The Light Keeper (ARC)

by Cole Moreton

  ‘Wouldn’t work for me. No stereo.’

  ‘A table, a bit of carpet and a Bible. And a lot of brandy, maybe. She had a vinegar tongue, they said. Annie. His wife. Poor woman, I bet she bloody didn’t. There’s a reason it’s called his-story. She lost a son and then a little baby, then she died too. The parson caught a fever. The Sailor’s Friend, they call him, on his gravestone.’

  ‘Hello sailor!’

  ‘I like him. He cared. The first light keeper. At least he had a light. Grand. I love the stories about this place. Someone called Mr Thunder built a cage that he slung over the cliff and lowered to the beach to save lives.’

  ‘Did he really?’

  ‘Yes. Probably. I don’t know.’ She caught him smiling at her. ‘Definitely. Hundreds. Thousands of lives. He’d get a Queen’s Medal now.’

  ‘Or he’d be locked up. Good way to get barrels of brandy off the beach.’

  She began to read the book aloud to him at nights, and his favourite character by far was Mad Jack Fuller: Georgian plan-tation owner, slave owner, rich man, MP, enthusiast, constructor of obelisks, pyramids and other follies in otherwise empty fields. Mad Jack, whose other nickname was Hippo, whose proposal of marriage was turned down by the only woman he really loved. The sight of a shipwreck moved him to pay for a wooden platform

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  on Belle Tout, sending out a warning light. This worked well, so a proper lighthouse was called for. Blocks of granite were brought down from Aberdeen by boat and hauled across the Downs by teams of oxen. Steaming with the effort, caked in clay, they heaved up the hill in the early 1830s. The stonemasons created a tower fit for Rapunzel, and the representatives of the landowners of the area – the men of the grand houses of Cavendish and Gilbert – rode out to see the opening of the lighthouse. The band played ‘God Save the King’ and all was well in the world, all was safe and well. The lantern burned bright in the room at the top of the tower, a clockwork frame of thirty lamps that burned two gallons of oil a day. The light shone in the darkness and the ships were saved.

  Until the mists came down. Then the ships could not see the light. Then the lighthouse on the hill was lost in the night by the men looking out for it on the black sea. Then the rocks had their way again. The ships were lost. The Dalhousie, bound for Sydney. The Rubens from Buenos Aires. The Coonatto, almost home to London after a long journey from Adelaide. All too close to the cliffs, all caught on the razor rocks beneath the surface of the sea, all battered and smashed and sailors drowned, for the lack of a warning. The lighthouse was useless. ‘Another folly,’ she said. ‘Hey ho, there you go. Mad Jack was dead by then anyway. Long gone.’

  The light was put out and a replacement was built down on the rocks a mile along the coast in 1902. It was hard to get to except in certain tides and living in a new lighthouse was enough to befud-dle any mind. ‘The grey Channel on one side, absorbing thoughts and swallowing sanity, and the sheer face of the cliffs on the other, looming like a jealous giant,’ wrote one visitor. A first lighthouse keeper went crazy, living all on his own, so they put two lighthouse keepers in there together, to keep each other company. They fell out during the winter months – an oil lamp was left unfilled, the porridge was lumpy, or some small thing. They stopped speaking. Trinity House in London received a wire, requesting help. One of the men had died of natural causes, a boat should be sent for his

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  body. The crew arrived on a boiling sea to find the corpse strung up on the outside of the lighthouse, tied by his hands and feet to the curve of the lantern room so that when the light shone, his shadow cast a cross on the sea. The survivor said he did it to keep out the smell, but nobody was sure whether to believe him. ‘From that time on, there were three light keepers,’ said her book. ‘Two for the light, one to stop them killing each other.’

  The original lighthouse tower – their tower – was handed to the local landowners and sold on to a surgeon, who had seen it as he was motoring along the coast. This was meant to be his refuge from the pressures of treating the nerves of wealthy London folk, but the sickly King George sought out his adviser even in this sanctuary, in 1935. Queen Mary climbed the breathless steps to the lantern room and called down to the monarch, ‘George, don’t come up here, it’s too steep for you.’ His Majesty’s lungs were rid-dled and his body failing, but he called back, ‘Damn it, Mary, I’m coming.’

  Within a year, he was dead.

  Then came the war. German bombers used the tower as a guide to help them find their way home, and dropped the last of their load here to speed their way. Spitfires chased them, dancing in the summer blue, their pilots using the tower to make sense of the whirl of land, sea and sky. The Army built a little railway on the edge of the cliff and ran a tin tank along it for target prac-tice. They missed the tank and hit the tower – by accident, they said. They blasted away with their big guns, the shells exploding here and here, chalk and rock spiralling into the air; then closer; then the fire fell on the house and finally the tower itself, taking great bites from the side.

  And when the war was over, the tower was broken and empty. Except for the birds that crept in to nest. Except for the rab-bits. Except for the walkers whose dogs came for a sniff around and the hikers who slept in its ruins. For a decade, the shattered tower offered shelter to anyone who wanted it, until its broken body was redeemed by love. Boys and girls came running through the grounds and inside the tower in the late fifties, chasing each

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  other up the narrow staircase to the top. A doctor with a family had a dream to restore the tower, picking up the pieces, clearing the yard, paying men to come and build again and helping them with his soft doctor’s hands. They hardened. There were happy summers and secure winters for the family that lived in the tower then, before the children grew up and it was sold. Somebody tried to make a go of bed and breakfast here; they built the rooms but they ran out of money and the lighthouse was left empty again.

  The sea mist fingered the latches, rusted the hinges and split the frames, so the place was in a poor state when Maria came to paint, as she had done as a child, only now she was Rí. Despite the dripping ceilings and the rags at the windows to keep out the draughts, she was enchanted again. She brought him to the tower and he loved her. He wanted a life that was new. To step out of his own and into another. With her. This fairytale tower on the edge of the world felt like a good place to start.

  There was even a good omen. They were up on the balcony around the lantern room, trying not to fall through the holes in the wooden floor, when they heard a noise that was something like a song and a growl. It grew louder and louder and seemed to be coming out of the sun at them on this dazzling day. A pair of great elliptical wings shadowed their faces for a moment and he knew it was a Spitfire, the most elegant flying machine ever cre-ated, more like a bird of prey. The Spitfire climbed steeply above the Downs, showing its back, then slipped sideways through the sky, levelled up and came in low towards the lighthouse at an impossible speed, so fast and so low that they both ducked for fear of losing their heads; but the wings tilted again and it was gone, the throaty song trailing behind. Rí stayed on her knees, pulled out her sketchbook and was marking the swoops and curves of flight when the Spitfire came back along and below the line of the cliffs, flying from right to left, lower than the tower. He could even look down on the cockpit and saw the pilot wave, as if from the past. Over to you, then. Over and out. This was their place. They would have all the time they needed to begin again. That was how it felt then.

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  But here and now, the cold wins.

  The golden light vanishes as the sun drops. Shadows spread over the downland like a bruise. A murder of crows shifts shape overhead and passes out of sight, heading for the trees in the Horseshoe Plantation at the foot of the hill. The last fragment of sun disappears into the horizon and green flashes on the faces of the Seven Sisters. The chill is sudden. He watches the great dome of the sky
light up one last time, then darken into moody blue. His cheeks are numb. His bones are damp.

  Enough. The day is done.

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  Thirty Two

  His shoulders bump either side of the narrow space, a hand run-ning over the guide rope, but his feet know the way. The wind whines and comes slipping down behind him as he reaches the base of the staircase where the circle is wider and a room is tucked behind the steps. The Keeper’s Cabin. That was the name she painted in bright, bubbling yellow on a piece of driftwood and nailed to the door, not knowing it was a prophecy. The room in which he sleeps, on a high bunk above a wardrobe. It’s a tight space, up there. You lie in bed with the grey stone ceiling right in your face. More than once he has cracked his head. There is a security in this confinement, though. A sense of being hugged by the tower. The thick, stone walls, strong against the night. Safe. He shrugs off his shirt and jeans, feels the cold tighten his chest and finds old jogging bottoms and a T-shirt, the memory of a festival long ago now. They lay in their tent and listened to the rise of a hundred thousand voices as Primal Scream began their set. The thump of the drums and the jagged chords of ‘Get Your Rocks Off’. Get your rocks off, honey! They turned their faces to each other in the shadows and he can taste her now. The soft lip. The soft bite. He stands with his hands on the wall like a usual suspect, until the surge of feeling passes. Sweet, sharp, dark like wine warming the stomach. He gulps in air, then sighs to let it go.

  Let it bleed.

  The cabin bed is only just big enough. Happier in his tight space, he waits. His eyes become accustomed, he can see the arch of the window set against deeper black. Out there are the shifting shadows of the sea.

  Goodnight, my love.

  Goodnight.

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  There are always sounds in the night. The rattle of this, the tap of that; sometimes the crash of another as the big bad wolf of the wind tries to blow the tower down. Tonight, a storm is ris-ing. ‘South-westerly severe gale force nine, increasing storm force eleven imminent, perhaps hurricane force twelve for a time.’ The voice of the shipping forecaster is eerily calm as she predicts mayhem for those at sea, out in the Channel, on the ships that have not put into port, but pitch and roll in the churning waters, tankers tossed like tugs.

  This tower will not fall to the storm, but the outhouse is more vulnerable. All the beds wrapped in plastic, waiting for him to . . . what? Get over it? Rí was going to sleep in each room for a night, and name it the next morning. Now they are just empty spaces locked up in the dark, and he can’t sleep. Of course not. Every night, he lays here. Every night, he hopes. Breathing deep. Breathing out. Trying to relax his body. Wide awake. His back aches, his throat is dry and his eyes are open. Again. Every night, he flicks the torch on and reads a few lines before they blur. Every night, he tries something different. Shakespeare offered no way to sleep, perchance to dream. The Selfish Gene was a jealous god. There was no balm in Gilead. What is it tonight? The Tommy Cooper Joke Book. ‘Side-splitting one-liners from the hapless genius of magic-based comedy,’ says the cover.

  ‘I painted my wife in oils. She looks like a sardine.’

  Maybe not. Side-splitting is what the sea-soaked, salt-worn tim-ber window frames in the outhouse are probably doing right now, prised apart by the blade of a gale. The Keeper rolls from the bunk and drops to the floor without finding the ladder, the stone cold against his bare feet. He scoops up a sweater, pulls on leather mules and pads down to the wide space where the base of the tower meets the top storey of the outhouse. Shapes loom in the dark, but they are familiar to him. Boxes, cases, piles of books. The horn of a gramophone; a modern sound system; an easel. Her easel.

  The wind grows louder, then fades, then comes back louder still. He listens for the whistle that will tell him a crack has appeared somewhere, but there is nothing like that, just the fussy

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  gale. Downstairs there is damp in the air and a sense of expect ation, like a dog awake in the night. Is this the master come to wake me? Is it now the fun begins? No. He closes and locks each door and pushes on it to be sure. The ground floor rooms are the same. Open, look, nothing. Open, look, nothing. Open, look . . .

  wait. There is something wrong here. The door is not locked, a draught is coming through the window. The table and chair are as they should be, but there on the mattress is the some-thing. Someone has been here. They’ve ripped open one of the boxes and unfolded a blanket, and left it curled on the bed like

  a question-mark. No, hang on. He can’t see properly, he can’t be sure, but isn’t that a body? There’s no rising or falling, no sign of movement, but yes, it’s true. Here in the night, in the storm, in a blanket on the bed, is a body. The body of a woman.

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  Thirty Three

  He sees her now in his sleepless confusion, as the light changes and silver ghosts her face. There is a body in his house. He lives in a tower on a hill. He lives alone in the tower and there is a body in his house. There is a husband out there looking for a wife, a furious husband shouting for his wife. There is a body in his house. In his knackered state, in his up-late, day–night delirious state of mind, body, spirit, he feels panic. He should call the police. The rain sounds angry, like it wants to come in, like it knows she is here. Like Jack. He should ring Magda – she will know what to do. There is no signal on his phone. It is like that up here, par-ticularly on stormy nights. The last place in the country to be so inaccessible. Magda would know what to do. She will be back from patrol, alone in her bed in the back room while Tony sleeps and snores elsewhere. She would know what to do, but he can’t call Magda. Or anyone. There is a body in his house and nobody to call. Stepping closer, he peels back the edge of the blanket and reaches out with the softest movement to touch the marble flesh. To be sure. And as he does so, stressed and breathless, leaning over the woman, she moves.

  Her breath is on his fingers. She shifts and sighs in her sleep. What to do? The lock is useless. That would be imprisonment. She’s not a burglar. He is not afraid, having seen her. He has looked into the eyes of women who would have killed him without flinching – women to be scared of – and she is not one of those. She is sleep-ing and therefore not dead in his tower, and for that he is very, very grateful. Okay, so. If she needs shelter for the night, let her shelter. Let her sleep. What choice does he have? In the morning she will be gone, hopefully. So he turns back up the stairs to the kitchen, to make tea and sit in the dark, waiting for sleep or for her to wake, or the morning, whichever comes first. Soon there is

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  music from the speaker. A solo piano. The notes dropping softly among the sounds of the storm.

  He wakes in his armchair, shuddering with the cold, into the sickly light of dawn. Hot water from the kitchen tap eases the stiffness in his hands and brings his face back to life. Then he remembers. He takes the stairs carefully, barefoot for stealth, toes frozen. Listening, as he reaches the ground floor. Nothing. The bedroom door is open. The blanket has been folded up and put back in the box; there is no sign at all of a visitor except for a slip of paper half hidden under the bed, an envelope with no name on it that he tosses on the bed. There’s nothing wrong in the room. He must have left the door open when Jack came, when he was rattled. The front door, too, unless she came in through the window. Jack left it open a crack when he threw out his fag.

  ‘Hello?’ His voice cracks at the first attempt, brittle in the early morning. ‘Hello? Are you here?’

  The wind sighs, a long, sceptical sound as if to say, Really? You’re asking that question? You want to know? You want me to tell you? Well . . . no. She’s gone.

  There’s a fire in his blood, a sickness from so little sleep, a shot of relief that she has gone and a burst of energy like a high, so he feels the need to run again. To get out there into the simplicity of morning and run through the lilac light. In shorts, a T-shirt and running shoes he slugs juice from the carton and crunches a c
ereal bar, looking down through the window to the new lighthouse, winking in the dawn. Let’s go. ‘Move on up.’ The drums and bass kick in as he closes the front door and the rhythm pushes him forward, over the paving stones, over the gravel, vaulting the wall. Slipping on the dew, reclaiming the beat, running down the whale’s back.

  Far away beyond the Gap, the waves advance in long, sweep-ing lines towards the Seven Sisters. He might go for a swim, he’s thinking – elated again by the raw pleasure of this place: the wide

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  sky, the storm-cleared air, the rush of oxygen – when he sees her. Standing on an outcrop, close to the edge. Very close. Arms wide. Face up towards the sky. Good for her, he thinks. Quite right, enjoy the place. He’s running on, running on, when a thought makes him turn and look back, and he stumbles and his foot catches in a rabbit hole, and he curses and he sees the wind jerk her back suddenly, like a push. She twists forward, tries to adjust and goes down hard on her side. Get up, get back, he thinks, get away – and she’s trying to do that but there’s something else: the lip of the cliff is coming away. Underneath her. He can see it from here, the crack in the creamy white, the landslip and the fall. She’s going to fall. He can see that and he’s running, lungs burning. Running, stumbling, running. Reaching out, fingers stretched, too far. Grabbing air. Come on! Flailing, finding, feeling her coat in his hand, pulling hard. Yanking her away. Wrenching his shoul-der, going down with her, hip to the ground, breath gone, dizzy but fighting, reaching, pulling. Saving.