by Cole Moreton
In the moment that follows, as his head thunders and his bones burn, he looks at her. She looks at him. A moment of recognition. Nothing to do with the wind, the racing clouds, the ambitious sky, the shimmering, snakeskin sea. Nothing to do with the crumbling chalk, the breaking cliff, the clattering stones, the fleeing birds. Two people, each looking into the other’s eyes and seeing some-thing they recognize. Something they understand, for a moment. Then it’s over.
This time he isn’t interfering. This time he has actually done some good. But what to do now? He’s panting like a dog, she’s lying here beside him. Get up, come on. Get up. His legs are shaky, they give way as he tries to stand, then the blood seems to surge back down through the knees and he’s okay. Breathless, dizzy, but okay. ‘Let me . . .’
She won’t take his hand.
‘All right, all right.’ He backs off, palms up. Here we go again.
Leave her, he thinks. Walk away. Let it be.
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She looks up at him, quickly, then back at the edge. She’s not getting up, but staying down on her back. Closing her eyes and seeming to sink into the grass. A tangle of curls. A face he sees upside down, the chin where the forehead should be, the hair like a beard. Then a black top zipped up to the throat, a bright scarf and a long, almost ankle-length, black greatcoat twisted under-neath her. Black boots up to her knees and rusty red jeans. She’s lovely. The thought flares and dies like a match flame in the wind. Her fear is more powerful, he can sense her distress.
‘Are you okay?’ Stupid bloody question. Stupid, stupid.
She doesn’t answer.
What’s he going to do? Get down on the ground. Kneel down, lie down beside her. Not touching, he makes sure of that. Above them a wisp of high cloud is unravelling. Coming undone.
‘What’s your name?’ he asks, although he’s sure he knows, and waits. And waits. A bird passes over them, a predator. ‘You were in my house.’
She glances at him sharply, then rolls away, onto her side.
‘It’s okay,’ he says as softly as he can manage and still be heard. Now what, though? There is nobody up here, it is still too early for walkers. The Guardians will be along, but after yesterday he doesn’t trust them. If they see him lying here, with a young woman who is obviously in some kind of trouble, they’ll call the police. Or she might end up like Frank, God help him. She must be the one the ragged boy is looking for. He scans the broad back of the hill all the way down to the Gap, looking for Jack. How long has she been sleeping in the bedroom? Surely he would have noticed before now? It was closed up, he thought it was locked, he hadn’t looked into the rooms for months, and when he opened that one for Jack there was no sign of her, no sign of anything. Jack. That boy really worries him.
‘Will you come back inside and get warm?’ She doesn’t respond.
Okay, so. ‘I’m going to put the kettle on. The door is unlocked.
But you know that, don’t you? Come up the stairs. There’s a fire.’
He keeps going, without encouragement. ‘Right then. That’s me.
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In the lighthouse. Come and get warm. Have some breakfast. When you’re ready.’ And as he walks away, not looking back, he is thinking, I will turn around when I get to the lighthouse and she will be gone over. Christ have mercy.
The walk is no more than a hundred yards but it takes a while. When he reaches the wall and turns, she is still there, lying on the grass. Facing the tower. Facing him.
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Thirty Four
‘Are you there? I have to do this. Don’t know why,’ he says to nobody but the wind and the memory, not expecting a response. He needs strong tea, and something to eat. There is honey some-where here. He scoops it up with his little finger and sucks, loving the sweet hit. She’s not out there now. He hears the door opening down below and the sound of her boots on the stairs. Right then. Right.
‘Up here.’
This slender, angular woman stands slightly stooped, coat wrapped tight around her, her posture an apology for existence. I am sorry that I am here. And yet he also feels obliged to apolo gize, looking at the chaos of the lounge-to-be and the only slightly less chaotic kitchen space. ‘It’s a mess. Look, here, this is comfortable.’
The old red leather armchair in which he listens to the piano at night is saggy, but the best he has. She lowers herself into it like a gymnast coming down off the bars, and tucks her knees up to her chest, arms around them. Defensive, he thinks. Fair enough. He feels more secure here, in his home. His tower. More able to talk to her. ‘The kettle’s boiled. Tea? I’ve got builder’s or Lapsang. Coffee maybe?’
The woman says nothing, so he settles for an ordinary teabag to match his own. She is remarkably still in the armchair, tucked up, eyes on the view.
‘Milk? No sugar, sorry. I do have honey, though.’
He gives her milk and puts the honey jar on the floor beside the chair, with a teaspoon sticking out. He clears a pile of unsorted books from a kitchen chair, turns it round and sits down astride it, mug in hand.
‘Well.’
Well, indeed.
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‘So then. Music?’
He finds a remote, and the small black stereo blinks back into life, the first notes of a Gymnopédie beginning to fall among the boxes and chairs. His knee is jumping. What is he doing? Trying to help. First, find out who she is.
‘You didn’t say your name.’
She’s not going to now, either. Cupping the tea in both hands, with the steam twisting up into her face – a sharp face with high arched eyebrows, a long nose, a rosebud mouth with the corners dragged down by sorrow or fear, a gap in her front teeth, a dimple on the left cheek but not the right, her eyes almost closed – she seems oblivious. Could she even be deaf?
‘Sarah?’
She looks startled by the sound of her name, clumps the mug down on the stone floor, spilling tea, and starts to get up, to leave.
‘Wait. It’s okay. Really. Sit down.’
Sarah stares, alarmed and puzzled, trying to work something out. Her eyes are wide, bright. Frightened.
‘Lucky guess. I heard someone of that name was missing. That’s all. Honest.’
After a moment, she does let herself sit. Best not mention Jack, or the police.
‘Don’t let the tea go cold. I’m . . .’ Is he going to say his name? Self-protection says he shouldn’t. If he doesn’t tell anyone, he can’t be called back to that life. He can stay here, in the tower, with Rí. ‘The Keeper’ will do. But he can’t say that out loud; it’s weird, isn’t it? He can’t say that to this woman, when he needs to know her secrets in order to help her, so maybe he should give her his. Okay then.
‘My name is Gabe.’
That’s it. A relief. Big moment; not that she has even noticed. ‘Gabriel, really, obviously, but Gabe is better. If you like. You’re safe. There’s nothing in the tea,’ he says, but the thought had obvi-ously not occurred to her until now, because she looks down, frowning. Oh God, he sounds creepy. ‘You can get up and walk out, it’s fine. Go, if you like. I won’t tell anyone – you obviously
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don’t want them to know where you are. It’s okay. I understand. Why do you think I live in a place like this? Everybody’s got to get away sometimes.’
‘Why do you think I live in a place like this?’ What are you talking about?
Rí’s voice, suddenly close, causes a shudder.
I’m sorry.
You should be. Who is this anyway? She’s pretty.
‘I found her . . .’
Did he say that out loud? Sarah seems not to have heard as she ponders her tea. He needs to get out of here, go upstairs, get his head right. ‘Excuse me . . .’
The lantern room is a rainforest shower of light. It’s a bright, sharp morning, the storm blown away. Out on the balcony, on his own, he grips the red iron railing, knuckles whitening. ‘She was out there, she
fell—’
I know.
‘She needs help.’
So you only help the pretty ones?
‘No, listen, I’m not . . .’ He tries to speak quietly, for fear of being heard below, but he knows he’s getting agitated, getting louder. ‘She’s not . . . for God’s sake, Rí. For God’s sake.’
Nobody else has been here.
‘Please. Rí. Don’t do this.’
Nobody.
‘Give me a break.’
Why her?
‘Why can’t you just bloody leave me alone?’
It’s hard to know how long he is on the floor of the lantern room, or which of the anguished, animal noises he makes can be heard below. The grief exhausts itself, eventually. He lies there in the bright morning light, coming back to his senses, suddenly craving a shower and some proper clothes, but not wanting to face Sarah again. When he does descend the stairs at last, she has gone.
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Thirty Five
So, okay then, I have been reported missing; that is a shame, thinks Sarah. She does not mean to cause such trouble. Still, it’s not time to go back yet. She isn’t done. She walks out through the heavy black iron gate, arms crossed, getting away from the tower, know-ing that she needs to be alone for what is coming. The moments and the seconds and the hours are slow for her, slower than ever, as she waits for the test. Then she will know what to do. Tomorrow. In the morning. First thing. Not before that date, the clinic said. When is that though, to be sure? When the light comes up? After the first coffee? First wee. And where can she go now? Not back into the lighthouse. The strange, handsome, raggedy man who is trying to be kind makes her wary. What kind of person lives in a tower anyway? A knight. A battered one. There is no shining armour here. His clothes are loose and crumpled. His stubble is patchy, his hair explosive. That stone he wears around his neck on a piece of stretched leather obviously means something. Those are the colours of a lady, who is no longer here. There is a tone in his voice, a shadow on his face, some expression in those soulful, startled eyes that says he knows something of how Sarah feels. Somehow. Perhaps. But he cannot really. Nobody can. He means no harm, she believes that. So maybe she will stay. Until dark at least. Then she can walk down the hill unseen, follow the road back to the Gap, get a bus to the path to the farmhouse again. Even as she thinks it, she does not believe it. The wind is strong.
Sarah walks once around the outer wall of the lighthouse plot to the corner where it crumbles, then once the other way, before going back in.
She finds herself alone and starving, looking at a soup can on the table. Tomato. She fishes in the drawers, finds an opener, pours the thick, lipstick-red liquid into a saucepan. The scent ris-ing from the pan makes her feel faint.
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‘Is there a reason you’re not talking? There must be.’ He is behind her, in the doorway, hair wet from the shower. ‘That’s funny. It’s my thing. I like the silence here. I don’t talk much, to other people. Or I didn’t. It’s okay, I get it. Just give me something though, will you?’
‘Good soup,’ she says, very quietly.
‘Right. Yes. Thank you. Have it all. You look famished. How have you been eating?’
She pours the remainder into her bowl and looks up. ‘Right,’ he says, getting the message. ‘No questions.’ ‘I was okay. On the cliff edge. I wasn’t going to fall.’ ‘No, okay.’
They sit and eat to music. Satie again, quiet and calm. The intim acy of the pair of them in this room disturbs him. She is lovely but young, too young. And anyway. Anyway. His head grows heavy, his eyes close and he rests on the table, the cool wood on his fore-head, just for a moment. He doesn’t notice Sarah, leaning back in the armchair, watching him. Waiting. When he starts to snore, she breathes deeply and allows herself to sink back into the same oblivion. So the strangers sleep, side by side in the same room, as the afternoon tires and the shadows deepen.
Gabe wakes with a sore neck and a flat face, to find anger puls-ing in his temples and the woman talking to him urgently, saying things he can’t quite hear.
‘Why are you here?’
‘Oh. Ugh. I live here.’
‘Why?’ She’s kneeling up on the armchair, using the back as a shield. Staring. Studying him. ‘What is this place?’
‘A lighthouse. With no light. A darkhouse, Rí said . . .’ ‘Who is she?’
No, he’s not talking about that. ‘No questions. Okay?’
Sarah shrugs. They sit in silence again, at the table and in the armchair. She sits lightly, all elbows and knees, as if to spring up at any moment. The music has stopped, the wind has gone. The silence is awkward.
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‘I would like to know about this place. Please.’
Why won’t she just go? He doesn’t want her to go. She’s in his head now. No, that’s not happening either. So what now? In the other life before he was called the Keeper, when he was still the special correspondent Gabriel Keane, people told him things and he learned to hear them, even when they said nothing with their mouths. Silence could be eloquent. So, what is Sarah saying? He forces himself to think.
First, she doesn’t want to talk about whatever it is that brought her here, not yet. That’s okay. But the way she stretches her legs out now says she is starting to feel just a little more safe, start-ing to trust him a bit. Enough to risk pushing back at him with those questions. What else then? She has no bag. She hasn’t been here the whole time; she must have been sleeping somewhere else before last night, and left her bag there, expecting to return. One of the farms, maybe. There are a couple of those within walk-ing distance, two or three miles. It won’t have been too hard to stay out of the way, under a different name, before the police were notified that she was missing and started looking. So she must have come to Belle Tout yesterday, probably on foot, without her bags. After Jack. Maybe she was caught out in the storm and needed shelter. If she rang the bell he did not hear it. The door was probably unlocked, because he’s an idiot who should know better. She came in only as far as she needed to. That first room, by the door. You can’t see into the tower from there. Still, she’s brave. Tough. She looks slight, but moves with such composure. Her face makes you smile . . .
Does it now?
Rí, Jesus. Don’t be mad. I’m yours.
I know.
Help me then. What am I supposed to do?
No answer.
Sarah is clearly not about to talk either. The other thing he was good at, back in the day, when he found himself sitting with someone, hoping for their stories to flow so that he could write
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them down, was knowing when to spin a tale, to share something of himself and show the way for the other person to follow.
‘Okay,’ he says to her. ‘Okay, Sarah. I’ll talk. Let me do that. They say we need to move it. The whole thing, back from the edge. You can see why: there’s just that lip of land out there before the edge. Bits of the cliff are always falling away. The tower was fifty feet further back when it was built. They say we can build rails under the tower and pull it back. It will cost a fortune.’ This is unfamiliar, talking this much – he has to clear his throat to keep going. ‘I haven’t got a fortune. Nobody has, for something like that. We got the place because of it.’
Sarah says nothing, head on her knees, not looking at him. ‘We’ve got ten years – maybe a bit more if we’re lucky. Maybe
less.’
That’s it. That’s the story. She’s supposed to respond. Sarah unfolds herself with quick grace, gets up and moves around, looks at a book or two, just by the window. Her face in shadow, the light on the long sweep of her neck. The silence is deafening.
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