The Light Between Oceans(22)

That evening, as he looked out from the gallery, Tom returned to his question. Where had this baby’s soul been? Where would it go? Where were the souls of the men who’d joked and saluted and trudged through the mud with him?

Here he was, safe and healthy, with a beautiful wife, and some soul had decided to join them. Out of thin air, in the farthest corner of the earth, a baby was coming. He’d been on death’s books for so long, it seemed impossible that life was making an entry in his favour.

He went back into the lantern room, and looked again at the photograph of Isabel that hung on the wall. The mystery of it all. The mystery.



Tom’s other gift from the last boat was The Australian Mother’s Manual of Efficient Child-Rearing, by Dr Samuel B. Griffiths. Isabel took to reading it at any available moment.

She fired information at Tom: ‘Did you know that a baby’s kneecaps aren’t made of bone?’ Or, ‘How old do you think babies are when they can take food from a teaspoon?’

‘No idea, Izz.’

‘Go on, guess!’

‘Honestly, how would I know?’

‘Oh, you’re no fun!’ she complained, and dived into the book for another fact.

Within weeks the pages were frilly-edged and blotted with grass stains from days spent on the headland.

‘You’re having a baby, not sitting for an exam.’

‘I just want to do things right. It’s not like I can pop next door and ask Mum, is it?’

‘Oh, Izzy Bella,’ Tom laughed.

‘What? What’s funny?’

‘Nothing. Nothing at all. I wouldn’t change a thing about you.’

She smiled, and kissed him. ‘You’re going to be a wonderful dad, I know.’ A question came to her eyes.

‘What?’ prompted Tom.

‘Nothing.’

‘No, really, what?’

‘Your dad. Why do you never talk about him?’

‘No love lost there.’

‘But what was he like?’

Tom thought about it. How could he possibly sum him up? How could he ever explain the look in his eyes, the invisible gap that always surrounded him, so that he never quite made contact? ‘He was right. Always right. Didn’t matter what it was about. He knew the rules and he stuck to them, come hell or high water.’ Tom thought back to the straight, tall figure that overshadowed his childhood. Hard and cold as a tomb.

‘Was he strict?’

Tom gave a bitter laugh. ‘Strict doesn’t begin to describe it.’ He put his hand to his chin as he speculated. ‘Maybe he just wanted to make sure his sons didn’t kick over the traces. We’d get the strap for anything. Well, I’d get the strap for anything. Cecil would always be the one to tell on me – got him off lightly.’ He laughed again. ‘Tell you what, though: made army discipline easy. You never know what you’re going to be grateful for.’ His face grew serious. ‘And I suppose it made it easier being over there, knowing there’d be no one who’d be heartbroken if they got the telegram.’

‘Oh, Tom! Don’t even say such a thing!’

He drew her head into his chest and stroked her hair in silence.



There are times when the ocean is not the ocean – not blue, not even water, but some violent explosion of energy and danger: ferocity on a scale only gods can summon. It hurls itself at the island, sending spray right over the top of the lighthouse, biting pieces off the cliff. And the sound is a roaring of a beast whose anger knows no limits. Those are the nights the light is needed most.

In the worst of these storms Tom stays with the light all night if need be, keeping warm by the kerosene heater, pouring sweet tea from a thermos flask. He thinks about the poor bastards out on the ships and he thanks Christ he’s safe. He watches for distress flares, keeps the dinghy ready for launch, though what good it would do in seas like that, who knows.

That May night, Tom sat with a pencil and notebook in hand, adding up figures. His annual salary was ￡327. How much did a pair of children’s shoes cost? From what Ralph said, kids got through them at a rate of knots. Then there were clothes. And schoolbooks. Of course, if he stayed on the Offshore Lights, Isabel would teach the kids at home. But on nights like this, he wondered if it was fair to inflict this life on anyone, let alone children. The thought was nudged out by the words of Jack Throssel, one of the keepers back East. ‘Best life in the world for kids, I swear,’ he had told Tom. ‘All six of mine are right as rain. Always up to games and mischief: exploring caves, making cubbies. A proper gang of pioneers. And the Missus makes sure they do their lessons. Take it from me – raising kids on a light station’s as easy as wink!’

Tom went back to his calculations: how he could save a bit more, make sure there was enough put by for clothes and doctors and – Lord knew what else. The idea that he was going to be a father made him nervous and excited and worried.

As his mind drifted back to memories of his own father, the storm thundered about the light, deafening Tom to any other sound that night. Deafening him to the cries of Isabel, calling for his help.





CHAPTER 9



‘SHALL I GET you a cup of tea?’ Tom asked, at a loss. He was a practical man: give him a sensitive technical instrument, and he could maintain it; something broken, and he could mend it, meditatively, efficiently. But confronted by his grieving wife, he felt useless.