To say I was stunned by Ryan’s words would be an understatement. He never said anything like this to me again. Neither was he in any way romantic nor any more or less interested in me than before. I kept repeating his words to myself for ages, telling myself I’d had a proposal at the age of fourteen and feeling amazed and thrilled about it, but in the end decided he was pulling my leg or I’d been dreaming.
I wanted to ask him what made him say that to me but didn’t have the nerve. In the end I blurted it out and wished I hadn’t.
We had gone down to the shore to look for crabs and mussels in the pools. As I poked and peered and enjoyed the feel of bare feet in the slimy ooze of the sand, Ryan stood and stared out at sea and then up at the clouds.
‘Be a fair day,’ he said, nodding like some sage old fisherman. I smiled at this and felt a sudden rush of love engulf me. He was so handsome standing there, the wind blowing his hair about his face. His beard was just beginning to grow in a downy manner and, as he wasn’t shaving yet, it made a faint dark stubble about his chin. His voice had deepened almost overnight. He was a man now, I knew it. Had he ever been a boy?
As for myself, I still felt like a little girl, my dark red hair tied back in childish bunches. I wondered whether I’d get Sheila to cut my hair and maybe that would make me look a bit older and sophisticated but couldn’t bear the thought of parting with my one and only striking feature. Sudden doubts assailed me. I looked at Ryan. Had he been teasing me? Was I really going to be his wife one day? He had always said he’d never marry. It was madness to suppose he had meant it.
‘Were you pretending you wanted to marry me, Ryan? Or did you mean it?’
The words came tumbling out and I regretted them at once. I was always doing things I later regretted. He’d think me silly.
‘I said so, didn’t I?’ he growled. ‘I always mean what I say. You better know it. You needn’t bother lookin’ at any other boy either. You were sent here for me and no one else. Bridie, my bride. See? That’s how it will be.’
He turned, softening his last words with a big smile. I felt myself turning weak inside. All the same, I didn’t like the fact he thought he owned me and I’d not have any say in all this.
‘Oh, and what if I don’t want you, Mister Clever Dick? What if another boy comes along and I like him better.’
Ryan’s face darkened and he seized me by the wrist. ‘Won’t be no other boy. I know you like me, Bridie. I know you do. You’re meant for me. That’s the way of things sometimes. Soon as I saw you, I was sure of it. And I’m not the marrying kind, as you know.’
‘So I should feel pleased, should I? I should feel it a mighty honour that you’ve come off your pedestal and made up your mind over all this. Well, I’ve a mind of my own, Ryan Waterman, and you’d best know that as well. You needn’t even think of marrying me. I’ll marry whom I please and there’s nothing you can do about it!’
I was in a right temper by now. I didn’t have Irish blood and red hair for nothing, I can tell you. I flung down the pail and let all the crabs run out and marched off, leaving Ryan staring after me with a very sullen expression on his face. There were times when he really made me mad. Neither of us mentioned the subject again and I began to wonder if I really did love him at all or whether it was just a silly crush. But I ached with sadness inside. Loving is a very heart filling thing and I missed it.
When the opportunity arose at last, Dad came to visit us for a few days, a joyful reunion. I hugged him till he groaned in protest and then sat next to him and refused to part from him ‘like a wee barnacle on a ship’ as he put it. A delicious dinner was prepared by Sheila – helped by Ryan, of all people. He had decided to join in our Domestic Science classes for, as he said, ‘a keeper has to be able to cook and there’s no point in learning from anyone but Mum. She’s the best,’ which was true enough.
Sometimes I got the odd feeling that he and his mother were training me in all the domestic skills I might need. It was almost as if they had decided between them that I was destined to be Ryan’s wife. I felt sure in my heart we would be together one day. In a way, the idea pleased me. It made the future clear; showed me the path I was to follow and who I was to be with. But at the same time a part of me rebelled and said ‘no’. I wanted to see a bit of life first.
After the dinner was over, we all sat outside on benches in the balmy autumn evening and Dad lit up his pipe. Sheila lit a cigarette and smoked with him in a companionable silence. Her husband would never allow her to smoke and she would sneak off down the road for a quick ciggy when he was home so he had no idea of her habit. On the way back she’d suck a peppermint to get rid of the smell in her mouth and let the wind blow it from her hair. Soon as that peppermint smell came wafting in the house, I knew what she’d been up to and would smile to myself a little.
Ryan actually joined us for once and took a cigarette from his mum, lighting it up with such ease that I realised he had done this before. He savoured his cigarette with a deep, intense pleasure. It was the first time I’d seen him smoke. It made him even more grown up in my eyes.
Dad was in fine form and telling us stories about his new lighthouse.
‘I love it on the tower,’ he said. ‘The other keepers are a friendly bunch, always cracking jokes and having a bit of a laugh. We had a lad come to join us, a holiday student fellow, but he couldn’t stand the life more than five minutes and he was away in no time. He was a lazy sod, so no great loss. Our PK, Tim Wakefield, is a good bloke, been in the service for donkey’s years, knows the ropes and isn’t overly fanatic about keeping things so smart. Just enough to get by if an Inspector comes from Trinity House.’
‘They come to inspect you?’ I asked with some indignation.
‘Oh, yes. You have to expect them any time as they like to try and surprise us, catch us out. But we get to know in good time as the other lights always pass on a radio message that he’s on the way. We’re generally one of the last on the list, being so far north so that gives us to time to get our finger out and polish everything up extra smart in good time. It’s all part of the game, just like being in the Navy.’
‘Who else is out there with you?’ asked Sheila. She looked the picture of contentment, smoking her ciggy, blowing out smoke rings to amuse Susan.
Dad tapped out his pipe and put it away. ‘Paul Harrison is the other keeper and he’s a keep-fit fanatic, spends hours doing exercises in his room. He’s thin as a rake. Best cook though; he makes a fantastic roast dinner and a lemon meringue to make your mouth water. Almost as good as yours, Sheila!’
She laughed and poked Dad playfully. I realised that they were flirting and this made me feel a bit uncomfortable. I hadn’t got to the age yet when I could understand that adults could flirt happily without it meaning anything at all.
‘Yes, I know Paul and Tim,’ said Sheila. ‘Sidney’s worked with them both in his time. Nice easy going fellows, I recall. Glad you’re eating well. Do you get much fresh meat brought over?’
‘Only when the relief comes. They bring plenty over then. Mainly we live on fish – that’s one thing we’re never short of. I have a line out of the lower window and we reel up cod, haddock, bass, you name it. There’s lobster pots too and nothing more delicious than fresh lobster or crab sandwiches at four in the morning! We have a great diet but not much in the way of fresh veg. Once we’ve used up what we’ve got we have to open tins, whereas on the light here they have a little patch on the rock and pots with herbs and lettuce, which is great. Most of all, I miss spirits and beer as they aren’t allowed on the light so that’s something you yearn for at the start. But it’s funny how you get used to not bothering about it. There’s too much to do, too much to occupy your time.’
‘I would have thought it would be really boring out there all the time, right in the middle of the sea, nothing to look at,’ I said, surprised.
‘Boring? Never, my ducky, never. Heaps of things to do and see. The changing skies and seas and the stars at night. The stars, Bridie, just glorious in a sky so black that it’s unreal. When you’re up doing middle watch, you can walk out on the gallery and look up at them and they seem to go for miles up and around; limitless, galaxies beyond ours, suns and planets we know nothing about. And you are the only human being in existence looking at them, like some god just looking at Creation. That’s how it feels. Yet you know you’re not alone because far off you see another light round the coast, its beams circling the seas, and meanwhile your own light is turning, turning, different colours for the different danger spots. It’s a magical existence in those moments with only the rhythmic sound of the sea crashing away below.’
He tapped out his pipe on the wall and reminisced. ‘Saw a couple of sharks the other day, looking up at us as if they knew we were there and trying to say something to us. Heaven knows what’s down there, right in the deep. I’d love to go deep-sea diving. Then there’s hobbies – we’ve all got our hobbies. I’ve not quite got round to knitting my next jumper, but I might. Trouble is you get used to being peaceful and quiet like that and it’s getting harder to come back onshore every time.’
I was troubled to hear this. I felt he would end up like Mr Waterman, yearning to leave us all and be back where there were no cars, chatty people, phones or modern appliances of any sort. I would end up like poor Sheila. Maybe he meant to send me to a boarding school like the boys and that would be awful. I couldn’t bear the thought.
Ryan had let his cigarette burn to his fingers, so entranced was he with Dad’s descriptions. His own father never spoke like this, wasn’t a poet like my dad. And I could see that these words stirred his soul as much as they did mine.
‘Ryan wants to go deep-sea diving,’ I said, looking over at him, ‘don’t you?’
‘Well, he will one day if that’s what he wants. He’ll get what he wants,’ said Dad with a smile. ‘He’s that sort, is Ryan.’
I so wanted to put out a hand and touch Ryan. His eyes were full of longing and I knew what he felt as if it was me inside his soul. I knew he wanted to be out there with the sky and the sea and the stars. But more than anything, I wanted to feel him move towards me in some tender human contact, rouse himself from his private inner world. I wanted to touch him and hug him so much it hurt me inside, but I didn’t dare. He seemed to dislike any such intimate human gestures. He would have thought me mad and crawled even deeper into his crab-like shell.
Dad looked very fit; all the running up and down the stairs kept him thin. He had changed in some subtle manner that I couldn’t put my finger on. I felt he was further away from me and felt a sense of utter loneliness as if I too was standing on the lighthouse; an inner lighthouse. At times like this I understood Ryan so well. We both had this sense of isolation within us that nothing could change. We could be in a crowd and still feel this way. I admitted to myself that I did love Ryan. I loved him with every fibre of my being.
Dad had brought his five-masted ship in the bottle and presented it to me with the date he finished it stuck on underneath. Made by Joe Bosworth, September 1954.
I was thrilled with it and Sheila pronounced it a very good one indeed.
‘You’ve certainly learnt that skill,’ she agreed. ‘Will you make more? Sid’s made over two hundred and he sells some in Sennen and even taken them to a shop down in Penzance. It makes a bit of extra income.’
‘I’ll make a couple more for the boys but it’s not a hobby I really take to,’ Dad replied. ‘I prefer to make things from bits of driftwood. I’ll make you a mermaid someday, Bridie.’
‘I’d like that,’ I said. I had a letter from Jim some days after Dad went offshore. He and Andy were at St Michael Bister’s in Winchester.
I can’t tell you how glad I was to leave Broughampton, he wrote. Andy made a shocking fuss, silly nit, but Nan insisted we both went, said she wasn’t going to be accused of favouritism (though I can tell you in private I am her favourite). Mum was pretty upset about it. Well, she’s all alone now which I do feel sorry about, but I’m really enjoying it here and grateful to Dad. Andy isn’t so sure but I think he’ll come round. They have a great rugby team and he’s interested in that. He’s already lost weight now Mum isn’t feeding him up so much so he’s a lot fitter for playing. As you know, I’m more into the art and literature stuff. History especially. I like history and researching the past. It’s great. The other boys are okay but I haven’t made any special friends yet. Maybe you can come over and see us here some time? I’d love to show you round. You’d be impressed.
‘Like hell, I will,’ I muttered to myself.
I had taken his letter and gone on a walk. It wasn’t often I received a letter. Dad sometimes sent a few lines but he wasn’t fond of communicating like that, he preferred to talk rather than write out his thoughts. Jim wrote well and had beautiful, elegant handwriting. He promised he’d write often and asked me to write back. I considered it. Maybe I might, after all. He was essentially my stepbrother and he had been good to me. It was mean of me to shun him. His mother’s wickedness wasn’t his fault and he couldn’t help the fact he was the spitting image of her. And in a way I wanted news of them all; they were the only other family I knew.
As I stood reading Jim’s letter, I saw Ryan coming along the cliff path and stuffed the letter in my pocket as he approached.
‘That from your dad?’
‘No, my brother Jim.’
Ryan face darkened. ‘He’s off to a posh school now, isn’t he?’
‘I suppose it’s posh. It’s a boarding school. Why? Would you want to go?’
He looked at me and a spasm of what could only be called horror passed over his face. ‘Be with people all the time? Posh, poofy boys? I’d hate it. Wouldn’t you hate it, Bridie, if you went to a girl’s school like that?’
‘I know I would,’ I said. ‘I’m so scared Dad will send me away too.’
‘But you can start work at fifteen,’ he said. ‘You can get a job. You don’t need any O Levels. What d’you need them for? You’re a girl. You’re going to be a housewife one day. My wife. I told you so.’
‘Ye-es,’ I said, ‘But I’d like to do the things Jim’s doing, history and art and literature if I was any good at them. Or maybe biology. That would be really good. That would be the only thing worth going for.’
‘You don’t want to end up like that poncey bloke,’ said Ryan sharply. I looked at him in surprise. He seldom made any comment about anyone, especially such an adverse one as this. In a way I felt a bit cross to hear him run down my brother. I might run Jim down in my mind, but I didn’t want anyone else to do so. Not even Ryan.
‘He’s not poncey,’ I said. ‘What d’you mean by that, anyway? He’s not queer.’
‘No, but he’s kind of girly,’ said Ryan. ‘I don’t like him. I don’t trust him.’
‘Well, it’s not likely you’ll ever meet him again, so I wouldn’t worry about it.’
I turned away and walked on, feeling quite angry, though I had no idea why I should or why I felt a need to defend Jim. Only a moment ago I had made up my mind never to see him again and even debated not writing back to him. Now I felt sure I would do so, just to spite Ryan.
Ryan came after me and caught up, walking beside me. He said nothing but every now and then he glanced at my face. I kept it resolutely turned away from him.
‘You’re sulking,’ he said.
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Yes, you are. Listen, I’m sorry to upset you over your “brother”. Didn’t know you liked him so much. Gotta learn to take the truth now and then, Bridie. He’s a mean bloke and one day you’ll find out I’m right.’
‘Is that supposed to be an apology?’
‘No. I don’t apologise when I’m right. You’re going to have to learn.’
‘Why should I learn? What am I supposed to learn, Ryan?’
‘What’s true in life and what’s false,’ he said simply. ‘And I’m the only one to teach you that, Bridie, not that poncey Jim.’
‘Oh, are you!’ I was even angrier now. I wanted to hit Ryan, he was such a smug bastard. I wanted to hit him hard.
‘You think you know everything, don’t you?’ I shouted. ‘You think you’re dead wise and clever and all grown up now … just because, because … well, because you’re growing a beard and read lots of brainy books. You’re not someone easy to talk to, do you know that? Jim I can talk to, he’s my brother … sort of … and that means something. You’re not my family, so there. You don’t understand what Jim and I have been through with Millie. Your mum’s a lovely person …it’s easy for you to be honest and good. It’s easy for you to grow up right. I wake up some days and I’m still afraid Mean Millie’ll be there ready to drag me out of bed and hit me with the poker if she’s mad at me or push me down the stairs. You know nothing at all about how nasty life can be, Ryan Waterman!’
I ran out of breath, hoarse with yelling at him. We stopped and stared at one another, there on the top of the cliff, silhouetted against the hazy autumn sky. A weird, intense feeling was running through me and I almost choked with it. Ryan suddenly took my arm, pulled me towards him and kissed me fiercely on the lips. Then, letting go, he strode off back to the cottages.