Read Online Lighthousekeeping by Jeanette Winterson - Free Book Online
Authors: Jeanette Winterson
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was not lit.
If she had never lit a fire in a cold room…
But, when she slept or when she was alone, when the children were quiet, her mind spread round him like the sea. He was always present. He was her navigation point. He was the coordinate of her position.
She did not believe in destiny, but she believed in this rocky place. The lighthouse, Babel. Babel, the lighthouse. She would always find him, he would be there, and she would row back to him.
Can you leave someone and be with them? She thought you could. She knew that whatever happened today, whatever action they took, whether she kept him or lost him, it hardly made any difference. She had a feeling of someone in a play or a book. There was a story: the story of Molly O’Rourke and Babel Dark, a beginning, a middle, an end. But there was no such story, not that could be told, because it was made of a length of braid, an apple, a burning coal, a bear with a drum, a brass dial, his footsteps on the stone stairs coming closer and closer.
Dark opened the door.
She did not turn round.
Eyes like a faraway ship, Pew was sleeping.
After I had walked the dog and made the first pot of Full Strength Samson, I sat out on the deck of the light, and started to go through the post. Post was my job because Pew couldn’t read it.
There were the usual things – brass instrument catalogues, special offer oilskin coats, thermal underwear from Wolsey – the suppliers of Captain Scott’s 1913 Polar Expedition. I put a tick by a maroon vest and longjohns, and opened the last long white envelope.
It was from Glasgow. The lighthouse was going to be automated in six months.
When I read the letter to Pew, he stood up very dignified and threw the ends of his tea into the sea. Gulls screamed round the top of the Light.
‘There’s been a Pew here since 1828.’
‘They’re going to give you a lot of money when you leave. It’s called a Redundancy Package, and it includes Alternative Accommodation.’
‘I don’t need money, child. I need what I have. You write to them and tell them that Pew is staying. They can stop paying me, but I’m staying where I am.’
So I wrote a letter to the Northern Lighthouse Board, and they replied, very formally, that Mr Pew would leave on the appointed day, and there would be no right of appeal.
Everything happened as it always does; there was a petition, there were letters in the newspapers, there was a small item on the television news, a picket in Glasgow, then after what was called a period of ‘consultation’ the Board went ahead as it had planned.
Miss Pinch came visiting, and asked me what I intended to do with my Future. She spoke about it as though it were an incurable disease.
‘You have a future,’ she said. ‘We must take it into account.’
She suggested I try for a Junior Trainee Assistant Librarian Temporary Grade on a three-month work placement. She warned me that I shouldn’t be too ambitious – not suitable for Females, but that librarianshipwas suitable for Females. Miss Pinch always said Females, holding the word away from her by its tail.
My future had been the lighthouse. Without the lighthouse, I would have to begin again – again.
‘Isn’t there anything else I could do?’ I asked Miss Pinch.
‘Very unlikely.’
‘I’d like to work on a ship.’
‘That would be itinerant.’
‘My father was crew on a ship.’
‘And look what happened to him.’
‘We don’t know what happened to him.’
‘We know he was your father.’
‘You mean I happened to him?’
‘Exactly. And look how difficult that has been.’
Miss Pinch approved of automation. There was something about human beings that made her uncomfortable. She had refused to sign our petition. Salts, she said, must move with the times, which seemed odd to me, when Miss Pinch had never moved at all – not with the times nor with anything else.
Salts – boarded-up, sea-lashed, ship-empty, harbour-silted, and one bright light. Why
If she had never lit a fire in a cold room…
But, when she slept or when she was alone, when the children were quiet, her mind spread round him like the sea. He was always present. He was her navigation point. He was the coordinate of her position.
She did not believe in destiny, but she believed in this rocky place. The lighthouse, Babel. Babel, the lighthouse. She would always find him, he would be there, and she would row back to him.
Can you leave someone and be with them? She thought you could. She knew that whatever happened today, whatever action they took, whether she kept him or lost him, it hardly made any difference. She had a feeling of someone in a play or a book. There was a story: the story of Molly O’Rourke and Babel Dark, a beginning, a middle, an end. But there was no such story, not that could be told, because it was made of a length of braid, an apple, a burning coal, a bear with a drum, a brass dial, his footsteps on the stone stairs coming closer and closer.
Dark opened the door.
She did not turn round.
Eyes like a faraway ship, Pew was sleeping.
After I had walked the dog and made the first pot of Full Strength Samson, I sat out on the deck of the light, and started to go through the post. Post was my job because Pew couldn’t read it.
There were the usual things – brass instrument catalogues, special offer oilskin coats, thermal underwear from Wolsey – the suppliers of Captain Scott’s 1913 Polar Expedition. I put a tick by a maroon vest and longjohns, and opened the last long white envelope.
It was from Glasgow. The lighthouse was going to be automated in six months.
When I read the letter to Pew, he stood up very dignified and threw the ends of his tea into the sea. Gulls screamed round the top of the Light.
‘There’s been a Pew here since 1828.’
‘They’re going to give you a lot of money when you leave. It’s called a Redundancy Package, and it includes Alternative Accommodation.’
‘I don’t need money, child. I need what I have. You write to them and tell them that Pew is staying. They can stop paying me, but I’m staying where I am.’
So I wrote a letter to the Northern Lighthouse Board, and they replied, very formally, that Mr Pew would leave on the appointed day, and there would be no right of appeal.
Everything happened as it always does; there was a petition, there were letters in the newspapers, there was a small item on the television news, a picket in Glasgow, then after what was called a period of ‘consultation’ the Board went ahead as it had planned.
Miss Pinch came visiting, and asked me what I intended to do with my Future. She spoke about it as though it were an incurable disease.
‘You have a future,’ she said. ‘We must take it into account.’
She suggested I try for a Junior Trainee Assistant Librarian Temporary Grade on a three-month work placement. She warned me that I shouldn’t be too ambitious – not suitable for Females, but that librarianshipwas suitable for Females. Miss Pinch always said Females, holding the word away from her by its tail.
My future had been the lighthouse. Without the lighthouse, I would have to begin again – again.
‘Isn’t there anything else I could do?’ I asked Miss Pinch.
‘Very unlikely.’
‘I’d like to work on a ship.’
‘That would be itinerant.’
‘My father was crew on a ship.’
‘And look what happened to him.’
‘We don’t know what happened to him.’
‘We know he was your father.’
‘You mean I happened to him?’
‘Exactly. And look how difficult that has been.’
Miss Pinch approved of automation. There was something about human beings that made her uncomfortable. She had refused to sign our petition. Salts, she said, must move with the times, which seemed odd to me, when Miss Pinch had never moved at all – not with the times nor with anything else.
Salts – boarded-up, sea-lashed, ship-empty, harbour-silted, and one bright light. Why
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