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

covered in a fine layer of gritty sand. So delicate in his.
    Isabel served him roast beef sandwiches and ginger beer, followed by fruitcake and crisp apples.
    ‘So, do you write to all the lightkeepers who go out to Janus?’ asked Tom.
    ‘All! There aren’t that many,’ said Isabel. ‘You’re the first new one in years.’
    Tom hesitated before venturing the next question. ‘What made you write?’
    She smiled at him and took a sip of ginger beer before answering. ‘Because you’re fun to feed seagulls with? Because I was bored? Because I’d never sent a letter to a lighthouse before?’ She brushed a strand of hair from her eyes and looked down at the water. ‘Would you rather I hadn’t?’
    ‘Oh, no, I wasn’t trying to … I mean …’ Tom wiped his hands on his napkin. Always slightly off balance. It was a new sensation for him.

    Tom and Isabel were sitting at the end of the jetty at Partageuse. It was almost the last day of 1920, and the breeze played tunes by lapping wavelets against the boat hulls and plucking the ropes on the masts. The harbour lights trailed across the water’s surface, and the sky was swept with stars.
    ‘But I want to know everything,’ said Isabel, bare feet dangling above the water. ‘You can’t just say, “Nothing else to tell.” She’d extracted the bare details of his private-school education, and his Engineering degree from Sydney University, but was growing more frustrated. ‘I can tell you lots – my gran and how she taught me piano, what I remember about my granddad, even though he died when I was little. I can tell you what it’s like to be the headmaster’s daughter in a place like Partageuse. I can tell you about my brothers, Hugh and Alfie, and how we used to muck around with the dinghy and go off fishing down the river.’ She looked at the water. ‘I still miss those times.’ Curling a lock of hair around her finger, she considered something, then took a breath. ‘It’s like a whole … a whole galaxy waiting for you to find out about. And I want to find out about yours.’
    ‘What else do you want to know?’
    ‘Well, about your family, say.’
    ‘I’ve got a brother.’
    ‘Am I allowed to know his name, or have you forgotten it?’
    ‘I’m not likely to forget that in a hurry. Cecil.’
    ‘What about your parents?’
    Tom squinted at the light on top of a mast. ‘What about them?’
    Isabel sat up, and looked deep into his eyes. ‘What goes on in there, I wonder?’
    ‘My mother’s dead now. I don’t keep in touch with my father.’ Her shawl had slipped off her shoulder, and he pulled it back up. ‘Are you getting a bit chilly? Want to walk back?’
    ‘Why won’t you talk about it?’
    ‘I’ll tell you if you really want. It’s just I’d rather not. Sometimes it’s good to leave the past in the past.’
    ‘Your family’s never in your past. You carry it around with you everywhere.’
    ‘More’s the pity.’
    Isabel straightened. ‘It doesn’t matter. Let’s go. Mum and Dad’ll be wondering where we’ve got to,’ she said, and they walked soberly up the jetty.
    That night as he lay in bed, Tom cast his mind back to the childhood Isabel had been so keen to investigate. He had never really spoken to anyone about it. But exploring the memories now, the jagged pain was like running his tongue over a broken tooth. He could see his eight-year-old self, tugging his father’s sleeve and crying, ‘Please! Please let her come back. Please, Daddy. I love her!’ and his father wiping his hand away like a grubby mark. ‘You don’t mention her again in this house. You hear, son?’
    As his father stalked out of the room, Tom’s brother Cecil, five years older and at that stage a good measure taller, gave him a clip on the back of the head. ‘I told you, you idiot. I told you not to say it,’ and followed his father, with the same officious stride, leaving the small boy standing in the middle of the lounge room. From his