The Lightkeeper's Wife - By Karen Viggers Page 0,95
We can’t have you freezing out there.’
He helped her up and lifted the coat over her shoulders. Then he bundled her out into the four-wheel drive. From the driver’s seat, he paused and examined her, his face puckered with something that hovered between confusion and concern. She drew breath raggedly, fear hammering in her chest. He might be thinking about that letter. He might be wondering at her extreme response. She tried to look grey and strained and exhausted. She wanted him to feel guilty for forcing her into this. And she didn’t want him to ask about the letter.
He looked out through the windscreen and she thought he was about to say something. Then he started the vehicle and she knew she was safe. A tacit truce had been declared.
The scouts had set up camp all over Cloudy Corner. It wasn’t just an influx, it was an inundation: there were tents everywhere, and wood had been dragged into stacks, ready for the cold night ahead. Adults strutted about like commanders, marshalling hordes of children. Packs were lumped in piles and two big campfires blazed, billies sizzling over the coals. Mary had never seen so many people here, and the noise was startling.
Leon jabbed stubby fingers in his mouth and emitted a piercing whistle. The scouts stood quickly to attention. ‘Gather round,’ he yelled. ‘Mrs Mason’s here. She’s going to talk to you about the lighthouse.’
The scouts flocked around them, the youngest flinging themselves to the ground and the older ones approaching more slowly and casually, feigning disinterest. Mary thought of Jan and Gary when they were teenagers—trying to appear grown up when they were far from it, struggling to subdue that flagrant enthusiasm of youth. Even so, she was overwhelmed by the proximity of so many energetic young bodies, all those unlined faces staring up at her expectantly.
‘I need to sit down,’ she said.
A campchair appeared from nowhere and Leon helped her into it. As soon as the weight was off her legs, the shakes took hold. It wasn’t nervousness, but excitement—adrenalin competing with all the medication in her body.
Leon waited till the restless movement subsided, and Mary observed his patient demeanour. He wasn’t uncomfortable with this group. In fact, he seemed quite confident. He was under–utilised here. He ought to be involved in greater duties than checking toilets and clearing rubbish bins. She wondered why he stayed, deliberately limiting his future.
‘This is Mrs Mason,’ he said, deferring to her with a polite nod. ‘She’s a walking encyclopaedia on Bruny Island and the lighthouse.’
Mary smiled. These days she felt more like an encyclopaedia of ailments.
‘Mrs Mason lived at the lighthouse on Cape Bruny for twenty-six years,’ Leon continued. ‘Her husband was the lighthouse keeper. They had three kids and there were no schools nearby, so her children had to do lessons at home until high school. Imagine that.’
He nodded to her to begin. The scouts were regarding her like a museum specimen, and some of them were already staring up at the trees or pinching their nearest neighbour. The older scouts wore an air of faint boredom. She decided to make her speech quick so they weren’t standing around for too long.
Struggling off her chair, she was surprised at how stiff she had become. Her bones were protesting at the cold. She clutched the arm of the chair, aware of her heart pounding. The wretched coughing started and she sat down again, accepting that it was too hard to stand. Then she began to tell the boys about the light.
‘Cape Bruny is a place of vast distance and secret magic,’ she said. ‘When you drive out there, it’s like a camel hump on the horizon, and the lighthouse is a pillar on the highest point of land. The tower’s blinding white, so you can’t miss it. If you climb this headland here, up onto East Cloudy Head,’ she pointed to the start of the track, ‘and if the weather is clear, you can see the lighthouse, even from this far away. That’s why lighthouses are so important. And they were especially useful in the olden days, well before my time, when ships didn’t have radar and GPS like they do today. Back then, the lighthouses were the eyes of the coast. The lights told sailors where there were rocks and reefs to avoid. Each lighthouse has its own special signal. In my day, the Cape Bruny light had a group flash. That meant two flashes every thirteen seconds with