The Lighthouse Cottage – Part 1: The Last Keeper

The cottage at Pendeen Point came with a view, a leaking gutter and, as the letting agent had failed to mention, a lighthouse.

Margaret stood on the doorstep in her coat with a suitcase in each hand. She was fifty-eight, three months a widow, and had come to Cornwall to be somewhere nobody knew her. At the head of the cliff path the white tower stood against the grey sky, and in its lantern room a light was already burning.

"It's not in service," said a voice behind her.

She turned. A tall man in a cable-knit jumper and a flat cap was coming along the path with a thermos. He was sixty-one, with a weathered face and kind, tired eyes.

"Then why is it lit?"

"Because I light it," said Tom. "Every evening. Thirty-one years I was the keeper. The board decommissioned it in 2019. Nobody told the sea."

She laughed in spite of herself.

"I'm Tom. I live at the end of the lane. I hope the light doesn't keep you awake."

"I haven't slept in three months," said Margaret. "I expect it will make no difference."

He looked at her a moment longer than a stranger would. "Would you like to see it?" he said. "The lamp. Most people don't ask. But you look like someone who might."

They climbed a hundred and twelve steps. At the top, the lamp turned slowly, its great glass lens casting a beam far out across the dark. The sea below was black silk, stitched with white.

"Oh," said Margaret.

"Yes," said Tom softly. "It does that."

She stood at the glass until her eyes filled and spilled, quietly. He did not say a word. He simply stood beside her, steady as the tower, until she was ready to go down.

"Can I ask you something?" she said at the cottage door.

"Yes."

"Would you light it again tomorrow?"

"Every evening," said Tom. "For as long as you like."

Continue the story: Part 2 – A Light on the Water.