The Light Between Oceans(69)

‘Where’s Lucy?’ he asked, first of his daughter, then of Constable Garstone. ‘Where’s little Lucy? And Tom?’ His mind was fast at work again: they must have drowned. They must have—

‘Mr Sherbourne’s in the cells, sir.’ The policeman stamped a piece of paper on the desk. ‘He’ll be transferred to Albany after a committal hearing.’

‘Committal hearing? What the devil? Where’s Lucy?’

‘The child’s with her mother, sir.’

‘The child is demonstrably not with her mother! What have you done with her? What’s this all about?’

‘Looks like the child’s real mother is Mrs Roennfeldt.’

Bill assumed he must have misheard whatever it was Garstone had said, and blundered on, ‘I demand you release my son-in-law right this minute.’

‘I’m afraid I can’t do that, sir. Mr Sherbourne is under arrest.’

‘Arrest? What the hell for?’

‘So far, falsification of Commonwealth records. Breach of duty as a public servant. That’s just for starters. Then there’s child stealing. And the fact that we dug up Frank Roennfeldt’s remains out on Janus Rock.’

‘Are you out of your mind?’ He turned to his daughter, suddenly understanding her pallor and dreamy state. ‘Don’t you worry about this, dear. I’ll sort it out. Whatever it’s about, it’s obviously all a terrible mistake. I’ll get to the bottom of it.’

‘I don’t think you understand, Mr Graysmark,’ began the policeman.

‘You’re damn right I don’t understand. There’ll be the devil to pay over this! Dragging my daughter into a police station because of some ridiculous story. Slandering my son-in-law.’ He turned to his daughter. ‘Isabel – tell him it’s all nonsense!’

She sat, still and expressionless. The policeman cleared his throat. ‘Mrs Sherbourne refuses to say anything, sir.’



Tom feels the stillness of the cell weigh upon him, as dense and as liquid as mercury. For so long, his life has been shaped by the sound of the waves and the wind, the rhythm of the light. Suddenly, everything has stopped. He listens to the whipbird declaring its territory with song from high in the karri trees, oblivious.

The solitude is familiar, carrying him back to his time alone on Janus, and he wonders if the years with Isabel and with Lucy were just imagined. Then he puts his hand in his pocket and retrieves the child’s lilac satin ribbon, recalling her smile as she handed it to him when it slipped off. ‘Hold this please, Dadda.’ When Harry Garstone had tried to confiscate it at the station, Knuckey had snapped, ‘Oh for God’s sake, boy. He’s hardly going to choke us with that bloody thing, is he!’ and Tom had folded it safely away.

He cannot reconcile the grief he feels at what he has done and the profound relief that runs through him. Two opposing physical forces, they create an inexplicable reaction overpowered by a third, stronger force – the knowledge of having deprived his wife of a child. As fresh and raw as being spiked on a meat hook, he feels loss: what Hannah Roennfeldt must have felt; what Isabel has felt so many times, and grips her again now. He begins to wonder how he could have inflicted such suffering. He begins to wonder what the bloody hell he’s done.

He struggles to make sense of it – all this love, so bent out of shape, refracted, like light through the lens.



Vernon Knuckey had known Isabel since she was a tot. Her father had taught five of his children. ‘Best thing you can do is take her home,’ he had told Bill gravely. ‘I’ll talk to her tomorrow.’

‘But what about—’

‘Just take her home, Bill. Take the poor girl home.’

‘Isabel. Darling!’ Her mother hugged her as soon as she stepped through the front door. Violet Graysmark was as confused as anyone, but when she saw the state of her daughter, did not dare ask questions. ‘Your bed’s made up. Bill – fetch her bag through.’

Isabel drifted in, blank-faced. Violet guided her to an armchair, then hurried to the kitchen and returned with a glass. ‘Warm water and brandy. For your nerves,’ she said. Isabel sipped the drink mechanically, and put the empty glass on the occasional table.

Violet brought a rug and tucked it over her knees, though the room was perfectly warm. Isabel began to stroke the wool, tracing her index finger in straight lines over the tartan. She was so absorbed that she did not seem to hear when her mother asked, ‘Is there anything I can get you, pet? Are you hungry?’

Bill put his head around the door and beckoned Violet out to the kitchen. ‘Has she said anything?’

‘Not a word. I think she’s in shock.’

‘Well that makes two of us. I can’t make head or tail of it. I’m going to the station first thing in the morning to get a straight story. That Hannah Roennfeldt’s been daft as a brush for years now. And as for old man Potts: thinks he can throw his weight around because of his dough.’ He pulled the ends of his waistcoat down over his belly. ‘I’m not going to be pushed around by some lunatic and her father, no matter how much money he’s got.’



That night, Isabel lay in her narrow childhood bed, now foreign, constricting. A light wind pushed at the lace curtains, and outside, the chirrup of the crickets reflected the sparkling stars. On a night like this, only moments ago, it seemed, she had lain sleepless and excited at the prospect of her wedding the following morning. She had thanked God for sending her Tom Sherbourne: for letting him be born, for keeping him safe through the war, for wafting him on some breeze of Fate to her shore, where she was the first person he saw as he landed.