CHAPTER 19
‘AT LEAST IF we can win this one, it won’t be a complete washout,’ said Bluey. The Australian cricket team had lost the first four test matches of the 1928/29 Ashes series on home ground, and the March boat arrived while the final test was still going on in Melbourne. Bluey had been regaling Tom with highlights as they did the unloading. ‘Bradman got his century. Still not out. Gave Larwood all sorts of trouble, the paper said. I tell you what, though – the match’s been going four days already. Looks like we’re in for a long one this time.’
While Ralph went to the kitchen to deliver another of Hilda’s regular presents to Lucy, Tom and the deckhand finished stacking away the last of the flour sacks in the shed.
‘I got a cousin works there, you know,’ Bluey said, nodding at the stencil of the Dingo brand on the calico.
‘Up at the flour mill?’ asked Tom.
‘Yeah. Reckons it pays good. And all the free flour he wants.’
‘Every job’s got its perks.’
‘Sure. Like I get as much fresh air as I can breathe, and as much water as I need to swim in.’ Bluey laughed. He looked round, to be sure there was no sign of the skipper. ‘Reckons he can get me a job there any time I want.’ He paused. ‘Or sometimes, I think of working – in a grocer’s, maybe,’ he said, making the jump in subject with a studied, casual tone.
This wasn’t like Bluey. Occasionally he’d discuss the Sheffield Shield results, or report winning a bit of money on the horses. He’d talk about his brother Merv, who’d died on the first day at Gallipoli, or the formidable Ada, his widowed mother. Tom sensed something different today. ‘What’s brought this on?’
Bluey gave one of the sacks a kick to straighten it. ‘What’s it like, being married?’
‘What?’ Tom was startled at the change of tack.
‘I mean – is it good?’
Tom kept his eyes on the inventory. ‘Something you want to tell me, Blue?’
‘No.’
‘Righto,’ Tom nodded. If he waited long enough, the story would make sense. It usually did. Eventually.
Bluey straightened another sack. ‘Her name’s Kitty. Kitty Kelly. Her dad owns the grocer’s. We’ve been walking out together.’
Tom raised his eyebrows and gave a smile. ‘Good for you.’
‘And I – well, I don’t know – I thought maybe we should get married.’ The look on Tom’s face prompted him to add, ‘We don’t have to get married. It’s nothing like that. Struth, we’ve never even – I mean, her dad keeps a pretty close eye on things. And her mother. So do her brothers. And Mrs Mewett’s her mum’s cousin, so you know what the family’s like.’
Tom laughed. ‘So what’s your question?’
‘It’s a big step. I know everyone does it eventually, but I just wondered – well, how you know …’
‘I’m hardly a full bottle on it. Only been married the once and I’m still getting the hang of it. Why don’t you ask Ralph? He’s been hitched to Hilda since Methuselah was a boy; raised a couple of kids. Seems to have made a fair job of it.’
‘I can’t tell Ralph.’
‘Why not?’
‘Kitty reckons that if we get married I’ll have to give up working on the boat, and come and work in the grocery business. Reckons she’s too scared I’ll get drowned one day and not come home from work.’
‘Cheery sort of soul, eh?’
Bluey looked worried. ‘But, you know, seriously. What’s it like being married? Having a kid and all that?’
Tom ran his hand through his hair as he considered the question for some time, deeply uneasy. ‘We’re hardly your typical setup. Not many families like us around the place – out on a lighthouse in the middle of nowhere. The honest answer is, it depends which day you ask me. It brings its share of good things, and its share of hard ones. It’s a lot more complicated than being on your own, I can tell you that much.’
‘Ma says I’m too young and I don’t know my own mind.’
Tom smiled in spite of himself. ‘I think your ma’ll probably still be saying that when you’re fifty. Anyway, it’s not about your mind. It’s about your gut. Trust your gut, Blue.’ He hesitated. ‘But it’s not always plain sailing, even when you’ve found the right girl. You’ve got to be in it for the long haul. You never know what’s going to happen: you sign up for whatever comes along. There’s no backing out.’
‘Dadda, look!’ Lucy appeared at the doorway of the shed, brandishing Hilda’s stuffed tiger. ‘It growls!’ she said. ‘Listen,’ and she turned it upside down to produce the noise.
Tom picked her up. Through the small window he could see Ralph making his way down the path towards them. ‘Aren’t you the lucky one?’ He tickled her neck.
‘Lucky Lucy!’ she laughed.
‘And being a dad? What’s that like?’ asked Bluey.
‘It’s like this.’
‘No, go on. I’m really asking, mate.’
Tom’s face grew serious. ‘Nothing can prepare you for it. You wouldn’t believe how a baby gets through your defences, Bluey. Gets right inside you. A real surprise attack.’
‘Make it growl, Dadda,’ urged Lucy. Tom gave her a kiss and turned the creature upside down again.
‘Keep it under your hat, all this, could you, mate?’ asked Bluey. Reconsidering, he said, ‘Well, everyone knows you’re quiet as the grave anyway,’ and he made his own version of a tiger’s growl for the little girl.
Sometimes, you’re the one who strikes it lucky. Sometimes, it’s the other poor bastard who’s left with the short straw, and you just have to shut up and get on with it.
Tom was hammering a plank onto the wall of the chookhouse, to cover a hole the wind had blown in it the night before. Spent half his life trying to protect things from the wind. You just had to get on with things, do what you could do.
Bluey’s questions had stirred up old feelings. But every time Tom thought about the stranger in Partageuse who had lost her child, Isabel’s image took her place: she’d lost children, and would never have any more. She had known nothing about Hannah when Lucy arrived. Just wanted what was best for the baby. And yet. He knew it wasn’t just for Lucy’s sake. There was a need in Isabel that he could now never fill. She had given up everything: comforts, family, friends – everything to be with him out here. Over and over he told himself – he couldn’t deprive her of this one thing.
Isabel was tired. The supplies had just come in and she’d set about replenishing food – making bread, baking a fruitcake, turning a sack of plums into jam that would last out the year. She’d left the kitchen for barely a moment – the moment Lucy had chosen to step closer to the stove to smell the delicious mixture, and had burnt her hand on the jam pan. It wasn’t severe, but enough to keep the child from sleeping soundly. Tom had bandaged the burn and given her a small dose of aspirin, but by nightfall she was still unsettled.
‘I’ll take her up to the light. I can keep an eye on her. I’ve got to finish the paperwork for the inventory anyway. You look done in.’
Exhausted, Isabel conceded.
Holding the child in one arm, and a pillow and blanket in the other, Tom carried her gently up the stairs, and laid her on the chart table in the watch room. ‘There you are, littlie,’ he said, but she was already dozing.
He set about adding up columns of figures, totting gallons of oil and boxes of mantles. Above him, in the lantern room the light turned steadily, with its slow, low hum. Far below, he could see the single oil light from the cottage.
He had been working for an hour when some instinct made him turn, and he found Lucy watching him, her eyes glittering in the soft light. When his gaze met hers she smiled, and yet again Tom was caught off guard by the miracle of her – so beautiful, so undefended. She raised her bandaged hand, and examined it. ‘I been in the wars, Dadda,’ she said, and a frown crept over her features. She held her arms out.
‘You go back to sleep, littlie,’ Tom said, and tried to turn back to his work. But the child said, ‘’Ullaby, Dadda.’ And she kept her arms extended.
Tom lifted her onto his lap and rocked her gently. ‘You’d get nightmares if I sang to you, Lulu. Mamma’s the singer, not me.’
‘I hurt my hand, Dadda,’ she said, raising her injury as proof.
‘You did, didn’t you, bunny rabbit?’ He kissed the bandage delicately. ‘It’ll soon be better. You’ll see.’ He kissed her forehead, and stroked her fine blonde hair. ‘Ah, Lulu, Lulu. However did you find your way here?’ He looked away, out into the solid blackness. ‘However did you turn up in my life?’
He could feel her muscles surrender as she edged towards sleep. Gradually her head weighed loosely against the crook of his arm. In a whisper even he could hardly hear, he asked the question that gnawed at him constantly: ‘How did you ever make me feel like this?’