by Annet Schaap
There, along the sea path, a line of people is approaching, almost black in the late evening light. They are men in big hats, with sticks in their hands. At the back is a woman in a dress. She trips and stumbles on the uneven stones, falling a little behind. As they come closer, Lampie sees who she is: the teacher from the school she went to for a very short time.
Lampie can’t remember her name. Slowly the line approaches the lighthouse. Lampie feels a knot in her stomach. This is what they have been waiting for all day, she suddenly realizes. She quickly heads down the stairs, dashing over the smooth steps. “Father, some people are…”
“I’ve seen them,” Augustus croaks. He is standing at the window, with his back to her. “Go to your room.”
“Why do I have to—”
“And don’t come out until I call you. You understand?” Her father follows her and slams the door behind her. “And remember what I told you this morning!” he whispers through the crack in the door.
What was it again? thinks Lampie. Oh yes.
WHACK
Augustus leans on his stick. His leg is shaking, but he is not going to sit down; he does not want to be shorter than the men who are walking around his living room.
The fat sheriff has brought two deputies, just boys, with fluffy blond hair and pimples. They are striding around his house as if they live there, touching all his belongings. They are allowed to. And Augustus is not allowed to throw them out.
The woman in the grey dress does not touch anything. She just stands there, looking at him and at everything in the room as if it is too dirty to touch. She makes Augustus nervous.
What was it that he had come up with again? What was it that he wanted to say? Keep calm, that’s the most important thing. Breathe slowly. Don’t get angry. Stay polite. Say, “Yes, sir.” Otherwise you’ll only make things worse.
Yes, sir. Of course, sir. My sincere apologies, it’ll never happen again. No yelling, no cursing. Hang your head.
He can’t help thinking of Emilia, who always used to say that sort of thing to him: Don’t yell, Augustus. Don’t kick chairs across the room, darling. And certainly not the sheriff!
Now she’s dead and he has to say those things to himself. He sighs. He is not very good at it, but he has to do it. For Lampie.
“My, my,” says the sheriff. “What a thing. What a storm, eh? We won’t forget that one in a hurry. And that ship. Smashed right into the rock, it did. Bang! Did you hear it?”
“Saw it,” says Augustus. “You can see it from the tower.”
“Well,” says the sheriff, shaking his head. “Well. Must have been quite a climb, with that leg of yours. Bang it went. Crack! In two pieces! It’s a blessed miracle no one drowned. Do you know how much it costs, a ship like that, Waterman?”
“No idea,” says Augustus. He turns around and snatches something from the blonder deputy sheriff. “Hands off!”
It is Emilia’s mirror, the mirror that has been hanging there on a nail, hanging there since… since for ever. It belongs there. He hangs it back up and sees his own face. It is very pale and his eyes are wide and scared. Keep breathing.
The deputy sheriff raises an eyebrow at his boss. Want me to beat him to death? is clearly what he means. Now? Or shall I wait until later?
Later, says the sheriff with a nod. We have plenty of time.
Keep breathing. Yes, sir. What was the question again, sir? Lampie had better stay in her room.
“Five thousand dollars is what a ship like that costs – at least.” The sheriff slowly nods. “I don’t have that kind of money lying around. Do you?”
Augustus gives a snort. “Not with what you pay me.”
“That’s true,” says the sheriff. “We pay you. And would you just remind me what we pay you for?”
“To light the lamp.”
“Exactly. You said it.”
“Which is particularly important in a storm!” One of the deputies has come to stand beside the sheriff, and he is nodding his head, just like his boss. He is holding the drawer of cutlery from the kitchen.
“Exactly…” the sheriff says again. “Exactly. And what a storm it was yesterday. My goodness me.” He rubs his hands. “So, tell me, was the light on yesterday?”
“No, sir.”
“And why not?”
Augustus sighs. He has already told them twice. “Because the lens was broken, the mechanism. I worked all night to…”
“Oh, yes, that’s what you said.”
“And it wasn’t fixed until morning. And by then it was…”
“Too late,” the sheriff says, completing his sentence.
“Um… yes. And I’m sorry. And it won’t happen again.”
The sheriff brings his face close to the lighthouse keeper’s. Augustus can smell that he’s had a drink. Oh, he could really do with one himself right now.
“My deputy has just been upstairs,” says the sheriff. “That lens is working perfectly.”
“Yes, it is now! But it wasn’t last night, I had to fix the whole—”
“Does that happen often?”
Augustus shrugs. “Sometimes. That thing’s old.”
“And did we know about that? Have you ever reported it to the town hall? Sent a letter? Requested a replacement?”
“What? You expect me to be able to write now? I’m a lighthouse keeper, that’s what I am.”
“Yes, that’s what you are. With only one job to do. To light the lamp. And then put it out. So, did you light it yesterday?”
“Of course.”
“With a match.”
“What else?”
“But it wasn’t on.”
“That’s what I’m telling you, that was because of the—”
“So you said, yes. The mechanism, blah, blah, blah.”
Augustus’s eyes flick to the door of Lampie’s room. Did he just see it move? Stay in there, child. Please.
“Augustus Waterman, did you send your daughter Emilia to fetch matches yesterday evening? When it was far too late? When it was already dark?”
“I swear I did not.” Augustus spits to reinforce his oath. As it hits the floor with a splat, the grey woman in the corner gives a disapproving sniff.
“So how is it we heard from Mrs Rosewood that your daughter went to the shop last night and her husband gave her a box of – and I quote – ‘Swallow Brand Top Quality matches’?”
“You’ll have to ask her.” Augustus can now clearly see the door moving. Don’t come out, he thinks. Stay there. “I didn’t send her.”
The sheriff looks around the room. “Actually, where is your daughter? Blown away? Drowned? Run off?”
“No, she’s, um…”
“I’m here.” The door opens and Lampie steps into the room.
Her father takes a threatening step towards her. “Get back in your room, child. Go on! Stay out of—”
“No, no, the child is staying here.” The sheriff lays his hand on Augustus’s shoulder. Not in a friendly way, but more like a threat.
“Tell us what happened last night, little girl.”
Lampie takes a deep breath. She has done her very best to remember what to say. Now here goes.
“My father,” she says, “worked all night to repair the lens, because it was broken and, um, then he didn’t get it fixed until this morning and by then it was, um…”
“Too late, eh?” says the sheriff helpfully. “Goodness me, what a story. And then you went to buy matches.”
“No…”
“That’s what Mrs Rosewood says.”
“Oh,” says Lampie. “Oh yes, that’s right, then. Or no, it was earlier, it was just before…”
“Why was that? Had your father forgotten? So he sent you? In that storm? You should be ashamed of yourself, Waterman.”
“No,” says Lampie quickly. “No, it was me who forgot, it was my fault, it was all my fault.” Her cheeks are bright red but her eyes are determined. She is going to help her father. He does not have to d
o this all alone.
“Your fault?” says the sheriff. “Are you the lighthouse keeper?”
Lampie shakes her head.
“And where was the lighthouse keeper?”
“He can’t walk too well with his leg, not all that way,” says Lampie. “And he was… he had… He was tired.”
“Shut your mouth, child!”
Lampie sees her father’s fist opening and closing – which is never a good sign.
“Let your daughter finish, Waterman. Tell me the truth, little girl. Tired? Or drunk?”
Lampie gazes at him nervously. Lying to a sheriff is not allowed.
“Well? Answer me. Drunk? Too drunk to work?”
Lampie looks at her father and then at the sheriff and back again. “Um…” She nods her head and then tries to shake it at the same time. It doesn’t work. “Ye-no…” she says. “Or at least…” She can’t remember what to say and what not to say. “But that doesn’t matter anyway, because I always help him. I help him every day. It’s just that yesterday I forgot the matches, so it was my fault that…”
Augustus can see a red mist in front of his eyes. From far away and long ago, he can hear Emilia warning him: Don’t do it, my love. You’ll only make things… But he doesn’t know if things could actually be any worse. His own daughter is handing him over to the sheriff. That jumped-up sheriff and his deputies are walking around his house as if it belongs to them. That woman in the corner is looking at him as if he’s the most disgusting thing in all creation. He tightens his hold on his stick.
“Right, you lot! You can all GO! TO! HELL!” A huge voice comes out of his mouth, and he whacks the table with his stick, so hard that the cups jump up and one of the deputy sheriffs shrieks. The blonder one has Emilia’s mirror in his hands again, and Augustus knocks it away from him. The mirror shatters, the pieces flying everywhere. And now he wants to whack the sheriff’s head too, and that stupid face with the big cow eyes, but you don’t hit a sheriff, that would be really stupid. What does he care though? Everything is already…
“Stop it!” Lampie cries, in her mother’s voice. “Stop it, Father!”
And instead of the sheriff, he hits her.
Whacks the stick into her cheek, which flashes white and then glows red, and a trickle of blood comes from her ear, but his anger still isn’t over and he raises the stick for another blow, but…
“Scandalous!” The voice of the teacher whose name Lampie can’t remember echoes around the room. “Scandalous. How dare you?” In two steps, she is beside Augustus, pulling the stick from his hand. “Your own child. You brute!”
She turns to the sheriff and his men. “And look at you, just standing there. He could beat his own daughter to death and you’d stand by and watch.”
“Oh, Miss Amalia, we really would never…” begins the sheriff. “We would have, we were just about to…”
“Yes, when it’s too late, yes. Always just too late, eh?” She turns her eyes to the ceiling as if someone up there agrees with her. “I have told you about this before, sheriff. And now you have seen it for yourself. But I simply refuse to stand by and watch any longer. Not me. Not for another minute.”
PILLOWCASE
Lampie puts her hand to her cheek. This is going to hurt really badly later, she can already feel it. But right now everything inside her is still glowing with shock. She did – and said – completely the wrong thing. She tries to catch her father’s eye. She wants to say, “I was only trying to help,” and she wants him to look at her and to see her again, which is what always happens after one of his outbursts. Sometimes it takes half an hour, and sometimes a few days. But he is always sorry. He doesn’t say so out loud; he can’t do that. But he says it with his eyes.
Before he can look at her though, Lampie feels a cold hand on the back of her neck, pushing her forward, into her bedroom. Miss Amalia. That is what she is called – Lampie has remembered now.
Miss Amalia follows close behind her; she has to duck as she passes through the doorway. The feathers on her bonnet brush the ceiling.
“A few dresses,” she says. “Underwear, nightdress. Socks.”
Lampie just looks at her. She has no idea what the woman means.
“And something for Sundays, of course.” Miss Amalia turns to look at Lampie’s shelf of clothes. It is just a sorry little pile. Impatiently, she snaps her fingers. “Give me your suitcase. I’ll pack it for you.”
“I don’t have a suitcase,” whispers Lampie. She doesn’t understand. A suitcase? Does she have to go back to school now?
“Or a basket? A bag?” Lampie shakes her head. With quick hands, Miss Amalia searches through the items on the shelf. She sighs with irritation as she tosses it all onto Lampie’s bed. Her little dresses, her badly knitted socks. An old flannel nightdress.
“This one too?”
“Do I have to go away?” asks Lampie. “Do I have to sleep somewhere else?”
“Yes, child.” Impatiently, Miss Amalia stuffs the clothes into a pillowcase. Which is also old and worn.
“You can come with me for now. Until we find a solution.” She drags Lampie back through the doorway and into the living room.
The sheriff and his men are moving things and carrying them around. They have taken everything out of the cupboards and piled it all up untidily in the corner. Pans, cups, the bread bin. The rug has been rolled up roughly and placed on top. One of the deputies comes in with two angrily cackling chickens and releases them into the room. Shards of Lampie’s mother’s mirror lie all over the floor. Her father is slumped in his chair, looking at the floor, not at her. He is still angry – he must be. She picks up a shard of mirror.
“No, no, no, child, put that down. You’ll cut yourself,” says Miss Amalia. She grabs Lampie’s arm. Suddenly Lampie remembers how Miss Amalia used to hit children on the fingers if they fidgeted or giggled. And that it was actually quite a relief when she had to leave the school.
“Did you drop it?”
Lampie nods at Miss Amalia like a good girl, but clamps her fist around the piece of glass. It gives her fingers a little nip.
Mother, she thinks. What on earth is happening?
“Come with me.” The woman takes her by the wrist and pulls her to the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow, sheriff. Gentlemen.”
The men tip their hats. “Miss Amalia,” they mumble.
“Oh, and you’re most welcome,” she says pointedly.
“Oh, of course, of course,” replies the sheriff quickly. “Thank you. Whatever would we do without you?”
“I often wonder that myself,” says Miss Amalia, pulling Lampie outside and into the night.
Lampie looks back over her shoulder one last time. Her father is sitting in the shadow; she can hardly even see him now.
He does not look up.
MISS AMALIA’S PLAN
Lampie lies with her eyes wide open, staring into the darkness. Earlier, Miss Amalia made up the couch for her to sleep on and tucked in the stiffly starched sheets around her. Then she turned off the light and said, “Now sleep well, child.” But Lampie cannot sleep.
The room around her smells strange, of soap or something that is even cleaner. There is very little in the room: a table with straight-backed chairs, a cupboard, a cross on the wall and a big clock in the corner that ticks really loudly, all night long.
She wriggles one hand out of the tight sheets and lays it on the pillow beside her cheek. Not against it – that would hurt too much. Her tongue keeps touching the spot on the inside of her cheek where the skin feels broken and it tastes of blood. And in her mind, she keeps seeing her father. How he looked and what he said and then what he said next and what he did after that. If only she could talk to him for a moment. Just listen to him breathing or snoring. She’ll be able to go back home tomorrow, won’t she?
Home to a house with no furniture. Had they taken everything with them?
Oh, but that wouldn’t be so bad. They could always sit on boxes and e
at off wooden boards. She could look for things on the beach. When she is home and everything is back to normal. When she has said exactly the right thing to her father and he is no longer angry with her. When she has worked out what that right thing might be.
She squeezes the shard in her other hand, under the sheet. Mother, I don’t know how to put this right.
Ssh. Go to sleep, my sweet child. Tomorrow is another day.
In the dark she hears a sound and something heavy jumps onto her legs. With soft paws, a cat walks over Lampie and nudges its nose into the cheek that does not hurt. Luckily it does not smell of soap, just of cat. The cat lies down next to her head, purring. She can feel its warmth and its soft fur against her cheek, all night long.
And her mother is right: the next morning is the start of another day.
“When can I go home?” Lampie is sitting at the breakfast table, her plate full of little squares of bread. She is not hungry.
“Home?” Miss Amalia peers over the top of her teacup at Lampie – and at Lampie’s cheek, which is very swollen. She shakes her head a few times. “It’s just as well you’re out of that place.”
Lampie tries to hide her cheek behind her hand. “But when can I?…”
“I have an appointment at the town hall later today to decide that.”
“To decide what?”
“What to do with you. What is best for you.”
“I want to go home.”
“So that we can weigh up all the interests. Particularly your own, of course.”
“I want to go home.”
“What a child wants is not always the best thing,” says Miss Amalia, eating her bread with dainty bites.