The Light Between Oceans(60)

Isabel looked to Tom for a response.

‘I promised Ralph and Bluey I’d have a beer with them. Not my cup of tea, all this.’ Without another glance at his wife, he strode out into the darkness.



Later that night, when Isabel looked into the mirror as she washed her face, for an instant it was Hannah’s features she glimpsed in the glass, etched with distress. She splashed more water on her skin, to wash away the unbearable image along with the sweat of the encounter. But she couldn’t make the picture go away, nor could she tame the other, almost imperceptible wire of fear that came from learning that Tom had met her. She couldn’t say why it made things worse, but somehow, it felt as if solid ground had moved imperceptibly beneath her feet.

The encounter had been shocking. To see close up the darkness in Hannah Roennfeldt’s eyes. To smell the faded sweetness of powder on her. To feel, almost physically, the hopelessness that hung about her. But at the very same time, she had tasted the possibility of losing Lucy. The muscles in her arms stiffened now, as if to hold on to the child. ‘Oh God,’ she prayed, ‘God, bring peace to Hannah Roennfeldt. And let me keep Lucy safe.’

Tom had still not come home. She went into Lucy’s room to check on her. She took a picture book gently from her hand as she slept, and laid it on the dressing table. ‘Night night, my angel,’ she whispered, and kissed her. As she stroked her hair, she found herself comparing the shape of Lucy’s face with the vision of Hannah in the mirror, looking for something in the curve of the chin or the arch of an eyebrow.





CHAPTER 22



‘MAMMA, CAN WE have a cat?’ Lucy asked the next morning as she followed Isabel into the Graysmarks’ kitchen. The child had been fascinated by the exotic marmalade creature called Tabatha Tabby that patrolled the house. She had seen cats in storybooks, but this was the only one she had ever touched.

‘Oh, I don’t think a cat would be very happy on Janus, sweetie pie. He wouldn’t have any friends to play with.’ Isabel’s voice had a distracted air.

‘Dadda, can we please have a cat?’ asked the child without missing a beat, oblivious to the tension in the air.

Tom had got home after Isabel was asleep, and risen before anyone else. He was sitting at the table, flipping through a week-old copy of the West Australian.

‘Lulu, why don’t you take Tabatha out into the garden for an adventure – go hunting for mice,’ he said.

She hauled the compliant animal up by its middle and stumbled to the door.

Tom turned to Isabel. ‘How much longer, Izz? How much bloody longer?’

‘What?’

‘How can we do it? How can we carry on with this every day? You knew the poor woman had gone out of her mind because of us. Now you’ve seen her with your own eyes!’

‘Tom, there’s nothing we can do. I know it and so do you.’ But Hannah’s face came back to her, her voice. As Tom set his jaw, she searched for some way of placating him. ‘Perhaps …’ she ventured, ‘perhaps – when Lucy’s older, perhaps we can tell Hannah then, when it won’t be so devastating … But that’s years away, Tom, years.’

Astounded both by the concession and by its inadequacy, he pressed on. ‘Isabel, what’s it going to take? It can’t wait years. Imagine her life! You even knew her!’

Fear awoke in Isabel in earnest. ‘And it turns out you did too, Tom Sherbourne. But you kept that pretty quiet, didn’t you?’

Tom was taken aback by the counter attack. ‘I don’t know her. I met her. Once.’

‘When?’

‘On the boat from Sydney.’

‘That’s what’s brought this on though, isn’t it? Why didn’t you ever tell me about her? What did she mean, “You’re very gallant”? What are you hiding?’

‘What am I hiding? That’s rich.’

‘I know nothing about your life! What else have you kept secret, Tom? How many other shipboard romances?’

Tom stood up. ‘Stop it! Stop it right there, Isabel! You’re carrying on like a two-bob watch over Hannah Roennfeldt to change the subject because you know I’m right. Makes no odds whether I’d seen her before or not.’

He tried an appeal to reason. ‘Izz. You saw what she’s become. That’s our doing.’ He turned away from her. ‘I saw things … I saw things in the war, Izz. Things I’ve never told you and never will. Christ, I did things …’ His fists were closed tight and his jaw stiff. ‘I swore I’d never make anyone suffer after that, not if I could help it. Why do you think I went on the Lights anyway? I reckoned I could maybe do a bit of good, maybe save some poor bastard from being wrecked. And now look what I’ve gotten into. I wouldn’t want a dog to have to go through what Hannah Roennfeldt’s been through!’ He searched for words. ‘Christ, I learned in France that you’re bloody lucky if you’ve got tucker for tea and teeth to chew it with.’ He baulked at the images that flooded his mind. ‘So when I met you, and you even looked twice at me, I thought I was bloody well in heaven!’

He stopped for a moment. ‘What are we, Izzy? What do we think we’re playing at, for crying out loud? I swore I’d stay with you through thick and thin, Isabel, thick and thin! Well all I can say is, things have got pretty bloody thin,’ he said, and strode away down the hall.