The Light Keeper (ARC)

by Cole Moreton

  ‘Captain Kirk killed all the ones who sounded like you.’ ‘Funny.’

  Then they browsed the books for sale under the bridge, each to their own but always aware of the other, looking up from time to time, at the same time, and smiling; and he actually found a Star Trek annual from 1979 and showed her because they could not afford to actually spend a pound – a quid, he was learning to say – on such a thing, there was a cat to feed.

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  ‘Ugh,’ she said and held it up between finger and thumb as if it were a disgusting item that one of the boys in one of her classes had brought into school in his bag by accident or design. A week-old banana or perhaps a dead hamster.

  ‘You touch, you buy,’ growled a grumpy-looking geezer prowl-ing along the line of books. Sarah had seen him before. He was one of those men you find on the South Bank: sixty something, wearing a dark blue cotton Chinese worker’s coat with epaulettes and Mao cap like he used to when he was leading sit-ins and dreaming of revolution, and a soul patch on his chin and a flinty, mean look on his face that ought to disqualify him from conver-sation with the young women she had seen him haunting in the National Film Theatre café. He sat too close to her once but said nothing and she wondered what he was up to, then realized he was sniffing her, sucking her up into his nostrils like a drug. Sarah moved away then and he didn’t recognize her now. She replaced the book carefully and gave a smile that was meant to dismiss but was accidentally kindly. His delight made her shudder.

  Sarah slid her arm inside Jack’s arm and they began to walk, falling back into step with each other, feeling light and easy and alive. Then there was a guy walking beside them with knitted Rasta hat and a wispy ginger beard and a funny little drum, a hand drum he held under his arm and patted with the flat of his hand. Pat-pat pause, pat-a-pat pause. Pat-pat pause, pat-a-pat pause. He was smiling too but looking ahead. Sarah wondered when he was going to ask for money. Jack didn’t seem to notice. But there was a woman in an open Afghan coat with fur on the cuffs and collar, walking in stride with Jack on his other side, clapping and swaying her body to the same rhythm. Pat-pat pause, pat-a-pat pause. They passed a busker playing an electric guitar, a skinny guy with a tweed jacket and a cocked hat who nodded a greeting and started playing chords in time with the rhythm, which was now being joined by a group of half a dozen friends, who turned and walked in time and clapped their hands too, and snapped their fingers and made a little humming noise. Pat-pat hum, pat-a-pat hum. Pat-pat hum, pat-a-pat hum crash!

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  The drummer playing a full jazz kit on the far side of the prome-nade caught the rhythm in a splashy, thunderous, boozy, drawl-ing kind of way and Sarah was bewildered, she thought she was in a dream; what was going on? Jack didn’t look round, he kept walking, slower though, with his arm tight against hers.

  ‘Are you doing this?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ he laughed. ‘You are!’

  By now there was a crowd of people walking with them: a young mum with a buggy and a toddler girl waving her arms, shaking a yellow rattle; a couple of hipster lads arm in arm, with matching beards and dreamy eyes; a guy in a suit with a briefcase, banging on his back as he showed off some serious hip swivels; an elderly lady with her gentleman friend, rubbing her hands between claps; and a choir. Wait, seriously? A gospel choir?

  Yes. They had it written on their black T-shirts: ‘Gospel Train Leyton, all ages, men and women welcome.’ Big guys, skinny girls, bigger girls, muscle boys, skipping in time and swaying and singing – and now she knew the tune, even though she could not believe it was being sung to her by a crowd and a choir that was suddenly beside her and around her and filling the pave-ment, and the people who were not in on this were laughing and clapping and filming and looking astonished – except the ones who thought this kind of thing happened in London every day. She so wanted to tell them that it did not, but what was happening, exactly? Jack was looking so pleased with himself, high-fiving a guy with a razor-cut who did an extravagant bow, held a microphone to his mouth and sang to the whole assembly – with a battery-powered amplifier on his back – the melody and words of a song she absolutely loved about how his girl was amazing. He was nailing it and the guy was singing to her, as if in wonder, with the sound of the whole South Bank banging out the rhythm and she was caught up in it, feeling as if she would burst, feeling like an idiot in front of all these people, thinking she would give Jack what for when they got home, but loving it, loving him, the daft boy. ‘You’re amazing . . .’ They were all sing-ing now, a sound like being lifted on the shoulders of the crowd;

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  it was all for her. They were dancing and swaying and stopping.

  Then everything stopped.

  The words, the music, the rhythm, gone.

  The silence broke like a wave upon her.

  She heard a bird cry and a boat blow its horn and saw them all pointing upwards and away towards the Hungerford bridge where there were other people, she did not know them, standing on the footbridge waving back, unrolling white sheets. ‘I,’ said the first one in a big bold blue letter. ‘Think,’ said the next, in red, hand painted with flowers at the corners. ‘You’re Amazing,’ said the third in yellow. And these sheets were massive, they were filling up the line of the bridge, getting to half way. ‘Will,’ was the next in green. ‘You,’ in purple was followed by red again. ‘Marry Me?’

  ‘Read it,’ he said but she had and she put her fingers up to her face without thinking, as if to hide but there was nowhere to hide. He spoke into her ear, close and personal, just for her. ‘Will you?’ Shivering, she threw her arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder and heard the applause that began around her like firecrackers at her back and spread out through the crowd, up the steps of the bridge and across the bridge, and the drums rolled and the guitar kerranged and the song began again and she was crying, crying, for what? For happiness. For goodness’ sake. What a daft thing to do. What a daft and great and bloody lovely and

  wonderful thing to do.

  He could have ruined it. He could have forced her to say some-thing to all these people. Instead he kissed her on the lips, held it there, then stepped away and put his hands together over his head. It was like magic. Jack clapped twice and they melted away, becoming smiles, strangers again, dispersing, each playing their own tunes now, except there was a hum in the air like happiness and Sarah had never been more sure in her life that this man here, this Jack, this daft skinny American boy, was the boy she loved and would always love, for ever and a day.

  She could not have said no, of course. There was no way to decline in front of all those people, even if she had wanted to. Which she

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  did not, she told herself quickly when the thought occurred to her, as he was leading her towards a wine bar. So she never really gave any further consideration to the way he set her up that day. Or the way he controlled the crowd. Or where he got the idea from. She did find something similar on YouTube later and real-ized that he had copied someone else’s proposal, but it was still a great gesture. So romantic. There was no way to refuse. Anyway, what did it matter? She was in love.

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  Twenty Five

  The church was full, Sarah could feel it before she saw them all. Their expectations spilled out through the open doors to sum-mon her in from the blustery day.

  ‘Ready then?’ asked her father.

  Her arm was linked through his. She was weak, fizzy, unsure of herself. Ready though? Yes. Ready for this man. Coming, ready or not. She and Jack, the poor, imperfect dreamer, the wanderer, lover-boy, generous, considerate. Wilful. Stubborn. Gentle. Scatty. Strong. She was ready for anything with him. Side by side. But there were hundreds of people in that church – her father had insisted on inviting the whole congregation – and they had come to see this. To say how lovely, what a lovely dress and how much she looked like her mother.

  She was trying to deal with that thought when her father
urged her forward. Sarah took her stride from him. Under the arch they passed, walking slowly, and she began to see them in full, the faces turned towards her, the startled looks. One of the women in the choir put a hand up to her heart as if shot, or as if Sarah had turned up eight months pregnant with a space-hopper stomach. Halfway there now, her father was still keeping the pace, nod-ding to people. Smile, girl, smile. James was there with Parv; she saw them both laugh and give her the thumbs up. She saw Jack turn; he hadn’t guessed her secret but he could see her coming to him. He could see it now. His eyes widened and he laughed too, his shoulders shaking, his whole face alight. Through the bells and the music she could hear the happy, fantastic sound of him and she knew it was all right. His laughter was the cue for applause that began at the front and rushed to the back. They were applauding her, the bride, the beauty, the woman of the day, beaming and daring in her gown of gorgeous, glorious gold.

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  Her father held the Bible open with the rings in the crook of its pages and asked his daughter to repeat after him a name he had not used for her since she was born. The name his tearful, grate-ful, stroppy wife had ordered him to write on the birth certificate to mark the arrival of a child she had been told she could never have. Sarah saw him glance down over her shoulder to the front pew, where the mother of the bride should be. She sensed his bal-ance shift, but not the ripple of longing that ran through him. She could not read his thought that he must smile whatever now, because his wife Jasmine – the great fortune of his life, the mother of this astonishing bride – would have wanted him to do that. Sarah saw him look at her with a love that could have stopped the devil. He winked. She winked back and repeated after him, in full, the name she never, ever used:

  ‘Sarah . . . Hallelujah . . . Jones . . .’

  The mother of the groom was there, immaculate in a vintage cream Chanel skirt suit that certainly made the most of her legs, as was remarked upon more than once or twice in the pews around her. She caused the men to prickle with sweat at the col-lars of their badly fitting wedding shirts. The women wondered at her poise, her elegance, her confidence and apparent youth-fulness. Calculations were quietly made as to how old she must be now and how old she must have been back then, in the days when it all happened, you know? Surely you’ve heard? She was friendly enough when spoken to, but mostly kept her silence and an enigmatic smile, under a broad-brimmed black hat that a few people recognized as having been made by Philip Treacy. She was classy, but they were also looking around for the father of the groom. This was a big congregation. Robert thought it was because the church had turned out to support him, but actually the Girl Guiders and the plumber who fixed the vicarage pipes and many of the rest were there because they wanted to see a man in the flesh who was known to them all by a single name. An elder statesman of rock. Snake-hipped, rake-thin, with a wolfish smile and a sexuality that swept ahead of him like a tsunami. And

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  a heart. A conscience. Presidents and prime ministers fell for his charms; Bono was an ally of his. He was said to be a recluse now, prowling through Manhattan in his pension years with his hood up. His voice was gone, his mind too, some said, but those were just rumours. Surely he would come to his son’s wedding?

  Jack had the same vulpine look and restlessness, his eyes always seeking the next thing, his fingers always drumming (even at the altar), although his company made people edgy, rather than beside themselves with excitement. Sometimes he tried just a little too hard to be like the old man. He was very fond of quot-ing things his father had said, as if they were rules for life: ‘I have two instincts, as a rock star. I want to have fun, and I want to change the world.’ The difference being, of course, that Jack was not a rock star.

  The apology for his father’s absence came by motorcycle courier just before the service, with a gift in a little red box. Two Cartier rings, side by side in velvet. Eighteen carat white gold, with dia-monds of course. Far too expensive. Sarah looked at them and tried not to think of all the things she could have bought with the money. A washing machine, for example. And a car. It was going to take her a long time to feel able to wear that ring on the street without fearing muggers, but she would wear it in church today, that would be okay. There was no way to refuse. Jack was happy. His father had blessed them from afar; his mother was pleased to be there, drawing the eye but certainly not competing with the bride. Chana was her name, meaning ‘grace’ in Hebrew, and she embodied that virtue in the way she walked, the way she sat. She was flirting again with the faith she had rejected as a child, which appalled her son. She had a sense of humour about it though: when the father of the bride asked if she would like to choose any readings as part of the ceremony, she offered him Woody Allen: ‘If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.’ But that was just an opening shot. They were able to agree on another text from the same source, which she read beautifully. First she waited at the lectern for the congregation to settle and become quiet, so that there was a great sense of expectation. They were all

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  wondering about her anyway, more so in the absence of her for-mer lover. Then she spoke the one line slowly and with great care, as if it were Scripture.

  ‘Maybe the poets are right. Maybe love is the only answer.’ And that was it. That was all. There was silence as she took off

  her glasses, picked up the slip of paper and stepped down – then a quick bubbling up of ahs and murmurs of approval. They liked her style. She was flying home to America after this, back to her interior design company. Back to a tiny apartment in Forest Hills that none of her clients would ever see. She had chosen Chana as a new name for herself and then later for her company, after hearing a song that said ‘grace finds beauty in everything’. It was not one of those written by Jack’s father. She had not listened to his music willingly for a very long time. Not since the day Jack was made.

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  Twenty Six

  ‘Where are you, love?’

  The voice calling her suggested the streets of London, a city she had never seen. She was too young to hear the way America had bled into his voice, his vowels had changed and his drawl had lengthened to be more familiar to the kids who bought his records, to seduce boys and girls just like her. But those others were not there, in the room. Only she had been chosen. She was the one in the Frank Sinatra Suite of a grand hotel in Las Vegas on that enchanted early morning, the dawn of his fortieth birthday, holding a glass of Jack Daniels and Coke and looking out of the tall, wide panoramic window onto the Strip. Five o’clock. The sun was already up behind the Nevada mountains, soaking the sky with a rosy glow. The lights of the Strip were softening, getting gentler on her brain, which she knew must be fried but did not feel it. She felt sharp, alive, quick. Bright, funny. Clever, sexy.

  ‘Darling?’

  She went to his call, naked under the kimono he had given her the first time, a fortnight ago, in another city far away. He had seen her in the crowd of young women waiting after the show and sent his bodyguard to find her, to bring her to him in the long black limousine, for oysters and champagne. It was so romantic. They would be together for ever now. Somehow he had known she was there for him. He was her first lover and she was now all his. He did not ask her name. There was no need, he said. Their spirits had met. He was so spiritual. She was glad to be somebody else now, someone grown up and exciting. He wore a red cotton thread on his wrist. He was deep. Love had won, against the odds.

  ‘Ah, there you are, you look divine, I could eat you . . .’ She was fourteen years old.

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  Twenty Seven

  Fourteen years and nine months later, almost to the day, a skinny kid in black jeans, a black T-shirt and a black jacket, with his dyed black hair all-a-mess in the wind coming off the Hudson, made his way down a street in Greenwich Village. Jack the spider-boy saw gargoyles high on the apartment blocks, leering across the rooftops. There were palm trees on the terraces way up there, waving like f
ans at a concert. His father had the penthouse in a magnificent building from the thirties, like something from The Great Gatsby.

  ‘Hey, watch it, son,’ said the doorman as they collided. Jack stepped back from him and was questioned: ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Okay, sure. Thanks.’ A new boarding school was teaching him to be polite. ‘Excuse me, sir. I would like to see my father.’

  The doorman was wide and solid, in his fifties, with a purple bulb of a nose and rheumy eyes from the street wind. He looked kind, in a gruff sort of way. Probably had kids, even grandchil-dren. He would understand, Jack knew it.