The Lightkeeper's Wife (18 page)

But eventually the
Aurora Australis
appeared in Prydz Bay to deliver more supplies and to collect departing winterers, including me. When I told Sarah I’d like to meet her in Hobart when her ship returned, her eyes became cool and her face shuttered. She laughed a tight little laugh. ‘But you
knew
I had a boyfriend. I thought you understood.’

The ground rocked beneath me.

‘I’m sorry, Tom. It’s been fun. But I’m engaged,’ she said.

‘Engaged?’

‘You know how it is,’ she said. ‘It’s not convenient to wear a ring down here.’

A ring was not convenient and yet
I
had been convenient. She kissed me blithely on the lips. ‘Come to my cabin tonight.

It’s our last time.’

So why did I go to her that night? What was it that took me unhesitatingly to her door? Why did I lace my boots in the foyer of the living quarters, don my coat and walk down the dirty melted-out path to her donga where candles and soft music waited for me?

She let me in and undressed me, and in the space of that one night I was splintered again, smashed apart. There had been no healing from Debbie, only avoidance, replacement and self-delusion. But I let Sarah take me. I lay beside her that last night, clinging to the warmth of her body, feeling myself blowing away like dust in the wind.

The next morning, the helicopter took the husk of me to the ship and I returned to Tasmania.

13

Mary had imagined that returning to Cloudy Bay would restore the peace she had known here when she was young. But anxiety overcame the solace of solitude. And sleeplessness was dulling her short moments of pleasure. The insomnia derived from many sources: the wind, her cough, mulling on what to do with the wretched letter, fear that Jan might materialise and insist on taking her home. On top of that, she was aware of time passing, and her duty to Jack was far from complete. Of her list of promised destinations, she had only visited one, Cloudy Corner. There was still much work to do.

Her health was deteriorating, there was no denying it. At night she could hardly breathe and the tablets seemed to make little difference. True rest had become rare; much of her waking time was spent dithering over the letter. This was the irony of it all. She was here to disperse her guilt at last and the letter was a constant reminder of what she had done.

Jack was with her in this place, she knew it. She could feel him in the vast measure of silence. He was watching her, waiting. Sometimes he came riding on the wind, and other times he seemed to pass, invisible, through the cabin. Knowing he was present reassured her. The long ache of her loneliness was subsiding.

Whenever Leon came, she strived to enjoy his company— there was little enough of human companionship in her days. But his visits had become a drama of tension. Could she persuade him to take her out? How might she shift the conversation her way? Would she stir his pity or his anger?

He came every day as arranged, stopping for a quick cup of tea and a short discussion of the weather. She tried to ease him into longer conversations, looking for opportunities that might allow her to tag along with him on his duties. But he remained quiet and reserved. The only thing that interested him was the lighthouse, but his attention was fickle; often he was focused elsewhere, and he left again too quickly.

Today, though, he arrived like a thunderstorm, banging into the cabin without saying hello, and marching to the kitchen to put the kettle on. Mary offered a polite good morning, and he glared at her beneath knitted brows.

‘What do you mean,
good morning
?’ he said.

‘It’s not raining,’ she pointed out. ‘That’s good for Cloudy Bay.’

He scowled at her. ‘The weather’s not the only way to judge a day.’ He slapped the
Hobart Mercury
on the bench. ‘Here’s a newspaper. It’s yesterday’s, but I thought you might want to see what’s going on in the world. And here’s some milk.’ He put the carton in the gas fridge. ‘Is there anything else you need?’

‘My granddaughter’s coming this weekend, so you can have a couple of days off.’

He swung away to find some cups, and she heard him muttering, ‘There’s no such thing as a day off.’

‘Perhaps you could have a day with your family,’ she suggested. ‘Go for a picnic.’

The look he gave her was ferocious. ‘Who says I want to go for a picnic with my family?’

‘It was just an idea.’

‘Yeah, well, family picnics are not my idea of fun.’ He set two cups on the bench.

‘It sounds like you need a holiday,’ she said, trying again.

‘Not much chance of that at the moment, is there?’ Even as he said it he glanced at her with a flicker of guilt in his eyes.

‘This won’t go on forever, if that’s what you mean.’

‘You’re thinking of going back?’

‘Not immediately . . . but I’ll have to go back eventually.’

He slipped her a furtive look and she held back from saying she intended to be here till she died.

‘Would you mind bringing my tablets?’ she asked.

He poured the tea, delivered her tablets and sat down in a chair while she shook out the required medication and swallowed it. A long silence followed in which they sipped tea and stared out the window. The quiet seemed to soften him somehow, and eventually he turned to her, his face calmer.

‘The weekend after next, there’s going to be a scout camp out here,’ he said. ‘They’ll be staying at Cloudy Corner.’

‘That’s fine. It won’t matter if they’re noisy. I won’t hear them from here.’

‘I had an idea you might talk to them,’ he suggested.

‘I’m sure I can be polite and say hello.’

He shook his head. ‘That’s not what I meant. I thought you might talk to them about being a keeper’s wife. I think they’d be interested.’

The suggestion set her coughing. When she recovered, she stared at him, annoyed. ‘As you can see, I can barely string two sentences together.’

‘You won’t have to speak for long,’ he said, leaning forward.

She paused, considering. Perhaps this was an opportunity, an opening she could exploit. She must suppress her irritation and dive on her chance. ‘All right,’ she said slowly. ‘I’ll do it—in exchange for an outing.’

His expression soured. ‘Where to?’

‘Up to Mount Mangana.’

He snorted. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You wouldn’t make it more than twenty metres up the track.’

‘I don’t need to walk,’ she said. ‘I just want to drive through the forest.’

‘When?’ he asked.

‘How about now?’

Surprisingly, he agreed. Still looking disgruntled, he deposited her inside the four-wheel drive and climbed into the driver’s seat, slamming the door. Then he drove fast down the beach, flushing gulls from the sand.

Sitting quietly in the passenger seat, Mary wound down the window to let the fresh air rush in. Despite Leon’s grumpiness, she was surfing on a surge of triumph and she couldn’t keep the smile off her lips. Soon she’d have another place crossed off her list. And how good it was to leave the cabin again. Sea spray was rising above the beach and light shimmered over the sea with a pearly glow. The world was beautiful and here she was, whizzing through it, watching the sun cutting the clouds and glinting off the water.

At the end of the beach near the lagoon, Leon drove up onto the road and stopped in the Whalebone Point carpark. He grabbed a bag of toilet rolls from the back seat and swung out of the car. ‘I won’t be long.’

Mary watched him stride across the tarmac, head down, shoulders rounded. He was brooding today, stewing over something. She wished she could ask him what was wrong, but his body language didn’t encourage questions.

When he climbed back in, he wound her window up. ‘We’ll be going faster along the road. You’ll get blown away.’

Pulling out of the carpark they passed the Pines campground, where a man was bending over a camp stove and a woman was folding away a tent. Leon waved at them.

‘That was nice of you,’ she said.

He grunted. ‘I get paid to be nice to people.’

They drove past paddocks dotted with sheep and bracken. Then the coastal scrub gave way to greener farms where plump Herefords grazed. Here, taller trees grew along the roadside verges, and occasionally there were quaint cold-looking cottages with smoke coiling from their chimneys. Up high in the mountains bald patches marked recent logging sites.

‘Could you slow down?’ Mary asked.

They were approaching the old Mason farm and the cottage where her uncle and aunt had lived. Years ago the two properties had been amalgamated into a larger farm; Jack’s family home had been pulled down and her uncle’s cottage had been renovated. These days it was let out to tourists looking for a ‘taste’ of Bruny Island. The old barn had gone too. Not surprising, given the years and the weather that had passed since then.

‘Stop here,’ she said. They were just near the gate.

‘What is it?’ Leon seemed interested now in spite of himself.

‘This is where I used to live.’ She pointed to the cottage. ‘Jack’s family lived next door. But the old house is gone.’

‘Does it make you feel sad coming back?’

She shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. I do feel very nostalgic. We had some good times here. The farm was a haven for us.’

Leon kept the vehicle idling on the verge and it seemed to be vibrating with the rhythm of life—accelerating backwards through seasons and years.

‘We came here on our holiday breaks from the lighthouse,’ she said.

‘Why here?’ Leon asked. ‘Why didn’t you get further away? Like up to Bicheno, or across to Victoria. Somewhere different.’

‘Jack didn’t earn much and our time off was short. Sometimes we stayed with my parents in Hobart. But mostly we came here.’

She looked once again at the cottage. Of course, for some years Rose had still been lurking around the Mason farm. Time had not altered Mary’s opinion of Rose, so during their stays, Mary ensured her family did not often cross paths with Rose. Her sister-in-law was still studiously glamorous and annoyingly self-focused, and Mary had little time for her. However, visiting the farm was always good for Jack. On the property and out of the wind, he seemed able to relax. They had passed their limited leisure time in simple ways: fishing down at Cloudy Bay, picnics on the mountain, sharing fish and chips from the Lunawanna store. When they were here, Mary saw glimpses of the man Jack used to be. He smiled more often; sometimes he talked, played games with the children: chess, Monopoly. All the things he never did at the lighthouse. In bed, they snuggled close. No sex, but he tucked his arms around her and she felt his breath in her hair. Remembered how to love him again.

Tears welled in her eyes and she waved Leon on.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

‘I’ll be all right,’ she said.

Just before Lunawanna they turned off on the Adventure Bay road, climbing into forest and slowing as the gravel deteriorated to potholes. This was the route Leon drove each day to and from Cloudy Bay. As it zigzagged up, the trees became taller and straighter with dense thickets of blanket leaf and mountain correa crowded round the trunks. The higher they went, the wetter the road became, and tree crowns rose in narrow spires with mist clinging to their tops.

‘Could we stop near the old mill?’ Mary said. ‘I want to get out and smell the air.’ Another item on her list.

Leon stopped at the pullout near the old Clennett’s Mill site. ‘Why here?’ he asked. ‘It’s just a few old bits of metal buried in the bush.’

‘This is where Jack’s brother used to work when it was a functioning mill. We came up here sometimes. I want to remember.’

He offered to help her out, and she swung her legs around. But she was weak and he had to hold her arm to stop her from sliding to the ground. Shuffling away from him, she tried to wrap distance around herself, opaque as a cloud. She wanted to stand in this place and remember the past. Underfoot were straps of wet bark and the air was thick with the tangy aroma of mint and eucalypt leaves.

Forty, fifty years ago, when Frank cut timber up here, the trees were enormous old giants with huge trunks. Now they were spindles. These days the forest was turned over too quickly. Sawlogs had given way to woodchips and the forest was not the same, no matter what the foresters said about the trees growing back. But it was still beautiful and she breathed it all in, trying to ignore the cough brewing in her lungs.

In the treetops, wind shuffled the leaves. Fog-drip spattered her head and mist touched her cheeks with wet fingers. If she closed her eyes she could make the years dissolve. She could merge with the timeless grandeur of the forests and be here again with Jack. Beneath those watching crowns they had embraced urgently, mindful not to be caught. She recalled the song of the wind tossing high in the trees. The distant rasp of saws. Winches groaning. Yells along the tramway.

After she and Jack had moved to Hobart, Frank died here in a forestry accident. He was working a saw, felling an immense old tree; misjudging the moment to stand back he was crushed as the tree crashed to the ground. It was a dreadful accident, violent and devastating. Frank was the jovial son, the lively one who always carried a joke and a laugh.