The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman Read Free Book Online Page A

later.’
    ‘Mind you keep out of the sun, now. Don’t want you spoiling your skin with freckles,’ she said to her daughter. She gave Tom a look which conveyed something sterner than the words, ‘Enjoy your picnic. Don’t be too late back.’
    ‘Thanks, Mrs Graysmark. We won’t be.’
    Isabel led the way as they walked beyond the few streets that marked out the town proper and approached the ocean.
    ‘Where are we going?’ asked Tom.
    ‘It’s a surprise.’
    They wandered along the dirt road which led up to the headland, bordered with dense, scrubby trees on each side. These were not the giants from the forest a mile or so further in, but wiry, stocky things, which could cope with the salt and the blasting of the wind. ‘It’s a bit of a walk. You won’t get too tired, will you?’ she asked.
    Tom laughed. ‘I’ll just about manage without a walking stick.’
    ‘Well I just thought, you don’t have very far to walk on Janus, do you?’
    ‘Believe me, getting up and down the stairs of the light all day keeps you in trim.’ He was still taking stock of this girl and her uncanny ability to tip him a fraction off balance.
    The trees began to thin out the further they walked, and the sounds of the ocean grew louder. ‘I suppose Partageuse seems dead boring, coming from Sydney,’ ventured Isabel.
    ‘Haven’t spent long enough here to know, really.’
    ‘I suppose not. But Sydney – I imagine it as huge and busy and wonderful. The big smoke.’
    ‘It’s pretty small fry compared to London.’
    Isabel blushed. ‘Oh, I didn’t know you’d been there. That must be a real city. Maybe I’ll visit it one day.’
    ‘You’re better off here, I’d say. London’s – well, it was pretty grim whenever I was there on furlough. Grey and gloomy and cold as a corpse. I’d take Partageuse any day.’
    ‘We’re getting near the prettiest bit. Or I think it’s the prettiest.’ Beyond the trees emerged an isthmus which jutted far out into the ocean. It was a long, bare strip of land a few hundred yards wide and licked by waves on all sides. ‘This is the
Point
of Point Partageuse,’ said Isabel. ‘My favourite place is down there, on the left, where all the big rocks are.’
    They walked on until they were in the centre of the isthmus. ‘Dump the basket and follow me,’ she said, and without warning she whisked off her shoes and took off, running to the black granite boulders which tumbled down into the water.
    Tom caught her up as she approached the edge. There was a circle of boulders, inside which the waves sloshed and swirled. Isabel lay flat on the ground and leaned her head over the edge. ‘Listen,’ she said. ‘Just listen to the sound the water makes, like it’s in a cave or a cathedral.’
    Tom leaned forward to hear.
    ‘You’ve got to lie down,’ she said.
    ‘To hear better?’
    ‘No. So you don’t get washed away. Terrible blow hole, this. If a big wave comes without warning, you’ll be down inside the rocks before you know it.’
    Tom lay down beside her, and hung his head into the space, where the waves echoed and bellowed and washed about. ‘Reminds me of Janus.’
    ‘What’s it like out there? You hear stories, but no one much ever actually goes there except the keeper and the boat. Or a doctor, once, years ago, when a whole ship was quarantined there with typhoid.’
    ‘It’s like … Well, it’s like nowhere else on earth. It’s its own world.’
    ‘They say it’s brutal, the weather.’
    ‘It has its moments.’
    Isabel sat up. ‘Do you get lonely?’
    ‘Too busy to be lonely. There’s always something needs fixing or checking or recording.’
    She put her head on one side, half signalling her doubt, but she let it pass. ‘Do you like it?’
    ‘Yep.’
    Now it was Isabel who laughed. ‘You don’t exactly yack a lot, do you?’
    Tom stood up. ‘Hungry? Must be time for lunch.’
    He took Isabel’s hand and helped her up. Such a petite hand, soft, with the palm