The Lightkeeper's Wife - By Karen Viggers Page 0,123

if she could see through Mary’s trousers to the sallow skin, the itchy flaking redness, the wasted muscles. ‘You’re limping.’ Rose’s eyes were dark holes. ‘I hope you haven’t returned too soon. We haven’t time to nurse you.’

That we again. Mary tried to push her aside, but her hands dissolved through Rose as if she was made of air. Wind gushed. When Mary turned, Rose was gone.

She limped down the hallway. There was the sound of chairs scraping in the kitchen. Footsteps running. The children. But they were mirage-like, ghostly, running by her, through the wooden door.

And now she was in the kitchen. Condensation was wet on the windows. The kettle steaming on the stove. Mist billowing over the cape. Wind whistling under the window.

She heard the bang of the cottage door opening. Jack’s footsteps, strong and heavy down the hall. He swung into the kitchen, his arranged smile turning crooked on his face. He seemed taller than she remembered. Thinner.

He went to the window and gazed up the hill. Mary followed his eyes. There was Rose, standing beside the light tower, her coat flapping in the wind.

‘She’s welcome to have tea with us,’ Mary said.

‘She didn’t want to interrupt your homecoming.’ Jack spoke without looking at her. His voice was strangled and strange.

‘And what about you?’

He glanced at her, frosty. ‘I’m glad you’re back, Mary.’

She poured tea—thick black stuff that oozed from the kettle like treacle. His large hands encircled the cup. Hands that had touched her skin in intimacy, the long brown fingers toughened by wind and work.

She placed her hand on his arm. It was hard as wood. She had to draw him from the window, away from Rose’s magnetic silhouette by the tower.

In the lounge room, flames danced in the heater, green and orange, licking at the briquettes. He leaned against the mantelpiece, staring at nothing, eyes wild. ‘Rose stays till you can climb the stairs.’ His voice was gravelly, harsh. Then he walked out through the wall, his body melting through stone.

Up the hill, Rose was still standing by the tower, her outline flickering like the flames.

Mary raced to the kitchen, clattering her cup into the sink. She grabbed two tea towels from the drying rack, and tucked them in her pocket. At the front door, she tugged on her coat. Her heart was thudding.

Outside, boiling cloud dissolved to a rare day of blue. She could feel the chill freshness of the air. The silvery ripple of the wind. Smell the close-clipped grass. To the west, across the channel, the mountains dimpled up and down in a cloak of purplish-blue. And now she could see the cliffs of Cape Bruny, hunched in shadow. Her heart racketed as she turned the handle of the lighthouse door and pushed it open.

Inside, the air was still and cold. Above, the staircase rose in a spiral of seventy-eight steps. She could hear murmuring voices. They were up there together, Jack and Rose. Talking. What were they doing? Access was restricted; only keepers on duty. Jack knew the rules. So did Rose. Mary only came up here when Jack was ill.

She tied the tea towels over her shoes in rough knots. Her coat was on the floor like a great black bear sleeping. Then she started up the staircase, measuring each step with her breaths. Breathing in. Breathing out. The air rasping in her lungs. Such slow breaths. Each inhalation an effort.

The stairwell darkened. Clouds were scudding outside again. The dim light shivered. Was it dusk now? Or the darkness of a storm? The wind was scraping, rustling, gurgling. The effort of climbing was too hard. There was no air.

Rose’s face melted across her vision, swimming in and out of focus. She struggled to concentrate on the climb. To breathe. She was making progress up the stairs. The platform must be coming.

One slow revolution of the snail shell. Two.

The stairs spiralled up and away. She tried to steady her breathing so as not to warn them. They had underestimated her. She would confront them. And Rose would have to go home.

The spiral narrowed at last.

Above, a dome of stars—the pinprick silver lights of the Milky Way. There was darkness outside the tower. Night black. Then suddenly the light ignited, a bright flare of whiteness slashing the night.

Up on the platform, two figures. Tall. Enmeshed.

The light revolved and flashed. There they were, Jack and Rose, gripped in an embrace.

Then there was darkness. The light extinguished. Everything collapsing. Her scaffolding was gone.