The Last Lighthouse Keeper

by Alan Titchmarsh

  She reached for the kitchen roll, tore off a couple of squares and blew her nose loudly, cursing herself. “Stupid woman! Pull yourself together and get on with it. He’s not worth it. They never are.”

  She mopped up her tears, sniffing all the while, and wiped away the smudges of mascara before they descended from her lower eyelids on to the freckled cheeks.

  “Oh, God! What a state! What have you done? Why did you turn him down? So bloody anxious to prove you can go it alone. So keen to be bloody independent. Well, now you are, and where has it got you? On your own again. Huh!”

  She sniffed again and binned the kitchen roll, heading for the bathroom to sort out her face before opening the studio. It was, after all, what she had always wanted.

  ♦

  Will sat on a canvas chair at the bows of Boy Jack looking out across the cove to the lighthouse. It seemed ages since he had been there, but there was little reason to return now. May Hallybone was staying in St Petroc with her sister. She’d decided to make a home nearer her friends. That’s what she’d said when he’d called in the week before. Will had been worried about her, but May had allayed his fears. “Got to get on with life. No use moping about,” she’d said. “I just remember all the good times, forget the bad. You can’t brood on what might have been.”

  “Will you stay with your sister?” he’d asked.

  “Good Lord, no! We’re all right for a while but we’ll drive one another mad if we have to spend the rest of our lives together. I’ll find a little place on my own. I’ll be happy – always comfortable in my own company. And with the animals.” Will smiled at the thought of her living out her days with her pigs and chickens, a woman contented with her lot, accepting what life had given her – and taken away.

  The sound of a hatch opening came from the boat next door, and the sandy-whiskered head popped out. “Good morning! Looks as though it’s going to be a nice day. Suit all those trippers.”

  “Hallo.” Will grinned reluctantly.

  Hovis looked at him, sitting in his faded director’s chair, surrounded by coils of rope. “Your boat’s beginning to look like mine.”

  Will looked down at his feet where the snaking mooring warps and sundry strings were sprawled like some gigantic cat’s cradle, defying his efforts at measuring them and getting them into any order.

  “Just trying to make sure that I’ve got enough of them.”

  “I should think the answer to that question is almost certainly yes,” Hovis remarked.

  “Do you want some coffee?” asked Will.

  “Not just now. Going shopping.”

  “I think you might want to put it off for a while when I tell you the news.” Will remembered the sergeant’s request to keep things to himself, but he considered Hovis to be pretty near to family.

  “What do you mean?” Hovis’s eyebrows were raised. They rose even higher when Will explained the events of the previous night.

  “Well, bless me! Who’d have believed it? Have you told anybody else?”

  “No. The sergeant asked me to keep it to myself.”

  “It’ll be out in the open soon enough, though. You can’t keep that sort of thing quiet round here. Not with Primrose on the lookout.” The prospect of her reaction made Hovis chuckle. “She’ll have a field day with this one.” But then the sadness struck him. “Poor buggers. I wonder what made them get involved.”

  “It’s not too difficult to see, I suppose,” offered Will. “Lost all their money in the Lloyds business – house, everything. Still have two kids at expensive schools. Needed to keep them there. Found a way of doing it.”

  “Yes, but drugs. I wouldn’t have thought that was the Morgan-Gileses’ way of getting out of a hole.” He shrugged. “Still, that’s modern society for you. In the old days it was rum, now it’s heroin and cocaine.”

  He looked reflective. “Just a minute, though. What about the MacDermotts? I thought we had them lined up for it, with their flash boat and their half-hour wait behind Bill’s Island.”

  Will gestured to the other side of the boatyard where Len Gryler’s legs stuck out of the engine-room hatch of the MacDermotts’ bathtub.

  “Engine trouble. Gryler’s been up to his elbows in grease and diesel since first thing this morning.”

  Hovis perched on the side of his boat. “You know, I will have that coffee.” He looked up at the sky where just a few wisps of white cloud floated in the increasingly rich blue. “It does make you count your blessings, doesn’t it?”

  “I suppose so.”

  For the next half-hour, while they chomped their way through digestive biscuits dipped in coffee. Hovis endeavoured to piece together the jigsaw, quizzing Will after the fashion of Dr Watson with Sherlock Holmes. The only difference was that Will was less sure of the answers.

  “Christopher Applebee. Presumably he was doing it for the Morgan-Gileses?”

  “I guess so.”

  “But you’d have thought that they’d have called a halt to it after the accident, wouldn’t you?”

  “Depends how desperate they were for the money. And they didn’t know that the drugs had been found, only that Christopher Applebee and Ernie had been drowned. As far as they were concerned, everybody still thought Applebee was catching lobsters.”

  “Do you think that they were the brains behind it all?”

  “Don’t know. Either that or just couriers. The stuff would be put in the lobster pots by some foreign fishing boat and the Morgan-Gileses would pick it up and pass it on, getting a cut for their trouble.”

  Hovis looked back towards Pencurnow. “Just a sleepy little Cornish fishing village and it’s caught up in all this. Well, well, well.”

  Will looked out towards the lighthouse. “I think I’ll take a walk. Haven’t been over there for ages.”

  Hovis risked a question. “When do you think you’ll set off?”

  Will threw the dregs from his coffee cup over the side and they landed with a plop in the water. “Next week, I hope. Get a few more jobs done and then be on my way.”

  “Which direction will you go?”

  “West. Thought I’d go to Scilly first. Put in at New Grimsby on Tresco. Sheltered harbour. Good seafood. Stay there a while. No rush.”

  Hovis slapped at the bows of Boy Jack. “We’ll miss you, you know.”

  Will looked at him, temporarily wrong-footed.

  Spike padded from the bows and wrapped himself around his master’s leg, tail held high. Will looked down then back at Hovis. “We’ll miss you, too.”

  There was a pause, neither knowing how to proceed with the conversation. Hovis broke the silence. “Still going on your own?”

  “Yes,” replied Will softly. The cat rubbed against his leg again. “Well, not entirely. If he stays.” Spike looked up at him, inscrutable as ever, then hopped off the boat and down the pontoon in search of amusement.

  “I’m sorry,” Hovis said.

  “Yes. Me too.” Will took the proffered mug from Hovis and put it with his in the saloon before he locked up and headed for Prince Albert Rock. In all probability, it would be the last time he saw it for a long while.

  ♦

  He walked slowly along the coastal path, aware that as the weeks passed, it would become more populated. The smell of the vegetation filled his nostrils – a rich mixture of herb robert and foxglove, bladder campion and kidney vetch. It seemed as colourful as a herbaceous border. Below, the sea glinted and glimmered, fresh white waves breaking on the Cornish granite and catching the sun in rainbows of spray. It was all tantalizingly beautiful.

  He stood and watched as a kittiwake keeled through the air, shrieking its name to anyone who would listen. The granite-sand path beneath his feet crunched as he trod, and he wished now that he’d put on a pair of shorts. The day was turning into a scorcher. He walked faster now, forcing positive thoughts into his head. He would go it alone. No problem. He’d done it before, could do it again. He kicked a shard of granite, which bounced down the cliff
to be swallowed up silently by the waves.

  The beach beyond sported half a dozen deck-chairs – the early arrivals had landed – but there was no sign of the woman with the Labrador. It struck him in an instant that she must have been Isobel Morgan-Giles. He stopped and wondered if her walks with the dog had been part of the set-up. The same dog that had been towing Hugo when Hovis and he had bumped into him on the cliff. The day that Christopher Applebee went out in his boat for the last time.

  He walked on, gradually descending towards the lighthouse as the cliff path curled around Prince Albert Rock. It was hard not to feel a pang of fear, coupled with sorrow at his leaving. The white-painted granite tower had been the place where he had sheltered from life – and death. The physical rock to which he had turned when he most needed comfort. He had found it there, in the company of Ernie and May and, to a lesser extent, Ted Whistler, whose dourness now seemed less forbidding. But that was yesterday. It was time to move on. Impatience bit into him, but not so much that he could not stop to think.

  He perched on a rock that was almost on a level with the lantern, and watched the sunlight glinting on its lattice panes. Through the mantle of forced optimism came the echoes of Ernie’s voice: “Prince Albert Rock Lighthouse was constructed in its present form by William Tregarthen Douglass, the same engineer responsible for the construction of Bishop Rock Lighthouse.” Soon he would see Bishop Rock for himself, when he sailed off in the direction of Scilly. On his own.

  He missed her. He who had learned to prefer his own company. What had happened to the loner?

  He cursed himself for having let down his guard then cursed himself for losing her because of his single-minded desire to sail away. Here he was, on the verge of his lifetime’s ambition, so why didn’t he feel more elated? He knew why. He just chose not to admit it to himself.

  He looked at the sturdy white tower and forced his emotions to one side. Built all those years ago, when there were no elaborate pieces of lifting gear, no JCBs and no electricity. How many ships had it kept away from the rugged Cornish rocks below? How many had perished there before it was built? And since? The bitter pain stabbed at him. He breathed in deeply and continued down the final stretch of path.

  If Evan Williams was in a good mood there might be a bottle of beer for him. After all, they were neither of them on watch any more. All Evan Williams had to do now was take care of the fabric of the place and show around the tourists. A bottle of beer seemed a safe bet.

  ♦

  Recently Amy had managed to keep Oliver Gallico out of her mind. If she had considered the odds she would probably have laid money on his returning when emotionally she was at her lowest ebb. It would have been a safe bet.

  The studio was busy. The early tourists, enjoying a lunchtime stroll after their long journey down the A30, were looking at pictures, fondling ethnic jewellery and scrutinizing pieces of sculpture. Amy and Angela – who had fortunately agreed to help out for the rest of the summer – wrapped gifts, popped postcards in envelopes and hoped constantly for a sizeable sale. Angela was getting better at the job. She was more chatty with the customers now, and her course in bookkeeping at the local tech was coming in handy. Primrose had taught her about stock-taking, too, and she did her best, during quieter moments, to explain to Amy what it was all about. Amy did her best not to glaze over.

  There was little time for such conversations at lunchtime, though, and that was when Oliver chose to make his entrance.

  Angela mistook him for a customer and was not surprised by his arrogance: they saw all types down here. It was only when he said he was a friend of Amy’s that she went across the studio to interrupt her employer, who was explaining the firing process of a salt-glazed pot to a couple who had driven all the way from Chalfont St Giles.

  Oliver watched her reaction. It was not what he expected. Instead of looking hunted, her normal response, she glanced in his direction then continued dealing with the couple before she even raised her eyes to his. He felt uneasy.

  She walked towards him and flashed him a polite but steely smile. “Hi!”

  “Are you OK?” Oliver asked, with genuine concern for the first time.

  “Fine. And you?”

  He didn’t like this approach. What was the matter with her? “You seem strange. You sure you’re all right?”

  “I told you, I’m fine. What are you doing down here again? Looking for talent?”

  Oliver found it hard, in such circumstances, to bring his customary conceit to bear. There was nothing to push against. Nothing to respond to. “I’ve come for you.”

  Amy raised her eyes heavenward. “Oh, not that old chestnut again, please. I’m busy. I’ve an army of customers and only one assistant. Today is not the day for all that. It’s all done with, Oliver. Go and find a young thing from the English National to go to Nice with you. I’ve had it.” And with that she turned on her heel and went to sell the salt-glazed jar to the couple from Chalfont St Giles.

  Oliver looked after her with blank disbelief, then searched for his sculptures. They had vanished, like the Amy he had once known. Even his hopes for a dramatic exit were dashed when a family with buckets and spades, windbreak and cool-bag almost fell over him as he tried to sweep out of the studio.

  Amy closed the till and cast a surreptitious eye in his direction as he lurched down the stone steps. She was surprised to find she wasn’t shaking. Surprised but somehow saddened.

  ♦

  Will was walking along the other side of the lane when he saw Oliver Gallico leaving the gallery. He looked different from the last time they had met. He was no longer swaggering. Will wondered what had brought about the change in his demeanour. And then he thought he knew. Clearly Amy had a good reason for not leaving the studio and sailing away with him. He watched as Gallico rounded the corner and was lost from view. Yes. It was definitely time he got on with his life.

  Twenty-Seven

  Crow Point

  All weekend Will stayed on Boy Jack, concentrating on his charts and keeping out of the way of the seething mass of humanity. Pencurnow was not in any way Newquay or Padstow, but the influx of even a modest population of tourists turned it from the quiet village where most of the locals knew one another into something approaching a coastal resort between the months of June and September.

  Things quietened a little after the half-term week, but he still felt safer on board than in town. He looked from the deck towards the Roundhouse from time to time, allowing himself to wonder what she might be doing, if she were missing him as much as he was missing her.

  Spike, like most domestic animals, could sense something new in the offing. Instead of spending the better part of every day looking for free fish, he relied on Will’s offerings of tinned catfood and watched the preparations for the voyage with intense curiosity.

  Will found himself talking more to Spike, sharing his thoughts, until he realized that he did not even want to share them with himself. He sat up late into the night, poring over pilotage books, making notes and plotting courses, checking tide tables and working out passage plans.

  It irritated him that the raw thrill of the voyage had been replaced with a more methodical approach, that the technical, navigational and mechanical aspects had come more to the fore than the romance and escapism. Perhaps that would return once he had finished the basic planning. He hoped so.

  By Wednesday he was ready to take the boat out for the day to brush up on his solo handling. He didn’t want to involve Hovis in the exercise, which he felt he ought to be able to carry out alone, so he waited until he was out shopping and slipped a note under the cabin door of Florence Nightingale explaining that he would be back in the early evening. There were two high tides and he could enjoy a day away from it all, still confident of being able to return with enough water beneath him.

  The moment of slipping his moorings made him apprehensive. But the engines pounded reassuringly beneath his feet and he let go first of the springs, then the head and s
tern lines before using a little throttle to nudge the boat away from the pontoon. Slowly he motored through the boatyard, past the jetty and out into the open sea. Len Gryler watched him go from the doorway of his cabin, raising a hand aloft as he chugged by. It was eight thirty in the morning, bright but overcast, force three, maybe four.

  ♦

  Amy was walking down the hill from Primrose’s with her shopping when she saw the boat leaving. She stood quite still, leaning on the sea wall, watching Boy Jack butting gently through the low waves. She knew it was him, not just from the shape of the boat but because she could see a black and white cat sitting like a figurehead on the prow. Her heart sank, and she could not remember ever feeling so empty.

  ♦

  The boat sailed well. It pleased him that after a while he did not hear the engines. In the days when he had been convinced he wanted a sailing boat it was the sound of wind on canvas and hull cutting through the water that had given him pleasure. Now it was the foaming white wash that appeared in his wake, the reliability of forward motion that could never be guaranteed under sail, and the feel of the sturdy boat beneath his feet as he took the helm.

  Spike had surprised him by finding the whole exercise an adventure. There was no timidity about him when it came to the water. He sat, mesmerized, looking over the side at the bow wave, as if waiting for a fish to leap into his clutches.

  Will tried out the autopilot. It maintained the set course and he allowed himself the satisfaction of knowing that his calculations of tidal streams had been correct. He checked his position on the chart with the pocket GPS and discovered that they seemed to agree. None of the gauges – water temperature, oil pressure or battery level – showed anything untoward. It would, hopefully, be an uneventful shake-down trip.