Lighthouse Bay

by Kimberley Freeman

  Guilt.

  It wasn’t that she’d never felt it before. She’d felt it for twelve years, vaguely, stirring from time to time, like a coil of nausea that never quite develops enough to purge the stomach. But this was a different kind of guilt. Mark had a wife. Her name was Emily. She loved Mark. If she’d known that Mark was seeing Libby, it would have ruined her happiness.

  Libby would have ruined her happiness.

  She still could. And suddenly she was desperate that the secret never, never come out. In the past, she’d sometimes secretly hoped it would, forcing Mark’s hand. Leave her; be with me! Now it seemed impossible that it could stay a secret forever. Cathy already suspected: those letters would have seemed greater proof. Who else had suspicions? Who else might let down their guard now Mark wasn’t around to urge them to be silent? Please, no, never let it come to light. Never let anyone know what a selfish human being I am. Libby stood on the beach for nearly an hour, while the tide came in around her legs, and the sea roared, drowning out her sobs of shame.

  Libby arrived outside Graeme Beers’ house at four o’clock the next afternoon. She’d spent the day sketching, enjoying getting the detail of ropes and sails right: their complex crisscrossing, texture and shadows. Mostly she’d been copying pictures out of books, but she had become determined that it was the Aurora she wanted to paint. The only image available online was too small to be useful, and she hoped Graeme could give her a copy of the picture he had in his folder. So, on a whim, she’d driven north to Winterbourne Beach.

  No boat out the front. Still, she climbed out of her car and went up the stairs to knock. No answer.

  Libby sighed. She should have looked up his number and phoned first, perhaps. Then she thought, he must have taken a diving group out. It was growing late, so he had to come in soon. She got back into her car and drove towards the beach.

  A sign pointed her towards the boat ramp and car park. There she found Graeme, strapping his boat to his trailer.

  “Hello!” she called, waving.

  He looked up. It was obvious he didn’t register who she was, but he waited for her to approach all the same.

  “Graeme, I’m Libby. We met—”

  “Yep, I remember. Changed your mind about coming diving with me?”

  “No, I’m after something much safer. You had a picture in your folder of the Aurora. I wonder if I could have a copy. I want to paint it, you see.”

  “Ah, I see,” he said, tightening a strap and moving to the other side of the boat. “You’re an artist, are you?”

  “I’d like to be.”

  “Meet me round at my place in ten minutes. I’ve got something for you.”

  Libby was curious as she waited out the front of Graeme’s house. Soon he rattled up with his boat on the trailer and parked his car. He gestured for her to follow him up the stairs, and let them into his house.

  “Wait right there,” he said, indicating the couch.

  She sat down, feeling the first misgivings. Here she was alone, in a strange man’s house, and nobody knew where she was. But then he returned with a gift of such generosity that she felt ashamed of herself for doubting him.

  He sat next to her and handed her a photocopy of the photograph. Then he spread out an old roll of musty paper on the coffee table before them.

  “What is it?”

  “Ship’s plans.”

  Libby’s eyes rounded. “For the Aurora?”

  “Yep.”

  Her gaze traveled over the page, and then the one below it. Every measurement, every detail was drawn in. “How did you get these?”

  “Stealth and cunning,” he said with a grin. “These were Percy Winterbourne’s. He brought them with him from England, no doubt so he knew where to look in the wreck. As far as I can tell, when he died at that hotel, some chambermaid or other got her hands on all his papers, then probably felt so guilty she stuffed them into the back of her wardrobe. I picked it all up a couple of months ago at a garage sale. I like a good garage sale. The old duck selling them had no idea what they were, so I got ’em pretty cheap.”

  “And have you used these to go looking for the mace?”

  “Of course.”

  “But you don’t show your divers?”

  “That would defeat the object of having my business. If somebody actually finds the mace, that out there is just an old wreck. At the moment, it’s a potential treasure.”

  “And you’d let me borrow these?”

  “As long as you don’t make copies and as long as you give them back when you’re done. I can loan them to you for fifty dollars. You’ll have to give me your address so I know where to find you if you don’t bring them back.”

  Libby had to stifle a laugh. Still, he wasn’t going to part with them if she didn’t pay him. “All right, Graeme. You have a deal.”

  He saw her off at the front door, catching her at the last minute to say, “Now when you bring those back, are you sure you wouldn’t like to come for a dive? I’ve had a drop-out on the third.”

  “I’ve never dived before.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I have lots of first-timers. It’s beautiful down there. An artist like you would love the colors. I won’t charge you for gear hire. Up and down for two hundred.”

  She couldn’t fault his salesmanship. She was about to say no again when she thought, Why? Why am I saying no? Mark wouldn’t have said no. And in that moment she missed him so fiercely, so viscerally, that there was no other answer than, “Yes. All right, then.”

  He winked. “You won’t regret it, love. I’ll see you in a couple of weeks. Be here by nine. And don’t forget to return the plans.”

  Wednesday, late afternoon, as Libby was coming back from her swim, she saw him. A man, lurking around near the front of her house. Her heart froze, but then anger burned through it.

  She’d had a rotten day as a result of a rotten night. The car engine outside her window at 1 am. Not being able to get back to sleep. Falling in and out of half-dozing bad dreams about Mark, about people trying to break into her house. Spending the day tired and strung out. And there he was, bold-faced, out in the open.

  There was still enough daylight to make her brave. Why shouldn’t she just march up to him and tell him to leave her alone? Why should she cower in her own house at night? She forgot that she was dressed only in a wet bathing suit and a striped towel, and she hurried up the slope. But he was already moving away, up towards the lighthouse. So, she wasn’t imagining it: there was somebody living there. And she bet it was the same person making the noise with the car at night that kept waking her up. Libby broke into a run. He fiddled with the lock and was just about to disappear inside when she called out, “Hey! You!”

  He glanced up, alarmed, and tried to get inside the lighthouse before she reached him, but then he dropped his key outside and had to stop to scoop it up.

  Libby stopped in front of him, panting, hair dripping, feet caked in wet sand, and grasped his forearm. “Stop,” she said. “Who the hell are you?”

  The man looked at her closely, his eyebrows twitching. He had green eyes, sandy hair tied in a curling ponytail at his nape, and a neat goatee beard. Libby’s heart hammered, trying to read his expression.

  And then he smiled and said, “Elizabeth Slater?”

  Libby dropped his forearm and searched his face, but try as she might, she couldn’t identify him.

  “Your sister Juliet used to babysit me.” He held out his hand for her to shake. “Damien Allbright. Do you remember?”

  Yes, she remembered. Last time she’d seen Damien, he was eight. That would make him twenty-eight now. But she couldn’t match up the skinny child she’d known with the tall man who stood in front of her. And none of it explained why he’d been hanging around her house. “What’s going on?” she said. “Why have you been outside my house at night?”

  “You’re living at the cottage?”

  She nodded.

  “I haven’t been outside it at night, unl
ess I’m coming or going from here.”

  “There’s been a car. A man . . .”

  “I’ve heard the car too, but it’s not mine. I don’t have a car. I don’t have . . . Look, Elizabeth, you’ve just come back from the beach. Do you want to come by later and talk? You must be getting cold.”

  Libby was suddenly cruelly aware that she was wearing so little. She crossed her arms over her breasts. “Everyone calls me Libby. You live in the lighthouse?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  Libby’s curiosity grew. The breeze off the sea coaxed goose bumps on her arms. “All right.”

  “See you soon.” He nodded, and slipped inside, leaving the door open.

  Libby hurried off, her mind whirring. So Damien Allbright was squatting at the lighthouse. Should she overlook the fact that this was suspect, if not illegal, just because Juliet had once babysat him? He had come to their apartment every Friday night and Juliet had read to him and played games with him while Libby put on her make-up and headed out to the surf club to drink with friends. He’d always seemed a sweet kid: thoughtful and clever. But that didn’t mean she should trust him now.

  She showered, dressed and ran a comb through her hair. When she arrived back at the door of the lighthouse, the sky was on the brink of dusk.

  “Hello?” she called into the dark.

  “Wait there. I’ll come down,” he called. A weak light descended, and Damien emerged from the bottom of the stairs, holding a lantern with a candle in it. “Sorry, there’s no electricity,” he said. “Hold on to the railing as we go up the stairs. They’re a little wobbly.”

  The stairs were narrow and steep, almost like a ladder. She held tight to the rails on either side as she followed Damien up and through the hatch to the next level. Here, Damien had arranged a dozen of the candlelit lanterns around the circumference of the room. On the floor was a mattress and blankets, a large backpack, a battered wooden cabinet and two boxes overflowing with papers.

  Damien indicated the mattress. “That’s the only place to sit, I’m sorry.”

  Libby perched on the edge of the mattress, gazing around the candlelit room. “I don’t understand, Damien. You live here?”

  “Not permanently. Not even for very long, I hope.”

  “Where do you cook? And shower?”

  “There are plenty of public toilets and showers along the beach, and I eat really simply. I sometimes use the gas barbecues at the park behind the surf club. It’s a pity they had the original keeper’s quarters knocked down. When I was a kid, you could go through that boarded-up door to two little rooms.” He shrugged. “It’s okay. I manage.”

  She turned to look at him, now. He sat on the floor about three feet away, with his knees folded under his chin. “I barely recognize you,” she said.

  He held out his right arm, palm turned over to catch the light. “Remember this?” He indicated a deep, white scar on his forearm, and at once Libby remembered. He’d been mucking around in the kitchen one night and crashed into the pantry, shattering a jar of honey. One of the glass shards had embedded in his forearm. Juliet didn’t have a license then, so Libby had had to drive them both to the hospital.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “The night of blood and honey. I never got the stains out of my car seat.”

  He wrapped his arm around his knee again. “How’s Juliet?”

  “She’s . . . ah . . . I’ve only just come back to Lighthouse Bay after a long time. She seems well.”

  “Did she end up marrying Andy Nicholson? I remember the night she told me she was engaged. It broke my heart. I had such a big crush on her. But that was right before Mum and I left Lighthouse Bay, so I never heard what happened after.” He was smiling at her, but as he took in her expression his smile faded.

  “Andy died,” Libby said.

  “Ah. That’s horrible.”

  “The day before their wedding. He . . . he drowned. Just outside the surf club.”

  “What a nightmare.”

  Nightmare. Every part of it was a nightmare. Twenty years in the past and still she could remember it as though it had just happened. “They were crazy in love, those two. I mean, who else gets married at nineteen? But she and Andy had been together since they started high school and Dad was fine with it and Juliet . . . Juliet loved Andy so much.” Libby’s voice caught in her throat as she felt a sick, guilty rush in her stomach.

  Damien nodded solemnly. “But is she happy now? Did things work out for her?”

  “She never married or had kids. But she owns and runs the tea room and B&B single-handedly. It’s a big success.” Libby’s words sounded hollow and she knew it. All Juliet had ever wanted was a family. “Come on, then,” Libby said. “Enough heavy stuff about Juliet. Tell me why you’re here.”

  “There are two reasons,” he said, leaning back on his forearms. “The first is, I have nowhere else to go just now. I’ve just been through . . .” He shrugged. “Some difficult times, I guess you’d say. Things didn’t go as I’d hoped, so I came back here.”

  “I can understand that. But why live here, with no electricity?”

  “My money is tied up at the moment with some legal issues and I’m between jobs. I can’t work just now. This is all temporary, though. Really it is. I want to be out while the weather’s still warm.”

  Libby turned this over in her mind. She wondered what Damien’s legal issues were. Was he a petty criminal? He was nearly thirty, had no job, and was squatting in a lighthouse. “So what’s the second reason?”

  “Do you remember Pirate Pete?”

  “The crazy old lighthouse keeper?”

  Damien winced. “Yeah. He was my grandfather.”

  “Pirate Pete was your grandfather? I’m so sorry, I would never have been so rude—”

  “No, it’s all right. I got used to people saying cruel things about him. And he was a little crazy, I’ll admit. When I was a boy, he showed me all these secret cabinets in the room upstairs, where the light is.”

  “Secret cabinets?”

  “Yes, built into the wall panels. There was nothing much of interest there to a little boy: old papers and so on.” He indicated the boxes in front of him. “Only as an adult did I get curious again. After Granddad died—he lived till ninety, you know—I kept thinking about the history in the walls. Nobody else knew it was there. I came up here, but the cabinets are all falling apart now. There were papers spilling out everywhere. I just felt I should stay till I fix things up.”

  “I think it’s the damp: it makes the cupboard doors swell. That’s what’s happening with my linen cupboard, at least. So, you’ve been reading through all this history? At night? By candlelight?”

  He smiled. “Sometimes. But mostly during the day. At night I just sleep.”

  “And you’ve never been down at the cottage at night?”

  He shook his head. “No, never.”

  “They’ve been around a few times. Late at night. A car outside for ages. It spooks me.”

  “I understand, but it’s not me. I don’t have my car at the moment. Hey, listen, I can keep an ear out for them, and I can come down. You don’t have to be afraid.”

  Libby was touched. “Thanks. That’s a lovely offer.” She leaned back, resting on her elbows. “So, is there anything of interest among those documents?”

  “Most of it is pretty boring. But there’s a little bit of gold. The lighthouse journals are here, going back to the mid-nineteenth century. Some of the keepers just record weather events and notable shipping, but one of them talks endlessly about how beautiful his wife is. Look.” He ploughed into the box, pulling out an old leather-covered journal. He found a page he’d marked with a Post-it note and read: “December 18, 1878. Last night a storm blew in and rattled all the panes. My dear, delicate Eliza was quite alarmed and I had to hold her closely by me to still her fluttering pulse. This morning when I awoke, she had already been risen for half an hour and had made me my favorite breakfast of bacon pie, and said it was
for gratitude that I had been such a comfort to her. I am so blessed in the love of my dear wife.”

  Libby found herself smiling. “That’s sweet.”

  Encouraged, Damien found another journal. “This one from the 1930s is good too. I think the lighthouse keeper had some kind of mental disorder. I go to town and I see them all watching me. I know what they want. As long as there is breath in my body, they will never steal my thoughts.”

  Libby’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Any others like that?”

  “That’s the only one. There was a new keeper two weeks later. And this one is very mysterious, listen. It’s from April 1901. This guy, Matthew Seaward, usually writes very plainly, then this: I was surprised yesterday evening by the appearance of a strange woman, barefoot and bleeding, who has appeared at the door of the lighthouse looking for refuge. Her clothes are in rags but her manners speak good breeding. I gave her food and found an old dress left here by the previous keeper’s wife, and sent her in to town to find a more appropriate place to stay.”

  “April 1901?”

  “That’s what it says.”

  “Is there anything more about her?”

  “I don’t know. There could be. I haven’t read them all.”

  “In rags, injured, barefoot.” Libby’s mind was ticking over. “The Aurora was wrecked in April 1901. Could she have been a survivor?”

  “Surely she would have said?”

  “Maybe she did and he didn’t write it down.” Libby’s imagination whirled with the possibilities. “Let me know if you find anything?”

  “I sure will.”

  Libby hesitated, then said, “If you want to come down for a hot meal, one night . . .”

  “I’d like that,” he said quickly. “How about one night this week?”

  “Great. Thursday at seven? In the meantime, see what else you can find about the ‘strange woman.’” Libby stood and stretched.

  “Here, I’ll see you down the stairs,” he said, reaching for a lantern.

  At the lighthouse door, she looked back to the cottage. “I hope they leave me alone tonight.”