didn’t answer. Breesha went on thinking about the jigsaw map as she polished. She and Billy had put it together so often they knew it by heart. Most of the land in the world was very large. India was far larger than England. England was far larger than the Isle of Man. The Isle of Man was far larger than Ellan Bride. Ellan Bride was about the smallest place in the world, and yet it was the largest, if you happened to live on it and had hardly ever been anywhere else. Breesha had been to Port St Mary, and she had twice been to Castletown, only that was so long ago she couldn’t remember it. From the top of the lighthouse you could see five different countries. Six, Mam always said, if you counted the kingdom of heaven. But you might as well not count that, because you couldn’t go there unless you were dead. It was good doing the jigsaw puzzle. It would be better to have another one, one day. She and Billy had got to the point when they knew their jigsaw puzzle almost too well.
‘That jigsaw puzzle,’ said Lucy presently. ‘Never again. It was nearly driving me mad. All over the kitchen table.’
‘But we always remember to do it on the tray now! We just didn’t know to do that the first time until it was too late.’
‘Pointless, anyway,’ said Lucy.
They worked on in silence. The sun shone fiercely, until it grew so hot inside the lantern that Breesha could feel the sweat running down her back. Lucy wedged the window wide open, and that brought in a whiff of cooler air. Sunlight winked on glass and made Breesha’s eyes water. Outside the island basked in the spring light. Pale tide streaks made long lines off the Creggyns. Breesha shut one eye, and squinted across the last reflector. The mosaic of mirrors gleamed without blemish, every piece.
When Breesha worked with Aunt Lucy there was almost no talking; it was quite different from being with Mam. Aunt Lucy liked it that Breesha never had to be told anything twice. So when all the reflectors were done Breesha went back to the house without being told, jumping down from rock to rock instead of following the zigzag path. Mam wasn’t in the kitchen, but the broth was simmering in the iron pot. Breesha lifted the big kettle from the chain, and half-filled the bucket. The kettle was very heavy. She poured the boiling water carefully. Billy had once scalded himself doing this job, and he’d had to sit with his feet in cold water all morning.
In the yard the chickens were foraging round the ditch where Diya had thrown out the night slops. Flies clouded thickly over the empty feeding trough. When Mrs Black saw Breesha with another bucket in her hand she scuttled over, clucking excitedly, even though she knew just as well as the other chickens that breakfast came only once. Even Mally, who could be silly about chickens, wouldn’t fuss when Mrs Black appeared on the dinner table. Breesha clambered up to the light again, following the path this time and using two hands for the bucket. She topped up the bucket with cold water from the butt outside the storeroom. This side of the lighthouse gleamed in its fresh coat of white. Every summer they had to work their way round the fifteen-foot tower until all the outside was whitewashed. Only yesterday morning Aunt Lucy had touched up the lettering on the carved scroll over the door in black paint: Et in Arcadia ego. The Latin words meant that even though Ellan Bride was the best place in the world men would still get drowned here.
In the workroom at the bottom of the tower Aunt Lucy poured some of the water into a second bucket, and added soap to one and vinegar to the other. Aunt Lucy had already put the oil cans away; the first rule was that the clean things and the oily things must never, ever, get mixed. Even Mally knew that. Breesha took a clean rag for her soap bucket, and a crackly dry leather for the vinegar bucket, where it immediately turned soft and slippery in the hot water.
She enjoyed cleaning the windows on a sunny day. She liked the smell of soap and vinegar. At first the water was so hot she could barely put her hands in it to wring out the cloth. It made her skin red and raw, but it soon cooled. First she washed each pane with hot soapy water until it was clean, then she rubbed it with the leather until it shone. She took care to get right into every corner; Lucy always noticed if a corner got missed. That took a long time. Even after a short summer night there was a greasy film all over the glass. The light chamber had six glass windows facing all round, because shipping could come from any direction. Each of the six windows was made up of six small panes. Aunt Lucy always did the top four, and Billy or Breesha, whichever it was, had to do the bottom two. Cleaning the glass was the longest job, and in winter it could take the rest of the morning. At first the soapy water just made the glass even blurrier, and then as Breesha rubbed and rubbed it gradually got clear again. It was hardest on sunny days because she could see every single smear, and she had to go on until the whole pane was shining bright.
‘Clean water,’ said Lucy.
Breesha sighed; they could have made it last just one pane longer. When she came back up the ladder with the heavy bucket, she glanced out of the cleaned north-west window. A small black speck was detaching itself from the Calf. ‘There’s a boat coming from the Island.’
Lucy stopped cleaning and looked out of the window. ‘So there is.’ There was something in her voice Breesha hadn’t heard before. She felt that same quick pang of fear. There is something, but they’re not telling us. Lucy cut across her thoughts. ‘That window’s still mucky, Breesha.’
‘It’s on the outside.’
‘We’ll see.’ Lucy stood upright and shook out her leather. ‘I should be doing the outside today anyway, while the weather’s so good …’ She looked at the distant speck, and seemed to hesitate.
‘Can I help?’ Doing the outside meant getting onto the balcony and moving the rope ladder round that was fixed to the iron weathercock on the top of the tower, and climbing three steps off the parapet, with a leather bucket on a rope beside you, then leaning on the wooden ribs between the panes, with your face against the roof of the tower, higher than anything else in the world, while you rubbed away at the outside glass, right into the very topmost corners. On a day like this there would be just the blue arch of sky above you. In stormy weather it was different, but those were the very times that the lantern got most salted up. That was when Lucy tied the rope round her waist, and Mam and Billy both went up and held the end of the rope looped round the rail, and the job had to be done one-handed because Lucy always had to have one hand to cling onto the hooks when the wind was wild. Aunt Lucy was the strongest person in the world, and afraid of nothing.
‘No,’ said Lucy.
‘But you let Billy!’
‘Billy’s a boy.’
‘But you’re not a boy!’ cried Breesha.
‘You can be doing the bottom panes, same as inside.’
Breesha stood between her aunt and the top of the ladder. ‘Aunt Lucy. You let Billy do the top ones outside and you don’t let me. I’m three months older than he is. When you were young you did all the jobs. You told us. But you weren’t a boy.’
Lucy relented, and gave her an answer. ‘My Da was only ever letting me do outside when Jim was away. I was older than you when I was starting boy’s work. And I only did it all the time after your Grandda couldn’t manage it any more.’
‘So if Billy goes away one day, I could then?’
A shadow seemed to cross her aunt’s face. ‘God knows what you’ll be needing to do, Breesha veen, before we’re done. Now then, I’ll fill up the oil cans while you’re getting some more water. Did you refill the kettle?’
‘Of course I did!’ It was lazy and thoughtless not to leave the kettle full. Only Billy sometimes forgot. Indignantly Breesha seized the bucket and tipped the dirty water over the rail. There was no wind today;
