him leaving again. We always spent those last nights the same. We’d cosy up on the settee and watch Call My Bluff , or some other show we didn’t need to think too hard on. Bill said he got the Channels before he went off – that’s what he called that feeling he got, of nerves and sadness was how he described it. He said it comes from when sailors used to go back on their boats after a spell at home and it took them a few days to feel better about being away, and until they did, they had that sensation of missing their real lives and having to adjust. Bill had it before he’d even left home. It was the expectation of it that was almost as bad. He’d stare out the window and see the Maiden waiting for him all that way away, and as it got dark, she’d light up, like she was saying, Aha! You thought I’d forgotten about you, didn’t you, but I haven’t. It was worse for us being able to see her. It’d have been better if we’d lived out of sight.

We’d check the weather in case the relief was getting delayed; we half hoped it would and half hoped it wouldn’t, because that just made the waiting longer. I’d cook him his favourite dinner, steak pie with Arctic roll for dessert, and bring it to him on a tray to eat on his lap, but he wouldn’t eat much of it, due to the Channels.

I had a calendar that I crossed the days off on until he came back. The children kept me busy. When Hannah was a baby, we were together on a land station, but not with the others. Bill got the tower when Julia was a few months old and I was on my own with a five-year-old and a newborn daughter with colic. That was hard. I’d feel so angry whenever I clapped eyes on the Maiden. Standing there all pleased with herself. It wasn’t fair that she had him when I didn’t, and I needed him more.

Hannah liked having a lighthouse keeper for a father because it made her stand out; her friends’ dads were postmen or shopkeepers. Nothing wrong with that, but those jobs are two a penny, aren’t they? She says she remembers him, but I don’t think she can. I think memories are very intense when they first start up and they keep a powerful grip on you your whole life. You can’t always trust them, though.

When Bill was due ashore, I’d go out and buy his favourite foods and make his special chocolates. It was a little ritual I had. I didn’t want anything to be different. I wanted him to know what to expect when he got home and for it to be there, ready for him. Just like I was ready for him. It’s the small things that keep a marriage going: things that don’t cost a lot but that tell the other person you love them and don’t ask for anything in return.

I’ve got no idea what happened to my husband. If they’d left the door open, or if they’d taken the boat, or if the oilskins and gumboots were gone, then I could maybe believe that Bill was lost at sea. But the dinghy was there and so were the sou’westers and the door was locked from the inside. Think about that. A block of gunmetal can’t lock itself. Then you put in the clocks and the laid table; it’s wrong, that’s what it is.

Bill was on the radio transmitter the day before, the twenty-ninth. He said then that the storm was on its way out. Said they’d be ready for the relief on Saturday.

Trident House have a good recording of that R/T, although I’d put money on them not letting you near it. Trident keep themselves to themselves and they don’t like to talk about what happened because it’s obviously embarrassing for them. But Bill said, let’s do it tomorrow; get Jory’s boat sent out in the morning. And they said all right, Bill, that’s what we’ll do. Now, I’m aware what Helen thinks – she thinks a big wave came up on them in the meantime. It doesn’t surprise me she thinks that because she never had much of an imagination. But I know that’s not right.

I’ll never forget Bill’s voice on the radio. Everything he said and the way he said it. That voice sounded like my husband. The only odd thing was that there was a longer wait at the end before he signed off. You know when you’re watching TV and the reception cuts out for a second and the picture jumps ahead of itself? Like that.

I’m a ‘what if’ person. I say, what if it wasn’t a freak sea the day they disappeared? What if Bill was taken? I don’t know by what; I don’t want to say by what. All the things it could’ve been – what happened, how it felt, who was there, if it was one of them that did it – not a day’s gone by when I haven’t thought about those things, but I always come back to the same. It sounds crazy when you say it out loud. It’s just what I believe. A tower light, out there on its own, it’s like a sheep away from the flock. Easy pickings.

You don’t look like someone who gives a fig for that. I don’t care. All I’ll say is you try losing that one person who means the world to you, then see how easy it is to draw a line and say, that’s it, it’s over, they’re gone. I still hear my husband’s voice, you know. Still hear it now, plain as day. Like when I’m pegging out the darks, I’ll hear Bill inside the house calling my name, just saying it like he would if he’d been busy in the back fixing the chain on his bike and he came in to ask if I wanted a cup of coffee.

I know that’s not possible. We’re not where we were before. I’ve moved to a new house; he wouldn’t know where I was. We couldn’t have stayed at the cottage anyway – they’re for keepers’ families, not missing keepers’ families. All the same, it felt like I was admitting he was never coming back. It makes me sad if I imagine him turning up on our doorstep, only I’m not there. But one of the caretakers at the Maiden cottages now would tell me. These sorts of fantasies go through your head.

Helen’s not one for fantasies. She’s too cold and matter of fact. That’s why, when you speak to her, I bet she doesn’t tell you the truth. I don’t think she knows the meaning of the word. In all the time I’ve known her, the only thing she’s been good at is lying. Helen writes me letters and sends me Christmas cards, but she might as well not bother. I never read them. I’d be happy never to hear from her again.

You’d think she’d have wanted a friend or two, given the state of her life before. But Helen never talked about that. Living next door to each other, we could have been close – that’s what PKs’ wives across the country were doing, looking after the families and leading the charge when the men were away. If we were getting along in the cottages, then they’d be getting along on the tower. That’s the rule we lived by in the lighthouse service.

But not Helen. She thought she was special. Too grand for it, in my view, with her expensive scarves and fancy jewellery. I think even if I had all the money in the world to spend on what I looked like, I’d still be plain because it comes out of you, doesn’t it, prettiness? I’ve never felt pretty.

In ordinary life, we’d never brush shoulders. I’m sorry our paths crossed at all.

It is bad luck for Helen, not believing in anything. Without my faith I’d have ended it a long time ago. I still think about ending it sometimes, but then I think of the children and I can’t. If I knew I’d find Bill there, then maybe. Maybe. But not yet. I need to keep our light shining.

Trident House tried telling me once that Bill did it on purpose. That he jumped on a French ship and floated off to start his life new. Now, I’m not a violent person, but it was all I could do not to cause a scene when they said that. Bill would never do it to me. He’d never have left me on my own.