The Lightkeeper's Wife - By Karen Viggers Page 0,64
came with weather and too much wind.
Moonlight fell in streaks across the floor, and he seemed close. She peered round the room, straining against shadows, almost sure she could see him sitting on the chair in the corner. He was so still. Maybe he didn’t want her to know he was there. For long moments she breathed heavily, waiting for him to move or speak. Such a stubborn wretch he was. He didn’t utter a word.
She called to him. His shadow was long and tall. She knew it was him. But in the dark she couldn’t make out his face.
‘Why don’t you stay?’ she asked. ‘I need to talk with you.’
She saw his shadow shift slightly. Then she wasn’t sure whether he was there at all. Were those footsteps moving through the house? Or was it just the cabin creaking?
‘Are you going outside?’ She pushed back the covers and heaved her legs around. ‘Don’t go without me. I’m coming with you.’
Coughing arrested her, doubling her over on the side of the bed. She struggled up and shuffled into the lounge room.
‘Jack. Please wait.’
There he was, his shadow by the door. She tugged her coat off the hook and pulled it on awkwardly, cursing the lack of strength in her arms. Then she stepped out into a white night, washed pale by the moon. The cold air caught in her lungs and coughing surged. While she huddled, waiting for the rattle to subside, Jack’s shadow wafted down the hill and over the dunes towards the beach. No wonder he hadn’t waited: she sounded like a dying dog.
‘Jack. I want to walk with you.’
She stumbled downhill after him, over wet grass. Cold nipped her fingers. Behind the dunes the sand was firm but it softened quickly as she proceeded. Air swirled loosely around her. Grass prickled her feet. The track began to descend.
She stopped on the cold beach and saw light rippling on the water. The long white line of a wave collapsed. She could see Jack’s shadow flitting along the base of the dunes. If she didn’t know better, she’d have thought he was nothing more than a cloud passing over the moon. But he’d brought her here deliberately. It was a magic night. In this light on their beach, time was indefinable. Fifty years could be erased in a moment. This could be any one of those bright nights when she and Jack had embraced here.
Pulling her coat close, she trudged along the sand, searching for him. When a tendril of cloud slipped across the moon, she saw him lurking not far away. She made her way towards him, the wind tugging at her legs.
‘Jack. I’m here.’
He was gone again. So fickle. Had he really been so temperamental? Their love had been difficult to hold onto, and who could say love was forever? But they’d come through hardship and compromise to find the muted joys of a long marriage: the peace of secure companionship, dependability, quiet and unspoken understanding.
A larger, denser cloud shifted across the sky. She watched the fluid shape of its shadow spreading over the water. For five long minutes, she stood shivering in the wind waiting for the cloud to erase the moon. Sound travelled along the beach from east to west as waves folded on themselves. Then, finally, the cloud smudged out the light.
Jack came with the darkness. She felt his breath near her ear and his hand, warm in hers, drawing her on. In the close, cold dark, she shambled with him along the beach, feeling her way across the sand with icy toes.
The intimacy of being close to him set her trembling. It made her flush hot and tingly and then she was shaking with euphoria. Jack was here with her. He’d come to guide her. She felt love such as she had known when they were young. It pounded thickly in her chest. It made her pant, small feathery breaths. Her fingers tingling with it. Her head light.
Dark fingers snatched at her. Sucked away her breath. Everything curdled. Slumped.
Then there was silence.
Black night eased slowly to thumping nausea and weakness. She was sprawled on the sand like a swooning heroine, her feet and hands white in the moonlight. Her head was heavy as if she’d been struck, and her heart was knocking like an overwrought engine. She tried to work out what had happened. How long had she been lying here? Hadn’t she been walking just a short time ago with Jack?