The Light Between Oceans(66)

‘Izz – come on now, you don’t know what you’re saying!’

‘Don’t I?’ Her voice was shrill. ‘I know they’ll take our daughter away. You can’t begin to understand, can you? What you’ve done – it’s unforgivable!’

‘Christ, Izz—’

‘You might as well have killed me, Tom! Killing me is better than killing our child. You’re a monster! A cold, selfish monster!’

Tom stood, absorbing the words that hurt more than the blows. He searched her face for some hint of the love she had sworn for him over and over, but she was full of icy fury, like the ocean all around.

The petrel plummeted again, arising triumphant with a fish it had imprisoned in its beak so that only the mouth, feebly opening and closing, showed that it ever existed.



‘It’s too rough to start back now,’ Ralph told Sergeant Knuckey. Sergeant Spragg, the senior policeman from Albany, had been making a great to-do about the need to set out at once. ‘He can bloody swim if he’s that keen to get back,’ was all the skipper said.

‘Well, Sherbourne can stay on the boat, under guard. I’m not having him cooking up stories with his wife, thank you very much,’ Spragg had insisted.

Sergeant Knuckey looked at Ralph and raised his eyebrows, the angle of his mouth betraying his opinion of his colleague.

As sunset approached, Neville Whittnish strode briskly down to the boat.

‘What do you want?’ asked Constable Strugnell, who was taking his guard duty seriously.

‘I’ll need Sherbourne to do a handover. Has to come with me to light up.’ Although Whittnish spoke rarely and briefly, his tone never countenanced contradiction.

Strugnell was wrong-footed, but regained sufficient composure to say, ‘Right, well I’ll have to accompany him.’

‘No unauthorised personnel in the light. Commonwealth rules. I’ll bring him back when I’ve finished with him.’

Tom and the keeper walked in silence to the tower. When they reached the door, Tom said quietly, ‘What was all that about? You don’t need me to light up.’

The old man said simply, ‘Never seen a light as well kept. None of my business what else you’ve done. But you’ll want to say goodbye to her. I’ll wait down here,’ and he turned his back, looking out through the rounded window to size up the storm.

So, one last time, Tom climbed the hundreds of stairs. One last time, he performed the alchemy of brilliance from sulphur and oil. One last time, he sent his signal to mariners for miles about: beware.



By the next morning, the storm has abated, and the sky is once again serene blue. The beaches are decked with banks of yellow foam and seaweed thrown up by the waves. As the boat pulls away from Janus Rock, a school of dolphins plays about the bow for a time, their slithering grey forms rising and subsiding like water spouts, now closer, now further away. Isabel, eyes swollen and red, sits on one side of the cabin, Tom on the other. The policemen talk amongst themselves of rosters and the best way to get a shine on their boots. At the stern, the rotting tarpaulin exhales the odour of its dreadful contents.

On Isabel’s lap, Lucy asks again, ‘Where are we going, Mamma?’

‘Back to Partageuse, sweetheart.’

‘Why?’

Isabel throws Tom a look. ‘I really don’t know why, Luce, my darling. But we have to go.’ She hugs her tight.

Later, the child climbs down from her mother’s knee and clambers up onto Tom. He holds her wordlessly, trying to imprint everything about her: the smell of her hair, the softness of her skin, the shape of her tiny fingers, the sound of her breath as she puts her face so close to his.

The island swims away from them, fading into an ever more miniature version of itself, until it is just a flash of memory, held differently, imperfectly by each passenger. Tom watches Isabel, waits for her to return his glance, longs for her to give him one of the old smiles that used to remind him of Janus Light – a fixed, reliable point in the world, which meant he was never lost. But the flame has gone out – her face seems uninhabited now.

He measures the journey to shore in turns of the light.





PART III





CHAPTER 25



AS SOON AS they disembarked, Sergeant Spragg drew a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and strode towards Tom. Vernon Knuckey stopped him with just a shake of the head.

‘It’s correct procedure,’ said the Albany sergeant, who outranked Vernon in importance of station.

‘Never mind that. There’s a little girl here,’ Knuckey said, nodding towards Lucy, who ran to Tom, grabbing his leg. ‘Dadda! Dadda, pick me up!’

Naked distress flashed across his face as the girl’s eyes met his, with this most routine of requests. At the top of a peppermint tree, a pair of willy wagtails chittered away. Tom swallowed hard, digging his nails into his palms. ‘Look, Lulu! Look at the funny birds up there. You don’t see those at home, do you?’ Keeping his eyes on the birds, he urged, ‘Go and have a proper look.’

Two motor cars were parked near the jetty, and Sergeant Spragg addressed Tom. ‘This way. Into the first one.’

Tom turned back towards Lucy, now distracted by the play of the birds wiggling their long black tails. He was about to reach out a hand to her, but imagined her anguish: best if he slipped away.