The Lighthouse Stevensons by Bella Bathurst

The Lighthouse Stevensons by Bella Bathurst

Author:Bella Bathurst
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: fiction
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2011-12-26T18:52:29+00:00


SIX

Skerryvore

The helicopter skims low over Mull, dipping past swatches of forestry and fox-red moorland. Out beyond, past Staffa and Fingal’s Cave, lies the Atlantic, placid today but easily roused. Away to the left juts the remnant edges of the Scottish mainland; up on the right, Tiree and Coll appear flattened against the horizon. The helicopter flies on, low over the water, past ladders of sunlight and clusters of rock.

Finally, just when the passengers can see nothing but the width of the ocean and the size of the sky, there is a flash of whiteness up ahead. At first it’s only a disturbance in the water, then a small blackened stub appears, rising up out of a ruff of surf. A little closer, and the passengers can see a tangle of black rocks stretching away to the left with the sea beating itself repeatedly against their sides. Rising up from the centre of the reef, like the spire of some subterranean cathedral, is a dark tower. On its crown is a diamond-paned lantern, a weather vane and a balcony rail; down the sides are tiny slitted windows like a row of buttons. To one side is a rudimentary pier, and on the right a concrete pad marked with an ‘H’. A few whiskery seals watch the helicopter’s approach, then flump off the rocks into the water to join the sea birds. The helicopter lands and the passengers scurry away to crouch under the lee of the tower.

Up at the top of a precipitous iron ladder and through the nine-foot thickness of granite, there is a metal door, barred and padlocked. Inside, there are more ladders, a confusion of machinery and a strong smell of neglect. The rooms of the tower reach up and up, through an endless succession of batteries, generators and flickering technology. The only break is for a tiny kitchen (as cosily fitted as anyone could wish) and two cramped little rooms, containing narrow bunk beds and a portholed window. Up and up, one ascends past more machinery, more ladders, more clutter, and finally to the light room. Outside, the wind thuds against the walls. From the balcony rail, there is a sudden overwhelming landscape of faraway islands and ocean. At your feet lie hundreds of dead birds, guillemots and gulls, blackbirds and curlews. During the migrating season, the lantern becomes an immense candle courted by giant moths. The birds flock in such huge numbers here that it is considered too dangerous to go out on the balcony. Up above, past the cranes and aerials, is the diamond-patterned lantern. Inside, three circular lenses revolve silently round the light, catching and refracting the weak daylight so the bulb appears by turns large and small, large and small. A cardboard box on the floor contains a few replacements, each the size of a punctured rugby ball.

A fire during the 1950s gutted much of Skerryvore. Automation took the rest. All that remains of its creator is a few wrought-iron sea serpents holding up a railing in the lantern, and the tower itself.



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