Clutching her drawing, of Mamma and Dadda and the light, the child recalls the story of the Wise Men finding their way to Baby Jesus by a star. She has spotted the light of Janus, out to sea: it’s not far at all—the light never is. Though there’s something not quite right. The flash has a red beam between the white ones. Still she follows it.
Down toward the water she heads, where the swell has picked up for the night and the waves have taken the shore hostage. At the lighthouse, she will find Mamma and Dadda. She makes her way down toward the long, thin isthmus—the “Point” of Point Partageuse, where years before, Isabel taught Tom to lie down when looking into the blowhole, to avoid being swept away. Every step takes the little girl closer to the light, out in the ocean.
But it’s not Janus’s beam she’s following. Each light has a different character, and the flash of red that punctuates the white in this one tells mariners that they’re nearing the shoals at the mouth of Partageuse Harbor, nearly a hundred miles away from Janus Rock.
The wind picks up. The water churns. The child walks. The darkness abides.
From his cell, Tom heard voices carried on the air outside. “Lucy? Lucy, are you there?” Then “Grace? Where are you, Grace?”
Alone in the cells, Tom called out toward the front of the station, “Sergeant Knuckey? Sergeant?”
There was a rattling of keys, and Constable Lynch appeared. “Want something?”
“What’s going on? There are people outside, calling Lucy.”
Bob Lynch thought about his response. The bloke deserved to know. Nothing he could do about it anyway. “She’s gone missing, the little girl.”
“When? How?”
“A few hours ago. Ran off, by the looks.”
“Christ Almighty! How the bloody hell did that happen?”
“No idea.”
“Well what are they doing about it?”
“They’re looking.”
“Let me help. I can’t just sit here.” The expression on Lynch’s face was reply enough. “Oh for crying out loud!” said Tom. “Where am I likely to get to?”
“I’ll let you know if I hear anything, mate. Best I can do.” And with another metallic clang, he was gone.
In the darkness, Tom’s thoughts turned to Lucy, always curious to explore her surroundings. Never afraid of the dark. Perhaps he should have taught her to be fearful. He had failed to prepare her for life beyond Janus. Then another thought came to him. Where was Isabel? What was she capable of in her current state? He prayed she hadn’t taken things into her own hands.
Thank Christ it wasn’t winter. Vernon Knuckey could feel the coolness setting in as midnight approached. The kid was wearing a cotton dress and a pair of sandals. At least in January she had a chance of making it through the night. In August she’d have been blue with cold by now.
No point in searching at this hour. Sun’d be up not long after five. Better to have people fresh and alert when the light was on their side. “Spread the word,” he said as he met Garstone at the end of the road. “We’re calling it off for tonight. Get everyone to the station at first light, and we’ll start again.”
It was one a.m., but he needed to clear his head. He set off on the familiar route of his evening walk, still carrying his lantern, which took a swing at the dark with each of his steps.
In the little cottage, Hannah prayed. “Keep her safe, Lord. Protect her and save her. You’ve saved her before…” Hannah worried—perhaps Grace had used up her share of miracles? Then she soothed herself. It didn’t take a miracle for a child to survive a single night here. She just needed to avoid bad luck. That was a different thing altogether. But that thought was pushed aside by the more panicked, more urgent fear. Exhausted, a thought came to her with a twisted clarity. Perhaps God didn’t want Grace to be with her. Perhaps she was to blame for everything. She waited, and prayed. And she made a solemn pact with God.
There’s a kicking at the door of Hannah’s house. Though the lights are off, she’s still wide awake, and springs up to open it. Before her stands Sergeant Knuckey, with Grace’s body in his arms, her limbs floppy.
“Oh dear Lord!” Hannah lunges for her. Her eyes are fixed on the girl, not the man, so she doesn’t see that he’s smiling.
“Almost tripped over her down on the Point. Fast asleep,” he says. “She’s got nine lives, this one, that’s for sure.” And though he’s grinning, there’s a tear in his eye, as he recalls the weight of the son he couldn’t save, decades before.
Hannah barely registers his words as she hugs her daughter, who sleeps on in her arms.
That night, Hannah laid Grace beside her in her bed, listening to every breath, watching every turn of the head or kick of a foot. But the relief of feeling her daughter’s warm body was overshadowed by a darker knowing.
The first sound of rain, like gravel scattered on the tin roof, carried Hannah back to her wedding day: to a time of leaking ceilings and buckets in their humble cottage, and love and hope. Above all, hope. Frank, with his smile, and his cheerfulness no matter what the day brought. She wanted Grace to have that. She wanted her daughter to be a happy little girl, and she prayed to God for the courage and strength to do the things needed to allow it.
When the thunder woke the child, she looked sleepily at Hannah, and snuggled in closer to her, before returning to her dreams, leaving her mother to weep silently, remembering her vow.
The black house spider has returned to its web in the corner of Tom’s cell, and is going over and over the higgledy-piggledy threads, setting the shape in order to a design which only it can know—why the silk must be in this particular place, at this particular tension or angle. It comes out at night to repair its web, a funnel of fibers that accumulate dust and form haphazard patterns. It is weaving its arbitrary world, always trying to mend, never abandoning its web unless forced.
Lucy is safe. The relief fills Tom’s body. But there is still no word from Isabel. No sign that she has forgiven him, or that she ever will. The helplessness he felt at being unable to do anything for Lucy now strengthens his resolve to do what he can for his wife. It is the one freedom left to him.
If he is going to have to live his life without her, somehow it makes it easier to let go, to let things take their course. His mind wanders into memory. The woomph of the oil vapor igniting into brilliance at the touch of his match. The rainbows thrown by the prisms. The oceans spreading themselves before him about Janus like a secret gift. If Tom is to take his leave of the world, he wants to remember the beauty of it, not just the suffering. The breaths of Lucy, who trusted two strangers, bonding with their hearts like a molecule. And Isabel, the old Isabel, who lit the way for him back into life, after all the years of death.
A light rain wafts the steam of forest scents into his cell: the earth, the wet wood, the pungent smell of banksias with their flowers like big, feathery acorns. It occurs to him that there are different versions of himself to farewell—the abandoned eight-year-old; the delusional soldier who hovered somewhere in hell; the lightkeeper who dared to leave his heart undefended. Like Russian dolls, these lives sit within him.
The forest sings to him: the rain tapping on the leaves, dripping into the puddles, the kookaburras laughing like madmen at some joke beyond human comprehension. He has the sensation of being part of a connected whole, of being enough. Another day or another decade will not change this. He is embraced by nature, which is waiting, ultimately, to receive him, to re-organize his atoms into another shape.
The rain is falling more heavily, and in the distance, thunder grumbles at being left behind by the lightning.
CHAPTER 34
The Addicotts lived in a house which, but for a few yards of sea grass, would have been paddling its toes in the ocean. The timber and brick were kept in good order by Ralph, and Hilda coaxed a small garden from the sandy soil at the back: zinnias and dahlias as garish as dancing girls bordered a trail to a little aviary in which finches chirped gaily, to the puzzlement of th
e native birds.
The smell of marmalade drifted through the windows and met Ralph as he trudged up the front path the day after Lucy had been found. As he took his cap off in the hallway, Hilda rushed to intercept him, the wooden spoon in her hand glistening like an orange lollipop. She put a finger to her lips and led him to the kitchen. “In the lounge room!” she whispered, eyes wide. “Isabel Sherbourne! She’s been waiting for you.”
Ralph shook his head. “World’s gone bloody haywire.”
“What does she want?”
“That’s the trouble, I reckon. She can’t make up her mind what she wants.”
The small, tidy lounge room of the sea captain was decorated not with ships in bottles or scale models of men-o’-war, but icons. The Archangels Michael and Raphael, the Madonna and child, and numerous saints, stared at any visitors with stern calm from their place in eternity.
The glass of water beside Isabel was almost empty. Her eyes were fixed on an angel, his sword and shield in hand, poised over a serpent at his feet. Heavy clouds dimmed the room, so that the paintings seemed faint pools of gold, hovering in darkness.
She didn’t notice Ralph come in, and he watched her for a while before saying, “That was the first one I got. I fished a Russian sailor out of the drink, near Sevastopol, forty-odd years ago. Gave it to me as a thank-you.” He spoke slowly, pausing now and then. “I picked up the others along the way in my merchant marine days.” He gave a chuckle. “I’m hardly the Holy Joe sort, and I couldn’t tell you the first thing about painting. But there’s something about this lot that makes them talk back to you. Hilda says they keep her company when I’m away.”
He put his hands in his pockets and nodded toward the picture Isabel was looking at. “I’ve bent that fella’s ear in my time, I can tell you. Archangel Michael. There he is with his sword in his hand, but he’s got his shield half raised, too. Like he’s still making up his mind about something.”
The room fell silent, and the wind seemed to rattle the windows more urgently, demanding Isabel’s attention. All the way to the horizon, the waves thrashed in chaos, and the sky began to smudge with another approaching shower. Her mind was thrust back to Janus—back to the vast emptiness, back to Tom. She started to cry, in great sobs like waves, washing her back onto familiar shore at last.
Ralph sat down beside her, and held her hand. She wept and he sat, and nothing at all was said for a good half hour.
Finally, Isabel ventured, “Lucy ran away last night because of me, Ralph—trying to find me. She could have died. Oh, Ralph, it’s all such a mess. I can’t talk to Mum and Dad about it…”
Still the old man stayed silent, holding Isabel’s hand, looking at the fingernails, bitten to the quick. He nodded his head slowly, just a touch. “She’s alive. And she’s safe.”
“I only ever wanted her to be safe, Ralph. From the moment she arrived on Janus, I wanted to do what was best. She needed us. And we needed her.” She paused. “I needed her. When she just appeared—out of nowhere—it was a miracle, Ralph. I was sure she was meant to be with us. It was so crystal clear. A little baby had lost her parents, we’d lost a little baby…
“I love her so much.” She blew her nose. “Out there… Ralph, you’re one of the only people in the world who knows what it’s like on Janus. One of the only people who can imagine. But even you’ve never waved the boat off: stood on that jetty and heard the sound of the engine die away, watched the boat get smaller and smaller. You don’t know what it’s like to say goodbye to the world for years at a time. Janus was real. Lucy was real. Everything else was just make-believe.
“By the time we found out about Hannah Roennfeldt—oh, it was too late then, Ralph. I just didn’t have it in me to give Lucy up: I couldn’t do that to her.”
The old man sat, breathing slowly and deeply, nodding now and again. He resisted any urge to question or contradict her. Keeping silent was the best way to help her; to help everyone.
“We were such a happy family. Then, when the police came to the island—when I heard what Tom had done—nothing felt safe. Nowhere was safe. Not even inside myself was safe. I was so hurt, and so angry. And terrified. Nothing made sense, from the moment the policeman told me about the rattle.”
She looked at him. “What have I done?” The question wasn’t rhetorical. She was searching for a mirror, something to show her what she could not see.
“Can’t say that concerns me as much as what you’re going to do now.”
“There’s nothing I can do. Everything’s ruined. There’s no point in anything any more.”
“That man loves you, you know. That’s got to be worth something.”
“But what about Lucy? She’s my daughter, Ralph.” She searched for a way to explain. “Can you imagine asking Hilda to give away one of her children?”
“This isn’t giving away. This is giving back, Isabel.”
“But wasn’t Lucy given to us? Isn’t that what God was asking of us?”
“Maybe He was asking you to look after her. And you did. And maybe now He’s asking you to let someone else do that.” He puffed out a breath. “Hell, I’m not a priest. What do I know about God? But I do know that there’s a man about to give up everything—everything—to protect you. Do you think that’s right?”
“But you saw what happened yesterday. You know how desperate Lucy is. She needs me, Ralph. How could I explain it to her? You can’t expect her to understand, not at her age.”
“Sometimes life turns out hard, Isabel. Sometimes it just bites right through you. And sometimes, just when you think it’s done its worst, it comes back and takes another chunk.”
“I thought it had done all it could to me, years ago.”
“If you think things are bad now, they’ll be a whole lot worse if you don’t speak up for Tom. This is serious, Isabel. Lucy’s young. She’s got people who want to care for her, and give her a good life. Tom’s got no one. I never saw a man who less deserved to suffer than Tom Sherbourne.”
Under the watchful gaze of saints and angels, Ralph continued, “God knows what got into the pair of you out there. There’s been lie upon lie, all with the best intentions. But it’s gone far enough. Everything you’ve done to help Lucy has hurt someone else. Good God, of course I understand how hard it must be for you. But that Spragg’s a nasty piece of work and I wouldn’t put anything past him. Tom’s your husband. For better or worse, in sickness and in health. Unless you want to see him in jail, or—” He couldn’t finish the sentence. “I reckon this is your last chance.”
“Where are you going?” An hour later, Violet was alarmed at the state of her daughter. “You’ve only just walked in the door.”
“I’m going out, Ma. There’s something I have to do.”
“But it’s bucketing down. Wait till it stops, at least.” She gestured to a pile of clothes on the floor beside her. “I’ve decided to go through some of the boys’ things. Some of their old shirts, their boots: they might be some good to someone. I thought I could give them to the church.” A quiver crept into her voice. “But it would be nice to have some company while I sort them.”
“I have to go to the police station, now.”
“What on earth for?”
Isabel looked at her mother, and for a moment almost dared tell her. But she said, “I need to see Mr. Knuckey.
“I’ll be back later,” she called behind her, heading down the passageway to the front door.
As she opened it, she was startled by a silhouette in the doorway, about to ring the bell. The figure, soaked with rain, was Hannah Roennfeldt. Isabel stood speechless.
On the doorstep, Hannah spoke quickly, keeping her eyes on a bowl of roses on the table behind Isabel, fearing that to look at her directly would make her change her mind. “I’ve come to say something—just to say it and go. Don’t ask me anything, please.” She thought back to the vow she had made to God just hours ago: there was no reneging. She took a breath, like a run-up. “Anything could ha
ve happened to Grace last night. She was so desperate to see you. Thank God she was found before she came to any harm.” She looked up. “Can you have any idea what it feels like? To see the daughter you conceived and carried, the daughter you bore and nursed, call someone else her mother?” Her eyes darted to one side. “But I have to accept that, however much it hurts. And I can’t put my happiness above hers.
“The baby I had—Grace—isn’t coming back. I can see that now. The plain fact is, she can live without me, even if I can’t live without her. I can’t punish her for what happened. And I can’t punish you for your husband’s decisions.”
Isabel began to protest, but Hannah spoke over her. With her eyes fixed again on the roses, she said, “I knew Frank to his very soul. Perhaps I only ever knew Grace a very little.” She looked Isabel in the eye. “Grace loves you. Perhaps she belongs to you.” With great effort, she pushed on to her next words: “But I need to know that justice is done. If you swear to me now that this was all your husband’s doing—swear on your life—then I’ll let Grace come to live with you.”
No conscious thought went through Isabel’s mind—it was by sheer reflex that she said, “I swear.”
Hannah continued, “As long as you give evidence against that man, as soon as he’s safely locked away, Grace can come back to you.” Suddenly she was in tears. “Oh, God help me!” she said, and rushed away.
Isabel is dazed. She runs over and over what she has just heard, wondering whether she has made it up. But there are the wet footprints on the veranda; the trail of drops from Hannah Roennfeldt’s furled umbrella.
She looks through the fly-wire door so close up that the lightning seems to be divided into tiny squares. Then the thunder rolls in and shakes the roof.
“I thought you were going to the police station?” The words crash into Isabel’s thoughts, and for a moment she has no idea where she is. She turns and notices her mother. “I thought you’d already gone. What happened?”
The Light Between Oceans: A Novel Page 29
