I am the Sea Read online

  “You must be cleanly and well-dressed at all times, though your uniform is obligatory only on Sundays and for visits. Any and all infractions will be noted in your record and a copy of the regulations can be found in the library for your reference. Two rules, above all, are utterly inviolable. First: you will report to the light-room five minutes before your watch starts or when called at any time by the air-whistle. Second: it is forbidden to sleep while on duty in the light-room. Either one of these infractions will result in immediate dismissal and removal from the house on the first available boat. Your work here is of the utmost importance. Your diligence and attention to the light saves lives. Indolence and lethargy on your part will leave the deaths of dozens upon your soul. Do you understand all that I have said, Mister Meakes?”

  I would appreciate only later that this was the most he would ever say to me at Ripsaw.

  “Yes, sir. I understand.”

  He took a folded paper from inside his jacket. “Then sign this letter of acquiescence, which contains the details of all I have said. Read it prior to signing if you wish.”

  I read the letter quickly, noting that Principal Bartholomew had repeated almost verbatim what was written therein, including the question of whether I had understood. I took out my silver pen and signed, handing the letter back to him.

  “As this is your first posting,” he said, “I will give you one piece of advice: do not be idle. When not cleaning and maintaining the house, occupy your time well. There is a library. There is a workshop. You may fish from the rock when the tides permit. Write a diary if you are accustomed to it. This is a profession of habit and routine, not of contemplation. We are not monks in a hermitage, nor poets, nor prisoners in an oubliette. We are servants of the Commission doing important work.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “There are other duties to describe, not least the cleaning of the lantern, but those tasks have been completed today. Your first watch will be tonight, when you will learn how to light and maintain the lamp. Until then, you may consider yourself at liberty. Lunch is at one o’clock and tea at six o’clock in the kitchen. We eat together always. You have missed breakfast but Mister Adamson has reserved something for you if you are hungry. I suggest you spend your time profitably until dusk by accustoming yourself to the house. Unpack your chest. You are rooming with Mister Adamson. Will there be anything more?”

  I wanted to ask about Keeper Spencer, about the cause and the manner of his death, but the moment did not seem appropriate.

  “No, sir.”

  “Very well.”

  I waited for a handshake and for a moment it seemed the principal would offer one, but he turned and walked silently down the metal staircase, leaving me alone in the lantern.

  I admit in that moment I was caught between euphoria and the weight of expectation upon me. I would have preferred the lighthouse to myself, but it seemed Principal Bartholomew was no enthusiast of social intercourse. Keeper Adamson, meanwhile, had barely exchanged two words with me.

  I descended to the light-room, which now appeared a dim and gloomy place despite its four windows, and opened the door to the balcony that circled the column beneath the lantern. Sea air burst in upon me and I heard the ventilator groan in complaint. I closed the door behind me, dropping a floor bolt into one of four holes to hold the door securely ajar.

  The sea was a hammered pewter plate extending to the horizon all around. Land was just a green-brown smudge, the shore station invisible without a telescope. I was a sailor keeping watch atop a ship’s main masthead. I was a stonemason affixing the cross to a cathedral spire. The Earth’s curvature bowed before me.

  I hardly dared cross the short, iron-studded parapet to the railing where poor Spencer had been lashed, but I gripped the metal and looked down into the abyss. The tide had risen and the rock was now submerged in foaming white. Birds circled raucously. Though the sky was grey, the weather was calm. What must it be like to stand on the balcony during a tempest, with every raindrop a needle and every gust an angry hand attempting to sweep one into the void?

  I saw the signal ball (now lowered) and the fog bells dormant. I looked up and saw the metal parapet around the lantern base, which I would have to tread to clean the panes. There was some manner of measuring device fastened to the railings on the weather side. I remembered that at Bishop Rock the fog bells had once been ripped from their fittings by a wave of over one hundred feet in magnitude, and suddenly I was hungry.

  * * *

  Keeper Adamson was seated in the kitchen, an admirably efficient arrangement of wainscot cupboards following the circle of the house. He didn’t look at me, but merely jerked his head at the pot on the stove.

  “More coffee there. Bread. Bacon and eggs cooked if you want them, but they’re probably cold.”

  “Thank you.”

  “We heat the stove only three times a day so you can’t warm anything now.”

  “That’s all right. I can—”

  “And you’ll have to take the ashes out when you’ve finished. That’s your job.”

  He had still not looked me in the eye.

  I put the eggs and bacon on a plate and sat opposite him at the table. I said, “Principal Bartholomew tells me we are sharing a room.”

  He snorted derisively. Whether at the principal’s name or at my statement, I wasn’t sure.

  “You’d better not snore,” he said.

  “I’m sure I don’t. But… May I ask if I have offended you?”

  He fixed me with a baleful gaze. “You look like a poet. You have that cast. I know it when I see it. Pale. Sickly.”

  “I assure you I am not a poet. And I am in very good health.”

  “A lighthouse is no place for the contemplative.”

  “I fully intend to apply myself to my duties with all diligence.”

  “You talk like a poet. Like him. Too many words.”

  “Forgive me, Mister Adamson, but I was taught that one should know a man before judging him. That is the educated way. We are obliged to work togeth—”

  “Are you telling me I’m uneducated?”

  “I… I’m afraid I simply don’t understand your displeasure.”

  “Of course you don’t. Thanks to you, I’m going to lose sleep. You can’t be left alone in the light-room so I’ll have to do longer watches.”

  “I am sorry for that, but it is not my choice. It will be temporary while I learn, and I’m sure there is time during the day to sleep if you are tired.”

  “Time to sleep, you say? With the incessant cleaning and cooking? Old Bartholomew’s a tyrant. Twelve years he’s been here and he considers Ripsaw his home. He can’t tolerate life on land. As soon as he gets soil under his feet, he starts drinking. Two days ashore and he’s insensible with whisky. The Commission would like him to retire or at least take a posting at a shore station, but he won’t do it. He can’t. And they let him stay. Why? Because he’s more of a machine than the revolving mechanism. The copper and brass and glass must be polished. The lamp must be lit. Men may die, but the sacred beam must keep on shining!”

  I waited for the tale of Keeper Spencer, but…

  “Do you want my advice, Poet?”

  “I am not a poet, but I acknowledge your greater experience.”

  “Spoken like a poet. Well, here it is: visit the privy before you go to bed. I don’t want you waking me by getting in and out of your bunk at all hours. Also, you don’t want to be descending stairs half-asleep in darkness. That’s the way to break your neck. In fact, avoid all and any injuries while you’re in this house. The shore may be twenty miles distant, but the winter’s coming. We might as well be on the moon when the bad weather starts. No boat’ll be able to approach. Your duty is supposed to be just six weeks, yes? Well, the sea will decide that.”

  “But there has been bad weather for the last week and yesterday—”

  “You think that was bad weather? That was only the moon tide.”

  “Well, I thank yo
u for your advice.”

  “And never go out on the rock alone. I expect you’ve heard about the others?”

  “Yes. They told me at the shore station.”

  “Are you going to eat the bacon or not? I won’t see it go to waste.”

  “Please. Help yourself.”

  He moved the plate in front of him and started to eat with his fingers. “I like to sleep at three o’clock. Make sure you’re not in the room.”

  “I will.”

  I watched him eating for a moment and thought about mentioning the package the sailor had thrown to him. Clearly, it had not been newspapers. Perhaps that was why he’d been so short with me – because I’d seen what I shouldn’t have. I also wondered to whom he’d been referring when he said I use too many words like “him.” Had he been referring to Keeper Spencer? I did not ask. Evidently, this was how it was going to be with Mr Adamson.

  THREE

  I have unpacked my trunk into the drawers beneath my bunk and put my few possessions in one of the two cupboards. Keeper Adamson’s bunk is above my own, both of them curved to conform with the house’s circular walls. It is a neat little room, like a ship’s berth, with a waxed cloth on the stone floor, a small stove for warmth and two oak stools. The ceiling is vaulted stonework and there is sufficient light to read or write from the three windows. For the evenings, an oil lamp and a candle are provided.

  I now sit at the small circular table in the room. I should be calm, having described everything since leaving shore. My hand aches with writing it. Yet I am nervous and unsettled. Remembering the words of Mr Fowler, I tell myself that this is to be expected under the circumstances.

  As he would have advised me, I have opened the windows and allowed the outer air to enter, along with the cry of the birds and the swirling rush of the reef.

  The view, however, does little to calm me. These isolated squares of sea and sky disorient me with their bright vacuity. I feel airborne, as if the house were rushing through the aether with me its passenger. Or as if I were in a cell and being watched panoptically. It is different in the lantern. There, one feels a king upon his battlements, surveying all that he possesses.

  Perhaps something of the previous keeper’s spirit still lingers here. Poor Spencer was sleeping in this bunk barely a week ago. His watch-cloak still hangs on a hook just inside the wainscot partition. He sat on this stool at this table and looked through these windows.

  Mr Fowler always said to find a quiet place – a space of one’s own. This room is no such space. I would like to visit the library, but Mr Adamson has told me that he will be there reading the latest delivery of newspapers and that he will not be interrupted. I wonder what manner of misanthrope elects life on a rock lighthouse twenty miles from shore and even then feels crowded by two other men.

  Do I really look like a poet? I see none of the pale and sickly cast that he claimed to see in me. Indeed, I have gained weight these last few weeks, having eaten well. Nor have I ever written a line of poetry, though I have read perhaps more than most men.

  Principal Bartholomew is the model keeper. I may learn much from him about a life of quiet habit, untainted by contemplation.

  My interview at the Commission’s offices showed me other men like him. Everything was order, everything ritualised. Their questions were carefully read verbatim from a list and my replies noted word for word. Sombre men. Careful men. Watchful men.

  I believe I answered honestly, even as I speculated on the reasoning behind their questions.

  Are your parents alive?

  I was sorry to say they were not. They had died some time previously and I had been living with my guardian, Mr Fowler. Did the Commission prefer keepers with parents (because that suggested a stable home and a healthy bloodline) or without (because that suggested an independent spirit and nobody to mourn them)?

  What is your most recent employment?

  I said that I had recently been without work, though I had been advised that I would make a competent schoolmaster. I suspect that they were looking for professions known for their diligence, practicality and reliability. Printers, perhaps, or craftsmen used to working with tools.

  Are you married? Do you have children?

  Neither of these. Again, I could not and cannot decide if the Commission would prefer a family waiting on shore. Would a husband and father be more regular and dependable in his work, or would he miss his beloveds and pine for them during months trapped at sea by winter weather?

  Where were you educated? What branches were taught? Do you have certificates?

  I attended Mr Bond’s Boarding School, where I was instructed in penmanship, classics, arithmetic, bookkeeping, navigation and astronomy, French, drawing, dancing and general science. I did not mention the classics and the dancing to the Commission. Something in the demeanour of the interviewing board suggested to me that these disciplines were unnecessary to the life of a keeper.

  What is your present state of health?

  I was, and remain, in the very best of physical health, despite Mr Adamson’s comments. I believe there was nothing in my appearance or behaviour that day to contradict my assertion and I am sure that the Commission accepted my word.

  Have you ever been subject to spitting blood, rupture, fits or severe illness?

  None of these. I am physically without fault. Nevertheless, I understand the concern. A man with such complaints may be subject at any moment to a sudden and grave attack of ill health that could kill him on an isolated lighthouse.

  Have you ever been subject to a complaint in your eyes?

  An understandable question given the requirement to note passing ships and to read weather instruments. Fortunately, my eyes have always been excellent.

  How long have you known the person who forwarded your recommendation?

  I have known Mr Fowler my whole life, he being my paternal uncle. I have lived with him these last two years. Naturally, a recommendation for any position of importance must come from a trusted source.

  The work you are applying for is arduous and responsible. It requires great steadiness and resolution. Why do you want to be a lighthouse keeper?

  A fair question. Every man has his reason, though those reasons are often better concealed. We may be in no doubt that the houses surrounding these isles harbour their share of men who do not wish to be on shore. There are the romantics who dream of dramatic solitude, not realising that true isolation may be an asphyxiating weight. The idle, meanwhile, believe that they may sleep their way to a pension with food and bed provided. No doubt there are some sailors, too, who prefer to be at sea without the peril of a wreck before them. They, more than most, appreciate the safety of the coastal lights. As for myself, I believe I told the truth when I said that I was seeking employment with a certain regularity and repetitiveness, as this manner of work suits my temperament. My answer was well received.

  I was also advised in the interview that my employment would be on a day-to-day basis, contingent always on my behaviour and on the effective execution of my duties. I could be dismissed instantly with no wages past or future. If certified as a keeper after my apprenticeship, I would be obliged to go wherever and whenever the Commission posted me. I would be required, furthermore, to give constant obedience to the principle keeper and to the assistant while an apprentice. Evidently, my interview persuaded the Commission of my suitability, because they sent their list of standard questions to my recommender, Mr Fowler. I cannot say whether I was supposed to see this letter and its responses, in Mr Fowler’s best copperplate writing, but I did.

  Is the candidate sober, honest, obliging, obedient and cleanly in dress and person?

  He is all of these things. I believe I have not known a more reliable and trustworthy man. His steadiness, resolution and sense of responsibility mark him as an exemplar to other men.

  What character do his parents have?

  His parents, now deceased, were paragons of morality, generosity and fortitude. James’
father, George, was a librarian of many years’ trusted service. His mother, Anne, was a faithful congregant and modest lady.

  Is the candidate able-bodied and free from deformity?

  Though he may appear slight of build and pale, James is vigorous and hardy. His sight is quite perfect and has always been so.

  Do you know if any near relatives, he or his parents have ever displayed any symptoms of insanity or eccentricity of character?

  I can assure the Commission that Mr James Meakes is entirely without mental impairment and that neither he nor any of his family has ever shown the slightest indication of such ailments.

  And barely three weeks later, here I am at Ripsaw Reef.

  I think much of Mr Fowler. Indeed, it is his words I recall when I fetch the phial from the back of the drawer and take my muriate of morphia. Just a half a minim, as he recommended. Just to fend things off. Just to help me sleep until the first watch.

  FOUR

  I woke to a strange metallic whistling in the room – a hollow sound that seemed to emit from a tube.

  “That’s Bartholomew calling,” said Adamson from the bunk above. “He’s going to be angry.”

  I hurriedly stood and tried to brush the creases from my uniform.

  “And didn’t I tell you to be absent when I came to rest?” said Adamson.

  “I’m sorry. I just fell asleep and…”

  “Next time, I’ll wake you.”