The Lightkeeper's Wife

by Karen Viggers

  Karen Viggers was born in Melbourne, and grew up in the Dandenong Ranges riding horses and writing stories. She studied veterinary science at Melbourne University, and worked in mixed animal practice for seven years before completing a PhD at the Australian National University. Since then she has worked on a wide range of Australian native animals in many different wild places, including Antarctica. She lives in Canberra with her husband and two children. Her first novel, The Stranding, was published in 2008. You can find out more about Karen’s books at www.karenviggers.com

  ALSO BY KAREN VIGGERS

  The Stranding

  The

  Lightkeeper’s

  Wife

  KAREN VIGGERS

  Published by Allen & Unwin in 2011

  Copyright © Karen Viggers 2011

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218

  Email: info@allenandunwin.com

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available

  from the National Library of Australia

  www.librariesaustralia.nla.gov.au

  ISBN 978 1 74175 914 3

  Judith Wright extract from ‘The Sitter’s from A Human Pattern: Selected Poems

  (ETT Imprint, Sydney, 2010).

  Text design by Emily O’Neill

  Set in 12/16 pt Adobe Garamond Pro by Bookhouse, Sydney

  Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For my grandma

  Rhoda Emmy Vera Viggers

  1912–2009

  an inspirational and compassionate woman

  My life was wide and wild,

  and who can know my heart?

  There in that golden jungle

  I walk alone.

  JUDITH WRIGHT

  From A Human Pattern: Selected Poems

  Contents

  Prologue

  PART I: Origins

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  PART II: Evolution

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  PART III: Disintegration

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  PART IV: Resurrection

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  She was in the kitchen when it came—a loud rap on the door that bounced down the hallway, off the floorboards, the hat stand, and ricocheted through the sliding doors into the kitchen. Wiping the table, she was in another world, remembering how it was to walk the wild beaches of Bruny Island.

  The knock jolted her back to the present. It added fifty years to her body, reminded her she was old. She jerked in the middle of a circular sweep, sending a shower of crumbs to the floor. These days few people came to her house unexpected.

  She retrieved her walking stick and shuffled down the hall. Through the frosted window she could see a silhouette—someone looking for a donation, no doubt. She twisted the locks and opened the door.

  It was a hunched old man in a dark blue suit with a crooked tie. He had a craggy face and for a moment, she thought she knew him—from the bowls club, perhaps. Or Jan’s church. Or maybe the opportunity shop. But at their age, everyone seemed similar. Only the details of their problems differed.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she asked.

  He shifted, and something about the way he tilted his head and pawed at his hair halted her. She grasped the door and leaned there breathless, heart battering in her chest.

  What was he doing, turning up where he wasn’t welcome? And why had he come? Staring at her with those washed-out blue eyes that hadn’t lost their intensity over the years. She dropped her stick and swung away.

  ‘Mary.’ His voice was a rasp. Old and worn out, like the rest of him. He extended a hand, and she was too shocked to push him away. Did he really think he could help her? One old spindle trying to prop up another. She glared at him and was once again aware of the panicked fluttering of her heart. It had never been this bad before. The doctor had said she must avoid shocks like this. Death was supposed to be the last surprise.

  Uninvited, he put his hand on her shoulder and turned her into the house. She was too overwhelmed and appalled to protest. His proximity frightened her. He smelled of old age. Sour. The stale odour of clothes washed too infrequently. Pungent breath. He hadn’t smelled like that the last time she saw him—then he had about him an aroma of nutmeg and cloves.

  Following the direction of her nod, he guided her down the hallway. In the kitchen, he scraped out a chair and lowered her into it. Then he sat down opposite and studied her.

  She wouldn’t have recognised him if they had passed in the street. But then, who would look at her now and know she was Mary Mason? Of course, she’d never been pretty in the conventional white-skinned, delicate way. But she had been vibrant and colourful. Her body had been strong, firm and muscular. She’d been able to do things other girls couldn’t, like lift hay bales and milk cows. She’d been alive in her skin. It was a feeling she missed every day. She slumped against the table, remembering her younger self. This man knew her from that time.

  He was still watching her, his eyes trying to reach into her mind. But she held him out. Her thoughts were no longer his to inspect. Looking back, she cursed the past weakness that had led her to this moment. She, who had prided herself on being so strong.

  ‘What do you want?’ she asked, her mouth flattening.

  He regarded her with expressionless eyes and brushed again at his thin grey hair—a gesture that took her back to the day she first met him. Now he unbuttoned his jacket, took out a white envelope and laid it on the table. Mary’s heart began to tumble.

  ‘What is it?’ There was panic in her fingers, a tingling in her chest.

  They both looked at the envelope, still partly covered by his leathery hand.

  ‘You know what it is, Mary.’ His voice was little more than a whisper. He leaned forward and stared at her. ‘I want you to give it to him.’

  She clawed at the edges of the table, trying to stand. ‘I won’t do it. It’s best he doesn’t know.’

  The old man laughed hollowly. ‘You choose the time, Mary. But you can’t erase me. I exist. I could have made things much more difficult.’

  He stood and pushed in his chair. The letter remained on the table.

  ‘I’ll throw it away,’ she said. ‘I’ll burn it.’

  A thin smile split his lip
s. ‘But you won’t, Mary. You’ve had things your way for so long. Now this is for me. It’s something I need.’

  He limped to the sliding doors and then glanced back. In spite of her fear, she was moved: in his look was embedded everything that had not been done, everything that had not been said.

  This was it, then. The end of it.

  ‘Goodbye, Mary.’

  She listened to the uneven scrape of his feet moving down the hall.

  ‘Don’t make me do this,’ she called.

  But she heard the front door close with a bang, and she knew that he had gone.

  PART I

  Origins

  1

  For three days, the letter stayed on the table untouched. Every time Mary looked at it her heart thrashed like a wild bird in a cage. She bent her life around it, trying to avoid the kitchen, eating in the lounge room with a plate perched awkwardly on her lap, drinking tea hurriedly at the sink, and taking the phone out of the room whenever anyone rang. It was ridiculous and she knew it, but the handwriting on the front of the envelope made her nervous. God knows why she couldn’t dispose of the thing; she ought to toss it in the bin or burn it in the fireplace, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it.

  She lived with a heightened sense of panic, sleeping fitfully. What if the letter bearer returned? She had to act. But what to do? The letter was a burden—the past and the future rolled into one. She became grumpy and irritable. This ought to be a time of peace, with Jack gone and her own health declining. But the letter was projecting her back into life. It insisted she take control.

  On the third night, she found a feasible idea among her restless thoughts, and the next morning she shuffled into the study and riffled through a pile of papers on the desk, seeking the brochure someone had given her months ago. She’d been keeping it, waiting. The letter was the catalyst. It was time to go back. Her hand had been forced and she must address the past before she could decide what to do.

  She found the brochure beneath an old electricity bill and called the number printed on it; then she opened the phone book on the kitchen bench and made another call. Afterwards, she pulled out a suitcase, folding into it neat stacks of underwear, poloneck sweaters, jumpers, woollen trousers, a coat, a thick scarf and a hat.

  When her clothes were packed she went to fetch the letter. Her hand hovered over it and a wry smile twisted her face: she was behaving as if the letter might explode. And in a sense she supposed this was true. It had erupted into her life and could well blow apart what time she had left. Finally she picked it up, feeling the smooth texture of the paper with her thumb as she carried it to the bedroom and slipped it into a side pocket of the suitcase. Then she turned to the bookshelf and grasped an old photo album which she placed in the case on top of the clothes. Now she was ready.

  In the quiet of the room, she gazed at the dark shadows that angled across the bed and lingered in the corners. She had lived here, in this old Hobart house, for twenty-five years, sharing her husband’s retirement and decline—the terrible process of watching someone you love retreating from life.

  Twenty-five years: a large portion of their lives together. Much had happened—ageing, a grandchild. Even so, she’d never really thought of Hobart as home. For her, it would always be Bruny Island. The light reflecting on the shifting water. The hollow voice of the wind. The lighthouse. The wide southern stretch of Cloudy Bay . . . It was right she should go there now, to the place she first met Jack, where she first came alive. And more than that; she owed it to Jack. On Bruny, she would remember him more clearly. Somehow, there she would reunite with him, relive the good times—those early days when the foundation of their love was shaped and their commitment was sealed.

  She also owed it to herself to return. Time was running out, and there were old emotional wounds she needed to attend to before she died—matters neglected amid the soothing monotony of daily life. She needed to find peace and inner calm. To settle into self-acceptance. To grant herself release from guilt. Only on Bruny Island could she achieve these things.

  And she must decide how to deal with the letter.

  On Sunday morning, Mary sat on the couch in the lounge room. Half an hour ago, she had finished her final cup of tea then washed and dried the mug and replaced it in the cupboard. Now she was stiff after sitting still for so long, listening to the clock on the mantelpiece ticking into emptiness. Normally she’d be tuned in to ABC radio, the news and current affairs. But this morning she needed to sit quietly. There was too much ahead. Too much to contemplate. The clean air of Bruny was beckoning. The smell of wet trees. Salt on the wind. She wanted to be gone from here.

  She heard a car pull up and the dull thud of a door closing. Jacinta at last.

  Her granddaughter entered the room with the breeziness of the young, all brown eyes and smiles and long loose limbs. At twenty-five, physically, she was her mother all over again, although she’d hate to hear it. She bent for a hug and Mary clung to her, enjoying the feel of young wiriness, the tautness of unblemished skin. How sadly Mary had mourned the loss of her own youth, the decay to wrinkles and sagginess and waistline spread. Her strong wavy hair reduced to flimsy wisps. Over time, she’d learned to accept it and she’d embraced other things: simple pleasures, like bird calls, a good roast, familiar company, a favourite novel, the comfort of words unspoken but understood.

  ‘Are you sure you’re up to this, Nana?’ Jacinta was regarding her assessingly. She’d always had an uncanny instinct for gauging Mary’s physical and emotional health. It was part of what made their relationship special, and so different (thank goodness) from Mary’s constant tussle with Jacinta’s mother. With Jan there was always that particular tension belonging to interactions between mothers and daughters.

  During her fortnightly visits, Jan had recently stepped up her comments about nursing homes; she’d even offered to organise a tour of suitable places that Mary might consider. But Mary would have none of it. She didn’t want to die in a hospital bed with tubes sticking out of her like spaghetti. Nursing homes were expensive too. And she didn’t want to be a burden on her children. She knew what it was to care for a dying person; she’d done it for Jack. Her family might not like it when they realised what she had chosen, but this option was better. It was her option. Her decision. She was doing this for herself.

  ‘Of course I’m up to it,’ she said quickly. ‘This is my last chance.’ She reached for her stick. ‘Shall we get going, then?’ She waved an arm towards her luggage near the door, attempting nonchalance, although this was difficult, knowing the letter was tucked inside. ‘There’s my case. And I’ve packed some things in the basket for a picnic.’

  ‘A suitcase!’ Jacinta laughed. ‘We’re only going for the day.’

  They drove south out of Hobart in the sullen early light. The purple shadow of Mount Wellington loomed above them with caterpillars of mist clinging just below the summit. Low clouds sat close over the morning and it seemed the day was already weary. Through the dark cleft of the cutting, ravens picked at possum carcases squashed on the wet road.

  At the roundabout in Kingston, Jacinta glanced at her watch. ‘Have you checked the ferry times?’

  ‘There’s one at nine thirty. We can get a cup of tea while we wait.’

  ‘What about breakfast? Have you had any?’

  ‘Yes, of course. I’ve been up since five.’ It had taken her a long time to shower and get ready.

  Jacinta groaned. ‘I wish I could bounce out that early.’

  Mary recalled the shrill of the alarm and the breathlessness that followed. ‘I certainly didn’t bounce,’ she said.

  Jacinta smiled. ‘I didn’t shower. I hope I don’t smell.’

  ‘Only of vegemite toast.’

  ‘But vegemite smells awful.’

  ‘I can think of worse.’

  They laughed.

  When Jacinta was small, Mary had cared for her while Jan was teaching. They’d had fun together, and she’d taken im
mense satisfaction in the task: after the lighthouse, it had provided her with a focus without which she’d have withered. Mary knew Jacinta liked her, whereas Jan had always been disapproving. Somehow Mary hadn’t been quite the mother Jan wanted—although Mary wasn’t sure anyone could have lived up to Jan’s expectations. Jan resented the years they’d lived at the light station. She claimed the place had curtailed her childhood and that she’d missed out on opportunities—whatever that meant. Mary couldn’t imagine what great things Jan envisaged would have come her way in suburban Hobart.

  It was true their lives hadn’t been easy at the light station. Challenges came with isolation. There’d been no other children on the cape. Dim lighting for schoolwork in the kitchen. Limited fresh food. No visitors in winter. Poor weather. But what they lacked in convenience, they had gained in simplicity and proximity to nature. Skies and sea stretching forever. Fishing. Exploring. Picnics on the beach. Space to roam. Mary’s heart still settled to think of it. Even so, Jan was convinced she’d been denied the important things, society and friendships and culture. Ever since, she’d run herself ragged trying to create this life she believed she’d been deprived of. It had driven her husband away; of that Mary was sure.

  And yet, Mary could still remember how Jan loved to ride the pony along Lighthouse Beach. How she and Gary had run across the hills with bed sheets over their heads pretending to be ghosts. The bonfires, and the glorious Christmases, making decorations and presents. Then, it was just the four of them— Mary, Jack and the two children—wandering on moonlit nights with the flash of the light slicing the dark. Mary remembered those jewels of Jan’s childhood, even if Jan chose to forget them.

  She remembered less of Gary, her second child. He was more often with his father working in the shed, or kicking a ball among the tussocks, chasing chickens, sprinting to the beach. Not long after the youngest child, Tom, came along, Jan and Gary went to boarding school in Hobart. Tom grew up on the cape alone, roaming wild. He was the only one who spoke of the light station with affection. By the time they went to school, Gary and Jan couldn’t wait to escape it.