I am the Sea

by Matt Stanley

  “I was not.”

  “You were. I’ve seen the scars on your wrist and your back. From the restraints. From the beatings. You were in irons. Admit it. And that business with the hand-crank – that is my proof. I saw your reaction well enough. You’ve been in a solitary cell condemned to hard punishment. Admit it.”

  “I have not.”

  “It was you: the commissioner’s disappearance, his notes. The morphia. It was all you. I’m going to Bartholomew right now.”

  “You can’t… You shouldn’t disturb him on his watch.”

  “He’ll want to hear this.”

  “Then maybe he will want to hear about the newspapers under your mattress.”

  His mouth was quite agape. “What newspapers?”

  “The three newspapers you took from the library. I know they contain your secret.”

  “What are you talking about, Meakes? What secret?”

  “Something you did on shore in August.”

  “And what did I do in August, Meakes, that is written in the newspapers?”

  “You know what.”

  “I am going to the principal.”

  “No!”

  “Let go of me, Meakes. I will knock you senseless, I swear!”

  “Yes, yes… That’s your way, isn’t it? You bully!”

  It was futile to struggle with him. He is a much stronger man. But I found some reserve of strength and I would not release his wrist though he tossed me about like a handkerchief.

  “WHAT is going on here?”

  Principal Bartholomew was standing in the doorway. His face was a squall about to break.

  “He was in your room,” said Mr Adamson. “Looking through your things.”

  “Do you realise I have had to abandon my watch to intervene in your childish conflict?”

  “But, sir—” attempted Mr Adamson.

  “You go to your room and stay there until your next watch. You, Mister Meakes, will go to the library. You will sleep there until the cutter next comes out. It seems you two cannot live together. Out. Out of my room.”

  Out, damned spot! Out, I say! Hell is murky!

  “But don’t you see, sir?” attempted Mr Adamson.

  “Go. Both of you. I will not leave the lamp another moment for this nonsense.”

  Mr Adamson dropped the principal’s notes on the table and passed me with a brutal shoulder shove. “Wait until tomorrow,” he muttered.

  Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.

  I went shame-faced to the library, knowing that Mr Adamson would soon be looking through my private things in retribution.

  * * *

  I now sit in the light-room on my watch. It is dark and the beam casts its light to the horizon. The wind moans about the column and the waves thump for our attention. It has become colder.

  I feel somehow more at ease within the influence of lamp and lens. Its coursing prismatic sparks and blue-green reflections are not quite of this earthly world. They are Genesiac sprites caught in glass. And yet there remains a ball of agitation in my breast. This apprenticeship at Ripsaw has not proceeded at all as I’d hoped for. Where is the peace? Where is the comfort of routine?

  I do not want to succumb to self-pity. That is a terrible hole to fall into. Therein, one sees the world as from the bottom of a well: a tiny circle of light through which all is miniature and indistinct. Shadows only. That is undoubtedly a prison, that column of darkness in whose depths one thrashes to stay afloat.

  I wish that Mr Fowler were here. He would talk to me in calm and rational tones. He would go through his usual catechism.

  What is it you fear?

  Why do you fear it so?

  What should you avoid?

  How should you behave?

  What effect will this produce?

  Will you be better then?

  I fear him.

  Because I do not understand him.

  Hectic thoughts and overstimulation.

  With tranquillity, honesty and reason.

  Calmness and clarity of vision.

  Experience tells me so. I believe so. I hope so.

  FOURTEEN

  Today, I woke for the first time in the library and for the briefest of moments I thought myself at home. The real bed, the carpet and the stucco ceiling persuaded me so. The books on the shelves. The heavy wooden chairs. I lay there and I thought: this is the secret room I dreamed of as a child – the room that exists just for me.

  It was preternaturally quiet. No birds. No reef. No wind. The windows were thick with condensation and showed only rectangles of white. I deduced more fog. We were hidden again. Enwraithed. Invisible to the Commission and to the world.

  On rising, however, I saw I had been mistaken. It was snowing: a steady fall of fat, feathery flakes as dense as any fog but far more soothing. I must have stood at the open window for minutes watching the icy down descending to the slate-grey sea. My legs became quite chilled as I followed individual flakes from sooty silhouette to salty inundation. This was another day that the boat could not come out to Ripsaw – another day that we would wait unknowing, anticipating.

  And I wondered: is there not something of religion in our suspended state of being? We answer to a higher power that exists in a place we cannot know or see. We obediently follow its rules and regulations and hope to avoid its wrathful retribution. It controls us through our observance of its rituals and we live in expectation of some sign, some indication that our observance has been noted. But we are so far, so terribly far away. We are the sole arbiters of our own actions and decisions. In truth, is not the real world here at Ripsaw and everything beyond it mere imagination?

  * * *

  Principal Bartholomew is very angry after yesterday’s argument. He said at breakfast that he will not hear our versions of events because that would only stir more resentment. I agree with him. He says that we are both equally responsible. He has also fitted a hasp and padlock to his door.

  I spent the morning with him cleaning the lamp and the lens – work we did almost totally in silence. The lantern was quite magical with the snow swirling all about outside. We might have been travelling through the clouds many miles above the earth. Inside the lens, it appeared that the very sky was disintegrating into shards of light.

  “Did you enter my room as Mister Adamson accuses?” said the principal. Clearly, he did want to hear my version.

  “I did, sir… But with no dishonest intent. The door was open – I don’t know why – and I saw your leeches in their jar. I suppose I was intrigued.”

  He did not look at me. He continued wordlessly polishing the glass.

  “And I saw all of your books on weather measurement and… Well, my grandfather was something of a weather enthusiast. He knew many traditional sayings and predictors.”

  Still he polished with great intent, but he was listening.

  “He kept leeches also. I recall that he changed the water every few days.”

  “Rainwater?”

  “Of course, sir. He measured rainfall, too.”

  “Do you remember any of his proverbs?”

  “Let me see… When rise begins after low, squalls expect and clear blow. He was one of the first men to take an interest in the barometer.”

  The principal smiled.

  I said: “When rain comes before wind, halyard sheets and braces mind. That was another one of his.”

  He stopped his polishing. “I have another one for you: Long foretold, long last; short notice, soon past.”

  “Have you found a pattern, sir? Have you seen what will come?”

  “It is almost more art than science, Meakes. The numbers tell their story, but a man must observe the elements themselves. They speak to us more eloquently.”

  “Have you seen something?”

  “The clouds. They are ephemeral, but their forms may be read in conjunction with the moon, with the tides, with the barometer’s fluctuations.”

  “And this is why you cannot leave Rips
aw – because you work is not completed… Because you cannot complete it on land…”

  “Who told you I am leaving Ripsaw?”

  “Nobody. I mean… Mister Adamson intimated to me that you might be leaving.”

  “I have no plans to leave, Mister Meakes. Keeper Adamson speaks from his own desires.”

  “No, sir. I didn’t mean to… This snow is rather unseasonable, no?”

  “It comes early this year, yes.”

  “Is it a sign?”

  “It may be. We will see.”

  There was something sphinx-like in the set of his mouth that said he knew more than he would say.

  “Principal… Do you think that London and Edinburgh knew about the commissioner’s recommendations? And about the subjects of his interviews?”

  “In my experience, they know everything. They know how many hairs are on your head. There is no escaping their attention.”

  I smiled and quoted: “But even the very hairs of your head

  are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.”

  He paused his polishing once more. “You have a facility for feats of memory. I wonder why we find you here, rubbing brass and copper with a linen rag.”

  “It is an accidental talent, sir. It costs me no effort. Indeed, I sometimes regret the noise it creates inside my mind.”

  “You have an unsettled mind, Mister Meakes?”

  “No, sir. I have not explained myself. It’s just that, well, I am drawn to words and tend to remember them whether I wish to or not. Sometimes… And you, sir? Do you like to read?”

  “I like to learn. I would rather read an encyclopaedia than a novel. Much time may be wasted on stories. They unfit the mind and dull our purpose. They make us daydreamers.” He applied more pressure to a spot, rubbing away imagination.

  “I suppose you are right, sir.”

  “You have the makings of a good keeper, Mister Meakes.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “You might even be a principal one day.”

  I am thane of Glamis; but how of Cawdor? And to be king stands not within the prospect of belief.

  “Perhaps, sir. Perhaps so.”

  He stopped polishing and looked at me. “Do not attempt to enter my room again.”

  “No, sir.”

  * * *

  Something remarkable has just occurred. I was down at the main door emptying the ash bucket when I heard the clink of glass. There was a bottle bobbing in a rock pool below and I was amazed to see that there appeared to be a piece of paper inside it.

  The air was frigid. My breath was vaporous about my face. The exposed parts of the reef were dusted with snow. I laid the ash bucket to one side and looked at the ladder, whose every rung was sheathed in filmy ice. But my curiosity outweighed my common sense. I descended to the rock.

  The sea was only beginning to recede and the surface was still awash with writhing weeds that coiled serpent-like about my boots. I knew the danger of my actions. A slip, an errant wave, and I would be the next Ripsaw keeper added to the list of the missing.

  The pale-green bottle was square with a stubby neck and a half-inserted cork. It was tapping gently at the perimeter of its pool but could be washed away at any moment by the ebbing tide. I knelt in miry slime and felt the freezing water soak my trousers, my jacket cuffs. The bottle spun on its horizontal axis, mischievously evading my grasp. There was certainly a roll of paper within it.

  I snatched at the neck and pulled it dripping from the pool. It appeared to be one of the self-same bottles I had seen in the provision store containing vinegar. I thrust it inside my jacket and returned to the ladder before anyone could note my tardiness in returning.

  Naturally, the urge to open the bottle message and read it was almost irresistible, but two other souls inhabit this place. I knew that my only assurance of privacy, without observation or interruption, would be my watch. I would have to wait the whole day before opening my prize!

  I bolted the main door. I closed the inner vestibule door. I ascended the stone staircase to the oil store. Where? Where might I hide the bottle?

  Following our search for the commissioner’s notes and the missing morphia, the lighthouse seemed to have very few hiding places. We all knew where a thing might be secreted. We had uncovered every possible hiding place. But something novel occurred to me as I passed the provision store.

  Why not simply put the message bottle alongside the others of its ilk: behind the others but of the group. Nobody would be using vinegar today. Even if someone did take a bottle, they would take the first available one. Accordingly, I rearranged the bottles and placed mine at the back. Its cork stood a little higher than the others so I used my pocketknife to trim it flush against the neck. Then to wait…

  I can barely tolerate the anticipation. Twice, I have been back to the provision store on some imagined errand to check the bottle. I have even thought about moving it to somewhere more concealed. Inside an oil cistern? But one never knows when the principle will do his rounds with the measuring rod.

  And I wonder feverishly who tossed the bottle to the waves. Keeper Spencer before his carbonic oxide asphyxiation? The commissioner as he circled the fog-bound balcony? Those other, nameless, men who toppled from the pediment? Which one kept a secret so momentous that he could share it only with the wayward sea?

  Or perhaps the bottle is nothing more than an experiment of the principal’s to measure tides and currents round the reef. Captains and hydrographers have also been known to cast a bottle to the ocean to see where ludic Zephyrus or Boreas will blow it. I must prepare myself for the disappointment that the slip of paper contains nothing more than time, date and co-ordinates.

  Meanwhile, the snow continues heavy and relentless. On shore, it will be accumulating on walls and lawns and hedges, transforming the landscape into gentle curves. Naked trees will rake the sky. Bushes will bow and sag beneath the weight. But here nothing settles. The sea swallows all. The heavens may empty a blizzard upon us and the only sign is on the balcony or perhaps a windowsill. The lighthouse weathers all, mocking the winds, impervious to rain, slaked with clotted spume – pristine in its triumph.

  * * *

  I write this only after drinking two large mugs of tea, my fingers wrapped about the mug to quiet my stiff and shaking hands. It started when Principal Bartholomew asked me to sweep the balcony for some reason known only to himself. Dusk was approaching and the snow was falling without pause. It would have made much more sense to wait until morning.

  I dutifully put on my watch-cloak and took the broom out to face four inches of heavy, wet snow that adhered to the balcony as if it were afraid to be swept into the void. All the time I laboured, more snow fell: wetting my cheeks, blighting my eyes and dampening my shoulders even through the thick wool. Here was the labour of Sisyphus made real as I circled and circled the lighthouse.

  The light of day was almost gone when I saw a shadow at the periphery of my vision. I turned but it was gone. I leaned the brush against the wall and walked to where I’d seen it. This time, the blur occurred in just the spot I’d left the brush: a formless silhouette perhaps half a grown man’s height.

  “Mister Adamson? Is that you?”

  I knew that he was on first watch and would be in the light-room at that very moment. It would not be at all surprising if he wanted to alarm or irritate me. If he had seen Mr Spencer’s watch-log entry…

  “Did you call for me, Meakes?” He was standing at the door.

  “No… I thought I saw something.”

  “Saw what?”

  “Nothing. You. I don’t know…”

  He looked at me, his lips pursed in disgust. “Anyway. I need you to do something. Bring your broom.”

  I shook the snow from my cloak, stamped my boots clear of it and went inside.

  “Come with me,” he said. “No – bring the broom.”

  “But…”

  I followed him up into the lantern,
in which the map had been lit and the lens was slowly revolving.

  “Look at that,” he said, pointing to the accumulation of snow on the weather-side panes. “You’ll need to go out on the parapet and clear the snow. If not, it will block the beam.”

  “Out there?” I looked at the parapet: barely a foot of metal mesh around the lantern, above the balcony.

  “Well, you can’t reach it from below.”

  “But… It’s your watch, not mine. Why don’t you go out?”

  His chest went out. “Are you disobeying an order from your direct superior, Meakes?”

  “It’s dark and the metal is slippery with ice.”

  “Have you forgotten the purpose of our work here? If the panes are thick with snow, the light will simply reflect back into the lantern. What if there is a ship at that precise point on the horizon?”

  I looked again at the parapet. Each external astragal node had a hand-ring support. I had already seen the principal using them.

  “Well?” said Mr Adamson.

  I felt hot the tears of fear and blinked them away. I tried to recall the words of Mr Fowler. Face your fears; they are worse in anticipation than in reality. Had I not also read something similar in Defoe? Mr Adamson expected me to fail. This was my duty and I followed my duty more faithfully than he did.

  “Very well,” I said.

  A section of triangular panes opened inwards to allow access to the parapet. The glass was quite thick with snow. I unbolted it and crouched to go out. Snow entered on the freezing wind.

  “Quick!” said Mr Adamson. “We don’t want moisture inside.”

  The night’s ice-speckled emptiness and the sea yawned before me. A fall of two hundred feet would kill me as surely as it had killed the commissioner. I was dizzy at the thought of it.

  “Meakes! The snow.”

  I stepped out on to the parapet and groped blindly for the nearest ring. My back faced the void. I felt it pulling at me, willing me to slip, to topple, to plummet. Too afraid to scream. Rigid with shock and surprise as the sea rushed suddenly to smash me.

  My breath steamed the pane before my face and billowed all about me, but I could see Mr Adamson miming that I should clear the snow. He had closed the section. Was this his plan? That I would lose feeling in my hands… Then my balance?