The Lightkeeper's Wife - By Karen Viggers Page 0,33

for having to talk to her, she could see.

‘Nowhere else to go?’ She should have bitten her tongue. Young people could be self-focused and oversensitive. He might stand up and walk out.

At first, he didn’t respond. When he eventually spoke, he seemed quiet and subdued. ‘You wouldn’t understand. Sometimes it can be hard to leave. And I don’t want to live across the channel anyway. I’ve been here most of my life.’

‘But there aren’t many opportunities here, are there?’

He glared at her. ‘No. This is it. I check toilets. I check on old women. I get paid.’

She ignored the jab. ‘Perhaps you could get a Parks job elsewhere.’

‘You’re not hearing me. I want to stay on Bruny.’

His face clouded with something she couldn’t interpret. He was afraid of leaving the island, she was sure of it. But why, she was unable to fathom. Most young people were keen to leave home—unless it suited them to stay. She’d heard that children these days were like boomerangs, coming home to sponge whenever life became difficult. Parents were constantly bailing them out, providing financial assistance. It hadn’t been like that when her children were young. She poured hot water into the cups and jiggled the bags. ‘Do you have milk, Leon? Sugar?’

‘Just black.’

Appropriate, she thought. His gingery eyebrows were still furrowed with dark thoughts. He seemed burdened with life. Trying not to spill the tea, she placed his cup and the plate of biscuits on the coffee table and then went to fetch her own cup. Leon didn’t move to assist her. She sat down in the armchair and tried to resume conversation.

‘Did you have a nice walk up on the Head the other day?’

He grunted and stuffed a biscuit into his mouth. ‘I didn’t go up there, remember? I had to scrape you off the beach.’

‘Perhaps you should go there more often. It’s a salve for the soul. When it’s windy, you feel like you could fly.’

His eyes flicked away.

‘I suppose it’s still the same up there,’ she continued, trying to draw him out. ‘Those columns of black rock have been there longer than any of us. And they’ll still be there when we’re all gone. I find that reassuring, don’t you?’

He looked bored, but there was the slightest tinge of curiosity in his voice as he said, ‘When did you first come here?’

‘More than fifty years ago. With my husband, Jack, and his family.’

She thought of Jack’s long legs, pressing through the scrub, the square set of his shoulders, his profile gazing out to sea. He’d been an unfolding mystery to her then, as she learned his body and his mind. After they left the farm, he’d become a question she’d never quite found the answer to. Yet she’d made the best of it, as people of her era had been brought up to do.

‘My husband’s dead now,’ she said. ‘But the rocks are still there. The land still watches south . . . When you walk up there, it takes you away from everything, everything that’s ordinary. And that can be comforting.’

Leon was watching her. ‘What were you doing on Bruny?’

‘Jack was a lighthouse-keeper at the cape. We lived there twenty-six years. Before that he grew up near here on the land, back towards Lunawanna.’

‘I know about the lighthouse.’ Leon’s attention was ensnared. ‘I’ve read about it in the history room at Alonnah. How it was built by convicts to prevent shipwrecks. The tower’s thirteen metres high. And it was first lit in 1838. They used to run it on whale oil.’

Mary smiled. She had him captive at last. ‘Not in my time,’ she said. ‘I’m not quite that old.’

‘What was it like living there?’ he asked.

‘You can find out yourself. They rent out one of the keepers’ cottages. You can stay there. See what it feels like.’

He shook his head. ‘It wouldn’t be the same. Not like when you were there.’

She knew now that she had found his weak spot. Her way in. ‘You want me to tell you about it?’ she asked. His nod was small but affirmative. She lifted her cup and sipped, wondering how far she could push him. ‘Why don’t you take me for a drive, then? I’ll feel more like talking if I get out.’

He sat back, impatient. ‘It wasn’t part of the deal, you know. To drive you about.’

‘A person can get housebound.’

He folded his arms. ‘You chose to come here. You knew what it’d be like. I’m a ranger, not a tour