The Light Between Oceans(21)

‘Looking for Ellie Sherbourne?’ The voice belonged to a wiry, balding man who had appeared at the door behind him.

It was so strange to hear her name spoken. And ‘Ellie’ – he had never imagined ‘Ellie’. ‘Mrs Sherbourne, that’s right. When will she be back?’

The man gave a snort. ‘She won’t. More’s the pity, ’cause she owes me a month’s rent.’

It was all wrong, the reality. He couldn’t make it fit with the picture of the reunion he’d planned, dreamed of, for years. Tom’s pulse quickened. ‘Do you have a forwarding address?’

‘Not where she’s gone. Died three weeks ago. I was just coming in to clear the last of the stuff out.’

Of all the possible scenes Tom had imagined, none had ended like this. He stood completely still.

‘You planning on moving? Or moving in?’ the man asked sourly.

Tom hesitated, then opened his wallet and took out five pounds. ‘For her rent,’ he said softly, and strode down the hallway, fighting tears.

The thread of hope Tom had protected so long was snapped: on a back street in Sydney, as the world was on the brink of war. Within a month he’d enlisted, giving his next of kin as his mother, at her boarding house address. The recruiters weren’t fussy about details.

Now, Tom ran his hands over the one piece of wood he had lathed, and tried to imagine what he might say in a letter to his mother today, if she were alive – how he might tell her the news of the baby.

He took up the tape measure, and turned to the next piece of wood.



‘Zebedee.’ Isabel looked at Tom with a poker face, her mouth twitching just a touch at the corners.

‘What?’ asked Tom, pausing from his task of rubbing her feet.

‘Zebedee,’ she repeated, putting her nose back down in the book so that he could not catch her eye.

‘You’re not serious? What kind of a name—’

A wounded expression crossed her face. ‘That’s my great-uncle’s name. Zebedee Zanzibar Graysmark.’

Tom gave her a look, as she ploughed on, ‘I promised Grandma on her deathbed that if I ever had a son I’d call him after her brother. I can’t go back on a promise.’

‘I was thinking of something a bit more normal.’

‘Are you calling my great-uncle abnormal?’

Isabel couldn’t contain herself any longer, and burst out laughing. ‘Got you! Got you good and proper!’

‘Little minx! You’ll be sorry you did that!’

‘No, stop! Stop!’

‘No mercy,’ he said, as he tickled her tummy and her neck.

‘I surrender!’

‘Too late for that now!’

They were lying on the grass where it gave way to Shipwreck Beach. It was late afternoon and the soft light rinsed the sand in yellow.

Suddenly Tom stopped.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Isabel, peeping out from under the long hair that hung over her face.

He stroked the strands away from her eyes, and looked at her in silence. She put a hand to his cheek. ‘Tom?’

‘It bowls me over, sometimes. Three months ago there was just you and me, and now, there’s this other life, just turned up out of nowhere, like …’

‘Like a baby.’

‘Yes, like a baby, but it’s more than that, Izz. When I used to sit up in the lantern room, before you arrived, I’d think about what life was. I mean, compared to death …’ He stopped himself. ‘I’m talking rubbish now. I’ll shut up.’

Isabel put her hand under his chin. ‘You hardly ever talk about things, Tom. Tell me.’

‘I can’t really put it into words. Where does life come from?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Does it matter?’ he queried.

‘That it’s a mystery. That we don’t understand.’

‘There are times I wanted an answer. I can tell you that much. Times I saw a man’s last breath, and I wanted to ask him, “Where have you gone? You were here right beside me just a few seconds ago, and now some bits of metal have made holes in your skin, because they hit you fast enough, and suddenly you’re somewhere else. How can that be?”’

Isabel hugged her knees with one arm, and with the other hand pulled at the grass beside her. ‘Do you think people remember this life, when they go? Do you think in heaven, my grandma and granddad, say, are knocking around together?’

‘Search me,’ Tom said.

With sudden urgency, she asked, ‘When we’re both dead, Tom, God won’t keep us apart, will He? He’ll let us be together?’

Tom held her. ‘Now look what I’ve done. Should have kept my silly mouth shut. Come on, we were in the middle of choosing names. And I was just trying to rescue a poor baby from the fate of life as Zebedee blimmin’ Zanzibar. Where are we with girls’ names?’

‘Alice; Amelia; Annabel; April; Ariadne—’

Tom raised his eyebrows. ‘And she’s off again … “Ariadne!” Hard enough that she’s going to live in a lighthouse. Let’s not lump her with a name people will laugh at.’

‘Only two hundred more pages to go,’ said Isabel with a grin.

‘We’d better hop to it, then.’