From a Distance (14 page)

‘Get out and live’ was a line of hers, liberally scattered among employees, friends and the young interns who came to work for Lighthouse Fabric.

A woman entered the churchyard and walked slowly up the gravel path to a seat close to the smaller west door. She sat down and opened a book, which she used as a plate for her sandwich as she unwrapped it. Her bare legs were pale, open-toed sandals suggesting she’d got dressed expecting sunshine. Kit wondered what she did, where she lived, who her family were. Crooked gravestones marked the path, becoming bigger the nearer they were to the church. Outside the door, tombs like moored boats floated in the grass. Was that woman related to someone buried here? Was it a kinship that brought her in the rain for her lunch hour? She had an umbrella up now, and had spread a navy blue nylon jacket across her bare legs. He tripped over the edge of the path, dropping the lighthouse key, ‘Oh bollocks.’ The expletive shot out of him. Guiltily he glanced at her. She had folded her crisp packet, and now left, without looking at Kit again.

He moved to the porch and sat down against the cool plaster wall. The air was laced with a mushroomy aroma Kit liked. It smelled of the studio, the distempered walls. He’d grown up as much in his mother’s studio as at home. He stared at the vaulted ceiling. A carved angel hung at its apex, painted bright gold like a cornfield, button bright eyes suggesting a recent restoration job. Probably, given the red circles on the cheeks and the rosebud mouth, it had been carried out by a small child with a few felt-tip pens. Kit was curiously peaceful. He hadn’t realised he was going to have to find room in his life for anything extra, but on balance, it still felt like an adventure. His life, though he was reluctant to admit it, was small. He had his work, he had his house and he had his friends, but he didn’t have any surprises back in Cornwall. The lighthouse had come along and flashed its beam on his future prospects. Just in time. It hadn’t seemed real to him, but now, here it was, and he was holding the key. Time to go and claim the lighthouse. That was what he was here for.

Kings Sloley stood on a cliff edge at the most northern point of the rim of Norfolk. It hadn’t always been on the edge, of course, but nature had decided to focus a destructive force on this particular curve of coastline. Threatened by coastal erosion, Kit had read in a guidebook in his bed and breakfast, a village committee funded by the National Lottery worked tirelessly, Canute-like, against the encroaching sea. Quite what they did was unclear from the literature and, as Kit drove, he found himself abandoning his pre-formed plan to keep himself to himself and even before he had arrived was imagining how he could help. He had experience of this battle between man and the ragged defences he erected against the sea. At home in Cornwall, the widows of the village near where he lived knitted and baked for the benefit of the harbour walls, while the sea crashed against them with the lunatic abandon of a violent drunk.

Aware that knowledge is power, but also somewhat self-conscious, as his landlady danced attentively around him with eggs, bacon, toast and darting comments that suggested she had wildly mistaken views about him and thought he was a famous film star looking for a bolthole, Kit had read a lot of local information over breakfast this morning in between fielding a wide-ranging array of questions.

Mrs Black tweaked the curtain in the small dining room a fraction wider, and Kit’s car parked in the driveway loomed. ‘That’s a big car,’ she observed. ‘Do you usually have a driver?’

‘Not often.’ Receiving his plate of eggs, bacon, sausage, tomato and fried bread, Kit marvelled as he always did in this situation, at the lavish spread offered. On holiday anywhere in Britain you really didn’t need to bother about lunch.

‘You’ll notice a lot of people with fancy cameras, big lenses, you know the sort of thing,’ Mrs Black poured tea into Kit’s cup with a flourish.

‘Really?’

‘Yes, but don’t worry, they’re birdwatchers, twitchers mostly, and they don’t do any harm.’

‘I won’t worry,’ Kit agreed. ‘Do you know Kings Sloley at all, Mrs Black?’

She leaned over him to look at the pamphlet he had been reading, and parked herself for contemplation, her chest level with his eyes. ‘In Your Face’ was a phrase that sprang to mind.

‘Nice those cliffs, aren’t they?’ The heat of her body emanated through her spotty apron and warmed his cheek. Kit fought rising, slightly panicky laughter, and turned it into a cough and a chance to move away.

Mrs Black picked up the teapot and poured another cup for him. ‘The poppies are a real landmark. I should think you could set one of those big weepie films here couldn’t you?’ Her eyebrows arched in anticipation. ‘I saw a film being made up there a while back, but it turned out to be just a promotion for the railway line.’

She began to clear plates. Kit was not about to get any practical instruction from her, he would have to see for himself.

The road snaked east along the coast from Blythe, through the gorse-ridden heathland, and on to cliffs, crumbling and pale as shortbread above the glittering North Sea. The rain had stopped and through the open car window Kit caught the gorse’s spring aroma of coconut, a scent he still associated with the cheap suntan oil of his youth. Sunshine, the sea, and the faint whiff of sex, all here in front of him. His spirit broke through the layer of mild anxiety he had been aware of since arriving, and soared. This was going to be fun. He hadn’t exactly been looking for new challenges, but he had never been one to let them pass him by. He felt renewed. And excited.

In Kings Sloley, he now knew, was a primary school, a pub, a shop and post office. How did the lighthouse fit in the hierarchy of all this chocolate-box stuff? A quiet village would be a good background to this chapter of his life. It might be quite a short chapter. He wasn’t sure of the market value of such things, but the notion of selling the lighthouse and buying a little house in Greece had crossed his mind more than once. Swimming in the Aegean was a compelling alternative if this lighthouse business was all hard work. After all, he didn’t have to keep it. One thing was certain: in a lighthouse, he was going to be visible. He wasn’t quite sure how things worked, but it seemed that if he so much as switched on a light to go to the lavatory, the whole coastline would know about it.

He passed a cluster of cottages, a row of terraced houses and then a farmhouse, thatched, the walls lime-washed soft grey, an apple tree blushing with pink blossom as its boughs curtseyed to the ground. Two stone sheep looked foolish on the gateposts.

‘The sunny side of the street.’ Billie Holiday singing the blues, accompanied by Lester Young’s liquid saxophone poured out of the speakers, and spilled into Kit’s excitement, trumpeting his adventure. It was like something out of a novel. He remembered the paperback he had picked up from the house before he left Cornwall, Virginia Woolf’s
To the Lighthouse
. The book’s title was familiar to him, he’d always assumed it was the reason his mother had named her company ‘Lighthouse Fabric’, feminist solidarity, the Bloomsbury group and all that. It made sense but he’d never read it. He probably wouldn’t now, he’d never been keen on those novels about nothing much, and they didn’t even ever get to the lighthouse, or so someone had told him. The book had presented itself to him, in that he saw it on the bookshelf the night before he left home, so he had brought it with him. He hadn’t notice that it was inscribed until he’d dropped it when unpacking at his B&B.

The words, in black ink on the flyleaf read:
‘I still dream of you, M. 1956’

His phone rang. He pressed the button to put it on speakerphone.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello, is that Kit Delaware?’

‘Yes, speaking.’ His phone showed almost no signal, he moved it to try and hear better.

‘I’m Luisa—’ her voice cut out.

Kit interrupted the silence. ‘Sorry, it’s a bad line, I can hardly hear you.’

‘Oh. Okay. I’ll shout. I’m LUISA. We’re neighbours of yours. Sort of. I was given your number by Charles Rivett’s secretary. She’s a dog-walking friend of mine. Well, she’s not a dog-walker, I mean she’s a friend of mine and we walk our dogs together. Sometimes.’

She broke off, sighing, and muttered something else Kit couldn’t hear.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t follow?’ Kit wondered what the point of this call was. Did this woman think he had a dog? ‘I haven’t got a dog,’ he said.

‘Really, what a shame. There are some puppies almost ready to go, they’re about five miles away. That reminds me, I promised I’d go and look at them this week.’

Luisa sounded vibrant and attractive. Kit was curious, but he didn’t need a dog. ‘That’s very kind, but I think I’ll leave it for now,’ he said.

Luisa laughed. ‘I’m so sorry, I got carried away. I would love everyone I know to have one, so I thought .
.
. Oh dear, where did we get to?’

Kit tried to imagine what she looked like. Lots of hair, laughing eyes, attractive. Cheerful and not all droopy and depressed like Virginia Woolf. Was she married? Probably. She said ‘we’.

‘You were talking about walking your dog,’ he said.

‘Oh. Sorry, I was sidetracked. So sorry. What I meant to say was that I understand the lighthouse is your property now and I have to apologise. Some of Jason Tye’s Houdini sheep have escaped into your field. Honestly, they never stop escaping. Anyway, I’ve only just been told and I’m not sure how much damage they’ve done, and I’m on my way but my car’s blocked in by those people who are digging a tunnel all the way through Norfolk and – Oh! Here comes someone, and they’re moving all the traffic. I’m on my way. Are you still there?’

Kit had let the car drift to a halt in the middle of the road so engrossed had he been by Luisa. Sheep, more bloody sheep. What was it with Norfolk and the sheep? Though if they weren’t hers, why did she care? Perhaps she was a professional shepherdess? It was more than he had hoped for, but she seemed to be planning an imminent arrival at the lighthouse. His lighthouse.

He tried to sound nonchalant. ‘Yes, I’m here, well, almost. But please don’t worry, there’s no need to come all the way here—’ He stopped himself from turning her away. What was he thinking of? He didn’t want to put her off. Here was a chance to start meeting people, to make some friends. ‘Yes, perhaps you should come, could you? I’m not sure.’

Luckily she hadn’t noticed his feeble wavering, she was bubbling with excitement and apology, and from the sound of crashing gears, she was under way and driving badly. ‘No, no, of course I’ll come, and actually, we are really quite close neighbours, just a few miles. They aren’t my sheep but I feel responsible and embarrassed. We’ve all been so excited to hear that the lighthouse has a new owner at last, and now we’ve already behaved badly. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Are you in?’

Amazing. Who said life was slow in the countryside? Luckily this woman was talkative, as Kit was almost speechless.

‘In? No. I mean yes. Almost. I’ve actually never been there and I’m just arriving with the key now.’

His new confidant was delighted. ‘Oh that’s thrilling. You’ve never been there? You must be so excited. I’ll first foot you or whatever it’s called. You know the old custom? I think I need some coal. Or sugar. I’ll stop at the Spar shop. I can’t remember which it is, so I’ll get both. See you in a minute.’

‘Isn’t first footing something you do at Hogmanay? In Scotland?’ Kit was speaking into a silent phone, she had gone. He laughed. Whistling cheerily, Kit pressed the accelerator swerving through the narrow lanes and round a final hairpin bend. ‘Christ!’ he hissed, and almost crashed the car. There was the lighthouse, towering in front of him, larger than life, stripier than he’d imagined, and utterly unreal. It had shot out of a hazy blue field, and the red stripes were hot and bold. There was nothing close by to give it any perspective, the lighthouse dominated the flat fields that rolled away to a group of cottages and houses. The bizarre contrasts of scale reminded Kit of Venice, and the sudden presence of cruise ships, colossal like painted backdrops behind the ancient buildings. Even for someone used to the biscuit-tin beauty of the Cornish coast, Kings Sloley was lovely. The cliffs stippled with poppies tumbled to a sliver of beach, the edge serrated by the bite of the incoming tide.

Walking up to the front door, Kit felt as though he was in a film, or a children’s story. Maybe he should have read that Virginia Woolf book after all, it might have given him a clue on what to expect. Pitted and gnarled with the sheen of age to the touch, the oak door had patterns carved into it, and looked as if it belonged in a church. The key made sense now. Kit held his breath as he inserted it. The door swung open and, as if on cue, four sheep charged up from the garden beyond, bleating hysterically.

Kit groaned, half laughing. ‘Sheep? Again? Christ, what do you want? Why are there sheep everywhere I go?’ It was like being in some warped nursery rhyme. All he needed now, he reflected, was Miss Muffet in the kitchen eating curds and whey. Whatever they might be. He supposed there must be a kitchen. One of the sheep skipped on to the threshold and trotted into the hallway. ‘Come on then, show me round,’ said Kit, and stepped inside. As he did so, he felt a pang of loss that could be fathomless if he gave it the chance. ‘It’s a bit bloody late now,’ he said to himself. One of the sheep was chewing a mouthful of something bushy and gazing up at him. Really he could do without them.

‘Shoo?’ he suggested. Another one jostled forward, something in her tone suggesting dissatisfaction. Kit decided her name was Virginia. Perhaps he was the Woolf?