The Lightkeeper's Wife - By Karen Viggers Page 0,108

Going was a choice. A conscious decision. I knew we were at risk, but I overrode it. The promise of the south was too good.’

Memories wash through me with the whisky, gaining strength in recollection. I am immersed in my own world and I continue, talking about Antarctica, the devastation of my marriage breakup, followed by Sarah’s rejection of me, and then my father’s death. Then all my baggage about Dad comes tumbling out, surprising me. ‘I keep remembering all those times I watched him leave the house when I was a boy, and I wished he’d ask me to come. I should have just tagged along; I’m sure he’d have let me. But I was afraid of him. Mum was easy. So kind and full of love. I felt safe with her. But Dad and I weren’t quite connected. I regret missing my chance with him. I can’t forget that.

‘And now my mum is dying.’ The last of it is welling out now. ‘But this time I’m here to watch over her. I’d be with her now, but she won’t let me. She’s in a cabin on Bruny Island. All I can do is make sure I’m there when the time comes. It’s what I want to do. To see her through to the finish.’

As I talk, I feel the weight coming off me, rising like a heat haze. Emma listens in silence and I talk until I’m spent and there are almost no more words to say.

For a suspended moment, I watch the flames licking slowly in the wood heater, not looking at her. Finally, I know I can tell her what I feel. ‘I didn’t expect to meet you, Emma. And you’ve changed me. You’ve given me back part of myself I didn’t think I’d find again . . . You’re so bold. So alive and confident. And you’ve made me feel like living again. You’ve made me want to embrace life. To clutch it with both hands. The way you do. I love you.’

Then, I’m ready to ask her about Nick. Having emptied myself out for her, at last I’m able to mention his name. ‘Emma . . . is something happening with Nick? Or are you with me?’ I turn to look into her eyes, to see what they reveal. And what I see is a woman asleep on the couch. Her head is cushioned on her elbow and her mouth is slightly open, her body slack.

I have no idea how much of my confession she has heard, if anything, and for a moment it is almost amusing. I allow myself a wry smile at the bungled timing of all this—my life story poured out to deaf ears. Then it occurs to me she certainly hasn’t registered the question about Nick. And with that realisation my soul folds.

I pour another whisky and drink it quickly, both despising and enjoying the renewed burn of it as I swallow.

And then, a glimmer in my mind. The birth of release. Despite the sludge of my drunkenness, I am aware enough to understand that whether Emma remembers any of it or not, she has triggered my purging, which was, perhaps, all that I needed of her.

I should thank her for that.

26

The morning was wet and miserable, and even though she’d been in bed since eight the previous evening, Mary was tired. Nights were no longer a time of rest. She propped herself up with every pillow in the cabin, but she still couldn’t breathe. If she lay down it was easy to imagine what it’d be like to die from drowning.

She’d been awake since dawn, listening to the weather. Intermittent rain drummed on the roof and spattered the windows and the clouds were low and sombre. She would have stayed in bed, but she couldn’t sleep for the coughing. And because of Jack, wandering through her room all night. He’d been watching her. Reminding her.

Since the scout camp, time had somehow folded in on itself. Leon came each day, and now he sat with her for longer. Or at least it seemed he was there for longer. He was kinder too, and wore a look of endless patience. Sometimes they sat together for hours. And perhaps sometimes Leon came more than once a day. But there were blank patches in her memory now, as one day collapsed into the next so she was no longer sure whether she’d been to bed, or whether she had slept or eaten. Days