The Light Keeper

by Cole Morton

  Sarah laughs – that’s great, she’s laughing – covering her mouth.

  ‘No, I know, it’s okay. I’m not great at accents. That was Cockney with a bit of Welsh.’

  ‘Maybe some Italian?’

  ‘Yeah. EastEnders, Napoli style. Thing is, Rí didn’t need me. That’s how she signed her name, with the Irish fada. Rí to rhyme with free. She stood back from him, and his arm fell. Then she stepped back into his space. Right in his face. She looked right into his eyes and began to sing. He didn’t know what he was messing with. She did this.’

  He stands there with his legs apart in a strong stance, as Maria did, and brings one hand up past his chest, opening the fingers like a flower in front of his face as if drawing something out of himself. ‘I didn’t have a clue what she was singing, but nor did the guy either.’

  The language of the mountains and the hiding places.

  ‘It was Irish. The old way, it’s called. You’re supposed to call to mind all the people who have sung the song before, over the centur­ies, so that they are in the room. It was like that, Sarah. Such a sound. I couldn’t believe it was coming from her and I’ve never seen anything like this, as if the song was a sword hovering over this creep and it fell, cutting him in two, right down the middle. He fell apart. Slid off the chair, threw his glass down and got out of there, shouting out: “You’re a nutter!” as he ran away. I thought, this is the one, here she is, right here. I mean, wow. She picked up his beer and drank it. Finished it, wiped her mouth. She saw I was looking at her and she said in this really heavy accent, comedy Irish, “Yer man wanted a song!”’

  I did recognize you, very well. I just didn’t want to show it.

  ‘I was smitten.’

  Sarah smiles at him.

  ‘I’ll just say this. She saw me. She understood me, more than I thought was possible. She helped me heal. I had been moving around for so long, following the story, being one thing to this person and something else to another, listening and writing, like a mirror, never thinking about who I was beyond the story and never wanting to face it, and she said: “Stop. You’ve been looking for home. Here I am. This is home.”’

  Pacing the edge of the circular lantern room, he trails a hand along the window rail. ‘She showed me how to see differently, too. We came to the coast and walked for miles at weekends and she would paint and draw, and I would read and sleep and watch her. She taught me how to sit and wait and watch and let the shapes and the colours settle until you see what is there, properly. Then I saw that there was more than suffering. I knew that, but I hadn’t stopped to look. So much more. Such beauty.’

  They both look beyond the glass, to the landscape that surrounds them in their tower, wrapped in the darkening arms of the Downs.

  ‘You were lucky,’ says Sarah, smoothing down a cushion cover and picking at the zip.

  ‘I was,’ says Gabe. ‘I really was. So I quit work – or rather accepted voluntary redundancy – with a glad heart, and came here with her.’

  She waits for him to say what he needs to say next. He doesn’t know if he can. The room trembles in the wind. The world outside is turning blue. Sarah thinks of the long, difficult walk to the cottage, where her stuff is waiting. She won’t go. But if she is to stay, and be here when it is time to test, when she finds out what to do next, there are things to ask.

  ‘How did she do it?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Did she leave you a note? Did she say goodbye?’

  He looks at her blankly.

  ‘Was it quick? Did you . . . did you watch?’

  He laughs a little, and feels so tired again. What can he say to that? Stupid. Why doesn’t she just piss off? ‘Okay, that’s what you think this is? She just jumped or something? You could not be more wrong. She lived every moment of her life, every single moment, with a passion. Fought for it – no, that’s not right – held on to it. Tight. Right to the end. Can you go now? Please, go. I mean it. Go.’

  ‘No!’ She panics, wanting to stay here and be safe, even if it is with him, but he means it, she has really upset him. There is no choice. Sarah stands up, and starts for the steps. She is shaking. What has she done that is so bad? Why does she feel silly? Worse than that, she is scared. Really scared. ‘Sorry. I don’t know . . . can I stay? Please?’

  ‘Just go,’ says Gabe with a weird calm that really spooks her. ‘That is the safest thing, for both of us.’

  Thirty-eight

  So to hell with him, that man, that broken, awful man and his creepy tower. Sarah is glad to be out of there, striding hard down the hill away from the lighthouse, wondering if he is watching her, knowing that he is. That bloody man with his stories and his soup and his skin tight on the bones and his blue eyes that never look at you and when they do they see right through you. The late afternoon is absurdly still; she can hear her breathing in time with the crunch and slip of her boots on chalk and grass. The sea is a flat grey snakeskin, sliding into a slightly lighter sky. All the walkers have gone home, there are no cars on the road below. The thud of a farmer’s gun echoes over the Downs from a field somewhere, followed by a crack. And the cry of a child . . . no, it’s the mocking call of a gull, away out of sight where the nests are, on the sheer cliff edge below the line.

  As she walks on the broad green back of the hill, there is a dip to the left where the ground falls, then rises again to the edge like a wave. And in among the bushes a woman dressed in green and black, almost hidden but for a red cloth folded over her arm. It’s a sweater, with gold lettering. She’s a Guardian. Calling out something to Sarah. What is it? She can’t hear. Too late to turn away.

  ‘Hi! Please, I am not a busybody, it is my job. Are you okay?’

  ‘No. Not at all. I’m thinking of throwing myself off.’

  ‘Oh! My name is Magda—’

  ‘I was joking,’ says Sarah, walking on. ‘But thank you.’

  Magda is there in front of her, alongside her. ‘Let me help, please. I can. You see.’

  Her grip is strong. This Magda is wiry, hard. She has full, flushed cheeks, a button nose, dark-rimmed eyes that dart across the Downs as she takes the lead. Her bright white hair flicks into Sarah’s eyes. ‘You come. Here. Sit.’

  Seriously? It’s a mound of grass sheltered by shrub and gorse, out of the wind . . . but right on the edge. Three, four steps away. The drop looms, it’s giddying.

  ‘It is safe,’ says Magda. ‘A quiet place.’

  No, thinks Sarah, but she’s so tired, so empty, she sits down anyway.

  Magda holds out a white paper bag. ‘Fudge? I make it myself.’

  It tastes good, sweet, rich. There is tea to drink, from a flask. The steam curls straight, there is barely any wind in this moment. Sarah has not seen it like this up here before. Is Gabe still watching, from the tower? He will be thinking she is safe now. Who is this woman?

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘London.’

  ‘No, where from?’

  Oh please, not that again now. ‘London.’

  ‘Yes. Okay. I can help. More tea?’

  It’s thick, dark, laden with sugar and it makes Sarah feel sick, but she does want more. She’s so tired.

  ‘Would you like to lie down?’

  Yes, she would. She feels safer that way, with her face to the sky. If this great chalk wave collapses into the sea, then she will go with it. But Sarah feels bonded to the earth.

  ‘Better? More comfortable?’

  She could sleep.

  She could.

  Sleep.

  Magda is beside her. Speaking. Slowly. Softly.

  ‘Now that is better. You are very beautiful. I like your hair, it is very special. My mother, she was beautiful. Different to you, of course, she is from Poland, but so beautiful, even when she was old. Full of life, you say, zywa.’
/>   Sarah feels breath on her cheek but her eyes are closed.

  ‘That is better. You should rest. We are not to suffer, God does not want that. I know this. He has shown me, through my mother. She got sick. It begins with her fingers. She cannot feel. Then her arm, two arms. Legs. She is a bird in a cage, she is, unable to fly. Pain all day, all night. I cannot stand to see her but I must be in the room, to feed her. Clean her. Everywhere. She cannot speak but she begs me, you know?’

  Magda is so close, but Sarah is lost in a light, a blinding light from long ago.

  ‘I saw that it was kind to help her go on, woli Bozej, will of God. You are so lovely, like her.’ She moves closer still, cheek to cheek. ‘I want to help you. There is no shame. It was good for me to come to this country, away from the talking. The priests do not understand. God is peace. Love. Mercy. No more tears. No more suffering. We go to a better place. Perhaps it is better while you are still young and strong and beautiful, while you can choose. Before the pain.’

  A gust of wind is like a slap in the face that wakes Sarah, just enough, but Magda’s hand is firm on her shoulder, pressing her back down into the earth.

  ‘Hey! Hush, now. Be still.’

  ‘Stop!’

  ‘I am doing nothing. I am a Guardian, I am here to help. Is God’s will. He loves you. He tells me, after my mother. You miss your mother, yes? She waits for you.’

  Magda stands, and pulls a wobbly Sarah to her feet.

  ‘See, the light shining on the water?’

  She does. Far out to sea. As if through a fog.

  ‘Your mother is there. She is happy, she wants you. This is the door. Take a step. Good, now again. You can go through to her. She is waiting—’

  ‘Sarah! Sarah!’ The lighthouse man is calling, from far away. ‘Magda, is she okay?’

  He’s running over the slope towards them, approaching fast, barefoot despite the stones. Sarah feels Magda’s grip tighten and she is yanked back, away from the edge and down, manhandled like a sickly patient.

  ‘There is something wrong with her,’ Magda tells him urgently. ‘She is not sensible. She was here by the edge and I saw her, I came across to stop her, I pull her back,’ she says, talking fast, wrapping Sarah in the red sweater that smells of heavy, sickly perfume. ‘Is this the one who is missing? Jack, the husband, he is in the pub. London today, but we have the booking, so he will return this evening, I think. Shall we take her there, to the pub?’ There is desperation in her voice. Whatever this is, whatever it was Gabe saw that made him run, he suddenly doesn’t trust Magda like he did.

  ‘The lighthouse is closer. I’ll take care of her.’

  ‘Until Jack comes?’

  ‘Yes, okay,’ he says reluctantly, stopping himself from saying any more.

  Sarah feels fuzzy. Her head is so heavy. Magda whispers in her ear: ‘Your mother is waiting.’ Then the lighthouse man lifts her up and off the ground and walks with her in his arms. She can smell the sweat on him and something else, darker, stronger. What is that? What is it? Wondering, she sleeps.

  Thirty-nine

  He waits in the lantern room in the gathering dark, looking out for the blue lights, seeing himself reflected back in the glass. This room was built to look outwards in all directions at once and it holds on to the view until the last embers of the day have gone out. Then it snaps shut. The darkness comes rushing in and wraps around the windows as if there is nothing more worth seeing. This is the still moment, the claustrophobic moment. The moment that makes his pulse rise every time. The panic.

  His face looms up in the glass. God, he looks knackered. More than ever. There will be no sleep when the police come and ask what Sarah is doing here and why he didn’t tell them. He’ll be in trouble for that. Magda was frightened. Should he have called an ambulance? They will be here soon. If Sarah is lucky, she will wake up in a hospital, in a bed with clean white linen, under the care of someone who knows how to treat her properly. That’s what she needs, not to be hiding here with him, for reasons he does not understand. It will be over soon anyway. Magda will tell them. She will have done so by now. Why are the police taking so long?

  ‘Please don’t let them take me away from here tonight.’

  Sarah’s in the stairwell, looking up into the room.

  ‘Hey. Come up. Hang on a second. Look at this.’ He lights a church candle in a tall metal lantern, then reaches across to switch off the main lamp. Now the infinite darkness outside is revealed and the room appears to be suspended in the black of space. She rises from the stairs as if entering a space station, woozy and weightless. They could be in orbit above a mystery planet, astronauts in some kind of steampunk Victorian command module with metal window frames, and glass that reflects the million stars. There is also the moon, a pale orange disc caught in the glass beside, behind and beyond her. Three moons – it is impossible to say which is real.

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘I know. How are you feeling?’

  ‘I have an elephant on my head. Wow though. Really.’

  Sarah slides into the room and he can’t help himself: he’s wowed by the way she moves. Wrapped in a bottle green blanket, hair wild, eyes bloodshot, chalk on her rusty jeans, it doesn’t matter, she’s . . . stop this.

  ‘What happened—’

  They say it together.

  ‘I thought you’d tell me,’ he says.

  ‘I don’t remember. Magda, is it? She was being nice, trying to help.’

  Gabe sits down beside her on the bench that runs along the curve of half the room, a semi-circular wooden frame of the kind you might find on a ship. He’s going to build hot-air heaters underneath it and hide them with the slats that are piled by the top of the stairs, as yet untreated. For now, there is warmth and an orange glow from a stinky old paraffin heater.

  ‘The police will want to know what you took.’

  ‘What do you mean? Nothing.’

  ‘Look at you.’ He nods at the black mirror of the window.

  She looks, and winces. ‘Not good.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know . . . Listen, Sarah, you’ve got to tell me what this is.’

  ‘There is no time. Unless you promise I can stay here. Until the morning, first thing. When they come, let me hide. Tell them I’m okay.’

  ‘They won’t listen. Jack was here. Yesterday. Before I knew you were . . . hiding. I sent him away. We had a bit of a row. A fight.’

  ‘Oh. Gabe.’

  She has not said his name before. It snags his breath. Panic ­rising, he moves away quickly. Rí? Where has she gone?

  ‘I was exhausted, that’s all. I think. You don’t think . . .’

  He’s not listening, he’s trying to get a grip, focus on what’s happening here, what it means. ‘Talk to me, Sarah. Tell me. I need to know.’

  She will talk. Make a start at least, before they come. She owes him that. Maybe she can still persuade him to give her the time she needs. Just until morning, that is all. Then she will be gone, out of here, either way. But where to start? Four days ago, when she knew she had to get away? When she clicked on the photograph and suddenly knew what to do? Or before that, way back, on the day she became a childless woman? The day the doctor told her it would be impossible to have a baby without spending money, more money than she had or would ever have. Her mind races through the memory, coming out in a daze to a crowded hospital corridor, a waiting room with toys and games and cartoons on the wall and Jack angry. No, not there. In the bedroom? Should she start that way? Lying on the bed in the early morning with her trousers half down, waiting for Jack to crack the ampoules, fill the syringe, make the injection. Bruising her, every time. He cut his thumb and cursed, every time. Not there either. Where?

  ‘Ask me questions,’ she says.

  Gabe tries to put on a friendly face. ‘Okay. So.’ He can’t be direct. He must take it easy. Let her
talk. ‘Do you have brothers and sisters?’

  A flick of the head says no.

  ‘How about your mum and dad, are they around?’

  The silence that follows makes him think he has said completely the wrong thing, again. But then she says, ‘My father is alone. He has friends, of course. He is in the south of France this week, staying with someone from church. I envy him the sunshine. I should have gone with him.’

  ‘Why did you come here?’

  Too soon. She pulls the blanket tighter.

  ‘Okay. Tell me about Jack . . .’

  ‘Really? You want to do this?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ says Gabe. ‘You don’t have to.’

  ‘I thought—’

  ‘You asked about Rí. I told you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So tell me.’

  She will not sit still, but wriggles and shifts and tucks her legs up, puts them down again. All the time looking out of the windows, eyes searching west, north and east for the blue lights. She judges the directions from a stained-glass compass point in the centre circle of the roof. How much longer has she got?

  ‘You have to let me stay here,’ she says. ‘Please. I need this time. I will know what to do in the morning.’ Her hands move as if she needs a cigarette. He wishes he smoked. She’s chewing her nails now, but tuts and tucks her hand back under the blanket. ‘I love my husband. I should say that. He makes me laugh. He is a kind person, who cares about the world. He is a good man. It is not his fault. I am tired. It all hurts too much. I wish I had the energy to love him in the way that he needs, but I do not. It is my fault.’