torch. Joe put his nose against her hair. He could take her with him. Alice wouldn’t mind; she wasn’t keen on motherhood. And then even if there was nothing for him at Eilean Mòr, it wouldn’t matter, because Lily would love a lighthouse, and it was a real chance to get her used to being around machinery.
Joe had strictly unspoken hopes about Lily. He wanted his own workshop one day, even if it was just fixing bits and pieces. Then he could employ whoever he liked, and then Lily could have a trade.
It stayed unspoken because he was frightened Alice would call it exactly what it was: idiotic. If he didn’t manage to open his own workshop, he would have wasted Lily’s childhood on something no one would ever employ her for. It would be better for her to be a midwife, like Alice, or a seamstress, something steady, and not surrounded by territorial men who would happily beat up a woman for getting above herself. But the hill Joe would die on was that any chance not to deliver babies for a living was worth it. Midwifery was horrendous. He knew that. He’d delivered Lily. That had gouged harrows through his soul in a way no exploding engine ever would. She deserved a choice, at least.
It all sounded very noble if he said it like that, but the other reason it all stayed unspoken was that he knew bloody well it was really just a way of keeping her with him. Lily was the only person in the world for whom he was just himself, not the ruin of who he used to be. And she showed every sign of quite liking him. That was a stupid, simple thing, but it was everything. Half the dismay he felt at the idea of letting her work at the godforsaken hospital was that it would mean she left him behind.
He came back to himself when he realised de Méritens’ background bumble was coming up to normal speech again.
‘Can you imagine, living in a lighthouse in the Outer Hebrides?’ de Méritens said, shaking his head. ‘I bet the poor bastards did a bunk. Place sounds one human sacrifice away from gibbering barbarism.’
‘Well, if I come back wearing skulls and a kilt you’ll know,’ Joe smiled, because he liked de Méritens and his tactlessness.
As de Méritens pottered off, looking happy, a man with a long coat and a straight bearing walked through the testing yard.
Joe’s heart lurched so hard it hurt. He set Lily down and ran out after him.
He felt the epilepsy coming. It had happened often in the last two years, but it wasn’t amnesia any more. It was euphoria. His chest felt like it was full of sunlight, so much it was confusing to look down and not see it beaming through his ribcage. He had to push one hand over his mouth, because it was making him cry. The ordinary world was only a curtain, which had been twitched aside. He could still see the engines and the yard gates, but they seemed gauzy. Only the man was really there.
‘Hey – hey.’ Joe caught his arm. He was shaking with happiness. ‘It’s you. What are you doing here, what …’
But then the man turned around, and he was only a stranger and Joe couldn’t remember for his life who he had thought he was.
‘God, I’m sorry. I thought you were … someone else.’
The man looked amicable enough and went on his way. Joe touched his own chest, trying to snatch at the memory as it trickled away, but it was gone. The testing yard was just the yard. The world wasn’t a curtain but the world, and whatever he had seen through it had vanished. He had to stand still through an anvil crash of disappointment. It happened every time, and every vision was the same, but it didn’t come any easier with familiarity.
It was the fourth time in two months. They were getting more frequent.
He hadn’t told anyone. There wasn’t money for any more doctors.
‘Tournier, you fucking idiot, what is a baby doing out here by herfuckingself!’
He swung back and saw it without sound, though the welder was still shouting at him. Lily had come out after him. She had stopped right in front of one of the train engines to look at the welding, square between the test tracks and completely out of sight of the mechanics who had just begun to ease the whole thing forward