The Last Keeper of Rathlin

The automation crew arrived on a Tuesday. Three men in waterproofs, smelling of diesel and the Ballycastle ferry. They carried toolboxes and a crate of electronics wrapped in plastic sheeting, and they did not look at the light. Malcolm watched them from the kitchen window. He had the kettle on. He always had the kettle on. The tallest one, the supervisor, knocked and introduced himself as Gareth. He had a clipboard and the particular friendliness of someone about to make you redundant. "We'll try to stay out of your way," Gareth said. "You won't be in it," Malcolm told him. The lighthouse had fourteen rooms. He used three. They worked for four days. Malcolm could hear them in the tower, drilling holes for the new sensor mounts, running cable through conduits that had carried nothing but salt air for decades. He kept the light going each night as he always had. The fresnel lens turned its slow rotation, and the beam went out over the North Channel toward Scotland, which on clear nights you could almost convince yourself you could see. On the second evening, the youngest of the crew came down and stood awkwardly in Malcolm's doorway. "Is it true you've been here twenty-six years?" "Twenty-seven in March." "On your own?" "My wife was here for the first twelve." Malcolm poured two cups of tea without being asked. "She preferred the mainland. Can't blame her for that." The young man looked around the kitchen. The calendar on the wall was three months behind. The radio was tuned to shipping forecasts. A pair of binoculars sat on the windowsill next to a jam jar full of wildflowers that had dried to paper. "What will you do? After?" Malcolm handed him the tea. "I've a sister in Portrush. She says I can have the back bedroom." He said this as though it were a place he might go, and not just something a sister had offered. On the last night, after the crew had sealed up their crate of old components and Gareth had shaken his hand with both hands and said something about service and gratitude, Malcolm climbed the tower one final time. The new system was already running. Red LEDs blinked in a metal box bolted to the wall. The light turned by motor now, steady and reliable and utterly indifferent to whether anyone was in the room. He sat on the iron steps and listened to the wind. It came from the northeast, which meant rain by morning. He knew this the way he knew the sound of the particular wave that broke over the east rocks at high tide, or the angle of the light across his kitchen floor in September. Knowledge that had no use to anyone else. The beam swept the dark. Somewhere out there, boats were moving. Malcolm stayed until dawn. When the light clicked off, automatic, at 6:14 AM, he went downstairs and packed his bag. It took less than an hour. Twenty-seven years, and it fit in a single holdall and a cardboard box of books. He locked the door and left the key under the mat, as he'd been instructed. The ferry wasn't until noon, so he walked the island. The fulmars were nesting on the cliffs. A seal watched him from the rocks below the east point, its head dark and still in the grey water. At the harbour, he sat on the wall and ate the last of his bread with butter. The ferry appeared around the headland right on time. He did not look back at the lighthouse. He'd said his goodbyes to it in the dark, which was the proper way.