Meet Me at the Lighthouse

by Mary Jayne Baker

“I do like his company,” I confessed. “He’s a good laugh, easy to be with. But that’s all there can be, at least until he’s actually divorced.”

  She sighed. “Yeah, you’re right. Better to wait till it’s simple.”

  I summoned a smile. “Well, let’s cheer up. Go on, chuck us those Maltesers and I’ll play your manky doctor game.”

  “All right. So. Parsnip.”

  “Bum?”

  “Correct. Butternut squash…?”

  ***

  It was a spectre-grey Thursday afternoon when I met Ross outside his Uncle Charlie’s bungalow on the outskirts of town, ready to sign the deeds that would make the lighthouse ours.

  The ivy-covered house looked the same as always. It never did change much except for an occasional addition to Charlie’s collection of lecherous-looking garden gnomes on the front lawn, the ones he’d been using for years to wind up his property-value-conscious neighbours.

  I’d been a pretty frequent visitor once upon a time. When Jess and I were small our grandad, Charlie’s long-time drinking buddy, used to bring us round to be plied with Madeira cake and pineapple squash by Charlie’s wife Annie while the two men watched football. But Annie and Grandad were gone now, and Charlie was all on his own.

  He and Annie had never had kids, so, at 83, he was left at the mercy of his brother’s children – a niece and nephew. That was Ross’s dad Keith, well-known tight bastard and all-round mardy arse. I wasn’t quite sure how the same genes had managed to produce someone like Ross.

  “Ivy only grows for the wicked,” Ross muttered as we stood in front of the curling tendrils twining themselves around Charlie’s front door.

  “Sorry?”

  He smiled. “Oh, nothing. Something my aunty used to say to wind the old boy up when he was working out in the garden, a silly superstition. Just came back to me.”

  I examined him with concern. He seemed vacant, purple rings bruising his eyes.

  “You ok?”

  “Just tired,” he said, flushing slightly. “Up late on a design job.”

  “Hi, Uncle Charlie,” Ross said when the door eventually opened, pumping the old man’s hand heartily. “Good to see you, you old bugger.”

  “You too, lad. Come on in.” Charlie ushered us into the dimly lit house that for some reason always made me think of soup – something in the musty smell – and closed the door behind us.

  Charlie looked the same as ever – which was to say, a bit like one of his own gnomes. Short, stocky and weatherbeaten, with the large arms and broad chest that came from 40-plus years hauling things around on boats back when he was a trawlerman, decked out as always in jeans and silk smoking jacket like a smart-cas Hugh Hefner. His expression was the same combination of mischief, grumpiness and wry humour.

  “How’ve you been, Roberta?” he asked in his pipe-roughened voice. “Your mam keeping well?”

  “She’s fine, Charlie.” I gave him a hug. “Our Jess says hi too.”

  “Well, you’re good girls. So.” He jerked a thumb at Ross. “This young idiot tells me you got him blotto and talked him into opening a pub in my Annie’s lighthouse.”

  “Er… yeah, something like that. That ok by you?”

  He shrugged. “No business of mine, not once you’ve signed on the dotted line. Come through, kids.”

  “Charlie, you sure you want to do this?” I asked when Ross and I were seated on his uncle’s beige sofa with him in an armchair opposite. The lighthouse paperwork was all laid out on the coffee table, waiting for the solicitor Charlie had booked to witness the sale. “I mean, you haven’t got a few marbles missing or anything?”

  “Only the same handful that’ve been rolling around upstairs for the last 20 years, flower,” he said with a shrug.

  “You could get a good price for it, you know.”

  “I could. And do what with the money?”

  “I don’t know, get yourself new carpet slippers or something; you’re old. Or buy another pervy gnome, scare the kids on their way to school.”

  “You’re a cheeky lass.” He grinned, a wide smile showing off his few remaining teeth. “Knew I liked you for something other than being Bertie Hannigan’s granddaughter.”

  “She’s right though, Uncle Charlie,” Ross said. “We don’t want to take it off you unless you’re absolutely sure you want rid at that price.”

  “Look, son, you and the rest of the family must’ve worked out by now I’m a miserable, cantankerous old bastard whose only joy in my old age is causing trouble for you all.”

  “It has been noted, yeah.”

  “Good, then you’ll know it’s easiest to shut up and let me have my way. I can’t be arsed faffing with estate agents and the like, it might well finish me off. You kids just sign the deeds, take the bloody lighthouse and bugger off.” He leaned over the coffee table for his pipe and started stuffing it with fresh tobacco from a tin on the arm of his chair.

  I frowned. “There isn’t any more to this, is there?”

  “How d’you mean?”

  “Well, you’re not about to pop your clogs or something?”

  The old man shrugged. “Not that I know of. Might last a few more years if I keep eating my greens.”

  “So you really want to do this then? You, Charles Mason, being of sound mind and body and all that jazz?”

  “Yep.” He sighed as he took a match to his old Dublin pipe, wreathing the room in brown-blue wisps that tickled our eyeballs. He inhaled a deep draw before he spoke again. “All right, if you really want to know, there is another thing. The bloody council.”

  “They written to you again, have they?” Ross said.

  “It’s worse than that. Bastards are threatening to sue me.”

  “What?” Ross shook his head in disbelief. “On what grounds?”

  “Reckon they can make a case based on me letting the old place fall into disrepair, affecting the tourism industry. Some jumped-up little bureaucrat at the town hall sent me an ultimatum. Sort it out, sell it on or face the music.”

  “Bastards!” Ross’s brow knit dangerously. “Who threatens to sue an old man? I’ll bloody well go down there.”

  “Oi. Less of the O word.” Charlie’s papery face broke into a smile. “But ta, lad. Nice to know someone in the family gives enough of a monkeys to watch my back.”

  Ross sent an affectionate smile back. “Well, you’re not a bad old sod. You know I’ll look after you. So is that why you’re selling then?”

  “That and I just want rid. Anyway, it’s worked out well, this young lady convincing you to take an interest.” He bobbed his silver head in my direction. “Lighthouse would’ve gone to you in the end anyway. Was going to leave it you in my will.”

  “Me? What for?”

  “Piss your dad off, mainly. And to see your face from the great beyond when you realised I’d saddled you with a lighthouse.”

  “Ha. Yeah, I bet.”

  “I still don’t know, Charlie,” I said. “Not sure we should take it if the council have bullied you into it like that.”

  “Trust me, you’re doing me a favour.” His expression softened. “Look, she’d want you to have it. My Annie. Seems right it should go to our Ross, keep it in the family.”

  “What was the lighthouse like when Aunty Annie was young?” Ross asked. “Don’t remember her ever talking about it.”

  “Well she did, all the time. Still, you were only a nipper when she passed, doubt you’d remember.” Charlie took another long draw on his pipe, his crinkled eyes unfocused. “It were an impressive sight in its heyday. There was still a keeper back in the thirties, Annie’s grandad Wilf. Lived there with his wife. Proper old-fashioned battleaxe her Granny Peggy was, scary as the Old bloody Gentleman. And by, but she were houseproud. Every day she’d be out there topping up the paint, scrubbing the front step with sand. The floor were bare stone – they’d no brass for carpet – but she’d have you take your shoes off and walk round in your socks like she had ruddy shag-pile down.�
� He smiled wistfully. “Pride of the town, our lighthouse, in them days.”

  “So how did it end up like it is now?” I asked.

  “Oh, the war came. Light had to go off, Peggy and Wilf moved out. When peace broke out they decided they didn’t want to go back and leased it to other keepers, offcumdens who didn’t take the same pride in it. By the time Annie inherited it, the day of the lighthouse was over. Ours were a husk of what it had been by then.”

  “So it’s just been left to rot?”

  “No, when Annie were here she did what she could with it. The paint always shone when she were alive. She wanted everyone to see it, pride of the town, same as when Peggy had it.” He blinked, and I thought I saw the hint of a tear in the already watery eyes. “And then my Annie were gone, and no amount of paintwork could bring her back. It’s been years since I could bear to look at the thing.” He summoned a gap-toothed smile. “Ah well, no good getting weepy now, I’ll see her soon enough. You kids take the lighthouse. Make your aunty proud, eh, our Ross?”

  I glanced at Ross, and was surprised to see tears in his eyes too.

  “I’ll do my best for her, Uncle Charlie.”

  “Ross, can I have a word?” I said. “I mean, in private.”

  Charlie grinned. “I can take a hint. I’ll brew us up a pot.”

  “He’s grieving,” I whispered when Charlie had tottered off to the kitchen.

  “I know. He misses her.”

  “Then we can’t take it, can we? We’d be taking advantage of a lonely old man.”

  “We wouldn’t though. She’s been dead 18 years, he’s not exactly rushing into it.” He shuffled on his cushion to face me. “Look, the lighthouse makes him miserable. Every time he hears about it, it reminds him the love of his life is gone and that bastard’s still standing.”

  “Yeah, but… well, it isn’t right.”

  “You heard him, Bobbie. My Aunty Annie loved the thing.” His brow gathered into a determined frown. “Well, you make your choice, you’re entitled to back out. Me… I never thought about it till he told me all that. But I’m doing this. For Annie.”

  “Hey. If you’re doing it I’m doing it, partner.” I leaned round to look into his eyes. “Don’t be angry, Ross. I care about the lighthouse too.”

  His face softened. “Sorry, got a bit carried away. Anyway, it’s your lighthouse.”

  “No, it’s your lighthouse, I think that’s clear now. But if you want me… well, maybe it’s our lighthouse.”

  He shot me a smile. “I do want you, Bobbie. I want it to be our lighthouse.”

  He was looking at me with that keen expression in his eyes, the one that was so often the prelude to a kiss, and I stiffened. But before things could go any further, there was a loud rap at the door.

  “That’ll be the lawyer lady,” Charlie called from the kitchen. “Can you get it, lad?”

  I sent a silent prayer of thanks to the invisible solicitor for getting me off the hook. Kiss awkwardness averted.

  Ross jumped up, coming back in a few seconds later closely followed by an official-looking solicitor in a black pencil suit. And in what felt like no time at all, Charlie had an extra pound in his pocket – and Ross and I were the proud owners of a pair of cheesy grins and our very own lighthouse.

  Chapter 6

  “Don’t be nervous.” The kind-faced receptionist who manned the front desk at Cragport Town Hall smiled encouragingly.

  Ross was clutching a folder of notes against his chest, moving his lips silently, while I tried to distract myself with an old Elle I’d found. We’d been there half an hour, waiting to make a pitch to the town council for funding to get the lighthouse cleaned up.

  “That obvious, is it?” I said to the receptionist.

  She nodded at the magazine on my lap. “Well you’ve been staring at that feature on what to wear to hide a lopsided bosom for 15 minutes.” She lowered her voice. “Honestly, there’s nothing to worry about. Those pompous old duffers are desperate to see something done about the lighthouse. You’ve got the winning hand here.”

  Ross looked doubtful. “You really think? We’re asking for a hell of a lot.”

  “Absolutely. Stand your ground, that’s all. The chairman can be a bit of a bully.”

  “Thanks for the heads-up,” I said. “Let’s just hope we catch him in a good mood.”

  “I don’t think he has good moods. Sorry.”

  Ten minutes later, I was still staring at on-trend summer looks for the wonky-titted fashionista when some sort of pager on the receptionist’s desk buzzed. She looked up from her book to examine it.

  “You’re up,” she said, jerking her head towards the ornate wooden doors leading to the council chambers. “They want you in the meeting.”

  The councillors – ten of them, all in suits, all men and with an average age of at least 60 – were seated in a horseshoe around a large table. The only one I recognised was Alex Partington, the youngest councillor. He tried to catch my eye but I ignored him.

  No chairs had been provided for me and Ross, who huddled together on the carpet as if we were being tried for murder. The bony, leather-skinned man with the watery eyes who was chairing the meeting – Councillor Langford, he’d introduced himself as – had us fixed in a stern gaze.

  “So. Mr Mason and Miss Hannigan: welcome,” he said without smiling. His flat-toned voice echoed off the chamber’s oak panels, and I could tell that good moods were out. “Let’s make a start, shall we?”

  Councillor Langford put on a pair of reading glasses and looked down at the document in front of him. “I see you’re asking for £60,000 to have the town lighthouse cleaned and repaired.” He glanced up at us from over the rim of his glasses, not lifting his head. “Now. That’s a lot of money, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I said, squirming under his unsympathetic gaze. “The place is in quite a state, as you can see from the photographs. But we’re not asking for money towards maintenance; the project we have in mind will be self-funding. And we’ve already been approved by the Coastal Heritage Fund for a £70,000 grant that’ll partially cover repairs.”

  “It’s a lot of money,” the man repeated, as if he hadn’t heard me. “Public money. We see a lot of projects here, Miss Hannigan. Just this month we’ve considered bids from the Cragport Clean Beaches Association to have the beach huts weatherproofed and another from the Women’s Institute to repair the Edwardian bandstand in the park. What makes you think we should choose your lighthouse over competing bids?”

  “Well…”

  I faltered. This was harder than I’d expected. Despite the nerves that had hit me before coming in, I’d been quietly confident the council were so desperate to see the place done up that they’d cough up a grant with ne’r a grumble. And now this demon-headmastery old bastard seemed determined to give us a hard time before he rolled over.

  “The lighthouse is over 100 years old.” Ross jumped to my rescue with something from the notes we were both supposed to have memorised. “It’s a historic icon of the town, one of the first things visitors notice. We want the emblem of Cragport to be something we’re proud of, don’t we, gents? Not a broken-down wreck.”

  That hit a nerve. The chairman kept his face fixed, but I noticed a few nods around the table.

  “So can you tell us why you decided to launch this project?” Langford asked, once again ignoring the point raised. He shot Ross a pointed look. “I believe the lighthouse has been in your family some years, Mr Mason, with no attempt made before to tackle the state of decay it had fallen into – in spite of our frequent requests.”

  I could see Ross was trying to keep up a polite, detached expression, but his hand clenched at the reference to the council’s persecution of poor Charlie.

  “I’ve just moved back to the area,” he said with forced calm. “The lighthouse was my uncle’s property, as you all know, and he’s too elderly now to keep up with repairs. The deeds were only signed over to us in April.”

  “A m
onth ago. Have you done any work since then?”

  “No. We only got approval for our Coastal Heritage grant last week. Plus, of course, we wanted to wait until we’d seen all of you.”

  “And this young lady is your… business partner, is it?” Langford said, examining me with lip curled.

  “Yes, and an old friend.”

  “So you have some expertise in this area, do you, dear?” Langford asked me with that patronising air we ladies just bask in.

  “What, renovating lighthouses?” I gave a nervous laugh. “Not exactly. Well, who does? But I’ve got experience setting up projects like this one. My mum – Janine Hannigan, some of you know her – started the Cragport youth club a few years back.”

  “And you were instrumental in that, were you?”

  “Not exactly instrumental. I helped a bit.” I noticed Langford eyeing me with a barely concealed sneer. “A lot,” I corrected, meeting his gaze. “I was involved with all the planning, start to finish. I can show you the paperwork if you need me to prove it.”

  “That won’t be necessary.” Langford shuffled his documents, taking his time; an obvious power-play that I had to admit was bloody effective. Out of the corner of my eye I could see beads of sweat standing out on Ross’s face, and felt sympathy prickles on my own forehead.

  “I notice you haven’t answered my question,” Langford said at last. “Why did you decide to commence this, frankly, bizarre-sounding project – this music thing?”

  God, he had to ask. We could hardly confess it had been a drunken plan fuelled by tequila slammers and snogging.

  Ross recovered before I did. “It’s been a long-held dream of mine, to open a performance space for young people,” he said, his voice carefully formal. “I’m a musician myself, and I know from experience how hard it is for kids in this community to find the support they need. But I’d never considered the lighthouse. It was Roberta who convinced me it could work.” He flashed me a little smile. “She’s got a talent for spotting potential in things others don’t see.”

  “This could put us on the map,” I said to Langford, sensing the tourism angle might be the way to win them round. “How many seaside towns have got their own music venue inside a lighthouse? Cragport could have something nowhere else in the country – the world, maybe – has got.”