“We’ve got to say something! Now! Call off the christening…” Tom’s voice was low and urgent as he faced Isabel in the vestry while Bill and Violet showed off their granddaughter to the guests in the church.
“Tom, we can’t.” Her breath was shallow and her face was pale. “It’s too late!” she said.
“We have to put this right! We have to tell people, now.”
“We can’t!” Still reeling, she cast about for any words that made sense. “We can’t do that to Lucy! We’re the only parents she’s ever known. Besides, what would we say? That we suddenly remembered I didn’t actually have a baby?” Her face turned gray. “What about the man’s body? It’s all gone too far.” Every instinct told her to buy time. She was too confused, too terrified to do anything else. She tried to sound calm. “We’ll talk about it later. Right now we have to go through with the christening.” A shaft of light caught the sea-green irises of her eyes, and Tom could see the fear in them. She took a step toward him and he sprang back, as if they were opposing magnets.
The vicar’s footsteps rose above the murmur of the guests in the church as he approached. Tom’s head spun. “In sickness and in health. For better, for worse.” The words, uttered by him in this church years earlier, thudded in his skull.
“All ready for you,” beamed the vicar.
“Hath this child already been baptized or no?” began Reverend Norkells. Those gathered at the font replied, “No.” Alongside Tom and Isabel, Ralph stood as godfather, Isabel’s cousin Freda as godmother.
The godparents held candles and intoned the answers to the vicar’s questions: “Dost thou, in the name of this child, renounce the devil and all his works… ?”
“I renounce them all,” the godparents replied in unison.
As the words echoed off the sandstone walls, Tom looked sternly at his shiny new boots and concentrated on a burning blister on his heel.
“Wilt thou then obediently keep God’s holy will and commandments… ?”
“I will.”
With each promise, Tom flexed his foot against the stiff leather, immersing himself in the pain.
Lucy seemed mesmerized by the fireworks of the stained-glass windows, and it occurred to Isabel, even in her turmoil, that the child had never seen such brilliant colors.
“Oh merciful God, grant that the old Adam in this child may be so buried, that the new man may be raised up in her…”
Tom thought of the unmarked grave on Janus. He saw the face of Frank Roennfeldt as he had covered it with canvas—detached, expressionless—leaving Tom to be his own accuser.
Outside, the noise of children playing French cricket in the church playground peppered the air with thwacks and cries of “Owzat?” In the second row of pews, Hilda Addicott whispered to her neighbor, “Look, Tom’s got a tear in his eye. Now, that’s a soft heart for you. He may look a great rock of a man, but it’s a real soft heart he’s got.”
Norkells took the child into his arms and said to Ralph and Freda, “Name this child.”
“Lucy Violet,” they said.
“Lucy Violet, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” said the priest, pouring water on the head of the little girl, who let out a shriek of protest, soon accompanied by Mrs. Rafferty coaxing “Crimond” out of the decrepit wooden organ.
Before the service had finished, Isabel excused herself and hurried to the outhouse at the end of the path. The small brick space was as hot as an oven, and she shooed away flies before leaning over to retch violently. A gecko clung to the wall, watching her in silence. When she pulled the chain it scampered up to the tin roof, to safety. As she rejoined her parents, she said weakly, “Upset tummy,” to head off her mother’s inquiries. Holding out her arms for Lucy, she hugged her so tight that the child put her hands to Isabel’s chest and levered herself away a little.
At the christening lunch at the Palace Hotel, Isabel’s father sat at the table with Violet, who was wearing her blue cotton shift with the white lace collar. Her corset was pinching, and the bun into which she had tidied her hair was giving her a headache. She was determined, however, that nothing would spoil this day—the christening of her first and, she now understood from Isabel, her only grandchild.
“Tom doesn’t seem his usual self, does he, Vi? Not usually much of a drinker, but he’s on the whisky today.” Bill shrugged, as if to convince himself. “Just wetting the baby’s head, I suppose.”
“I think it’s just nerves—such a big day. Isabel’s come over all touchy too. Probably that tummy trouble.”
Over at the bar with Tom, Ralph said, “That little girl’s made all the difference to your missus, hasn’t she? She’s like a new woman.”
Tom turned his empty glass round and round in his hands. “It’s brought out a different side of her, all right.”
“When I think back to how she lost the baby…”
Tom gave an imperceptible start, but Ralph went on, “… that first time. It was like seeing a ghost when I came out to Janus. And the second was worse.”
“Yeah. They were hard times for her.”
“Oh well, God comes good in the end, doesn’t he?” Ralph smiled.
“Does he, Ralph? He can’t come good for everyone, can he? Couldn’t come good for Fritz as well as us, say…”
“That’s no way to be talking, boy. He’s come good for you!”
Tom loosened his tie and collar—suddenly the bar felt stifling.
“You all right, mate?” asked Ralph.
“Stuffy in here. Think I’ll go for a bit of a wander.” But outside was no better. The air seemed solid, like molten glass that suffocated him rather than letting him breathe.
If he could talk to Isabel alone, calmly… Things would be all right. It could be all right, somehow. He drew himself up, taking a deep breath, and walked slowly back into the hotel.
“She’s fast asleep,” said Isabel as she closed the door to the bedroom, where the child lay surrounded by pillows to keep her from rolling off the edge of the bed. “She was so good today. Got through the whole christening, with all those people. Only cried when she got wet.” As the day went on, her voice had lost the tremor it had acquired with Hilda’s revelation.
“Oh, she’s an angel,” said Violet, smiling. “I don’t know what we’ll do with ourselves when she goes back tomorrow.”
“I know. But I promise I’ll write, and tell you all her news,” Isabel said, and gave a sigh. “We’d better turn in, I suppose. Got to be up at the crack of dawn for the boat. Coming, Tom?”
Tom gave a nod. “Night, Violet. Night, Bill,” he said, and left them to their jigsaw puzzle as he followed Isabel into the bedroom.
It was the first time they had been alone together all day, and as soon as the door was closed, he demanded, “When are we going to tell them?” His face was tight, his shoulders stiff.
“We’re not,” replied Isabel, in an urgent whisper.
“What do you mean?”
“We need to think, Tom. We need time. We have to leave tomorrow. All hell will break loose if we say anything, and you’re supposed to be back on duty tomorrow night. We’ll work out what to do once we get back to Janus. We mustn’t rush into something we’ll regret.”
“Izz, there’s a woman here in town who thinks her daughter’s dead when she’s alive; who doesn’t know what happened to her husband. God knows what she’s been through. The sooner we put her out of her misery—”
“It’s all such a shock. We have to do the right thing, not just by Hannah Potts, but by Lucy as well. Please, Tom. Neither of us can think straight at the moment. Let’s take this slowly. Right now, let’s just try to get a bit of sleep before the morning.”
“I’ll turn in later,” he said, “I need some fresh air,” and he slipped quietly out on to the back veranda, ignoring Isabel’s plea to stay.
Outside it was cooler, and Tom sat in the darkness in a cane chair, his head in his hands. Through the kitchen
window, he could hear the clack-clack as Bill put the last pieces of the jigsaw back into its wooden box. “Isabel seems so keen to get back to Janus. Says she’s not good with crowds any more,” Bill said as he put the lid on. “You’d be hard-pressed to muster a real crowd this side of Perth.”
Violet was trimming the wick of the kerosene lamp. “Well, she always was highly strung,” she mused. “Between you and me, I think she just wants to have Lucy all to herself.” She sighed. “It’ll be quiet without the little one around.”
Bill put his arm around Violet’s shoulders. “Brings back memories, doesn’t it? Remember Hugh and Alfie when they were tots? Grand little fellas, they were.” He chuckled. “Remember that time they shut the cat in the cupboard for days?” He paused. “It’s not the same, I know, but being a grandfather’s the next best thing, isn’t it? The next best thing to having the boys back.”
Violet lit the lamp. “There were times I didn’t think we’d get through it all, Bill. Didn’t think we could ever have another day’s happiness.” She blew out the match. “Such a blessing, at last.” Replacing the glass shade, she guided the way to bed.
The words reverberated in Tom’s mind as he breathed in the night jasmine, its sweetness oblivious to his desperation.
CHAPTER 16
The first night back on Janus, the wind howled around the lantern room, pushing at the thick panes of glass in the tower, testing for some weak spot. As Tom lit up, his mind went over and over the argument he had had with Isabel as soon as the store boat had left.
She had been unmovable: “We can’t undo what’s happened, Tom. Don’t you think I’ve been trying to find an answer?” She was clasping the doll she had just picked up from the floor, hugging it to her chest. “Lucy’s a happy, healthy little girl. Ripping her away now would be—oh Tom, it’d be horrible!” She had been folding sheets into the linen press, pacing to and fro between the basket and the cupboard. “For better or worse, Tom, we did what we did. Lucy adores you and you adore her and you don’t have the right to deprive her of a loving father.”
“What about her loving mother? Her living bloody mother! How can this be fair, Izz?”
Her face flushed. “Do you think it’s fair that we lost three babies? Do you think it’s fair that Alfie and Hugh are buried thousands of miles away and you’re walking around without a scratch? Of course it’s not fair, Tom, not fair at all! We just have to take what life dishes up!”
She had landed a shot where Tom was most vulnerable. All these years later, he could not shed that sickening sensation of having cheated—not cheated death, but cheated his comrades, having come through unscathed at their expense, even though logic told him it was nothing but luck one way or another. Isabel could see that she had winded him, and softened. “Tom, we have to do what’s right—for Lucy.”
“Izzy, please.”
She cut across him. “Not another word, Tom! The only thing we can do is love that little girl as much as she deserves. And never, never hurt her!” Clutching the doll, she hurried from the room.
Now, as he looked out over the ocean, blustery and whipped white with foam, the darkness was closing in on all sides. The line between the ocean and the sky became harder to judge, as the light faltered second by second. The barometer was falling. There would be a storm before morning. Tom checked the brass handle on the door to the gallery, and watched the light turn, steady, impervious.
As Tom attended to the light that evening, Isabel sat beside Lucy’s cot, watching her drift into sleep. It had taken all her strength to get through the day, and her thoughts still swirled like the gathering storm outside. Now, she sang, almost in a whisper, the lullaby Lucy always insisted on. “Blow the wind southerly, southerly, southerly…” Her voice struggled to keep the tune. “I stood by the lighthouse the last time we parted, Till darkness came down o’er the deep rolling sea, And no longer I saw the bright bark of my lover…”
When Lucy finally nodded off, Isabel opened her little fingers to remove the pink shell the child had been clasping. The nausea that had been with her since the moment by the memorial stone intensified, and she fought it by tracing the spiral of the shell with her finger, seeking comfort in its perfect smoothness, its exact proportions. The creature that had made it was long dead, and had left only this sculpture. Then the thought taunted her that Hannah Potts’s husband, too, had left his living sculpture, this little girl.
Lucy flung an arm above her head and a frown crossed her features for a moment, as her fingers closed tight around the missing shell.
“I won’t let anyone hurt you, darling. I promise to keep you safe, always,” Isabel murmured. Then she did a thing she had not done for some years. She got down on her knees, and bowed her head. “God, I can never hope to understand your mystery. I can only try to be worthy of what you’ve called me to do. Give me the strength I need to carry on.” For a moment, doubt came roaring in, shaking her frame, until she managed to anchor again the rhythm of her breath. “Hannah Potts—Hannah Roennfeldt,” she said, adjusting to the idea, “is safely in your hands too, I know. Grant us peace. All of us.” She listened to the wind outside, and to the ocean, and felt the distance restoring the sense of safety that the past two days had stripped away. She put the shell beside Lucy’s bed, where she could find it easily when she woke, and left the room quietly, newly resolved.
For Hannah Roennfeldt, the January Monday that followed the christening had been a momentous one.
When she went to the letterbox, she expected to find it empty: she had checked it the previous day as part of the ritual she had crafted to pass the hours since that terrible Anzac Day evening nearly two years earlier. First, she would call at the police station, sometimes giving no more than a questioning look, to which the constable, Harry Garstone, would reply with a silent shake of the head. As she walked out, his colleague Constable Lynch might comment, “Poor woman. Fancy ending up like that…” and he too would shake his head, and carry on with his paperwork. Each day she would walk to a different part of the beach in search of a sign, a clue—bits of driftwood, a fragment of metal from a rowlock.
She would draw from her pocket a letter to her husband and child. Occasionally she enclosed things—a cutting from a newspaper about a circus coming to town; a nursery rhyme she had written by hand and decorated with colors. She would cast the letter into the waves in the hope that, as the ink seeped from the envelope, somewhere, in one or another of the oceans, it would be absorbed by her loved ones.
On the way back she would call at the church and sit silently in the last pew, near the statue of St. Jude. Sometimes she would stay until the marri trees laid their lanky shadows across the stained glass, and her votive candles were cold puddles of hard wax. Here, somehow Frank and Grace still existed, for as long as she sat in the shadows. When she could avoid it no longer, she would return home, opening the letterbox only once she felt strong enough to face the disappointment of its emptiness.
For two years, she had written to anyone she could think of—hospitals, port authorities, seafaring missions: anyone who might have heard tell of a sighting—but had received only courteous assurances that they would let her know if any news of her missing husband and daughter came their way.
That January morning was hot, and magpies caroled their waterfall song—notes that fell in splashes over gum trees beneath the bleached azure sky. Hannah ambled the few yards from the front veranda down the flagstone path as though in a trance. She had long ceased to notice the gardenia and the stephanotis and the proffered consolation of their sweet, creamy scent. The rusty iron letterbox creaked as she coaxed it open—it was as weary and reluctant to move as she. Inside was a scrap of white. She blinked. A letter.
Already a snail had etched a filigree track across it, the paper glistening like a rainbow around the parts it had eaten: just one trail across the corner. There was no stamp, and the hand was measured and firm.
She brought it inside and placed it on the dining table, lining u
p its border with the wood’s gleaming edge. She sat in front of it a long while, before taking up the pearl-handled letter opener to slit the envelope, careful not to tear whatever was inside.
She drew out the paper, a small, single sheet, which read:
Don’t fret for her. The baby is safe. Loved and well cared for, and always will be. Your husband is at peace in God’s hands. I hope this brings you comfort.
Pray for me.
The house was dark, the brocade curtains drawn as a shield against the fierce brightness. Cicadas rasped in the grapevine on the back veranda at such a ferocious pitch that Hannah’s ears buzzed.
She studied the handwriting. The words formed before her eyes, but she could not quite un-jumble them. Her heart hammered at her lungs and she struggled to breathe. She had half expected the letter to disappear when she opened it—that sort of thing had happened before: catching sight of Grace in the street, perhaps, the pink flash of one of her baby dresses, then finding it was merely a parcel of the same color, or a woman’s skirt; glimpsing the silhouette of a man she would have sworn was her husband, tugging his sleeve even, to be met with the bewildered expression of someone who was no more similar to him than chalk to cheese.
“Gwen?” she called, when she could finally muster words. “Gwen, could you come in here a minute?” She summoned her sister from her bedroom, afraid that if she moved a muscle the letter might evaporate—that it might all just be a trick of the gloom.
Gwen was still carrying her embroidery. “Were you calling me, Hanny?”
Hannah did not speak, just nodded warily toward the letter. Her sister picked it up. “At least,” Hannah thought, “I’m not imagining it.”
Within an hour they had left the simple wooden cottage for Bermondsey, Septimus Potts’s stone mansion on the hill at the edge of the town.
“And it was just there, in the letterbox, today?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Hannah, still bewildered.
“Who’d do a thing like this, Dad?” asked Gwen.
The Light Between Oceans: A Novel Page 13