The Lightkeeper's Wife - By Karen Viggers Page 0,149

stare blindly across the channel. ‘She knew. But did she want me to know?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Yes, it does. If Mum wanted me to know, she’d have given me the letter. Or she’d have told me herself.’

‘But the letter says she couldn’t have done that.’

‘Why not?’ I stare at Jacinta in bewilderment.

‘It would have been like betraying Grandpa all over again. If she’d already done that once . . . if she had . . . maybe she couldn’t do it again.’

I look at her without understanding. ‘Why didn’t she destroy it then?’

‘Perhaps she couldn’t. Maybe she thought this man— Adam—had a right to know you.’ Jacinta pats my arm gently. ‘You don’t have to decide now,’ she says. ‘You need time to think. You have to do what’s best for you.’

What’s best for me is to wind the clock back ten minutes. I shake off Jacinta’s hand and kick at the sand, unsure what to do.

‘It’s all right, Tom,’ Jacinta says. ‘You won’t self-destruct, even if it feels like it right now.’

‘I need to run.’ I rip off my coat and shove it at her. ‘Will you mind Jess?’

‘Yes. But be careful, Tom.’

I turn from her and flee, feet stabbing the clinging sand. I run hard towards the end of the beach. My body is tight with adrenalin, my legs pumping, my mind erupting. As I charge along, a pied oystercatcher takes off over the water. Masked lapwings flap into the sky, protesting noisily.

At the end of the beach, I turn up the track and pound through the bush to the road. I pause at the edge of the tarmac, my heart thudding. For a suspended moment, I stare at my house. But I can’t go there. The walls would hem me in and I might explode. I have to keep running.

Down the road I sprint, rushing the steep descent and hoofing along the flatter stretches. My breath is coming in tight gasps, but I keep running. I run to obliterate everything. To rub out fear and shock. Where is Mum in all this? Why didn’t she give me the letter? There were several opportunities at the cabin, but she let them pass by. Why didn’t she do it? Surely it would have been better than this, this overwhelming sense of loss and doubt and confusion. Who is this man who claims he’s my father?

The road leads to the water’s edge and I hammer along it. A car passes on the narrow stretch and I almost stumble in the ditch. But my feet keep going. I run till I meet the highway. Then I run south up the long hill, cars whizzing past me.

Weather comes in and I pump through it. Rain wetting my face, soaking my clothes, trickling down my back and into my shoes. I thought I knew my mother. And I thought I knew my father too, even though I didn’t understand him. Now I have this disorder and upheaval. Do I need to know this man? Do I need to contact him? He’s had nothing to do with me. He may call himself my father, but my father is Jack. The lighthouse keeper. The husband of my mother.

I pass the fruit and vegetable shop at Oyster Cove. Cars are parked there, people buying things, thrusting fruit into bags. I run past them up the hill, resenting their normal lives. Just a short time ago, my life was ordinary too. I was Tom Mason, son of Jack Mason, grieving the loss of my mother. But my father is no longer my father. And another man has appeared. A nobody out of nowhere. He hasn’t watched me grow up. He hasn’t wiped my nose, cleaned my tears, patched bleeding knees. I don’t have to invite him into my life. I owe him nothing. Jack is my father.

When I’m close to the top of the hill the rain stops. I run on, past the skeleton of a house under construction, past paddocks where horses and native hens graze side by side, past farm dams reflecting the sullen grey sky. As I run downhill, the rain comes in again. It mingles with the tears on my face. The highway thuds beneath my shoes. The hills push me up and fall away again.

The turn-off to Kettering appears, with signs for the ferry. I keep on running. The road narrows past the marina where the masts of a hundred yachts bristle. Now my breath comes in gasps and sobs. I run to