The Last Lighthouse Keeper

by Alan Titchmarsh

  Will backed out of the doorway and on to Florence Nightingale’s rope-strewn deck. Aitch thrust a mug of coffee into his hand and asked, “How’s the restoration coming on, eh?”

  “Slowly. I’ve had a plumber in to sort out the water, and I’m just cleaning up the engines. I reckon I can do some of the work myself – I’ve found an old manual. I’m trying to save as much as I can for the hull repairs.”

  “Mmm.” Aitch cast his eye over Boy Jack. “She’ll clean up well. Good lines. I probably won’t be here by the time you finish, though.”

  “Oh?”

  “No. Got to set off soon. Moving back to Devon. “S where my family came from. Going to Dartmouth or Salcombe. Spend a while there.”

  “And then what?”

  “No idea. Mr Micawber had the right attitude. Something’ll turn up.” He sipped reflectively at the coffee, his eyes misty. “Well, I’ll let you get on. Chuck the mug back when you’ve done. I’ve got a telescope to fix. Early one. Probably used by Nelson!” He winked at Will and disappeared whistling ‘Rule Britannia’.

  Back on Boy Jack, Spike, who had been absent all morning, returned with another fish. “If you keep pinching the fishermen’s catch we’ll be thrown out of here. Go and eat it where no one can see you.” Spike rubbed along Will’s legs, then lay down in a coil of rope in the pulpit and began to chew off the head of his prey. “You know, you’re really quite disgusting,” Will muttered. “How we’re going to live together in this old wreck I have no idea.”

  A mooring warp groaned. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. You might be a wreck now but in a few weeks – or months – you’ll be fine.” The rope groaned again under the wash of the tide. “Honest.”

  Seven

  Lizard

  Amy Finn’s first week at the studio had been quiet. She’d had a few locals sniffing round, but more to find out what this girl who had rented the old capstan house was really like than to invest in her works of art. Some had politely taken their time, going to the trouble of feigning an interest in her work, others had darted in and out in the space of a couple of minutes. She’d had one or two enquiries about her paintings, a few tuts from village matrons at the erotic sculptures, and a few more from those who thought her sea views were overpriced.

  Three hundred, thought Amy, is not a lot. Really it isn’t. By Thursday night the cello was singing out the Elgar concerto, and by Friday afternoon she was feeling dispirited.

  The arrival of a middle-aged London spiv with his candy-floss-haired floozy in tow did nothing to cheer her, and she busied herself quietly with a spot of framing while they looked around, surprised when the floozy made nice noises about the driftwood sculptures. Trudie persuaded her other half that one of them would look good in the hallway of their house up the hill and Jerry MacDermott pulled out a wad of notes, peeled off three fifties and handed them to Amy with a flourish.

  “About the paintings…”

  “Yes?” Amy was hopeful of a sale.

  “A word of advice.”

  “Yes?” She was less hopeful.

  “Get a few in that really look like the sea, eh? Might be interested then. Bit simple, these. Bright. But simple. Still, we’ll pop back and see how you’re goin’ in a week or two. We’ll need some pictures and it’s nice to patronize local talent. Take care, sunshine. Ta-ta.”

  Amy stood open-mouthed as they departed, then looked at the notes in her hand and walked over to the cash desk. As she slipped the money into the drawer she admonished herself: “It is not up to you to tell them what they like, Amy, just provide them with what they want.” She looked up at one of her paintings. “Get a few that really look like the sea…” Then she laughed, a brief, ironic sound, before going back to her frame, expecting to be undisturbed for the next half-hour.

  She cleaned a pane of glass, cut a new cardboard mount with a craft knife and was just about to frame a print of Lamorna Cove when the door opened again. She turned round to offer a greeting to her customer, but as soon as she saw his face she found herself lost for words.

  He looked at her with a casual smile, exuding a mixture of self-satisfaction and arrogance. “Hallo, Ame!”

  The hairs on the back of her neck bristled. She could not find her voice.

  “Surprised?” He looked at her with one eyebrow raised.

  She tried to answer but could not, then managed, “How did you…”

  “Know you were here? Find you? I asked a few questions. Simple really.” He was dressed entirely in black, his chiselled features emphasized by a polo-neck sweater under a black jacket. He leaned casually against the side of the door.

  “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Yes, I should. I wanted to see you. And, anyway, you’ve got my sculptures.” He pointed to the two erotic figures in the centre of the floor.

  “I’m selling them. I don’t want them any more.”

  “You can’t sell them. They’re us.” He looked irritated, his pride wounded.

  “That’s why I don’t want them.” Having turned pale at the sight of him, the colour now rose in her cheeks and fire leapt into her heart. “How dare you come back? How dare you find me here? You have no right to come barging in…” She ran out of words.

  “I opened the door. It wasn’t locked. I didn’t barge, I stepped.” The words were heavily overlaid with sarcasm.

  “But why?” Her voice cracked. Desperation and sadness were now mixed with the anger: desperation at not being free of the clutches of the man she had tried to wipe from her life, sadness at his continuing interference, and anger at her own feeble response to his persistent harassment.

  “What do you mean, why? It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

  Her eyes rose heavenward. “Please go away, Oliver. Please, please, go away.”

  He walked towards her and placed his hands on her upper arms. She turned her head away from him.

  “Look at me.”

  She strained her head even further away.

  “Look at me, Ame!” He shook her, pressing his fingers into her flesh, and she turned to him. His nearness made her heart beat faster. His face had a strength and beauty that made her weak.

  He spoke softly now. “I want to see you. I need to see you. Come on!” He shook her again. “Why did you run away?” He sighed impatiently. “Your knee will mend, you know. Why won’t you believe in yourself? If you really want to we can dance again. You just have to want to. Why won’t you?” He lifted a hand and stroked her hair. She turned her cheek and winced.

  “We can’t…I can’t find it…”

  “Why?” Oliver Gallico was even more insistent.

  “Because – because I’ve had enough.” He pressed himself closer to her and a wave of fear overwhelmed her. “I don’t want this any more. I’m so tired of…being tired. Hurt and tired.” She let out a sob. All strength seemed to be leaving her. She was trying hard not to resign herself to the usual course of events. The trying to escape and the failure to get far enough away. Her inability to shake him off. His inability to understand that she really did want to escape. She thought that down here, at the edge of the world, she might at last have eluded him but she should have known he would find her, would persuade some young dancer desperate for promotion to wheedle Amy’s whereabouts out of her friends.

  She felt so hopeless, so fatigued by it all. Perhaps unhappiness and frustration were to be her lot. The prospect shook her. She lifted her arms and flung off his hands. “Just go. It’s too late. I’m not here for you any more. You can’t keep behaving like this.”

  He looked at her disbelievingly, and had begun to approach her again when a rattling sound surprised him.

  Amy turned and saw Will standing in the doorway. “Can I come in?”

  “Yes. This gentleman was just going.”

  “I’m not,” he said defiantly.

  “Yes, you are.”

  He looked hard at her, but Amy stood her ground. Gallico shrugged and walked to the door. “Your loss.” At the thres
hold he turned. “I’ll see you later.” He glanced expressionlessly at Will, then back at Amy before stepping out into the street and closing the door silently behind him.

  Will watched him go, then turned to Amy. Thoughts whirled around in his head. What had happened? Who was the man? What had he done to Amy? He blurted out, “What was all that about? Are you OK?”

  “No, I’m not OK.” There was anger in her voice, then apology. “I’m sorry. Yes, I’m fine. I think. Funny, I thought I could make a new life here and my old one has just caught up with me.” She sniffed, and tried to smile, feeling in her pockets for a tissue. Will handed her a slightly oily one. She thanked him and blew her nose.

  “Do you want some tea?” he asked. It was feeble, but it always seemed to work in The Archers.

  “No, thanks, I couldn’t.” And then, “Oh, yes. Why not.”

  “Come on. Upstairs.” He motioned her to the staircase then stepped to the door, shot the bolt, turned round the Open sign to read Closed and pulled down the blind before following her to the apartment above.

  “You picked a good time to come in.” She smiled at him.

  “I’m not sure I did.” He filled the kettle and switched it on, then gathered together the cups, milk and teabags.

  “Oh, you did. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t.”

  “So you do know him?”

  “Oh, yes. All too well. He’s been in my life for eleven years. Eleven years,” she repeated, as though she could not believe it herself. “Eleven years of torture, one way or another.”

  She made the tea, and then, as she carried a mug over to him, she explained, “His name is Oliver Gallico. He’s the artistic director of the Ballet d’Azur.”

  “I should have guessed that. He looks the part.”

  “And acts it. He’d be funny if he wasn’t so serious. He’s so up himself it’s not true. When I first met him he was with Rambert. A soloist. Brilliant. Drop-dead good looks, an amazing dancer. He took a shine to me. We started dancing together and then we became lovers, off and on – more off than on for me. He was arrogant – is arrogant – but I could cope with that. He has such a tremendous talent. I tried not to love him but you know what it’s like.” She looked at Will, half smiling and almost apologetic. “You can’t always love the people you feel you should love.”

  “No,” he said quietly.

  “Anyway, it was pretty intense. But he started getting violent. Nothing serious at first, just heavy-handed. He’s very strong – beautifully made,” she said, ruefully, but Will caught the sparkle in her eyes. “Then it began to get out of hand. He’d really hurt me when we were…you know. He never struck me or anything, it was just a sort of rough brutality. I wasn’t physically strong enough to stand up to it. I used to hurt for days afterwards.”

  Will was appalled and saddened by what he was hearing. “The bastard,” he said softly, his face suffused with fury.

  “Then he’d say things about me that really hurt. God, it sounds so pathetic. He’d tell me about other dancers in the company. About what they had that I hadn’t got. It was clear that I wasn’t the only woman in his life.” She paused and sipped her tea, leaning against the wall.

  Will looked at her incredulously. “Why didn’t you leave?”

  “I was trapped. Mesmerized. Under his spell – whatever you want to call it. I wanted to dance with him – had to dance with him. Then he decided to leave and set up his own company. Couldn’t bear to be told what to do by other people. He asked me to go with him. I said no, that I wanted to stay with Rambert. I think I knew by then that I had to get away. Finally I saw my opportunity. But he wore me down. Pitiful, isn’t it? Why didn’t I just tell him to sod off? I wish I knew.”

  “So you went with him?”

  “Not at first. Only after a few months. I didn’t seem to be getting anywhere with Rambert. My dancing had lost its spark. To tell the truth I missed the excitement of his company. We were great together. Some kind of telepathy, two people dancing as one. You can’t make that happen, however good a dancer you are. Either it’s there or it isn’t. The technique can be brilliant, but if there’s no chemistry the result is soulless. I’ve never felt elation – exhilaration – like I felt when we danced together.” Her cheeks were colouring, her eyes glowed. Then she talked of her injury, the evaporation of confidence that followed and his unbearable lack of feeling and disdain at her inability to dance with him. His suggestion that her weakness had ruined his career.

  “But he’s still in your life?”

  “He wants to be. He doesn’t believe my career is over. Says that a meniscectomy isn’t the end. That I could come back if I believed in myself enough to work it through. Other dancers have had the same injury and gone back. I also think he feels I owe him something. He still directs Ballet d’Azur but he rarely dances. He says he doesn’t want to dance with anybody else. Instead he sculpts. Those two are his.” She pointed to the writhing figures in the centre of the studio. “They’re supposed to be him and me. I can’t bear to look at them so I thought I’d try and sell them to make some money. But I think I’ll just cover them up and stick them in a back room. They don’t seem to have brought me much luck.”

  “Do you think he’ll come back?”

  “Oh, I know he will.”

  He put his hands on her shoulders. She noticed the difference in touch between his hands and Oliver’s. The strength was there, but the contact was lighter. “You know where I am. If you have any trouble come round whenever you like. You shouldn’t have to feel like this.”

  She looked up at the slight, dark man before her, whose own life had been torn apart by tragedy. There he stood, in a fisherman’s sweater several sizes too big for him, his bare feet showing above the deck shoes beneath a worn pair of sailing trousers.

  “Thank you. You’re very kind.” She smiled into his eyes. Yesterday she had almost believed she had finally escaped the past; today she seemed manacled to it.

  “I’ll go,” he said gently. “Thanks for the tea. Just let me know if I can do anything.”

  “I will. Thanks.” She shot him another smile and he felt a surge of protectiveness.

  “By the way, what did you come for?” she asked.

  “I brought the rest of the boats. There are five.” He picked up the bubble-wrapped parcels from just inside the door where he had left them. “I thought they’d be safer here than with me while all the work’s going on. Has anyone shown any interest in the other?”

  “Not yet, but they will. It’s only been a few days, and we’ve the weekend ahead of us now. Just watch this space.”

  “I will. And don’t forget, you know where I am.”

  Eight

  Mumbles

  Saturday lunchtime in the Salutation was not the time for a quiet, contemplative drink. While not exactly heaving this early in the season, it was still thronged with locals aware that soon their time would not be their own. Pencurnow Cove fell short of being a tourist honeypot in summer, but it relied more heavily now on day-trippers than it had in the past, thanks to its dwindling fishing fleet.

  Over the past couple of years the number of ships in glass cases inside the pub had grown as the fleet declined outside. The place had seen an influx of decorative glass floats, fishing nets, binnacles and brass telegraphs, but it had still not shed the seediness of a former life. The ashtrays were too full and the lavatories too malodorous for the ladies, which meant that the clientele in the off-season was predominantly male.

  Ted Whistler leaned over one end of the bar, ordered his customary pint and lit his Camel cigarette, drawing the rich mixture deep into his perished lungs. The reason for Ted’s profound personal sorrow was lost in the mists of time. He’d probably even forgotten himself. He was, and always had been, a miserable sod whose glass was always half empty rather than half full.

  A trio of fishermen muttered in desultory fashion at the other end of the bar, while the landlord Alf Penrose attended to the wants o
f an increasing number of customers, his pint pulling only slightly impeded by the size of his gut, the legacy of a lifetime spent drinking ullage.

  By the time Len Gryler arrived he had to shoulder his way to the bar. “Pint of best, landlord,” he shouted, over the swelling din. “And a lager for the lad.” Christopher Applebee slouched over to the pin-ball machine.

  The landlord looked round, nodded to acknowledge the order, while serving a cycling couple who had rashly committed themselves to one of his cholesterol specials, extravagantly described on the menu as Mixed Grill.

  Had each of his creations carried an indication of the amount of saturated fat they contained this one would have warranted a public health warning. He pushed a note of the order through the hatch at the back of the bar, from which steam, the noise of an impatient cook and the fragrance of burning oil emanated in rich mixture, then waddled over to the pumps and pulled Gryler his pint.

  “How’s trade?” he enquired of his maritime regular.

  “Not bad, not bad.”

  “I should think you’re quids in, aren’t you, after selling that rotting hulk?”

  “What do you mean, ‘rotting hulk’? That’s a seaworthy vessel of historical importance, that is. Rescued hundreds from Dunkirk during the war. Only wish I’d known that at the time. Might have got a bit more for her.”

  “More? Dream on!” Penrose smiled.

  “So how’s the ex-lighthouse keeper?” Gryler asked of the hunched figure next to him at the bar.

  “No better for you asking,” replied Whistler, pulling on his pint.

  “Your mate’s a damn sight more cheerful than you are.”

  “Huh. I don’t know why. He’s got no reason to be.”

  “Well, at least he’s keeping himself busy doing that boat up. Can’t let yerself slide.” Whatever accusations were levelled at Gryler (and there were a goodly number) indolence was not on the list. A rogue he might be, but he was a busy one. “‘Ere! Sunshine! Yer lager’s ready!” he roared across the bar. Young Applebee waved acknowledgement without turning round, evidently at some crucial point in his pin-ball wizardry.