Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Last Lighthouse Keeper Chapter Sampler
The Last Lighthouse Keeper Chapter Sampler
Last
Lighthouse
Ke e p e r
a memoi r
J O H N C O O K w i t h J O N B AU E R
Certain names and details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals
mentioned.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
vii
ix
I decided to leave the navy and try and earn more money
for my family.
Our first daughter, Francesca, was born early in the
morning in the local hospital. I remember how weightless
she felt in my arms. And also how heavy. It fell on me now
to make sure she had what she needed. I felt the burden of
being a real adult at last!
I left the service three months later and we returned
to Tasmania. I thrashed around at home for a while and
eventually got a job running a service station. Service stations
were a new thing then, slowly springing up.
Sarah and I had two more kids and I worked hard, trying
to provide for my growing family and partly trying to earn
her father’s respect.
I was working too hard though and it was starting to
show. Opening the servo first thing in the morning, dealing
with customers and staff all day, then shutting the servo and
driving a taxi until the wee hours.
I was losing my composure and everyone thought I was
going mad. I wasn’t mad; I was exhausted. I was squeezing
every hour out of the day to earn more money. I wasn’t
sleeping in the few hours I gave myself for sleep.
Eventually I felt like I was losing control and a friend
recommended a mental hospital would be a good place to
go and rest. I spent six weeks there, but decided to leave
because they were giving the guy in the opposite bed ECT
(electroconvulsive therapy) and it didn’t look like a rest to me.
I got back on my feet through sheer determination. But
I’d blown a fuse and felt like people probably thought it
was more than likely I’d blow another fuse. In many ways,
they were right.
Deb was the wife of one of my customers. She was feisty
and outspoken and temperamental. She was also sexy, and
relaxed about her sexuality.
Initially I simply offered Deb a job, thinking someone that
attractive would drag customers in. I was right about that.
Everything was above board for a long time, but Deb and
I began working late together, and I’d drop her home. Her
husband was away with his job a lot. She’d look after my
kids too sometimes. She and Sarah were friendly.
Deb told me her husband had had affairs. They had a
son but she was struggling with motherhood. She wasn’t
a woman who held back from what she wanted.
My infidelity started in my mind. Then in how much
time we spent with one another. And then in the atmosphere
between us when we did spend time together.
Then the line came up near, and eventually, we crossed over.
I had no plans to leave Sarah and my kids. I didn’t want
to bust up my family. But things quickly unravelled and
one messy, ugly day Deb decided to tell Sarah about the
affair. Sarah was obviously deeply angry. And, just like that,
everything was in bits.
I tried to patch things up. I stood out on our front lawn and
shouted to my kids, and to Sarah. I tried to explain it was a
mistake, that I loved her and my kids, not Deb. She ignored
me the first time and then the next time I went round they
were all gone. I checked Coles Bay but they weren’t there
and her father said not a word to me.
Her husband had taken custody of her son and she was
devastated too. We could keep one another company in the
wreckage, even if I was still angry with her for her part in
it all. Not as angry as I was at myself though. And, despite
everything that had happened, there were a lot of things
I still loved about her.
It was into this mess that the advert for a married lighthouse
keeper dropped.
10
11
***
The night before the interview I was working at the servo.
A customer had come in with a steaming engine and a dent
in his bloodied bumper. He’d hit something down the road
a way and was full of anger for what had become of his
car. I asked him what he’d hit but he said he didn’t know.
I could smell the pub on him. Those were different times
and I sometimes had drivers through who could barely count
their change, let alone steer a vehicle.
I trundled his car into the repair garage and let him use
the phone to call for a lift. Once he’d finished, I grabbed
my automatic pistol, snicked the lock on the servo door,
and wandered down the road in the direction from which
he’d come.
It was a warm night, the stars out in force, cicadas sounding
their glee. I didn’t share their happiness, I was simply putting
one foot in front of the other.
I came across a skid mark on the bitumen. The air
was tainted with the smell of blood. The side of the road
12
sloped down a few feet below and was heavy with bush and
scrub.
I scanned it with my torch, wandering away from the tyre
marks. Whatever he’d hit would have been propelled forwards.
I crept forward with my pistol in my hand. It might seem
strange that many of us carried automatic pistols back then,
but Tasmania was particularly rugged.
A car came by and I crouched down until it passed. An
injured roo squinted in the headlights. The smell of blood
was stronger now, the warm night embellishing it. The
roo was lying in the bushes with its paw on its chest. It was
large and elegant, and badly hurt.
It had clearly been struck in the chest and was holding the
pain. Its breathing was laboured and there was a lot of blood.
I moved nearer to check it over but my proximity stressed
it. By and by it let me get closer, as an animal usually does
when it’s too weak to escape. Its chest was a mess, and there
was blood at its nostrils, which sometimes made it sneeze.
I slowly moved my torch beam over its body to see if it
could perhaps be saved. A pair of eyes peered at me from
the pouch on its belly.
I checked the roo over one more time, having a really
good look at her chest. I spoke to her a little, and the tears
I shed were full of despair. I often saw the damage wildlife
did to cars. A good portion of my income came from it. The
roads were always dotted with the swollen bodies of wildlife.
I pulled the trigger and the roo seemed to jump at the
sound rather than the bullet. I had aimed well, but I pulled
the trigger again just in case. I jumped this time too, and
13
the sound raced out into the night, coming back at me over
and over again.
The mother’s troubles left her body by way of a long sigh,
but the joey became noisy now that she was on her own. She
seemed to be struggling to leave the pouch. I levelled my gun
at her.
It reminded me of my kids’ faces, the way they’d stared
out the window at me when everything in my life had
imploded.
The joey was quite still now, its eyes blinking at me.
I took off my shirt and stepped forward. The pouch was so
warm and the joey exuded quite some heat as I wandered
topless up the road, the animal twitching and fussing under
the shirt. It gave off the musky smell of nature—something
akin to the aroma of goat, and the warm sweet-sourness of
milk. Some of its mother’s blood was soaking through my
shirt, but I carried that little soul up the road like it was a
newborn child.
I turned off all the servo lights, except the Marlboro sign
over the ciggies behind the counter, so the space was dim
and non-threatening for the joey.
I set it on the counter in my shirt. It was panting with
the stress, but stayed still if I kept its eyes covered.
I found a box for it, using my shirt as a bed, and put the
box’s flaps down to keep it dark. All I could offer it was
milk. I took a bottle from the fridge and set a pot on the
little electric stove. I called Deb and asked her to bring a
bottle and teat I sometimes used for the lambs.
I stood there in the near dark, listening to the joey’s
14
breathing, the way I’d stood in the dark with my three kids—
coming home late from work, Sarah asleep, and their sweet
bodies sprawled out on the bed, breathing those smooth,
carefree breaths.
I took a decent knife from the back office and went off
down the road with it. That roo would have died for nothing
if I left it to rot. I took to its hind legs with the knife. It was
grim work in the black, and I stopped once when I heard
Deb’s voice calling out to me in the dark. But I took the legs
from the roo to honour it somehow, wandering up the road
with my hands and forearms bloody. I’m not sure how eating
the meat would help, but it made sense to me.
The next day I was readying myself for the interview
and starting out on another lie. Deb and I both hoped we
would be running away to something better, but both of
us would be leaving behind the sort of mess that will only
follow you.
15