М Стедман - The Light Between Oceans - A Novel

‘Where are you going?’ An hour later, Violet was alarmed at the state of her daughter. ‘You’ve only just walked in the door.’

‘I’m going out, Ma. There’s something I have to do.’

‘But it’s bucketing down. Wait till it stops, at least.’ She gestured to a pile of clothes on the floor beside her. ‘I’ve decided to go through some of the boys’ things. Some of their old shirts, their boots: they might be some good to someone. I thought I could give them to the church.’ A quiver crept into her voice. ‘But it would be nice to have some company while I sort them.’

‘I have to go to the police station, now.’

‘What on earth for?’

Isabel looked at her mother, and for a moment almost dared tell her. But she said, ‘I need to see Mr Knuckey.

‘I’ll be back later,’ she called behind her, heading down the passageway to the front door.

As she opened it, she was startled by a silhouette in the doorway, about to ring the bell. The figure, soaked with rain, was Hannah Roennfeldt. Isabel stood speechless.

On the doorstep, Hannah spoke quickly, keeping her eyes on a bowl of roses on the table behind Isabel, fearing that to look at her directly would make her change her mind. ‘I’ve come to say something – just to say it and go. Don’t ask me anything, please.’ She thought back to the vow she had made to God just hours ago: there was no reneging. She took a breath, like a run-up. ‘Anything could have happened to Grace last night. She was so desperate to see you. Thank God she was found before she came to any harm.’ She looked up. ‘Can you have any idea what it feels like? To see the daughter you conceived and carried, the daughter you bore and nursed, call someone else her mother?’ Her eyes darted to one side. ‘But I have to accept that, however much it hurts. And I can’t put my happiness above hers.

‘The baby I had – Grace – isn’t coming back. I can see that now. The plain fact is, she can live without me, even if I can’t live without her. I can’t punish her for what happened. And I can’t punish you for your husband’s decisions.’

Isabel began to protest, but Hannah spoke over her. With her eyes fixed again on the roses, she said, ‘I knew Frank to his very soul. Perhaps I only ever knew Grace a very little.’ She looked Isabel in the eye. ‘Grace loves you. Perhaps she belongs to you.’ With great effort, she pushed on to her next words: ‘But I need to know that justice is done. If you swear to me now that this was all your husband’s doing – swear on your life – then I’ll let Grace come to live with you.’

No conscious thought went through Isabel’s mind – it was by sheer reflex that she said, ‘I swear.’

Hannah continued, ‘As long as you give evidence against that man, as soon as he’s safely locked away, Grace can come back to you.’ Suddenly she was in tears. ‘Oh, God help me!’ she said, and rushed away.

Isabel is dazed. She runs over and over what she has just heard, wondering whether she has made it up. But there are the wet footprints on the verandah; the trail of drops from Hannah Roennfeldt’s furled umbrella.

She looks through the fly-wire door so close up that the lightning seems to be divided into tiny squares. Then the thunder rolls in and shakes the roof.

‘I thought you were going to the police station?’ The words crash into Isabel’s thoughts, and for a moment she has no idea where she is. She turns and notices her mother. ‘I thought you’d already gone. What happened?’

‘There’s lightning.’

‘At least Lucy won’t be frightened,’ Isabel catches herself thinking as the sky cracks open with a brilliant flash. From when she was a baby, Tom has taught the girl to respect, but not fear, the forces of nature – the lightning that might strike the light tower on Janus, the oceans that batter the island. She thinks of the reverence Lucy showed in the lantern room: not touching the instruments, keeping her fingers off the glass. She recalls an image of the child in Tom’s arms, waving and laughing from up on the gallery to Isabel at the washing line on the ground. ‘Once upon a time there was a lighthouse …’ How many of Lucy’s stories started that way? ‘And there did be a storm. And the wind blew and blew and the lightkeeper made the light shine, and Lucy did help him. And it was dark but the lightkeeper wasn’t scared because he had the magic light.’

Lucy’s tortured face comes to her mind. She can keep her daughter, keep her safe and happy, and put all this behind them. She can love her and cherish her and watch her grow … In a few years, the tooth fairy will spirit away milk teeth for threepence, then gradually Lucy will get taller and together they will talk about the world and about—

She can keep her daughter. If. Curled in a ball on her bed, she sobs, ‘I want my daughter. Oh, Lucy, I can’t bear it.’

Hannah’s declaration. Ralph’s entreaty. Her own false oath, betraying Tom as surely as he ever betrayed her. Around and around like a merry-go-round of possibilities they whirl and jumble, pulling her with them, first in one direction, then another. She hears the words that have been spoken. But the one voice that is absent is Tom’s. The man who now stands between her and Lucy. Between Lucy and her mother.

Unable to resist its call any longer, she edges to the drawer, and takes out the letter. She opens the envelope slowly.

Izzy, love

,

I hope you’re all right, and keeping your strength up. I know your mum and dad will be taking good care of you. Sergeant Knuckey’s been good enough to let me write to you, but he’ll be reading this before you do. I wish we could talk face to face

.

I’m not sure if or when I’ll be able to speak to you again. You always imagine you’ll get the chance to say what needs to be said, to put things right. But that’s not always how it goes

.

I couldn’t go on the way things were – I couldn’t live with myself. I’m sorrier than I’ll ever be able to say for hurting you

.

We each get a little turn at life, and if this ends up being how my turn went, it will still have been worth it. My time should have been up years ago. To have met you, when I thought life was over, and been loved by you – if I lived another hundred years I couldn’t ask for better than that. I’ve loved you as best as I know how, Izz, which isn’t saying much. You’re a wonderful girl, and you deserved someone a lot better than me

.

You’re angry and hurt and nothing makes sense, and I know what that feels like. If you decide to wash your hands of me, I won’t blame you

.

Perhaps when it comes to it, no one is just the worst thing they ever did. All I can do is to ask God, and to ask you, to forgive me for the harm I’ve caused. And to thank you for every day we spent together

.

Whatever you decide to do, I’ll accept it, and I’ll stand by your choice

.

I will always be your loving husband

,

Tom

As though it is a picture, not a note, Isabel traces her fingertip over the letters, following the steady lean, the graceful loops – as though that is how to make sense of the words. She imagines his long fingers on the pencil as it travelled across the page. Over and over, she traces ‘Tom’, the word somehow both foreign and familiar. Her mind wanders to the game they would play, where she would draw letters with her finger on his naked back for him to guess, then he would do the same on hers. But the recollection is swiftly countered by the memory of Lucy’s touch. Her baby’s skin. She imagines Tom’s hand again, this time as it wrote the notes to Hannah. Like a pendulum, her thoughts swing back and forward, between hatred and regret, between the man and the child.