The Lightkeeper's Wife (38 page)

I find myself watching the candles sinking low on their wicks and the sleepy shadows flickering on the walls. Finally, Emma comes across the room and takes my hand. ‘Come on.’ Her eyes melt in the dim light. ‘Let’s go to bed.’

She leads me out the back door, stopping to kiss me at the bottom of the stairs. She’s hot and sweaty from dancing, and the smell of her excites me.

‘Can I get Jess?’ I ask between kisses.

‘You and your bloody dog.’ She waves me off. ‘Just shut the door behind you when you come in.’

I walk around to the car realising I’ve killed yet another moment of promise. By the time I’ve dug a blanket out of the back of the car and laid it out for Jess in a corner of the bungalow, Emma is asleep in her clothes, spread-eagled across the bed. I shift her limbs gently and tug the doona from beneath her slack weight. Then I tuck it carefully over her sleeping shape. I sit on the edge of the bed watching her, smiling at the soft grating of her snore. Then I undress, switch off the lamp and crawl in beside her.

Emma barely moves during the night, even though I wake several times to the sound of bottles being tossed into the yard and voices from the main house. Once, I slip out from the warmth of Emma’s body to lock the door. I don’t want an early-morning confrontation with an angry and hungover Nick, although I don’t think he’ll be up to much till midday. I hope to be long gone by then.

When sunlight floods in through the windows, I draw the curtains and leave Emma sleeping while I make a cup of tea. Jess clicks around the kitchen, pressing her nose up beneath my hand to remind me she’s there. She doesn’t seem comfortable; perhaps she remembers Nick from last time. I sit at the table and read yesterday’s newspaper, including the jobs and real estate. Then I’m out of reading material.

I notice a black notebook under the newspaper and open it without thinking. The pages are full of dark flowing handwriting. Probably Emma’s. I study the loops and curls of it, wondering what it tells me about her, and then my curiosity surges and, I am reading.

Busy few days with the Adelies. The weighbridge is giving
me the shits. It works for a few days and then some connection
goes wrong and we’re off the air again. I just can’t work out
what’s going on. I need some electronics genius to sort it out for
me, but they’re few and far between on station.

Sophie went into station last night to visit her beau. God, it
makes me sick. Saturday night and she has to go into town for the
party. It’s the same every week—same old music, same old grog.
Station leader doesn’t like me being on my own out here, so they
sent Nick out to keep me company. A pointed comment. We’ve
tried to be discreet, but everybody knows anyway. I suppose it’s
hard to disguise body language. And who can blame me. It’s so
hard when chemistry takes over, and God, Nick sets me on fire.

I put the book down. It’s none of my business to be reading Emma’s journal. It’s a disgusting intrusion and I’m ashamed. I’m also deflated. Everything I’ve feared has been confirmed.

For ten minutes, I sit looking at the notebook, then reluctantly flick it open again.

Nick’s been staying out at the hut quite a lot lately, and
Sophie isn’t complaining. I think she’s just about had it with water
offloading, and I have to admit it’s a shitty job. Especially when
you can’t even get a shower afterwards. To his credit, Nick doesn’t
seem to mind. We boil up a big pot of water at the end of each
day and wash ourselves where it matters. Then the evening is
ours. It has been quite romantic actually. I guess I didn’t expect
it of Nick, but he can be very nice. And he’s bloody good in bed.

I shove the notebook back under the newspaper, furious with myself for spying. Emma would hate it if she knew. I sit for another thirty minutes, staring at the clock, hoping she’ll wake before Nick appears. Eventually, I hear a groan from the bedroom. I stand and walk to the bedside.

‘Oh, Tom,’ she says groggily. ‘You’re still here. That’s nice.’

I sit on the bed.

‘Did you tuck me in?’ She closes her eyes.

‘Yes. You were asleep when I came in.’

‘Oh, and I had hoped for passionate sex.’

Me too.

‘I’m too wasted this morning,’ she says. ‘Can you get me a coffee?’

I go to the kitchen and make her coffee, still riddled with guilt for having read her diary. I place the cup on the bedside table, shifting aside her pill packet and a glass of water. ‘I’m really sorry,’ I say. ‘I accidentally looked in your journal.’

‘Oh that,’ she mumbles, her face partly concealed by her pillow. ‘It’s full of bullshit about Nick. Amazing the rubbish you can write sometimes.’

‘Aren’t you cross with me?’

‘Yes, of course I’m cross,’ she says sleepily. ‘But it doesn’t matter.’

I’m surprised she isn’t more upset. I want it to matter. Reading someone’s private journal goes against all my values. Perhaps she’s too bleary to fully realise what I’ve done.

‘Do you think it’d make a good book?’ Emma asks, rolling to look up at me.

‘What?’

‘My life in Antarctica? Perhaps I should call it that. God, I think I’m still drunk.’

‘Do you want some breakfast?’

She turns away from me again. ‘Just a slice of toast and butter. Then I’m getting dressed and coming over to your place. I can’t face any of the others today. I think I need a holiday.’

I return to the kitchen to make the toast.

‘You don’t mind if I come over to yours, do you?’ she calls.

‘No, that’s fine.’

Of course I don’t mind. I don’t mind at all. But when I go back in with the toast she has fallen asleep again.

I wait at the table just sitting and thinking for another hour, and then leave. This might be the best thing I can do.

28

Sunday morning, Mary was staring at the bathroom mirror when she heard banging in the kitchen, as if someone was going through the cupboards. She stiffened, listening for a voice she might recognise.

Then she remembered. Of course; Jacinta was here. And Alex. They’d arrived early this morning, enthusiastic about the trip. She sighed, wiping the corners of her mouth with a tissue. She’d forgotten they were going to the lighthouse. They’d discussed it last weekend. And perhaps she had mentioned it to Leon. But she’d lost the thread of things somehow.

She ought to be excited about this excursion. For days, she’d been manoeuvring to make it happen. It was the last tick on her list of tributes to Jack. When it was done, she would feel she had atoned for her mistakes in some way. Her duty would be finished. But she was tired, so tired.

She finished in the bathroom and shuffled to the bedroom where she gazed vacantly at her suitcase. She kept forgetting things, finding herself in the middle of a room wondering what she was meant to do. Wasn’t there something she had to attend to? Yes. She needed warm clothes. She gazed into the jumble of underwear, unpaired socks, rumpled shirts and trousers. She couldn’t even maintain a tidy drawer anymore. She fumbled through her clothes until she found what she needed. But wasn’t there something else she ought to remember? Something else she must do?

Yes. A letter—hidden in the side pocket. She tugged the envelope out with clumsy fingers and turned it over three times before sliding it carefully back in. Hadn’t she’d made the decision to dispose of it days ago? Or was it only yesterday? Time had warped recently and she couldn’t find logic in its fragments anymore. Tonight, when Alex and Jacinta had gone, she would burn the letter and be done with it.

‘Nana?’ Jacinta was at the door. ‘Are you ready?’

‘Yes . . . yes.’ She looked up unsteadily.

Alex smiled at her as she hobbled into the living area with a bundle of clothing. ‘Are you off to Antarctica?’ he asked.

‘There’s a sou’westerly today,’ she said. ‘It cuts right through you.’

This morning before they arrived, she’d sat by the window watching the wind straining up over the dunes and flailing the shrubs, flicking upward sprays of spume off the waves. Wind like that was the breath of ice.

Now she moved towards the door, but Jacinta grasped her arm gently. ‘I’m not sure we should go, Nana. You’re not looking well, and if you catch cold, you could die of pneumonia. I’d never forgive myself.’

Mary was alarmed. There was no option. They had to make this trip today. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said, summoning a persuasive smile. ‘I haven’t been sleeping well, that’s all.’

‘But it’s so exposed at the lighthouse. I don’t want to take you out in the cold.’

‘This is what I want, Jacinta. It’s important to me.’ Mary could sense her granddaughter’s indecision so she pressed her advantage. ‘If my cough gets out of hand then I’ll let you bring me home.’

‘Do you promise you’ll tell me if you’re feeling unwell?’

‘I promise.’

‘All right then.’

Alex took her clothes and put them in the car. When everything was packed, he helped her into the front seat.

They scaled the dunes and whizzed along the flat beach as if it was a highway.

‘How fast are we going?’ Mary croaked. She hadn’t left the cabin since the scout camp last weekend, and the speed triggered somersaults in her chest.

‘Only forty k’s an hour,’ Alex said. ‘Is it too fast for you?’

‘No,’ she lied. ‘It’s fine.’

She reminded herself that, despite her agitation, it was a grand day to be out. The sky was patchy with clouds and Pacific gulls lifted at the car’s approach and wafted overhead.

Halfway down the beach they passed a man and woman walking. They were young and they stared at Mary without smiling. She knew the car was an intrusion in such a beautiful place. When she was young, she’d have been mortified to see a vehicle here. Jack would have called it an abomination. He had always been a traditionalist.

She glanced back along the beach and was startled to see herself walking there on the sand with Jack—his tall shape and her impatient strong legs. Yes, there they were, walking fast together to the end of the beach. To Cloudy Corner. In the campground, they’d drop their packs and climb the headland to search for sea eagles and smell the cold air. They would embrace up there. Kiss and hold each other close. Young bodies straining tight.

She heard Alex talking and she turned to gaze into his expectant face. He smiled at her as he swung the car up off the beach and onto the road. ‘So what do you think?’ he said.

‘About what?’ Mary was lost.

‘About Tom meeting a girl.’

‘. . . he’s met a girl, has he?’

‘Yes,’ Jacinta said from the back. ‘He said he told you about her.’

Mary struggled to catch the slipping edge of a memory. Had Tom said he’d met someone? ‘How are they going?’ she asked.

‘Well, I think,’ Jacinta said. ‘He seems happy.’

Good. It was time for Tom to be happy. Mary looked away, trying to hide her uneasiness. Hadn’t she noticed Tom was happier? She ought to have seen that.

‘He said he might go south again,’ Jacinta added. ‘And that you were pleased. He said you encouraged him.’

Was it really a good idea for Tom to go south again?

‘He’s hoping to work with this girl,’ Jacinta continued. ‘Emma.’

Emma. She did remember something about that name. ‘What about Jess?’ Mary asked.

‘If he goes, I’ll look after her.’

The road was turning towards the old farm, and Mary could see the tall white trees down by the stream. She remembered how she used to love standing beneath them in a strong wind, listening to the long strips of bark slapping against the trunks. Smiling, she closed her eyes, imagining herself as a girl again, milking cows in a shed that was no longer there. She saw herself up a ladder picking apples; in the paddock raking silage; standing in the shed where she’d met Jack, straining to see his face in the shadows.

At Lunawanna, Jacinta suggested stopping for coffee, but Mary wanted to keep going, so they drove past the shop onto the lighthouse road. These days the road was well graded with only a few potholes and corrugations, and it curved past houses and shacks overlooking the still waters of the channel. Beyond lay rough farmland dotted with bracken and tussock grass. They drove through stringybark forest, passing fences and gates and
No Trespassing
signs. It was drier here than at Cloudy Bay. Soon the shining mirror of Cloudy Lagoon appeared close beside the road. It was vast, edged with mudflats, and a breeze rippled across its surface.

When they finally came to the National Park, Mary was already tired. They stopped to collect an envelope at the pay station and then drove on through forest and roadside bracken. As they rounded a corner, a break in the trees revealed the view over the heath to the lighthouse. Alex stopped the car and turned off the engine and they sat in silence watching cloud shadows sliding across the terrain. The lighthouse stood white on the cape, unchanged. Below, on the leeside of the hill, tucked away from the prevailing winds, were the two keepers’ cottages and the sheds. Waves were washing steadily into Lighthouse Bay and frothy skirts of foam laced the rocks.