The Lightkeeper's Wife (44 page)
My tears fall onto the sheets. Here I am with my dead mother, and I can’t stop thinking about my father. ‘Mum, there are so many good times I remember with you. Like wandering across to the heath to go birdwatching—all those tawny-crowned honeyeaters, they were my favourites. And sitting on the cliffs watching dolphins out herding fish. You had the wind in your hair, and you looked so smooth and peaceful, as if your heart was singing.
‘You’ve had a grand life, Mum. Not all happy, I don’t suppose. But nobody gets it all good. And it’s the hard stuff that makes you. I’ve been dodging all that for too long, haven’t I?—how to get on with life. But I won’t anymore. I’m going out there, Mum—in my own way. I’m getting into living. The way you’d want me to . . . I love you . . .’
My voice breaks and I give up talking. I linger, holding Mum’s hand, watching the still mask of her face, open-mouthed and expressionless.
The curtains shift as air leaks around the window and light washes across the room. The candle flame bobs and flitters in the draft.
Mum’s gone and there’s nothing I can do.
After a long while I leave the room. The front door is open and Leon is slumped at the picnic table on the porch. I grip the railing and stare out.
‘You okay?’ Leon asks.
I shrug.
‘It’s a bugger saying goodbye to people you love.’ He brushes his hand through his hair. ‘She helped me a lot, your mum.
She listened to me. Most people are too busy for that. Too self-absorbed to hear you talk.’ He nods at me. ‘Your mum was a special lady.’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘She was a good woman.’
‘It was a brave thing to do, coming here alone in her condition.’
‘She knew what she was doing.’
‘Yes, but it must have been difficult to allow it. Knowing something like this could happen.’
I recall Jan nagging at me on the phone. ‘It caused a bit of friction . . . I suppose she talked about my father too . . .’
‘Yes. And life at the lighthouse. She loved this place. It feels lonely here now . . . without her.’
‘You were a great support to her.’
His eyes fill with moisture. ‘I tried to spend more time here as things got worse. I only knew her a few weeks. But she knew me better than my own mother.’
My own tears threaten and I look away. Silence swallows us then. Eventually, I encourage him to go for a walk on the beach. He has sat out a difficult vigil overnight and I want him to take a break. As he steps off the deck and glances back at me, all the pain of the past eighteen hours is reflected in his face. I nod at him in mute thanks, and he wanders down the hill. Turning, I see a four-wheel drive spinning towards us along the sand. It will be Jacinta and Alex, bringing Jan with her bucketloads of guilt and grief. The timing is excellent: Leon has borne enough. He doesn’t need to be here for this.
The week after Mum’s death passes in a blur of preparations for the funeral. You’d think the death of a parent would have the potential to bring siblings closer, but not so with my family. Mum was the glue holding us together, and without her, we have nothing to bind us. Despite our common sadness, we drift from each other like feathers on the wind. Jan descends into a dark world of self-blame and remorse. Gary closes down around his hard little core. And I do what I always do in a crisis—retreat into silence and find solace in nature: the flight of a bird, the nuances of light over water, the sound of wind shuffling leaves.
We grind through a series of difficult meetings to decide on everything from a funeral MC and songs to flower arrangements and burial clothes. Mostly, I spend time alone.
Laura comes timidly to the door with lilies from a florist, and she leaves soon after. I’m not capable of being in company yet, and I’m relieved she respects my space. In the mornings, I see her watching through her kitchen window as Jess and I trudge down the path to the beach. Each time, she waves and I nod. It’s nice to know someone is looking out for me. It makes me feel less alone. Often, when I’m home, staring out the window over the channel, I see her leave in her car, driving away somewhere—maybe to see Mouse.
Before the funeral, I visit Mum’s coffin in the dim hall of the crematorium. It’s quiet—only the muffled sound of my footsteps on the slate floor and the dull rustle of my breathing within the dense silence. The lid of the coffin is open and there’s nothing to fear, but my heart tumbles and my palms sweat.
They’ve dressed her in fresh clothes—a dress Jan selected from her wardrobe. Her cheeks have been padded with cotton wool and her lips have been tweaked into an almost smile. She’s been carefully made up with powder and lipstick, and her eyes have been somehow fixed shut. It’s not the face I know. She’s a study of absence, nothing of life left in her.
Seeing Mum resurrects the pain of my return from down south. It reminds me of all the losses I bore back then. My father. Leaving Antarctica. My marriage.
Debbie wouldn’t meet with me till three months after I disembarked in Hobart. Every time I rang she fobbed me off with excuses. I was still reeling from the implosion of my life. Debbie could no doubt hear it in my voice, but I was preoccupied with finding my feet on non-Antarctic ground. I didn’t realise how broken I was. How maladjusted.
Debbie finally agreed to meet me at a café near Constitution Wharf. Hobart was already bearing down towards winter and it was a dim grey day—I clearly remember it. In the café, she sat opposite me, sipping a latte. And she dodged my eyes carefully, furtively.
I had to admit she looked well. Her cheeks were pink, her lips red and full. She was uncomfortable in my presence, but smiles still came to her easily. Somebody was being kind to her, making her feel loved. I didn’t remember her looking so self-assured when she lived with me.
‘How are you going?’ she asked.
She didn’t really want to know, so I fed her an appropriate lie. ‘I’m fine.’
‘I’m sorry about your father,’ she said. ‘He was a good man. You’re like him, the way you hold everything inside.’
I didn’t want to be compared to my father. And I didn’t want to talk about him. ‘I love you, Debbie,’ I said. ‘We can try again. I’m sorry about Antarctica. It wasn’t supposed to work out that way. But we had something before I left. A plan. Things we wanted to do together. I can be the man you want. I’m willing to change.’
‘You did try from down there,’ she said. ‘All those emails you sent me . . . they were lovely. But they didn’t help. They emphasised the separation. It was so lonely here. So isolating. Who would think that you could live in a city full of people and feel alone? It felt like you were on another planet. You tried to share Antarctica with me, but it wasn’t possible. Only people who’ve been down there understand what it’s like to be there. And only people who’ve stayed at home understand what it’s like to be left behind.’
I reached for her hand, but she had tucked herself safely behind the table. ‘Look at you,’ she said. ‘Antarctica still has a hold on you. It’s in your bones. And there’s a wild look in your eyes. It frightens me.’
If I looked wild, it had nothing to do with Antarctica. ‘I want to come home to you,’ I said. ‘I haven’t stopped loving you. Can’t you see that?’
She sipped tidily at her latte and set her cup down again, avoiding my eyes.
‘Why did you let things drift so far?’ I asked, desperate now. ‘You could have warned me our marriage was slipping. I couldn’t tell from down there. If I’d known I could have done something about it.’
She smiled sadly and shook her head. ‘What could you have done? You were so far away.’
‘I would have come back. I would have leaped on the next ship and returned to you.’
She didn’t seem to understand. ‘What about the job?’ she said.
‘To hell with the job. We had a marriage to defend.’
For a moment, she looked struck, as if this option had never occurred to her. Then her face shuttered. I knew then I shouldn’t have arranged the meeting. I was clinging to the fragile threads of recovery and just seeing her undid me. But there was something more in her eyes, the dark shape of something concealed.
‘What is it?’ I asked, pressing further. ‘There’s something, isn’t there? Something you should tell me? Please. It might help me understand.’
She hesitated and bowed her head, staring at her lap. ‘I didn’t want to mention this,’ she said. ‘And it will only hurt you. It can’t change things for us.’ She looked away from me, out the window across the wharf where salt-stained fishing boats were moored.
I waited. Her face lost its glow and her eyes became watery with tears. Eventually she looked at me. ‘I was pregnant, Tom,’ she said. ‘I found out two months after you left. I was so sick and lonely. And you were so far away. I don’t know, something creeps into relationships when a partner goes to Antarctica. It’s like this other love. This ridiculous magical bond with the ice. I could feel it in your letters, in all those beautiful descriptions you were writing to me. You were sharing it with all those other people. People who didn’t matter. But you couldn’t share it with me—the love of that place that I could feel growing in you . . . And then there was this thing growing in me. A baby we hadn’t planned . . . and there was all that distance. The silences. The empty days. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go through with it alone.’
Her face was white and strained. ‘I terminated the pregnancy, Tom. It was the best thing for both of us. I couldn’t ask you to come back. And by then, I didn’t even know whether I wanted you. I felt like I didn’t know you anymore. You were so lost to me down there. So lost.’
Her words fell like stones. I hear them now. My mother’s death. My father’s death. Debbie telling me she destroyed our baby.
Death so many times over.
The day of the funeral is grey and heavy with clouds. At first, there’s only a cluster of us standing mute and tense in the grounds of the crematorium. Then cars began to arrive, slotting themselves into neat rows in the carpark. People in sombre clothing emerge and approach slowly across the grass. Some faces are familiar to me, but most are not.
Jan, Gary and I stand beside each other as if someone has placed us there, lined up like garden gnomes. My face feels rigid, almost as cold as Mum’s. Soon, there are people milling everywhere. Some are crying. I’m hugged by old ladies I’ve never met before. People reach out to express sympathy. I feel like a rock in a storm, struggling to find stillness within, while waves wash all around.
Jacinta, who was probably closer to Mum than any of us in recent years, stays locked to Alex’s arm, her face white and drawn. Judy keeps close to Gary, watching out for Jan. Anyone would think this was Jan’s day, the way she pours out grief. She’s like a well overflowing. Alex carefully steers Jacinta away from her. The swelling mood of sorrow in the gathering crowd is overwhelming. There are so many people here who knew and admired my mother. People I’ve never met from parts of her life I’ve never known. How little we understand of our parents. How little credit we give for their achievements.
I knew your mum from the opportunity shop. She was a fine
lady. A great contributor.
Your mum and I did Meals on Wheels together years ago.
We didn’t see each other often, but we kept in touch. She was very
proud of all her children.
I’ ll miss Mary terribly. She was a good friend.
We played bowls together till her arthritis became too bad.
She still helped out, though. Making cups of tea and serving cakes.
That’s what she was. A real helper.
She was a community person . . . A strong lady . . . Helpful . . .
Unselfish.
I’m from the bridge club and your mother was a fearsome
card player. She always thrashed me. I don’t know how she did it.
I didn’t know Mum had so many friends and admirers. Despite the years of isolation at the cape, she still had a strong community spirit. Seems she must have involved herself in everything when she and Dad moved back to Hobart. I guess she was never one to sit around, until her arthritis incapacitated her.
At one point I notice Leon at the edge of the crowd, waiting to speak to me. He manages a brief smile when our eyes connect, but he looks terrible. We shake hands and he grips my arm firmly. Memories of the last time we saw each other are thick between us; Mum lying dead in the cabin. Now, both of us struggle to speak and Leon’s eyes fill with tears. I choke out a thanks for his presence and then the celebrant sweeps us into the crematorium.
Gary presents an excellent eulogy summarising Mum’s life, especially her bond with Bruny Island. His observations on Mum and Dad are astute and it’s a surprise to realise that he has understood them and known them better than me, despite his distance from Mum in recent years. A demanding spouse can force a degree of distance into family relationships, I suppose. But today, Judy’s behaviour is faultless. She’s there to stand by Gary in his role as the male head of our family. Not for the first time, I appreciate being the youngest. Little is expected of me. And I certainly wouldn’t have been able to deliver the eulogy with the passion and confidence that Gary manages to muster.
Jacinta somehow holds it together to read from Kahlil Gibran’s book
The Prophet
. At the podium she stands, tremulous, and reads with a quavering voice, rich with emotion.
