Skylarking (2 page)

THREE

T
HE POST THAT ARRIVED FOR
F
ATHER TOLD ANOTHER
story.

‘So, they're finally sending me a second assistant,' he said to Mother over the top of the letter as I set his cup of tea in front of him.

Mother paused drying a plate. ‘A single man, or a family?'

‘A family by the looks, a growing one at that.'

‘Are there children?' I asked, leaning in over his shoulder so that I might read the letter, too, but he shifted it from the light.

‘A Mr Ernest Jackson and his young wife Mary, with a new baby girl.'

I supposed a baby would be nice enough, a little one to fuss over. But it was someone our age, Harriet's or mine, who I really wanted. Either to love or loathe, I didn't mind which. As long as they brought tales of somewhere else and allowed themselves to be examined by Harriet and me, the way a naturalist might examine a new species so that they might learn something of the world, then they would be welcome.

‘There's some older children, too. A boy of nine, from another wife, now dead, and a younger boy.'

‘Playmates for all of you then. Your brothers and Emmaline will be pleased,' Mother said. ‘When are they expected?'

‘By the end of the month, it says. We'll finally have someone to fill the last cottage.'

‘It'll be needing a good clean before they arrive. Sounds like Mrs Jackson will have her hands full when she gets here. Where do you think you're going, young lady?'

I stopped halfway to the door. ‘Do let me go and tell Harriet the news before bed. I won't be long.'

‘It can wait till the morning. Honestly, you have all the time in the world to share your news and your stories. You're not going anywhere. Help me with these and then we'll get the children ready for a wash.'

Father got up and placed his hand on my shoulder as he made for the door and his shift on the light. ‘If you get your chores done, you can bring me up my cup of tea before you turn in for the night,' he said.

I nodded – there was that, at least.

Ever since we had been able to climb the one hundred and sixty-two steps of the lighthouse, it had been a magical place for Harriet and me. If the day was clear and our fathers were jolly enough to let us play on their hallowed ground, we imagined ourselves rulers of all we could see. Because I was dark-haired where Harriet was blonde, it fell to me to play the king or the prince while she was the queen or else the fair maiden trapped by a wicked witch in the tower. We might pretend to make ourselves useful polishing the brass, or sweeping the many iron steps, but all the while we spoke in the riddles of our imagined world. When we could convince them, we would tempt one of the younger children to the tower with promises of wondrous sights or cake, and then we would hold them captive until they begged for our mercy.

I learned later that my father, while pedantic about all things to do with his lighthouse keeping, was relatively relaxed when it came to the rules of the settlement. I never knew any other way than being permitted to cavort in the lighthouse, to run and play in Harriet's cottage or she in mine when we desired, but the stories that came to us of other light stations were often of unbending hierarchy: children only allowed to play together in common areas outside and sometimes not at all. I couldn't imagine how those families didn't go mad under the strict rule of a head keeper so unyielding. We had no such problem on our cape.

Sometimes our fathers let us sit in the light, or perch on the narrow ledge that circled the inside of the glass. If there was no gale, we could go through the door and out onto the high-railed balcony that ran around the top of the tower. We would stand with our backs pressed against the whitewashed stone, the wind whipping hair across our faces and stealing the breath from our lips, and peer down at the skeleton of the
SS Hamilton
submerged in the waves below.

I had not been alive when it was wrecked, but I knew the stories of the stormy night, the calls for help, so like the calling of seals that they were not noticed at first. Most of the crew had been rescued, although the captain, refusing to move until every last man was off the ship, had been swept off the mast he was clinging to by an enormous wave.

My father was patient with our presence in the lighthouse. But a lighthouse keeper has to be a patient man. The never-ending polishing, lighting, staring out to sea, one's whole body tuned for disaster, would send many men mad. But my father could polish that glass until the light fairly cut from it, a blade in the night sky, warning the seafarers. There is honour in lighthouse keeping. I would go to bed each night knowing that my father – or Harriet's father, Walker, who was the first assistant – were watching over us. And protecting more than simply our families at the light station, but also the countless passengers, sailors, captains and fishermen who sailed past our little jut of coast, casting their eyes out into the dark for the steady beam, the signature of our light. Blink, flash, blink.

While I loved the games Harriet and I played in the lighthouse, I also loved nights like this one, where I could visit Father high in the tower, and it was only him and me.

‘Father, did you always want to be a lighthouse keeper?' I often asked.

‘For as long as I can remember,' he would reply.

‘But why?'

And even though I asked him countless times, he would always stop and stroke his chin and come up with a different answer. For the safety of those at sea, he might say, or to keep an eye on the fish. To get your mother out of the city, was another answer he might give, even though I knew full well that my mother needed much convincing when her sweetheart had revealed his intention, and that this was another story altogether.

Father lit the lamp by gently pumping the kerosene into the lantern. Every time, I was thrilled by the whooshing sound and the glow that followed. With the lamp lit, attention moved to keeping the great glass lantern turning. Father let me place my hands on the lever and he would close his great big hands over mine and together we would turn, feeling the drag of the weights on the wires that were funnelled down the stone core of the lighthouse.

I put the thermos of tea on his small desk.

‘You're looking at your maps again,' I said.

‘Indeed.'

Father loved maps. He liked to tell me how many he had. Maps of the coast, of the ocean, of the mountains that ran like a seam and had blocked all attempts at finding the great inland sea. Long rolls of thick paper covered in lines and curves and strange markings, impossible for a young girl to understand. It was a lighthouse keeper's duty, Father would say, to know the lie of the land and the signs of the sea. And so he would pore over his collection, memorising the details. I thought once that he must dream of his own adventures; but I know now he was simply transfixed by understanding every inch of the land around us. There were jagged lines that appeared to mark the space between land and water, and star-shaped compass points to tell the place on the globe.

I leaned in towards the maps that were unrolled on his desk that night as though they were a magnet and I a little tack.

‘What do they say, Father?'

‘You ask so many questions, Kate – one day you'll stump me.'

‘What's this bit?' I pointed my index finger at rings of crinkled lines; in and out they went in tighter and tighter circles.

‘Contour lines – those are mountains. The lines tell you how high and steep they are.'

‘But I can't tell they're mountains. How do you know?'

‘It's like a language, a language of maps. I know the language so I can read the map.'

‘I want to learn the language, too.'

‘Well, one day you might, my dearest, one day you might.'

Father rolled up the maps and that was that. But I thought about them. Thought about how little they told of the places they meant to represent. How can someone look at a map and understand the ache of a steep climb, the crick in the neck of looking up through tangled trees to see the ridgeline and the sky blown wide open above it? How can one know a mountain unless they have stood upon the highest point and understood how it sits amongst the other peaks and valleys, known the shape of the land around it? Those maps were a poor attempt to replicate a mountain but, I came to realise, a useful one all the same.

What I understood as I grew was that the maps didn't tell the whole story. Sometimes they even told the wrong story, their infinitesimal errors meaning men were lost in deserts, ships speared upon rocky reefs, land taken up when it belonged to someone else.

I had once tried showing Harriet the maps, tried explaining their strange beauty that had so entranced me. But she did not care for them. Well, she liked to know which direction Melbourne was, and that to get to Sydney one travelled the opposite way and for a number of days longer. But she became sulky when I spent too long with them.

‘Are you plotting your escape then?' she would ask. ‘Is that why you spend so long on them?

No, and yes. How could I explain that to see our cape rendered there on the map, defined in its space, made me want to travel both far from it and, at the same time, never leave? How could I want one thing so much and its exact opposite at the same time?

‘Time for bed then, Kate,' Father said, and I gathered up the tea things.

‘I'm glad you'll have your new assistant, Father.'

‘As am I. We'll have a chance to get things fixed up around the place, and Walker and I won't be spread so thin.'

‘'Night then, Father.'

He kissed me on the top of the head, and I rattled back down the steps, thinking about maps and journeys. Thinking that if I couldn't head off in my own little boat, then at least there was a new family arriving who might bring some adventure to me.

FOUR

T
HE
J
ACKSONS ARRIVED THREE WEEKS LATER
. T
HEY
came by boat, and we all traipsed down to the jetty to see them disembark. At first we thought that Mrs Jackson might not step foot on the jetty, so white was she. They'd travelled for days, overland from down near Ballarat and then the last part, from Edenstown, by boat. I couldn't be sure if it was an upset belly from the long journey or fear of what lay ahead that kept her there on the boat while her husband unloaded and shook Father's hand, as did the eldest boy, who had the air of someone old before his time.

I stepped forwards and thrust out my hand. ‘I'm Kate.'

He was slow to respond but finally said, ‘Albert.' A younger boy, with dark hair unlike his brother's, scampered up behind him.‘And this is Harold.'

‘Harry,' the younger boy said, and grinned. ‘My baby sister – she's called Lucy.'

I took his hand in mine, too. ‘Welcome to the cape, Harry,' I said. ‘Come on, this way.' I picked up one of the packages from the pile and went to lead up the path. I noticed Mrs Jackson, now on dry land with her baby bundled in blankets against her chest, narrow her gaze at me.

It would become clear over the coming weeks that Mrs Jackson was going to take some time to get used to the new etiquette of the cape, where girls like me could shoot out a hand to a boy and assume it would be shaken. In fact, she never warmed to me. It made things easier for her later, I suppose.

Harriet and I took it on as our duty to introduce the Jackson boys to the cape. Once we'd given them the tour of the lighthouse, the three cottages, the outhouse, water tanks and sheds, the yard for our goats and the small paddock for the three horses, there was no better way to show the rest than to make them play our favourite game – hide and seek – amongst the ti-tree that hunched against the sloping cliffs. Even then, aged ten and twelve, we had not outgrown the game of our childhood, and the younger children never needed to whine at us too long before we agreed to play, for it was a pleasure indeed to dip into that dense scrub and suddenly be hidden deep in its quiet, protected world.

On this afternoon, a blustery cold wind blew scudding messy clouds across the sky, every now and then revealing the sun. We gathered together at the edge of the ti-tree. I cleared my throat and spelled out the rules for the benefit of our newcomers. Someone must be seeker, to stand in one spot with eyes closed and count to one hundred, not too fast and not too slow, calling the numbers so that the hiders could hear them and not be ambushed before they had a chance to tuck themselves away. No giving away the spots of others. The first person found was seeker the next round; the last had the glory. The far boundary of the game was where the scrub tilted down into the crumbling cliff face – and no further.

On this day, I picked Harriet as seeker.

‘That's not fair!' Emmaline cried, stamping her little foot and pouting. ‘Harriet and you always go first!'

‘That's not true, Emmaline,' I said, smiling sweetly and pulling her to my side, all the while pinching her under her arm, on the chubby soft flesh where it would hurt. ‘We're the big girls, so we get to decide.'

‘Ow!' she yelled. ‘Albert's big, too. Now he should be in charge.'

‘Not as big as us,' I said, putting an end to her whining. ‘Let's start.'

Harriet began to count. Everyone ran helter-skelter for a spot. I loved the sound of quick breaths and twigs snapping underfoot, branches rubbing against each other as we scurried to find our places. I headed towards the furthermost part of the ti-tree, nearest the cliff edge. After a time, the only sounds were the murmurings of the little ones who couldn't stay silent in their hiding places.

I wiggled into a space, a tunnel formed in the understorey of the ti-tree. It was hushed and windless in there and, when I rested my head on my arm, I could lie back comfortably and see the way the light fell through the maze of branches and leaves. I was very quiet.

I watched a willy wagtail jumping up on a branch and down again, fanning its black and white tail from side to side, cocking its head at me inquisitively. The bird called, a high whistling tune, and then ducked and took off, finding an invisible, impossible path through the thick brush and disappearing from my view.

‘Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred!'

I raised my head so I could peer through the trees at Harriet as she opened her eyes. She rubbed them, squinting into the bush, trying to make sense of the darkness there, the cross hatch of twigs and dead foliage and green. She smiled at the hushed sound of giggling coming from the cover of trees.

‘Ready or not, I'm coming!' she called, and crept away from me towards the noise.

I listened to the sounds of the first ones being discovered, the squeals and the shouts. The rules were that as each hider was found, they joined the seeker and became a roving pack, blundering through the bush until the last one was found. If I was not found first – and I rarely let myself be – I loved the breathless anticipation, my skin crawling with excitement as I waited to be pounced upon.

The noises moved away from me. This bought me extra time. I wiggled in further – whatever animal used this track, they had fashioned it deep into the otherwise impenetrable scrub. I thought about a wombat, or a fox, scurrying along the path to meet me.

There was a call, louder now, a few yards to my left.

‘Found you!' Harriet cried. More heavy sounds through the scrub.

‘I saw you, Albert!' she said again, louder now.

Footsteps crashed towards me. I covered my head with my hands and waited to be stumbled over. But the footsteps hurried past and I was safe.

‘You're got!' I recognised the voice of my brother James. He was quick to anger and quicker still when it was directed at Albert, I'd noticed, who had arrived and usurped his position as eldest boy. A position made vacant by George that James had never seemed truly able to fill.

Albert laughed. ‘Righto – you got me,' he said. So, all he had needed was a game to bring him out of his shell a little.

‘Ages ago,' said Harriet, and I sensed the annoyance in her voice. ‘Kate,' she called. ‘You're the last one. You've won.'

There was no excitement in her voice – just a sharpness, as though Albert had spoiled her last find and now she was bored. This was Harriet's way sometimes. She was the precious only child, and things in her cottage tended to follow Harriet's rhythm. When she was done with the doll, or the game, or the beach we were at, she would become tired. Her loss of interest would rob whatever we were doing of its joy. I wondered what would happen if I stayed hidden. I wondered how long she would search for me.

‘Kate! Kate!' the others called. Tumbling shouts that sounded like the cawing of sea birds, echoing out over the cliffs.

I was reminded of the day my own frightened calls had echoed out as I searched fruitlessly for James, who had wandered off when he was on my watch. It had not been long after George died and, as the minutes stretched, my heart grew cold with the thought of what I would say to Mother.

Finally, I had come across the ridgeline and spotted James. He was crouched beside a little black boy, and the two of them were drawing with sticks in the dirt. An older woman – the mother, I assumed – stood close by. I had yelled his name and flown down the ridge, slipping and sliding in the rubble to where he was. They had turned to me, not surprised in the least by my frantic calling. The black woman had raised her head in acknowledgement; we were neighbours of sorts, I suppose – they kept to their place, and we kept to ours. I'd heard the whispered words of Mother and Father, who sometimes spoke about the goings-on inland or down the coast:
murdered, cleared them out, brought them all in.
‘Not here though,' my father had reassured Mother. ‘Not on this stretch, my dear. We are quite safe; they are harmless.'

I'd yanked James up that day and growled at him, shooing the mother and her child away. Harmless they may have been, but I wasn't about to take any chances.

My right leg began to cramp, and I tried to stretch it out without rustling too much. Eventually I heard the children tire, one by one, and wander back up to the cottages. I listened to Harriet's admonishment that I'd spoiled an otherwise perfectly good game and to her footsteps as she made to leave, then stopped and returned.

She told Albert to go back without her. I knew that she knew I was capable of playing tricks on her. But she also knew that the cliff edge was right there, that I was foolhardy, a risk-taker.

‘Kate, I am deathly serious now. Come out right away, or I'm going to tell your father you have gone over the edge.' Her voice was pinched and high. ‘Kate!'

From where I lay I could see her skirt as she paced back and forth through the bush. I couldn't see her face but I wanted to. I wanted to see the worried furrow of her brow, the pinkness creeping up her neck, the way she might be biting down on her lip, pinching it with her teeth.

I waited until she began to cry, a nervous, breathless teariness. I eased out backwards, as quietly as I could. I could see her near the edge of the cliff, one hand flitting up to push back her hair and then down again to pull at her skirt. I crept up behind her, picking my way through the stones so that the sound did not give me away.

I closed in on her and placed my hands on her waist. ‘Found you!' I said in her ear and tickled her hard.

She gasped and whipped around. ‘You!' she cried. Without warning she slapped me across the face. ‘I thought you had slipped and fallen over. I thought you were dead!'

I held my hand to my stinging cheek. ‘It was just a game, Harriet. We were only playing.'

But she pushed me aside and stormed away, towards the cottages.

I walked back slowly and, although the sting of her slap still burned on my face, the chime of her fearful voice as she called my name, the frightened hurt of her words –
I thought you were dead
– warmed me from within.