The Lightkeeper's Wife

by Karen Viggers

  ‘Béchervaise Island,’ she says, taking the print from me.

  Now she’s down to one sock, knickers and a singlet. My heart tumbles as I watch her reach up to hang the photo on a hook. She selects a picture of a grey-headed albatross perched over a moody view of Macquarie Island. The light is dim and the sea is a restless white, foaming over the rocks below.

  ‘A friend of mine took this shot. It’s good, isn’t it?’ She hangs it above the bed. ‘I’d love to go there, wouldn’t you?’

  I’m staring at her toned body. ‘Go where?’ I ask vaguely.

  ‘Macquarie Island.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ I say.

  I bend quickly to lift the next frame, but she grasps my arm gently. The candlelight is soft on her face as she looks up at me. A moment of breathlessness hovers between us, a fragment of time when we both wait. I know it’s up to me to act, but I wallow in the luscious darkness of her eyes, quivering internally. The smallest smile flickers on her lips, and suddenly it isn’t difficult to kiss her. Passion, long unfamiliar, floods through me. Her lips are full and eager. Her body curves into mine.

  I didn’t think I could do this. But now that I feel her, warm and strong and close, something releases, something that has held me in check for years. It eases out of me like a sigh. And slowly, slowly I allow myself to go with sensation. The untapping of myself; an uncorking. Like a slow-motion replay.

  Emma is soft, but firm in my arms. She draws me onto the bed and allows me to explore her with my hands: the tautness of her forearms, the tight curve of her back, the softer roll of her hips. This is like music, like summer, like the quiver of birds’ wings. It’s hot and searing like white light over ice. It’s like finding myself again after a decade, and not knowing who I am.

  17

  The first time I saw an aurora I was awestruck. We were four or five days south of Hobart on the Southern Ocean and I had been asleep in my cabin when someone came clattering down the corridor, banging on doors. ‘Hey, everybody. Get up. There’s an aurora outside. The southern lights. Come on. It’s incredible.’

  My cabin mate flicked on the lights and we started donning layers: thermals, woollen shirts, fleece trousers, jackets, freezer suits, gloves, hats. Out in the corridor there was a buzz of activity and a flow of bodies heading for the bridge. I joined the trail of people clomping up the stairs and out onto the helideck. We then filed up again to a deck above the bridge where a group was milling quietly in the dark beside the warmth of the heating vent.

  ‘There’s a lull,’ a girl said. ‘But it’ll come again.’

  We waited in the shadows, tense with anticipation, willing the aurora to reappear across the black sky. Ahead, the spotlights from the ship glowed on the water, piercing the dark. I wondered if we’d really see anything as elusive and ethereal as an aurora with all this extraneous light.

  And then, there it was, an awakening in a high corner of the sky. A flicker, then a soft rippling sheet of pale yellow light that rose and fell on itself like a veil of smoke. It shimmered, surged and swelled, reaching and twisting, before subsiding as suddenly as it had appeared.

  Stunned, we waited.

  Another part of the sky lit up, ghostly fingers of fluctuating light that flickered and swirled before dancing right across the heavens in a thin trail. Wavering in curtains, rising and falling, spreading, glimmering, folding, pulsing, flaring and receding. Quivering up and down. Dropping off again.

  I realised I’d been holding my breath. How could there be such beauty as this?

  ‘This is nothing,’ an old-timer grunted. ‘You haven’t seen an aurora till you’ve seen them midwinter. They’re stronger. More colourful. And they last for hours.’

  Nobody listened to him. People who go south too often get jaded, and then even the extraordinary can become mundane. While he returned to his warm bed, the rest of us maintained our vigil on the bridge, creeping closer to the warmth of the heating vent as the cold pressed in. We were bonded in reverent silence, waiting for the heavens to light up again.

  Lying awake beside Emma this morning reminds me of seeing that first aurora. Naked beneath her sheets, I’m achingly aware, alive with feelings of discovery and disbelief. Beside me, she is warm and incredibly relaxed, her arms and legs skewed and her head thrown back on the pillow. The fingers of one hand are tangled loosely in mine. Even in sleep, she seems confidently in possession of herself, so unalarmed by the enormity of the world.

  It’s pleasant to lie here watching her in the dim light. Her face is slack and her mouth partly open. My eyes trace the strong line of her nose, the high curve of her cheeks, the hint of white teeth. Her lips are full and soft and I recall the sensation of them moving eagerly beneath mine, biting at me last night in passion. Her eyelids are open a little too. I want to shut them to protect her eyes, yet I’m afraid to reach out across the short space between us in case I disturb her, for then my peaceful observation of her would end. You can’t study someone as closely as this when they’re awake. It’d be a violation of privacy.

  I’m still unsure how we came to this last night—whether it was the beer, or the talk of Antarctica. Now that I’m sober, it’s not regret that I feel, but an uncomfortable fragility, as if my skin is cracking open and I’m morphing into something else. As I bask in the warmth of Emma’s body, I can feel something within me gaining a momentum that will soon be too big for me to stop.

  I decide I must leave. Gently, I disentangle my hand from Emma’s fingers, but her eyes open fully and engage me. She is momentarily languid and then her hand snaps onto my arm, pinning it.

  ‘Don’t,’ she says. ‘You’re not going.’ Her eyes are intense. ‘Don’t run. I’m not scary.’

  ‘I have to go to work.’

  ‘Will they sack you?’

  Despite her grip on me, she looks sleepy again and the smile that creeps onto her lips makes my heart heave. It’s either fear or desire, or both.

  ‘You should stay,’ she says. ‘Ring in sick. Say your car’s broken down.’

  ‘I’m a mechanic.’

  She closes her eyes. ‘That excuse won’t work then, will it?’

  She’s silent a moment and I’m blankly panicked. I don’t know how to escape.

  ‘Come up with something else,’ she says without opening her eyes. ‘Be creative.’

  ‘I’m a mechanic,’ I say again, as if that should explain everything.

  ‘That doesn’t mean you have to be a machine.’ She looks at me and tugs my hand across, then lays it on the soft doughiness of her belly. She presses my hand beneath hers and slowly draws it over her silken skin. ‘You can’t go,’ she says, rolling against me.

  In that moment, with her body moving against mine, desire erupts in me. I want her body and her skin and the feel of her hands clasping my arms, exploring the contours of my calves, kneading my back.

  Later, she makes me toast and coffee. I’ve showered and dressed, but Emma seems completely comfortable padding naked around the kitchen. With the curtains still drawn, it’s as if we exist in our own secluded sanctuary.

  Her breasts move every time she does. They’re large but firm, and they suit her athletic frame. She sits on the wooden chair across from me to eat breakfast and it’s impossible for me not to look at her, not to watch her nipples, like brown discs. She munches toast and looks at me flatly.

  ‘Don’t judge me,’ she says. ‘I am who I am. Far from perfect. You survive by being like a bloke down there. If you’re feminine, they harass you. If you’re sexless, you manage. I know my body’s average, but I’m okay with that.’

  I swallow and my voice is like gravel. ‘I like it.’

  She doesn’t smile. ‘It performs, and it’s strong. That’s all I require of it.’

  I say nothing. I’m enchanted by her body. I’m glad she’s strong and unpretentious. I force myself to stop looking at her and examine the room.

  ‘These two buildings are like an Antarctic halfway house,’ she says, following my gaze
. ‘People come and go all the time. I like being out here in the bungalow because I can have my own space without having to deal with share-house dynamics. Four people live in the house and this is the spillover accommodation. Two of them have office jobs at the antdiv and haven’t been south for ages.’ She laughs almost derisively. ‘You’d think they’d be over it by now, wouldn’t you? You’d think they’d be living in regular houses. But they like having expeditioners around. It reminds them of how it feels to be down there.’

  She leans over a portable CD player sitting on the floor beside her chair and puts on some music—The Verve. The noise seems too large and loud for this small living space.

  ‘I’m going to have a shower,’ she says.

  Alone at the table, I feel strange and out of place and the music chafes at me. I go outside and sit on the edge of the concrete porch looking across the overgrown backyard. The curtains in the main house are still drawn. One room has no curtains and I assume it must be the kitchen. I can’t see anyone inside.

  The day is cool and cloudy. I can still hear Emma’s music, so I shut the door and sit down on the porch again. I should head off to work soon. The boss will be annoyed. Perhaps I should have rung and fabricated some excuse, but they’d know I was lying. And I’m not good at deceit. I like to keep life simple—work, Jess, birdwatching. Already this morning things have changed, and part of me wants to retreat. But a small voice is telling me I’ve already moved far beyond my usual solitude, and there’s no going back.

  Emma comes out freshly showered, her hair damp. She’s wearing jeans, a shirt and Blundstone boots. There’s no shape to her in these clothes; she’s advertising nothing, but I’m still willing to buy. She sits down beside me.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she asks.

  My breath catches as I connect with her eyes. ‘I have to go to work.’

  She nods. ‘How about tonight? Want to come over for a meal and some wine?’

  I hesitate. Her proposition both excites and frightens me. Two nights in a row almost seems like commitment.

  She tries to read my uncertainty. ‘Do you have something on already?’

  ‘No. I have a dog at home. Jess. She’s not used to being left.’

  ‘Bring her along, then. A dog is good. I like dogs.’ Emma laughs. ‘I thought you were going to say you had a girlfriend.’

  ‘No girlfriend.’

  The confession sounds lonely. A bit desperate. I wish I hadn’t said anything. And Emma is looking at me strangely, as if she’s wondering about something. Perhaps I should tell her upfront that I’m a social misfit, that I’m not sure where I belong.

  She reaches out and a plucks a head of grass from the lawn, starts picking out the seeds one by one. ‘You miss the smells when you’re down south,’ she says. ‘Don’t you think? Like the smell of grass. And the smell of moisture. All you smell is penguin shit and station food.’ She waves the stem of grass and throws it away, and then she rubs her hand along my knee. ‘Don’t you remember that about coming back? The smell of land? The clouds? The smell of dogs and grass and trees?’ She pushes me playfully. ‘Go on. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten.’

  ‘No. I remember. Smells. And confusion. Traffic. The craziness of everything. Everyone in such a hurry.’

  She gazes off across the yard into grey distance. ‘Down there you forget how to rush. It’s a shame we relearn it so quickly when we come back. I think it’s nice to take life slowly. To stop and appreciate things: landscapes, horizons. That’s what’s so addictive about going south. The joy you get from contemplation. Getting away from the hustle and bustle. The way we live life back here becomes so . . . irrelevant.’ She leans back and stares up at the clouds. ‘That’s why it’s so hard to settle down. Who wants to live the way everyone else does? They don’t know what they’re missing out on.’

  ‘It is possible to live simply here if you want to,’ I say.

  She shakes her head. ‘No, it’s not. Look at you. You feel compelled to go to work this morning. Down there, you’d find a way to delay it.’

  ‘Not if there were things to be done.’

  ‘Maybe not. But you’d be doing real things. And you’d have time to stop and look at the sky, or to watch a snow petrel flying over. And you’d value that.’

  She’s right. Down south you can be fulfilled just by the way the light slants over the ice, or how it glows on an iceberg. You get hooked on distance.

  Still, I want to tell her there are ways to find joy right here in Hobart. Simple things, like lingering over breakfast while watching the rosellas on my feeder. Or the sight of the morning light over the channel, the bright flash of orange that comes with the autumn smoke haze. I’ve learned how to find moments of happiness in normal life. It’s a matter of rearranging your thoughts so you don’t buy into the rush. It’s not Antarctic euphoria, but a kind of peace is possible.

  Now, though, Emma’s face has folded into itself. She’s focused on memories and she wouldn’t hear me if I tried to explain. Even if she did, she wouldn’t understand. She’s still trapped in the southern whirl and the conviction that nothing can ever equal it. It takes years to adjust, not weeks or months. And yet, given the opportunity to go south with Emma, I’d do it to myself again. Just to share the place with her. To feel that wild sensation of freedom, of escape. The exhilaration of light. I suppose in a way she’s right. I fill the void by finding pleasure in the winging of a cormorant over water, but it doesn’t approach the thrill of watching snow petrels wheeling against a steely sky.

  ‘I’d better head off,’ I say, standing awkwardly. The ground feels unsteady beneath my feet.

  Emma smiles up at me. ‘Bring some wine,’ she says. ‘Bring two bottles. I’ll be waiting for you.’

  18

  Jess is sitting by the side gate when I get home from work. She doesn’t smile and she doesn’t stand up. Her eyes are forlorn and my rising guilt is dense. I open the gate and she skulks out and cringes round my legs. She thinks she’s done something wrong.

  I sit on the path and she crawls onto my lap, curling up in a tight ball. When I pull on her ears, the sigh that shudders through her is almost human. She feels betrayed; this is the first time I’ve left her overnight without coming home. I’d like to tell her how happy I was with Emma, but now with my sad dog on my lap, all I can do is cry big wet tears that well out and drip onto her head. Where is this coming from? I haven’t cried in years. One night with Emma and I’m breaking apart. How can I have a relationship with another person when I can’t get it right with my dog?

  Jess and I sit on the footpath for a long time in the mellow afternoon light. Soon we are sitting in shadows and even with my hot-water-bottle dog still coiled on my lap the cold is eating into me through the concrete path.

  ‘Come on, Jess,’ I say finally. ‘We have to go inside.’

  She leaps up and, follows me closely into the house like she’s glued to my legs. I put on some music and shake food into her dish. Then I set down a bowl of milk as well. She looks up at me and beats her tail against the floor. I think she knows I’m saying sorry. For a dog, milk is like a bag of lollies.

  I shower and change and then stuff some clean clothes into a bag. I suppose this means I’m expecting to stay the night at Emma’s again. This may be a presumption, but if I buy two bottles of wine it’ll be a necessity. I roll up Jess’s rug and place it by the door. Still at her bowl, she lifts her head and wags her tail. She knows she won’t be left behind this time.

  As the light fades over the water, I sip tea in the kitchen and struggle to compose myself. Something is skipping and tumbling in my chest and my palms are sweaty with excitement. It’s as if life is reawakening in me. The hope of a future very different from the past nine years.

  A knock at the door checks me. It’s Laura, with a hesitant smile on her face.

  ‘Sorry to come banging on your door again . . . It’s just that I need some matches for the stove, and I wondered if you had some. I’m a bi
t reluctant to drag Mouse down to the shops. He gets carsick.’

  I wonder what sort of person gets carsick on a five-minute drive—or why she can’t leave her brother at home—but I go to the pantry to see if I have a spare box. The phone rings and I take the call still ferreting around on the top shelf. It’s Jan. Typical of her to ring at a difficult moment.

  ‘What’s happening with Mum?’ she asks.

  ‘I don’t know. Isn’t Jacinta down there now? With Alex?’

  ‘Yes. But I thought you might have heard from them.’

  ‘There’s no phone coverage at Cloudy Bay.’

  ‘That’s another reason why I’m so cross,’ Jan says. ‘Mum has no way of calling if she needs help.’

  ‘Do you want to come down with me next week?’

  ‘Can’t. I’ve got too much on. My whole week’s booked out.’

  Sure, her whole week is booked out. What does she expect me to do for her?

  ‘Call me after you’ve spoken to Jacinta,’ she says. ‘Hopefully Alex will be able to talk some sense into her. And into Mum. I had a quiet word with him before they left and I think he understands my concerns. Not like the rest of you.’

  She hangs up. Laura is still hovering by the door. At last, I find a matchbox at the back of the shelf and hand it to her, dropping it into her open palm. Transaction completed.

  ‘Thank you,’ she says. But she stays on the doorstep as if she expects an invitation inside. ‘We’re settling in all right,’ she says.

  ‘Good.’ Monosyllabic answers work to discourage most people. I’m expecting her to get the message soon. She gives a slight awkward smile and I can’t help comparing her with Emma. Laura: frail, timid and colourless, so thin she might snap. Emma: bold, robust and confident. I can’t wait to finish this meeting so I can scoop up Jess and my things and take myself back to the warmth of Emma’s presence.