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cogs moving smoothly, topping up the mercury to let the light glide. He gripped each thought like the rung of a ladder by which to haul himself back to the knowable; back to this life.

    That night, as he lit the lamp, he moved as slowly and carefully as one of the priests might have done thousands of years earlier in the first lighthouse at Pharos. He climbed the tiny metal stairs that led to the inner deck around the light itself, ducked through the opening and into the apparatus of the light. He primed the oil by lighting a flame under its dish so that it vaporised and reached the mantle as a gas. He then set a match to the mantle, which transformed the vapour into a white brilliance. He went down to the next level and started the motor. The light began to turn with the exact, even rhythm of the five-second flash. He picked up the pen, and wrote in the wide, leather-bound log: ‘
Lit up at 5.09 p.m. Wind N/NE 15 knots. Overcast, squally. Sea 6
.’ Then, he added his initials – ‘
T.S
.’ His handwriting took over the telling of the story where Whittnish had left off only hours before, and Docherty before that – he was part of the unbroken chain of keepers bearing witness to the light.
    Once he was satisfied everything was in order, he went back to the cottage. His body craved sleep, but he knew too well that if you don’t eat you can’t work. In the larder off the kitchen, tins of bully beef and peas and pears sat on shelves beside sardines and sugar and a big jar of humbugs, of which the late Mrs Docherty had been legendarily fond. For his first night’s supper he cut a hunk of the damper Whittnish had left behind, a piece of cheddar and a wrinkled apple.
    At the kitchen table, the flame of the oil lamp wavered occasionally. The wind continued its ancient vendetta against the windows, accompanied by the liquid thunder of waves. Tom tingled at the knowledge that he was the only one to hear any of it: the only living man for the better part of a hundred miles in any direction. He thought of the gulls nestled into their wiry homes on the cliffs, the fish hovering stilly in the safety of the reefs, protected by the icy water. Every creature needed its place of refuge.
    Tom carried the lamp into the bedroom. His shadow pressed itself against the wall, a flat giant, as he pulled off his boots and stripped down to his long johns. His hair was thick with salt and his skin raw from the wind. He pulled back the sheets and climbed in, falling into dreams as his body kept up the sway of the waves and the wind. All night, far above him the light stood guard, slicing the darkness like a sword.

CHAPTER 4
    ONCE HE HAS extinguished the light at sunrise each morning, Tom sets off to explore another part of his new territory before getting on with the day’s work. The northern side of the island is a sheer granite cliff which sets its jaw stiffly against the ocean below. The land slopes down toward the south and slides gently under the water of the shallow lagoon. Beside its little beach is the water wheel, which carries fresh water from the spring up to the cottage: from the mainland, all the way out along the ocean floor to the island and beyond, there are fissures from which fresh water springs mysteriously. When the French described the phenomenon in the eighteenth century, it was dismissed as a myth. But sure enough, fresh water was to be found even in various parts of the ocean, like a magic trick played by nature.
    He begins to shape his routine. Regulations require that each Sunday he hoist the ensign and he does, first thing. He raises it too when any ‘man o’ war’, as the rules put it, passes the island. He knows keepers who swear under their breath at the obligation, but Tom takes comfort from the orderliness of it. It is a luxury to do something that serves no practical purpose: the luxury of civilisation.
    He sets about fixing things that have fallen into disrepair since the decline of Trimble Docherty. Most