Chapter 4 The Mother's Letter

June Ellery's letter came by the ferry on a Wednesday, the same day as the first snow of the year, the one that did not stick to the ground but lay on the grass of the village green in a thin grey film that the wind took off again by noon, the way the wind takes off everything on Cursay, the way the taking-off is the whole of what the green is. Bess Oram brought it to the cottage, because the postmaster at the mainland town had sent it up by the ferry, and Bess had carried it across the green in the grey of the afternoon, with the snow on her hair and the film of it on the shoulders of her coat, and she had set it on the table beside the lamp and had said, in the flat voice, that it was from London, and that the woman was coming up in the spring, and that she would be staying with her daughter for the winter, and that the staying was the whole of what the letter was. Iain opened the letter. The hand was the same hand as Margot's, the small careful strokes, but slower, the letters a little larger, the lines a little further apart, as though the writing had been done in a room that was larger than the one at the ferry crossing, a room in London, with a window that looked out on a street, and the street was not the Firth, and the Firth was not the street, and the two were not the same, and the not-same was the whole of what the letter was. The letter said that June Ellery had been widowed in the autumn, that her husband had died in November in a hospital in London, that she had come north to be with her daughter, that she would be on the Tuesday ferry in the spring, that she would stay at the ferry crossing, in the room above the shop, the one that looked out on the Firth, the same room Margot had been staying in, and that she would like to meet the keeper, because she had known the village, because her father had been born in Cursay, because her father's family had lived on the second finger, the one that reached toward the open water, and because she had come north to be with her daughter and to remember the Firth, the way her father had remembered it, the way it had been when the light was still lit, when the lamp was still in the tower, when the count was still going, and the boats were still coming in at four-seventeen, the old way, the way the man had watched it come in. Iain read the letter twice. He set it on the table beside the lamp, and the two of them, the letter and the lamp, were on the table, and the two were the same, the same as the two timetables, the holding and the storing, the one that had been held and the one that had been stored, and the same was the whole of what the table was. He went up to the tower, and he carried the small glass lamp in his hand, and he set it on the table in the lamp-room, and he lit it, and the flame was small and steady, and the dark around it was the grey, and he sat in the dark with the lamp in his hand, and he thought about the second finger, the one that reached toward the open water, and the family that had lived there, and the father who had been born in Cursay, and the Firth as it had been when the light was still lit, and the count that had been going, and the boats that had been coming in at four-seventeen, the old way, the way the man had watched it come in. He thought about the holding and the storing, and the difference between the two, and the edge of the nothing where the light could be seen, and the glass in the store at the mainland town, and the waiting, and the winter that was the last winter, and the four years that were over, and the spring that was coming, and the mother who would be on the ferry, and the room above the shop, and the Firth that would be the mirror, and the tide that would come in at four-seventeen, the old way, the way the man had watched it come in. He blew out the lamp. He went down the stairs. He stood at the window of the cottage, with the Firth in front of him and the mirror of it, and the snow on the grass of the village green, and the grey film of it that the wind would take off by noon, and the letter on the table, and the lamp on the sill, and the dark inside the lamp-room, and the second finger, and the family that had lived there, and the father who had been born in Cursay. He picked up the lamp. He carried it to the window. He set it on the sill, and the flame was small and steady, and the dark around it was the grey, and the Firth was the mirror, and the snow was on the grass, and the letter was on the table, and the dark inside the lamp-room was the grey of a thing that had been waiting for a long time, and the waiting would be over in the spring, when the mother came on the ferry, and the room above the shop, and the Firth that would be the mirror, and the tide that would come in at four-seventeen, the old way, the way the man had watched it come in. The glass would come back from the store at the mainland town. The light would go out over the Firth. The count would begin again. And the winter would be the last winter, and the spring would be the first spring in four years that was not the work of the lamp, because the work would be the two hands, the holding and the storing, and the two hands would be the whole of what the light was.