Beyond the Sea (8 page)

‘So the sea took them,' said Freya.

‘Perhaps,' said Torin. ‘But a lot of people have said along the way that three lighthouse men would never leave the building all together, would never leave the lamp untended, no matter what. It is possible, I suppose, that Ducat and Marshall went out to patch things up after the storm and MacArthur stayed back. That would explain only two oilskins being missing. Perhaps MacArthur then caught sight of a freak wave approaching and ran out to warn the others without putting on his outdoor gear. Some accounts also have it that there was an upturned chair on the floor of the kitchen, as if someone had left in haste. So that is consistent with that theory. MacArthur might then have tried to raise the alarm, only for all three of the men to be swept out to sea.

‘But,' continued Torin, drawing in his cheeks, ‘you will remember that Moore found the outer lighthouse door locked. Why, if he was in a panic, would MacArthur have the presence of mind to secure the door after him? It makes no sense.'

‘So what do you think happened?' Freya asked.

‘I don't know what happened. It was a long time ago and the facts are hazy.' Torin frowned, scrunching up his eyes as if attempting to see something. ‘But what I know is that the place was desolate and dangerous and three men were together there, stranded in close proximity. It can do strange things to a man.'

Torin's words triggered something in Freya's mind. It was what Pol had said to Sam when they went up the tower: ‘It can do odd things to a man's head to be in a lighthouse alone at night, especially at night, looking out over the sea.' Loneliness and madness. Was this the moral of Torin's tale? ‘So do you think MacArthur killed the other two? He was the outsider, after all, the irregular, if you like. Perhaps he killed them and then killed himself. Pushed their bodies off the high cliffs into the ocean and then jumped off too.'

‘It is one possibility,' said Torin. ‘One among many. One of the ships that passed the island while the lamp was unlit reported sighting a ghostly longboat close by on the water, crewed by three men with faces the colour of bone. The crew sounded the horn but there was no response from the boat, which later vanished. This fuelled the already-existing belief that the island was haunted, stalked by the Phantom of the Seven Hunters. Perhaps fear and madness, and subsequently murder, stemmed from that. Some said the keepers were taken by the Ceasg, Scottish mermaids; others were convinced it was the work of aliens.' Torin laughed and then was serious once more. ‘Who knows where the truth lies. Some things in life are mysteries that cannot be solved, no matter how much we want them to be. We simply don't know what happened, and we have to accept that, no matter how much we don't want to. They are the disappeared.'

Freya stared at Torin. Now she thought she realised the purpose of the story. She had to accept that strange, horrible things happened all the time – things that cannot be explained, that make no sense. She had to stop wondering what had happened to her family. She had to stop asking questions that she would, perhaps, never find the answers to. And, most important of all, she had to stop living alone on an island. But what if she couldn't accept or stop all those things?

‘You risk disappearing too,' Torin said, as if she had asked the question out loud. Then he paused. ‘You need to be careful of the past.'

Freya looked at him. ‘What do you mean?'

‘You must take care.'

Freya didn't understand. ‘What do you see?' she said, suddenly afraid.

But Torin simply shook his head. When he spoke there was real concern in his voice. ‘I don't know. But perhaps this isn't the best place for you to be.'

Freya felt a flash of anger. Now he sounded like her mother and father. They were all worried about her it seemed, even Torin – out in the middle of the ocean, in a lighthouse, surrounded only by the sea and the disappeared. Suddenly, she heard her own words about the Flannan Isles. This was not a place for men. And yet she couldn't bear to think that they might have relevance for her. She thought of Ailsa and her gift, and was sure it could not be so. No. She wasn't ready to accept this just yet. She closed her eyes, to stop them filling with tears.

Torin reached for her hand and enclosed it within his own. ‘Shhh,' he said. ‘Calm yourself.' Then she heard him mutter something under his breath.

But she couldn't make out the words.

IT WAS 3
a.m. and Freya's mind was dull, distracted. She was lying on the sofa drinking warm milk, having woken earlier from the familiar dream of her son ascending the lighthouse tower. Random thoughts slid slowly across her mind and then moved on. Marta, with a feather duster, laughing as they had cleaned and tidied the cottage that day. Eagles rising high in the air searching for prey, Torin's lilting voice accompanying their ascent. Freya smiled. Then, some of his words, spoken the day before, popped into her head.

‘You risk disappearing too.'

Her smile faded. To distract herself she concentrated on the patterns of light dancing across the ceiling, intersecting the darkness, the bright flashes from the beam of the lighthouse and the paler threads of light from the moon. For a time she simply stared upwards, watching, unmoving, then suddenly she threw her legs off the sofa and headed into the kitchen. For a moment she stood over the pan of cooling milk and watched the soft curls of steam still rising from its surface. The subtle movement simultaneously gave her comfort and made her want to cry. A moment later, she grabbed the pan and poured its contents down the sink. Then she moved back towards her bedroom.

The corridor was in shadow but light spilled reassuringly from the open bedroom door. As Freya passed the locked door of the lighthouse tower in the hallway, her hand reached out once more and her fingers grazed the lock. The touch of cold metal sent a shiver through her, and with it came sudden flashes of the dream she had had. But now her recollection was sharp, crisp, the images in high definition. Sam was clambering up the stairs of the lighthouse tower, hotly pursuing Pol, turning and smiling at her periodically, the wide grin of one whose dreams were coming true right there and then. Her face in contrast had been pale and serious, her hand sweating, squeezing the metal banister tightly as she followed them in their dark, claustrophobic climb. They rose higher and higher. The voices of her son and Pol had pooled around her in the narrowing tower, the words indistinct, a cacophony of noise. And then suddenly there was relief as they reached the lamp room, with its glass and vistas and sense of light and space. She remembered Pol speaking about the lamp, the Fresnel lens, Sam standing beside him, mouth open a fraction, rapt.

After she and Sam had looked out over the sea and returned to the lamp room, she had been the first onto the staircase, eager to get back down the tower. She had turned momentarily at the top of the stairs to check that Sam was following behind her, and she had seen something, something which, until now, she had forgotten. Pol handing the key to her son.

The recollection gave Freya a start and the images from the dream fell abruptly away. But the tingle in her fingers from the cold metal of the keyhole now journeyed up her spine. She wracked her brain but she couldn't remember, couldn't know for sure whether the giving of the key had actually happened, or was something she now misremembered or had simply dreamed. Besides, even if Pol had passed the key to her son, it was no doubt simply so he could lock up the tower when they had finished. It was highly unlikely he would have let Sam keep it. Yet something bothered her, nonetheless.

She remembered how her son had pestered and pestered her about the locked door, the lighthouse tower so tantalisingly close and yet out of bounds. She had had the same conversation with him over and over.

‘If it was up to me, sweetheart, that doorway would be unlocked all the time. But you know it isn't up to me, don't you?'

‘But why not?' Sam had wailed, at his most childlike and exasperating. It had always been one of the things he had wanted more than anything.

‘Because when Grandma and Granddad bought the old keepers' cottage, that's exactly what they bought. The cottage, no more. It wasn't possible to buy the lighthouse. The Northern Lighthouse Board kept it and they maintain it so that it can still function as a beacon for ships. That's why Pol has to come back and service the light, check that everything is working. You know all this, sweetheart.' Her words were spoken low, calmly, hiding the deep irritation she really felt.

Sam nodded, slowly. ‘It just seems unfair that we have to walk past this doorway every day and know that we can't go inside. Even though it's the most exciting part of the building.'

‘I know. But there we are. Perhaps next time Pol comes, you can ask him if he will show you the light.'

Such a thought had obviously never occurred to Sam before and he could hardly contain his excitement. ‘Do you think Pol would?' he asked, suddenly jogging on the spot.

‘If you behave yourself and ask nicely.'

Shortly after this last exchange, Pol had taken them both up the tower and Freya now recalled that Sam had never mithered her again about the locked door. Perhaps he was satisfied with this – a single journey up the narrow lighthouse stairs. But knowing her son as she did, she would have imagined that one visit would have pricked his curiosity and his keenness to return more than ever. Yet he had never mentioned it again.

Freya frowned now in the semi-darkness as her fingers ran once more over the old metal housing of the lock. A moment later she moved swiftly towards Sam's room, with a sense of purpose that she had not felt for a year. She switched on the overhead light, knelt beside her son's bed and began pulling out the boxes she had meticulously looked through over the past week. Before too long she found what she was searching for – the old copper key. She turned it over in her hands: its three teeth, mouldering and green, the loops of metal at its end, bright in the sharp electric light.

She ran back to the tower door, trying to control the excitement she felt rising within her. Heart pounding, she placed the key in the lock and tried to turn it. There was a momentary sticking, metal against wood, and then, with a grating sound, the key moved. Freya stood still for a second then reached for the old doorknob. With a creak the door swung open. Freya froze, pupils dilated, knees suddenly weak. It was not the prospect of ascending the tower – for all the wonders that had held for her son. Rather it was being able to stand once more in a place that had brought him such joy. Perhaps it was even the prospect of discovering things that he had hidden in this secret playroom, a place he had kept from her.

The air was cold and musty with a winter that hadn't quite been shaken off. But despite the smell of stagnation, Freya stepped forwards. She looked upwards, could just make out the staircase curling like a snake around the edge of the tower wall, scaling up and up, disappearing into darkness. She ran her hands up and down the rough granite walls on either side of the door, searching for a light. But she couldn't find one. So be it. For now the journey would have to be made in the dark.

She felt almost delirious as she began to climb the stairs, the metal cold against her bare feet. She concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, her hand on the supporting rail. In spite of the darkness, she felt less nervous than when she had last been here with Sam. Come on, Mum! She could almost hear the quivering urgency in his voice, a mix of delight and desperation to reach the top, not wanting to be held back by her.

She smiled and involuntarily picked up her pace a little. She passed through the first room, which was bare save for some unidentifiable shadowy items at its edges. She continued up and up the staircase, passing old storage rooms and the makeshift sitting room Pol had created, in spite of the fact that the tower didn't really need one, given the cottage below. Still, Pol had furnished it. Through the darkness she could just make out the shapes of the battered and tea-stained Parker Knoll armchairs, the tatty old rugs and the portable television set upon a chest of drawers. For the first time she wondered why the tower hadn't been cleared out when they automated the lamp. Perhaps to honour the wishes of a maintenance man who passed through now and again. At last she began to see why his visits to the tower made Pol so wistful.

The staircase did a final sweeping turn and Freya stood at the threshold of the lamp room. For a moment she simply looked at the light, revolving once every ten seconds, moving out over the Atlantic for three of those. It was so beautiful, the light sweeping out into the darkness. She walked to the long glass doors that opened onto the gallery and looked out over the waves. The sky was clear and she could tell with every revolution of the lamp that it was a quiet sea. She peered towards the horizon, mesmerised by the flash of the light. After a while, she sat down on the floor and stared out through the glass. She felt content watching the ocean, the wash of light over her – felt like she was sitting at the bottom of a well, the sun directly above her, bathing her in warmth and cleansing her soul.

THE NEXT MORNING,
in spite of the sunshine, Marta was in a foul mood.

Whether this descended upon her after Freya produced the tower key and revealed she had ventured up into the lamp room alone, or whether it came from some other cause, Freya didn't know. But Marta reacted coldly to the news. She ate her breakfast in frosty silence and then curtly declared that she was going for a walk. By herself.

In Marta's absence, Freya prepared lunch. Perhaps a roast chicken would cheer her up. When it was ready, and her sister still hadn't returned, she crossed the garden to the edge of the enclosure. From here it was possible to see over most of the island. She could just make out Marta on the southwestern beach, furiously kicking pebbles around and then flinging them out to sea. She was angry, that much was apparent. Freya's actions alone couldn't have affected her this deeply.

Back in the kitchen, Freya saw Marta's phone lying on the table. There was so little service elsewhere on the island that it was pointless to take mobiles out of the cottage. Freya thought about it only for a moment before she picked it up and checked the history. Marta had had a call the night before from a Pete on a London number. Perhaps it was the married man. And perhaps that was what she was really upset about.

Freya took plates and cutlery up to the lamp room, laid a blanket on the floor, then made a second journey with the food and a bottle of wine. If her sister hadn't experienced the tower the night before, she would do so now, indulgently.

When Marta finally returned, and despite her protestations of indifference, Freya dragged her up the tower stairs and made her look out over the Western Isles. She never tired of the sweeping views and she could tell that her sister, for all her insouciance, was affected by them. By the time they had eaten, the worst of Marta's truculence had abated.

‘So look at these,' said Freya, thrusting a bundle of papers towards her. ‘They're the soldier's letters. I remembered you saying you wanted to have a look at them.'

‘Oh, right,' said Marta, turning them over in her hands.

‘Did Mum tell you they were found in a sealed Bellarmine jar?'

Marta nodded somewhat wearily.

‘The jars were often used on ships to carry alcohol. That's probably how the soldier got his hands on it.' Freya paused, something suddenly occurring to her. ‘But now I think of it, they were also used as “witch bottles”.'

‘Witch bottles?' Marta sneered. ‘Really, Freya, where do you get all this stuff from?'

‘Well, in case you'd forgotten, my son was obsessed with shipwrecks and finds. I've been dragged around more museums on the subject than I care to remember.'

‘Oh, yes, of course,' said Marta, more meekly. She lowered her head to read the first letter and muttered a small ‘sorry'.

But Freya wasn't listening to her. She was trying to remember what she had read about the bottles. They'd be filled with objects considered to be of magical potency (pins, needles, nails, a written charm), sealed, and then buried or hidden. Their purpose was to deflect a witch's curse or to destroy the power of the magical being who had cast a spell upon the bottle's creator. Obviously this was not the purpose of the soldier's jar. But, even as she thought it, she remembered his persecuted soul. Perhaps the jar fulfilled a dual purpose.

‘Hmm,' said Marta, turning back to her sister. ‘Pretty interesting. Shall we continue with the second letter?'

‘Absolutely,' said Freya.

8 September 1653

Speedwell

My dearest Josie,

Last night I tossed and turned, my sleep dark and disturbed with dreams.

This is what I remember from the first.

I was younger, back in Dublin aboard the
Swan
, manning guns in the King's service – the days when I still loved to fight. A lack of pay and food for many months had put mutinous thoughts in the men's minds. And so we surrendered our weapons and the
Swan
's cannons and instead pledged loyalty to Cromwell.

I defected without a thought. I saw us sailing with the tide, our spirits high, my sword wielded freely and without remorse, while my hands grew ever more tainted with the blood of men I had once fought beside. I remember the sound of my laughter, the crack of broken, battered bones. It was all so lightly done. The betrayal, the killing.

Then I was no longer above the water but below it. I do not know whether this was still Dublin or somewhere else but the sea was dark and heavy, pressing against me. I saw ghostly reflections around me, dead men with pale faces, shimmering white bones. And beyond that horror there was something else in the distance. I could not see it but I knew it was there. And fear gripped my heart.

I awoke then, sweating in the darkness, with the rough scratch of the wooden deck against my body. But I fell back to sleep and dreamed again.

This time you were by my side, the softness of a mattress beneath us, the long red curl of your hair spread over the pillow. A candle flickered and the embers of a fire glowed in the grate. You asked me about my family. Family must have been on your mind.

I told you that I had no brothers or sisters and that my father I had never known. My mother rarely spoke of him, even though I asked her often, and now she was also gone. So I was alone. But I thought, even as I said it, that I had always been alone.

You nodded, smiling at me in the half-light, as if my words explained everything. Then you said that perhaps my father was also from the north, like yours. You ran your fingers through my orange hair as you lay on my chest looking at me.

Perhaps, I thought. One of the few things that my mother had told me was that my father came from far away.

Suddenly a smile spread across your face and you said we should run away together. To the wildness of the north. You thought we would be happy there, away from all of this. You said that perhaps we could start a family.

You must have felt me flinch at your words, because suddenly you sat upright. I tried to pull you back to me but you resisted. I said I was sorry, that I didn't mean it.

But you shook your head and then stood up. A moment later you turned back to me and for the first time I saw hatred in your eyes. And then you told me you were with child.

That is all you said, knowing perhaps that was all that was needed. You must have watched the colour drain from my face. Then you told me that you didn't need me to respond. That you knew who I was, even if I did not. And that you knew that I would now go away again.

Your anger was calm and cold. Perhaps that was what was so shocking about it. Then you turned your back and waited for me to leave.

I awoke to the early morning light and chill of the
Speedwell
. The taste of you was in my mouth, the smell of you on my skin, the sweat on my brow a testament to your ire. As I lay on the floor of the ship, I remembered the day after this exchange between us.

My captain summoned me. There was an expedition to Scotland planned. I would not travel on my usual vessel,
Swan
, as he would prefer a good soldier like me aboard the
Speedwell
, a commandeered merchant ship which would accompany it. Its crew was inexperienced, not nearly as adept as the one on my craft. Those were exactly the words he spoke. He could use a good man like me. To help whip them into shape. They would sail the next day.

It would have been hard for me to resist the captain's request, but I did not even try. Instead I had smiled at him and shaken his hand, taken his words about me as a compliment. But I have been haunted by them since we departed. I am good at killing, Josie, and show no regret. That is what he meant for all his nicely chosen words. And I have no loyalty. But I think you knew that already.

I have been wracked with guilt since my departure and for not taking proper leave of you. I hope my note goodbye did not make you despise me. It cuts me to the quick to think upon it now and how I may have lost the most precious thing in my life.

I make my way onto deck. The sun is not yet risen but through the darkness I can see mist on the water. What will this day bring, I wonder, when the sun burns that away? Perhaps death. Perhaps that is what the other dreams signified. That I, cur that I am, will perish here. It never used to concern me which way. Yet now I am afraid. For death means that I shall never make it back to you and our child. And, I hope, to forgiveness.

For you have brought an end to my rootlessness.

You are my anchor, Josie.

And I am your

Edward