From a Distance (18 page)

‘A tattoo? You didn’t say anything about that.’ Luisa swivelled, Mae’s hair flowed smooth as a river and make-up sparkled around her eyes. ‘She hasn’t got one, has she?’

‘No. She wants to. She said she needs to ask you.’

‘Ask me? Hardy necessary. She knows exactly what I think.’

Mae sighed. ‘You’re so predictable, Mum! I said she shouldn’t bother, you’d just stress, but she went on about your approval mattering.’ Mae shrugged. ‘I don’t understand it.’

Luca’s arm was behind his sister across the back of the car seat. ‘Getting so grown up, Mae,’ he shook his head.

She prodded him. ‘You sound like a granddad. I was just thinking about whether I would tell Mum if I was having one done.’

‘Depends on the tattoo, I expect,’ said Tom, his eyes meeting his children’s in the rear-view mirror. ‘I’d be interested to see the design any of you’d like to live with for the next seven or so decades, I must say. Or would you go for “I love Mum”?’ He winked across at Luisa next to him.

Mae bounced on her seat, indignation squaring her shoulders. ‘Dad! What’re you talking about? It’d be really lame to have a tattoo that your parents actually
liked
.’

‘I’d have a lighthouse,’ said Luisa dreamily, as the road swooped over a hill and Kings Sloley appeared ahead of them.

‘Wouldn’t you have an ice cream, Mum?’ asked Luca.

Luisa shrugged. ‘You would think so, wouldn’t you, but look at that lighthouse, it’s incredible.’

They gazed for a moment at Kings Sloley Lighthouse, a striped candle, the flame of the glass on top caught by the sunlight. ‘It’s so joyful,’ said Luisa.

Mae shot her mother a speculative glance. ‘Can I actually get one?’

Luca laughed. ‘Great idea, sis. Why don’t you have a map, or the home postcode. Or Mum’s mobile number? That way you’ll be able to get home wherever you are.’

Mae dropped the veil of sophistication she’d applied with her make-up, and stuck her tongue out.

Tom fiddled with the radio. ‘There’s never any bloody reception around here. We should ask this new chap to get a mast up on the Lighthouse.’

‘Oh but phones work here,’ Luisa waved hers. ‘I’ve still got a signal, and the other day when I came to get the sheep Luca rang me.’

Tom raised his eyebrows. ‘You came to get the sheep? Where was Jason?’

Luisa sighed. ‘I knew you weren’t listening. His name is Kit Delaware. The sheep were right inside the Lighthouse when I got there.’

‘Oh, I knew that,’ Mae leaned forward between them, she smelled of mint and peaches, and her bracelets jangled. ‘It’s the guy we saw in Blythe the other day. Dora said so. Mum, I forgot to say she rang. She’s on a date tonight so she couldn’t come.’

‘Another one?’ Tom snorted. ‘Why does she have to go on so many dates? I don’t know where she finds the men to go with.’

‘Dad!’ Mae poked his shoulder, ‘That’s mean! She’s your sister. You’re as bad as Luca.’

‘She doesn’t really,’ Luisa caught Mae’s hand. It was light, the bones delicate as a bird. ‘It’s just that Maddie’s away, so it’s easier for her to go out than usual. She’s just having fun.’

Mae gasped. ‘Mum, you’re such a hypocrite, you haven’t ever in your life been on as many dates as Dora has in a week! You and Dad are both un
born
as far as all this stuff goes.’

Luisa laughed. ‘Don’t show me up,’ she protested.

‘I’m amazed you aren’t trying to set her up with this Lighthouse bloke,’ Tom parked the car behind Kit’s.

‘Dora’s seen him. She thinks he’s hot, but I reckon he’s even older than you.’ Mae flashed a smile at Luisa that brimmed with mischief.

Tom wasn’t listening. He quickly got out. ‘Hey, Luca,’ he said. ‘Check out this car’ and they wandered ahead through the field towards the Lighthouse. Luisa hung back a little, checked her reflection in the wing mirror, balancing the broken biscuit cake as she fiddled with her hair. Her phone shook in her bag, quacking the arrival of a text and she jumped. Kit? Surely not? She felt suddenly foolish. Grown ups didn’t get excited about texts. Tom would be astonished if he knew.

Mae dug her with her elbow. ‘Mum! Stop it, you look like you’ve got nits when you pull your hair about, and the man can see you. Look!’

‘I think I have got nits,’ Luisa hissed back, and they laughed together.

Kit was shaking hands with Tom. ‘Hey, this is a surprise, you’re the pitstop man! My good Samaritan!’ They clapped each other noisily on the back.

‘Yes, and you’re the only breakdown I’ve ever helped with where I’ve talked about paintings,’ said Tom.

‘You’ve met?’ Luisa stared. She had to remind herself to shut her gaping mouth. How could Tom know Kit as well?

Tom reached out and hugged her towards him, laughing. ‘Yes, I clocked that car right away. Should’ve known it would be you. Small world and all that.’

Kit ushered them in. ‘A cake, wonderful, let me put it here.’

Luisa followed him through to the hall. A tang of woodsmoke and neroli hung around him. In his dark blue shirt, he seemed exotic, his skin appeared to have a lustrous sheen, his gait an easy energy. His watch threw a steel glint into the shadows. Luisa looked around her. Candlelight had transformed the austere, small-windowed rooms, and the crackle of the fire in the grate was a welcome touch of luxury on a summer night. Kit pulled the cork from a bottle and poured Luisa a glass of wine. His fingers touched hers and she jumped, spilling cold liquid across her wrist. A roar of heat flared up her body, and gratefully she pressed the glass to her burning cheek.

The rumble of Tom’s laughter recalled her.

‘So what on earth brings you to this unlikely spot? You’re not the average lighthouse keeper, or not around here at any rate.’

Luisa winced.

Kit didn’t answer immediately. ‘Someone else’s life,’ he said finally. ‘Or their death, really. And a fair amount of confusion. I was left this place by my mother. Bit of a surprise, she’d never told me anything about it, or even so much as mentioned Norfolk.’

‘I’m sorry about your mother,’ Tom’s head was lowered as he spoke, moving his glass, watching the wine make a whirlpool.

‘Could we go up to the top?’ Mae and Luca bounded in, Mae waving her phone, ‘Look! I got some photos of my shadow on the Lighthouse, Luca took them.’ She broke off, finding herself directly in front of Kit. ‘Hi. I like your house – Lighthouse. Whatever! It’s really cool. I wish we lived here,’

Kit’s face lost years as he laughed. Luisa suddenly wanted to hug Mae.

‘You like it? I’m glad.’ He gestured to the stairs. ‘I haven’t counted the steps yet, but I think it’s over a hundred. Go wherever you like, and if you count them, come back and tell us.’

Mae darted off, followed by Luca, who mouthed, ‘Nice to meet you’ as he vanished up the stairs. The echoes of their voices fell like soft petals into the evening.

Luisa shrugged and looked at Kit. ‘This is us,’ she said. ‘There’s one more in India.’

‘Right,’ Kit shook his head, laughing, ‘I didn’t know what to expect. They’re like puppies. So energetic.’

‘Not always,’ said Tom, drily. ‘Try our house tomorrow morning if you want to see them in their natural habitats – bed and piles of chaos.’

Kit picked up a case of beer, ‘I hope they like lager. I’ve got—’ he pulled himself up. ‘Oh Christ. Have I made a ricket of this? Are they old enough for beers?’

‘I’ll say so,’ Tom picked up a corkscrew and a bowl of ice.

‘I was waiting for the sheep.’ Kit said with a smile. ‘I thought you might have a few stray lambs with you tonight.’

He led the way out through the kitchen. Luisa swivelled, trying to take everything in as she and Tom followed. The strange curved spaces had been softened throughout. The candles, a wood fire dancing in the hall, a pile of books, a rug dropped on an armchair, a big oak chest, and a length of embroidered antique fabric tacked on to the wall, silver threads catching the dying light, gave the Lighthouse a sense of belonging to someone.

Luisa trailed a hand on the back of an old carved chair, the fabric seat battered and frayed. ‘Did you have all this furniture?’

Hands in his pockets, Kit looked around. ‘Most of it was in the shed. A bit dusty, but fine.’

Luisa moved to the wall, her interest caught by a small painting. ‘Was this in the shed? Or did you find it? Clever to pick up a lighthouse picture already.’

‘I’ve got another actually. That one was in the bathroom at my mother’s house. I thought I’d bring it when I knew I was coming to meet my lighthouse.’

Luisa bent close to the picture. ‘It’s lovely, do you know who painted it?’

Kit shook his head. ‘I always assumed my mother collected lighthouse odds and ends because of the name of her company. Never thought more of it until now.’

Kit led her along the wall to show her a night-lit lighthouse, its beam inlaid mother of pearl. ‘I found this and a lot of bits and pieces in a nice old junk shop down the coast this morning.’

Luisa laughed. ‘You haven’t wasted any time settling in, have you?’

He shrugged. ‘To be honest, I’m used to a house full of clutter, this seems very pared down. I like it, I’m realising there’s no need for so much stuff in life.’

She raised her brows. ‘Oh really? Interesting view considering you’ve just acquired a three- or four-storey heap of bricks and mortar.’

Kit paused, looked quizzically at Luisa, ‘Bricks and mortar? I thought it was a pillar of salt.’

‘Or a giant stick of striped rock,’ she agreed. ‘Oh, anyway. It’s straight out of a story book.’

Trying not to meet his gaze she bumped her shoulder against his. The sensation of his breath, warm on her neck, silenced her.

They walked back through the kitchen, where dusty double doors opened out to the patch of grass and the sea beyond. Kit had erected a small round table and decorated it with a jam jar of blue flax and poppies and an array of old plates and glasses. Mae, having announced there were one hundred and thirty-seven steps, collapsed into a chair, Luca supine on the grass beside her. They lolled like lion cubs at ease, chatting to Kit, bright with curiosity.

Luisa had a sudden rare moment of seeing her children through someone else’s eyes.

‘What’s it like living in a lighthouse?’ asked Luca. ‘You’ll need a basket on a rope to get stuff up to your bedroom.’

Mae, rather to Luisa’s relief, had knocked over her beer and hadn’t noticed as it seeped in to the grass. She flitted back to the doorway, flashing the camera on her phone up the shadowy walls of the Lighthouse.

‘D’you have kids? They’re sooooo lucky, I know which room I’d have if I lived here.’

‘I already told you, Mae,’ Luisa hissed, but Kit was answering smoothly, ‘I’m afraid I don’t,’ he said. ‘No family at all now.’ He broke a ripple of wax off a candle stick and threw it into the flames of the fire he had made outside. Luisa felt her heart lurch protectively; she fancied she saw sadness in his face. The firelight encircled them as dusk fell. The big flat pebbles glowed around the logs placed like a wigwam, creating a solid tripod of orange light in the gloaming. Kit had done it just the way Tom always made a fire. In her childhood, if there was an outdoor fire, it was always in something – a metal bucket or a wheel­barrow. Contained. Cosmo would have put it in a brazier.

‘I wonder if cavemen lit fires like you do?’ she mused.

Kit didn’t blink. ‘Of course. How else?’ He crouched to place another log.

‘Unless they were roasting a mammoth on a spit. Or building a pyre,’ said Luca.

‘I think cavemen are over rated,’ Mae flopped onto the seat next to Luisa, ‘cave girls would’ve invented wheels and ovens so much more quickly if they’d been allowed to.’

‘Or Italians,’ Luisa interjected, ‘we like braziers and barbecues. None of this primitive stuff.’

‘The Italians came later,’ said Kit, only a slight flicker in his cheek suggesting amusement. ‘They were too sophisticated for Neolithic pursuits.’

‘Have you noticed how much of the horizon we can see from here?’ Tom had been standing apart, clearly lost in this own thoughts, looking out to sea. ‘I can see Lowestoft lit up like a battery hen farm.’

‘Dad! That’s a bit harsh. What d’you reckon about cavemen? Were any of them Italian?’

Luca sprang up and pulled Mae to her feet. Tom sat down in the seat his son had vacated. ‘Doubt it, the Italians had too much sense. They waited to join the evolutionary chain around the time of underfloor heating and hot- and cold-running slaves,’ he observed.

Luca jerked his head towards Kit, a grin hidden by the fall of his fringe. ‘Exactly what Kit said!’ He reached for Mae’s arm and propelled her away. ‘Come on, Sis, let’s look over the edge. Could be shark-infested waters, you never know.’ They loped off, the flax rolling in a blue haze around them to the cliff edge.

Kit and Tom were talking about Kit’s business. Fifty employees on the pay roll. An annual turn­over, manufacturing, owning a factory. He talked easily, legs stretched in front of him. He had an athletic man’s ability to appear at ease in his body, and although the chair legs dug into the ground lopsided, Kit, one hand deep in his pocket, the other cupping his wine glass, was as urbane and relaxed as if he had been lolling on a sunlounger by a swimming pool.