It was wonderful being out by the wild sea again. Start Point was situated on a lonely peninsula and had guided vessels through the English Channel for over a century. It was a beautiful circular building with a crenulated top and at nights it looked like some huge candle on an iced cake. I loved to see it silhouetted against the horizon at sundown, gleaming white in the sunshine or looming up in the sea mists like a ghost. Dad said that Trinity House planned to run the light by electricity very soon and that would make everyone’s job so much easier. They wouldn’t have to measure out oil or fiddle about with paraffin like many of the other lights he’d worked on but for the present the oil still had to be brought up the centre pole up to the lantern room and the lamp carefully lit each night.
The Assistant Keeper’s quarters were close to the light with paths between and a wall enclosing them from the fierce roaring of the headland winds. The Principal Keeper had a larger dwelling a little further away. Little terraced plots of gardens provided vegetables and there were chicken coops and a pigsty too. The shifts were on a regular alternating basis over three days and then Dad would have off twenty-four hours. He could then spend the day at home, working on the garden, the evening by a cosy fire. But if there was a foggy spell then all the men had to stand by in case of problems.
I loved taking care of our neat little house and found the other keeper’s wives friendly and pleasant and a good deal less neurotic than the ones at Cornwall. But then we all lived a far more normal life with our men coming home from work like anyone else.
‘Not that we don’t have our ups and downs,’ said one of the women when I remarked on how nice and friendly everyone seemed, ‘we had a right argy-bargy here once when one of the wives had tantrums over the fact that she felt she was doing more than her fair share of work looking after the chickens or the pigs or something daft. Stupid little things can set folks off, can’t they? But this lot’s okay. We all get on well enough. I mean, you have to out here in the wilds. Thank goodness things are a bit easier now the butcher calls on a Friday and we don’t have all that hard work getting food like in the old times.’
I was also grateful that the postman brought us milk along with the post each day while the baker would call on Tuesdays and every fortnight a grocer would come along in his van with his goods and one could order something for the next time too. Otherwise it was a long walk to the next village over the windy headland or along the coastal path. Sometimes the PK would take us into town in his car if it was his day off, but that wasn’t often. Mostly we relied on the local garage to send a taxi to take us all into Kingsbridge for a shopping trip, a real treat.
The PK’s wife was called Mary Atkinson and after we’d been there a while, she couldn’t contain her curiosity any longer and asked me, ‘Bridie, why don’t your dad let you get a job? You must be sick of looking after him. Don’t you want to be with people your own age?’
‘I’m perfectly happy, Mary,’ I said. ‘It’s got nothing to do with Dad. I choose to be at home and love looking after him.’
‘Oh.’ She shrugged and gave me a look that said ‘this girl must be daft,’ but said no more. It was the way I liked to live and not because Dad was some sort of Victorian tyrant who made me stay at home as they imagined. I didn’t mix with her a lot because, as Dad pointed out to me, she was well in her twenties with a kiddy and other interests. I was just a youngster in her eyes and a bit of an odd one at that, my nose always buried in a book. Books that she wouldn’t even begin to think of reading. I might not have been at school any longer but I was certainly continuing my education. In my own style, that is – the things I was interested in and not what others wanted to stuff in my head and heart. I liked to come to my own conclusions through reading and considering, not be obliged to absorb and then learn to spout other men and women’s opinions.
Looking back, I realise now that everyone was very curious about Dad and me.
‘Is your mum dead, Bridie?’ Walter Atkinson once asked me. Walter was a nice man, his face rough and wrinkled with being outdoors and having the wind hurl itself against his face so much. There was a look about all these men that was the same. Their faces were hewn as if from granite, hard, rough, weather-beaten, yet with great nobility and wisdom in their eyes. I thought they were all marvellous human beings and understood why Ryan felt they were the only kind of men he could trust, men of the sea, men with the wind and the waves singing in their blood.
‘Yes, Walter,’ I replied truthfully. ‘My mum’s dead. She died when I was born.’
He gave me a quick, appraising look and for a while he remained silent.
‘Poor kid,’ he said after a while. ‘So that’s why you’re so canny with all the housework. You’ve had to learn young.’
‘I learnt very young,’ I said, ‘but I enjoy doing it. It doesn’t bother me.’
‘I hope you’re not lonely, lass,’ he said. ‘We all worry that you might be lonely-like when your dad’s on the light, especially nights. Always pop over if you want a bit o’ company. We’ll be getting a telly installed, did you know that? Come over any time to watch with us. Don’t be shy about it.’
I smiled and thanked him. It was so thoughtful and I knew his concern was genuine. After this conversation, he and Mary were kinder than ever towards me and Dad, thinking us poor lonely souls in a harsh world. They knew nothing of Mean Millie or anything else and as Dad never mentioned the past, except to talk about his Navy days, they kept their illusions.
Sometimes I would babysit for Mary and Walter if they wanted a quick drink together in the pub on his day off and they were grateful for that. I soon learnt to get the baby off to sleep, then curl up on the sofa with a book and enjoy the peace and quiet. It wasn’t often that little Tony woke up, he was a contented little thing, and anyway, I didn’t mind if he did, he was so cute. I loved to cuddle and kiss him, stroke his soft little arms and legs and sing songs till I put him back in his cot. Tony would lie there with his blue eyes wide open, listening to me, clutching my finger in his tight little fist, till slowly, slowly, the lids would droop – open again – and then finally shut tight. I’d sneak back downstairs and straight into Gaskell or Trollope, or whatever was the latest attention grabber. Television never had much appeal for me at that time apart from Emergency Ward Ten or funny old Sergeant Bilko.
‘You’ll never find a boyfriend living here in the wilds,’ said Mary one day as she took Tony back from my arms. She gave me a sidelong look full of curiosity. Tony actually wailed when taken from me and held out his arms to come back.
‘Tony can be my boyfriend,’ I smiled. Mary didn’t look too pleased that Tony wanted to come back to me and not to her.
‘Not natural for a young girl not to get out,’ she pursued, ‘you ought to be making time off to go to the village hall. They have a dance every Saturday night – you could jive! An’ there’s the youth club and that. Wish I was single again sometimes,’ she added with a sigh. ‘I get tired of living here. Get really bored. Nothing to stop you, though.’
It was peculiar, her attitude. Almost as if she was angry that I was young, unencumbered and single but not making proper use of the fact.
‘I don’t think I’m the dancing sort,’ I said with a sigh, ‘and I do have a boyfriend, anyway. He’s at college in London. That’s why I don’t see him much.’
‘Oh. Right.’ Now she seemed surprised. ‘Will he visit you here?’
‘I hope he’ll come soon,’ I replied and my eyes flew off to the horizon as if seeking him. Ryan was out there somewhere, doing something this very minute, but I had no idea what or with whom. I longed for him deeply and my heart travelled along the line of my eyes, along the paths and roads and buildings till it reached him wherever he was.
One afternoon, Dad came back from a trip to Kingsbridge and he had a little basket with him.
‘Take a look, ducky,’ he said.
I opened the basket and out shot a little fluffy ball of fur, straight across the room and halfway up the sofa before I recovered from my surprise.
‘Oh, Dad, a kitten,’ I said, thrilled to bits.
We named him Stevie, after the famous Stevenson family. Treasure Island and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde were Dad’s favourite childhood books. The Stevensons were all brilliant architects and engineers who had built loads of lighthouses around the treacherous Scottish coasts. Robert Louis had tried hard to follow in his family footsteps but engineering just wasn’t what he wanted to do. He wanted to be a writer. His dad was like Ryan in thinking writing a stupid pastime; he didn’t understand the beauty of words. George Stevenson was creative in a practical manner but the creativity of mind and spirit eluded him. In the end Robert followed his bent and wrote his masterpieces and became far more famous than the rest of the Stevensons put together – which seemed a bit unfair as their achievements were pretty brilliant, really – but it made me think a lot about the permeating power of the written word which could be spread far and wide and influence so many.
Stevie was a delight and gave me such fun and laughter. We played hide and seek together and games with balls of wool. His eyes got quite wild with excitement when I dragged a toy felt mouse across the room. He looked so comical, I screamed with laughter every time. I forgot my age and was a child again, the child I’d never been. I’d almost forgotten about being a child, what with Millie and then sober-sides Ryan for company.
Dad made a few friends over at the local village and the fellows would set off for a drink in the pub or they’d all go out for a meal. Dad offered to take me too when it was to be a meal somewhere but I preferred to stay at home and read or play records on the gramophone. It was lonely some nights when Dad was off on the night watches. I always woke when he came in, no matter what the hour or how quietly he crept in the door; that instinct about his presence never left me and never would. I felt him coming long before the door opened.