The Lamplighters

by Emma Stonex

What secrets a lighthouse could tell. The men’s were buried underwater, like hers.

Nothing changed, in the aftermath of loss. Songs kept getting written. Books kept getting read. Wars didn’t stop. You saw a couple arguing by the trolleys at Tesco before getting in the car and slamming the door. Life renewed itself, over and over, without sympathy.

Occam’s razor, it’s called. The law that says the simplest solution is usually right. If you’ve got a mystery, don’t go complicating it beyond the sum of its parts.

In all my years I’ve realized there are two kinds of people. The ones who hear a creak in a dark, lonely house, and shut the windows because it must have been the wind. And the ones who hear a creak in a dark, lonely house, light a candle, and go to take a look.

It’s the small things that keep a marriage going: things that don’t cost a lot but that tell the other person you love them and don’t ask for anything in return.

The time I think of you the most is when the sun comes up. The moment before, the minute or two, when night yawns for morning and the sea starts to separate from the sky.

‘Pacifism’s an excuse for doing fuck all. Except maybe growing facial hair and shagging your way across London.’

But I thought it was you. Such a precious gift that you gave me and I thank you for that.

Often, I’m tempted to say it. What I’ve done to Arthur. What I’m still doing. Just to hear how it sounds. I could tell Vince. But the moment’s gone.

you can’t be the lonely type – you’ve got to think that being on your own is a good thing.

Being on your own doesn’t mean you’re lonely and the other way around: you can be with lots of people, all chattering and nattering and demanding of your presence, and you can be the loneliest person there is.

I think he liked having something away from me. Perhaps all husbands do. They need something that their wives know nothing about.

I don’t trust people who say they’ve never experienced something they can’t explain. They must be very closed off as people and it’s a waste to live a life where you only think about what’s in front of you and you never consider what else there is.

If you trust God, you should be broadminded about the possibilities in His universe.

The thing about God’s light is it’s easy; it’s not hard to find. There might be moments in your life where you get a little bit of light, say if you have good news or a nice thing happens to you, and I think that’s like flicking a torch on. It’s bright while it lasts but it doesn’t last forever. God’s light lasts.

I think it helps to get whatever it is inside your head and put it down on paper so you can look at it and then it seems smaller than before.’

Every time I heard a word I liked, that I felt something for, I memorized it. It felt like the more I read, the more free I was in my mind, and if you’re free in your mind then it doesn’t matter what else is going on.

There’s nothing so hateful as a woman who gets involved with another woman’s husband. Never mind the husband’s part: he was tricked or seduced, most likely, and it’s funny how men insist on power in all aspects of their lives except when it does not suit them, and then they’re content to be feeble and let the women take responsibility.

I wish she knew the other ways I needed her. Invisible ways. Important ways.

Grief can be incredibly lonely. Before you know it, you’ve gone inside yourself and it’s not so much as you can’t get back, it’s that you don’t want to.

Many times, I wished I never had to see my husband again. So, when they disappeared, I feared I had made it happen, by wishing it.

Those things you spend time worrying about never happen. At least not in the way you think.

I do believe that any person is capable of any act, if the circumstances are right. If the moment is there. If they never show their full hand.

It was the nicest hug of Jenny’s life, warm and tight and strong as tree roots, and nicer than any that Bill had ever given her.

Nothing survived. Nothing was permanent. All was lost in the depths.