М Стедман - The Light Between Oceans - A Novel

She lifts her hand from the paper and reads the letter again, this time trying to make out the meaning of the words on the page, hearing Tom’s voice pronounce them. She reads it over and over, feeling as though her body is being rent in two, until finally, shaking with sobs, she makes her decision.

CHAPTER 35

WHEN IT RAINS in Partageuse, the clouds hurl down water and soak the town to its very bones. Millennia of such deluges have brought forth the forests from the ancient loam. The sky darkens and the temperature plummets. Great gulleys are carved across dirt roads, and flash floods make them impassable by motor cars. The rivers quicken, finally scenting the ocean from which they have so long been parted. They will not be stopped in their urgency to get back to it – to get home.

The town goes quiet. The last few horses stand forlornly with their wagons as the rain drips off their blinkers, and bounces off the motor cars which far outnumber them these days. People stand under the wide verandahs of shops in the main street, arms folded, mouths turned down in grimaces of defeat. At the back of the schoolyard, a couple of tearaways stamp their feet in puddles. Women look in exasperation at washing not retrieved from lines, and cats slink through the nearest convenient doorway, meowing their disdain. The water rushes down the war memorial, where the gold lettering is faded now. It springs off the church roof and, through the mouth of a gargoyle, onto the new grave of Frank Roennfeldt. The rain transforms the living and the dead without preference.

‘Lucy won’t be frightened.’ The thought occurs in Tom’s mind, too. He recalls the feeling in his chest – that strange shiver of wonder for the little girl, when she would face down the lightning and laugh. ‘Make it go bang, Dadda!’ she would cry, and wait for the thunder to roll in.

‘Bugger it!’ exclaimed Vernon Knuckey. ‘We’ve sprung a bloody leak again.’ The run-off from the hill above the station was rather more than a ‘leak’. Water was pouring into the back of the building, set lower than the front. Within hours, Tom’s cell was six inches deep in water, entering from above and below. The house spider had abandoned its web for somewhere safer.

Knuckey appeared, keys in hand. ‘Your lucky day, Sherbourne.’

Tom did not understand.

‘Usually happens when it rains this much. The ceiling in this part tends to collapse. Perth’s always saying they’re going to fix it, but they just send some cove to put a bit of flour and water glue on it, as far as I can see. Still, they get a bit dark with us if the prisoners cark it before trial. You’d better come up the front for a while. Till the cell drains.’ He left the key unturned in the lock. ‘You’re not going to be stupid about this, are you?’

Tom looked at him squarely, and said nothing.

‘All right. Out you come.’

He followed Knuckey to the front office, where the sergeant put one handcuff on his wrist and another around an exposed pipe. ‘Not going to be flooded with customers as long as this holds out,’ he said to Harry Garstone. He chuckled to himself at his pun. ‘Ah, Mo McCackie, eat your heart out.’

There was no sound except the rain, thundering down, turning every surface into a drum or a cymbal. The wind had fled, and nothing outside moved except the water. Garstone set to with a mop and some towels, attempting to redeem the situation inside.

Tom sat looking through the window at the road, imagining the view from the gallery at Janus now: the keeper would feel like he was in a cloud, with the sudden air inversion. He watched the hands on the clock inch their way around the dial as if there were all the time in the world.

Something caught his attention. A small figure was making its way towards the station. No raincoat or umbrella, arms folded, and bent forward as though leaning on the rain. He recognised the outline instantly. Moments later, Isabel opened the door. She looked straight ahead as she made for the counter, where Harry Garstone had stripped to the waist and was busy trying to mop up a puddle.

‘I’ve …’ Isabel began.

Garstone turned to see who was speaking.

‘I’ve got to see Sergeant Knuckey …’

The flustered constable, half-naked and mop in hand, blushed. His eyes flicked towards Tom. Isabel followed his gaze, and gasped.

Tom jumped to his feet, but could not move from the wall. He reached a hand to her, as she searched his face, terrified.

‘Izzy! Izzy, love!’ He strained at the handcuffs, stretching his arm to the very fingertips. She stood, crippled by fear and regret and shame, not daring to move. Suddenly, her terror got the better of her, and she turned to dash out again.

It was as though Tom’s whole body had been brought back to life at the sight of her. The thought that she might vanish again was more than he could bear. He pulled again at the metal, this time with such force that he wrenched the pipe from the wall, sending water gushing high into the air.

‘Tom!’ Isabel sobbed as he caught her in his arms, ‘Oh Tom!’ her body shaking despite the strength of his hold. ‘I’ve got to tell them. I’ve got to—’

‘Shh, Izzy, shh, it’s all right, darl. It’s all right.’

Sergeant Knuckey appeared from his office. ‘Garstone, what in the name of Christ—’ He stopped at the sight of Isabel in Tom’s arms, the two of them soaking from the pipe’s downpour.

‘Mr Knuckey, it’s not true – none of it’s true!’ cried Isabel. ‘Frank Roennfeldt was dead when the boat washed up. It was my idea to keep Lucy. I stopped him reporting the boat. It’s my fault.’

Tom was holding her tight, kissing the top of her head. ‘Shh, Izzy. Just leave things be.’ He pulled away and held her shoulders as he bent his knees and looked straight into her eyes. ‘It’s all right, sweetheart. Don’t say any more.’

Knuckey shook his head slowly.

Garstone had hastily replaced his tunic and was smoothing his hair into some sort of order. ‘Shall I arrest her, sir?’

‘For once in your bloody life, show some sense, Constable. Get busy and fix the blinking pipe before we all drown!’ Knuckey turned to the others, who were staring intently at one another, their silence a language in itself. ‘And as for you two, you’d better come into my office.’

Shame. To her surprise, it was shame Hannah felt more than anger, when Sergeant Knuckey visited her with news of Isabel Sherbourne’s revelation. Her face burned as she thought back to her visit to Isabel just the previous day, and to the bargain she had struck.

‘When? When did she tell you this?’ she asked.

‘Yesterday.’

‘What time yesterday?’

Knuckey was surprised by the question. What bloody difference could it make? ‘About five o’clock.’

‘So it was after …’ Her voice died away.

‘After what?’

Hannah blushed even deeper, humiliated at the thought that Isabel had refused her sacrifice, and disgusted at having been lied to. ‘Nothing.’

‘I thought you’d want to know.’

‘Of course. Of course …’ She was concentrating not on the policeman, but on a windowpane. It needed cleaning. The whole house needed cleaning: she had hardly touched it for weeks. Her thoughts climbed this familiar trellis of housework, keeping her on safe territory, until she managed to haul them back. ‘So – where is she now?’

‘She’s on bail, at her parents’.’

Hannah picked at a hangnail on her thumb. ‘What will happen to her?’

‘She’ll face trial alongside her husband.’

‘She was lying, all that time … She made me believe …’ She shook her head, lost in another thought.

Knuckey took a breath. ‘All a pretty rum business. A decent sort, Isabel Graysmark was, before she went to Janus. Being out on that island didn’t do her any good at all. Not sure it does anyone any good. After all, Sherbourne only got the posting because Trimble Docherty did away with himself.’