The Light Between Oceans(10)

The barometer could do with a polish, Tom noted, before his eye was caught by something sitting beside the marine charts. It was a ball of wool with knitting needles stuck through it, and what looked like the beginnings of a scarf.

‘Old Docherty’s,’ said Whittnish with a nod.

Tom knew the variety of activities the keepers used to while away any quiet moments on duty: carving scrimshaw or shells; making chess pieces. Knitting was common enough.

Whittnish ran through the logbook and the weather observations, then led Tom to the light itself, on the next level up. The glazing of the light room was interrupted only by the criss-crossing of astragals that kept the panes in place. Outside, the metal gallery circled the tower, and a perilous ladder arched against the dome, up to the thin catwalk just below the weather vane that swung in the wind.

‘She’s a beauty all right,’ said Tom, taking in the giant lens, far taller than himself, atop the rotating pedestal: a palace of prisms like a beehive made from glass. It was the very heart of Janus, all light and clarity and silence.

A barely perceptible smile passed over the old keeper’s lips as he said, ‘I’ve known her since I was barely a boy. Ah yes, a beauty.’



The following morning, Ralph stood on the jetty. ‘Nearly ready for the off, then. Want us to bring out all the newspapers you’ve missed next trip?’

‘It’s hardly news if it’s months old. I’d rather save my money and buy a good book,’ replied Tom.

Ralph looked about him, checking everything was in order. ‘Well, that’s that then. No changing your mind now, son.’

Tom gave a rueful laugh. ‘Reckon you’re right on that score, Ralph.’

‘We’ll be back before you know it. Three months is nothing as long as you’re not trying to hold your breath!’

‘You treat the light right and she won’t give you any trouble,’ said Whittnish. ‘All you need is patience and a bit of nous.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said Tom. Then he turned to Bluey, who was getting ready to cast off. ‘See you in three months then, Blue?’

‘You bet.’

The boat pulled away, churning the water behind it and battling the wind with a smoky roar. The distance pressed it further and further into the grey horizon like a thumb pushing it into putty, until it was subsumed completely.

Then, a moment’s stillness. Not silence: the waves still shattered on the rocks, the wind screeched around his ears, and a loose door on one of the storage sheds banged a disgruntled drumbeat. But something inside Tom was still for the first time in years.

He walked up to the cliff top and stood. A goat’s bell clanged; two chickens squabbled. Suddenly these pinpricks of sound took on a new importance: sounds from living things. Tom climbed the 184 stairs to the lantern room and opened the door to the gallery. The wind pounced on him like a predator, slamming him back into the doorway until he gathered the strength to launch himself outward and grip the iron handrail.

For the first time he took in the scale of the view. Hundreds of feet above sea level, he was mesmerised by the drop to the ocean crashing against the cliffs directly below. The water sloshed like white paint, milky-thick, the foam occasionally scraped off long enough to reveal a deep blue undercoat. At the other end of the island, a row of immense boulders created a break against the surf and left the water inside it as calm as a bath. He had the impression he was hanging from the sky, not rising from the earth. Very slowly, he turned a full circle, taking in the nothingness of it all. It seemed his lungs could never be large enough to breathe in this much air, his eyes could never see this much space, nor could he hear the full extent of the rolling, roaring ocean. For the briefest moment, he had no edges.

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.