Secrets of the Lighthouse (6 page)

She sank into the sofa and stared at the fire thoughtfully. She knew she owed William more than a text – and she should really have been clearer. ‘I need to get away and have some
time to think’ was not synonymous with: ‘I don’t love you so I don’t want to marry you.’ The date of the wedding was set for June, almost five months away. The Church
of the Immaculate Conception at Farm Street was booked for Saturday 22nd and the reception at Claridges afterwards gave her mother an excuse to lunch there weekly with Mr Smeaman, the oleaginous
events manager. She had already made an appointment with Sarah Burton, who had designed the Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding dress, because Madeline Trawton insisted she wanted a creation no
less beautiful for her eldest daughter, although Ellen was quick to recognize that it had more to do with impressing her friends than pleasing her child. Leonora and Lavinia had both enjoyed lavish
weddings, but when all was said and done, the brides had taken second place to their mother who had shone more radiantly than the two of them put together.

While Ellen ruminated on her predicament and Peg and Oswald played cards in the bay window, Jack began to squawk from the tallboy. ‘Kak-Kak,’ he went, frantically pacing the ledge
where he perched. Then Mr Badger lifted his head and pricked his ears. He stiffened as if every one of his senses was alert to something only a dog can perceive. Ellen watched him absent-mindedly
at first and then with growing interest. He began to wag his tail and follow some unseen thing with his eyes, as if it wandered about the room. Then he whined excitedly, his tail thumping on the
cushions. It was all most curious, but neither Oswald nor Peg seemed to notice. Ellen pushed herself up from her seat and knelt on the carpet to stroke him. He glanced at her a moment,
acknowledging her presence, but was immediately distracted again by the unseen entity.

‘Aunt Peg, have a look at Jack and Mr Badger,’ she said. ‘They’re behaving very strangely.’

Aunt Peg glanced over and grinned. ‘They’re a little eccentric, I’m afraid.’

‘It’s the fairies,’ said Oswald, without taking his eyes off his hand of cards.

Peg shook her head. ‘Don’t you go scaring my niece, she’s only just arrived. I won’t have her fleeing back to London from the spooks.’

‘If it’s a spook, it’s a friendly one,’ said Ellen. Then, as Jack flew out of the room, she added, ‘I can’t vouch for your bird, but Mr Badger likes it. Look
how he follows it with his eyes.’

‘Dogs like fairies,’ Oswald commented with an air of authority. ‘But they’re not so partial to leprechauns.’

‘Are you going to make your move, Oswald, or are we going to sit here and talk rubbish?’

He dealt his card. ‘There, old girl, that’ll put you in your place.’

Ellen stroked Mr Badger’s face and soon he calmed down and put his head between his paws. He closed his eyes and sighed heavily before drifting off to sleep beneath the rhythmic motion of
her touch.

Ellen wondered what it was that had excited him so much. She didn’t believe in fairies and leprechauns, but thought it quite natural that there should be ghosts. ‘How old is this
house?’ she asked her aunt.

‘Oh, it was built in the early eighteenth century,’ Peg replied.

‘So there might be ghosts?’

‘I told you, my dear, there are fairies. Lots of fairies,’ Oswald retorted before guffawing loudly. ‘There, you see,
that
was a clever move of mine, wasn’t it,
Peg!’

‘Anyone died in here that you know of ?’ Ellen persisted. Neither Oswald nor Peg responded and she was too gripped by the idea of the house being haunted to notice Peg’s
fingers hover hesitantly over her cards. ‘It’s quite possible, isn’t it, that you might have a resident ghost?’

‘I don’t believe in ghosts,’ Peg replied sharply. Then she added in a quiet voice, ‘People who see ghosts see them because they
want
to see them. It’s that
wanting that makes them see and hear things that aren’t there. Tricks of the mind. Mr Badger goes off after a speck of dust glinting in the light or a fly so small you can’t see it.
Don’t be fooled by Oswald’s tales of fairies, Ireland’s gone to his head. I don’t want to hear such nonsense. Why don’t you go and find a book to read, there are
plenty in the library next door.’

Ellen realized she had touched a nerve and she was sorry. She got up and wandered out, leaving her aunt and Oswald at their card table. She heard them talking in low voices as she walked down
the corridor, then all was quiet in the little library except for the ticking of an old grandfather clock.

It was a small room with two walls of bookshelves, a window at the far end with a desk positioned in front of it, and on the adjacent wall a big open fireplace that was dark
and cold. Rugs were laid over the carpet and a coffee table was placed in the middle of the room covered in haphazard piles of magazines and books. It smelt of the remains of smoke embedded in the
curtains and fabrics. The floor creaked as Ellen walked over to the bookcase in search of something inspiring. She hadn’t imagined anyone lived in this day and age without a television. How
did her aunt keep in touch with the world? She ran her eyes along the spines until she came across a title that appealed to her:
Castles of Ireland
. It wasn’t a novel but it
didn’t matter. She flicked through it, reading the headings at the top of every page. It was a history of castles, some of them ruins, some intact, with beautiful glossy pictures. Her
curiosity mounted. There was nothing she found more romantic than a ruin.

The cockerel crowed at dawn, but Ellen was already awake. From her bedroom window she could see the lighthouse more clearly now. Part of its white outer shell remained, eerie
in the feeble light of morning, but the blackened bones were exposed like the charred ribs of an old ship, exposed to the wind and gulls who dared venture there. She stood at the glass and stared
at it for a long while. There was something compelling about the sight of neglect and it made her feel quite melancholy. It pulled at her in the same way ruined castles did, and she longed to know
how the girl had died and why she had been there.

The sea was as smooth as satin, the rocks seemingly benign in the peace of the awakening earth. The silence was a novelty for Ellen, who was used to the noise of the city, but she felt it
creeping over her, as soft as down, and for a moment she lost herself in the landscape. Her thoughts quietened, her head grew light, and she existed in the moment, sensing the infinite in the
still, timeless panorama.

Then she heard the clatter of Peg in the kitchen downstairs, the scampering of paws and the grunting of the pig. The front door opened and Ellen watched her aunt leave the house with Bertie and
Mr Badger, who sniffed the ground excitedly and cocked his leg against the fence. Peg strode across the field in a heavy brown coat and boots, a woolly hat pulled low over her forehead, a large
black bucket in her gloved hand. She looked as if she could roll down the hill if she wanted to.

It was strange to think that Peg shared the same DNA as Ellen’s mother, who was slender, immaculately dressed and polished. Madeline Trawton had her hair blow-dried at a chic Chelsea
hairdresser three times a week, and regular manicures and facials. Ellen didn’t imagine Aunt Peg had ever had a manicure, let alone a facial. She cut a solitary figure, slightly hunched, as
round as a Christmas pudding, and Ellen was surprised to feel so fond of a woman she barely knew. She watched her counting sheep and then whistling loudly, her breath rising like smoke on the cold
morning air. Ellen thought she was whistling for the dog, but a moment later a shaggy grey donkey trotted up over the lip of the hill. When he reached Peg, he thrust his nose into the bucket and
let her stroke his head and ears affectionately. The sheep gathered around her too, until Mr Badger sprang into action, fending them away jealously. One sheep with a rather long neck resisted Mr
Badger’s shepherding and pushed his soft, woolly body closer to Peg. Ellen thought he looked very strange until she realized that he wasn’t a sheep at all but a llama, and she smiled at
the eccentricity of her aunt and wondered what her mother would make of her.

At the thought of her mother she moved away from the window and lifted her iPhone out of her handbag. She switched it on and waited for the messages to download. Her heart began to race and the
anxiety she had felt in London returned to dispel the peace she had enjoyed only moments before. She began to sweat as the messages pinged in: texts, emails and onto the answering machine. News
must have spread, she deduced. She glanced at them fearfully. William, her mother, her father who usually remained detached from domestic strife, Leonora and Lavinia, Emily and her large group of
girlfriends, had all tried to get in touch with her one way or another. She felt a wave of panic. It was overwhelming. This is what she had escaped London to avoid: people,
countless
people, telling her how she should live her life. She wished they’d all go away.

With a rising sense of claustrophobia she hurriedly pulled on her jeans and sweater. She thrust her telephone into her back pocket and ran down the stairs, two steps at a time. Ignoring
Peg’s row of rubber boots, she wriggled her feet into her leather ones and threw on her fake-fur jacket. Once she was outside, the cold air hit her face and burned her lungs, bringing her to
her senses with a jolt. Why hadn’t she done this earlier, she asked herself crossly. She strode over the gravel and climbed the gate into the field where Peg was now talking to the llama.

‘Good morning,’ said her aunt when she saw her niece marching purposefully towards her. Then her face grew serious as she registered Ellen’s troubled expression. ‘Are you
all right, pet?’

Ellen took a deep breath and shivered, ignoring the llama who studied her imperiously. ‘I’m going down to the sea,’ she stated, thrusting her hands into her pockets.

‘Now? Before breakfast?’

‘I feel like a bracing walk.’

Peg frowned. She knew fear when she saw it. ‘Do you want me to come with you?’

‘No, I’m fine.’ Ellen smiled weakly.

‘What would you like to eat when you get back: eggs and bacon, porridge?’

‘I’ve never had porridge. I usually have fruit. Mother insists I don’t eat too much in case I bulk up . . .’ She was about to add, ‘before my wedding’, but
stopped short. Peg frowned, as if she were speaking a foreign language.

‘Jaysus, child, you need to eat! Look at you, there’s nothing on your bones. Your mother’s out of her mind. I’ll make you porridge with honey and a little banana and
you’ll be a different person.’

Ellen swallowed back tears. She wanted so badly to be a different person.

Peg looked down at the girl’s feet. ‘Are you sure you want to ruin those good boots of yours?’

‘I don’t care.’ Ellen turned away. ‘Leather’s hard-wearing, and frankly, I really couldn’t give a monkey’s. I’ll be back shortly.’ The sheep
parted and she set off down the hill at a brisk pace. Peg stood a moment and watched her, hands on hips, a frown lining her brow beneath her hat.

The faster Ellen walked the better she felt. The air was bracing and her cheeks grew red and hot. She reached the lane and crossed it, taking a path that cut through the long
grass down to the sea. An abandoned stone cottage stood forlornly beside the damaged remains of a fence. Shrubs and weeds flourished on its roof and seeded themselves in the gaps between the stones
in the walls. In time it would return to the ground it came from and the waves would wash it away. One day everything would be gone, she thought philosophically, because nothing material lasts.
That’s why I have to live the life I want to live, because one day I’ll be gone, too.

Right now, the tide was far out, leaving a wide beach of pale-yellow sand. Black rocks were scattered here and there, like sleeping seals, and white gulls hopped about the shallow pools in
search of food. The wind swept through the abandoned lighthouse like ghosts playing among old bones, and she took a deep breath, right into the bottom of her lungs. As she exhaled she felt the
tension slip away and her shoulders drop. The vision of endless sea and sky lifted the heaviness that weighed upon her chest and she felt a wonderful sense of relief. She walked over the sand, not
caring that her expensive boots were getting wet, and marched on towards the ocean. As she neared the water the roar of the sea grew louder. It was a pleasant sound, nothing like the roar of
traffic, and she inhaled the salty air hungrily. The wind whipped her hair and the damp curled it so that chestnut-coloured tendrils bounced down her back and across her face. Without a
moment’s regret, she pulled her iPhone out of her jeans’ pocket and threw it as far out to sea as she could. It landed with a plop and disappeared.

With that she felt an immense sense of freedom. Gone were the harassing messages. Gone was all contact with London. It was as if she had thrown her mother and William, her sisters and friends
– in fact, her entire life – into the water. They had all sunk with that telephone and there she was, standing alone on an empty beach, liberated at last from duty, responsibility and
the dreadful mould that had imprisoned her. She had crossed a bridge and destroyed it in her wake. Now, she could be anyone she wanted to be. She smiled with satisfaction and let the wind take her
past. Gazing out at the vast expanse of sea she realized the world was full of endless possibility.

She walked back up the beach with a bounce in her step, across the lane and up the hill where the sheep were quietly grazing and the donkey was standing alone, staring out to sea. When the house
came into view she saw a few cars parked on the gravel next to Peg’s dirty Volvo. They were as old and muddy as hers. She wondered who had come to visit so early in the morning.

As she opened the door, the smell of bacon hit her in a warm fug. Mr Badger came bounding into the hall. She patted him then took off her jacket and boots. The leather was
stained on the toes where the water had soaked it but she didn’t mind. The boots belonged to the life she was now sure she didn’t want. Voices resounded from the kitchen, most notably
deep, male voices. She wandered in shyly.