by Matt Stanley
He readied his pencil, still staring at me. His gaze was one of practiced scepticism. His gambit was a clever one. Did he really know what the commissioner had intended to discuss? Or was he hoping to use doubt as a midwife to revelation?
“He said that there was a matter of the wrong date on my recommendation letter and that this would be investigated. I said that it was probably an error owing to Mister Fowler’s busy life.”
“Anything else?”
“Well, he told me about the terrible death of my uncle…”
“Save your tears, Mister Meakes. I think you mean to say the murder of your uncle.”
I nodded. “Yes. His murder. It seems a resident was to blame. Tibbotson.”
He flicked pages. “Yes. Tibbotson, whose bed was found to contain an incriminating weapon. There is just one problem. According to the notes of your uncle, Tibbotson had a dread of blood. The smell of it. The colour of it. He may have struck people occasionally, but with slaps and butts and kicks. A drop of blood and he would faint away. He could not have bludgeoned Mister Fowler and dismembered the body so brutally. Quite simply, he could not do it. Are you feeling all right, Mister Meakes? You have become quite pale.”
“Sir… It distresses me to hear the details of my uncle’s death.”
“His murder.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You were in London when the murder is thought to have occurred – is that right?”
“Yes, sir. Attending the interview at the Commission and for some time afterwards.”
“What were you doing afterwards? Where did you stay?”
“With a friend, sir.”
“Which friend? Here – write a name and address on this leaf.”
I looked at the blank page and the stubby pencil beside it. I knew I should not hesitate. I wrote a name and an address in London and pushed the notepad back towards him.
He looked at the address dubiously and returned the pad to me.
“I would also like you to fill two or three pages with writing. It is necessary that I have a larger sample of your hand. Write anything you like. Copy from one of these books if you have no idea.”
I wrote without thinking:
All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
“Do you like poetry, Mister Meakes?” he said, on seeing what I had written.
“I read a lot of it at school, sir. It has stayed in my mind.”
“Hmm. Tell me about your fellow keeper Mister Adamson.”
“What about him, sir?”
“I notice that you are rooming here in the library. Why?”
“I make noises when I am sleeping. Mister Adamson was angry. It seemed the best solution.”
He made a note. “You make noises? You mean snoring?”
“Yes, sir. That’s it. Forgive me. I am quite nervous being questioned like this.”
“Did Mister Adamson murder the commissioner?”
“Sir! I have no idea what happened to the comm—”
“Somebody killed him. You say it wasn’t you. There are only three keepers here and Principal Bartholomew has an impeccable record at Ripsaw. Mister Adamson had the watch following yours, according to the logbook.”
“Yes, sir… But…”
“Would you say that Mister Adamson can be prone to violent outbursts?”
I’m afraid I paused too long before not answering.
He made a note. “Very well. Can you tell me why there is a newly fitted hasp and padlock on the principal’s bedroom door?”
“He fitted it himself, sir.”
“Why?”
“I couldn’t say, sir. Perhaps he was worried after the business with the commissioner.”
“Worried about what? That you or Mister Adamson might murder him?”
“No, sir!”
“What happened to Principal Bartholomew?”
“It was an accident, sir… There was an argument… Mister Adamson and I were in the light-room store. It became heated and the principal entered at just the moment when Mister Adamson was swinging a hatchet…”
His pencil paused. “Mister Adamson attempted to strike you with a hatchet?”
“No, sir. He was merely brandishing it, threatening me. At least, I believe so.”
“What was this argument about that led to weapons being brandished?”
“Nothing, sir…”
A thin smile. “A man lies insensate with a terrible gash in his head over nothing? You are lying, Meakes. What was the argument about? You know I am going to speak with Mister Adamson directly.”
“Sir… Perhaps you don’t understand… A lighthouse is a very particular environment. Men are pressed together. An argument may arise over nothing. The last piece of bacon. A poorly cleaned stove. A thoughtless word. Perhaps I said something about his drinking.”
“Mister Adamson is prone to drinking?” He made a note.
“No. I don’t know. He doesn’t drink in the lighthouse. Only a small beer at dinner sometimes.”
“He must be a violent man to wield a hatchet over so slight an insult.”
Again, I waited too long before refuting this. He nodded and made a note.
“You have been very helpful, Mister Meakes. I will ask that you now go down to the main door and aid the crew while I talk to Mister Adamson. I know that these lighthouses have strange acoustics and that you may be able to hear conversations through various pipes and flues.”
I descended with Mr Jackson following directly behind. There would be no opportunity to exchange anything but a glance with Mr Adamson as I passed the kitchen. I glimpsed him sitting at the table, his arms folded in front of him, but I made no attempt to pause.
I continued down. What would Mr Jackson ask? What would Mr Adamson say? It seemed clear that Mr Jackson was playing us against each other. Would Mr Adamson adhere to our accord and tell only the truth as I had done?
I thought about going into the provision store or the oil store to listen. The flue from the water-store stove passed through both and into the kitchen. But I was aware that Mr Jackson had not yet entered the kitchen. Shrewd man, he was listening to my footsteps to be sure that I had gone down to the water store.
In that chamber, I found the crew with Principal Bartholomew on the litter. They had lashed him to it with cords to ensure that he would not slide off on the precipitous stairways. His bloodied hair was disordered. He was as pale as a corpse.
The crewmembers were attempting to set up the crane in order to winch the principle to the cutter. I showed them how to run out the jib through the lighthouse wall and how to fit it to the base. We then carried the litter to the door and they connected the ropes.
I watched as the litter rose and swung out over the waves: that fragile broken man on a fragile litter, dangling horizontally. This was not a barrel of beer or a sack of grain. This was a man with the feeblest of pulses and an infant’s frail respiration. He swayed back and forth. What would he have thought if he had awoken to find himself outside and airborne?
The crew called instructions between boat and rock but I was not listening. I took notice only when the cries became more strident and I looked up to see the crane rope unravelling high up on the jib. It twisted lazily undone until the merest cord held the litter’s weight. Then it snapped with a puff of dust and fibre.
The litter fell into the sea and sank immediately, though it was still connected to the boat. I watched it disappearing into blackness. Men were shouting all about me, but I was gripped, imagining the horror of sudden resuscitation in a frigid sea, bound rigidly at arm and leg and waist, descending into the dark as pressure increases on the body, on the lungs. Breathe. Don’t breathe. Panic! Terror!
I watche
d speechless and transfixed as the men tugged at the remaining rope. The litter resurfaced, but with the principal face down in the water. The waves were nudging him headfirst towards the rock.
“Heave! Heave!” called the skipper.
They pulled him finally on board, bone white, his hair like seaweed round his face. Full fathom five thy father lies; of his bones are coral made; those are pearls that were his eyes: nothing of him that doth fade, but doth suffer a sea-change into something rich and strange.
“What is happening here?” Mr Jackson was standing beside me. He was still holding the roll of newspapers and the logbook.
“He fell into the sea! Rope snapped!” called the skipper, pointing to the frayed end dangling at the jib.
Mr Jackson looked up. As he did so, Mr Adamson arrived at the door and took in the scene: the soaked body, the rope, the drama.
“I want that rope in my possession,” said Mr Jackson. “Someone unfasten it and bring it to me. No – not you, Mister Adamson.”
“Why not me?”
“It was you who suggested using the litter and winching the principal out.”
His hands went up. “Anyone would have suggested the same! How else would you move him?”
A crewman handed Mr Jackson a coil of rope. He held the frayed end up for scrutiny.
Two crewmembers were urgently wrapping the principal in blankets, sea-spray beading pearl-like on the dark wool.
“Very well, gentlemen,” said Mr Jackson. “The tide is changing. I return to shore with my findings. I leave you here to man the lighthouse. My advice if you want it: keep the lamp lighted and the sea safe. In that, you justify the Commission’s trust in you.”
We cast off the lines and watched the cutter turn about. Not the crew nor Mr Jackson looked back at us. They were either attending to the principal or pulling taut the sails.
“Why didn’t they bring replacements?” I said. “Why didn’t they take us?”
“You still don’t understand, do you, lad?” His head shaking slowly. “Why take us? They already have us in the kingdom’s most inaccessible gaol. We’re going nowhere.”
SEVENTEEN
Ripsaw is altered without the presence of Principal Bartholomew. The difference was immediately perceptible as we bolted the main door and ascended.
The sensation evoked, perhaps, the times when a holy place – a church, a temple – is overrun and desecrated by the pagans, by the infidel. They tear down its sculptures and use it as a stable or a warehouse until, decades later, centuries later, it returns to its original practitioners. But something has gone. The anima. The deity. It is just a structure.
Mr Jackson was the infidel. He poisoned every chamber with his cynical suspicions. He tossed aside reliquaries, scattered chasubles and cracked our stained-glass windows. He carried off our lares.
Now we are just two.
I have thought much about Mr Adamson’s comment that we are imprisoned here. It is true that our existence is contingent on the execution of our duty to keep the lamp lighted. Do that, and there is no urgency to replace us; investigations and cogitations may continue. Fail to do so, and they swoop on us in instant retribution: we are taken and replaced. It is a kind of slavery. Our fates are in hiatus as they watch us from the shore.
I put these thoughts to Mr Adamson in the kitchen, but he seemed less interested than I.
“Don’t mither me with your fancies, Poet. What did you tell Jackson?”
“As we agreed. The truth.”
“He asked me about the newspapers under my bed. Only you have a strange mania about those newspapers. Why did he want them?”
“I did not say a word to him about them.”
He stared hard. “Let him read them all. I have nothing to hide.”
“And… What did you tell him about me?”
“What we agreed. That we were arguing in the light-room store and Bartholomew was struck.”
“Why did we argue?”
“What did you say was the reason?”
“I said I couldn’t remember. Something trivial, I said. I thought that might be the best answer to corroborate whatever you might say. What did you say?”
He grinned. “You are a crafty one, Meakes.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said there was something irritating in your character – that I simply don’t like you. He seemed to believe me.”
“Did you tell him anything else about me?”
“Like what, Poet?”
“About my talking at night… Anything of that kind?”
A grin. “I said you’re odd. He could see that for himself, I’m sure.”
“Did you see that he also had a logbook with him?”
“Aye. Bartholomew’s, I imagine. No doubt the old man wrote everything in it. How you went into his room looking through his things… That will be bad for you.”
“And things about you also, Mister Adamson. You don’t know what he wrote. Or perhaps you do…”
He stiffened. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
We sat staring at the kitchen table. I wished for an errant wave to consume the cutter before it reached shore, Mr Jackson carried down to the abyss with his arms gripping that logbook. But when I looked out the boat was still visible. He would know much more when he returned.
“We must only light the lamp,” I said. “That will be our salvation.”
“Do you really believe that, Meakes?”
“What else do we do if we don’t maintain the lamp and keep the house? Just wait?”
He seemed lost in contemplation, staring at the sky through the east window. I thought he hadn’t heard me, but then: “Who’s Jimmy?”
“What?… Who?”
“Your ridiculous bottle message said something like Have you seen Jimmy? or Where is Jimmy?”
“I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“You’re a terrible liar, Meakes. You might fool others, but not me. Is that how you persuaded the Commission to accept you in the lighthouse service? With lies?”
“What are you suggesting?”
“You know very well what I’m suggesting, lad. You’re a man with secrets.”
“Does not every man have his secrets?”
“I suppose he does. As long as one man’s secrets don’t become another man’s problems… Is Jimmy going to be a problem for me?”
“I don’t know anybody of that name.”
“Right. Right.”
“It is time to clean the lamp and the lens. Mister Jackson has made us late this morning.”
“You do it, lad. I will organise lunch and empty the ashes.”
But I later glimpsed him inside the principal’s room. I could have said something, could have challenged him, but he only would have told me he was collecting the ashes from the stove. It was a plausible excuse.
I have spent the afternoon in the library finishing Crusoe. The following passage seemed worth copying here:
In my reflections upon the state of my case, since I came on shore on this island, I was comparing the happy posture of my affairs, in the first years of my habitation here, compar’d to the life of anxiety, fear and care, which I had liv’d ever since I saw the print of a foot in the sand…
* * *
The first watch was mine. I lit the wicks, set the mechanism in motion, filled the weather log and stood watching birds hurl themselves to sudden death once night had come. I have done it for weeks but something had changed. The experience felt new.
Of course, now that we are only two, the days are shorter and the watches longer. The light-room can become very cold, even with the stove burning. I was stiff-legged and quite tired when the hour came for Mr Anderson’s relief. But he didn’t come.
I waited for five minutes and called him on the whistle. Still, he didn’t come. I waited five minutes more. I imagined him sleeping heavily.
There was nothing and nobody to stop me going down and rousing him. T
he principal wouldn’t know. The shore station wouldn’t know. And yet they had been instilled in me, those two inviolable rules: the keeper should not sleep on duty and the keeper should not leave the light-room unless relieved.
And if Mr Adamson was dead? If a haemorrhage had burst in his brain and he was lying cold in his bed? Would I wait in the light-room until dawn? That would be the responsible act. That is what Mr Fowler would have advised. It is what Principal Bartholomew would have told me. I decided to wait.
I’m afraid I may have slept. I vaguely remember the ventilator’s comforting moan and the mechanism bell, both of which have become almost inaudible through familiarity. I remember the soft thud and occasional split beak of the light-benighted birds. A wave, now and then, would slap the tower as a reminder that we were uninvited guests in Neptune’s kingdom. All I know is that I opened my eyes to see a young boy standing right beside me in the light-room.
“Oh!” I said. “Who are you? You shouldn’t be here!”
He was a very sickly looking boy: pale, emaciated and perhaps a little palsied. His hair fell across his forehead in a damp lick and his dark eyes were ringed with shadow. He was wearing a curious grey suit and seemed entirely unperturbed. My first thought: he looked as if he had just been disinterred.
“How did you arrive here?” I said. “This is quite against the regulations.”
A dead stare. “I’ve been here as long as you, James.”
“How do you know my…? Look, young man. This is nonsense. Where did you come from? Did you stow away on the cutter?”
“Yes. On the same cutter you took to Ripsaw.”
“You were not on that boat, boy. And do you think I wouldn’t have seen you all this time at Ripsaw? You are an imp and a liar.”
“It’s just a game of hide-and-seek. When you are in one chamber, I am in another. There are always empty chambers. If one is careful, it’s possible to slip up or down the stairs to avoid discovery.”
“No. No. We have searched this lighthouse twice… No. You must have arrived with Mister Jackson.”
“I can prove it if you like – that I have been here all the time.”
“Then prove it.”
“You have seen my messages, I think. Lord, deliver me from marrowless inertia.”