The Light Between Oceans(48)

And Frank Roennfeldt will do as well as anything. The only German in town, except he’s Austrian. He’s the nearest thing to the enemy they can find, so as they see him walking down the street with Hannah at dusk, they start to whistle ‘Tipperary’. Hannah looks nervous, and stumbles. Frank instantly takes baby Grace into his arms, snatches the cardigan draped on his wife’s arm to cover her, and they walk more quickly, heads down.

The boys in the pub decide this is a fine sport, and spill out onto the street. The fellows from the other pubs along the main drag come out too, then one wag decides it will be a great joke to swipe Frank’s hat, and does.

‘Oh, leave us alone, Joe Rafferty!’ scolds Hannah. ‘Go back to the pub and leave us alone,’ and they keep up a brisk pace.

‘Leave us alone!’ mimics Joe in a high-pitched whimper. ‘Bloody Fritz! All the same, all cowards!’ He turns to the mob. ‘And look at these two, with their pretty little baby.’ He’s slurring his words. ‘You know Fritz used to eat babies. Roasted them alive, evil bastards.’

‘Go away or we’ll get the police!’ shouts Hannah, before freezing at the sight of Harry Garstone and Bob Lynch, the police constables, standing on the hotel verandah, schooners in hand, smirking behind their waxed moustaches.

Suddenly, like a struck match, the scene’s alight: ‘Come on, lads, let’s have some fun with the Hun-lovers!’ goes up the cry. ‘Let’s save the baby from being eaten,’ and a dozen drunks are chasing the couple and Hannah is falling behind because her girdle stops her from breathing properly and she’s calling, ‘Grace, Frank! Save Grace!’ and he runs with the little bundle away from the mob who are corralling him down the road to the jetty, and his heart is thumping and out of rhythm and pain shoots down his arm as he runs along the rickety planks above the water and jumps into the first rowing boat he can find, and rows out to sea, out to safety. Just until the mob sobers up and things calm down.

He’s known worse, in his day.





CHAPTER 18



AS ISABEL GOES about her day – always moving, always busy – she has a keen physical sense of where Lucy is, attached by an invisible thread of love. She is never angry – her patience with the child is infinite. When food falls to the floor, when grubby hand marks decorate the walls, they are never greeted with a cross word or a disapproving look. If Lucy wakes crying in the night, Isabel comforts her gently, lovingly. She accepts the gift that life has sent her. And she accepts the burdens.

While the child is asleep in the afternoon, she goes up to the stick crosses on the headland. This is her church, her holy place, where she prays for guidance, and to be a worthy mother. She prays too, in a more abstract way, for Hannah Roennfeldt. Hers is not to question the way things have turned out. Out here, Hannah is just a distant notion. She has no body, no existence, whereas Lucy – Isabel knows every expression of hers, every cry. She has been watching the miracle that is this little girl take shape day by day, like a gift revealed only with the passing of time. A whole personality is emerging, as the girl catches and masters words, and begins to articulate how she feels, who she is.

So Isabel sits in the chapel without walls or windows or pastor, and thanks God. And if thoughts of Hannah Roennfeldt intrude, her response is always the same. She simply cannot send this child away: it is not for her to risk Lucy’s happiness. And Tom? Tom is a good man. Tom will do the right thing, always: she can rely on that. He will come to terms with things, in the end.

But a sliver of un-crossable distance has slipped between them: an invisible, wisp-thin no man’s land.



Gradually, the rhythm of life on Janus re-establishes itself, absorbing Tom in the minutiae of its rituals. When he wakes sometimes from dark dreams of broken cradles, and compasses without bearings, he pushes the unease down, lets the daylight contradict it. And isolation lulls him with the music of the lie.



‘And you know what day it is today, don’t you, Luce?’ asked Isabel as she pulled the jumper down over the little girl’s head and extracted a hand from the end of each sleeve. Six months had passed since their return to Janus in January 1928.

Lucy tilted her head upwards a fraction. ‘Ummm,’ she said, playing for time.

‘Want a clue?’

She nodded.

Isabel pulled on the first little sock. ‘Come on. Other tootsie. Thaaat’s the way. OK, the clue is that if you’re a very good girl, there might be oranges tonight …’

‘Boat!’ cried the girl, sliding off her mother’s knee and jumping up and down, one shoe on her foot and the other in her hand. ‘Boat coming! Boat coming!’

‘That’s right. So shall we make the house all lovely for when Ralph and Bluey come?’

‘Yes!’ Lucy called behind her, as she dashed to the kitchen to say, ‘Alf and Booey coming, Dadda!’

Tom picked her up and gave her a kiss. ‘No flies on you! Did you remember that all by yourself, or has someone been helping you?’

‘Mamma said,’ she confessed with a grin, and wriggled to the ground, off to find Isabel again.

Soon, garbed in galoshes and coats, the two of them set out towards the chook house, Lucy clutching a miniature version of Isabel’s basket.

‘A real fashion parade,’ remarked Tom as he passed them on his way to the shed.