Wildlight (17 page)

A statue of Jesus stood on the phone stand, another of Mary on the mantlepiece; you could hardly call
them
home furnishings. Only photos—the story of his family in flowery ornate frames, set out along the mantlepiece. His mother’s wedding portrait reminded Steph of Gran and Pop’s. Then Frank the baby, Frank the toddler, Frank in school uniform, Frank with his father showing off a catch of fish. Tom’s father, older, hooked to a tube and seated in the recliner beside which the photo now stood. It touched Steph to see Frank back then, his head resting on his father’s arm. The first photo of Tom, his father hollow and grey against hospital sheets, a tiny naked newborn propped against his chest.
Thomas Lee
, weight and birth date labelled in the corner. Photos of Frank cradling little Tom, ushering Tom as he took his first steps; Frank earnest and proud with Tom riding on his shoulders the way a boy would with his father. Frank and Tom seated on the bonnet of Tom’s car. Frank and Tom together on a slipway, the
Perlita Lee
dressed up with bunting.

Tom stirred, he turned to reach his bedside clock.

‘It’s early still,’ Steph said. ‘Just eleven.’

He stroked Steph’s leg, the dip of her waist. ‘I wish you’d stay, Cinderella.’ He touched her breast and kissed a curve of skin.

A thread loosened. She pressed herself against him. She could go back to the school first thing, before anyone woke, knock on Marcie’s window. She drew her body close to his.

‘Wait,’ he fumbled with the packet. Steph lifted her body over his. Tom put his hands around her hips. She kissed him. She didn’t feel anxious or unsure. ‘You’re beautiful,’ he whispered.

Her body moved to a murmur, she closed her eyes and let it lift and carry her out upon a wave. In the corner of her senses a branch scraped at the gutter, murmurings that might have been her own. ‘Stop,’ she heard Tom whisper. She felt his body halt. He gripped her arms. A fridge door rattled, a voice, the sharp scrape of a chair.

‘Your mother?’

Tom scrambled for his clothes. ‘It’s Frank. He’ll be drunk.’

She listened to Tom’s steps along the hall. The floorboards creaked. ‘Well,’ she heard Frank in the kitchen. ‘While the cat’s away, eh, Tom-Tom?’

‘What are you doing here?’

Frank’s words were slurred. ‘Thought you might want company. Mum away, all on your lonesome. But I see you’re managing just fine.’ Frank let out a belch.

Steph dressed with trembling hands; she fumbled with the laces of her boots, combed her hair with her fingers as she moved along the hall toward the light.

Frank was seated at the kitchen table, her scarf wound stupidly around his head.

Steph waited at the kitchen door, the armour of Tom’s jacket wrapped around her. Frank blinked. ‘Stethenie.’ Too drunk to say her name. ‘Wasn’t expecting you, sweet pea. Correction,’ he held up his hand. ‘Tom-Tom’s sweet pea. But I’m his big brother so that makes you everybody’s sweet pea.’ He pulled the scarf from his head, swept his arm across the kitchen table, bowling his stubby of beer across it.

Tom picked up his car keys. ‘I’m taking Stephanie home.’

Frank cackled. ‘Helluva drive to Maatsuyker Island.’

‘Get a taxi, Frank. Go home.’

‘Home? Cheryl’s a bitch. Cheryl says she hates my fuckin guts. Not very ladylike, is it darlin’? Not very Forty Buckets Beach.’

Tom summoned her. He held the door.

‘Tom-Tom tell you our big news?’

‘You’re pissed, Frank.’

Steph couldn’t help herself. ‘What news?’

‘Top Fuckin Secret,’ Frank ranted. ‘Everybody has to sign a con, a conf—one a those. But we’ll tell you.’ Frank turned to Tom with a theatrical wave of his arm. ‘Is it a bird? Is it a plane? It’s Captain Tom-Tom, skipper, I said
skipper
, of his own Forrest Brothers’ cray boat. How good is that, girlie!’

‘Don’t listen. He’s full of shit. Come on, Stephanie.’

Steph followed. The wall of cold snapped her back into time, the moon distended, its icy light glancing off the roofs and road.

Tom drove. He gripped her hand. Steph sat in a daze, caught between her body and the clutter in her head. Her voice trembled. ‘You said you told Frank you were leaving.’

‘I am leaving.’ He sounded strange. He sounded on the verge of tears. He pulled up at the gate of the school. ‘I’ll be here in the morning. I’ll pick you up at six-thirty. I’ll explain then.’

‘Explain now, Tom.’

He took a deep breath. ‘Frank knows I’m leaving. I haven’t said when, but he knows. He’s saying all this stuff as a way to make me stay.’

‘Why doesn’t he just ask you to stay?’
Like any normal person would,
Steph felt like saying.

Tom rapped his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘It’s his way. Frank doesn’t say sorry. He’d never come right out and beg. He thinks if he spouts big plans and I don’t say anything to the contrary, that it will all blow over and I’ll have changed my mind.’

‘Have you changed your mind?’

‘I told you. I’m leaving.’ Tom’s voice sounded tight. ‘I have to wait until Habib gets back. Till his wife has the baby. A couple of weeks. I can’t leave Frank without a deckhand.’

‘Why not?’ Steph said. She waited for an answer but Tom just shook his head and stared up at the moon. It threw her back in time to Callam. Steph had turned a blind eye to her brother’s furtiveness, his sneaking out, rumours at his school of someone selling drugs. She’d denied it from herself, the way she had with Tom. Steph might have drifted along in a bubble of illusion had she not found the roll of notes hidden in her brother’s bookcase. The feel of other people’s money soiled her hands. Every fulcrum has a tipping point. Statues of Jesus and stealing people’s pots. ‘I know what happens on the boat,’ she said to Tom. ‘I know what you and Frank do.’ Steph couldn’t be a part of that.

Out and around the Needles, a steep bank as the helicopter rounded course and turned to face the island. Steph couldn’t claim to be at ease, but gone was the terror of her first flight. From the back seat she loosened her grip on the seat and looked down to a pair of yachts beating westward. The ocean sparked and glittered in the breeze, the lighthouse tall above the vegetation, the canopy of tea-trees laden with white flower. Maatsuyker had turned to icing on a Christmas cake. They flew over the weather station and house, across newly mown lawns and road. Every tree, every bush in flower. Steph saw the blue truck, her parents standing either side, reaching up to wave.

The helicopter rocked on the pad. Steph let herself catch up while she waited for the shutdown—it felt like peeling back the skin of town. It felt like coming back as someone new. The pilot did his paperwork, the rotors warbled to a stop. He opened his door. ‘Special delivery,’ he called to Mum and Dad. ‘Two for the price of one.’

Beside Steph, the radio technician fumbled with his seat buckle. He remembered his headphones then heaved himself out. Steph was next. Her parents enveloped her, squeezing her, firing questions one over the other.
How were exams? How was the school? Which room did they put you in? Gosh, we missed you. How was your dinner with Tom? It’s been like this all week. Your mother even sunbaked on the lawn. Wait until you see the mail.

Steph took a deep breath. ‘Mum. Dad.’ Steph beckoned to her friend. ‘This is Marcie, from the school. I invited her to spend the day. A rescue mission,’ she said to Mum.

Her mother gaped. Dad blinked. ‘Does the school know Marcie’s here?’

‘Not entirely.’

Marcie blurted, ‘Steph said you wouldn’t mind and there was a seat in the helicopter because a person couldn’t come and I really wanted to see the lighthouse and the island and where you live and everything. I hope it’s okay.’

‘It is okay. Isn’t it?’ Steph said to Mum and Dad.

A second radio technician carried the gear to the truck. ‘Be there in a minute,’ Dad called to them. ‘Excuse us, Marcie.’ Her parents walked Steph to the front of the helicopter. ‘What were you thinking?’ Dad said. ‘You can’t go abducting someone else’s child. What if something were to happen to her?’

‘Like what?’

‘She could fall down a cliff. The helicopter could crash. If the wind got up she could blow away—how old is she? Ten?’

‘She’s twelve, Dad.’

‘She’s no bigger than an ant.’

Mum clucked. ‘So it’s fine for our daughter to be in the helicopter when it crashes?’

‘That wasn’t—’

‘What about the school?’ Mum said to Steph.

‘We left a note.’

‘Stating what?’ Dad said.

‘That she’ll be back tonight. Weather permitting.’

‘Good golly.’ Her father was working himself into a tizz. ‘Her parents will have called the police, rounded up a search party. They’ll be beside themselves.’

‘That’s just the point,’ Steph said. She should have guessed this was a bad idea. ‘Her parents are in the middle of a break-up and her mother’s gone AWOL for the weekend. Her father says he’s too busy with the farm to come down for her until next week.’ Steph appealed to her mother. ‘She would have been at the boarding school completely on her own. I felt sorry for her.’ Her mother’s eyes flicked in Marcie’s direction. ‘Tom’s going to pick her up tonight.’ Tom had offered to get Marcie back to school. Steph hadn’t thought that far. ‘He’ll make sure she’s okay.’

‘Stellar job!’ Dad exploded. ‘Imagine what they’re going to make of that: in a car with a nineteen-year-old boy.’

‘I’ll phone Marcie’s father,’ Mum said. ‘I’ll speak to the school.’

Dad shook his head. ‘I can’t believe you would do something so impetuous. It’s the sort of thing your brother would do. No regard for consequences.’

‘James,’ her mother said, pulling him aside.

Steph slumped. She hadn’t slept. She’d lain awake through the night, replaying what had happened with Tom, what she’d said, trying to convince herself of what Tom was and wondering how a single conversation could turn something intimate and tender to a ragged, ugly screech.

They hadn’t talked on the way out to the airport, not with Marcie in the car. She’d felt Tom’s upset—his hurt at Marcie being there, a wedge between them that insured nothing could be said. Perhaps that was why she’d asked the smaller girl. No. Steph had wanted to protect her, had wanted to do something decent and nice and kind. She’d tried to give Tom’s jacket back; he’d insisted that she keep it.
But it’s yours
, she’d said. He’d pleaded.
I want you to wear it
. She’d kissed him the way you would to be polite, to thank someone for their help. Marcie had taken to Tom, hugged him like a favourite brother. Now Marcie waited by the helicopter, looking anxious. ‘She thinks you’re mad at her,’ Steph said to her parents. ‘She thinks you’ll send her home.’

‘It’s okay, darling,’ Mum called. She drew Steph and Dad together. ‘For better or for worse, Marcie’s here now. She’s in our care and by tonight she’ll be back in town, safe and sound.’

Dad shrugged in abdication. ‘I have to help the men.’ He strode away to the truck.

Mum turned into protective dove, her wing folded around Marcie’s shoulder. ‘How about we take you down to the house and get you settled in? Then you and Stephanie can go exploring while I rustle up some morning tea. You like Anzac biscuits?’

Steph changed into her favourite old shirt and jeans. The smell of Omo, sea air. Wood smoke lingered about Tom’s jacket. Steph resisted the urge to look through the box of mail.

She did her best to be cheerful and sociable when all she wanted was to curl up in the lighthouse and be alone. She showed Marcie the weather station, checked through the week’s entries made in her absence. Steph pointed out the Mewstone, the Needles. ‘Big pointy stepping stones across the sea,’ said Marcie. Marcie followed along the path, running and leaping, too short to reach the branches of the arbour. Encircling them, embracing them, a living garland wound with tea-tree white and coastal daisy, the bush bejewelled with bells and berries. The air felt cool, alive with birdsong, the drone of insects muddled on nectar.

Marcie gazed upon the lighthouse. She broke into a squeal. ‘This is just about the best lighthouse ever.’

Steph opened the lower doors. ‘How many have you been to?’

‘Just this one.’

Steph showed Marcie the canisters. ‘From the light-keeping days. Only one of them still has a signal flag inside. Want to guess?’

Marcie studied them. She shook the M, the S, the A. She reached for Z. ‘This one.’ She prised open the lid and pulled out the flag.

‘Z for Zulu,’ Steph explained.

They climbed the steps; Marcie stopped at each floor to stand on her toes and peer through the narrow clouded windows. She ran her fingers along lintels gritty with loose mortar. She wiggled her nose. ‘It smells a bit funny.’

‘Mould. You get used to it.’

She stopped at the old kerosene lanterns. ‘We have some like these in the shed.’

‘They used them in the old days, in case the light broke down. My grandfather was the light keeper back then.’

‘I don’t have a grandfather any more.’

‘Nor me. Just Gran. My dad’s mother.’

Steph gripped Marcie’s hand as they circled the balcony. If Marcie blew away Steph would never hear the end of it. Wind parted the line of tussocks along the cliff edge, laid them flat like crowns of hair, russet and blonde, silky as a pelt. How the island had changed in the space of a week.

‘Look. Way out there.’ Marcie pointed.

Far out past the Needles a bulk carrier ploughed westward. It was only the second big ship Steph had seen. ‘They must have passed by all the time in the old days.’

‘Do you think they can see us?’

‘With binoculars. If they’re looking this way. At night-time, in the lighthouse days, the ships could see the light all the way from the horizon.’

‘Could they see the light from Hobart?’

‘Maatsuyker’s too far around the corner.’

‘I’m going to be a lighthouse keeper.’

Mum arrived laden with a basket, a thermos, the old grey blanket. They sat on the lawn shielded from the wind. ‘I spoke to your father, Marcie.’

‘Is everything all right?’

‘He was a bit shocked at the thought of you flying off in a helicopter to a remote island. We had a good talk. He’s going to call the school and let them know you’re here. He’s driving down tomorrow to pick you up.’