The lighthouse.

As I sat in my chair by the window and in front of the big screen TV I could see it again through the window. Every night for the past two weeks it had lit up at the same time. I knew it was impossible for there to be a lighthouse light as there was no light house there where it shone. We were not even close to the coast for goodness sake. I was sitting in my front room in Wirksworth, Derbyshire.
The first time I saw it I thought it was because of the amount of booze I’d had that night. It was my birthday and I was celebrating on my own. No-one else had remembered it at all, so I thought I would have a party without them. I had brought a bottle of each of my favourite drinks and drank them all by myself over a few hours while eating Chinese chicken fried rice. I had enjoyed that while watching a film. My home now smelt of booze and my meal; I loved that smell. I love watching films with the light off and people- watching through the window. No-one ever glanced in as there wasn’t a light that they could see, so I was safe to be as nosey as I liked. I was watching a group of kids across the road playing with a couple of skateboards and some ramps they had set up to do tricks on. I looked up to see a light on top of the hill opposite the house. This hill had a flat bit at the top of it with some rocks you could sit on. The kids didn’t see it as they hadn’t looked up. I thought at first it was someone with a torch playing around on top of the hill but as I watched it I saw it go round in a circle. At first I couldn’t think what it was. I watched it for about an hour and then it disappeared. When it did the world seemed so dark and I could no longer see the kids across the road. I thought they had gone home until the street lights suddenly came on and there they were, still playing with the skateboards.
I went to bed with it still on my mind and in the middle of the night I woke up with the thought that the light had been a lighthouse light. I went back to sleep and when I woke up the next day I had a look at the map to see if there was a lighthouse on that hill as I didn’t remember one being there. There wasn’t, only the one at Crich. But that was in the opposite direction and wasn’t lit any more. Besides I couldn’t see it as Blackrocks are in the way.
That night I again was in my chair without the lights or TV on. There were no kids playing this time but lots of people walking past for me to watch. Again the light appeared at the same time and stayed for almost an hour and disappeared. I watched it for another four nights with it appearing and disappearing at the same time. I saw no other lights at any other time on those hill tops. I saw no-one in the day time up there. I even went up in the day time to have a look round, I saw nothing, no lighthouse or building that could be used to house a light of any sort. It was just as I knew it would be. I had lived in my house all my life and had taken my dog for walks up there lots of times.
I had so far said nothing to my friends they would think I was nuts. I longed to talk to someone so on the seventh night I invited my best friend Drew to spend the evening with me just watching a film or listening to good music. When it came to the time the light would appear I made sure we were in the front room with the light off, but the TV on. I sat in my chair and he was in the one on the other side of the room but still facing the window a bit. The light came on and did it usual swipe of the hill. I let a few minutes go by then looked at the window full on and asked Drew if he could see the light on the hill. He looked and said yes. So that confirmed it for me it was real, I wasn’t nuts. Others could see it too. We sat talking about it and I told him that it had appeared each night for the past week but no-one else seemed to have seen it.
He immediately wanted to go up there and have a look round. I told him I wouldn’t go up there without any kind of plan. I said I would be willing to go up tomorrow evening with him. We could see if any one else wanted to go with us but he said no to that, he wanted it to be just us, just our adventure. He sounded just like a little schoolboy then. I had memories of when we were young and would go off on our own to have an “Adventure”. Nothing really happened we would just go up onto the hills or Blackrocks and spend the day just wondering with the dog beside us. She would love this as we would take our lunch with us and stay out all day just walking and climbing without a care in the world.
We met up the next evening and packed our torches and spare batteries and some Kendal mint cake. We had put a small digital camera in Drew’s backpack just in case we saw the light and were able to find what was causing it to shine each night.
We set off at a slow pace as we knew it wouldn’t take us long to get up the hill. We got to where I thought it would be a good place to see the light and sat down on some rocks just chatting and waiting for the light to appear. We had our torches on. It got near 9pm and nothing happened. We continued to stay put for another 30 minutes. We decided it wasn’t go to show up and started to walk back home. Just as we got to the top of the hill I looked back and saw to my astonishment that the light was there. We had been sitting in the middle of where the lighthouse was. We hadn’t seen it because we had been sitting in the middle of the light and it was lighting everything else up. Drew was the first to see the lighthouse underneath it. We approached it slowly waiting for it to disappear but it didn’t, it stayed put. Drew saw the door at the bottom was open and went inside it. I was a bit hesitant I wasn’t to sure what was inside or what would happen if I went in. Drew stuck his head out the door and said with a grin on his face you must come in here and see what’s in here. I asked him if it was safe he nodded at me and beckoned me inside with his forefinger.
I stepped into the doorway and waited until my eyes had adjusted to the light inside the small room. I saw that opposite the door there was a small honey coloured table with a chair pushed underneath it. The honey coloured table was shaped to fit the round room. On top of it was an unlit candle in a small brown holder. Next to that there was a small blue book with gold letters on the front of it. The wall behind was a pale blue with a small picture of a seascape hanging on it above the table.
I couldn’t see what was written on it though. I took a look round the rest of the room to find it was just a round room with nothing else in it apart from the spiral staircase behind the door going upwards. Drew was standing by the table with that grin still on his face, he said I had to come and take a look at the book. I moved into the room still not sure about it and took a quick look at the words written on the book. It was my name and date of birth, Jared Barton D.O.B 23rd Oct 1970.
I was so shocked I put my hand out to pick the book up when there was a voice booming out from upstairs “Only take that book if you want to write your story in it.” We both looked up to see a man’s face looking down at us. He was smiling at us and beckoning us to come upstairs.
We started up with Drew in front of me, when I got to the top I again found a round room with a bed and a couple of chairs around a small table. Again they were shaped to fit the room. They were all of the same honey coloured wood as the table downstairs.
The man bid us to sit in the chairs while he opened a cupboard to show a small kettle and stove inside and a flip down table big enough for one person to eat off. Under that there was another cupboard from which he took cups and tea and some powdered milk. He filled the kettle from the tap on the other side of the room. He looked at us both and said “Sorry I don’t have any coffee or sugar, do you mind tea?” We both looked at him and said tea would be nice. I think we were still a bit shocked to find ourselves sitting in a lighthouse that wasn’t visible all the time. Drew opened his mouth to ask a question of the man but he held his hand up and said “Wait until we have the tea then I will tell you all you need to know about me and this lighthouse.”
I liked the look of this man with his friendly furry face. His beard was nicely kept and a nice shade of grey. His eyes were blue and smiling at us both when he looked our way. He had made the tea in the time it took for me to study his face. I was lucky I could see him but Drew had no idea what he look like apart from the first quick look he had had when we had come upstairs. I looked at Drew and smiled to him, He looked happier when he saw me smiling and leaned back in his chair. He began to look around him and I followed his gaze. The room was nicely decorated with some tapestries hanging on the wall. I couldn’t tell what they were of as the light was a bit dim but I could tell they were handmade and not shop brought ones. They looked as if they had been hung there for a long time. I carried on looking round the room and found there was a small bookcase with some old looking books in it. I got up and went closer to have a look at the tittles but they were so old and faded I couldn’t read them in the dim light. I turned round and looked at the old man to find him looking at me with a sort of expectation on his face. I wasn’t sure what it was he was expecting from me so I walked back to the chairs and sat down and waited for the tea. The man sat down on the bed and poured out the tea handing one to Drew first. We drank it in silence. I was glad of the hot tea as I had been cold sitting on the hill. When he put the cups into the small sink he sat back down and proceeded to talk to us. He first told us his name was Iain Barton, I gasped at that. He smiled at me and said he was an ancestor of mine. I was puzzled by that but let him carry on talking. He said he had become the present lighthouse keeper by sitting here over a hundred years ago and talking to the previous keeper and then choosing to become the next keeper of the lighthouse. He told us how he had messed up his life, hurt his friends and family very badly and saw this as a way to remove him self from their presence and start over again. He never realised how they would miss him until he went back a few years later and heard all the stories of his disappearance and how the family had searched for him. I recalled Bumpa telling me a story of an ancestor who had disappeared with no trace ever being found of him. This had happened about a hundred years ago. If it was true and it was him he had hardly aged in a hundred years. I doubted him and it must have shown on my face for he asked me what was wrong. I told him that was a hundred years ago and it couldn’t be him. It couldn’t be true, could it? He looked at me with a smile and told me it was true. Time moved differently inside the lighthouse. It moved slower than outside of it.
Iain carried on speaking. He said he had been the same age as me when he had lived in the house I now lived in, Barton’s always ended up living there at some point in there lives. Some of them saw his light but ignored it, others came to look for it but never found it. Still others had found it and listened to him but rejected his story and offer. It was the same offer he was going to give me. The book downstairs with me name on it was for me to write my story in, whatever my story was to be. It could be my life story or one that I had inside me to write. He said I would find that out when I came to write in it. But I would only be allowed to handle the book if I wanted to take up his offer for myself and Drew to come and live in the lighthouse and become the new lighthouse keeper. Drew was included as he had come with me and had been able to see the light. Drew was to have the same book for his story to be written in. The keeper was always given a book for them to write whatever they needed to, so it would be for both of us. I looked at Drew as this was said and saw his eyes light up as Iain said that. I’d thought that he was gay and now I was sure I was right. I am and had known since I was young and had loved him from afar for the past few years. I had never dared to tell him in case he rejected me and I would lose his friendship forever.
As I looked at him I knew he was in love with me, I’m not sure I just knew and it made me so happy that I smiled at him.
Iain looked at both of us and said “I hope you both will take up this offer of a new life here in the lighthouse, you would have fantastic adventures with it. It’s about time the lighthouse had a couple looking after it. What my offer is for you to take over from me. Your duties would be to take the lighthouse wherever it was needed to help those in need, whatever that need is. You could help young children in trouble and give them the space they need to get themselves back together. It could be that you would help ships that are in danger from rocks. You would be the keepers and you would decide.”
He then asked us if we would like to have a look around the top floor, we were both so keen that we jumped up shouting yes at the same time. He laughed at our eagerness and told Drew to lead the way upstairs.
We both got fiddle with the workings and learnt how to use all the controls. They were pretty easy which was fine as we are not technically minded at all. He said we wouldn’t have any money as the lighthouse would provide us with whatever we needed be it food, clothes etc and no he didn’t know how it did it, and it just did. We learnt it all in three hours. At the end of it he told us to go away and take our time to think things over and talk to each other. The offer was for us both together or for each on his own and whatever we decided it would be fine with him.
We said goodnight to him and walked back down the stairs, I looked at the table as we came into the bottom room and on the table was now two books, one with my name on and one with Drew’s.
We went down the hill to my house not talking just walking slowly together.
We sat down in the lounge with a cup of coffee in front of us still in silence. I know I was thinking of accepting Iain’s offer but I wanted Drew to accept it as well. Suddenly we looked at each other and started to speak at the same time, we laughed and I said go ahead to him tell me what you want to say they it’s my turn. He looked at me and said “I have something to confess to you. I’m gay and have known for the past five years, I also have to tell I’m in love with you and would like to spend the rest of my life with you.” He then asked me how I felt and my answer was to lean over and kiss him on the lips. I pulled away from him with a huge grin on my face saying “Does that answer your question?” I went to tell him I had loved for many years but had never dared to say anything for fear of losing him as a friend. He laughed and said what silly men we had been we could have been together much sooner. I asked him about Iain’s offer but he shook his head and said he didn’t want to think of it just yet. He needed time to process the idea and he was too tired to do that just yet. When he said he was tired I realised how tired I was and suggested bed for us both. I pulled him upstairs and we spent a very pleasant night just being with each other.
In the morning we phoned our work places and told them we wouldn’t be in that day. We sat down and had breakfast together then set off to Chesterfield to spend the day there thus giving Drew some much needed space to think about Ian’s offer without any pressure from me. We wondered around the market just enjoying looking at the stalls. We had lunch in a café then sat on a bench by the crooked spire Church to talk things through. I told him I was ready to move into the lighthouse straight away. I was not enjoying work and I had no-one who would miss me except for friends and that I thought I could manage with letters and phone calls every so often after telling them I was moving somewhere else to a new job. They all knew I hated work so hopefully it would suffice. I would love it if he would come with me but if he didn’t then I would stay put. Now that we had got together I wasn’t about to lose him when I said that his face lit up, but almost immediately went sad again. I asked him what his thoughts were.
He looked at me with his sad eyes and said that for him it would also be easy for him to just leave if it wasn’t for his daughter. I had forgotten about her for the moment. They had only just got back together after a long separation and he said he didn’t want to lose her again. He was enjoying his new found friendship with her.
I sat back and looked at him for a few moments. I could see the joy he felt when he talked of her and how much it would hurt him to lose her again. I thought back to what Iain had said about the choice it would be for us to make on where we took the lighthouse and told him that if it was up to us then surely we could come back to see her anytime he wanted to. What he said next made me think. He said “But she would grow older while we stayed young and he wasn’t sure it would be allowed.”
I hadn’t thought of that aspect of it. It wouldn’t affect me if I told friends I was moving abroad maybe. I knew most of them couldn’t afford to come and see me.
It was getting late and Drew still hadn’t made his mind up so we made our way back to my house for some tea then we went up to the lighthouse for him to talk things over with Iain. We got to the top of the hill to find Iain waiting for us with a huge smile on his face. He asked me to go inside and make some tea as he needed to talk to Drew. I don’t know how he knew that was exactly what was needed but I left them to it and went to put the kettle on for a much needed cuppa. An hour passed before I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. I jumped up and put the kettle on again and put the book I had been reading back in the bookcase and turned to face the stairs. When Drew came in I knew he had made his decision both he and Drew had smiles on their faces and Drew looked happy. Iain took over and said “no talking now lets enjoy a drink and some biscuits.” They munched and I sat there frustrated as I wasn’t sure of what Drew’s decision had been. They seemed to take a long time but at last Drew got up and cleared away the pots then sat down again. He turned to me and said “Ok Jared we’ll move in here together. When do you want to do this? How long will it take for you to sort your side of things out?” I jumped for joy as he said that and told him it would only take about a week. I looked at Iain and asked him what he would do next? He said he would take over the house for me if that would be fine by me. That would as it would mean I would have somewhere to come back to later on.
We went home after sorting other stuff out. I told Iain I could sign over my pension and bank account for him to use so he wouldn’t need to worry over money. I did that the next day at my solicitors who wanted to make a fuss and stop me doing it but when I threatened to go elsewhere he made it so easy and by the end of the week everything was set. I had phoned work the next day and told them that I was moving abroad to be with my husband and again they made it so easy for me. Boy was I glad of that, I was even given my severance pay the next day by the boss so that was put in the bank for Iain’s use. I’m not sure but I think the magic of the lighthouse made it all go smoothly.
Drew told his daughter about us and she turned round and told him she had known he loved for quite some time and was pleased for us both. She even liked the lighthouse when we took her there. Iain moved out at the end of the week and moved in. That was over 10yrs ago and since then we have had many adventures, helped so many people all over the world wherever help was needed. Some people used it as a shelter others as a place to take a much needed break from the hell of their lives. We also had helped many ships to get to safety.
We loved our new life and were constantly on the move sometimes on our own and sometimes with others in tow.
We also spent time with Drew’s daughter. Iain had since died and she had moved into our house in order for it to be kept in the family. Yes we had married after a couple of years together. Our love for each other had gone from strength to strength.
We still have many adventures to come and we can’t wait for them.

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