Jack pointed up the beach to the silhouette of the Lennard Island lighthouse in the distance.
‘There’s something about lighthouses,’ he said. ‘As a kid it was my dream to one day live in one.’
I nodded. We were sitting on a beach at Cox Bay, still on Vancouver Island. Seagulls screeched and waves crashed as we breathed in the smell of ocean. Oak was curled up in the sand, dozing. Jack had just finished drying off, clothing himself and gulping down some tea after a cold swim. I had watched him as he bodysurfed on the waves. It looked incredible when he did that. How did he do it? He made it look so easy. We were eating our evening meal of peanut butter sandwiches, and soaking up the last warming rays of sun.
‘I guess there’s something very romantic about the idea, isn’t there?’ I said.
‘Totally. It’s so easy to imagine a secluded life, surrounded by the force of the ocean, far away from the rush, turmoil and monotony of city living. You know, a poetic life,’ he laughed.
He was right. I found myself fantasising about living a secret life with him, tucked away in a lighthouse, far away from civilisation – a place where no one would ever find us… and we’d live happily ever after… I was completely in the throes of a childish fantasy.
‘What are you smiling about?’ he asked.
If only he knew. ‘Nothing,’ I said, ‘I’m just imagining how nice our lighthouse would be. Like in Moominland or something,’ I laughed.
He laughed with me and nodded.
‘Yeah, I guess most of those childhood ideas I had in my head pretty much did belong to fantasy. I don’t know how things are now, they’ve probably changed, but back in the day being a lighthouse keeper meant a low wage, constant work, and yeah the isolation might be nice at first but after a while it might drive you mad, and you’d have had little freedom or money to go on holiday…’ he paused for a while, ‘but maybe that wouldn’t be so bad,’ he said, ‘I don’t know, I guess different people react differently to different situations. Some people like being alone.’
‘Do you?’ I asked.
He shrugged. We lay there on the sand for a while, both staring up at the open sky above us, both in our own worlds. I thought about Jack and what he’d told me about Isabelle. I felt closer to him after that conversation. And with that closeness I’d begun to feel a growing calmness.
When the air began to cool we gathered up our things and walked aimlessly along the shore. And as we walked he told me that the seas of British Columbia had once teemed with salmon, as though there was a never ending supply, and how in the early nineties the accumulation of human greed and the waste encouraged by commercial fishing had finally taken its toll, bringing the fish close to extinction. He told me all this, with dates and figures, names and places, like my mother would have done had she been here. I felt like I was in a strange and wonderful place, flittering between nostalgia and intense presence. Memories of the sweet parts of my childhood, combined with something – Jack, the road, the landscapes – that didn’t belong at all to the past nor the future, but only to a now I suddenly cherished so much.
I was overwhelmed with the feeling that this was an incredible interlude in my life. I could have never imagined any of it. Here I was with a man and a dog that a couple of months ago did not exist to me, in a place that I never knew existed either.
When I forgot my fears, about the idea that we were running away, that danger existed, all I was left with was the magic of the world that surrounded me – the landscapes, the light, the sky – and this incredible connection I felt with my two travelling companions. It seemed there were two worlds, the world of fear, and this world of magic. And I wondered which was truer of the two.
As the sun sunk towards Lennard Island, the silhouette of the lighthouse looked like a huge sea creature with a long protruding neck, on top of which was a head with two bright eyes. It was as though he had slowly risen from the sea to watch me. A distant watchful presence. And with this lighthouse-turned-sea-creature, everything else seemed to glow with some strange fantastical quality too. Like Moominland, I thought. I let out a short laugh under my breath. But I really did feel like I was in some kind of wonderland.
With my feet pressed into the sand I watched the foaming edge of the surf. It was joyfully playing a game with itself, seeing how far it could reach before it decided to retreat once again. And as the water pulled back, the froth that was left bubbled and fizzed with an intensity I hadn’t noticed before. I looked back at my shadow. I waved at it and it waved back. Between the sun and the earth stood a me. A me that was solid enough to cast a shadow. And I looked back at the sun and, in an instant, all there was was light. For a brief moment it felt as though there was not a me looking at light, but just light. Light seeing light.
I was floating in a sea of warm glowing light.
‘Look, Silvia, look!’
I snapped back to my senses and quickly turned towards where Jack was pointing. At first I didn’t see a thing, and then, out there on the horizon two whales jumped out from beneath the ocean. They danced out there for a few minutes, for our eyes only. They were grey whales, Jack told me. Finally the ocean swallowed them up, and they disappeared back into the vast depths from which they had come.
I will never forget that evening on the beach. It changed me. Fear no longer had such a firm grip. I wondered what the future held, and then I stopped wondering, for it wasn’t long before the immediacy and intimacy of my present reality bewildered me once again. The light, the play of contrast on land, sea and sky, the sound of waves, the water breathing in… out… in… out, the taste and smell of salty ocean air, Jack’s skin on mine as the weight of our bodies pressed against each other, a soft breeze. This was my world.
*
For the next couple of days we explored more of the island. As we walked through forests of Red Cedar and Douglas Fir and along windswept beaches, and drove slowly along misty roads, I felt strangely unlike myself. The beauty of this island was making me forget myself, lose myself – still on a high from the evening at Cox Bay. If I die, I thought, looking around and breathing the world in, at least I will have seen and experienced all this.
We were walking through the old-growth forest like two kids without a care in the world, marvelling at the ancient moss-covered trees that towered above us. It was a very hot day, but under the canopy of the trees the temperature felt perfect. We were both beaming. Even Oak seemed happier than usual. I couldn’t remember a time I’d ever smiled so much. Jack tried to describe some of the colours to me. He told me now that apart from the shots of yellow, red or brown, we were most definitely in the very heart of the Kingdom of Green. God, how I longed to see what he could see!
‘Some of these will be almost a thousand years old,’ he said as he walked up to a tall Western Red Cedar and patted the trunk with his hand.
I walked up to the tree and looked up.
‘I feel tiny,’ I said.
Once, long ago, this strong, wide and tall tower had been just a small seed. As if by magic, energy had erupted out of the seed in slow motion. Shooting straight up out of the earth, for no apparent reason other than to simply live and to be. How strange these things we called trees were. And weren’t we the same? Once just a tiny cell, we grew and grew, a magic explosion of energy and potential. Except that we didn’t have a thousand years to keep growing. But perhaps that didn’t matter. Perhaps no amount of time would ever seem enough for us anyway. As I looked up I wondered how the tree experienced this thing called time. Surely, without a self-conscious human mind, for the tree life was timeless, an eternal present. And surely that was enough. I put my hand on its soft stringy bark. I looked at Jack.
‘Fucking hippies,’ I said.
We both laughed and he grabbed my waist and kissed me. His kisses ran to my neck as we sunk down and sat under the tree. He passed a hand beneath my t-shirt and with the tips of his fingers he stroked the bare skin on my stomach… then my back… until I felt my whole body tingling and I was covered in goose bumps. We undressed each other and sat naked under that tree. He traced the contours of my body with his hands. Slowly. Slowly. Oh Jack… They ran down from my neck, circled over my breasts, down over my stomach… closer… closer…
This was my favourite thing: the tips of his fingers running over my skin. Before Jack, no one had ever done this to me, no one had ever touched me like this. Gently. Gently. Light as a feather. We could lie there for what seemed like hours on end, touching each other like this, our eyes closed, encapsulated in the silence of the moment. I’d never known sex could be so… beautiful.
Finally, I lay back on that soft carpet of moss, feeling as though I would melt into the earth. Through half open eyes I watched as above me the silhouette of branches and leaves swayed against a white sky. Rays of light shimmered through them. They danced to the rhythm of a slow breeze that blew high above and that only they could feel. I watched them, hypnotised. Jack towered over me. Those dancing silhouettes and light now surrounded his face and were like an aura glowing around him.
Time stood still. The world stopped and I wanted to hold this moment forever.
I didn’t want anything else of this world.
*
We walked back to the van in a long silent bliss.
‘How do you feel?’ he asked, piercing the stillness, as we got close to the van.
I looked up at him.
‘I actually…’ I said, searching for words, ‘I actually feel… incredible.’
We laughed.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘me too.’
All around us the forest was a lush explosion of contrast, light, shadow, texture. And if I listened carefully enough it sounded as though the forest was breathing. It was full of life and abundance. Before we got into the van, we stood outside kissing each other for a while. Then he stopped suddenly and pulled himself back so he could look into my eyes. He smiled, it was clear he was about to say something.
‘What?’ I asked, smiling back.
‘Are you sure you feel incredible?’
‘Of course,’ I said.
He paused with a mischievous smile fixed on his face. I searched his face for clues and then my confused eyes stared straight into his and I made it clear I had no idea what he was getting at.
‘Remember we agreed that we’d do the mescaline only if we were both in a really great place?’
I didn’t have to say anything, my eyes and my grin had said enough.