М Стедман - The Light Between Oceans - A Novel

He blinked, and shook his head quickly. He was nearing a vortex, and to pull himself back he paid attention to his heartbeat, felt his feet on the ground and his heels in his boots. He drew himself up to his full height. He picked a point on the door of the light tower – a hinge that had worked itself loose – and resolved to start with that. Something solid. He must turn to something solid, because if he didn’t, who knew where his mind or his soul could blow away to, like a balloon without ballast. That was the only thing that had got him through four years of blood and madness: know exactly where your gun is when you doze for ten minutes in your dugout; always check your gas mask; see that your men have understood their orders to the letter. You don’t think ahead in years or months: you think about this hour, and maybe the next. Anything else is speculation.

He raised the binoculars and scoured the island for more signs of life: he needed to see the goats, the sheep; to count them. Stick to the solid. To the brass fittings which had to be polished, the glass which had to be cleaned – first the outer glass of the lantern, then the prisms themselves. Getting the oil in, keeping the cogs moving smoothly, topping up the mercury to let the light glide. He gripped each thought like the rung of a ladder by which to haul himself back to the knowable; back to this life.

That night, as he lit the lamp, he moved as slowly and carefully as one of the priests might have done thousands of years earlier in the first lighthouse at Pharos. He climbed the tiny metal stairs that led to the inner deck around the light itself, ducked through the opening and into the apparatus of the light. He primed the oil by lighting a flame under its dish so that it vaporised and reached the mantle as a gas. He then set a match to the mantle, which transformed the vapour into a white brilliance. He went down to the next level and started the motor. The light began to turn with the exact, even rhythm of the five-second flash. He picked up the pen, and wrote in the wide, leather-bound log: ‘ Lit up at 5.09 p.m. Wind N/NE 15 knots. Overcast, squally. Sea 6 .’ Then, he added his initials – ‘ T.S .’ His handwriting took over the telling of the story where Whittnish had left off only hours before, and Docherty before that – he was part of the unbroken chain of keepers bearing witness to the light.

Once he was satisfied everything was in order, he went back to the cottage. His body craved sleep, but he knew too well that if you don’t eat you can’t work. In the larder off the kitchen, tins of bully beef and peas and pears sat on shelves beside sardines and sugar and a big jar of humbugs, of which the late Mrs Docherty had been legendarily fond. For his first night’s supper he cut a hunk of the damper Whittnish had left behind, a piece of cheddar and a wrinkled apple.

At the kitchen table, the flame of the oil lamp wavered occasionally. The wind continued its ancient vendetta against the windows, accompanied by the liquid thunder of waves. Tom tingled at the knowledge that he was the only one to hear any of it: the only living man for the better part of a hundred miles in any direction. He thought of the gulls nestled into their wiry homes on the cliffs, the fish hovering stilly in the safety of the reefs, protected by the icy water. Every creature needed its place of refuge.

Tom carried the lamp into the bedroom. His shadow pressed itself against the wall, a flat giant, as he pulled off his boots and stripped down to his long johns. His hair was thick with salt and his skin raw from the wind. He pulled back the sheets and climbed in, falling into dreams as his body kept up the sway of the waves and the wind. All night, far above him the light stood guard, slicing the darkness like a sword.

CHAPTER 4

ONCE HE HAS extinguished the light at sunrise each morning, Tom sets off to explore another part of his new territory before getting on with the day’s work. The northern side of the island is a sheer granite cliff which sets its jaw stiffly against the ocean below. The land slopes down toward the south and slides gently under the water of the shallow lagoon. Beside its little beach is the water wheel, which carries fresh water from the spring up to the cottage: from the mainland, all the way out along the ocean floor to the island and beyond, there are fissures from which fresh water springs mysteriously. When the French described the phenomenon in the eighteenth century, it was dismissed as a myth. But sure enough, fresh water was to be found even in various parts of the ocean, like a magic trick played by nature.

He begins to shape his routine. Regulations require that each Sunday he hoist the ensign and he does, first thing. He raises it too when any ‘man o’ war’, as the rules put it, passes the island. He knows keepers who swear under their breath at the obligation, but Tom takes comfort from the orderliness of it. It is a luxury to do something that serves no practical purpose: the luxury of civilisation.

He sets about fixing things that have fallen into disrepair since the decline of Trimble Docherty. Most important is the lighthouse itself, which needs putty in the astragals of the lantern glazing. Next he gets rottenstone and sands the wood on the desk drawer where it has swollen with the weather, and goes over it with the wolf’s head brush. He patches the green paint on the landings where it is scuffed or worn away: it will be a long while before a crew comes to paint the whole station.

The apparatus responds to his attention: the glass gleams, the brass shines, and the light rotates on its bath of mercury as smoothly as a skua gliding on currents of air. Now and again he manages to get down to the rocks to fish, or to walk along the sandy beach of the lagoon. He makes friends with the pair of black skinks which reside in the woodshed, and occasionally gives them some of the chooks’ food. He’s sparing with his rations: he won’t see the store boat for months.

It’s a hard job, and a busy one. The lightkeepers have no union, not like the men on the store boats – no one strikes for better pay or conditions. The days can leave him exhausted or sore, worried by the look of a storm front coming in at a gallop, or frustrated by the way hailstones crush the vegetable patch. But if he doesn’t think about it too hard, he knows who he is and what he’s for. He just has to keep the light burning. Nothing more.

The Father Christmas face, all red cheeks and whiskers, gave a big grin. ‘Well, Tom Sherbourne, how are you surviving?’ Ralph didn’t wait for a reply before throwing him the fat wet rope to wind around the bollard. Tom looked as fit and well after three months as any keeper the skipper had seen.

Tom had been waiting for supplies for the light, and had given less thought to the fresh food which would be delivered. He had also forgotten that the boat would bring post, and was surprised when, toward the end of the day, Ralph handed him some envelopes. ‘Almost forgot,’ he said. There was a letter from the District Officer of the Lighthouse Service, retrospectively confirming his appointment and conditions. A letter from the Department of Repatriation set out certain benefits recently allowed to returned servicemen, including incapacity pension or a business loan. Neither applied to him, so he opened the next, a Commonwealth Bank statement confirming that he had earned four per cent interest on the five hundred pounds in his account. He left until last the envelope addressed by hand. He could not think of anyone who might write, and feared it might be some do-gooder sending him news of his brother or his father.

He opened it. ‘ Dear Tom, I just thought I’d write and check that you hadn’t been blown away or swept out to sea or anything. And that the lack of roads isn’t causing you too many problems … ’ He skipped ahead to see the signature: ‘ Yours truly, Isabel Graysmark .’ The gist of the middle was that she hoped he wasn’t too lonely out there, and that he should be sure to stop by and say hello before he went off to wherever he was going after his Janus posting. She had decorated the letter with a little sketch of a keeper leaning against his light tower, whistling a tune, while behind him a giant whale emerged from the water, its jaws wide open. She had added for good measure: ‘ Be sure not to get eaten by a whale before then .’