Frazer Lee - The Lamplighters

He arrived on deck to find everyone crowded around the cabin. A fair bit of commotion too—what the heck were they all so excited about? He ambled over, his steps slowing as he spotted Idoya’s ass. The supine curves of her butt cheeks framed the dark line of her G-string and he felt himself salivating at the sight, then getting hard at the thoughts it was provoking. He reached into his shorts to try and adjust his erection, make it less obvious. Right on cue, a couple of the crew turned and caught him in the act, hand down his pants tugging at his penis. He flushed as Idoya turned and looked, fixing him with an indifferent look that made him feel all of ten years old.

“What’s going on?” his voice squeaked involuntarily as his heavy Australian accent made a steep curving ascent of the question.

“Distress call,” The Skipper said (sorry! “The Skip”—asshole), “Gonna have to change course, check it out.”

“Looks like you’re in some distress there yourself, mate,” Scott bellowed, pointing at Brett’s crotch. The others fell about laughing.

A pleasure cruise. Relaxing. What a fucking joke. Brett felt his face burning red as he retreated back to the galley to peel some more bloody bastard potatoes.

Self-loathing was closing in on Marla like the clouds that gathered high above her. She’d fled the scene of the crime while her hair was still wet from the shower, unable to face him after their ill-advised tryst. She traced her shitty day backwards in her mind’s eye, through the drunken tumble with Pietro, past seeing Jessie and Adam together in the summerhouse and back to her impromptu disciplinary in Fowler’s office. Yes, a shit-tastic day. She cursed herself for not having the presence of mind to steal Pietro’s cigarettes. As her pace slowed to a brisk walk, her mind drifted grumpily to the handbook Fowler had been so determined she read and digest. He could shove it up his ass. She’d only been on the island a few days and she’d already screwed everything up. Better to just go jogging on the jetty again, and let Fowler’s “security operatives” assist her gently to the floor, guns pointed at her head.

But what then? Her prospects looked pretty dire; go back to a city where she couldn’t get a job with her record, or start over in another country without a single penny in the bank. No, she’d have to stick it out here, do her chores up at the white stucco house every day and keep the hell to herself the rest of the time. What she needed, what she really needed was a place to clear her head—somewhere to think where there weren’t security cameras prying at her every move, where no other Lamplighters could lure her in with drinks, drugs, kisses. As the landscape turned from sandy soil and wild grass to jutting rocks and steep drops, Marla realized she’d found such a place.

A rocky promontory unwound in front of her, its spiny ridges like the backbone of some giant fossilized beast, and there at the end stood the high tower of a lighthouse. Crosswinds opened up and licked at her, invisible tongues sent by the sea to push and pull her into the depths below. She folded her arms tightly against them and walked carefully across the rocks, on towards the lighthouse. The structure seemed to multiply in size as she neared it, towering over her now. It looked drastically older than any of the other buildings she’d seen so far on the island. Patches of leprous lichen crept from the rock beneath her feet and up the peeling walls. Layer upon layer of white paint had peeled back like dead skin flaking from a corpse to reveal the skeleton of stonework beneath. She climbed up a couple of feet onto its foundation, which had been hewn from massive slabs of native rock, and began circling the base in search of a way inside. A door presented itself halfway around the building, loose on its rusty hinges and banging against its frame in the ocean wind, unlocked. Rickety metal steps stained with browning rust led up to the door and they gave a metallic groan as she walked up them. Grasping the equally rusty door handle, rough and cold against the palm of her hand, she pulled the door open and peered into the gloom.

A spiral staircase, dimly lit by tiny portholes in the exterior wall, curved upwards and into the darkness out of view. At the foot of the staircase was a wide puddle of water, green-tinged from the algae that straddled its surface. Marla stepped inside, curiosity fuelling her deep desire to take shelter from the bitter snap of the wind. As she neared the puddle of water a strong stench, of stagnant seawater, hit her nostrils. Her stomach heaved as her senses tried to adjust to the stink. To one side of the puddle beneath the curve of the stairs, a pair of wooden doors were set into the wall. It looked like a closet might be behind them. Marla walked over to the doors and her heart leapt with fright as the rusty metal outer door slammed shut, forced into the act by a strong gust of wind. Turning nervously, her composure still rattled from the shock of the noise, Marla muttered some colorful words under her breath in the general direction of the door. Returning her attention to the closet, she stooped slightly and reached down to try the wooden doors. They opened, revealing a complex spaghetti of tangled wires and cables, looping out of the great metal racks that filled the closet space. Faded electrical warning decals hung peeling off the inside of the doors—they looked ancient, as did the wiring. A blinking light deep inside the confusion of multicolored strands caught Marla’s eye and she leaned deeper into the closet to get a closer look. Her heart froze once again, but not at the door banging this time, but at the hand which grabbed her shoulder. A strong, manly hand with one hell of a grip. She whirled round in terror, reflexes already pushing her hands up in front of her face to protect her from the intruder. Losing her balance, she clattered backwards into the closet doors. Tense moments passed as she righted herself and awaited her fate.

The old man was looking at her with surprise in his eyes. He had a leathery face, with deep-set wrinkles etched around his eyes like a relief map of the rocks outside. But his eyes were somehow younger, bright, alive and thankfully completely non-threatening. Marla wasn’t quite ready to trust him yet though.

“Who the hell are you?” she said, her voice wavering despite her best efforts to sound in control, authoritative. Gone was the voice of the city girl, the one she used to use on cab drivers when she’d had too much to drink, back in the day. “What do you want?”

At this, he chuckled dryly, then said in a soft wheezing voice, “I might ask you the very same young lady. I guess you can tell me over coffee. Just brewing up a fresh pot when I heard the damn door banging again. Needs fixing. Everything needs fixing round here.”

He adjusted his oil-stained blue overalls and started climbing the stairs, beckoning for her to follow.

“Come on up. It’s warmer upstairs. It’s no problem.”

With that, he was on his way up the stairs—sprightly as a young lad, taking two steps at a time and whistling a jolly tune as he ascended to god-knows-where. Marla sighed heavily, her system exorcising the last remnants of the scare from her frazzled nerves. Hearing the howling wind outside, she decided upstairs where it was warmer didn’t sound like too bad a place to be. Following him up the stairs, Marla was greeted by the faint aroma of real coffee. It was a welcome smell after the rank stench of the seawater puddle, not to mention after the kind of day she’d had.

The old timer told her his name was Vincent. She watched as he busied himself with the promised pot of coffee, although it was less a pot and more of a can, an old catering tin filled with dark bubbling liquid atop a little gas stove that spluttered angrily with blue flame. She glanced around his quaint abode, engrossed in its many little details. Seashells and pebbles lay everywhere there would have been bare space, and driftwood, nets and other beach debris gave the impression the tide had recently come in and gone back out again—inside the room. The room itself was surprisingly large. It was the control room for the lighthouse, but it looked as though it had not been used as such for quite some time. Ragged blankets hung over portions of the three-sixty-degree windows that encircled them, moving slightly in drafts as they struggled to keep the elements at bay. Beyond the windows, Marla could see the remnants of a flag fluttering pathetically outside in the growing wind. The flagpole was attached to a gantry, accessible via a metal door—or would have been accessible if not for the huge stack of books leaning up against it. She crossed to the books and scanned some of the spines, many of which were torn, moldy and ruined. Vincent’s library was in a poor state of repair, but contained everything from old encyclopedias to pulp fiction, literary classics and well-thumbed puzzle books. Marla felt like a child in an Aladdin’s cave up here, peering out beyond the treasures at the dark clouds that danced dramatically above the high seas.