The Lamp Lighter of Cape Woolamai

It was a balmy, summer night on the island. A chorus of insects chirped loudly underneath a cloudless, starry sky. The prospect of a new year had brought an air of excitement and nervousness into the house. In a warm room lively with laughter, William poured three more glasses of wine.

“Willy, not another!”

Abby, his wife, hugged him from behind and rested her head on his shoulder. He smiled and kissed her, spilling wine onto the table as he did so.

“It’s a celebration, honey. A tribute to a new year as parents.”

He set the bottle on the table, spun around and kissed her again, grabbing her waist. They swayed to the music. A gentle waltz. A gangly man sat on a maroon armchair nearby, taking drags from a cigarette and puffing out small clouds of smoke from his mouth as he watched the waltzing couple turn about the room.

“Seeing you two like that makes me really wanna find a woman and settle down. I think that’ll be my New Year’s resolution.”

The couple stopped dancing and each gave their version of a sarcastic smile. Abby rushed over to Pete and kissed him on the cheek.

“But if you finally settle down and make a life for yourself, you’ll be too busy to come over and see us!”

“Exactly! And then I won’t have to put up with looking at this bloke’s ugly face.”

William feigned offense and the other two laughed. Pete half-walked, half-danced his way to the gramophone and pulled a record out of its sleeve.

“Ah, Marion Harris. If only she was as wild about me as I was about her. Then I’d be a happy man.”

He kissed the photograph of the woman on the cardboard sleeve and placed the record onto the gramophone. Jaunty band music filled the room and Pete offered a hand to Abby. She curtseyed playfully and they danced to the music, chuckling loudly.

William sat on the table and sipped some wine from his glass. It was his turn to watch this time. His focus was on Abby. He noted the way her curly, brown hair fell over her face, how her hazel eyes sparkled in the dim candlelight, how her dimples sat perfectly above her charming smile.

Suddenly he felt like throwing up. He began to pick at a rash on his forearm. A recent anxious habit. The other two were now singing loudly above the music, too distracted to notice.

William opened a window, took a breath of fresh air and looked up into the black sky at the luminous moon. It was a half-moon tonight. Seven days away from being full. He pulled down the window and threw his weight into the chair as he sat.

He watched Abby again, took another sip of the bitter wine and made the same promise he’d made to himself countless times over the past few months.

I have to change.

No more cheating.

*

Several hours earlier, as the sky began to darken, William slipped into his brown leather boots, grabbed his flat cap and headed out the front door to find Pete approaching the house. He’d arrived early, offering to accompany William in the lighting of the lamps. William accepted the offer warmly.

The two men set off on the arduous walk following the hints of a path through the high grasses. They passed black trees that rose from the ground like lightning bolts, their leafless branches forking off in all directions. Crows cawed and circled above, flying down and clustering to scavenge the meat of dead marsupials. Pete kicked a stone nearby.

“So, how’s all the father stuff going? It’s been, what, a good two months now?”

He turned to face William.

“And you can be honest, mate. Not here to judge.” He slapped William on the shoulder and winked. William grinned.

“Honestly, Evie’s great. I was worried about being a father at first but as soon as I saw her I knew that I’d do whatever it took to make her happy.”

“And Abby?”

“Abby’s good.”

They stopped talking and the lively sounds of nature amplified; the trampling of grass beneath their boots, chirruping birds from above, distant waves below the hills.

“That’s all?” Pete finally asked. “Abby’s just good?”

William focussed his eyes on the path ahead as he spoke.

“Yeah, Abby and I are alright. It’s just now that Evie’s finally here she thinks it’d be better if we sold the house and the farm and moved into town instead.”

“Why?”

“Closer to family. Plus, the farm’s not making as much money as it used to.”

“Ah.”

William and Pete reached the first beacon point. A basic wooden scaffolding stood near the cliff’s edge, a podium on its highest level. Atop the podium rested a cylindrical, brass lantern about the size of a small keg. William climbed the ladder of the scaffolding, struck a match and lit the wick. A magnificent, bright orange flame ignited inside the lantern and grew bigger as William adjusted a brass dial on its side. Once William’s feet were on dirt again Pete pressed further.

“And you don’t want that? To move into town?”

William couldn’t meet Pete’s gaze.

“Nah. I like the farm. I like this job too.” He nodded towards the lantern.

“Yeah, but you’d get a fair bit of money selling the farm. And you could always get a building job with me. I’m loving it. Good pay and the boss’ll send you home early sometimes and-.”

“Yeah but I like doing this job here.”

Pete gave him a sympathetic smile.

“Mate, I get that but it’s just a small side job. You’ve got a kid now. Don’t you want Evie to have the best future possible?”

Trepidation washed over him. He knew that Pete was being logical. He just couldn’t admit why he really needed to stay. That mysterious woman. Her allure. It tore him up inside to acknowledge the hold she had over him.

*

The first time he saw her was about five months ago. William made the walk to the beacon points, as he did every night, braving icy winter winds that stung his ears and nose.

When he reached the clifftop, he became temporarily deafened by the wind. It was fiercer here. He lit the wick of the second lantern, closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of salt for some time, feeling the infinite expanse of water in front of him. When he opened them again he saw that the first stars had appeared, white shimmering dots contrasted against a blanket of purple. The moon, glowing and full, was reflected in white fragments over the moving waves. He watched them until they crashed upon a thin sliver of grey sand which snaked around the edges of the red rocks below. The tide was strangely low, he observed.

A blurred figure darted between the bushes near the shore, escaping his peripheral vision. A creature of some sort.

Probably a bloody wallaby.

As the thought struck him, he glimpsed what he believed to be a human leg disappearing into the rocks below, almost silver in the moonlight.

“Hello?” he shouted towards the beach. “Can you hear me?”

He moved cautiously down the steep cliff.

“Do you need help?”

He heard no reply except for the wind which had now quietened down to a whisper.

“Bloody hell,” he said to nobody.

William skidded on dirt and small stones as he descended the cliff, scraping his legs on shrubs and hoping to high heavens that he wasn’t disturbing the nest of a snake.

Eventually, his boots hit sand and the water’s edge was only a step away. Small waves lapped onto the sand at a steady tempo.

He took a moment to find his breath and balance and then clambered across the stones to where the leg had disappeared to. He discovered a thin crevice wedged between two large rocks. Turning his body, William squeezed between the rocks and found himself in a small, dank cave. The smell of mould and salt water permeated the space. A spider scurried along the ridged walls to his right and he followed it until it disappeared into the darkness. After a few seconds his eyes adjusted.

He saw the curved silhouette of woman, a shade lighter than the black of the cave behind her. William jumped back in fright and the figure stepped forward towards him. He could see her more clearly here in the moonlight. Her hair was dark brown and fell over her shoulders, sticking to her glossy skin like wet seaweed. It seemed to be tangled in parts but on closer inspection he saw that it was twisted through seashells and sticks which hung like sinkers on fishing line. He noticed was that she wore no clothes. She looked at him through her violet eyes, daring him to say something. William accepted the challenge.

“Ma’am, I don’t… don’t know who you are but... you-.” He stopped, deciding to project an illusion of confidence after failing to source the real thing.

“You don’t wanna be down here once the tide comes properly in.”

She laughed at him, throwing her tangled hair behind her shoulder. The woman shortened the distance between herself and William. She spoke to him not in words, but through a discordant melody. William felt something rise from his feet, up through his chest and into his brain. He was giddy, lighter than air, as if somebody had pumped his body full of helium. They found themselves, nose to nose. She reached up and held his cheeks in her hands. She kissed him. He kissed her back and they spent the next few hours lost in each other.

*

William awoke the next morning in his bed, a strip of sunlight shining through the curtain into his eyes. He turned over and found Abby dozing beside him spooning Evie, both in a peaceful sleep. Dread sat in his stomach like a piece of lead. He climbed out of bed, put on his boots and left the house.

As he walked to the clifftop to extinguish the lamps at sunrise, visions of last night festered in his mind like a bad sore. He remembered walking back to his house from the cave. He remembered the woman too. The enigma that she was. Their intimacy. But the memories were stained with a filter. A filter whose image had been streaked and blurred and he couldn’t be sure that any of it really happened even though he knew it had.

But in the soberness of daylight it was easy to compartmentalise this memory, and the ones that were to follow it in the coming months. So that’s exactly what William did as he snuffed out the flames in the lamps. He compartmentalised. And each time he met with the woman in the cave he promised himself that this would be the last time it happened.

But it never was.

*

Tat-tat-tat

Tat-tat-tat

A polite tapping on the front door shook William out of a daydream. He opened the front door to find a short, old man standing in a pinstriped suit, a black bowler hat atop his balding head. The voice, chirpy and light.

“Good evening Mr Carter. How’re you?”

William was startled at the visitor’s presence but maintained his cool.

“Mayor Anderson! I’m well thanks, and yourself?”

“Yes, good, good.”

The mayor looked up and squinted at the sky.

“Lovely evening. How was your New Years?” He looked back at William.

“We kept it small, relatively quiet, but it was still good.”

“Ah yes, because of the baby I imagine.”

William nodded.

“Anyway, have you got a minute? Need to discuss some business with you.”

“Of course.”

William stepped aside to let the Mayor into the house. Abby was in the kitchen nursing Evie and after exchanging more pleasantries the adults took their seats at the dining room table.

Driven by anxiety, William switched the topic to more serious matters.

“Mayor Anderson, what business did you want to discuss today? Is it to do with the farm?”

“No, no. Not the farm. It’s to do with your lamp lighting job.”

William’s face dropped and he attempted to mould back his composure through his expression. The mention of the lamps had put him on alert. He muzzled his fear.

“Oh. What’s going on with the lamp lighting?” he asked and exchanged a confused face with Abby across the table. Evie was sitting on her lap, giggling at William.

“I’ll just cut to the chase then. We don’t need you to light the lamps anymore. I’m very grateful you took the job and it made sense because of where you lived but-.”

“Who’s gonna light them then?” William asked with vexation, more than he’d intended. It didn’t go unnoticed by the others.

“Can’t have boats crashing into the cliffs, can we?”

“No... we can’t,” replied the Mayor.

“Anyway… it’ll probably be Jimmy and Tom. They take care of those gas beacons we installed at the Nobbies a few years back so they’ll probably do the ones at Cape Woolamai too. Oh yeah, we’re finally getting gas beacons here, I forgot to mention. About bloody time too.”

Abby’s countenance lightened upon hearing the news. William picked at the wood of the table’s edge, eyebrows lowered and mouth upturned. Images of other men with the mysterious woman flashed into his mind. Scenes of their bodies writhing on the rocky, cave floor played out in his imagination.

“Darling. This could be a good push for us. Finally sell the farm and move into town like I’ve said before. There’s no reason to be out here anymore.”

Her tone was hopeful. She looked at him with her shimmering eyes. William felt his blood chill. Guilt strained his lungs making it harder to breathe. He ignored the tightness in his chest.

“No, I still think it’s best to stay here anyway.”

“But William, I think it’d be better for Evie to be closer to family. Willy, it’d be easier for me to be closer to family.”

She placed her hand on his arm and he felt his rash flare up. William smothered a grimace. The Mayor, sensing that his presence was no longer welcome, rose from his chair, gave a polite goodbye, and offered to help the family in any way he could whilst they digested the news. He exited the house, leaving the door wide open behind him. A draught blew through the hallway. After a silence, William spoke to the table.

“I still think we should stay here.”

Abby looked perplexed.

“I don’t understand William. It doesn’t make sense for us to be here anymore. The farm’s not making much money and you’ve just lost your other job. Don’t you want the best for Evie?”

William stood up and slammed his palms onto the table.

“It’s not negotiable.”

Evie started crying.

“What’s wrong with you?” Abby asked, eyes wide with furious concern.

William didn’t answer the question. He was distracted by the sound of the wind coming through the house which had now picked up. It carried with it a faint whistle, an eerie dissonance.

Panic gripped William and he rushed out into the front yard. The sky was beginning to darken. He needed to leave. He walked away from the house. Abby stood at the door with a teary Evie.

“William! Where are you going? Come back!”

The wind drowned her out until all he could hear was a muffling of words. He followed the dusty track towards the beacons, passing the charcoal trees and circling crows and the animal carcasses scattered throughout the grass. The whistling gale became stronger as he approached the second beacon point. He stood at the edge of the cliff and stretched his arms out wide, letting the wind push him wherever it wanted to. He smiled and his worries melted into the dirt.

He spotted the woman swimming in the choppy waves below and descended the cliff, unafraid of injury. The discordant melody drew him to the water’s edge and he gave into a sudden urge to strip his clothes off. Salt water covered his toes, his legs, his waist. The horizon was no longer distinguishable as grey gave way to both ocean and sky.

William looked up to the lamp on the cliff and saw a figure had appeared there. Abby. She was waving one hand frantically in the air and holding Evie in the older. William couldn’t hear anything above the wind or the whistling melody but he could tell that Abby was shouting by the way her mouth was opening and shutting rapidly.

He found that he could not breathe. The rash on his arm flared up into small red dots that spread across his body like line of kerosene ignited by fire. He screamed and stared at the swimming woman, asking with his frightened eyes for some kind of explanation but she only smiled at him. The peripheries of his vision blurred, hyperventilation set in. He became dizzy. He looked down at his arm and saw blisters rupturing, the same with his other arm. It was excruciating. The blisters gave way to reveal blue skin underneath. The skin expanded and contracted and then split into scales. William realised what was happening and put his head underwater. His vision was clear, his breathing normal.

Above the water, the swimming woman was beckoning him over with a finger. She watched him through brilliant grey eyes. Her dark hair was the same as usual but her face and arms were now covered in blue scales. She ducked underwater, flashing her metallic tail above the waves.

William turned back towards Abby, her eyes wide with shock. She broke down and cried salty tears into the earth. He took one more look at her and at his baby, plunged his head underwater and swam down into the ocean’s depths.