The Lamplighters

by Emma Stonex

  He keeps one arm up, fingers together, more like a paddle than a hand. Not only is the vessel small but he is too.

  ‘Hello,’ I say again, not shouting this time.

  The boat turns starboard but the person inside is waving now. It isn’t a wave of SOS but one of recognition. He passes the tower. I watch him go and in seconds the fog takes him. He’s gone.

  31

  BILL

  Bad Penny

  Fifty-three days on the tower

  Sid arrives on Thursday. We’ve barely cleared breakfast before Arthur gives the heads-up that the dinghy’s coming in and it’s the mechanic to fix the generator. He looks surprised, as if he didn’t expect it. The fog’s still dense. I didn’t reckon on Trident shipping any man out. Why doesn’t Arthur question it? This week his beard has grown dark, his eyes darker still. There are keepers who stay so long on towers they start to hear mermaids.

  It takes minutes of shouting into the dead gloom before the boat’s positioned and our newcomer’s strapped to the harness. His boatman is no one I recognize; he’s masked in a sou’wester, his face hidden, but he does a fine job of keeping the rope taut and the boat at a steady distance, which is no mean feat because the sea round the tower’s gone like bathwater down a plughole. It’s the rocks that do me in: cold hunks of carbon that man’s got nothing to do with. Same as the ocean, same as the sky. There isn’t any feeling, no connection at all. And if that’s what life comes down to then that makes sense to me. There isn’t heaven or hell or good or bad, because none of it cares.

  ‘Pleased t’ meet you,’ says the mechanic. ‘I’m Sid.’

  He puts his hand out. He’s taller than Arthur or me, with a boxer’s build. I swear if the Trident Fellows ever had to spend more than a night on a sea light, they’d stop hiring people who take up the space of two. Sid’s older than the norm. He has a tattoo on his arm, of a man’s skull inside the jaws of a wolf. His hair is thick and pale.

  ‘Where’re you from then?’ Arthur asks, once the three of us are sitting in the kitchen, smoking, our hands round mugs of tea.

  ‘All over.’ Sid shakes his empty pack then pilfers one of Arthur’s. ‘I never stay put. Was told I’d be good for the lighthouses, like one o’ ye, because they move ye round and that. But this, nah, couldn’t be doing with it. Too bloody small.’

  Sid looks about, as if he’s never been on a tower station before and how amusing are the little table and chairs and the men living their lives inside.

  Normally when people come on, they know they’re not part of it. This is our world they’re in, so they have to toe the line, just like it’d be ashore if you hired a plumber and he came round to do a job. But there’s an unnatural feeling about Sid. I can’t say what. His voice is high-pitched for a bloke and for someone that big; it’s not entirely like a woman’s, but not far off. It doesn’t sit on him, like it doesn’t belong to him, and the more because the accent is broad, northern, and reminds me of my granddad, who had fists like hams and a nose like a misshapen root vegetable.

  He reminds me of someone all over. He reminds me of a dream I once had.

  ‘Me, I need space,’ says Sid. ‘Suits me fine to pay a visit once in a while but I couldn’t be doing with living here. Got a light? Ta. Fuck, ye boys must smoke a lot; I only smoke when I’m bored. Why ain’t ye got any washing-up liquid, eh? I thought ye keepers were obsessed with all tha’. But ye ain’t got any.’

  The PK frowns. ‘We’re waiting for Trident to approve it.’

  ‘Ye should’ve said. I could’ve brought some over; could’ve got some from Spar, call it an early Christmas present. Wouldn’t’ve been a bother.’

  ‘Soap does all right.’

  ‘Don’t ye lot get fed up? Sitting round doing fuck all, all day.’

  ‘It’s a bit more than that,’ says Arthur.

  ‘Right, but still boring.’

  ‘Not once you’re used to it.’

  ‘Wouldn’t want to get used to it, mate. Aye, that’d be the worry.’ Sid blows smoke in the direction of the weight tube. ‘Imagine ye still had to wind that bugger up and down all day and night. Don’t half take up space, does it?’

  Arthur agrees, then says about the weights on chains there used to be inside, and how whoever’s watch it was had to wind the weights all the way up to the lantern to turn the lenses before dropping them back down again. Every forty minutes, like a grandfather clock. Arthur would’ve enjoyed it, I think, before it was done electrically; it’s his sort of thing: head down, get on with it, like my dad and his dad before. One of the reasons Arthur’s their golden boy. Trident’s trustworthy long-service veteran who’s never so much as stepped an inch out of line. Arthur proves the tower life works. Men can survive it and survive it well. Every keeper I’ve been stationed with talks about learning from him. Like he’s a Holy Grail they might someday get to touch.

  He isn’t like that, once you know. That’s why whatever she says to me now about how she’s made a mistake, I don’t believe it.

  ‘It’s a right thing, is cancer,’ says Sid, stubbing out his fag. ‘What a riot that is. D’ye know I’ve had it three times? I’m the original bullet dodger, me. Must have a cat in me to have all these lives. More tea? Ta, two sugars, don’t be shy about it, pal; yep, two, that’s it. Dunno what I’m doing taking these tin-pot jobs – but I am, guess I need t’ make a God’s penny. Show me someone who’s had cancer that many times, it really takes it out o’ ye, it does. Dogs get it too. I never knew that but me mate’s dog had it, but the dog didn’t get owt for it because he’s a dog, so he died. Where’s yer third?’

  ‘Third?’ says Arthur.

  ‘Yer other man.’

  ‘Sleeping.’

  ‘At this hour? Flippin’ ’eck, what’s this for him, a holiday?’

  ‘He’s sick.’

  ‘If he’s sick in his bed, he can’t be up t’ much. Ye should tell him I’ve had cancer three bleedin’ times and see what he makes o’ that. I almost want to get it again, ye know. It’s turned into a bit of a game for me now. Seeing as I’m winning at it, I’ll have another pot and see how I do, how many times I can beat it. It’s a rough one, those hospitals. They say I’m like a bad penny in how I keep turning up.’

  ‘My mother was from Yorkshire.’ It’s the first thing I’ve said to him.

  ‘Yeah?’ He turns on me. Silver eyes. ‘Where was your granny from?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t need your life story, pal.’

  ‘I guessed. The accent.’

  ‘Then ye’re a crap guess. Like I said, I’m from all over. Being that way, ye get to witness the whole circus o’ life. Ye two ever heard of the white rook? I’ve a pal said he saw one once, on the Maiden Rock. It were definitely the Maiden, it was, hundred per cent. Not a gull, me mate knows these things, it were a white rook. He was up on the gallery and this bloody bird comes right out of nowhere and sits down next to him, giving him the beady eye. Totally white, it was, a flippin’ great big white rook.’

  ‘We don’t get rooks out here,’ says Arthur.

  ‘Ye did that time. It was ages ago, mind. I’ve got a thing about birds, can’t stand the buggers. They’re prehistoric in the way they look, aren’t they, all beaks and feet and flapping about. Ye ever tried helping a bird when it’s got it sen in difficulty? It bloody screams at ye, it does, it’s terrifying.’

  Eventually, I get Sid down to the generator. I watch the back of his head as we go down the staircase – one turn to the oil, one to the paraffin, one to the store. His hair is the strangest colour, almost white but not quite, and not the white that comes with age. There’s a tremor of recognition in a dark part of my brain but it breaks apart when I reach for it.

  The mechanic’s so big I can’t think how we’ll both fit down there with the batteries and crammed-in machinery, but we do. Arthur says I’m to stay with him. I don’t want to. I don’t like how he looks at me, as if he knows every thought I ever had.

  ‘Who�
�s your boatman?’

  Sid sets to work on draining the fuel. ‘Ye what?’

  ‘Your boatman. I don’t know him.’

  ‘I don’t know him neither, pal.’

  ‘We usually get Jory. He’s our usual one.’

  ‘Sorry to disappoint.’ It’s murky down here, thick with shadows. ‘Bet ye were hoping for extras, weren’t you, Christmas being around the corner.’

  ‘Sometimes that happens.’

  ‘Yeah, ye lighthouse keepers like thinking of yeselves as a bleedin’ charity.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that.’

  ‘I heard all the nippers at the school send ye presents.’ Sid’s fingers work swiftly; he doesn’t pay attention to what he’s doing, he does it absent-mindedly, like someone stirring a pot while on the phone. ‘And the church too. Ye’re not running a platoon out in Vietnam, pal, don’t feel too sorry for yeselves.’

  ‘We’re always grateful for it.’

  ‘It’s over the top if ye ask me. And d’ye want to hear another thing, Bill? Another thing’s this tendonitis. Ye ever had it? Ye can thank your lucky stars then – I woke up with me hand all seized up, couldn’t move it a bit; and not just me hand but me wrist and all the way up to me elbow, completely dead it were, might as well’ve had a sack o’ spuds tied to me for all the good it did. This doctor said to me—’

  ‘The cancer doctor?’

  ‘Nah, different one, this doctor says, Sidney, ye’ve got tendonitis. I say I got what-what? An’ he tells me it’s where the nerve gets trapped going into yer hand, and ye have to put up with it till it gets better cos there’s fuck-all else to be done.’ He rolls his shoulders; there’s a cracking sound. ‘Course, I couldn’t work then and that were the pits, though not as bad as the cancer, that really were a thing, but turns out the quack were right and this tendonitis did go away on its own. It caught me unawares, it did. Bit like that white rook ye’ve got out here.’

  ‘There isn’t a white rook.’

  ‘Suit yourself. Me mate knows what he’s talking about.’

  ‘Who is your mate? I might know him.’

  Sid takes out the carburettor. ‘Ye married, Bill?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Jenny, ain’t it?’

  ‘How do you know her name?’

  He unscrews the float bowl. ‘Reminds me of a donkey.’

  ‘I’ll tell her you said that.’

  ‘How’s it going then? With Jenny. I heard she’s a drunk.’

  The smell of fuel fills my nostrils. ‘What?’

  ‘Things get around.’ Those eyes cross mine. ‘Ashore, like. People talk.’

  ‘That’s none of your damn business.’

  ‘Right ye are. Should mind me big nose. Only Ah’m curious as to what makes a man and woman want to stay together their whole lives, ye know. It fascinates me, like. Ah’m not married meself, never wanted it. Can’t think o’ much worse.’

  I’ve got to speak, or I’ll punch him. Got to fill my mouth or I’ll fill my fist. My dad said, You’re a boy who gets hit, Bill; you’re not a boy who hits.

  ‘Shit, ain’t it.’ Sid picks up a wire brush. ‘Being tied down all that time. Life’s a long haul. Couldn’t be arsed with it. Bit of a loner, me.’

  ‘You get lots of time apart in this job.’

  ‘Which you like, eh, Bill.’

  My head hurts.

  ‘Ah’m sorry,’ he says. ‘Just interested. People come to me with their problems.’

  ‘I don’t have problems.’

  Down here Sid looks younger than he did upstairs. His hands as they wipe the gunk out of the bowl are smooth, not belonging to a man who gets his fingers covered in grease for a living. I can’t stop thinking of his teeth when he smiled, bright white, the canines sharp. My chest feels like I’ve swallowed a bag of sand.

  ‘Ye keep telling tha sen that, pal,’ he says. ‘Ye’ll never guess what I was before I started in this game. Go on. Have a guess. Bet ye can’t.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘I already gave ye a clue.’ He sprays the jet passage. ‘People came to me with their problems. Once a week. On a Sunday. Bloody hell, ye’re no churchgoer then!’

  ‘You were a priest?’

  ‘What’s the matter – don’t I look like a holy man?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It were a long time ago. Pass me that flathead, would ye?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I need it.’

  ‘Why a priest?’

  ‘Reason I told ye that was so’s ye’d get whatever it is off yer chest.’

  ‘I don’t have anything on my chest.’

  He wipes his nose with the tattooed arm. ‘What about that bag?’

  ‘What bag?’

  ‘Ye said summat like ye had a bag of sand on yer chest what with everything you had corked up inside it.’

  I peer at him. Closer.

  ‘Ye don’t love yer wife Jenny Donkey but ye’d have a crack at the PK’s.’ Sid turns the screwdriver in his hands. ‘Yep, ye’d have a crack at ’er. Loved her for ages, haven’t ye, ever since ye came here and yer own wife looked shabby standing next to her. Ye feel about Helen so strong ye can’t look at her straight. Can’t even touch her, even to help with her shopping bags; ye’re worried it’ll be obvious to him and then he’ll know. Well, he already knows, pal. He knows what ye want, how fucked ye are over her. Surprised? Course he knows, ye idiot. Ye think he’s old and past it, don’t ye, and what’s a bugger like that goin’ t’ do with ye? I wouldn’t want t’ guess at it, pal. That’s a man with nothing to lose.’

  ‘I don’t know who the hell you are—’

  ‘Aye, ye do. Ye know exactly who I am.’

  Sid taps the pad of his index finger against the pad of his thumb. It sounds like an old telephone line connecting.

  ‘Ye missed the boat with Helen,’ he says. ‘After what happened to ’em, she’s ruined now, ain’t she? She’ll never get better, and ye didn’t do it with her. He did.’

  ‘Don’t talk about Helen again,’ I warn him. ‘You don’t know her.’

  ‘Nor do ye, ye crazy fuck. But I know ye. Aye, I know all o’ ye. Just enough and enough’s as good as a feast.’

  He wipes his hands and smiles again, showing his jaw teeth.

  ‘Now what am I getting for me dinner? Been ages since I had me some home-cooked grub.’

  32

  VINCE

  Knock-Knock

  Eighteen days on the tower

  Someone comes to bed, but that doesn’t mean it’s night. It’s dark, but that doesn’t mean it’s night. Or maybe it is night, there’s always a chance. Slivers of happenings and sounds that belong in the real world: the steam off a cup of tea or the dinner-canteen stench of a tin of Heinz ravioli. Nowhere to go and nowhere to be except holed up in the same place, sick to the stomach, stomach like a net filled with crabs, worried and waiting and the days on repeat. In the nick I had a slit to see daylight; they don’t want you getting spoiled on the amount of light you get, cos light’s a luxury for a man with a dark heart in his chest. But when it was clear, I’d glimpse the stars, five or six of them maybe, and they seemed the most beautiful things to me then and they still do now. I’d be lying there with some con on the bunk above, snoring or scratching his balls, and I’d stare at those stars for as long as it took me before I went to sleep.

  It’s worse for the others. They’ve got to deal with covering my watch and cleaning up after me. Me, I’m used to shitting and puking in buckets. Bill and the PK are used to fine china and porcelain bogs, or whatever bogs are made out of. Being sick here or being sick in the clink, it doesn’t make much of a difference.

  The PK comes in. Kneels, gets a box out his cupboard. I can hear the rocks and stones as they knock against each other, knock-knock, soft, cold, constant. Time passes.

  ‘Did I tell you I read palms?’ Michelle said to me after she finished work. I was meeting her at Charing Cross; she came out of a busy station, umbrella hanging like somet
hing shot, and waved and smiled. I thought, how the hell did I manage this?

  ‘Not into that crap, are you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Dead people. Thinking you’ve lived before.’

  ‘I don’t know what I think about that.’ We passed over Trafalgar Square. Grey pigeons on a grey column. ‘My nan showed me how to do the palms.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘And Tarot.’

  ‘Those cards with the goats swinging upside down.’

  ‘You’ve never done it.’

  ‘Course I bloody haven’t!’

  ‘I’ll do it for you if you like.’

  She didn’t. We went back to her bedsit on Stratford Road and fucked instead. When I woke up next morning, she had one of my hands in hers and was looking at it.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  She said: ‘You don’t have a fate line.’

  I said, ‘Should I?’ She said yes. I said as long as I’ve got a heart line that’s fine by me. You’ve got one of those, she said.

  Half awake, half asleep, drowning in a half-world. Last night I heard the PK’s voice on the radio. He’s calling for a doctor, isn’t he? Arthur will take care of me.

  Knock-knock.

  Who’s there?

  A man coming at me over the sea. White hair, white skin; feet dripping on the set-off, hands on the dog steps. Here he is at the entrance. At the door now.

  I promised Michelle it was over. When I wrote to her, I swore, there’ll be no more fighting now. No more danger. Trust me.

  There was a bloke in the lock-up, he played a lot of chess and he’s the one I learned it from; he said it was like being one of the pieces, one of the big ones, let’s say a horse. If you put the horse on the board, it’s part of the game and there are ways the game can get it. But if you take it off, it’s just a horse, there’s nothing else to call it, it can’t be boxed in or got at or played; it isn’t even part of the game any more.

  You have to take yourself off the board every once in a while. Get back to who you are – the real you, when you’re alone and there’s no pretending. You can do that on a lighthouse. There’s no one pulling you this way or pushing you that.