Lighthouses

by Trost, Cameron

  He glanced at the lighthouse. With the half-moon providing backlight, it was an impressive sight. Up on the balcony was the smallest of shapes. It leaned out over the rail, hung that way a moment, then went plummeting to the rocks below.

  Robert shifted position again, went back to freestyle.

  TREPIDATION

  Danielle Birch

  Everything went to shit long before my father lost his job. Sometimes, I wondered if it had ever been good. There was always a nasty smell that followed us, nipping at our heels, like failure had its own particular odour. Tonight was no different than any other night.

  Shards of light pierced my eyes as I lay in the dunes. No moon, just the lighthouse beam periodically brightening the inky sky as I kicked sand and counted how many days until school let out for Christmas.

  Something moved nearby and I turned, my breath catching. Moments later, a feral cat wove through the pig-face that grew wild on the dunes. I watched, loving the way they survived on their wits and scavenging abilities. It stopped to check something and then disappeared into the scrub, leaving me alone as I contemplated the summer ahead. If I got a job, I’d rarely have to go home. Avoid the old man at all costs. The heat made him bat-shit crazy, which made him drink even more, and I didn’t plan to spend another holiday as his punch dummy.

  ‘Ned!’ My mother’s voice carried on the breeze and I ignored it, wriggled further into the dunes. ‘Dinner. Now.’

  The shrillness of her tone made me wince and I hunkered down, thinking about what I could buy if I had a job. First, a camera. Something better than the crap they had at school. Mrs Willows said I had an eye for photography, and even though I wasn’t sure what she meant, I liked taking photos. All I had at the moment was a loner from school and a shitty old Kodak that had belonged to my grandad.

  ‘Ned, for Christ’s sake, if you don’t get your arse home, I’ll beat you into next week.’

  I stood and brushed the sand off. Our house, practically a lean-to, backed onto a less populated part of the beach because of the rocks nearby and was only a few streets from the centre of town. As I elbowed my way through the bushes, avoiding the path, I could see my mother standing on the back step, hands on hips.

  Stale and faded was how my father described her when he wanted to get a rise out of her. If she bit, it gave him cause to knock her into tomorrow. And if I happened to be looking the wrong way, I’d be knocked into tomorrow as well. Sometimes, I was quick enough to duck and make a run for it. Sometimes, I wasn’t.

  Grudgingly, I stepped into the backyard.

  ‘Ned,’ my mother called. ‘Neddy? Is that you, baby?’

  ‘Jesus, ma,’ I said as I passed the broken swings. ‘I’m not a baby anymore.’ I was fifteen. Well, a week off anyway.

  She clipped my ear and pulled me in the door. ‘Wash up. Your father’s already at the table.’

  She’d dressed up again, ‘made an effort’ as my gran would say. It was too much make-up though and the stuff on her cheeks made her look clownish. Her dress was too tight and pulled across her chest. I looked away in disgust.

  We ate in silence, my father’s beady, bloodshot eyes fixed on me, waiting for me to do something that would give him cause to knock me off my chair.

  ‘Ned, did you show dad your report?’

  The hope on my mother’s face turned my stomach. Like he was going to give a shit.

  ‘All A’s.’ My mother beamed. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘That he should get a job. Start paying his way.’ My father paused, fork gripped in his meaty fist, then continued to chew loudly. ‘I don’t give a fuck about fancy reports.’

  My mother’s hands shook as she chased food around her plate, rarely stopping to place anything into her mouth.

  My father’s fist crashed down on the table, rattling glasses and cutlery. ‘Why the long faces?’ he asked and then laughed. ‘You two look like the sorriest pair of fuckers I ever saw. This not good enough for you?’ He waved a hand around. ‘All this. Everything I’ve provided. I work my arse off in this whore of a town and I come home to this.’ He flung his plate across the room and I watched as mashed pumpkin and tomato sauce began a slow race down the wall. ‘Fucking slop.’

  I edged to the side of my chair, poised for flight, and my mother crossed her hands in her lap. ‘Now, Tom…’

  ‘Shut it!’ He reached out and slapped her across the face. ‘Shut your filthy mouth. You make me sick, both of you. Stinking my house up. Breathing my air. Always whining. Taking from me. Two little parasites, bleeding me dry.’

  My gut clenched and I wanted to spew. He didn’t look at me. I may as well not have been in the room and I was careful not to move or do anything to bring attention to myself.

  I knew what it was. He’d had a job interview this morning and they’d turned him down. No one wanted to hire Tom Drake.

  ‘Get out!’ he growled. ‘Both of you.’

  #

  I waited until my father’s snoring reverberated through the house, and although nothing short of Armageddon would wake him, I tiptoed into the kitchen. The whisky bottles were at the back of the cupboard, behind the flour and sugar canisters. Four bottles in all, one half empty. I took a full one, careful to put the canisters back in the exact same place. He’d notice if they were moved but he’d only momentarily question how many bottles were left.

  Once outside, I sprinted up the hill, conscious of the waves crashing on the shore. I held the bottle close and kept to the path. When I reached the gate to the lighthouse, I opened it carefully, praying it didn’t creak.

  A sharp horn sounded nearby, then the train. The night train. Last train of the day. That made it around ten past seven, give or take another ten or so minutes, because the train was hardly ever on time.

  At the little house, attached to the lighthouse as though it had been an afterthought, one window was lit up. I approached with the usual mix of caution and excitement. I don’t know what I was expecting to see. All I knew was that I wanted to be inside instead of out here peering in.

  Sitting at a table surrounded by photographs was a great bear of a man with an unruly beard. The new lighthouse keeper. His name was Floyd and he was gruff and didn’t talk much, but he had kind eyes and I loved the smell of the pipe he smoked. My father hated him.

  The first time I met him, I was cutting across his property, intending to climb down to the rocks where I usually fished. He’d asked me what the fuck I thought I was doing and I’d smirked and told him I was admiring the wildflowers. He’d laughed and thumped me in the middle of the back so hard I nearly fell over. It wasn’t like the kind I got from my father, it was the kind you’d give a mate.

  Floyd held up one of the photos. I wasn’t close enough to see who it was but he stared at it for the longest time, pinched between his thumb and index finger, before setting it down on the table and burying his face in his hands.

  Sadness gripped me, like it sometimes did late at night, and I turned away and unscrewed the bottle. The first mouthful burned and I tried to stifle a cough. If Floyd heard, he didn’t bother looking up, and I left him to whatever it was he seemed to be mourning.

  At the very edge of the property, I sat, my feet dangling over the edge of the cliff. The whisky bottle was still in my hand and I looked down at it, at the amber liquid that so consumed my father. All smugness at having lifted it was gone and a shudder of disgust tore through me. I wiped my mouth on my sleeve and pitched the bottle into the darkness. Seconds later, it smashed on the rocks below.

  #

  My mother had gone again. She’d promised to be back before my birthday, but usually when she went, she was gone a week or more. It quite often took that long to wrangle money out of her parents.

  I arrived at the spot early but Floyd was already there, his line cast toward where the sun was rising sleepily above the horizon. He grunted as I sat a few feet away and readied my line.

  ‘Only true part of the day,’ he said, dipping his head to the
sun almost in salute. ‘Everything is new again, just for a few minutes.’

  I looked around, likening his comment to the smell of the ocean, the waves, and the breeze in the long grass among the dunes through which I’d just crossed. Then I looked up at the lighthouse. Always different by day than by night. Either way, it brought a pang of both misery and excitement.

  ‘What do you do, Ned?’

  ‘Nuthin’ much,’ I said as I cast my line.

  ‘You in school?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘You go?’

  ‘Mostly.’

  ‘You should go. Education’s the most important thing you can have.’ He nodded again as if he was saluting the sun.

  ‘That’s what some of my teachers say.’ The ones with tilted heads and half frowns who, noting the bruises, took me aside to ask if there was anything wrong at home. ‘I don’t know what I want to do. Most of my mates know but I have no idea.’ Even as I said it, I knew part of me was lying. When my father had found the photos of feral cats I’d taken for the art competition, he’d called me a poof and blackened my eye.

  ‘That’s okay. Hell, I’m still trying to figure it out myself.’

  ‘I feel like nothing’s happening. Like I’m just killing time.’

  ‘You’re young. You’re not expected to have the answers. Not yet anyway.’

  He looked at me, his mouth curling up a little in the corner and I wondered if he knew I was the previous lighthouse keeper’s son; that we’d lived here for nearly a year and during that time my father had rampaged night after night, searching for enemies in the darkness, bug-eyed and rabid, while the lighthouse sat in darkness.

  ‘You ever had a beer?’ Floyd asked.

  I paused, my hand resting on the reel.

  ‘Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, kid.’

  I looked up, detected amusement in his eyes. ‘I’ve had a few.’

  He nodded. ‘Had my first beer when I was eleven. Used to go out on the trawlers with the old man in school holidays.’ He grinned suddenly, eyes soft with nostalgia, and I badly wanted to be a part of his past, of his childhood. ‘Grab a couple for us.’

  I glanced over my shoulder at the grimy blue esky before carefully wedging the rod in between two rocks. After grabbing two cans of VB, I closed the lid and handed him one. I waited for him to open his first, and then I peeled the lid back and drank quickly, choking as the liquid rushed down my throat.

  ‘Steady on, kiddo. It’s not a race.’ Floyd set his can down and wiped his mouth on his shirt sleeve.

  I cleared my throat. ‘My father reckons the lighthouse is haunted. He claims he saw a woman once but I never saw anything.’

  Floyd considered me a minute. ‘Sometimes, I think it’s the person, not the place, who’s haunted.’

  I didn’t say what I’d been thinking; that I was considering sneaking into the lighthouse one night, just for old times’ sake. I wanted Floyd to invite me in, like a mate, so that I could look out on the world again from those dizzying heights where it seemed like everything would be okay.

  I’d lifted a couple of smokes from the pack my father kept on his TV table and I took one out now, waited for Floyd’s reaction. When there was none, I lit it, strangely disappointed.

  ‘You live nearby?’ he asked.

  I juggled answers. Truth or fantasy? Usually fantasy won out.

  ‘I live in town with my parents.’

  ‘It’s good to have family.’ Floyd sighed. ‘Gives you something to come home to.’

  I shrugged, irritated that he could make a comment like that when he didn’t know them. Right now, I didn’t know when my mother was coming back. It struck me that she might not come back at all. She might get a taste for freedom and keep on going. But I was sure she wouldn’t leave me behind. Sort of sure. Then a dark voice in the back of my head asked: Do I want her to? She didn’t have the answers any more than I did. ‘Look to the lighthouse,’ she always told me, like it was our saviour. And despite what had happened here, I still loved this place. I could always count on it standing proud on the hill, guiding the boats, except for those months when my father was in control and the light failed to appear after the sun set.

  A tug on my line and I gripped it.

  ‘Easy there, lad.’ Floyd leaned in. ‘Keep it firm. Keep control. Don’t jerk it but don’t give it too much slack.’

  My heart thudded as I wound the reel, swallowed and blinked a few times before the fish rose out of the water, suspended and flapping.

  ‘Easy does it.’ Floyd grabbed the bucket.

  When the fish was unhooked and deposited into the bucket, he slapped me on the back again. ‘Looks like I got myself a fishing buddy.’

  #

  My mother still hadn’t returned. Early on, I’d learned to keep out of my father’s way when she wasn’t around, and tonight was no different. He’d come home early from the pub, and when I heard him swearing as he stumbled up the front path, I leaped off the couch and flew into my room. The few meals my mother had left were gone and I made do with peanut butter and half a box of stale Jatz that I’d stashed under my bed.

  I heard him thundering up the hall and then a door flung open somewhere. I knew he was looking for drink money and I tossed aside the peanut butter and Jatz. With a last glance over my shoulder, I opened my window and was gone before he reached my bedroom.

  I didn’t go back that night. I slept in the dunes, hung out with a few mates the next day, and after the sun set, I snuck into the house. My bedroom window had been locked, so I had to use the front door. I could hear him snoring in the lounge room and part of me relaxed as I crept from room to room looking for my mother’s hiding places.

  While I was in the laundry, I heard him splutter and mumble and I froze, waiting. Counting. He started snoring again and I let out a breath and left.

  I went through the empty allotment full of weeds and across the park to the main street. I waited until the dinner trade died down before crossing the road. There were two fish and chip takeaways in town and I went to the one owned by Greeks because they made the best chips. I ordered cod and chips with the tenner I’d found hidden behind the bleach bottle in the laundry and sat at one of the tables outside, farthest from the road. Two men went inside to place an order, then took the table next to mine. For a second, I thought one of them was a mate of my father’s, but then I recognised them as fishermen. My father hated fishermen.

  ‘Met young Floyd the other night,’ one of them said.

  I smiled at their reference to the ‘young’ Floyd considering he was probably their age.

  ‘Seems all right, aye?’

  ‘Time’ll tell. Vera reckons he lost his wife and son a few years back. House fire or something. Nearly broke the poor bastard apparently.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘Can’t understand him living up there on his own.’

  ‘It’s only up the hill. It’s not like he’s in the middle of nowhere.’

  ‘Still. Too lonely when you’ve got nothing to think about except what’s gone.’

  I wasn’t sure I agreed. I could think of plenty of times when I’d been completely happy to be left on my own.

  When my number was called, I ducked inside and then headed for the dunes.

  Later, when I went home, the house was in darkness. I let myself in the front door, tiptoeing so I wouldn’t be heard over the low hum of the TV. My father always had the volume low when he was drunk because he thought everyone was shouting at him. He’d obviously found a drink somewhere. He’d be passed out by now and I let out a sigh, allowed myself to relax. Just a little.

  I was weaving through the dining room when a hand clipped me upside the head.

  ‘Where’ve you been, you filthy little fucker?’

  Stunned, I couldn’t form a word.

  ‘Can’t talk? Some good that school’s doin’ ya. Can’t even string a sentence together.’ His closeness was pungent. Sweat and oniony body odour mixed with stale beer and tobac
co. ‘Liven up, boy.’ He grabbed me by the throat and slammed me against the wall. ‘I’ll ask you one more time. Where’ve you been?’

  I choked out an answer but wasn’t even sure what I said. I pissed my pants a little and looked anywhere but into his eyes. He released me and I dropped to the floor, breathing out. His boot got me in the stomach and I screamed.

  #

  My mother returned on a day when the sun shone so brilliantly it hurt your eyes. I watched her walk up the drive, fresh from the one o’clock train, her new dress swishing around her legs. Her hair had been curled and she smiled in a way that I knew she’d talked at least a grand out of her parents.

  Suddenly, I was pissed at her for not taking me. My birthday had passed and the bruising on my face and neck hadn’t yet faded. She pulled me into a heavily perfumed hug, then dragged me inside to show me what she’d bought. While I stared, dumb-witted, at the second-hand jeans and shirts that would probably be too small for me, I saw her hand my father a wad of notes which he shoved into his pocket before returning his attention to the TV.

  When I turned back to her, the smile she gave me was cryptic and I told her I had to go out.

  ‘Don’t be late for dinner,’ she called after me.

  She hadn’t once mentioned my birthday.

  #

  After I choked down rubbery macaroni and cheese, I cleared the table and started the dishes while my mother ushered my father into the lounge room with a fresh beer and a bowl of ice cream. I heard her sweet talking him, asking him if he liked her new dress. He mumbled something and she giggled. I slammed a saucepan into the water, splashing myself and the floor. Suds dripped from my face as I scrubbed furiously.

  She returned to the kitchen and leaned against the counter, watching me work while she told me all about her time in the city. I half listened, wishing she’d go away, wishing I was far away. During a loud ad break, she leaned in close and held out a knife.