Rocky Island (2 page)

Toby French was a big man, tall—about six-five—and solidly built. His dark slightly wavy hair was always cut short and he kept himself in physical shape with his daily walks and his stair climbing to get to the top floor of the lighthouse at least twice a day. Partly because of his height and his erect carriage, he was the type of man who drew attention when he walked into a room, yet his actions did nothing at all to call attention to himself.

There was one other person Toby talked to about his decision. He had been what the locals called in the old-fashioned terminology “keeping company” with Allison Smith for about two years after he finished his schooling. Allison was an artist, a painter who had already sold several nature paintings. A graduate of the highly-regarded Nova Scotia College of Art, she had done well at the college except for her attempts at impressionism. She just couldn’t bring herself to paint something that others had to guess at.

Allison loved the outdoors and painted canvases of the seascape of her native area in addition to a number of paintings of wooded trails and fields and streams. Her colors, her careful brushwork, her innate ability to make the scenes she painted come alive with spectacular beauty were beginning to be noticed not only in Canada but also in New England where she was already represented by a Boston agent. The agent sold her paintings for sums ranging from five to occasionally ten thousand dollars, predicting much higher sums as Allison became better known. The agent also invested the money for the young Nova Scotia artist.

Allison, a statuesque honey blonde, tall—about five-eleven—full figured, usually smiling and happy, could have had her pick of more men than she could count from high school days, through the College of Art, and after she returned to her home village. She had chosen Toby French before he knew it, and she just waited until he was ready to propose marriage. She knew it would happen. Her mother, a whiney woman who always thought she knew best, no matter the topic under discussion, kept nagging Allison to tell Toby to act or get lost, and her older daughter agreed with her mother. Allison ignored them both.

Toby told her what he was thinking of doing about the job prospects at Rocky Island the night before he went to Yarmouth for the first interview.

“How about going with me?

“I’ll go with you but only if that includes marriage.”

“Goes without saying.”

“Toby French, that does not go without saying. If you want me to marry you, you ask me and I’ll answer. But don’t ever—ever—take me for granted.

“I’ll take you for better or worse,” he replied evenly. “Will you marry me Allison, whether or not I get the job?”

“I will. I think that living on Rocky Island will make us a great place for a long-term honeymoon.” She didn’t add that there would be wonderful new scenes for her paint to absorb. Her temper disappeared as fast as it had arisen. The remainder of the evening was appropriately spent for a couple in their newly engaged circumstances.

Allison’s mother was not pleased with her daughter’s decision. Not that she disliked Toby. She had hoped ever since the two had become a steady couple that they would marry. She had also hoped that they would hurry about it and decide. Her problem was the job of lighthouse keeper on a tiny island off the coast. How would she visit? It never occurred to her that they might think her inability to visit and resume her attempts at management of her daughter’s life was a good thing. How would they visit? What about emergencies? Allison received more than enough objections to the scheme.

Aubrey Smith, a coastal fisherman as was Toby’s father, was a taciturn man, not given to making more than trenchant comments in few words, and his reaction was in character when he learned about his daughter’s plans. He left the objections to his wife and said only, “Well, if that’s what you two young people want to do, then you’re old enough to decide. It wouldn’t do for me, but I’m not you and Toby.”

Irene Smith had one more objection. Toby was hired during the first week in June and would begin work on July 15. “That doesn’t give us time to arrange a wedding.”

“Mother, we have plenty of time. There will be only family and no big fuss over our wedding. We don’t want and I won’t attend a big formal expensive wedding, so let that be the end of the matter.”

Irene knew when her determined daughter had bested her, but she didn’t give in quietly. A wedding was her chance to shine socially in the village and she didn’t want to miss it. After several more token objections, Irene conceded and on the afternoon of July 14 had sat in the front row of the small Barrington Passage church along with about thirty other family members and close friends, and watched her daughter marry Toby French. Toby, his tall and muscular frame clothed in a new navy blue suit purchased off the rack in Yarmouth, a red rose in the lapel, had stood with the minister and his father, the best man, watching his honey blonde bride walk down the aisle, her carriage magnificent, her smile radiating happiness. Just watching her approach made Toby’s heart flip to a different rhythm. Allison was accompanied by her father and preceded by her older sister Marie, the Matron of Honor. Allison wore a street-length white dress and carried a bouquet of red roses. The dress emphasized both her height and her trim figure.

The reception that followed the simple ceremony was equally without pretence and the couple left as soon as they could decently get away to begin their marriage. They drove off in a Ford half-ton truck with a club cab, owned by one of Toby’s friends. All their worldly goods, including Allison’s painting supplies, which were to be transported to the island, were packed in the truck, ready to be delivered to the airport at Yarmouth where the Department of Transport helicopter would fly them and the newlyweds to Rocky Island next day. They spent their wedding night at a nearby motel. Sleep was not a large part of the agenda until other matters had been sufficiently attended to. Sleep finally claimed them and from that night on, Allison slept in Toby’s arms, sometimes spoon fashion, sometimes face to face. After a few days, his right arm no longer grew numb during the night. She never complained that the black mat of hair on his chest tickled her face, and he was never bothered by stray wisps of her silky blonde hair in
his
face. That sleeping pattern of their bodies became their constant sleeping pattern for years.

Neither Toby nor Allison had ever flown in any kind of aircraft. The early morning helicopter ride was exciting for them. The chopper was a large federal Transport Canada helicopter based in Yarmouth. It would make regular monthly trips for resupply, and should one or the other need to leave the island, would be their method of transportation. A Zodiac inflatable boat with its heavy-duty outboard engine was kept on the island for the lighthouse keeper’s use and generally would be for emergencies only.

On their arrival, they were met by the retiring keeper and his wife. The chopper waited on the concrete landing pad while the men unloaded the various items of cargo and took on what was to be shipped out while the outgoing keeper showed Toby around and his wife performed a similar duty with Allison and the house. After about four hours, the new keeper and his new bride were alone, watching the helicopter disappear over the horizon.

Toby had turned to Allison. “Well?”

“We’re here.”

“Going to be okay?”

“Of course.”

“What’s first?”

“Bed—just as soon as I get it made up.”

“I’ll help.”

They never did have lunch that day. In fact, Toby just got to the lighthouse in time to turn the light on by the half-hour before sunset deadline. His first time performing that chore, he spent longer at it then he would do as he got used to the task. When he returned, supper was on the table. They ate one-handed, holding hands, and without washing dishes, were back in bed an hour later. As Allison had predicted, Rocky Island was an ideal spot for a honeymoon.

For some reason that he couldn’t have explained, even had he cared to do so, these thoughts of five years of joyful marriage and satisfactory work as a lighthouse keeper were occupying Toby’s mind as he tramped along his daily walk on the path around the island.

CHAPTER TWO

When he returned to the house, Toby saw that Allison was doing laundry. He poured himself a cup of coffee and walking up behind her, gave her a one-armed hug. The noise of the washer had hidden the sound of his coming and the unexpected hug caused her to jump so that he almost spilled his coffee. She took his cup, then snuggled herself into him to hug him back and raise her head for a kiss. Toby could tell when she pressed herself against him that she was not wearing a bra, her signal that her monthly period was over.

“Storm coming,” he said. “You may not have time to get that wash dry outside.”

“Well, I’ll begin outside and finish it inside. Have you heard the forecast?”

“Nope. Just finished my tour and noticed the calm sea and the colour of the sky. I’m just going in to get the forecast now. Stormy weather is a good time for staying inside and making love.”

He grinned and gave her a squeeze.

“I think so, too, but first things first. Go away and let me finish this wash or it won’t get done because I’ll be busy with something else.”

Toby laughed and went to the room they had fixed up as an office and used the satellite telephone to call the Marine weather office in Halifax. The report was not good. The forecaster said that Rocky Island would likely have winds of seventy to eighty knots, gale force winds, and high seas during the twelve to eighteen hours starting about two o’clock or soon after that.

“Any shipping in the area?” inquired Toby.

“Just the local fishermen. Search and Rescue is trying to notify them all, but there’s a couple not responding to the radio calls. No large commercial shipping reported within fifty miles of you.”

Toby thanked the forecaster and went back to his wife. “Hey, Allie, the forecaster says the storm will begin about two this afternoon. I’m going down to check on the generator and the windmill. If you get your wash out right way, it might get at least partly dry. It’s nine-thirty now.”

“Take this basket then and hang up what’s in it on your way. That’ll help.”

After hanging up the clothes from the basket on the clothesline, Toby went to the windmill and pulled open the steel door to the box that gave bad weather protection to the huge gears installed to turn the generating turbine. He pulled the lever that put the big sails into a neutral free wheeling selection so the winds would just turn them without causing them the extra pressure of pulling against the generator. Then he started up the diesel and let it run for ten minutes until he was satisfied that it would be okay when called on later in the day.

On his return to the house, he picked up the laundry basket on the way. Before going inside, he walked around the building, making sure that everything was battened down for the bad weather. Inside, he went to the office and entered in the day’s log all the preparations he had made for the storm and turned on the marine radio and scanner, turning up the volume so that he would hear any messages that might pertain to vessels in his area. When the satellite phone rang, the call was from the Transport Department in Yarmouth. The Officer in Charge wanted to make sure that he was aware of the storm and to remind him that the helicopter would be delayed on its regular flight to Rocky Island the next day if it was called on for search and rescue operations.

The first rain began to fall shortly before one-thirty. Toby went out with Allison to bring in the almost dry wash, and then headed for the lighthouse. First, he started the big diesel, and set the switch that turned on the generator. When he had climbed the five flights of stairs to the lighthouse cab, he could see that the visibility was markedly down, confirming his ground level observation, so he turned on the light which immediately began its 360 degrees a minute turn, humming in its track as it moved. The red beacon on top of the light casing flashed its Rocky Island identification in Morse code: dot dash dot, followed by two more dots was confusing because of the steady stream of flashing short red “blinks”, but RI was what had been assigned and that’s what the light flashed.

Before he left the lighthouse after a half hour of making sure that everything was working properly, Toby noticed that not only had the rain become a downpour but that the wind had also freshened considerably. The blow was driving in from the east, making the rain slant from that direction as well. The gauge from the anemometer on top of the lighthouse told him that the wind speed was already gusting to sixty knots. He could see that even the scrub evergreen trees were whipping in the ever increasing wind, trees that managed to survive on the sparse ground covering the island. When he had left the house, a few hundred yards away, he had not put on his slicker and boots or his souwester, so by the time he got back indoors, he was soaked through to his skin. He stopped inside the door in the small entry hall and began to strip off his wet clothing. Allison came to the kitchen door and looked at him.

“You cold?”

“Bethcha’ life I am. Got some coffee?”

“Yup, and something better, too.”

“What’s that?”

“Me.”

“I’ll have some of both.”

They stayed in bed, their occupation with each other so strong that the sound of the ferocious storm beating against the other side of their bedroom wall hardly penetrated their conscious thoughts, until well past six o’clock. Even after five years their mutual ardour had not cooled a bit and living on an otherwise uninhabited island had given them both room and time to make totally uninhibited love whenever and wherever they liked, indoors or out.

At one point on this particular afternoon, Allison murmured in his ear, “How many times do you think we’ve done this?”

“Who’s counting? Probably getting close to a thousand.”

“Well let’s make it a thousand and one while we’re at it.”

They did. In fact they reached a thousand and three.