The Cornish Lighthouse Keeper – Part 1: Fog Signal

"You'll want to close the shutters," said the man at the door. "Fog's coming in. It does that."

"Thank you," said Helen. "I'm sorry, who are you?"

"Walter. I look after the lamp. I should have written." He was sixty-one, tall, white-bearded and weathered, in a navy jersey with the elbows worn through. He held a tin of shortbread like a peace offering. "Welcome to the end of the world."

Helen, fifty-eight, a retired schoolteacher, had taken the cottage for the whole winter. Her husband had died two years earlier. Her friends had said a trip would help; she had picked the most remote place she could find. It was a whitewashed cottage tucked at the foot of a lighthouse on a Cornish headland, with a wood stove, a window full of Atlantic and no neighbours.

Walter came every evening at dusk to start the lamp, though the light had been automatic for years. "The new one runs itself," he said. "I just like to see it start."

By the second week she was bringing out two mugs. By the third she was climbing the spiral stairs with him, one hand on the rail, laughing at her own breathlessness. At the top, the great lens turned slowly, throwing a long white beam across the black water.

"It never gets old," said Walter.

"No," said Helen softly, looking at him instead.

Fog rolled in that night, thick and grey, and the foghorn began its low, slow moan. They stood side by side at the gallery rail, close enough for their sleeves to touch.

"I haven't done this in a long time," said Helen.

"Stood at a lighthouse?"

"Wanted to stand next to someone."

Walter turned his weathered face towards her. "I've wanted to stand next to you since the tin of shortbread."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Storm Warning.

Continue the story: Part 2 – Storm Warning.