The Lightkeeper's Wife - By Karen Viggers Page 0,118

it matters. Then the evening is ours. It has been quite romantic actually. I guess I didn’t expect it of Nick, but he can be very nice. And he’s bloody good in bed.

I shove the notebook back under the newspaper, furious with myself for spying. Emma would hate it if she knew. I sit for another thirty minutes, staring at the clock, hoping she’ll wake before Nick appears. Eventually, I hear a groan from the bedroom. I stand and walk to the bedside.

‘Oh, Tom,’ she says groggily. ‘You’re still here. That’s nice.’

I sit on the bed.

‘Did you tuck me in?’ She closes her eyes.

‘Yes. You were asleep when I came in.’

‘Oh, and I had hoped for passionate sex.’

Me too.

‘I’m too wasted this morning,’ she says. ‘Can you get me a coffee?’

I go to the kitchen and make her coffee, still riddled with guilt for having read her diary. I place the cup on the bedside table, shifting aside her pill packet and a glass of water. ‘I’m really sorry,’ I say. ‘I accidentally looked in your journal.’

‘Oh that,’ she mumbles, her face partly concealed by her pillow. ‘It’s full of bullshit about Nick. Amazing the rubbish you can write sometimes.’

‘Aren’t you cross with me?’

‘Yes, of course I’m cross,’ she says sleepily. ‘But it doesn’t matter.’

I’m surprised she isn’t more upset. I want it to matter. Reading someone’s private journal goes against all my values. Perhaps she’s too bleary to fully realise what I’ve done.

‘Do you think it’d make a good book?’ Emma asks, rolling to look up at me.

‘What?’

‘My life in Antarctica? Perhaps I should call it that. God, I think I’m still drunk.’

‘Do you want some breakfast?’

She turns away from me again. ‘Just a slice of toast and butter. Then I’m getting dressed and coming over to your place. I can’t face any of the others today. I think I need a holiday.’

I return to the kitchen to make the toast.

‘You don’t mind if I come over to yours, do you?’ she calls.

‘No, that’s fine.’

Of course I don’t mind. I don’t mind at all. But when I go back in with the toast she has fallen asleep again.

I wait at the table just sitting and thinking for another hour, and then leave. This might be the best thing I can do.

28

Sunday morning, Mary was staring at the bathroom mirror when she heard banging in the kitchen, as if someone was going through the cupboards. She stiffened, listening for a voice she might recognise.

Then she remembered. Of course; Jacinta was here. And Alex. They’d arrived early this morning, enthusiastic about the trip. She sighed, wiping the corners of her mouth with a tissue. She’d forgotten they were going to the lighthouse. They’d discussed it last weekend. And perhaps she had mentioned it to Leon. But she’d lost the thread of things somehow.

She ought to be excited about this excursion. For days, she’d been manoeuvring to make it happen. It was the last tick on her list of tributes to Jack. When it was done, she would feel she had atoned for her mistakes in some way. Her duty would be finished. But she was tired, so tired.

She finished in the bathroom and shuffled to the bedroom where she gazed vacantly at her suitcase. She kept forgetting things, finding herself in the middle of a room wondering what she was meant to do. Wasn’t there something she had to attend to? Yes. She needed warm clothes. She gazed into the jumble of underwear, unpaired socks, rumpled shirts and trousers. She couldn’t even maintain a tidy drawer anymore. She fumbled through her clothes until she found what she needed. But wasn’t there something else she ought to remember? Something else she must do?

Yes. A letter—hidden in the side pocket. She tugged the envelope out with clumsy fingers and turned it over three times before sliding it carefully back in. Hadn’t she’d made the decision to dispose of it days ago? Or was it only yesterday? Time had warped recently and she couldn’t find logic in its fragments anymore. Tonight, when Alex and Jacinta had gone, she would burn the letter and be done with it.

‘Nana?’ Jacinta was at the door. ‘Are you ready?’

‘Yes . . . yes.’ She looked up unsteadily.

Alex smiled at her as she hobbled into the living area with a bundle of clothing. ‘Are you off to Antarctica?’ he asked.

‘There’s a sou’westerly today,’ she said. ‘It cuts right through you.’

This morning before they arrived, she’d sat by the window