A Light Between Oceans Episode 12

Lucas had left the hotel without an umbrella, but he found himself strangely untroubled.
Looking out to sea, he breathed in the salty wildness of the air and watched the rollers as they gathered momentum.
As little rivulets began to trickle down from his hair and dampness seeped through his jacket, he realised that if he’d been caught in such a downpour in New York, he would have rushed to escape it.
He wondered if he could blame jet lag for the strange feelings that had come over him, but he knew himself too well for that.
He’d never been bothered by long-haul flights – if anything, the change of environment gave him an extra measure of focus for whatever it was he’d been assigned to do.
Once again, he’d travelled a long distance for a specific purpose, this time self-imposed.
But now he felt as restless as the waves that were breaking against the shingle.
He needed to find out the answers to his questions – that part of his plan hadn’t changed. But then what?
He thought about Hattie and how much he liked her, but he felt afraid of her at the same time.
He wondered if she’d been married and had any children of her own.
Sandy had told him that Hattie had looked after her when she was growing up, and he found himself dwelling on the image of her as a little girl in the cottage.
Had Hattie looked after Sandy at the lighthouse cottage, reading her stories in the glow of the oil lamps?
He imagined the soft light on Sandy’s blonde hair, those big grey eyes staring up into Hattie’s face.
There had been flecks of green in her eyes, too, as she’d looked across at him with that curious self-assurance.
What sort of man had her father been? Lucas’s head swam with questions, both important and silly.
Lost in his deep musings, he walked headlong into a bin that jutted out from an ice-cream stand.
A drenched blue awning clung to the wooden doors that closed over the counter space, and a sign swung from a chain, advertising ice-creams and sweets.
The paint was peeling away from the picture of Belmouth Lighthouse under the words.
The picture helped him gather his thoughts.
He wished he’d been able to get Hattie to talk more about the war years, but she’d quickly changed the subject.
Should he have been more insistent?
It was fear of disapproval that had stopped him pressing her about it.
His clothes were wet through now, and he’d begun to feel cold.
He ambled along to the hotel, letting the rain wash over him as he contemplated the next step in his complicated mission.
Hattie cleared away the dishes, relieved that Lucas had left before Sandy had returned from her shopping expedition.
It would be nice to have a quiet evening together, and she hoped that any conversation about the meeting with Lucas could be dispensed with quickly.
Things would be all go tomorrow, with the guest-house fully booked for the next few days.
All at once she felt immensely tired.
She stacked the teacups and plates ready for washing, then turned from the sink and walked through the hallway and up the stairs to her bedroom.
She closed the door and drew the curtains, then opened the drawer at the bottom of the old mahogany wardrobe.
Underneath a pile of gloves and hats was a box.
She took it out and lifted the lid, pushing aside a layer of tissue paper.
Her eyes misted over when she looked at the small rectangular painting.
She hadn’t done so in a long time, but the image was always as clear in her mind as the first day she’d seen it.
A blue rowing boat, tipped on to its side on the shingle, pools of iridescent water glistening round it.
“The light here is so different,” Lucas had said.
Countless people before Lucas had made that observation over the years, but there had not been many who could capture it so perfectly.
She gazed at it, the past and present merging in a bewildering collage that made her shiver with apprehension.
She took a breath, telling herself that for all that Lucas might be a successful and wealthy young man, it could be this whole thing was simply a whim – a quirky episode in his otherwise conventional life.
He’d seen a picture of the lighthouse and decided to take a trip to England.
Perhaps his plans for it would turn out to be preferable for Belmouth to those of other prospective buyers.
But for Sandy’s sake and her own, she hoped that this young man, with his probing questions and determination to uncover the past, would change his mind and go straight back to New York.
And the sooner the better.