Jim rose early and was sitting outside on the bench with Ryan when I at last staggered up. I had overslept badly which wasn’t surprising given the lack of sleep and all the worrying thoughts and emotions tumbling inside me like washing in a dryer. My head felt stuffed with cotton wool, my mouth dry and furry.
‘Not like you to sleep in,’ said Ryan turning round as I came to the door, still half asleep, looking as if I’d washed up with the tide. There they both sat looking perfectly at peace as if nothing had happened at all. For a peculiar moment, I even began to wonder if it had all been some nasty dream. I stood staring at them both.
Ryan’s face was unsmiling, his expression unfathomable. I must have looked a picture of guilty anxiety but he made no comment nor did he seem a bit surprised. In that moment my heart failed me. He knew. I could tell somehow and I was terrified of what he would say to me once Jim had gone. At the same time I couldn’t understand why he was sitting there smoking a cigarette as if nothing had happened. He always swore he would do for Jim if he laid a finger on me. With or without my consent, had been his words.
‘I don’t feel too well,’ I mumbled and went back indoors. Making myself a cup of tea, I sat cradling it over the kitchen table. It was not a dream at all. I wanted Jim to go away. I wanted him to go away and never, ever return. It was just like Millie all over again. I didn’t want this person in my life, frightening me, trying to take me over. He would never leave me alone but make me be his lover like it or not and a part of me did like it. That was the worst of it. What could I do? I decided I must make a clean breast of it all when Jim left and ask Ryan to make sure he never came back, throw him out if he tried. Hopefully, Ryan wouldn’t throw me out along with him. There was no knowing what he would do or say. I prayed his love for me would win through. My love for him was fiercer and stronger than ever. I didn’t want to lose Ryan, I didn’t!
I remembered telling Ryan a long time ago that Eve must take a bite of the apple, that it was her fate. Well, I’d taken my bite, let the serpent into the Garden. I was now cast out of Eden and the way truly barred. I could almost see those angels with their fiery swords barring the way. I would never be able to go back; there’s no way back when you’ve lost your innocence. Things would never be the same between any of us ever again. A sob escaped me; everything seemed so lost, so hopeless and I wanted to run out and throw myself off the cliff. However, I swallowed my misery down along with the tea and began to sort the washing, make the beds as if all was normal.
Ryan came in and collected his binoculars. He looked at me as he did so and noted my red-rimmed eyes. He held my gaze for a long moment but again he said nothing at all and this made me feel frightened. What was happening inside him? What was going on his head?
Looking out of the window, I saw how a fine rain had begun and said, ‘Don’t go on Bempton cliffs today, Ryan. It’s going to be slippery and dangerous.’
‘It’s fine, don’t worry,’ he replied, his voice calm and quiet.
I came out of the house and saw Jim was ready and waiting, his rain coat with its attached hood drawn up over his head. The rain was getting stronger and steadier.
‘The birds won’t come inland if the weather turns rough,’ I said. ‘It’s pointless going now. Please don’t go, both of you. I feel worried about it. Leave it till tomorrow or another time.’
‘Worried your Jim will come to some harm, then?’ said Ryan. He spoke lightly but I saw a strange, fierce look in his eyes.
‘I’m worried you’ll both come to harm,’ I said, taking his hand and looking at him beseechingly. Whatever’s in your mind, don’t do it, Ryan … .
He held my hand for a moment or two then withdrew it and stared out at the cliffs and then the sea where a solid plate of stratus clouds was gathered, a minute band of blue showing right on the horizon. Over the cliffs however, the skies looked bleak, grey and dreary. There was a long silence in which I felt my heart beating hard and painfully. I was very afraid in that moment.
‘It’s right enough,’ he said at last, ‘there’s not much point in going now.’
Jim looked from one to the other of us and a slow frown gathered on his face. I wondered what he was thinking and if he, like myself, got a sudden sense of danger in the air.
‘That’s a shame,’ he remarked. ‘But you’re right, Bridie. There’s some massive dark clouds out there. I’m not a good climber and it does seem madness to go out when it’s wet and slippery, even with an expert like Ryan.’
This latter comment bore a hint of sarcasm.
‘Not much point in you stayin’ really,’ said Ryan in his slow, measured tones. ‘Weather looks due to be stormy and this is one of the worst places to be when it turns bad. Years back one of the keepers fell over the cliffs, another ’un died when a loose rock hit his head as he was coming up the cliff steps in a Force Eight gale. That near happened to you, didn’t it? It’s not safe for you, Jim. Not safe at all. Reckon you might as well call it a day. Not much bird-watchin’ to do when the weather’s bad – as Bridie rightly says.’
Jim looked from one to the other of us. A slight flush was on his cheeks. The tension between us all was palpable, quivering like an electric storm.
‘Fair enough,’ he nodded. ‘I’ll pack my bits and get the train from Scarborough this afternoon after lunch if that suits you – if you don’t mind giving me a lift to the station, Bridie?’ He paused as an idea appeared to strike him. ‘Maybe just to pass time – and as you’re free a bit this morning – why not show me round the lighthouse, Ryan? You’re allowed to do that, aren’t you?’
Ryan considered.
‘Okay,’ he said doubtfully. ‘I’ll show you round if you’re really interested.’
‘Oh, I’m interested all right.’
I breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed a good idea and would pass time until lunch, then Jim would go and I would be left to face the music. I knew I would have to have it out with Ryan, I couldn’t bear this terrible silence between us. Better to have a row and clear the air. Ryan wasn’t the type to have rows, he was like his dad in that respect, preferred to turn his back on things. He might end up running off to his beloved light just as Sidney Waterman had done and I would be ignored and neglected just like Sheila. I would make him talk about it whether he liked it or not. It had to be faced and dealt with whatever the consequences.
The two men set off along the path towards the lighthouse door. I watched them and then with a sigh went inside to begin the lunch. My mind wasn’t really on cooking but I shoved a few potatoes in the oven to bake, picked over the remnants of some boned ham then shelled a few peas and put them in water. Sitting down, I began to sew some pieces of the quilted bedspread together, anything to take my mind off things. Flashes of last night’s encounter kept coming up before my eye; Jim’s handsome face as he bent over me, my disgusting enjoyment of it all despite my fear and shame. No, things could never be the same between Ryan and me – yet strange as it might seem my love and need for Ryan had deepened. What I felt for Jim was inexplicable and I loathed myself for it. If he was sent away, never allowed to return, all would be well. The lustful desire would go away. Ryan seemed to be keeping his temper with Jim and that troubled me. It seemed out of character, somehow.
I dozed off a little, exhausted by these events. Drifting away, I kept seeing Mean Millie’s face mocking and laughing as if she’d got her way somehow and had me enthralled, her slave and servant forever. Struggling to wake through this was horrible, like drowning and trying to rise to the surface, knowing I was asleep and dreaming of waking up but unable to move, like a paralytic case. I woke at last and put my hand to my mouth to stifle a scream. Something terrible had happened. I knew it.
I grabbed my cardigan and threw it over my shoulders and ran out of the gate towards the lighthouse. It stood silhouetted against a grey blankness, thrusting upwards into the sky, a huge stone structure which, in my confused state of mind, now appeared alarming and sinister. The door was open but no one was about in the yard. My breath came in little gasps as I ran, my limbs felt odd as if they were unreal and no longer belonged to the rest of me. Was this real or was I still trying to wake up from some nightmare?
As I went up the steps and entered the small hallway I heard a sudden shout and, looking up, saw Ryan and Jim struggling on the small landing at the top of the stairs. In the mêlée of arms and flailing fists, it was hard to see who was attacking whom or what exactly they were trying to do – but the intention was obvious. They were both fighting for their lives.
‘Ryan!’ I screamed. ‘Ryan, what’s happening? Stop it, stop it, both of you!’ It was as if I was asking two boys to stop a play fight. But this was no play. I glimpsed Jim’s face in that moment and it was filled with a ferocious fury as he twisted round in Ryan’s gripping embrace and hit out with all his force. In so doing he lost his precarious footing on the narrow stone steps which descended straight from the landing to the floor level of the main entrance to the lighthouse. With a terrified yell, he fell at an odd angle as he tried to seize Ryan in his flight, perhaps hoping to pull his assailant along with him. Instead he banged his head on the wall with a crunch, his body twisted and bounced along the steps, slithering down the last few till he lay at the bottom a motionless heap. Before my eyes flashed the memory of the day that I fell down the stairs at Millie’s home and how it had felt as if it would never end.
‘Oh, Jim! Oh my God!’
I ran to him as he lay there crumpled at the bottom of the stairs, his head twisted to the left and a trickle of blood oozing from his mouth and took his limp hand in mine to feel for a pulse. By this time the commotion had brought the assistant keeper running out of the kitchen and he stood for a shocked moment behind Ryan at the top of the steps.
‘What’s going on here? What the hell …’
Ryan had not come down the steps to see if Jim was all right. He sat at the top, his face buried in his hands, but he moved his body a little to let Alan Freedman pass by. Alan came racing down.
‘I’ll go and get the medical kit,’ I said, my voice trembling now.
Alan looked at Jim and put his fingers to his neck. Jim lay so still, so white, his eyes wide open and a look of such terror on his face that I shuddered. I almost dared not breathe for I knew the answer. Alan looked up at me with troubled eyes.
‘No use, my dear. Poor lad’s gone. Broke his neck. We’ll have to radio for help.’
I covered my mouth with my hands again, wanting to retch, and began to weep. Jim looked so still and pale. I knelt beside him, sobbing, unable to speak and touched his face briefly, a sad, lingering touch and then I closed his eyes. I couldn’t bear to see that look there, that terrible look. Jim Bosworth – that handsome, charming, greedy, ambitious man; he wanted to take silk, be a QC. Now he was nothing but a broken body. In a moment it was all gone and had been for nothing because he had pursued the one thing he couldn’t obtain for all his looks and charm, the one thing he wanted to try and possess. And that was me – Bridie O’Neill – a nobody. Was I worth this man’s death? I looked up at Ryan, still seated on the stairs and watching us. My eyes burned with the question … did you do this? … .
Ryan shook his head imperceptibly …no, I didn’t …
In that moment we both knew that we were glad Jim was no more.
Later, Ryan explained it all to me.
‘We’d looked round the lantern and Jim was coming down the stairs behind me. We came to the landing which led to the relief keeper’s room and the kitchen before going down that last lot o’ stairs that lead down to the entrance hall. I’d been explaining a point about the optics and then I got this funny feeling of a sudden. Like an animal does, this sense of fear. So I looked round at Jim as he stood at the top of the stone steps. And there he stood, his arm stretched out, his face downright evil and I knew he meant to shove me down them stairs with all his force and intention. I made a grab for him, the bastard, and he leapt back up on the landing and we grappled for what seemed a long while and of a sudden, as I twisted him round and punched him in the face, he tried to hit back but went off careerin’ down those stone stairs. He tried to pull me after him, you saw that …and that’s the truth of it, Bridie.’
‘Yes, I saw that. I saw what happened then, Ryan.’
Again I remembered my own fall down the stairs when Millie had frightened and threatened me all those years ago. I recalled her callous indifference to my pain and suffering and Jim’s look of compassion as he helped me to the sofa. My heart ached.
Oh, Jim, I did love you in a way. You were the only one who cared about me in those dreadful days. Why, oh, why did this have to happen? I would have always loved you as a brother, always …
There had to be an inquest into the death. There were no witnesses besides myself – the other keepers were busy in the kitchen at that time and heard nothing except Jim’s shout as he fell. I begged Ryan to stick to the fact that Jim had lost his footing and fallen and not say anything about a fight on the stairs. It was the truth, after all, and needed no embroidering. There was no reason in anyone’s minds why anything different might have occurred. They knew nothing of our personal drama, nor did they inquire. Accidents happened in difficult, dangerous places like lighthouses. Keepers were known to trip and fall and they were used to difficult stairs. Ryan, being that sort, wanted to tell the whole unvarnished truth but I told him it would look bad. I didn’t want Jim’s name sullied either; it would have been awful for Joe, he was so proud of his eldest son and his death was bad enough without knowing he’d had murder in his heart. In the end Ryan agreed. A verdict of accidental death was returned.
I tried to bring up the subject of Jim again after the inquest. Up till then we hadn’t said a thing about it to one another. I wanted to make a clean breast of it. I stood for a while looking out of the window over the bleak landscape and tried to picture my life without Ryan. Tears came to my eyes. I wouldn’t be able to bear it but I had to speak.
He came over and stood beside me. As always he caught my mood and putting an arm about me, said, ‘What’s up, love?’
‘Ryan,’ I said my voice faltering with fear, ‘I feel I ought to try and explain about things.’
He looked at the floor and said nothing, got out a cigarette from a packet and lit it.
‘Not sure there’s anything you need to tell me,’ he said quietly.
‘I never told you Jim tried to rape me in London.’
‘I guessed it, anyhow.’
‘And on the night you were on middle watch. The night before he died. He came in the night … .he … we … ’ Tears began to course down my cheeks.
Again he said nothing but the hand holding the cigarette shook a little.
‘Bridie,’ he said at last. ‘What’s done’s done. I guess he loved you. I love you – who wouldn’t? I’ve no hard feelings any more. I wanted to do the same to him, throw him off the cliff, I mean. I’m ashamed to say I’m no better’n him at heart, we were both the same deep inside. It’s been a hard lesson to know one’s own evil. But now I know. If I don’t forgive him, I won’t forgive myself. And there’s no place to go if you don’t know how to forgive yourself.’
‘But do you forgive me, Ryan?’
Putting his cigarette down, he put his arms about me and made me face him. Tears were streaming down my cheeks and he wiped them away with his hand before kissing me.
‘Isn’t your fault men love you. You’re beautiful and kind. You’re that sort of woman. Men can’t help but be attracted to you. It’s some inner thing you have, some vulnerability and yet strength too, brings them to their knees. Brought me to mine minute I saw you, long ago when your dad brought you to us at Longships. I’ve always loved you, Bridie, you know that.’
‘And I love you, Ryan,’ I said simply. ‘And always have. I never loved Jim.’
It wasn’t strictly true but my love for Jim was quite different, something twined inside my psyche since childhood. Even Ryan wouldn’t understand that. I didn’t understand it myself.
When I had asked for forgiveness, I had meant did he forgive me for making love to Jim. His answer was not what I had expected to hear. Did he forgive me or not? He knew I’d succumbed to Jim in the end. He had been there in the shadows, I felt sure of it. Or was I? Had it been a trick of my imagination and my own sense of guilt? I would never know any more than I would ever know if Ryan had pushed Jim down the stairs himself. Perhaps it was better that way, better we didn’t know or admit the truth and have to face those demons head on. They always said you should only look at the Gorgon in a mirror, see her reflection and never stare her in the face.
I would wonder about it all my life long.
Trinity House moved us shortly after this. The Elder Brethren could be very kind when they chose to be and realised we couldn’t work and live where such a tragedy had affected us. It meant Ryan had to go to another rock light but rather than follow him there I decided that I would go and live in Bournemouth and find us a house and a secure base. I was expecting a baby and felt it would be better for our kids to have some sense of permanency in their lives. To be honest I was tired of wandering here and there and never feeling settled. So we bought a nice little semi near Ethel Alcott, soon to be a great grandma and very proud of it.
I haven’t forgotten my wish to run a nice little restaurant some day. But time will come when we’ll all move to Cornwall. Joe and Sheila say that’s where they’ll go when they retire and Ethel wants to join them. Susan has married now and lives in Manchester and says she loves it there; she was never a one for the wild seascapes and romance of Cornwall. Much more of a pragmatic turn of mind, a city dweller is Susan. I still cook for the local cake shops and caffs and keep my hand in catering for little dinner parties and birthdays now and then. Some day I’ll get round to starting something up on my own but life’s a bit busy at the moment. I’m not in a hurry. For the first time in years, I feel at peace and contented, all the old anxieties have gone. I’ve got others to think about now, not just myself.
Remember Luke McGraw? I returned the money he lent me years ago with interest and we’ve kept up a correspondence every now and then. In the end, he moved back to Jamaica, took up a teaching job and met a lovely girl there. They have two kids now. They’ve invited us over for a holiday some time and we may well take them up on it. It’ll be the first time in an aeroplane for Ryan and me and that will be really exciting. Jamaica! It sounds so exotic. Sunshine and sea together, all very idyllic. Not that I’m tired of stormy weather and grey skies but it will make a nice change.
Andy Bosworth went on from rich to super rich. He’s outside our league and has nothing to do with us and we have nothing to do with him. I have news of him from Joe occasionally but frankly, I’m really not interested in the man. He’s a stranger in my eyes, an unpleasant one at that, for all his urbane charm. Last time we met was at Jim’s funeral and he hardly spoke to us. Maybe he held Ryan responsible in some way and hinted as much. His little blonde wife looked scared most of the time and I had no trouble guessing what sort of life she led with that bully. It was the price she had accepted in exchange for all that wealth.
We called our fair, blue-eyed little girl Bella. She is so adorable, sweet natured and pretty, the apple of our eye. After a year, I had a dark-haired, brown-eyed little boy and he’s called Mark, the image of his dad, a proper lively little terror. They are the loveliest children in the world as far as I’m concerned but then I’m a proud mum. All the same, when Bella was about two years old, I caught a fleeting expression on her face when she was mad at something that made me realise with wry amusement how much she looked like Mean Millie.
It seemed that Millie and Jim would always be a part of my life one way or another.