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the island—Janus Rock—offered a lighthouse,
Tom’s tall frame appeared on the gallery as he scanned the island with binoculars. “Izzy,” he yelled, “a boat!” and pointed to the cove. “On the beach—a boat!”
woman’s soft lavender cardigan wrapped around a tiny, screaming infant.
If he can only get far enough away—from people, from memory—time will do its job.
Holes in Swiss cheese. Something missing.
So by 1920, Partageuse had that mixture of tentative pride and hard-bitten experience that marked any West Australian town.
not be finishing their lessons,
jarrah
Men beetled away,
“Never be sorry for smiling!”
Windward Spirit,
the store boat for all the light stations along that part of the coast, was an old tub,
was forbidden to have a bed or any furniture in the light tower on which one could recline, but there was at least a straight-backed wooden chair, its arms worn smooth by generations of craggy palms.
carving scrimshaw or shells; making chess pieces. Knitting was common enough.
astragals
was the very heart of Janus, all light and clarity and silence.
nous.”
Tom climbed the 184 stairs to the lantern room and opened the door to the gallery.
You don’t think ahead in years or months: you think about this hour, and maybe the next. Anything else is
speculation.
humbugs, of which the late Mrs. Docherty
damper Whittnish had left behind, a piece
of cheddar and a wrink...
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It is a luxury to do something that serves no practical purpose: the luxury of civilization.
chooks’
He just has to keep the light burning. Nothing more.
Lives gone, traces left.
It didn’t take a war to push you over that edge.
“This is the Point
of Point Partageuse,”
“Your family’s never in your past. You carry it around with you everywhere.” “More’s the pity.”
can’t imagine not having children one day, can you?”
Oh, Tom, you’ve never seen such a sight as a ward full of motherless tots. No one to love them.
You might as well send a child straight to hell as send it to an orphanage.”
the French had chosen that name for this spot between
oceans because it meant “good at sharing” as well as “dividing.”
the idea of honor was a kind of antidote to some of the things he’d lived through.
“Then this is how you do it,” and kissed her slowly, letting time fade away. And he couldn’t remember any other kiss that felt quite the same.
Splitting. Labeling. Seeking out otherness. Some things don’t change.
Suddenly Tom realizes he is crying. He weeps for the men
snatched away to his left and right,
when death had no appetite for him. He weeps for t...
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“And what do you call the flash again—there’s that word…” “The character.
refract the light:
they bend it so that instead of heading
they reflect the light back down, so all the light is being concentrated into one beam, not just going off in all directions.”
“Me…” She giggled. “I’m the deadliest thing on this island!”
“Just as well you like it. It’s three years till we get shore leave.”
“Everything deserves a name, don’t you think?”
“I hereby christen this Paradise Pool,”
