The Light Between Oceans(88)

‘Yes.’

‘And I know you want to see her again. But Hannah might be a bit cross, because she’s very sad, so we mustn’t tell her, or Granddad, all right?’

The child’s face tightened.

‘We have to keep this a special secret, and if anyone asks what we did today, you just say we went to Granddad’s. You mustn’t tell about seeing your mamma. Understand, love?’

The girl kept her lips pursed as she nodded gravely, the confusion showing in her eyes.



‘She’s an intelligent child. She knows Isabel Sherbourne isn’t dead – we saw her at Mouchemore’s.’ Hannah sat again in Dr Sumpton’s consulting room, this time without her daughter.

‘I’m telling you, as a professional, that the only cure for your daughter is time, and keeping her away from Mrs Sherbourne.’

‘I just wondered – well, I thought if I could get her to talk to me – about her other life. Out on the island. Would it help?’

He took a puff of his pipe. ‘Think of it like this – if I’d just taken your appendix out, the last thing to be doing would be to open up the wound every five minutes and prod about again to see if it had healed. I know it’s hard, but it’s a case of least said, soonest mended. She’ll get over it.’

But she showed no sign of getting over it, as far as Hannah could see. The child became obsessed with putting her toys in order and making her bed neat. She smacked the kitten for knocking over the dolls’ house, and kept her mouth snapped shut like a miser’s purse, not wanting to let slip any sign of affection to this imposter mother.

Still, Hannah persevered. She told her stories: about forests and the men who worked in them; about school in Perth and the things she’d done there; about Frank, and his life in Kalgoorlie. She would sing her little songs in German, even though the child paid no particular attention. She made clothes for her dolls and puddings for her dinner. The little girl responded by drawing pictures. Always the same pictures. Mamma and Dadda and Lulu at the lighthouse, its beam shining right to the edge of the page, driving away the darkness all around.



From the kitchen, Hannah could see Grace sitting on the lounge room floor, talking to her clothes pegs. These days she was more anxious than ever, except when she was around Septimus, so her mother was glad to see her playing quietly. She came a little closer to the door, to listen.

‘Lucy, eat a toffee,’ said a peg.

‘Yum,’ said another peg, as it gobbled the thin air the child delivered with her fingertips.

‘I’ve got a special secret,’ said the first peg. ‘Come with Auntie Gwen. When Hannah is asleep.’

Hannah watched intently, a cold sickness spreading through her.

From the pocket of her pinafore, Grace took a lemon and covered it with a handkerchief. ‘Goodnight Hannah,’ said Auntie Gwen. ‘Now we visiting Mamma in the park.’

‘Pwoi, pwoi.’ Two other pegs pressed against one another with kisses. ‘My darling Lucy. Come on, sweetheart. Off we go to Janus.’ And the pegs trotted along the rug for a bit.

The whistling of the kettle startled the child, and she turned and saw Hannah in the doorway. She threw the pegs down, saying, ‘Bad Lucy!’ and smacked her own hand.

Hannah’s horror at the charade turned to despair at this last admonishment: this was how her daughter saw her. Not as the mother who loved her, but as a tyrant. She tried to stay calm as she considered what to do.

Her hands shook a little as she made some cocoa and brought it in. ‘That was a nice game you were playing, darling,’ she said, battling the tremor in her voice.

The child sat still, neither speaking nor drinking from the beaker in her hand.

‘Do you know any secrets, Grace?’

The girl nodded slowly.

‘I bet they’re lovely secrets.’

Again, the little chin moved up and down, while the eyes tried to work out what rules to follow.

‘Shall we play a game?’

The child slid her toe back and forth in an arc on the floor.

‘Let’s play a game where I guess your secret. That way it’s still a secret, because you haven’t told me. And if I guess it, you can have a lolly as a prize.’ The child’s face tensed as Hannah smiled awkwardly. ‘I guess … that you went to visit the lady from Janus. Is that right?’

The child began to nod, and then stopped. ‘We saw the man in the big house. His face was pink.’

‘I won’t be cross with you, darling. It’s nice to visit sometimes, isn’t it? Did the lady give you a nice big hug?’

‘Yes,’ she said slowly, trying to work out as the word came out whether this was part of the secret or not.

As Hannah took the washing off the line half an hour later, her stomach was still churning. How could her own sister have done such a thing? The expression on the faces of the customers at Mouchemore’s came back to her, and she had a sense that they could see something she couldn’t – everyone, Gwen included, was laughing behind her back. She left a petticoat dangling by one peg as she headed back into the house and stormed into Gwen’s room.

‘How could you?’

‘What on earth’s wrong?’ asked Gwen.

‘As if you don’t know!’

‘What, Hannah?’