I had just gone for a walk along the cliff to look at the shearwaters and the storm petrels that had recently been visiting us and was strolling back to the cottages. It was a lovely morning, the sky as bright and fresh as if it was rinsed with laundry blue. Looking out to sea I could see thick solid cumulus clouds building up into massy towers of water and ice which would suddenly be over on us and pouring down rain. I was glad Dad had got back onshore before a storm brewed up. For some days the weather had been fine and warm, but now there was that sultry feel in the air and an eerie stillness that betokened no good. I hurried back home.
Ryan was working in the garden, turning the earth and digging out little early potatoes for our supper. Susan was seeing to the chickens that were scattering and running about and squawking fit to bust, trying to get them in the henhouse before the storm broke out. She was hopeless at catching them.
I stood inside the gate and watched Ryan as he dug, making it all look so easy and effortless. He was lean but very muscular and just now shirtless. I admired his strong young physique with pleasure. He glanced up and wiped his sweaty forehead and said, ‘What you staring at, then?’
‘Just watching you,’ I said, ‘no law says you can’t, is there?’
‘Don’t like being watched,’ he said, ‘puts me off what I’m doing.’
‘Sorry then,’ I said with a shrug and turned towards the cottage. Then I heard the sound of a distant car and looked round. It was still a dot heading for the cottages along the lane. Nothing else was in sight – few vehicles ever came this way and this wasn’t one I recognised. It certainly wasn’t Jed’s lorry and I wondered if Abbi Simpson had bought her new car and was coming home in it. That would be great for everyone because we could cadge lifts from her when she went into town. Jed wasn’t always available when you wanted him and it was miles to walk before you could catch a bus and that only came once a day.
Ryan scooped up his can full of potatoes.
‘Reckon that’ll be enough for an army,’ he said. ‘Mum said dig up as many as I could. Who the devil’s this lot coming?’ He came over and leaned beside me on the gate to watch the approaching car. As it got nearer and started along the bumpy unmade road to the cottages, I recognised Dad behind the wheel and with a start of surprise began to yell and whoop with joy. He’d bought a car! But then I saw Andy sitting beside him, his pale, miserable face unmistakable and unforgettable. Out of the back window leaned Jim, waving at me.
I was struck with horror. They were coming to take me back to Mean Millie. I knew it and felt faint. I grabbed hold of Ryan and clung to him.
‘Don’t let them take me back,’ I screamed, ‘Ryan, don’t let them take me back. I’ll run away, I’ll kill myself!’
Ryan put his arms about me and patted me awkwardly, unused to such outbursts.
‘It’s all right, Bridie. No one’s taking you away. Calm down.’
Dad came puttering up in the old Morris and got out followed by Andy who already had a sneering look on his face. He had lost some of his fat and looked more like Dad than ever. Jim got out of the back and came over saying, ‘Hi, Bridie, aren’t you glad to see us?’
Jim looked at Ryan askance. I was hanging on to him for dear life and he still had his arm about me protectively. The two lads looked at one another in a funny, challenging way that I didn’t understand at the time but one day would understand only too well. I too looked up at Ryan who loosened me and said, ‘Well, greet your family, then. Where’s your manners, Bridie?’
I wanted to run indoors to my room and lock myself in but years of self control took over so I stopped where I was, swallowing back that awful anxiety that always came over me in bad moments. Ryan stayed behind me and I felt a comfort from his presence. He seemed a bulwark between my old family and my new one. It was as if he was sending me silent waves of comfort and calm.
‘Hi, Jim,’ I said weakly.
Dad came over and scooped me up in his arms with a big hug that restored my fractured feelings. I ignored Andy, I’m afraid to say. I couldn’t bring myself to look at my old tormentor and made sure I kept my long ponytail out of his way in case he tried any of his old tricks. However, he seemed oddly subdued in these unfamiliar surroundings and kept glancing around uneasily, looking at Ryan with awe, for tall strong Ryan looked at least eighteen though he was scarce sixteen. He had a serious, sober adult way about him, more like a man of forty sometimes.
Jim just looked uncomfortable as he gazed about him at the whitewashed cottages with their little gardens and nothing else but sea and sky behind them and barren, bleak plains of grassland rolling away before. He was all dressed up in his best clothes, smart as a bandbox, but then Jim always was a natty dresser like his Mother. I felt a mess in my old jeans and scruffy white cotton top and for some reason felt ashamed of Ryan still shirtless, arms akimbo, an unwelcoming expression on his dark, dour face.
Sheila came fussing out and welcoming everyone to step indoors. It seems she’d known all along about this horrid surprise. Apparently the boys had asked to come and see the lighthouse and where we all were living now so she, in her welcoming way, had said it would be lovely. I wished they didn’t know where we were; wish we could have disappeared out of their lives forever. But they were Dad’s sons after all. I couldn’t begrudge his seeing them.
‘Is that your car, Dad?’ I said after a while.
‘No, love, just borrowed it from a mate in town for a couple of days. I’ve plans to get myself one sometime so we can go trips and the like. Have to wait till I’m made up to AK though and get a bit of a pay rise.’
‘What’s AK?’ asked Jim.
‘It means Assistant Keeper. After fifteen years when some poor old sod dies I may be lucky enough to become a PK or Principal Keeper like Sid Waterman. I’m not in a rush about it. You have to start all over again in a manner of speaking, back on rock lights and towers and so forth, work your way back to where you were. More pay naturally but also more responsibility. Anyway it’s a long way off yet. Got to get through this year as SAK first off.’
‘Do you really work on that thing?’ asked Andy, staring over at the lighthouse, far out on its rock in the midst of the Atlantic Ocean. It was a hundred and seventeen feet tall, Dad once told me. From this distance it looked like a toy, yet it was still imposing in its solitary grandeur.
By now the clouds had begun to move faster towards us as the stillness gave way to a rippling wind. The wind was moving the sea, urging her waves into higher peaks and troughs and it had begun to feel cold and damp.
‘I do,’ said Dad in answer to Andy’s question, ‘I love that thing, as you call it, whatever the weather. Mind, we’ve picked a bit of a rough day for your visit as it turns out, but it’ll give you a sense of what it’s all about out down here. Wind and waves and the cruel sea. Some days the waves come crashing almost over the top of the light. You get used to the constant drumming of it all, drumming away at the sides like it was asking to come in. It’s a living, breathing being is the sea and we have to treat it like one, take note of what it’s trying to say, skirt round its moods and furies and storms. Then be peaceful with it when it’s feeling content and happy and still as glass. In a funny way, though, I enjoy its crazy days best. It’s got an energy you can’t describe.’
Andy shuddered and began to look as if he wished he’d never come at all. I fervently wished the same and hoped the experience would put him off ever coming again. He looked at me and said, ‘You’ve grown taller, you have.’
I was almost his height now and that seemed to surprise him. He was not a bit the Andy I’d known back at his home where he was King of the Castle, backed by his mum and bigger and tougher than me. He almost seemed afraid, out of place, and my heart felt glad. Now he knew what it felt like not to fit in somewhere. I said nothing, however, just turned my back on him and marched indoors, followed by Jim who took my arm in a friendly manner and said, ‘I think it’s great here, Bridie, all this expanse of sea and sky. It feels huge and lonely and strange – but interesting.’ He looked at me admiringly. ‘You look so much prettier and happier. I can tell this place agrees with you.’
He bent and whispered in my ear, ‘I can’t wait to leave home, myself, Bridie. Guess what – I’m being sent off to a boarding school soon and Andy’ll probably follow on. Our Nan has offered to pay the fees. She knows I’m keen to get on and make it to University. She reckons going to a good school to do my O’s and A’s will help me on my way. Thankfully, she’s a bit of a snob and wants an academic in the family. I’ve got big ideas, Bridie. I’m not going to stay stuck in some seaside town all my life. I want to do really well, make you all proud of me. You wait and see.’
‘That would be great, Jim. I hope it all works out.’
‘It will.’ His face had a determined look about it that I’d never see before. He’d changed a lot. I felt something in him was sterner, harder and in a way I found that interesting and attractive. I envied his sense of direction and certainty over his future. I had none at all about mine or about myself as a person.
‘Yes, it’ll work out. And Dad’s grateful to Nan. He couldn’t afford to send us to St Michael Bister himself. I’m not sure Mum wants us to go. She misses you too, you know, she often talks about you.’
‘I wish she didn’t! I wish she’d forget who I was and let me go,’ I said with a shiver akin to fear. ‘I’ve got nothing to do with her and I never want to see her again.’
Jim looked at me, shocked. ‘I know she wasn’t nice to you, Bridie, but you need to forgive her someday.’
‘Why should I? I’m sorry, Jim, I never will forgive her and you can think what you like.’
He said no more on this subject. I went off to help Sheila prepare a huge spread for tea. The rain was beginning to torrent down in great, glassy sheets. We all crowded into the cottage and stared out of the windows at the flashes of lightning streaking the sky, waiting for the deep, solemn rolls of thunder. Dad loved it and stood at the door staring out to sea with the binos he’d brought me. The boys took turns looking through them at the tall lighthouse as it stood out there on its rock, waves lashing at the base, the whole structure looking as if it could be swept away any minute. Yet, it had prevailed for well over a hundred years and wasn’t going to disappear that easy but it always looked alarming.
‘Christ, Dad, I’d be scared out there,’ said Andy and gave the binoculars back with a little shudder. He came in and huddled in an armchair, looking miserable and fed up. He was obviously looking forward to leaving as soon as possible. Dad said they would go back to town later on. He’d booked the boys a room at a nearby bed and breakfast and would take them back home the day after. I think Andy was looking forward to that more than anything in the world. However, he cheered up when Sheila called us over to the tea table, seized up sandwiches, pie and cake till his plate was full, then sat munching steadily and happily. I looked at him with disgust.
Jim was also quieter than usual, regarding everyone with a bit of puzzlement as if trying to fit us into some internal pigeon hole. He often looked over at Ryan and even tried to begin a conversation but it foundered swiftly on the rocks of Ryan’s impenetrable silence and surliness. Ryan neither looked at me, nor anyone else, just ate a little, drank several cups of tea then took himself off to his room to study for his exams. I watched him go with envious regret.
Dad and Sheila laughed and joked together and I sat listening to them. Poor Sheila, I could tell she enjoyed having a bloke about and missed her old man. Then when he did come home, the miserable fellow couldn’t wait to get back to his mistress, the lighthouse. I don’t know how she put up with it. I decided she was a saint.
Susan was thrilled to have all these visitors, a rare enough event in our lives, and she chattered away non-stop in her soppy manner. Jim and Andy took little enough notice of her but she didn’t seem to care. She was even daft enough to fetch her kitten to show Jim who was the only one polite enough to seem interested in her blether.
Sheila called her to help with the dishes after tea and brushed aside my eager desire to escape.
‘Them’s your guests as much as ours, Bridie,’ she said. ‘You must see to your dad and brothers and look after them. We’re all stuck in for a bit but when the storm’s passed your dad says he’s taking you all out for a run and Susie’s coming along too, if that’s all right. Ryan says he’s got too much work to do. You know him; he’s never keen on company, just like his dad.’
‘I can stay at home, and you go for the ride if you like,’ I said hopefully. ‘I don’t mind, honest.’
She just shook her head at me in disapproval as if wondering at my peculiar lack of enthusiasm on seeing my family. But then she knew nothing about it for I had never spoken of my life before I came to live with her at the cottages. Ryan was the only person I’d told and he would never say a word to anyone else. I so wished I could stay with him. Just knowing he was there upstairs in his room was comfort enough. But I had to go perforce and sat in the back with Jim, Susan squeezed between us. She was delighted with the jaunt and full of her nonsensical chatter.
The storm had stopped and that wonderful sense of shining fresh wetness hung everywhere, dripping from leaves on trees, glistening on the vivid green grass. I let myself go in the joy of riding even an old jalopy like this Morris and looked out of the window trying to ignore Susan’s constant poking me and exclaiming over something.
Dad took us into Penzance and Andy brightened considerably at the sight of civilisation, especially when we stopped for a Cornish cream tea. I’d always wondered where he put all the food he ate, as exercise had never been his strong point, so I was surprised to hear him talking about rugby with Dad, telling him he was now in the team at school. The thought of Andy allowing himself to be shoved and pushed in a scrum and being brought down in a tackle was hilarious. He would certainly give back his fair share of shoving, swearing and bellowing and I could believe he’d guard the ball like a terrier with a bone.
Jim made sure he sat next to me in the tea shop and for once Susan shut up, her mouth occupied with scones, cream and strawberry jam. I nibbled at mine, sweet stuff not being my favourite food. Jim enjoyed his but he was never greedy, didn’t live to eat like Andy.
‘I like it round here,’ he said after a while. ‘Dad says they’ll be turning his lighthouse over from oil to electricity soon, next year maybe, but he won’t get the benefit of the change because he may get sent off somewhere else pretty soon. Will you be going with him?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘He hasn’t mentioned it to me.’ I felt annoyed that Jim knew all this before me. ‘He did say in his first year he’d have to move about a lot. He’s been on this rock light for three months so I suppose he’s due to try a different one. Sheila says Trinity House like to test their SAKs and see what they can do, see whether they can really stick out the life. It’s a sort of probationary thing.’
‘I suppose Dad doesn’t find it much different to being in the Navy, really. He’s still on the sea in a way even if he’s stationary and not moving about on a ship.’
‘I think he finds it quite different,’ I said, ‘there’s all that running up and down stairs. He says there’s about three hundred of them in the tower. His legs ached like anything the first few weeks and now they ache when he’s on land instead as he’s got used to the stairs and forgotten how to walk on the flat. And then there’s being all alone on a watch, especially middle watch in the early hours of the morning. He reckons that’s different somehow, more lonely up there in the service room, even though the other two men are sleeping below him. I wish I could be with him, to chat to him and make him a cup of tea. I wish we were allowed on as well.’
‘They couldn’t have a girl on there.’
‘Why not? Sheila said that in the old days keepers lived on the light with their families and she feels it was a much better, more normal sort of life for them all. It’s crazy like this, husbands coming home for a few weeks and then spending the other four or more weeks offshore. You can’t have a proper family life and lots of them get divorced. I’m surprised they stick it out, the ones that do.’
‘It’s a strange life. Dad always liked to do things different. Anyway, he’s always been away from us for ages, hasn’t he? We’re certainly used to it,’ said Jim. A trace of bitterness was in his voice and for a brief moment I paused to think how the boys must have been affected by Dad’s long absences. It didn’t just involve me; they were his sons. I felt a bit ashamed of myself for being so unwelcoming and unforgiving.
‘I hope you get away to your school and Millie doesn’t put her oar in,’ I said, ‘I hope for your sake you get away.’
‘I will, don’t you worry,’ said Jim. ‘It’s my life, not hers and I won’t let her stop me. Andy can hang round Mum if he likes, it’s up to him.’
He swallowed the last of his scone and jam and some tea. Then he said,
‘You seem awful close with that bloke you’re living with there.’
‘Ryan? Not close really. I’m not sure what you mean. He’s not my boyfriend.’
‘But you fancy him, don’t you?’
I stared at him. It seemed an odd thing to observe and I wondered what he meant. So often people say one thing while underneath is another meaning altogether and you have to listen hard to their words or look keenly into their eyes to know what it is. ‘I do like him, he’s great. What is this? You being the stern older brother then?’
‘Maybe. Someone has to keep an eye on you.’
Funny, that’s what Ryan had once said. I have no idea why these people thought I needed keeping an eye on. I felt perfectly capable of looking after myself.
‘I’d be glad if you minded your own business, Jim,’ I said. Wiping my mouth with a napkin, I rose and visited the Ladies for such a long while they sent out Susan to see what I was doing.