The Lightkeeper's Wife - By Karen Viggers Page 0,35

constructed, so the delivery of supplies was much simpler. Before that the lighthouse vessel, Cape York, used to take stores to Jetty Beach and then they had to be transferred to the keepers’ cottages. We had it comparatively easy, although we still welcomed the appearance of the truck.’ She remembered the old Ford grinding across the heath, horn blaring with the news of its arrival. ‘Unpacking was a family affair,’ she said. ‘Jack hefted boxes and we sorted them onto shelves in the storeroom. My daughter Jan liked to do a bucket brigade—passing tins along to Gary and then to me. The sacks of flour were too heavy for the children, so that was my job. We ate simply, stews and dumplings, salted meat, canned vegetables.’

‘What about fresh stuff?’ Leon asked. ‘Surely you had a vegie garden?’

‘Not a successful one,’ Mary admitted. She had dug herself to exhaustion in that sifting sandy soil, and any moisture she’d added had run away. ‘There was plenty of rain, but too much salt. Everything withered.’ Just like Jack, she thought. ‘The island was good to us,’ she said, picking up a more hopeful memory. ‘People sent us anything in season: apples, apricots, cabbages, peas. But gifts like those were irregular and mostly we had to manage with the stores. Food wasn’t the highlight of our existence. Having the cow meant we had plenty of butter, cream and milk. And when Gary caught something edible, we had fresh fish. Our luxury was a roast when one of the sheep was killed.’

‘How many visitors did you have?’

‘Very few.’

‘Not even with the new road?’

‘No. People were preoccupied with their own lives. It was busiest during mutton-bird season, but that all stopped when mutton-birding was banned.’

‘And you definitely weren’t lonely?’ Leon seem fixed on this.

‘It was harder when the children got older,’ she said. ‘They were looking for other company by then. Eventually, we sent them to boarding school.’

‘What about you?’

Mary hadn’t often thought about herself. ‘I managed well enough most of the time,’ she said. And yet there had been times when the solitude was difficult. She’d tried to befriend the other keeper’s wife. However, there was a social hierarchy even out there. Help had been forthcoming in emergencies, but the head keeper’s wife didn’t seek her out. She and her husband didn’t have children, and perhaps Jan and Gary were too wild and noisy.

‘And the weather?’ Leon asked.

Yes, the weather. It had shaped everything they did. ‘On bad days, we were stuck indoors,’ she said. ‘Sometimes the wind was so strong, you couldn’t stand up in it. Only the men ventured out. Anyone else would be blown off the cape. Even the birds were cautious. But on still days, it was heaven on earth. Perfect beyond perfection.’ She remembered the sun kissing the land. The light licking the ocean. The mainland, visible and purplish to the west. Nothing could be better.

‘Was it worth it?’ Leon asked, fetching her back again. ‘Was it a happy place?’

She looked at him and hesitated. Could she really say she’d been happy there over the years? It had been nirvana until things had begun to dissolve. But had that place given her lasting joy? Or had she just coped within a framework she’d come to know and understand, working with whatever fragments she and Jack had been able to give each other?

‘I was content,’ she said. And this was the best she could do. What was happiness, after all? And how many people could say they’d had it?

Drained, she stared seawards and saw herself in the foam as it shattered over the rocks. She hoped Leon would recognise her need for rest. And he did. He started the four-wheel drive and drove up the track to the campground, steering slowly around the loop, past shady campsites nestled beneath stunted coastal stringybarks.

He stopped at a campsite and helped her out. She was stiff and slow, a bit wobbly. He dragged a sawn-off stump into a triangle of light beneath the shifting branches of the trees and left her sitting beside the remains of an old campfire while he picked up his bag of toilet rolls and walked across to the long-drop toilets. The door banged as he went in and then banged again as he came out. He wandered around the campground, keeping his distance from her.

Mary didn’t mind being left alone. It was such a long time since she had camped at Cloudy Corner. She used to come here with