The Lamplighters

4

5

So this is it, she thought, as she watched him park his car a little way down the street, a Morris Minor in racing green with its exhaust hanging off the back like a cocked tobacco pipe. Helen wondered why he drove such a thing. He must be rich, if the claims on his books were to be believed: number-one bestselling author and all that.

She spotted him immediately, even though he hadn’t given her a description over the telephone. Perhaps she should have asked for one because you couldn’t be too careful about letting strangers into your home. It had to be him, though. He wore a navy-blue pea coat and a fixed, scholarly frown, as if he spent hours hunched over manuscripts that never quite gave him the time of day. He was younger than she had imagined, not yet forty.

‘Get off,’ Helen said absent-mindedly, the dog’s whiskers brushing her palm; ‘I’ll take you out after.’ She would go up to the woods, walk her in the dank wet mulch. It calmed her to think about that: that there would be an after.

The writer carried a canvas bag, which she pictured full of receipts and cigarette lighters; she could see him living in a house with the beds unmade and cats asleep on the counters. He’d have had Weetabix for breakfast, something that came out of a torn box, but he’d run out of milk so a squirt of water from the tap. A fag while he thought about the Maiden Rock and scribbled down the questions he wanted to ask.

All these years later, she still did it. Made an assessment on sight, before any of the rest, the yardstick against which she held every new person. Had they lost someone, as she had? Did they understand what that felt like? Were they on her side of the window, or the other, impossibly distant one? She didn’t suppose it mattered if he had or he hadn’t: he was a writer; he could imagine it.

Though on that point Helen was sceptical: his ability to imagine what could not be imagined. She thought of it as falling. Weightless. Disbelieving. Waiting to be caught but nobody ever did, for years and years and on it went and down she fell and there were no resolutions, no clarity or closure. That had become a fashionable word these days – closure – for people whose relationships failed or who got fired from their jobs, and she thought how those were relatively straightforward things to move on from; they didn’t push you over the ledge and let you drop. So it was to lose a person to the wind. No trace, no reason, no clue. What could Dan Sharp, whose game was battleships and weaponry and men who drank themselves dumb in the dockyards, imagine of that?

She yearned to reciprocate with others of her kind: to identify them and be identified in return. She would be able to tell their loss in their faces, not an obvious thing, some bitterness or resignation, those ghouls she had tried for so long to throw off. She’d say, ‘You know, don’t you? You know,’ and it was anyone’s guess what they’d offer in return, but if there wasn’t that to come of it, some upside in the matter of kindness and understanding, then what was it for?

In the meantime, the ghouls continued to slip between her clothes in the wardrobe, making her shiver when she got dressed in the morning, or she discovered them crouching in corners, picking the skin off their thumbs. She had no certainty, said the therapists (it was a while since she had visited them), and certainty was at least a millimetre one could get one’s nails around.

Here he was then, opening the gate. He fumbled closing it behind him because the latch was rusted. ‘Scarborough Fair’ played on the kitchen radio; it made Helen woozy, the melancholy of it, all that about sea foam and cambric shirts and true love sourer than sweet. Wild thoughts entered her head, from time to time, about Arthur and the others, but on the whole, she’d learned to keep them at bay. What secrets a lighthouse could tell. The men’s were buried underwater, like hers.

Helen remembered her husband in pieces, parched scales that blew about like leaves coming in through the kitchen door. Sometimes she would catch hold of one and be able to look at it properly, but mostly she watched those leaves blowing about her ankles and wondered how on earth she’d find the energy to sweep them up.

Nothing changed, in the aftermath of loss. Songs kept getting written. Books kept getting read. Wars didn’t stop. You saw a couple arguing by the trolleys at Tesco before getting in the car and slamming the door. Life renewed itself, over and over, without sympathy. Time surged on in its usual rhythms, those comings and goings, beginnings and ends, sensible progressions that fixed things in place, without a thought to the whistling in the woods on the outskirts of town. It began as a whistle, expelled from dry lips. Over the years it sharpened to a bright, continual note.

That note sounded now, with the ringing of the doorbell. Helen put her hands in the pockets of her cardigan and rolled the lint between her fingers. She liked how it felt, rolling it there right under her nail, a painful thing that wasn’t quite painful.

6

Come in. Do come in. I’m sorry it’s a mess. It’s kind of you to say it isn’t, but really it is. Can I make you tea, coffee? Tea, lovely – milk and sugar? Of course, everyone has milk and sugar these days. My grandma used to take hers black with a slice of lemon; they don’t do that much any more. Cake? I’m afraid it isn’t homemade.

So, you’re an author, how fascinating. I’ve never met an author before. It’s one of those things everyone says they could do, isn’t it, writing a book. I did think about it myself but I’m not a writer – I can think of what I want to write but it’s difficult to get that across to other people and I suppose that’s the difference. After Arthur died everybody said it would be a good thing, to put my feelings down on paper so they were out of my head. You must believe that, in being creative yourself, to have something creative to do makes you feel like a more rounded person? Anyway, I never did write anything. I’m not sure what I would have written that I’d want a stranger to read.

Twenty years, my goodness, it’s hard to believe. May I ask why it is you’ve chosen our story? If you’re hoping my husband’s like the macho men in your books and I’m going to give you a tale about missions and shipwrecks or whatever it is, you’ll have to think again.

Yes, it’s intriguing, if you believe the hearsay. For me, being on the inside, and being so close to it, I don’t think of it like that; but you shouldn’t feel bad about that, no, you shouldn’t. I’m fine to talk about Arthur; it keeps him with me that way. If I tried to pretend it hadn’t happened, I’d have hit trouble a long time ago. You have to admit what happens in your life.

I’ve heard it all, over the years. Arthur was abducted by aliens. He was murdered by pirates. He was blackmailed by smugglers. He killed the others, or they killed him, and then each other and then themselves – over a woman or a debt, or a washed-up treasure chest. They were haunted by ghosts or kidnapped by the government. Threatened by spies or gobbled by sea serpents. They went lunatic, one or all of them. They had secret lives no one knew about, riches buried on South American plantations you could only find by a cross on a map. They sailed off to Timbuktu and liked it so much they never came back… When that Lord Lucan disappeared two years down the line, there were those who said he’d gone to meet Arthur and the others on a desert island, presumably with the poor beggars who flew through the Bermuda Triangle. I mean, honestly! I’m sure you’d prefer that, but I’m afraid it’s all ridiculous. We’re not in your world now, we’re in mine; and this isn’t a thriller, it’s my life.

Is five minutes OK? As in the minutes of a clock, if you think of the cake as a clock, that’s how big the piece is I’m cutting. Pass your plate then; there we go. I must say I’ve never got the hang of baking. It seems the thing for women, though I don’t know why. Arthur was better at these things than me. Did you know they learned to bake bread as part of their training? You learn all sorts being a lighthouse keeper.

Of all the towers, I think the Bishop has the best name. It sounds very stately to me. It makes me think of that chess piece, quiet and dignified. Arthur was extremely good at chess; I never played him on that account because we both like to win, and I wasn’t used to ceding to him or him to me. As a keeper he had to be enthusiastic about cards and games because there’s so much time to spare. It’s a bonding thing as well, a game of cribbage or a hand of gin rummy. And the tea! If a keeper’s skilled at any one thing, it’s drinking tea. They’d get through thirty cups a day. On a lot of stations, the only rule was, if you’re in the kitchen, you make the tea.

Lighthouse people are ordinary. You’ll find that out and I hope it doesn’t disappoint you. People on the outside think of it as a clandestine sort of occupation, seeing as we’re quite closed off in the way we lead our lives. They think being married to a lighthouse keeper must be glamorous, because of the mystery of it, but it isn’t. If I had to sum it up, I’d say you’ve got to be prepared for long periods of time apart and short, intense periods of time together. The intense periods are like a couple of distant friends reuniting, which can be exciting but challenging as well. You’ve had things your way for eight weeks and then a man comes into your home and suddenly he’s the master of the house and you have to play second fiddle. It could be very unsettling. It’s not a conventional marriage. Ours certainly wasn’t.

Do I miss the sea? No, not at all. I couldn’t wait to move away from it after what happened. That’s why I came here, to the city. I never cared for the sea. Where we used to live in keepers’ cottages we were surrounded, it was all you could see from the windows, everywhere you turned. Sometimes you felt you could be living in a fishbowl. When there was a storm and we got some lightning that was quite spectacular, and the sunsets were pretty too, but on the whole it’s a grey thing, the sea, big and grey and not much happens on it. Although it’s more green than grey, I would say, like sage, or eau de Nil. Did you know that ‘eau de Nil’ means ‘water of the Nile’? I always thought it meant ‘water of nothing’, which is how the sea makes me feel, in a way, so I still think of it like that. Water of nothing.

It doesn’t make any more sense to me this morning than on the day Arthur disappeared. It does get easier, though. Time gives you a bit of distance where you can look back at whatever’s happened to you and not feel all the feelings you once had; those feelings have calmed down and they’re not at the forefront of your mind in the way they are at the beginning. It’s odd because on some days it doesn’t seem so strange, what they found on that tower – and I think, well, a heavy sea must have washed up and drowned them. Then on others it strikes me as so outlandish that it takes my breath away. There are too many details I can’t shake off, like the locked door and the stopped clocks, they nag at me, and if I start thinking about it at night, I have to be strict with myself and get rid of those thoughts. Otherwise I’d never sleep, and I’ll remember the view of the sea from our cottage window, and it seems so huge and empty and uncaring that I have to turn the radio on for company.

I think what transpired is what I just told you: that the sea came up suddenly and caught them unaware. Occam’s razor, it’s called. The law that says the simplest solution is usually right. If you’ve got a mystery, don’t go complicating it beyond the sum of its parts.

Arthur drowning is the only realistic explanation there is. If you don’t agree then you’re making your way down all sorts of fanciful roads such as ghostly things and conspiracy theories and all the nonsense I just told you people believe. People will believe anything, and given the choice they prefer lies to the truth because lies are usually more interesting. Like I said, the sea isn’t interesting, not when you’re looking at it every day. But it was the sea that took them. There isn’t a doubt in my mind.

The thing you need to know about a tower lighthouse – have you ever been on a tower? – is that it comes directly up out of the sea. It’s not a rock station where you’re on an island and there’s a bit of land around you where you can walk or have a vegetable plot or keep some sheep or whatever it is you want to do; and it’s not a land light, where you’re on the mainland so you stay close to your family, and when you’re not on duty you can drive into the village and go about your life as normal so long as you’re fulfilling your responsibilities when your watch comes about. A tower light’s just stuck out there in the sea, so there isn’t anywhere for the keepers to be except inside the lighthouse or out on the set-off. You could go running around the set-off if you wanted some exercise, but you’d get dizzy very fast doing that.

Oh, right, sorry: the set-off’s the platform underneath the entrance door, it wraps all the way round like a big doughnut. The set-off’s about twenty or thirty feet above the water, which sounds like a lot, but if you’re out there and a wave comes up and catches you then you’re gone. I’ve heard about keepers fishing from it, or bird watching, or passing the time of day reading a book. I’m sure Arthur used to do that because he was always one for reading; he said being on a lighthouse was his time to learn, so he took all sorts of subjects off with him, novels and biographies and books about space. He became interested in geology – stones and rocks, you know. He’d collect and sort them. He said he could learn all about the different eras that way.

Whatever you’re doing out there, the set-off’s the only bit of fresh air available on a tower. You can’t just poke your head out of the windows on account of the walls being so thick; they were built with double windows, you see, an inner and an outer, three or four feet apart, so you’d have to sit in the little space between and I shouldn’t think that would be very comfortable. You could go out on the gallery, that’s the walkway up top that goes around the lantern, but there’s not much room and, besides, you’d need a jolly long fishing rod, wouldn’t you.

One of them, and I wouldn’t like to guess who, but it could have been Arthur because he was one for having time away from people, being on his own, he liked that. He could have gone out on the set-off and been sitting there reading and the wind was quiet, a force one or two, then out of nowhere a big sea swells up and sweeps him away. The sea can do that. You’ll know it can. Arthur was caught out once at the Eddystone, early on; he’d just made AK – that’s Assistant Keeper – and he was out there drying his washing when a giant wave came out of the blue and knocked him off his feet. He was lucky his mate was there to grab hold of him, otherwise I’d have lost him years before I did. It rattled him, but he was fine. The same can’t be said for his washing; I’m not sure he saw any of that again. He had to borrow the others’ clothes until the relief was due.

But things like that didn’t affect Arthur. Lightkeepers aren’t romantic people; they don’t get nervous or look into things too much. The point of the job is to keep a level head and get on with what needs to be done. Trident wouldn’t hire them otherwise. Arthur was never afraid of the sea, even when it was dangerous. He told me how, on a tower, the spray from the waves can come right up to the kitchen window during a storm – bear in mind that’s eighty or eighty-five feet above the water – and the rocks and boulders roll against the base, so it shudders and shakes. I’d have been scared, I think. But not Arthur; he felt the sea was on his side.

When he came ashore, he seemed, at times, out of sorts. Like a fish out of water, that’s exactly it. He didn’t know how to be here, whereas he knew how to be on the sea. I’d say goodbye to him to return to the tower and I could see he felt very pleased indeed at the thought of seeing her again.

I’m not sure how many books you’ve had published about the ocean, but writing a story about it isn’t the same as writing how it really is. The sea will turn on you if you’re not paying attention; it changes its mind in the snap of a finger and it doesn’t care who you are. Arthur had ways of predicting it, such as what the clouds looked like or how the wind sounded against the window; he could tell you if it was blowing a six or seven just by how it sounded – so if a man like him, who is the most experienced person I can think of in these things, could be caught, then that proves it can change suddenly. Maybe he had time to shout and the others came running; the set-off’s slippery, there’s panic in the air and it wouldn’t take much, would it, for all three of them to get washed away?

The locked door’s an oddity; I’ll give you that. My only thought is that those entrance doors are thick lumps of gunmetal – they have to be to hold up against the battering they get – and they’ll slam on you without any trouble at all. And as for it being bolted from the inside, that’s one of those details that plagues me. But on a lighthouse, you’ve got these heavy iron bars that go across the door to keep it in place, so what I’m thinking is there’s a chance those bars fell when it closed, if it closed with enough force…?

I don’t know. If it sounds daft to you then ask yourself what other reason you’d come up with, then see which one you prefer when you start turning these things over in the middle of the night. The stopped clocks and the locked door and the table being laid, it sets your imagination going, doesn’t it? I look at it practically, though. I’m not a superstitious person. Whoever was on cooking duty that day was probably being organized in setting the table ready for the next meal; there’s a great emphasis on food on a lighthouse and keepers stick to routine like limpets. As for there only being two places, well, perhaps he hadn’t got around to laying the third one yet.

And two clocks going at the same time? That’s peculiar, but not impossible. One of those whispers that gets distorted the more it’s said; some bright spark made it up then one day it’s fact, when it’s not, it’s just an unhelpful person saying hurtful things.

I’d hoped Trident would settle that they’d drowned so there wasn’t this uncertainty for the families, but they never did. In my mind, it’s drowning. I feel lucky I know what it is in my mind because I need that, even if it isn’t made official.

Jenny Walker, Bill’s wife, she wouldn’t say the same. She likes there being no solution. If there were then it would take away any last chance she thinks she has of Bill coming back. I know they’re not coming back. But people deal with things how they want. You can’t say how someone should grieve; it’s very personal and private.

It is a pity, though. What happened to us should have made us come together. Us women. Us wives. Instead, it’s been the opposite. I haven’t seen Jenny since the ten-year anniversary and even on that day, we didn’t speak. We didn’t go near each other. I wish it wasn’t like that, but there we are. It doesn’t stop me trying to change it. I believe people have to share these things. When the worst happens, you can’t bear it alone.

That’s why I’m talking to you. Because you say you’re interested in putting out the truth – and, I suppose, so am I. The truth is that women are important to each other. More important than the men, and that isn’t what you’ll want to hear because this book, like all your others, is about the men, isn’t it? Men are interested in men.

But for me, no, that isn’t the case. Those three left us three behind and I’m interested in what’s left behind. In what we can make of it, if we still can.

As a novelist, I expect you’ll make much of the superstitious aspect. But remember I don’t believe in things like that.

Things like what? Come on now, you’re the writer; you work it out. In all my years I’ve realized there are two kinds of people. The ones who hear a creak in a dark, lonely house, and shut the windows because it must have been the wind. And the ones who hear a creak in a dark, lonely house, light a candle, and go to take a look.

7

8

After lunch it started to rain. Jenny hated the rain. She hated the mess it made when the children came in with it dripping wet, especially Hannah with the double pushchair, especially after she’d cleaned and then it was honestly more bother than it was worth.

Where was he, then? Five minutes late. Plain rude, she thought, turning up late to see someone who hadn’t even asked to meet you in the first place. She’d only agreed to it because of Helen, because she wasn’t having Helen Black saying things about her that weren’t true – or that were true – and having them all put down in a book for the world to see. He was famous, apparently. That didn’t impress her. Jenny didn’t read books. Fortune and Destiny twice monthly did her fine.

No doubt this man expected her to roll out the red carpet. It didn’t matter if he was late, because being posh and well-off he could behave how he liked. Now he’d trample soggy shoes right through the house. Jenny found it awkward asking visitors to take their shoes off; they should know to do it without having to be asked.

She was in the mindset now of hating the rain. All those years of thinking Bill’s relief was going to get put off and it would be even longer before she saw him again. In the days running up to him coming home she used to get fixated on the weather, worried it was going to change so the boat wouldn’t be able to go out there and get him, and the more she watched, the more the weather had seemed to change, just to spite her. They’d planned to move to Spain when Bill retired, buy a place in the south with what little they’d saved, a swimming pool and clay pots on the patio and pink flowers round the door, and the children would come out for holidays. Jenny was better in the sun; the rain made her mood go downhill, and the rain in England lasted for months and months, it was so depressing. She’d have been fine if they’d made it to Spain, warmth on their bones, Brandy Alexanders as the sun went down. Whenever it rained these days, it reminded her that would never happen.

Helen’s letter languished in the bin. Jenny ought to rip the envelopes up before she opened them. Every time one dropped through the letterbox, she told herself, I’ll set a match to it, I’ll tear it into pieces, I’ll stuff it down the drain.

But she never did. Her sister said it brought her closer to Bill, having Helen’s letters to read, because they were a link to her missing husband whether she despised that link or not. Helen’s letters were proof that it had been real. Jenny had been married to him once; they had been in love. It had been good. It hadn’t been a dream.

The telly in the living room blacked out on an episode of Murder, She Wrote. Jenny pushed herself up off the settee and gave it a whack. The picture returned: the protagonist was hiding in a wardrobe from a gunman. She thought, I could do that; I could get in a cupboard and pretend I’m not home. But this Dan Sharp would be here any minute. If she didn’t talk to him, there was no telling what lies that cow had up her sleeve. Even though Jenny had read all sorts of rubbish about the Maiden Rock over the years and knew to take it all with a great big bucket of salt, she still considered it her duty to care. Whenever she saw a story in the paper she had to call in and speak to whoever was responsible, so she could have her say and put them right. It was like a member of her family that she had to stand up for.

Outside, the sky grew dim. In the distance, beyond the rooftops, swam the strip of sea that Jenny clung to like a lifebelt. She needed that sea, to be sure it was there, the nearest she had of him. In heavy weather the view got lost and that made her panic, imagining the sea had gone, she was nowhere near it, or it had dried up altogether and her husband’s bones knocked naked on the sand.

A keeper never abandons his light.

She had heard that plenty when Bill vanished.

Then what had he done? Over the years, she had grown used to not knowing, comfortable with it, even, a ragged pair of slippers with holes in the bottom that did nothing for her, but she never took them off.

Well, a wife never abandons her husband. Jenny would never move away. Not until she knew the truth, and then, maybe then, she could sleep.

She heard her visitor arrive on the doorstep, the shuffle of his feet and a smoker’s cough. His knuckles on the door, surprising her. She clasped her shaking hands. That’s right, she remembered, the bell was bust.

9

I’d sooner have come to meet you but the car’s got a flat tyre. I’m waiting for my brother-in-law to come and fix it for me. I’m no good with cars. Bill used to do everything like that. Now he’s gone, I suppose I’m lucky that Carol and Ron live close by. I don’t know what I’d do without them. I’m not sure I could cope.

You’d better come in. I’ll turn a light on. I try not to have too many on around the house because it costs. Trident set us up with an income, but it doesn’t take much for me to spend mine. I haven’t been able to work so I can’t get any extra. I never worked anyway; I was raising the family while Bill was on the lights so what else was I to do. I wouldn’t know where to start, in working. I wouldn’t know what I’d be good at.

Go on then, tell me what you want to know. I haven’t got long – I’ve got a man coming round to fix the TV. I’d be lost without the telly. I have it on all day; it keeps me company. When it’s off I feel lonely. Quiz shows are my favourite, the ones on the shiny sets. I like Family Fortunes because of the flashing lights and prizes; it’s colourful and I like that. I usually keep the TV on when I go to bed so it’s there when I wake up, then there’s someone there to say good morning to. It helps take my mind off things. The nights are the worst for that.

It’s a gloomy subject for you to want to write about. Bad enough it happened in the first place without you needing to make a book out of it. I don’t see why you’d want to read about the dark side of life anyway. There’s enough of that in the world as it is. Why can’t there be more stories about nice things? Ask your publishers that.

I suppose you want a drink, don’t you. I’ve got coffee but I’ve run out of tea. I haven’t been able to get to the shops because of the car and I don’t like walking. Anyway, I don’t drink it myself. Not even water? Suit yourself.

That’s a photo of the family at Dungeness. My grandson’s five and the twins are two. Hannah’s lot – she didn’t mean to have them early but that’s how it happened. Hannah’s my eldest. Then I’ve got Julia, who’s twenty-two now, and Mark, who’s twenty. I had my girls far apart because it took us a while to get pregnant, what with Bill being away. Oh, I don’t feel young to be a grandmother. I feel old. Older than I am. I put a brave face on because they don’t want to come over and see their nana sad all the time, but it’s a struggle. Like on Bill’s birthday or our anniversary when I want to stay in bed, and I don’t even want to get up to answer the door. I don’t care if I’m moving on or not. I don’t see the point of it. I’ll never get over what happened, never.

Are you married? No, I wouldn’t have said so. I’ve heard authors are like that. Caught up with what’s in your head instead of what’s outside it.

I’ve never read your stories so I wouldn’t know the kind of thing you cook up. One got made for telly, did it? Neptune’s Bow. Actually, I did watch that. The Beeb put it on before Christmas. It was all right. That was you, was it? OK.

I don’t see why you’re interested in our business. You don’t know the first thing about lighthouses or the people that work in them or anything. Lots of folk get excited about what went on, but they don’t feel the need to go around making an entertainment out of it. You won’t solve it, however much you fancy yourself.

We were childhood sweethearts, Bill and me. Together from when we were sixteen. I’d never been with another man before Bill and I never have since. As far as I’m concerned, we’re still married. Even now, if I can’t make up my mind about something, like how many fish fingers I should buy at Safeway when the grandkids are coming for tea, I ask myself what Bill would say. That helps me to decide.

I never understood other women who rowed with their husbands. They’d take any chance to moan and put them down in front of everyone else. Things like he left his dirty washing on the floor or he didn’t do the dishes properly. All harping on and not stopping to see how lucky they were that they could be with their husbands every night and not have to miss them. As if any of that matters anyway, about the washing and the dishes and things. That’s not what life’s about. If you can’t overlook those things, you’re in the wrong business. You shouldn’t be married at all.

What can I tell you about Bill? First thing is he wouldn’t think much of outsiders sticking their beaks in. But that won’t be much help to you, will it?

Bill was always destined to join the lighthouses. His mother died when he was a baby – that was a sad lot, because she died giving birth to him, so he just had his dad and his brothers when he was growing up. His father was a lighthouse keeper and so was his granddad and his great-granddad before. Bill was the youngest of three boys who went into it. There just wasn’t any other option. He did resent it, yes. Deep down I think he could’ve wanted to be something else, but he never got the chance because no one ever asked him. He had no power in that family, none at all.

He was always trying to please other people. He’d say to me, ‘Jen, I just want an easy life,’ and I’d tell him that was what I was here for, to make his life easy. Neither of us came from a happy background and that’s what bonded us in the first place. I understood Bill and he understood me. We didn’t need to explain ourselves to each other. Comforts normal people take for granted, like a nice home and a hot meal on the table. We wanted to do better for our children. Have a go at making it right.

To start with we were lucky, posted to land stations where we could all live together, or on the rocks where the housing was provided. I said to Bill when we met, right off the bat, I said, I don’t like being on my own, I always like to be with someone and if you’re going to be my husband then that’s how it has to be. The service was accommodating, but I knew we’d get the tower at some point. I dreaded it. I’d have to spend a lot of time on my own then, raising the children like one of those poor single mothers. It’s usually the men without families who want the towers – like Vince, the Supernumerary, he didn’t have anyone to take care of, so he didn’t mind what he got. Not us. We minded. I feel so angry that we never wanted that horrible tower, but we got it anyway – and look what happened.

The Maiden’s the worst because it’s so far off and it’s ugly and threatening looking. Bill used to say it was dark and stuffy inside and that he got a bad feeling off it. ‘A bad, heavy feeling’ was how he put it. Obviously, I think about that a lot now. I wish I had asked him more about it, but usually I changed the subject because I didn’t want him getting upset. I also didn’t like him thinking about the tower too much when he was ashore. That tower had enough of him as it was. We had to wait to see him for so long that when he was here, he had to be here in every way.

The nights before Bill went off again were the worst. I felt sick about him going as soon as he came ashore, which was a waste because I didn’t enjoy him like I should have when he was at home. I was too caught up in the idea of him leaving again. We always spent those last nights the same. We’d cosy up on the settee and watch Call My Bluff, or some other show we didn’t need to think too hard on. Bill said he got the Channels before he went off – that’s what he called that feeling he got, of nerves and sadness was how he described it. He said it comes from when sailors used to go back on their boats after a spell at home and it took them a few days to feel better about being away, and until they did, they had that sensation of missing their real lives and having to adjust. Bill had it before he’d even left home. It was the expectation of it that was almost as bad. He’d stare out the window and see the Maiden waiting for him all that way away, and as it got dark, she’d light up, like she was saying, Aha! You thought I’d forgotten about you, didn’t you, but I haven’t. It was worse for us being able to see her. It’d have been better if we’d lived out of sight.

We’d check the weather in case the relief was getting delayed; we half hoped it would and half hoped it wouldn’t, because that just made the waiting longer. I’d cook him his favourite dinner, steak pie with Arctic roll for dessert, and bring it to him on a tray to eat on his lap, but he wouldn’t eat much of it, due to the Channels.

I had a calendar that I crossed the days off on until he came back. The children kept me busy. When Hannah was a baby, we were together on a land station, but not with the others. Bill got the tower when Julia was a few months old and I was on my own with a five-year-old and a newborn daughter with colic. That was hard. I’d feel so angry whenever I clapped eyes on the Maiden. Standing there all pleased with herself. It wasn’t fair that she had him when I didn’t, and I needed him more.

Hannah liked having a lighthouse keeper for a father because it made her stand out; her friends’ dads were postmen or shopkeepers. Nothing wrong with that, but those jobs are two a penny, aren’t they? She says she remembers him, but I don’t think she can. I think memories are very intense when they first start up and they keep a powerful grip on you your whole life. You can’t always trust them, though.

When Bill was due ashore, I’d go out and buy his favourite foods and make his special chocolates. It was a little ritual I had. I didn’t want anything to be different. I wanted him to know what to expect when he got home and for it to be there, ready for him. Just like I was ready for him. It’s the small things that keep a marriage going: things that don’t cost a lot but that tell the other person you love them and don’t ask for anything in return.

I’ve got no idea what happened to my husband. If they’d left the door open, or if they’d taken the boat, or if the oilskins and gumboots were gone, then I could maybe believe that Bill was lost at sea. But the dinghy was there and so were the sou’westers and the door was locked from the inside. Think about that. A block of gunmetal can’t lock itself. Then you put in the clocks and the laid table; it’s wrong, that’s what it is.

Bill was on the radio transmitter the day before, the twenty-ninth. He said then that the storm was on its way out. Said they’d be ready for the relief on Saturday.

Trident House have a good recording of that R/T, although I’d put money on them not letting you near it. Trident keep themselves to themselves and they don’t like to talk about what happened because it’s obviously embarrassing for them. But Bill said, let’s do it tomorrow; get Jory’s boat sent out in the morning. And they said all right, Bill, that’s what we’ll do. Now, I’m aware what Helen thinks – she thinks a big wave came up on them in the meantime. It doesn’t surprise me she thinks that because she never had much of an imagination. But I know that’s not right.

I’ll never forget Bill’s voice on the radio. Everything he said and the way he said it. That voice sounded like my husband. The only odd thing was that there was a longer wait at the end before he signed off. You know when you’re watching TV and the reception cuts out for a second and the picture jumps ahead of itself? Like that.

I’m a ‘what if’ person. I say, what if it wasn’t a freak sea the day they disappeared? What if Bill was taken? I don’t know by what; I don’t want to say by what. All the things it could’ve been – what happened, how it felt, who was there, if it was one of them that did it – not a day’s gone by when I haven’t thought about those things, but I always come back to the same. It sounds crazy when you say it out loud. It’s just what I believe. A tower light, out there on its own, it’s like a sheep away from the flock. Easy pickings.

You don’t look like someone who gives a fig for that. I don’t care. All I’ll say is you try losing that one person who means the world to you, then see how easy it is to draw a line and say, that’s it, it’s over, they’re gone. I still hear my husband’s voice, you know. Still hear it now, plain as day. Like when I’m pegging out the darks, I’ll hear Bill inside the house calling my name, just saying it like he would if he’d been busy in the back fixing the chain on his bike and he came in to ask if I wanted a cup of coffee.

I know that’s not possible. We’re not where we were before. I’ve moved to a new house; he wouldn’t know where I was. We couldn’t have stayed at the cottage anyway – they’re for keepers’ families, not missing keepers’ families. All the same, it felt like I was admitting he was never coming back. It makes me sad if I imagine him turning up on our doorstep, only I’m not there. But one of the caretakers at the Maiden cottages now would tell me. These sorts of fantasies go through your head.

Helen’s not one for fantasies. She’s too cold and matter of fact. That’s why, when you speak to her, I bet she doesn’t tell you the truth. I don’t think she knows the meaning of the word. In all the time I’ve known her, the only thing she’s been good at is lying. Helen writes me letters and sends me Christmas cards, but she might as well not bother. I never read them. I’d be happy never to hear from her again.

You’d think she’d have wanted a friend or two, given the state of her life before. But Helen never talked about that. Living next door to each other, we could have been close – that’s what PKs’ wives across the country were doing, looking after the families and leading the charge when the men were away. If we were getting along in the cottages, then they’d be getting along on the tower. That’s the rule we lived by in the lighthouse service.

But not Helen. She thought she was special. Too grand for it, in my view, with her expensive scarves and fancy jewellery. I think even if I had all the money in the world to spend on what I looked like, I’d still be plain because it comes out of you, doesn’t it, prettiness? I’ve never felt pretty.

In ordinary life, we’d never brush shoulders. I’m sorry our paths crossed at all.

It is bad luck for Helen, not believing in anything. Without my faith I’d have ended it a long time ago. I still think about ending it sometimes, but then I think of the children and I can’t. If I knew I’d find Bill there, then maybe. Maybe. But not yet. I need to keep our light shining.

Trident House tried telling me once that Bill did it on purpose. That he jumped on a French ship and floated off to start his life new. Now, I’m not a violent person, but it was all I could do not to cause a scene when they said that. Bill would never do it to me. He’d never have left me on my own.

Oh, right, there’s the door. That’s my man come to fix the TV.

Is that everything? You’ll have to come back if it isn’t. I can’t have you staying because it makes me nervous having two things going on at once, and I need to give my attention to the TV man now. I hope he can fix it because Come Dancing’s on tonight. I really hate not being able to see things properly.

10

Every summer she made the pilgrimage, on his birthday or thereabouts. She left the dog with a friend and went by train to the nearest station, half an hour or so from the coast, and by taxi the rest of the way. Nothing much changed; nothing was different. Though the business of life went on across its surface, the earth beneath moved slowly. Waves rolled to shore, forever and ever, patiently; the leaves of the beech trees wafted like a Chinese fan.

Helen turned off the high street and walked up the lane. Midges hovered in trembling clouds and the scent of cow parsley rose ripe and heat-soaked from the busy hedgerow. Warm shadows leaned across her path; an orange sun divided by the dark stems of trees. She passed the sign for Mortehaven Cemetery. Crumbling headstones sloped from their rows, staggering down towards the lip of the promontory, beyond which the sea shot far and wide in a dazzling celebration of blue.

There had never been a grave. A bench on the headland bore the inscription:

Many times, she had heard Arthur sing that sea shanty. Sitting on the rim of the bath, the tune fluting out of the steam; humming it at the basin while soaping his face or in the kitchen grilling rashers of bacon, hacking a loaf of bread into slabs that could stop a door slamming. ‘Let the lower lights be burning, Send a gleam across the wave.’ He’d come home smelling of seaweed and sit in his chair eating chips soaked in Sarson’s from a nest of greasy paper, his hands large and cracked like terracotta pots, with halos round the nails. Arthur caught whole fish with his fingers – or did he? There’d been magic in him: sea magic, half-man, half born in the brine. She hadn’t known at first that she would marry him. It wasn’t until he had taken her out on a boat on the water that she had looked at him and known. She’d just known. He was different out there. It was hard to explain. Everything about him made sense.

A fingerpost pointed TO THE LIGHTHOUSE COMPOUND, beyond which the winding lane narrowed, overtaken by greenery, bursting from the verges in jumbles of primrose and nettle. Further on, after a climb, the Maiden Rock appeared for the first time.

The tower shimmered on a cobalt sea, a line as clean as a pen mark. A handful of lighthouse enthusiasts might come this way during summer, Helen thought; they’d get to this point, their legs grazed by blackthorn and dog-violet, and admire the lighthouse from afar, a silver streak on a silver mirror – before turning back, tired and thirsting for cool drinks, and they’d have no need to think of her ever again.

Into the dappled glade of the ongoing track, the sign on a metal gate read: MAIDEN ROCK LIGHTHOUSE: NO PUBLIC ACCESS.

They were holiday lets now, only tenants allowed. The track was too tight and twisting even for rubbish collection; instead, plastic bins were clustered by the gate with numbers streaked on in white paint.

It was here that Helen expected to see him, every year, walking towards her. Perhaps there would be another with him, two shapes, their hands raised, and she would raise hers in return. She had to hope that was what happened: that people who belonged with each other found their way back in the end.