The Light Between Oceans: A Novel

by M. L. Stedman

  Having placed the envelope in the camphor chest, Tom closes the lid reverently. Soon enough, the contents will lose all meaning, like the lost language of the trenches, so imprisoned in a time. Years bleach away the sense of things until all that’s left is a bone-white past, stripped of feeling and significance.

  The cancer had been finishing its work for months, nibbling the days from her, and there had been nothing to do but wait. He had held her hand for weeks, sitting by her bed. “Remember that gramophone?” he would ask, or “I wonder whatever happened to old Mrs. Mewett?” And she would smile faintly. Sometimes, she mustered the energy to say, “Don’t forget the pruning, will you?” Or, “Tell me a story, Tom. Tell me a story with a happy ending,” and he would stroke her cheek and whisper, “Once upon a time there was a girl called Isabel, and she was the feistiest girl for miles around…” And as he told the story, he would watch the sunspots on her hand, and notice how the knuckles swelled slightly, these days, and the ring moved loosely on the skin between the joints.

  Toward the end, when she could no longer sip water, he had given her the corner of a damp flannel to suck, and smeared lanolin on her lips to stop them cracking with the dryness. He had caressed her hair, now shot-through with silver, tied in a heavy plait down her back. He had watched her thin chest rise and fall with that same uncertainty he remembered in Lucy’s when she first arrived on Janus: each breath a struggle and a triumph.

  “Are you sorry you ever met me, Tom?”

  “I was born to meet you, Izz. I reckon that’s what I was put here for,” he said, and kissed her cheek.

  His lips remembered that very first kiss decades before, on the windy beach in the setting sun: the bold, fearless girl guided only by her heart. He remembered her love for Lucy, instant and fierce and without question—the sort of love that, had things been different, would have been returned for a lifetime.

  He had tried to show Isabel his love, in every act of every day for thirty years. But now, there would be no more days. There could be no more showing, and the urgency drove him on. “Izz,” he said, hesitating. “Is there anything you want to ask me? Anything you want me to tell you? Anything at all. I’m not very good at this, but, if there is, I promise I’ll try my best to answer.”

  Isabel attempted a smile. “Means you must think it’s nearly over then, Tom.” She nodded her head a little, and patted his hand.

  He held her gaze. “Or maybe that I’m just finally ready to talk…”

  Her voice was weak. “It’s all right. There’s nothing more I need, now.”

  Tom stroked her hair, looking a long while into her eyes. He put his forehead to hers, and they stayed, unmoving, until her breathing changed, growing more ragged.

  “I don’t want to leave you,” she said, clutching his hand. “I’m so scared, love. So scared. What if God doesn’t forgive me?”

  “God forgave you years ago. It’s about time you did too.”

  “The letter?” she asked anxiously. “You’ll look after the letter?”

  “Yes, Izz. I’ll look after it.” And the wind shook the windows as it had done decades ago on Janus.

  “I’m not going to say goodbye, in case God hears and thinks I’m ready to go.” She squeezed his hand again. After that, words were beyond her. Now and then she would open her eyes and there would be a sparkle in them, a light that brightened as her breathing got shallower and harder, as if she had been told a secret and suddenly understood something.

  Then, on that last evening, just as the waning moon parted wintry clouds, her breathing changed in the way Tom knew all too well, and she slipped away from him.

  Even though they had electricity, he sat with just the soft glow of the kerosene lamp to bathe her face: so much gentler, the light of a flame. Kinder. He stayed by the body all night, waiting until dawn before telephoning the doctor. Standing to, like in the old days.

  As Tom walks down the path, he snaps off a yellow bud from one of the rosebushes Isabel planted when they first moved here. Its fragrance is already strong, and takes him back almost two decades to the picture of her, kneeling in the freshly dug bed, hands pressing down the earth around the young bush. “We’ve finally got our rose garden, Tom,” she had said. It was the first time he had seen her smile since she had left Partageuse, and the image stayed with him, as clear as a photograph.

  There is a small gathering at the church hall after the funeral. Tom stays as long as politeness demands. But he wishes the people really knew who they were mourning: the Isabel he had met on the jetty, so full of life and daring and mischief. His Izzy. His other half of the sky.

  Two days after the funeral, Tom sat alone, in a house now empty and silent. A plume of dust fanned out in the sky, signaling the arrival of a car. One of the farmhands coming back, probably. As it got closer, he looked again. It was expensive, new, with Perth number plates.

  The car drew up near the house, and Tom came to the front door.

  A woman emerged and took a moment to smooth down her blonde hair, gathered in a twist at the nape of her neck. She looked around her, then walked slowly up to the veranda, where Tom now waited.

  “Afternoon,” he said. “You lost?”

  “I hope not,” replied the woman.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I’m looking for the Sherbournes’ property.”

  “You’ve found it. I’m Tom Sherbourne.” He waited for clarification.

  “Then I’m not lost.” She gave a tentative smile.

  “I’m sorry,” said Tom, “it’s been a long week. Have I forgotten something? An appointment?”

  “No, I haven’t got an appointment, but it’s you I’ve come to see. And…” she hesitated, “Mrs. Sherbourne. I heard she was very ill.”

  Tom was puzzled, and she said, “My name’s Lucy-Grace Rutherford. Roennfeldt as was…” She smiled again. “I’m Lucy.”

  He looked in disbelief. “Lulu? Little Lulu,” he said, almost to himself. He didn’t move.

  The woman blushed. “I don’t know what I should call you. Or… Mrs. Sherbourne.” Suddenly a thought crossed her face and she asked, “I hope she won’t mind. I hope I haven’t intruded.”

  “She always hoped you’d come.”

  “Wait. I’ve brought something to show you,” she said, and headed back to the car. She reached into the front seat, and returned carrying a bassinet, her face a mixture of tenderness and pride.

  “This is Christopher, my little boy. He’s three months old.”

  Tom saw peeping out from a blanket a child who so exactly resembled Lucy as a baby that a tingle crept through him. “Izzy would have loved to have met him. It would have meant so much to her, that you came.”

  “Oh. I’m so sorry… When did… ?” She let the words trail off.

  “A week ago. Her funeral was on Monday.”

  “I didn’t know. If you’d prefer I left…”

  He continued to look at the baby for a good while, and when he eventually raised his head, there was a wistful smile about his lips. “Come in.”

  Tom brought in a tray with teapot and cups, as Lucy-Grace sat looking out at the ocean, the baby beside her in the basket.

  “Where do we begin?” she asked.

  “What say we just sit quietly for a bit?” Tom replied. “Get used to things.” He sighed. “Little Lucy. After all these years.”

  They sat silently, drinking their tea, listening to the wind which came roaring up from the ocean, occasionally banishing a cloud long enough to let a shaft of sunlight slice through the glass and on to the carpet. Lucy breathed in the smells of the house: old wood, and fire smoke, and polish. She didn’t dare look directly at Tom, but glanced around the room. An icon of St. Michael; a vase of yellow roses. A wedding photo of Tom and Isabel looking radiantly young and hopeful. On the shelves were books about navigation and light and music, some, such as the one called Brown’s Star Atlas, so big that they had to lie flat. There was a piano in the corner, with sheet music piled o
n top of it.

  “How did you hear?” Tom asked eventually. “About Isabel?”

  “Mum told me. When you wrote to Ralph Addicott, to let him know how ill she was, he went to see my mother.”

  “In Partageuse?”

  “She lives back down there now. Mum took me to Perth when I was five—wanted to start again. She only moved back to Partageuse when I joined the WAAF in 1944. After that, well, she seemed settled there with Aunty Gwen at Bermondsey, Granddad’s old place. I stayed in Perth after the war.”

  “And your husband?”

  She gave a bright smile. “Henry! Air Force romance… He’s a lovely man. We got married last year. I’m so lucky.” She looked out at the distant water and said, “I’ve thought of you both so often, over the years. Wondered about you. But it wasn’t”—she paused—“well, it wasn’t until I had Christopher that I really understood: why you two did what you did. And why Mum couldn’t forgive you for it. I’d kill for my baby. No question.”

  She smoothed her skirt. “I remember some things. At least I think I do—a bit like snatches from a dream: the light, of course; the tower; and a sort of balcony around it—what’s it called?”

  “The gallery.”

  “I remember being on your shoulders. And playing the piano with Isabel. Something about some birds in a tree and saying goodbye to you?

  “Then, it all sort of jumbled together and I don’t remember much. Just the new life up in Perth, and school. But most of all, I remember the wind and the waves and the ocean: can’t get it out of my blood. Mum doesn’t like the water. Never swims.” She looked at the baby. “I couldn’t come sooner. I had to wait for Mum to… well, to give her blessing, I suppose.”

  Watching her, Tom caught flashes of her younger face. But it was difficult to match the woman with the girl. Difficult too, at first, to find the younger man within himself who had loved her so deeply. And yet. And yet he was still there, somewhere, and for a moment, clear as a bell, he had a memory of her voice piping, “Dadda! Pick me up, Dadda!”

  “She left something for you,” he said, and went to the camphor chest. Reaching inside, he took the envelope and handed it to Lucy-Grace, who held it for a moment before opening it.

  My Darling Lucy,

  It has been a long time. Such a long time. I promised I’d stay away from you, and I’ve stuck to my word, however hard that was for me.

  I’m gone now, which is why you have this letter. And it brings me joy because it means that you came to find us. I never gave up hope that you would.

  In the chest with this letter are some of the earliest things of yours: your christening gown, your yellow blanket, some of the drawings you did as a tot. And there are things I made for you over the years—linen and so forth. I kept them safe for you—things from that lost part of your life. In case you came in search of it.

  You are a grown woman now. I hope life has been kind to you. I hope that you can forgive me for keeping you. And for letting you go.

  Know that you have always been beloved.

  With all my love.

  The delicately embroidered handkerchiefs, the knitted bootees, the satin bonnet: they were folded carefully in the camphor chest, hidden way, way below the things from Isabel’s own childhood. Tom did not know, until then, that Isabel had kept them. Fragments of a time. Of a life. Finally, Lucy-Grace unrolled a scroll, tied with a satin ribbon. The map of Janus, decorated by Isabel so long ago: Shipwreck Beach, Treacherous Cove—the ink still bright. Tom felt a pang as he remembered the day she had presented it to him, and his terror at the breach of the rules. And he was suddenly awash again with the loving and the losing of Isabel.

  As Lucy-Grace read the map, a tear trailed down her cheek, and Tom offered her his neatly folded handkerchief. She wiped her eyes, considering a thought, and finally said, “I never had the chance to say thank you. To you and to… to Mamma, for saving me, and for taking such good care of me. I was too little… and then it was all too late.”

  “There’s nothing to thank us for.”

  “I’m only alive because of you two.”

  The baby started to cry, and Lucy bent to pick him up. “Shh, shh, bubba. You’re all right. You’re all right, bunny rabbit.” She rocked him up and down and the crying subsided. She turned to Tom. “Do you want to have a hold?”

  He hesitated. “I’m a bit out of practice these days.”

  “Go on,” she said, and passed the little bundle gently into his arms.

  “Well, look at you,” he said, smiling. “Just like your mummy when she was a baby, aren’t you? Same nose, same blue eyes.” As the child held him with a serious gaze, long-forgotten sensations flooded back. “Oh, Izzy would have loved to meet you.” A bubble of saliva glistened on the baby’s lips, and Tom watched the rainbow the sunlight made there. “Izzy would have just loved you,” he said, and he fought the crack in his voice.

  Lucy-Grace looked at her watch. “I’d better be heading off, I suppose. I’m staying at Ravensthorpe tonight. Don’t want to be driving in the dusk—there’ll be ’roos on the road.”

  “Of course.” Tom nodded toward the camphor chest. “Shall I help you put the things in the car? That is, if you’d like to take them. I’ll understand if you’d rather not.”

  “I don’t want to take them,” she said, and as Tom’s face fell, she smiled, “because that way we’ll have an excuse to come back. One day soon, maybe.”

  The sun is just a sliver shimmering above the waves as Tom lowers himself into the old steamer chair on the veranda. Beside him, on Isabel’s chair, are the cushions she made, embroidered with stars and a sickle moon. The wind has dropped, and clouds scarred with deep orange brood on the horizon. A pinpoint of light pierces the dusk: the Hopetoun lighthouse. These days it’s automatic—no need for keepers since the main port closed. He thinks back to Janus, and the light he cared for there for so long, every one of its flashes still traveling somewhere into the darkness far out toward the universe’s edge.

  His arms still feel the tiny weight of Lucy’s baby, and the sensation unlocks the bodily memory of holding Lucy herself, and before that, the son he held in his arms so briefly. How different so many lives would have been if he had lived. He breathes the thought for a long while, then sighs. No point in thinking like that. Once you start down that road, there’s no end to it. He’s lived the life he’s lived. He’s loved the woman he’s loved. No one ever has or ever will travel quite the same path on this earth, and that’s all right by him. He still aches for Isabel: her smile, the feel of her skin. The tears he fought off in front of Lucy now trail down his face.

  He looks behind him, where a full moon is edging its way into the sky like a counterweight on the twin horizon, heaved up by the dying sun. Every end is the beginning of something else. Little Christopher has been born into a world Tom could never have imagined. Perhaps he’ll be spared a war, this boy? Lucy-Grace, too, belongs to a future Tom can only guess at. If she can love her son half as well as Isabel loved her, the boy will be all right.

  There are still more days to travel in this life. And he knows that the man who makes the journey has been shaped by every day and every person along the way. Scars are just another kind of memory. Isabel is part of him, wherever she is, just like the war and the light and the ocean. Soon enough the days will close over their lives, the grass will grow over their graves, until their story is just an unvisited headstone.

  He watches the ocean surrender to night, knowing that the light will reappear.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book has many midwives. So many people have played a part in bringing it into the world that to name them individually would take a separate volume. I have, I hope, thanked them in person along the way, but would like to acknowledge their importance again here. Each has contributed something unique and invaluable: some at a specific moment; some over a longer period; some over a lifetime.

  Thank you—each and every one of you—for helping me tell this story. I a
m blessed by your kindness.

  M. L. STEDMAN was born and raised in Western Australia and now lives in London. The Light Between Oceans is her first novel.

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  JACKET DESIGN BY REX BONOMELLI

  JACKET PHOTOGRAPHS: LIGHTHOUSE © ALISON SHAW/CORBIS;

  SKY © MALCOLM PARK; BABY © REX BONOMELLI

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  ISBN 978-1-4516-8173-4

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  Detail from lighthouse logbook courtesy of the Australian National Archives.