М Стедман - The Light Between Oceans - A Novel

Tom brought in a tray with teapot and cups, as Lucy-Grace sat looking out at the ocean, the baby beside her in the basket.

‘Where do we begin?’ she asked.

‘What say we just sit quietly for a bit?’ Tom replied. ‘Get used to things.’ He sighed. ‘Little Lucy. After all these years.’

They sat silently, drinking their tea, listening to the wind which came roaring up from the ocean, occasionally banishing a cloud long enough to let a shaft of sunlight slice through the glass and on to the carpet. Lucy breathed in the smells of the house: old wood, and fire smoke, and polish. She didn’t dare look directly at Tom, but glanced around the room. An icon of St Michael; a vase of yellow roses. A wedding photo of Tom and Isabel looking radiantly young and hopeful. On the shelves were books about navigation and light and music, some, such as the one called Brown’s Star Atlas , so big that they had to lie flat. There was a piano in the corner, with sheet music piled on top of it.

‘How did you hear?’ Tom asked eventually. ‘About Isabel?’

‘Mum told me. When you wrote to Ralph Addicott, to let him know how ill she was, he went to see my mother.’

‘In Partageuse?’

‘She lives back down there now. Mum took me to Perth when I was five – wanted to start again. She only moved back to Partageuse when I joined the WAAF in 1944. After that, well, she seemed settled there with Aunty Gwen at Bermondsey, Granddad’s old place. I stayed in Perth after the war.’

‘And your husband?’

She gave a bright smile. ‘Henry! Air Force romance … He’s a lovely man. We got married last year. I’m so lucky.’ She looked out at the distant water and said, ‘I’ve thought of you both so often, over the years. Wondered about you. But it wasn’t – ’ she paused, ‘well, it wasn’t until I had Christopher that I really understood: why you two did what you did. And why Mum couldn’t forgive you for it. I’d kill for my baby. No question.’

She smoothed her skirt. ‘I remember some things. At least I think I do – a bit like snatches from a dream: the light, of course; the tower; and a sort of balcony around it – what’s it called?’

‘The gallery.’

‘I remember being on your shoulders. And playing the piano with Isabel. Something about some birds in a tree and saying goodbye to you?

‘Then, it all sort of jumbled together and I don’t remember much. Just the new life up in Perth, and school. But most of all, I remember the wind and the waves and the ocean: can’t get it out of my blood. Mum doesn’t like the water. Never swims.’ She looked at the baby. ‘I couldn’t come sooner. I had to wait for Mum to … well, to give her blessing, I suppose.’

Watching her, Tom caught flashes of her younger face. But it was difficult to match the woman with the girl. Difficult too, at first, to find the younger man within himself who had loved her so deeply. And yet. And yet he was still there, somewhere, and for a moment, clear as a bell, he had a memory of her voice piping, ‘Dadda! Pick me up, Dadda!’

‘She left something for you,’ he said, and went to the camphor chest. Reaching inside, he took the envelope and handed it to Lucy-Grace, who held it for a moment before opening it.

My Darling Lucy

,

It has been a long time. Such a long time. I promised I’d stay away from you, and I’ve stuck to my word, however hard that was for me

.

I’m gone now, which is why you have this letter. And it brings me joy because it means that you came to find us. I never gave up hope that you would

.

In the chest with this letter are some of the earliest things of yours: your christening gown, your yellow blanket, some of the drawings you did as a tot. And there are things I made for you over the years – linen and so forth. I kept them safe for you – things from that lost part of your life. In case you came in search of it

.

You are a grown woman now. I hope life has been kind to you. I hope that you can forgive me for keeping you. And for letting you go

.

Know that you have always been beloved

.

With all my love .

The delicately embroidered handkerchiefs, the knitted bootees, the satin bonnet: they were folded carefully in the camphor chest, hidden way, way below the things from Isabel’s own childhood. Tom did not know, until then, that Isabel had kept them. Fragments of a time. Of a life. Finally, Lucy-Grace unrolled a scroll, tied with a satin ribbon. The map of Janus, decorated by Isabel so long ago: Shipwreck Beach, Treacherous Cove – the ink still bright. Tom felt a pang as he remembered the day she had presented it to him, and his terror at the breach of the rules. And he was suddenly awash again with the loving and the losing of Isabel.

As Lucy-Grace read the map, a tear trailed down her cheek, and Tom offered her his neatly folded handkerchief. She wiped her eyes, considering a thought, and finally said, ‘I never had the chance to say thank you. To you and to … to Mamma, for saving me, and for taking such good care of me. I was too little … and then it was all too late.’

‘There’s nothing to thank us for.’

‘I’m only alive because of you two.’

The baby started to cry, and Lucy bent to pick him up. ‘Shh, shh, bubba. You’re all right. You’re all right, bunny rabbit.’ She rocked him up and down and the crying subsided. She turned to Tom. ‘Do you want to have a hold?’

He hesitated. ‘I’m a bit out of practice these days.’

‘Go on,’ she said, and passed the little bundle gently into his arms.

‘Well, look at you,’ he said, smiling. ‘Just like your mummy when she was a baby, aren’t you? Same nose, same blue eyes.’ As the child held him with a serious gaze, long-forgotten sensations flooded back. ‘Oh, Izzy would have loved to meet you.’ A bubble of saliva glistened on the baby’s lips, and Tom watched the rainbow the sunlight made there. ‘Izzy would have just loved you,’ he said, and he fought the crack in his voice.

Lucy-Grace looked at her watch. ‘I’d better be heading off, I suppose. I’m staying at Ravensthorpe tonight. Don’t want to be driving in the dusk – there’ll be ’roos on the road.’

‘Of course.’ Tom nodded towards the camphor chest. ‘Shall I help you put the things in the car? That is, if you’d like to take them. I’ll understand if you’d rather not.’

‘I don’t want to take them,’ she said, and as Tom’s face fell, she smiled, ‘because that way we’ll have an excuse to come back. One day soon, maybe.’

The sun is just a sliver shimmering above the waves as Tom lowers himself into the old steamer chair on the verandah. Beside him, on Isabel’s chair, are the cushions she made, embroidered with stars and a sickle moon. The wind has dropped, and clouds scarred with deep orange brood on the horizon. A pinpoint of light pierces the dusk: the Hopetoun lighthouse. These days it’s automatic – no need for keepers since the main port closed. He thinks back to Janus, and the light he cared for there for so long, every one of its flashes still travelling somewhere into the darkness far out towards the universe’s edge.

His arms still feel the tiny weight of Lucy’s baby, and the sensation unlocks the bodily memory of holding Lucy herself, and before that, the son he held in his arms so briefly. How different so many lives would have been if he had lived. He breathes the thought for a long while, then sighs. No point in thinking like that. Once you start down that road, there’s no end to it. He’s lived the life he’s lived. He’s loved the woman he’s loved. No one ever has or ever will travel quite the same path on this earth, and that’s all right by him. He still aches for Isabel: her smile, the feel of her skin. The tears he fought off in front of Lucy now trail down his face.