The Light Between Oceans(56)

‘The salt. You can never get rid of the salt. It eats away like a cancer if you don’t watch out.’ It was the day after his talk with Ralph, and Tom was muttering to himself. Lucy sat beside him inside the giant glass cocoon of the lens, feeding her rag doll imaginary sweets as he buffed and polished the bronze fittings. Her blue eyes beamed up at him.

‘Are you Dolly’s dadda too?’ she asked.

Tom stopped. ‘I don’t know. Why don’t you ask Dolly?’

She leaned to whisper something to the doll, then announced, ‘She says no. You’re just my dadda.’

Her face had lost its round shape, and was now giving hints of her future self – blonde hair rather than the earlier dark shade, and enquiring eyes, fair skin. He wondered whether she would begin to resemble her mother, or her father. He thought back to the face of the blond man he had buried. Dread crawled up his spine as he imagined her asking him harder questions as the years went on. He thought, too, how his reflection in the mirror now offered glimpses of his own father’s face at his age. Likeness lies in wait. Partageuse was small: a mother might fail to recognise her infant in the face of a toddler, but eventually, wouldn’t she see herself in the grown woman? The thought gnawed away at him. He dabbed the rag into the tin of polish and rubbed again, until the sweat trickled into the corners of his eyes.

That evening, Tom was leaning against the verandah post, watching the wind blow the sun into night. He had lit up, and the tower was now settled down until dawn. He had gone over Ralph’s advice again and again. Put right the things you can put right today.

‘Here you are, darl,’ said Isabel. ‘She’s gone off to sleep. I had to read Cinderella three times!’ She put an arm around Tom and leaned into him. ‘I love the way she pretends to read as she turns the pages. Knows the stories by heart.’

Tom did not reply, so Isabel kissed him below the ear and said, ‘We could always have an early night. I’m tired, but not too tired …’

He was still looking out at the water. ‘What does Mrs Roennfeldt look like?’

It took a moment for Isabel to register that the reference was to Hannah Potts. ‘What on earth do you want to know that for?’

‘Why do you think?’

‘She doesn’t look a bit like her! Lucy’s blonde with blue eyes – she must have got that from her father.’

‘Well she sure as hell didn’t get it from us.’ He turned to face her. ‘Izzy, we’ve got to say something. We have to tell her.’

‘Lucy? She’s too young to—’

‘No, Hannah Roennfeldt.’

Isabel looked horrified. ‘What for?’

‘She deserves to know.’

She shivered. In dark moments, she had wondered whether it was worse to believe your daughter was dead, or that she was alive and you would never see her; she had imagined Hannah’s torment. But even a moment’s agreement with Tom would be fatal, she knew. ‘Tom. We’ve done this one to death. It just isn’t right to put your niggling conscience above Lucy’s welfare.’

‘Niggling conscience? For the love of God, Isabel, we’re not talking about swiping sixpence from the collection plate! We’re talking about a child’s life! And a woman’s life, for that matter. Every moment of our happiness is on her tab. That can’t be right, no matter how much we try to think our way out of it.’

‘Tom, you’re tired and you’re sad and you’re confused. In the morning you’ll think differently. I’m not going to talk about it any more tonight.’ She touched his hand, and fought to mask the tremble in her voice. ‘We’re – we’re not in a perfect world. We have to live with that.’

He stared at her, seized by the sensation that perhaps she didn’t exist. Perhaps none of this existed, for the inches between them seemed to divide two entirely different realities, and they no longer joined.



Lucy is particularly fond of looking at the photographs taken of her as a baby on her visit to Partageuse. ‘That’s me!’ she tells Tom, as she sits on his knee and points to the picture on the table. ‘But I was only little then. Now I’m a big girl.’

‘You certainly are, sweetie. Four next birthday.’

‘That,’ she says, pointing authoritatively, ‘is Mamma’s mamma!’

‘Quite right. Mamma’s mamma is Grandma.’

‘And that’s Dadda’s dadda.’

‘No, that’s Mamma’s dadda. That’s Grandpa.’

Lucy looks sceptical.

‘Yeah, it’s confusing, I know. But Grandma and Grandpa aren’t my mum and dad.’

‘Who are your mum and dad?’

Tom shifted Lucy from one knee to the other. ‘My mum and dad were called Eleanora and Edward.’

‘Are they my grandma and grandpa too?’

Tom side-stepped the question. ‘They both died, sweetie.’

‘Ah,’ said Lucy, and nodded seriously, in a way that made him suspect she had no idea what he was talking about. ‘Like Flossie.’

Tom had forgotten about the goat that had become ill and died a few weeks earlier. ‘Well, yes, like Flossie died.’

‘Why did your mamma and dadda die?’