Eilean Mòr was the largest of the islands, and high on its flat top was the lighthouse. He could only just make it out through the mist. Nearer to them, talons of rock ploughed down into the water. The trawler crept further around. Beyond a spar was a miniature cove, hardly anything but a bite in the cliffside. A set of steep steps cut an uneven zigzag into the stone. There was a jetty and a winch to take supplies up the cliff.
The tower windows weren’t broken. There were no birds in the lamp room, and no greenish gauge of the storm tides on the walls. The lighthouse was as whole as the morning it was finished. Something under his liver turned over. He had been sure, yesterday, that it was in ruins. He climbed over some lobster pots and a clutter of fishing floats to lean into the cabin. Touching them printed rust-coloured grime on his gloves.
‘Monsieur. Are there two lighthouses here?’
‘Two? No. This is it.’
‘Because … when we came in yesterday, I saw one that was ruined. This one is – new.’
‘Same one,’ the trawlerman said. He seemed to see that that was insufficient even by the short standards of this place. ‘Sometimes it’s old, sometimes it’s new.’
‘What does that mean?’ Joe said. It should have been ridiculous, but the trawlerman had said it too seriously to laugh at. ‘How can it be sometimes old and sometimes new?’
‘Just is.’
Joe went back out again, expecting to come around to a weatherbeaten side, but there was none. They pulled up close to the jetty steps.
‘Can you wait, while I check the supplies?’ Joe said. ‘The Lighthouse Board is meant to have stocked the place, but …’
‘I’m not missing my daughter’s wedding. If anything’s wrong, send up a flare and someone will come when they can.’
Joe wanted to say that was unreasonable, but it wasn’t. Guilty that he had no money to give the man, he edged out, holding on to the mooring bollard in case he slipped. It was so cold his glove stuck to it. As soon as he was over the rail, the trawler looped away again, engines struggling to push it through the ice.
Joe climbed slowly, his left shoulder aching from the weight of his bag and his toolkit, but he wanted his right hand free if he slipped. The steps were irregular and the mist had made the weed on them slick. There was no rail, so he held the stiff grass that grew between the rocks. When he was halfway up, he looked back to watch the trawler. The wind blew a sheet of hail towards him. It stung. He turned his back to it again and carried on, and upward.
The top of the steps came out on the tower porch.
He turned the door handle. It was unlocked.
The tower was cold inside, and dark. The first room was a living room with an armchair set close to a hearth, where the floor was covered in furs and the windowpane was white with frost. Between him and that, the stairs were an ammonite spiral. They went all the way to the top, into dimness. The shutters on the lamp-chamber windows were down. He called, then listened, but nobody moved or spoke. Little echoes came back to him after a while, having explored by themselves.
The engines were usually in a separate outbuilding, but there were no outbuildings here; the architects probably hadn’t wanted to spend any more time outside than strictly necessary. Here, the engine room was underground. The stairs plunged into blackness. He had to sort through his bag to find some matches. The scratch was loud, and so was the gunpowder fizz. He found a lamp just as the match bit his fingers. He shook it out. In the time it took him to light another, the dark raced at him and he felt panicky, certain there was someone here. But there wasn’t. It was just him and the engines.
The new light made gruesome shadows from the belt of the steam engine and the sharp, cog-shaped magnets in the generator. He lit all the lamps he could find, four, and moved them close to the machines.
The steam engine was all right, but as soon as he looked at the generator, he saw what was wrong. One of the electromagnets was missing.
There was a clunk upstairs.
‘Hello?’ he called. He waited but there was nothing. His breath steamed. M. Saint-Marie’s house settled loudly