The Light Between Oceans Read Online Free PDF Page B

‘You’re the replacement,’ was his greeting to Tom.
    ‘Tom Sherbourne. Pleased to meet you,’ Tom replied, putting out his hand.
    The older man looked at it absently for a moment before remembering what the gesture meant, and gave it a peremptory tug, as if testing whether the arm might come off. ‘This way,’ he said, and without waiting for Tom to gather his things, started the trudge up to the light station. It was early afternoon, and after so many hours on the swell, it took Tom a moment to get the feel of land again as he grabbed his kitbag and staggered after the keeper, while Ralph and Bluey prepared to unload the supplies.
    ‘Keeper’s cottage,’ said Whittnish as they approached a low building with a corrugated-iron roof. A trio of large rainwater tanks ranged behind it, beside a string of outbuildings housing stores for the cottage and the light. ‘You can leave your kitbag in the hallway,’ he said, as he opened the front door. ‘Got a lot to get through.’ He turned on his heel and headed straight to the tower. He might be long in the tooth, but he could move like a whippet.
    Later, when the old man spoke about the light, his voice changed, as though he were talking about a faithful dog or a favourite rose. ‘She’s a beauty, still, after all these years,’ he said. The white stone light tower rested against the slate sky like a stick of chalk. It stood a hundred and thirty feet high, near the cliff at the island’s apex, and Tom was struck not only by how much taller it was than the lights he had worked on, but also by its slender elegance.
    Walking through its green door, it was more or less what he expected. The space could be crossed in a couple of strides, and the sound of their footsteps ricocheted like stray bullets off the green-gloss-painted floors and curved, whitewashed walls. The few pieces of furniture – two store cupboards, a small table – were curved at the back to fit the roundness of the structure, so that they huddled against the walls like hunchbacks. In the very centre stood the thick iron cylinder which ran all the way up to the lantern room, and housed the weights for the clockwork which had originally rotated the light.
    A set of stairs no more than two feet wide began a spiral across one side of the wall and disappeared into the solid metal of the landing above. Tom followed the old man up to the next, narrower level, where the helix continued from the opposite wall up to the next floor, and on again until they arrived at the fifth one, just below the lantern room – the administrative heart of the lighthouse. Here in the watch room was the desk with the logbooks, the Morse equipment, the binoculars. Of course, it was forbidden to have a bed or any furniture in the light tower on which one could recline, but there was at least a straight-backed wooden chair, its arms worn smooth by generations of craggy palms.
    The barometer could do with a polish, Tom noted, before his eye was caught by something sitting beside the marine charts. It was a ball of wool with knitting needles stuck through it, and what looked like the beginnings of a scarf.
    ‘Old Docherty’s,’ said Whittnish with a nod.
    Tom knew the variety of activities the keepers used to while away any quiet moments on duty: carving scrimshaw or shells; making chess pieces. Knitting was common enough.
    Whittnish ran through the logbook and the weather observations, then led Tom to the light itself, on the next level up. The glazing of the light room was interrupted only by the criss-crossing of astragals that kept the panes in place. Outside, the metal gallery circled the tower, and a perilous ladder arched against the dome, up to the thin catwalk just below the weather vane that swung in the wind.
    ‘She’s a beauty all right,’ said Tom, taking in the giant lens, far taller than himself, atop the rotating pedestal: a palace of prisms like a beehive made from glass. It was the very heart of Janus, all