The Light Between Oceans

by M. L. Stedman

  In those two weeks, Tom and Isabel saw each other every day. When Bill Graysmark challenged his wife about the propriety of this sudden “stepping out,” she said, “Oh, Bill. Life’s a short thing. She’s a sensible girl and she knows her own mind. Besides, there’s little enough chance these days of her finding a man with all his limbs attached. Don’t look a gift horse…” She knew, also, that Partageuse was small. There was nowhere they could get up to anything much. Dozens of eyes and ears would report the least sign of anything untoward.

  It surprised Tom how much he looked forward to seeing Isabel. Somehow she had crept under his defenses. He enjoyed her stories of life in Partageuse, and its history; about how the French had chosen that name for this spot between oceans because it meant “good at sharing” as well as “dividing.” She talked about the time she fell from a tree and broke her arm, the day she and her brothers painted red spots on Mrs. Mewett’s goat and knocked on her door to tell her it had measles. She told him quietly, and with many pauses, about their deaths in the Somme, and how she wished she could get her parents to smile again.

  He was wary, though. This was a small town. She was a lot younger than he was. He’d probably never see her again once he went back out to the light. Other blokes might take advantage, but to Tom, the idea of honor was a kind of antidote to some of the things he’d lived through.

  Isabel herself could hardly have put into words the new feeling—excitement, perhaps—she felt every time she saw this man. There was something mysterious about him—as though, behind his smile, he was still far away. She wanted to get to the heart of him.

  If the war had taught her anything, it was to take nothing for granted: that it wasn’t safe to put off what mattered. Life could snatch away the things you treasured, and there was no getting them back. She began to feel an urgency, a need to seize an opportunity. Before anyone else did.

  The evening before he was due to go back to Janus, they were walking along the beach. Though January was only two days old, it felt like years since Tom had first landed in Partageuse, six months before.

  Isabel looked out to sea, where the sun was sliding down the sky and into the gray water at the edge of the world. She said, “I was wondering if you’d do me a favor, Tom.”

  “Yep. What?”

  “I was wondering,” she said, not slowing her pace, “if you’d kiss me.”

  Tom half thought the wind had made the words up, and because she didn’t stop walking, he tried to work out what it could have been that she really said.

  He took a guess. “Of course I’ll miss you. But—maybe I’ll see you next time I’m back on leave?”

  She gave him an odd look, and he began to worry. Even in the dying light, her face seemed red.

  “I’m—I’m sorry, Isabel. I’m not too good with words… in situations like this.”

  “Situations like what?” she asked, crushed by the thought that this must be something he did all the time. A girl in every port.

  “Like—saying goodbye. I’m all right on my own. And I’m all right with a bit of company. It’s the switching from one to the other that gets me.”

  “Well, I’ll make it easy for you then, shall I? I’ll just go. Right now.” She whipped around and started off down the beach.

  “Isabel! Isabel, wait!” He ran after her and caught her hand. “I didn’t want you to just go off without—well, just go off like that. And I will do your favor, I will miss you. You’re—well, you’re good to be with.”

  “Then take me out to Janus.”

  “What—you want to come for the trip out?”

  “No. To live there.”

  Tom laughed. “God, you come out with some humdingers sometimes.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “You can’t be,” said Tom, though something in her look told him she just might.

  “Why not?”

  “Well, for about a hundred reasons, just off the top of my head. Most obviously because the only woman allowed on Janus is the keeper’s wife.” She said nothing, so he inclined his head a fraction more as if that might help him understand.

  “So marry me!”

  He blinked. “Izz—I hardly know you! And besides, I’ve never even—well, I’ve never even kissed you, for crying out loud.”

  “At long last!” She spoke as if the solution were blindingly obvious, and she stood on tiptoes to pull his head down toward her. Before he knew what was happening he was being kissed, inexpertly but with great force. He pulled away from her.

  “That’s a dangerous game to play, Isabel. You shouldn’t go running around kissing blokes out of the blue. Not unless you mean it.”

  “But I do mean it!”

  Tom looked at her, her eyes challenging him, her petite chin set firm. Once he crossed that line, who knew where he would end up? Oh, bugger it. To hell with good behavior. To hell with doing the right thing. Here was a beautiful girl, begging to be kissed, and the sun was gone and the weeks were up and he’d be out in the middle of bloody nowhere this time tomorrow. He took her face in his hands and bent low as he said, “Then this is how you do it,” and kissed her slowly, letting time fade away. And he couldn’t remember any other kiss that felt quite the same.

  Finally he drew back, and brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Better get you home or they’ll have the troopers after me.” He slipped his arm around her shoulder and guided her along the sand.

  “I meant it, you know, about getting married.”

  “You’d have to have rocks in your head to want to marry me, Izz. There’s not much money in lightkeeping. And it’s a hell of a job for a wife.”

  “I know what I want, Tom.”

  He stood still. “Look. I don’t want to sound patronizing, Isabel, but you’re—well, you’re quite a bit younger than me: I’m twenty-eight this year. And I’m guessing you haven’t walked out with many fellows.” He would have wagered, from the attempt at a kiss, that she hadn’t walked out with any.

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “Just—well, don’t get confused between a thing itself and the first time you come across it. Think it over. I’ll bet all the tea in China that in twelve months you’ll have forgotten all about me.”

  “Humor me,” she said, and reached up to kiss him again.

  CHAPTER 6

  On clear summer days, Janus seems to stretch up right to its tiptoes: you’d swear it’s higher out of the water at some times than at others, not just because of the rising and ebbing of the tide. It can disappear altogether in rainstorms, disguised like a goddess in a Greek myth. Or sea mists brew up: warm air heavy with salt crystals which obstruct the passage of the light. If there are bushfires, the smoke can reach even this far out, carrying thick, sticky ash which tints the sunsets lavish red and gold, and coats the lantern-room glazing with grime. For these reasons the island needs the strongest, brightest of lights.

  From the gallery, the horizon stretches forty miles. It seems improbable to Tom that such endless space could exist in the same lifetime as the ground that was fought over a foot at a time only a handful of years ago, where men lost their lives for the sake of labeling a few muddy yards as “ours” instead of “theirs,” only to have them snatched back a day later. Perhaps the same labeling obsession caused cartographers to split this body of water into two oceans, even though it is impossible to touch an exact point at which their currents begin to differ. Splitting. Labeling. Seeking out otherness. Some things don’t change.

  On Janus, there is no reason to speak. Tom can go for months and not hear his own voice. He knows some keepers who make a point of singing, just like turning over an engine to make sure it still works. But Tom finds a freedom in the silence. He listens to the wind. He observes the tiny details of life on the island.

  Now and then, as if brought in on the breeze, the memory of Isabel’s kiss floats into his awareness: the touch of her skin, the soft wholeness of her. And he thinks of the years when he simply couldn’t have
imagined that such a thing existed. Just to be beside her had made him feel cleaner somehow, refreshed. Yet the sensation leads him back into the darkness, back into the galleries of wounded flesh and twisted limbs. To make sense of it—that’s the challenge. To bear witness to the death, without being broken by the weight of it. There’s no reason he should still be alive, un-maimed. Suddenly Tom realizes he is crying. He weeps for the men snatched away to his left and right, when death had no appetite for him. He weeps for the men he killed.

  On the Lights, you account for every single day. You write up the log, you report what’s happened, you produce evidence that life goes on. In time, as the ghosts start to dissolve in the pure Janus air, Tom dares to think of the life ahead of him—a thing that for years has been too improbable to depend on. Isabel is there in his thoughts, laughing in spite of it all, insatiably curious about the world around her, and game for anything. Captain Hasluck’s advice echoes in his memory as he goes to the woodshed. Having chosen a piece of mallee root, he carries it to the workshop.

  Janus Rock,

  15th March 1921

  Dear Isabel,

  I hope this letter finds you well. I am very well. I like it out here. That probably sounds strange, but I do. The quiet suits me. There’s something magical about Janus. It’s like nowhere I’ve ever been.

  I wish you could see the sunrise and sunset here. And the stars: the sky gets crowded at night, and it is a bit like watching a clock, seeing the constellations slide across the sky. It’s comforting to know that they’ll show up, however bad the day has been, however crook things get. That used to help in France. It put things into perspective—the stars had been around since before there were people. They just kept shining, no matter what was going on. I think of the light here like that, like a splinter of a star that’s fallen to earth: it just shines, no matter what is happening. Summer, winter, storm, fine weather. People can rely on it.

  Better stop rabbiting on. The point is, I am sending with this letter a little box I have carved for you. I hope it’s useful. You might put jewelry in it, or hairclips and whatnot.

  By now you have probably changed your mind about things, and I just wanted to say that that is all right. You are a wonderful girl, and I enjoyed the time we spent together.

  The boat comes tomorrow, so I will give this to Ralph then.

  Tom.

  Janus Rock,

  15th June 1921

  Dear Isabel,

  I am writing this quickly, as the boys are getting ready to leave. Ralph delivered your letter. It was good to hear from you. I am glad you liked the box.

  Thank you for the photograph. You look beautiful, but not as cheeky as you are in real life. I know just where I will put it in the lantern room, so that you can see out through the window.

  No, it doesn’t really feel all that strange, your question. If I think about it, in the war I knew plenty of fellows who got spliced on three-day furlough back in England, then came straight back to carry on the show. Most of them thought they might not be around much longer, and probably so did their girls. With a bit of luck I will be a longer-term proposition, so think carefully. I am prepared to risk it if you are. I can apply for exceptional shore leave at the end of December, so you have got time to think it over. If you change your mind, I will understand. And if you don’t, I promise I will take care of you always, and do my very best to be a good husband.

  Yours,

  Tom.

  The next six months passed slowly. There had been nothing to wait for before—Tom had grown so used to greeting the days as ends in themselves. Now, there was a wedding date. There were arrangements to be made, permissions to be sought. In any spare minute, he would go around the cottage and find something else to put right: the window in the kitchen that didn’t quite shut; the tap that needed a man’s force to turn it. What would Isabel need, out here? With the last boat back, he sent an order for paint to freshen up the rooms; a mirror for the dressing table; new towels and tablecloths; sheet music for the decrepit piano—he had never touched it, but he knew Isabel loved to play. He hesitated before adding to the list new sheets, two new pillows and an eiderdown.

  When, finally, the boat arrived to take Tom back for the big day, Neville Whittnish strode onto the jetty, ready to fill in during his absence.

  “Everything in order?”

  “Hope so,” said Tom.

  After a brief inspection, Whittnish said, “You know how to treat a light. I’ll give you that much.”

  “Thanks,” said Tom, genuinely touched by the compliment.

  “Ready, boy?” asked Ralph as they were about to cast off.

  “God only knows,” said Tom.

  “Never a truer word spoken.” Ralph turned his eyes to the horizon. “Off we go, my beauty, got to get Captain Sherbourne, Military Cross and Bar, to his damsel.”

  Ralph spoke to the boat in the same way Whittnish referred to the light—living creatures, close to their hearts. The things a man could love, Tom thought. He fixed his eyes on the tower. Life would have changed utterly when he saw it again. He had a sudden pang: would Isabel love Janus as much as he did? Would she understand his world?

  CHAPTER 7

  You see? Because it’s this high above sea level, the light reaches over the curve of the earth—beyond the horizon. Not the beam itself, but the loom—the glow of it.” Tom was standing behind Isabel on the lighthouse gallery, arms around her, chin reaching down to rest on her shoulder. The January sun scattered flecks of gold in her dark hair. It was 1922, and their second day alone on Janus. Back from a few days’ honeymoon in Perth and straight out to the island.

  “It’s like seeing into the future,” said Isabel. “You can reach ahead in time to save the ship before it knows it needs help.”

  “The higher the light, and the bigger the order of lens, the further its beam shines. This one goes just about as far as any light can.”

  “I’ve never been this high up in all my life! It’s like flying!” she said, and broke away to circle the tower once more. “And what do you call the flash again—there’s that word…”

  “The character. Every coastal light has a different character. This one flashes four times on each twenty-second rotation. So every ship knows from the five-second flash that this is Janus, not Leeuwin or Breaksea or anywhere else.”

  “How do they know?”

  “Ships keep a list of the lights they’ll pass on their course. Time’s money if you’re a skipper. They’re always tempted to cut the corner of the Cape—want to be first to offload their cargo and pick up a new one. Fewer days at sea saves on crew’s wages, too. The light’s here to ward them off, get them to pull their head in.”

  Through the glass Isabel could see the heavy black blinds of the lantern room. “What are they for?” she asked.

  “Protection! The lens doesn’t care which light it magnifies. If it can turn the little flame into a million candlepower, imagine what it can do to sunlight when the lens stands still all day. It’s all very well if you’re ten miles away. Not so good to be ten inches away. So you have to protect it. And protect yourself—I’d fry if I went inside it during the day without the curtains. Come inside and I’ll show you how it works.”

  The iron door clanged behind them as they went into the lantern room, and through the opening into the light itself.

  “This is a first order lens—about as bright as they come.”

  Isabel watched the rainbows thrown about by the prisms. “It’s so pretty.”

  “The thick central bit of glass is the bull’s eye. This one has four, but you can have different numbers depending on the character. The light source has to line up exactly with the height of that so it gets concentrated by the lens.”

  “And all the circles of glass around the bull’s eyes?” Separate arcs of triangular glass were arranged around the center of the lens like the rings of a dartboard.

  “The first eight refract the light: they bend it so that instead of
heading up to the moon or down to the ocean floor where it’s no good to anybody, it goes straight out to sea: they make it sort of turn a corner. The rings above and below the metal bar—See? Fourteen of them—they get thicker the further away from the center they are: they reflect the light back down, so all the light is being concentrated into one beam, not just going off in all directions.”

  “So none of the light gets away without earning its keep,” said Isabel.

  “You could say that. And here’s the light itself,” he said, gesturing to the small apparatus on the metal stand in the very center of the space, covered in a mesh casing.

  “It doesn’t look much.”

  “It isn’t, now. But that mesh cover is an incandescent mantle, and it makes the vaporized oil burn bright as a star, once it’s magnified. I’ll show you tonight.”

  “Our own star! Like the world’s been made just for us! With the sunshine and the ocean. We have each other all to ourselves.”

  “I reckon the Lights think they’ve got me all to themselves,” said Tom.

  “No nosy neighbors or boring relatives.” She nibbled at his ear. “Just you and me…”

  “And the animals. There’s no snakes on Janus, luckily. Some islands down this way are nothing but. There’s one or two spiders’ll give you a nip though, so keep your eyes peeled. There are…” Tom was having difficulty finishing his point about the local fauna, as Isabel kept kissing him, nipping his ears, reaching her hands back into his pockets in a way that made it an effort to think, let alone speak coherently. “It’s a serious…” he struggled on, “point I’m trying to make here, Izz. You need to watch out for—” and he let out a moan as her fingers found their target.

  “Me…” She giggled. “I’m the deadliest thing on this island!”

  “Not here, Izz. Not in the middle of the lantern. Let’s”—he took a deep breath—“let’s go downstairs.”

  Isabel laughed. “Yes, here!”

  “It’s government property.”

  “What—are you going to have to record it in the logbook?”

  Tom gave an awkward cough. “Technically… These things are pretty delicate, and they cost more money than you or I’ll ever see in a lifetime. I don’t want to be the one who has to make up an excuse about how anything got broken. Come on, let’s go downstairs.”

  “And what if I won’t?” she teased.

  “Well, I suppose I’ll just have to”—he hoisted her onto one hip—“make you, sweetheart,” he said, and carried her down the hundreds of narrow stairs.

  “Oh, it’s heaven here!” Isabel declared the next day as she looked out at the flat, turquoise ocean. Despite Tom’s grim warnings about the weather, the wind had declared a greeting truce and the sun was again gloriously warm.

  He had brought her to the lagoon, a broad pool of placid ultramarine no more than six feet deep, in which they were now swimming.

  “Just as well you like it. It’s three years till we get shore leave.”

  She put her arms around him. “I’m where I want to be and with the man I want to be with. Nothing else matters.”

  Tom swirled her gently in a circle as he spoke. “Sometimes fish find their way in here through the gaps in the rocks. You can scoop them up with a net, or even just with your hands.”

  “What’s this pool called?”

  “Hasn’t got a name.”

  “Everything deserves a name, don’t you think?”

  “Well, you can give it one then.”

  Isabel thought for a moment. “I hereby christen this Paradise Pool,” she said, and splashed a handful of water onto a rock. “This will be my swimming spot.”