The Light Between Oceans

by M. L. Stedman

  Tom rang the bell at the boardinghouse on the main street. It was the domain of Mrs. Mewett, a woman of sixty-odd, as stout as a pepper pot, who set upon him. “Your letter said you’re a bachelor, and you’re Eastern States, so I’ll thank you for remembering you’re in Partageuse now. This is a Christian establishment, and there’s to be no taking of alcohol or tobacco on the premises.”

  Tom was about to thank her for the key in her hand, but she clutched it fiercely as she continued, “None of your foreign habits here: I know what’s what. I change the sheets when you leave and I don’t expect to have to scrub them, if you know what I mean. The doors are locked at ten, breakfast is served at six a.m., and if you’re not there you go hungry. Tea’s at five thirty, and likewise applies. Lunch you can find somewhere else.”

  “Much obliged, Mrs. Mewett,” said Tom, deciding against a smile in case it broke some other rule.

  “Hot water’s an extra shilling a week. Up to you whether you want it. In my book, cold water never did a man your age any harm.” She thrust the room key at him. As she limped off down the passageway, Tom wondered whether there was a Mr. Mewett who had so endeared men to her.

  In his small room at the back of the house, he unpacked his duffel bag, setting his soap and shaving things neatly on the one shelf provided. He folded his long johns and socks into the drawer, and hung his three shirts and two pairs of trousers, together with his good suit and tie, in the narrow wardrobe. He slipped a book into his pocket and set out to explore the town.

  Tom Sherbourne’s final duty in Partageuse was dinner with the Harbormaster and his wife. Captain Percy Hasluck was in charge of all the comings and goings at the port, and it was usual for any new Janus lightkeeper to be invited to dine with him before setting off for the island.

  Tom washed and shaved again in the afternoon, put Brilliantine in his hair, buttoned on a collar and hauled on his suit. The sunshine of the previous days had been replaced by clouds and a vicious wind that blew straight from Antarctica, so he pulled on his greatcoat for good measure.

  Still working on Sydney scales, he had left plenty of time to walk the unfamiliar route, and arrived at the house rather early. His host welcomed him with a broad smile, and when Tom apologized for his premature arrival, “Mrs. Captain Hasluck,” as her husband referred to her, clapped her hands and said, “Gracious me, Mr. Sherbourne! You hardly need to apologize for gracing us with your presence promptly, especially when you’ve brought such lovely flowers.” She inhaled the scent of the late roses Tom had negotiated to pick, for a fee, from Mrs. Mewett’s garden. She peered up at him from her considerably lower vantage point. “Goodness! You’re nearly as tall as the lighthouse yourself!” she said, and chuckled at her own wit.

  The captain took Tom’s hat and coat and said, “Come into the parlor,” after which his wife immediately chimed, “Said the spider to the fly!”

  “Ah, she’s a card, that one!” exclaimed the Captain. Tom feared it could be a long evening.

  “Now, some sherry? Or there’s port?” offered the woman.

  “Show some mercy and bring the poor devil a beer, Mrs. Captain,” her husband said with a laugh. He slapped Tom on the back. “You have a seat and tell me all about yourself, young man.”

  Tom was rescued by the doorbell. “Excuse me,” said Captain Hasluck. Down the hall Tom heard, “Cyril. Bertha. Glad you could come. Let me take your hats.”

  As Mrs. Captain returned to the parlor with a bottle of beer and glasses on a silver tray, she said, “We thought we’d invite a few people, just to introduce you to some locals. It’s a very friendly place, Partageuse.”

  The Captain ushered in the new guests, a dour couple comprising the plump Chairman of the Local Roads Board—Cyril Chipper and his wife, Bertha, who was thin as a yard of pump water.

  “Well, what do you make of the roads here?” launched Cyril as soon as they had been introduced. “No politeness, mind. Compared with over East, how would you rate them?”

  “Oh, leave the poor man alone, Cyril,” said the wife. Tom was grateful not only for that intervention but also for the doorbell, which rang again.

  “Bill. Violet. Grand to see you,” said the Captain as he opened the front door. “Ah, and you get lovelier by the day, young lady.”

  He showed into the parlor a solid man with gray whiskers, and his wife, sturdy and flushed. “This is Bill Graysmark, his wife, Violet, and their daughter…” He turned around. “Where’s she got to? Anyway, there’s a daughter here somewhere, she’ll be through soon, I expect. Bill’s the headmaster here in Partageuse.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” said Tom, shaking the man by the hand and nodding politely to the woman.

  “So,” said Bill Graysmark, “you think you’re up to Janus, then?”

  “I’ll soon find out,” Tom said.

  “Bleak out there, you know.”

  “So I hear.”

  “No roads on Janus, of course,” threw in Cyril Chipper.

  “Er, well, no,” Tom said.

  “Not sure I think much of a place with no roads at all,” Chipper pursued, in a tone that implied there were moral implications.

  “No roads is the least of your problems, son,” rejoined Graysmark.

  “Dad, lay off, will you?” The missing daughter now entered as Tom had his back to the door. “The last thing the poor man needs is your tales of doom and gloom.”

  “Ah! Told you she’d turn up,” said Captain Hasluck. “This is Isabel Graysmark. Isabel—meet Mr. Sherbourne.”

  Tom stood to greet her and their eyes met in recognition. He was about to make a reference to seagulls, but she silenced him with, “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Sherbourne.”

  “Tom, please,” he said, speculating that perhaps she wasn’t supposed to spend afternoons throwing bread to birds, after all. And he wondered what other secrets lay behind her playful smile.

  The evening proceeded well enough, with the Haslucks telling Tom about the history of the district and the building of the lighthouse, back in the time of the Captain’s father. “Very important for trade,” the Harbormaster assured him. “The Southern Ocean is treacherous enough on the surface, let alone having that under-sea ridge. Safe transport is the key to business, everyone knows that.”

  “Of course, the real basis of safe transport is good roads,” Chipper began again, about to launch into another variation on his only topic of conversation. Tom tried to look attentive, but was distracted out of the corner of his eye by Isabel. Unseen by the others, thanks to the angle of her chair, she had begun to make mock-serious expressions at Cyril Chipper’s comments, keeping up a little pantomime that accompanied each remark.

  The performance went on, with Tom struggling to keep a straight face, until finally a full laugh escaped, which he quickly converted into a coughing fit.

  “Are you all right, Tom?” asked the Captain’s wife. “I’ll fetch you some water.”

  Tom couldn’t look up, and, still coughing, said, “Thank you. I’ll come with you. Don’t know what set me off.”

  As Tom stood up, Isabel kept a perfectly straight face and said, “Now, when he comes back, you’ll have to tell Tom all about how you make the roads out of jarrah, Mr. Chipper.” Turning to Tom, she said, “Don’t be long. Mr. Chipper’s full of interesting stories,” and she smiled innocently, her lips giving just a momentary tremble as Tom caught her eye.

  When the gathering drew to a close, the guests wished Tom well for his stay on Janus. “You look like you’re made of the right stuff,” said Hasluck, and Bill Graysmark nodded in agreement.

  “Thank you. It’s been a pleasure to meet you all,” said Tom, shaking hands with the gentlemen, and nodding to the ladies. “And thank you for making sure I got such a thorough introduction to Western Australian road construction,” he said quietly to Isabel. “Pity I won’t have a chance to repay you.” And the little party dispersed into the wintry night.

  CHAPTER 3

  The Windward Spirit, the stor
e boat for all the light stations along that part of the coast, was an old tub, but trusty as a cattle dog, Ralph Addicott said. Old Ralph had skippered the vessel for donkey’s years, and always boasted he had the best job in the world.

  “Ah, you’ll be Tom Sherbourne. Welcome to my pleasure launch!” he said, gesturing to the bare wooden decks and salt-blistered paint as Tom came aboard before dawn for his first journey out to Janus Rock.

  “Pleased to meet you,” said Tom as he shook his hand. The engine was idling and the diesel fumes filled his lungs. It wasn’t much warmer in the cabin than in the biting air outside, but at least it blunted the snarl of the wind.

  A mess of red corkscrew curls emerged through the hatch at the back of the cabin. “Reckon we’re ready, Ralph. She’s all fixed now,” said the young man they belonged to.

  “Bluey, this is Tom Sherbourne,” said Ralph.

  “Gedday,” replied Bluey, hauling himself through the hatch.

  “Morning.”

  “Talk about brass-monkey weather! Hope you’ve packed your woolen underduds. If it’s like this here, it’ll be a bloody sight worse on Janus,” said Bluey, breathing on his hands.

  While Bluey showed Tom over the boat, the skipper ran through his final checks. He gave the brine-smeared glass in front of him a wipe with a scrap of old flag, then called, “Ropes at the ready now, lad. Prepare to cast off.” He opened the throttle. “Come on, old girl, off we go,” he muttered, to coax the boat out of its berth.

  Tom studied the map on the chart table. Even magnified on this scale, Janus was barely a dot in the shoals far off the coast. He fixed his eyes on the expanse of sea ahead and breathed in the thick salt air, not looking back at the shore in case it made him change his mind.

  As the hours passed, the water deepened below them, its color taking on the quality of a solid. From time to time Ralph would point out something of interest—a sea eagle, or a school of dolphins playing at the bow of the boat. Once, they saw the funnel of a steamer, just skirting the horizon. Periodically, Bluey emerged from the galley to hand out tea in chipped enamel mugs. Ralph told Tom stories of evil storms and great dramas of the Lights on that part of the coast. Tom talked a little of life at Byron Bay and on Maatsuyker Island, thousands of miles to the east.

  “Well, if you’ve lived through Maatsuyker, there’s a chance you’ll survive Janus. Probably,” Ralph said. He looked at his watch. “Why not grab forty winks while you can? We’ve got a way to go yet, boy.”

  When Tom re-emerged from the bunk below, Bluey was speaking in a low voice to Ralph, who was shaking his head.

  “I just want to know if it’s true. No harm in asking him, is there?” Bluey was saying.

  “Asking me what?” said Tom.

  “If…” Bluey looked at Ralph. Torn between his own eagerness and Ralph’s bulldog scowl, he blushed and fell silent.

  “Fair enough. None of my business,” said Tom, and looked out at the water, which had now turned seal-gray, as the swell rose around them.

  “I was too young. Ma wouldn’t let me bump up me age to join up. And it’s just that I heard…”

  Tom looked at him, eyebrows raised in question.

  “Well they reckon you got the Military Cross and that,” Bluey blurted. “Told me it said on your discharge papers—for the Janus posting.”

  Tom kept his eyes on the water. Bluey looked crestfallen, then embarrassed. “I mean, I’m real proud to be able to say I’ve shaken the hand of a hero.”

  “A bit of brass doesn’t make anyone a hero,” Tom said. “Most of the blokes who really deserve the medals aren’t around any more. Wouldn’t get too worked up about it if I were you, mate,” he said, and turned to pore over the chart.

  “There she is!” exclaimed Bluey, and handed the binoculars to Tom.

  “Home, sweet home, for the next six months.” Ralph chuckled.

  Tom looked through the lenses at the landmass which seemed to be emerging from the water like a sea monster. The cliff on one side marked the highest point, from which the island sloped down gently until it reached the opposite shore.

  “Old Neville’ll be glad to see us,” Ralph said. “He didn’t take kindly to being dragged out of retirement for Trimble’s emergency, I can tell you. Still. Once a keeper… There’s not a man in the service’d leave a light go unattended, however much he carried on about it. I warn you, though, he’s not the happiest corpse in the morgue. Not much of a talker, Neville Whittnish.”

  The jetty stretched a good hundred feet out from the shoreline, where it had been built up tall, to withstand the highest of tides and fiercest of storms. The block and tackle was rigged, ready to hoist the supplies up the steep ascent to the outbuildings. A dour, craggy man of sixty-odd was waiting for them as they docked.

  “Ralph. Bluey,” he said with a perfunctory nod. “You’re the replacement,” was his greeting to Tom.

  “Tom Sherbourne. Pleased to meet you,” Tom replied, putting out his hand.

  The older man looked at it absently for a moment before remembering what the gesture meant, and gave it a peremptory tug, as if testing whether the arm might come off. “This way,” he said, and without waiting for Tom to gather his things, started the trudge up to the light station. It was early afternoon, and after so many hours on the swell, it took Tom a moment to get the feel of land again as he grabbed his kit bag and staggered after the keeper, while Ralph and Bluey prepared to unload the supplies.

  “Keeper’s cottage,” said Whittnish as they approached a low building with a corrugated-iron roof. A trio of large rainwater tanks ranged behind it, beside a string of outbuildings housing stores for the cottage and the light. “You can leave your kit bag in the hallway,” he said, as he opened the front door. “Got a lot to get through.” He turned on his heel and headed straight to the tower. He might be long in the tooth, but he could move like a whippet.

  Later, when the old man spoke about the light, his voice changed, as though he were talking about a faithful dog or a favorite rose. “She’s a beauty, still, after all these years,” he said. The white stone light tower rested against the slate sky like a stick of chalk. It stood a hundred and thirty feet high, near the cliff at the island’s apex, and Tom was struck not only by how much taller it was than the lights he had worked on, but also by its slender elegance.

  Walking through its green door, it was more or less what he expected. The space could be crossed in a couple of strides, and the sound of their footsteps ricocheted like stray bullets off the green-gloss-painted floors and curved, whitewashed walls. The few pieces of furniture—two store cupboards, a small table—were curved at the back to fit the roundness of the structure, so that they huddled against the walls like hunchbacks. In the very center stood the thick iron cylinder which ran all the way up to the lantern room, and housed the weights for the clockwork which had originally rotated the light.

  A set of stairs no more than two feet wide began a spiral across one side of the wall and disappeared into the solid metal of the landing above. Tom followed the old man up to the next, narrower level, where the helix continued from the opposite wall up to the next floor, and on again until they arrived at the fifth one, just below the lantern room—the administrative heart of the lighthouse. Here in the watch room was the desk with the logbooks, the Morse equipment, the binoculars. Of course, it was forbidden to have a bed or any furniture in the light tower on which one could recline, but there was at least a straight-backed wooden chair, its arms worn smooth by generations of craggy palms.

  The barometer could do with a polish, Tom noted, before his eye was caught by something sitting beside the marine charts. It was a ball of wool with knitting needles stuck through it, and what looked like the beginnings of a scarf.

  “Old Docherty’s,” said Whittnish with a nod.

  Tom knew the variety of activities the keepers used to while away any quiet moments on duty: carving scrimshaw or shells; making chess pieces. Knitting was common enough.

&nbs
p; Whittnish ran through the logbook and the weather observations, then led Tom to the light itself, on the next level up. The glazing of the light room was interrupted only by the crisscrossing of astragals that kept the panes in place. Outside, the metal gallery circled the tower, and a perilous ladder arched against the dome, up to the thin catwalk just below the weather vane that swung in the wind.

  “She’s a beauty all right,” said Tom, taking in the giant lens, far taller than himself, atop the rotating pedestal: a palace of prisms like a beehive made from glass. It was the very heart of Janus, all light and clarity and silence.

  A barely perceptible smile passed over the old keeper’s lips as he said, “I’ve known her since I was barely a boy. Ah yes, a beauty.”

  The following morning, Ralph stood on the jetty. “Nearly ready for the off, then. Want us to bring out all the newspapers you’ve missed next trip?”

  “It’s hardly news if it’s months old. I’d rather save my money and buy a good book,” replied Tom.

  Ralph looked about him, checking everything was in order. “Well, that’s that then. No changing your mind now, son.”

  Tom gave a rueful laugh. “Reckon you’re right on that score, Ralph.”

  “We’ll be back before you know it. Three months is nothing as long as you’re not trying to hold your breath!”

  “You treat the light right and she won’t give you any trouble,” said Whittnish. “All you need is patience and a bit of nous.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” said Tom. Then he turned to Bluey, who was getting ready to cast off. “See you in three months then, Blue?”

  “You bet.”

  The boat pulled away, churning the water behind it and battling the wind with a smoky roar. The distance pressed it further and further into the gray horizon like a thumb pushing it into putty, until it was subsumed completely.

  Then, a moment’s stillness. Not silence: the waves still shattered on the rocks, the wind screeched around his ears, and a loose door on one of the storage sheds banged a disgruntled drumbeat. But something inside Tom was still for the first time in years.

  He walked up to the cliff top and stood. A goat’s bell clanged; two chickens squabbled. Suddenly these pinpricks of sound took on a new importance: sounds from living things. Tom climbed the 184 stairs to the lantern room and opened the door to the gallery. The wind pounced on him like a predator, slamming him back into the doorway until he gathered the strength to launch himself outward and grip the iron handrail.

  For the first time he took in the scale of the view. Hundreds of feet above sea level, he was mesmerized by the drop to the ocean crashing against the cliffs directly below. The water sloshed like white paint, milky-thick, the foam occasionally scraped off long enough to reveal a deep blue undercoat. At the other end of the island, a row of immense boulders created a break against the surf and left the water inside it as calm as a bath. He had the impression he was hanging from the sky, not rising from the earth. Very slowly, he turned a full circle, taking in the nothingness of it all. It seemed his lungs could never be large enough to breathe in this much air, his eyes could never see this much space, nor could he hear the full extent of the rolling, roaring ocean. For the briefest moment, he had no edges.

  He blinked, and shook his head quickly. He was nearing a vortex, and to pull himself back he paid attention to his heartbeat, felt his feet on the ground and his heels in his boots. He drew himself up to his full height. He picked a point on the door of the light tower—a hinge that had worked itself loose—and resolved to start with that. Something solid. He must turn to something solid, because if he didn’t, who knew where his mind or his soul could blow away to, like a balloon without ballast. That was the only thing that had got him through four years of blood and madness: know exactly where your gun is when you doze for ten minutes in your dugout; always check your gas mask; see that your men have understood their orders to the letter. You don’t think ahead in years or months: you think about this hour, and maybe the next. Anything else is speculation.

  He raised the binoculars and scoured the island for more signs of life: he needed to see the goats, the sheep; to count them. Stick to the solid. To the brass fittings which had to be polished, the glass which had to be cleaned—first the outer glass of the lantern, then the prisms themselves. Getting the oil in, keeping the cogs moving smoothly, topping up the mercury to let the light glide. He gripped each thought like the rung of a ladder by which to haul himself back to the knowable; back to this life.

  That night, as he lit the lamp, he moved as slowly and carefully as one of the priests might have done thousands of years earlier in the first lighthouse at Pharos. He climbed the tiny metal stairs that led to the inner deck around the light itself, ducked through the opening and into the apparatus of the light. He primed the oil by lighting a flame under its dish so that it vaporized and reached the mantle as a gas. He then set a match to the mantle, which transformed the vapor into a white brilliance. He went down to the next level and started the motor. The light began to turn with the exact, even rhythm of the five-second flash. He picked up the pen, and wrote in the wide, leather-bound log: “Lit up at 5:09 p.m. Wind N/NE 15 knots. Overcast, squally. Sea 6.” Then, he added his initials—T.S. His handwriting took over the telling of the story where Whittnish had left off only hours before, and Docherty before that—he was part of the unbroken chain of keepers bearing witness to the light.

  Once he was satisfied everything was in order, he went back to the cottage. His body craved sleep, but he knew too well that if you don’t eat you can’t work. In the larder off the kitchen, tins of bully beef and peas and pears sat on shelves beside sardines and sugar and a big jar of humbugs, of which the late Mrs. Docherty had been legendarily fond. For his first night’s supper he cut a hunk of the damper Whittnish had left behind, a piece of cheddar and a wrinkled apple.

  At the kitchen table, the flame of the oil lamp wavered occasionally. The wind continued its ancient vendetta against the windows, accompanied by the liquid thunder of waves. Tom tingled at the knowledge that he was the only one to hear any of it: the only living man for the better part of a hundred miles in any direction. He thought of the gulls nestled into their wiry homes on the cliffs, the fish hovering stilly in the safety of the reefs, protected by the icy water.