The Light Keeper

by Cole Morton

  ‘Not sure I believe that,’ says Gabe too quickly.

  ‘You cannot know. You know nothing about it.’

  ‘No. Okay. Fair enough.’

  ‘Jack has dreams to chase. Demons chase him.’

  That he can believe.

  ‘He was a mess when I met him, a bundle of nerves.’

  Not much has changed then.

  ‘When I first met Jack, he was always quoting his father. He was so idealistic, there were all these words about changing the world. It was inspiring, to be with someone who cared so much. I would ask when we could meet and Jack was keen for that to happen, but it was never the right time. I should have realized, I suppose, but then one time I was watching the guy on YouTube, to see what he was like—’

  ‘What is he, a preacher?’

  ‘Not quite.’ She says his name and Gabe is surprised. He knows the music and used to like some of it, on the right night. Epic, overblown gothic love songs.

  ‘I asked Jack about it when he came home, and he went really quiet on me. I remember that so well, he had never been like it. He was always on the move, fidgeting, drumming, but then he was absolutely still, on the sofa. There was a CD on the coffee table. He picked it up, slipped out the paper inlay and kissed it, like he was kissing his dad on the forehead. Then he ripped the picture up, slowly, into little pieces. All over the floor. Do you know why?’

  ‘It wasn’t really his dad?’

  ‘No, he is his father. That’s for sure. His mother loved that man, I think, truly. She was young. Very young. Still at school. She went to see him at a gig and he picked her out of the crowd. Kidnapped her, effectively. She wanted to go with him, though, that is true. Nobody noticed, because she was in care; they thought she’d absconded and gave her up as a runaway, which I suppose she was, in a way. Then he left her at a hotel in Vegas, a fortnight later. They all left while she was sleeping. There was no note, or anything. She was pregnant.’

  ‘Bastard,’ says Gabe, wondering if it is true.

  ‘You look as if you don’t believe me.’

  ‘I believe you. That’s not the issue.’

  ‘Well, I know Chana. That’s her name now. I admire her. She brought her son up alone, in terrible places. She was a virgin when she met that man, and two weeks later she was a coke user with a baby inside her. In Vegas. With nothing. Can you imagine? Jack was a handful too. As a child he wouldn’t speak for hours at a time, but would sit there drumming out rhythms on his own head, or lash out at anyone who came close. Even his mum. They were always fighting but she was in control. She is a survivor. Sometimes she even laughs about him. She told me that he called her Layla.’

  ‘After the Eric Clapton song? God, that’s cheesy.’

  ‘Yes, probably, but it is also some kind of woman of the night in Hebrew, Chana told me. Spelt differently, but still. Nice nickname for a little girl. I looked it up and this Leila has to do with conception. How ironic is that? When Jack was old enough to ask questions, she had no answers. So she went to a lawyer, had a DNA test and they sued.’

  ‘Did she win?’

  ‘He paid her off, to keep it out of the papers.’

  ‘That’s something.’

  ‘Money always runs out. She paid the lawyer and bought Jack an education, which was a good one, but that was more or less it. Everything else that she has she built up by herself. There was just one other thing that she paid for, with the last of his money . . .’ Sarah pats her knees in a little rhythm, like Jack, underneath the blanket. She inhales and exhales, as if with an invisible cigarette, and it seems to calm her.

  ‘Go on . . .’

  ‘Well. Look. We got this present, just before our wedding. From him. There was a note. Rings, incredibly expensive, Cartier. “Sorry I can’t be there. To my son and his bride, love Dad.” Love? That was the giveaway.’

  ‘Chana?’

  ‘She sent the rings herself. Jack’s father never knew a thing about it.’

  ‘You don’t wear a ring.’

  ‘Not now. It is in the drawer at home. But that’s a cheaper ring, a more comfortable one to wear in the classroom, you know? The Cartier was in the bank, in the safe. I sold it, to pay for . . . treatment.’

  ‘And Jack?’

  ‘He kept his. Refused to sell. Said it was his only link to his father.’

  ‘But it wasn’t from him—’

  ‘Try telling him that. Good luck. He says all these things from his father as if he was told them when they were going fishing or watching a game or something, but you know what? They are all taken from songs and interviews. “Music can change the world, because music can change people,” or something like that. Lifted. He learned them off by heart. They’ve never met. Jack tried once, at the apartment in New York. It was like something from The Great Gatsby. He was turned away.’

  She feels sorry for him, thinks Gabe. That’s how this works.

  ‘Jack came here because he wanted to be someone else, you see? He leant on me and I let him, I liked it. I wanted someone to love. That was okay, then. Now, it’s different. I can’t help him in the same way, because I need some of that kind of love myself and he doesn’t know what to do about that,’ she says, shifting again in the chair, stretching out her legs and looking at her boots. ‘I think that’s a fair, accurate summary. He would shout me down, though. Jack is a hothead, always moving, drumming. Passionate. He always wanted me to tell him that everything would be all right. He still does.’ Sarah pats the wood at the back of the sofa bench, then spreads out her palms as if arranging an imaginary table. She has unwound in the telling of the story, her voice is less dislocated now, less abstract.

  You’re in the room, thinks Gabe. Good.

  Suddenly, she turns to look him in the eyes. ‘I don’t think everything will be all right. Not at all.’

  Forty

  The stories we tell define us. So do the stories we don’t tell and the ones we never finish. When she was a young girl, five or six, Sarah loved to sit on her granny’s lap and nuzzle up, and Granny would tell Bible tales in that soft, precise voice of hers from the lowlands around Dumfries. The Good Samaritan, of course. The Pearl of Great Price. Noah and the Ark, Sarah liked that one: there was a song about the animals and they’d be cats and meow or wave their arms like elephants’ trunks or Sarah would jump down and hop like a kangaroo. Two by two. ‘We two,’ said Granny, but wee sometimes meant little and wee sometimes meant wee, like you did sitting down; it could all get a bit confusing. Granny would laugh. ‘Shall we two kangaroos have a wee wee-wee?’

  She laughed a lot and so did Sarah, even though it sometimes felt as if she was being naughty for being happy. She didn’t tell anyone that, though. Then one day Granny got out her little white leather Bible with the silver-edged pages that were as thin as tissue, and she wet her finger and looked through, humming to herself as Sarah lay on the floor playing with an old wooden set of the ark and all the animals and Mr and Mrs Noah and the little white dove that was her favourite. Apart from the tigers.

  ‘Come here, lovely; listen to this one,’ said Granny, and Sarah shuffled on her bottom across the floor and leaned against Granny’s legs, one arm wrapped around a knee, sucking her thumb. Her daddy would say that she might be getting a bit old for that, but Granny let her do it while she told the story.

  ‘There was a man and a woman and they lived in the desert and they were terribly old, like me . . .’ Granny’s laugh was like a happy little hiss. ‘The man was called Abraham and his wife was called Sarah.’

  That caught her attention.

  ‘Yes, like you, my love. She was a special lady.’ And Granny told how Sarah and her husband Abraham were both very old, they lived in a caravan – which was not a caravan like the one they stayed in on holiday at Camber Sands, but another name for a lot of tents and camels and a camp fire and servants (they had servants but they
must have been very nice to them because they were nice people, because they were the good people in a story), the caravan was what you called all these people and things and animals as they moved through the desert together – and at night the men would sit around the fire and talk while the women stayed in the tent and cooked.

  ‘That’s not fair,’ said little Sarah, who was used to having her tea cooked by Daddy, and Granny laughed. ‘No, it’s not. I wish you’d been able to tell your grandad, bless his soul. But anyway . . . these two were old and they had not been able to have any children, which made them very sad. They would have been so jealous of me, sitting here with you like this, it’s such a blessing. They prayed about it and God told Abraham they would have children – as many as the stars, would you believe? That’s a lot, isn’t it? But nothing happened, the stork didn’t come and bring them a baby. Have I told you about the stork? Oh, that’s for another day then!’

  She ruffled Sarah’s hair with her free hand, the Bible balanced on a knee but disregarded now that her memory had been refreshed. ‘So, one day Abraham was sitting under the shade of a tree they had found, when three men turned up. Mysterious men. Tall, dark and handsome, I like to think. Like your father. Do you know who they were?’

  Sarah shook her head.

  ‘No, nor did Abraham. He had never seen them before, but they looked fine. They had nice robes and healthy, fat camels and there was a custom they had in those days – my own granny had it too on the farm: if a stranger came, you had to be nice to them and give them food, maybe even a place to sleep.’

  ‘Even if you didn’t know them? Strangers?’

  ‘Aye, pet. The world was different then. You’re quite right, you should never take sweets or go with a stranger, that’s true, but Abraham was a grown-up and he was just being nice to these men who were on a journey somewhere, so he offered them a cold drink and a bit of lunch, with a scone maybe.’

  That made it all right as far as Sarah was concerned, because she had been a bit worried about the strangers, but there could be no harm in a scone.

  ‘Then one of the men asked where Sarah was and Abraham was really surprised, because he didn’t know how the man knew Sarah’s name. So he looked again and he saw this wasn’t any ordin­ary man, it was God himself.’

  ‘Wow!’

  ‘Ha! Yes, wow indeed.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘I don’t know, pet, the Bible doesn’t say. But it was God anyway, and Sarah could hear him talking from where she was in the shade in the tent and she heard him say, “We will come back in a year’s time and you will have a child!” And do you know what Sarah did?’

  Little Sarah shook her head again, just a tiny bit.

  ‘She laughed. She laughed at God, because she was old and very tired and not able to have babies any more.’

  ‘But it wasn’t funny.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t funny. It was sad. Sarah laughed at God because she was sad and angry and couldn’t have babies, but do you know what happened next? Sarah?’

  But Sarah didn’t hear what happened next, because she had her hands over her ears and was running fast for the garden, elbows banging into things, tripping over the step and out into the sunshine, confused and upset about this person Sarah who was her, she was named after her, they were the same and Sarah could not have babies, Sarah could not have babies, she would not have babies and she loved babies, she really, really loved babies and she wanted to be a mummy and she wanted her mummy and she wanted her mummy so much it was a nasty, nasty pain that made her cry and she couldn’t see for tears and stumbled again and fell down on the grass, by the swing, sobbing and sobbing and sobbing.

  Forty-one

  Gabe sees something he didn’t know he had, half hidden under the flap of a packing box of books. A bottle of bourbon whiskey.

  ‘Wait,’ he says and takes off down the stairs.

  Sarah examines herself in the reflecting glass. The candle gives a soft, grainy light, easy on the brain. Now that her eyes have adjusted, she can make out the signals of super-tankers in the Channel, but no flashing blue lights inland. Where are the police? It must be nearly time. She wraps herself again in the blanket. It’s warming up in here with the heater blaring, even getting toasty, but it’s damp too. The windows are heavy with condensation.

  ‘Here,’ he says, offering a glass. He’s put on a jumper, an old rusty sweater with a fraying V-neck, with an army-green shirt poking out at the cuffs and tails. He’s a scruff, but somehow it works. Something to do with the way he carries himself, like a runner. Always balanced but never quite settled. Ready to go. He chews his shirt collar, she can see that.

  The bourbon hits the top of her mouth. It is good. She should not drink; it is dangerous if . . . but it does not matter, she is sure. Still, one sip is enough.

  ‘I am not a victim,’ she says, although he has not said she is. ‘Tell me something, a different subject. Let me ask you something, actually. Where do you think I am from?’

  ‘I don’t know. Your voice is . . . well, nice.’

  That is a mistake. Sarah looks away and he feels embarrassed.

  ‘London, I guess. There’s a bit of something else, though.’

  ‘Birmingham. Brum. Selly Oak. We lived there when I was very small, before Essex. You didn’t say Trinidad or Jamaica. I get that a lot, but I’m not from Trinidad. My father is the palest Scotsman you ever saw. I didn’t know I was black until big school. Then there was this boy called Gordon, who had a lovely mum with huge bosoms, bountiful. She came to the school gate sometimes. They invited me round for tea and I didn’t know why, because Gordon wasn’t my boyfriend, although people said he was, even on the first day. I didn’t know why, but I do now, of course. Ackee and saltfish was for tea. I’d never seen it before, I didn’t like it, but I swallowed all of it because I wanted Gordon’s mum to like me and give me a cuddle.’ She looks at the swirl of bourbon in the glass. ‘Do you think Magda gave me something earlier? Why would she?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘So Gordon was in the playground with the other boys around him in a circle, chanting, “Get back on the boat. Black so-and-so.” I don’t want to say. The leader wore his collar up and spiked his hair. I had a crush on him, predictably. When Gordon went down, Stevo kicked him in the head. Hard.’ She looks across for reassurance. ‘I didn’t do anything. As he walked away, Stevo put his arm around me. He said, “You’re okay.”’

  ‘Were you angry?’

  ‘No! I had no idea why he would say that, but I felt like a princess.’ She waits for some response. ‘Why am I telling you this?’

  ‘I was wondering,’ he says, smiling.

  ‘My mother.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘No. Not really, to be honest. Please—’

  ‘I wanted her, all the time. I could not have her, because she was not there, Gabe. I have only a passing memory, like a person you see out of the corner of your eye as they leave the room. I was three years old, that is all,’ she says, her voice fading away to a whisper. ‘She was from Jamaica but I didn’t want to know about that or have anything to do with what it all meant. I didn’t want to look or speak like her. I couldn’t stand to think of her, it hurt so much.’

  Gabe wants to reach out and comfort her, because it obviously still hurts now, he can see that, but he stays back. Looks at his untouched bourbon. Waits and wonders how to react if this gets too much.

  ‘I had a letter with me that she wrote to me. I don’t know what it said. I didn’t want to know until now, Gabe. Is that terrible? Years and years I refused. I thought I would break if I read it. Then I went to my father, last month. He was so surprised, but I need her. I am ready to hear her voice. I needed to hear it – who knows why? Maybe to know what she would say. I came here to be alone and read the letter away from him and to wait and to do
this test on my own.’

  ‘Without the pressure?’

  ‘I wish. There’s always pressure, but it comes from me. Myself. I’m not a victim, remember? I am my mother’s daughter. I’ve always known that, but I ran away from her. These last few days I have felt it strongly, as if she is calling me to come to her at last. I am ready for her. But Gabe, I lost the letter,’ she says, her voice cracking. ‘It blew away, I don’t know when. I need her. She’s not here.’

  ‘Where did you lose it?’

  ‘Out there, on the Downs. I told you. It will have gone over now. Some sailor will pick it up. A sheep will eat it. I’ve lost the last of her. It is too much. Too much!’

  She closes up, as if squeezing out the tears, and Gabe wants to go to her but he can’t, he mustn’t. He waits as she coughs, hacking, clearing the ways. She sits up straight-backed and flicks with a fingertip at the corners of each eye.

  ‘Sorry. I’m sorry,’ she says.

  ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘There’s something else I remember. A story my granny told me from the Bible. She was often doing that. I’m not sure it was always wise, you know? God tells this woman – her name is Sarah – she will have a baby, but Sarah is old and angry and can’t believe it, so she laughs. Disbelief. She laughs because she can’t have a baby, it’s impossible. That’s what I heard when I was little. Granny was saying I would never have babies.’

  ‘She can’t have meant it that way, surely?’

  ‘I know. I’ve read the story many times since then, but I can never get past the laughter. I’ve always been convinced, deep down, that I won’t have kids. Do you think that’s why, because of the story? I am Sarah. Sarah is barren. I am barren. Such a cruel word. I never told Granny or anyone else how I felt. I just knew.’

  ‘You took the story very seriously,’ he says gently.