The Boathouse

The 120-foot tall stone tower of the Pinchbeck point lighthouse stands proud above the rocks that chop up the rolling Atlantic waves. The waves that have been assaulting this Cornish coastline for longer than anyone cares to imagine. Alongside the old stone lighthouse is a less impressive structure, a boathouse. Wood built but despite that fact, sturdy enough to with stand all that the sea would throw at it on this jutting exposed headland. Today the slipway glides easily into an almost calm sea. Not always that way, not always so deceptively kind.

A man stands alone near the rails atop the tower. Not at the edge, never at the edge. The tower is too tall for Alan Franklin to risk the edge. The height is good for a view of the water; but the distance to the ground is more than he could stomach. So he stays away from the edge and gazes out to sea. There's no sound in the lighthouse, nobody else to make any sound these past fifteen years.

Alan loves the sea as much as it was possible for any man. Without it he feels he would starve. He had brought his son Tom to live at the lighthouse when he took early retirement from the chandlers where he'd worked for thirty years. He'd thought it would be a fine place to set up on his own. Tom was only 9 years old and he couldn't share his fathers’ love of the deep, it scared him. To his perpetual dismay, Toms seeming unwillingness to take advantage of this wonderful place frequently and visibly disappointed Alan.

Storms scared Tom most of all. The sounds of a rough night rushing through the thick stone walls of the lighthouse would make him shrink down into the green armchair by the hearth. The sight of the sea during a storm, out of control outside his window would make him screw his eyes tight shut in an effort to shut it out, to make it go away. Tom didn’t like the sea at all, it was the most he could do to swim on a calm summers day. The waves of an angry sea sent him running for his bed like a scared mouse.

Alan often waits here, above the rocks, waiting to see if Tom would come back, visiting. He did come, on stormy nights like the one so deeply etched on Alan’s memory from fifteen years ago.

That night he’d heard the wooden doors of the boathouse clattering in the wind, he’d gone down to shut them cursing himself for being so careless. When he reached the boathouse, the newly finished boat was gone. He angrily looked about, searching for the culprit. Then found them, the boat was barely visible through the wind and rain; it was being taken out to sea. Incensed, he shouted out at the top of his lungs for the thief to return his property. By a minor miracle the boats occupant heard his cry and turned to look towards the source. Horror stabbed Alan through the stomach as he recognised his sons’ oil-skinned form staring back at him from amongst waves that stood six times his height, battling with oars never meant for a nine-year-old boy to wield. Alan cried out again, this time a desperate plea for his son to return to the shore. At that very moment the seas open claws caught hold of the small boat and flicked it over.

The boat was too far out to swim to.