The Light Between Oceans(95)
Hannah barely registers his words as she hugs her daughter, who sleeps on in her arms.
That night, Hannah laid Grace beside her in her bed, listening to every breath, watching every turn of the head or kick of a foot. But the relief of feeling her daughter’s warm body was overshadowed by a darker knowing.
The first sound of rain, like gravel scattered on the tin roof, carried Hannah back to her wedding day: to a time of leaking ceilings and buckets in their humble cottage, and love and hope. Above all, hope. Frank, with his smile, and his cheerfulness no matter what the day brought. She wanted Grace to have that. She wanted her daughter to be a happy little girl, and she prayed to God for the courage and strength to do the things needed to allow it.
When the thunder woke the child, she looked sleepily at Hannah, and snuggled in closer to her, before returning to her dreams, leaving her mother to weep silently, remembering her vow.
The black house spider has returned to its web in the corner of Tom’s cell, and is going over and over the higgledy-piggledy threads, setting the shape in order to a design which only it can know – why the silk must be in this particular place, at this particular tension or angle. It comes out at night to repair its web, a funnel of fibres that accumulate dust and form haphazard patterns. It is weaving its arbitrary world, always trying to mend, never abandoning its web unless forced.
Lucy is safe. The relief fills Tom’s body. But there is still no word from Isabel. No sign that she has forgiven him, or that she ever will. The helplessness he felt at being unable to do anything for Lucy now strengthens his resolve to do what he can for his wife. It is the one freedom left to him.
If he is going to have to live his life without her, somehow it makes it easier to let go, to let things take their course. His mind wanders into memory. The woomph of the oil vapour igniting into brilliance at the touch of his match. The rainbows thrown by the prisms. The oceans spreading themselves before him about Janus like a secret gift. If Tom is to take his leave of the world, he wants to remember the beauty of it, not just the suffering. The breaths of Lucy, who trusted two strangers, bonding with their hearts like a molecule. And Isabel, the old Isabel, who lit the way for him back into life, after all the years of death.
A light rain wafts the steam of forest scents into his cell: the earth, the wet wood, the pungent smell of banksias with their flowers like big, feathery acorns. It occurs to him that there are different versions of himself to farewell – the abandoned eight-year-old; the delusional soldier who hovered somewhere in hell; the lightkeeper who dared to leave his heart undefended. Like Russian dolls, these lives sit within him.
The forest sings to him: the rain tapping on the leaves, dripping into the puddles, the kookaburras laughing like madmen at some joke beyond human comprehension. He has the sensation of being part of a connected whole, of being enough. Another day or another decade will not change this. He is embraced by nature, which is waiting, ultimately, to receive him, to re-organise his atoms into another shape.
The rain is falling more heavily, and in the distance, thunder grumbles at being left behind by the lightning.
CHAPTER 34
THE ADDICOTTS LIVED in a house which, but for a few yards of sea grass, would have been paddling its toes in the ocean. The timber and brick were kept in good order by Ralph, and Hilda coaxed a small garden from the sandy soil at the back: zinnias and dahlias as garish as dancing girls bordered a trail to a little aviary in which finches chirped gaily, to the puzzlement of the native birds.
The smell of marmalade drifted through the windows and met Ralph as he trudged up the front path the day after Lucy had been found. As he took his cap off in the hallway, Hilda rushed to intercept him, the wooden spoon in her hand glistening like an orange lollipop. She put a finger to her lips and led him to the kitchen. ‘In the lounge room!’ she whispered, eyes wide. ‘Isabel Sherbourne! She’s been waiting for you.’
Ralph shook his head. ‘World’s gone bloody haywire.’
‘What does she want?’
‘That’s the trouble, I reckon. She can’t make up her mind what she wants.’
The small, tidy lounge room of the sea captain was decorated not with ships in bottles or scale models of men o’ war, but icons. The Archangels Michael and Raphael, the Madonna and Child, and numerous saints, stared at any visitors with stern calm from their place in eternity.
The glass of water beside Isabel was almost empty. Her eyes were fixed on an angel, his sword and shield in hand, poised over a serpent at his feet. Heavy clouds dimmed the room, so that the paintings seemed faint pools of gold, hovering in darkness.
She didn’t notice Ralph come in, and he watched her for a while before saying, ‘That was the first one I got. I fished a Russian sailor out of the drink, near Sevastopol, forty-odd years ago. Gave it to me as a thank-you.’ He spoke slowly, pausing now and then. ‘I picked up the others along the way in my merchant marine days.’ He gave a chuckle. ‘I’m hardly the Holy Joe sort, and I couldn’t tell you the first thing about painting. But there’s something about this lot that makes them talk back to you. Hilda says they keep her company when I’m away.’
He put his hands in his pockets and nodded towards the picture Isabel was looking at. ‘I’ve bent that fella’s ear in my time, I can tell you. Archangel Michael. There he is with his sword in his hand, but he’s got his shield half raised, too. Like he’s still making up his mind about something.’