A Note & a Letter

He wanted to ring the bell and whoever came to ask them to sit with him for a while, but he knew this would sound ridiculous and pathetic. He did however ring the bell for his dessert and Sarah came in carrying it.

As if his wish had been heard she seemed in no hurry to leave. She did not sit, but standing there she began to ask him if he had any plans, what he would like to do and see. He told her he was a keen birdwatcher and asked if there were places that he should go to.

She talked about the surrounding hills and had a surprising knowledge of the bird life to be found there. "I'm not a birdwatcher but I often go walking along the trails when I've got time off, and there are some marvellous beaches quite near you can go to."

She chatted on eagerly for several minutes extolling the virtues of Rascals Point and Glen began to feel guilty that he might be holding her up from her work. He said as much and she said, "Oh no, it's quiet in the kitchen now and mother and father don't like me working in the bar."

"Oh, why?"

"Well, most of the customers are okay, but sometimes, especially after a few drinks, some of them say things…you know, suggestive things if I'm working there, so mostly I'm kept out of it, except the private bar. It doesn't really bother me unless they try pawing me, but dad says to stay away and that he and Harry can handle that side of things."

Glen's limited experience with women working in pub bars had always suggested to him that they tended to be tough, rough and raucous, but Sarah spoke with a quietly modulated voice.

She went on, "Mum and Dad don't really want me working around the pub, but there aren't too many jobs for girls in Rascals Point. I lived away from here for some time but I love living here.

"Where have you been, anywhere interesting?"

She laughed and said, "If you consider a private girls' school interesting."

"Couldn't you go and live in the city, I'm sure you could find work, Trish and Ron would help, I mean, they know lots of people."

"Yes, I have thought of that, but I like it here; I didn't want to go away to school, but mum and dad thought it would be good for me."

"And was it?"

"I suppose it gave me a broader education than I could have got here and I met a different sort of people than you can meet in Racal's Point. It was fine, but I still want to live here."

Glen had initially judged her to be about twenty, but now he thought eighteen might be nearer the mark. Her eagerness and cheerfulness moved him. She was, he thought, despite his current cynicism concerning females, rather sweet and touchingly innocent. She had brought a breath of fresh air into the room along with her fragrance.

"I'd better go," she said, "There's the washing up to be done."

"Perhaps we'll talk again," Glen said.

She smiled her radiant smile and said, "I'm sure we will," and left.

"No," he thought, "definitely not a Mona Lisa smile." Then smelling her lingering perfume he managed to give it an identity; "Roses…the delicate perfume of a rose. She reminds me of a rose," and with that he amended his earlier description of her as a pocket Venus.

It was Linda who came in to clear away. Her likeness to Sarah was even clearer now and Glen could well imagine how much greater that likeness would have been twenty years before.

"I've been having a chat with your daughter," he said. "She's a lovely girl."

"We think so," Linda smiled. "She works hard but there's no future for her here in the pub. Harry's okay, he'll be able to take over when Steve and I decide we've had enough…that is, if he wants to, but Sarah's just not made for this sort of life. We've suggested that she go to the city but she loves it here. Don't get me wrong, we love her dearly, but we just can't see what the future is for her."

"Yes, she told me, and I suggested the city but she said the same thing to me, she likes it here."

"Did you? I wish you'd keep it up, you know how young people are with parents. If you suggest one thing they go in the opposite direction."

Glen smiled and said, "She might see me as a parent as well, I mean, as far as she's concerned I suppose I'm the older generation."

Linda laughed and said, "Go on, you can't be more than twenty eight."

"That's very flattering, but I'm thirty five."

"You poor old man," laughed Linda, "just wait until you're forty five." Changing the subject she went on, "If you'd like a quiet drink, there's the private bar. The only people who go in there are those that Steve or I invite."

"I might do that," Glen replied.

"If you come with me now I'll show you where it is," offered Linda.

Glen followed Linda along the corridor, through an archway and into a small room with a minute bar and a couple of tables and chairs. Behind the bar was another archway screened by heavy curtains and behind them could be heard voices coming from the main bar.

"I'll get Sarah to come and serve you," Linda said, and she went out through the arch.

Glen sat on a bar stool and waited, listening to the voices and laugher beyond the curtains. They heightened his feelings of loneliness and he wondered if he should have gone into the main bar. There he might have got into conversation and for a while forgotten his woes.

Sarah came in and stood behind the bar, waiting for him to give his order.

"I'll have a double whisky, please. Can I buy you a drink?"

Sarah poured his whisky and said, I don't really drink…well, not alcohol, but if I could have an apple juice?"

"Of course, whatever you want. I suppose working in a pub you get so used to having drink around you that you get fed up with it. A fellow I was talking to once told me he worked in a place where they made soft drinks and they had coolers around the plant full of their products. The people who worked there could go and help themselves, 'And do you know,' he said, ‘hardly anyone ever does'. A case of familiarity breeding contempt I suppose."

"Yes; dad and Harry get a lot of people wanting to buy them a drink and they mostly opt for a soft drink. A lot of people working behind bars end up as alcoholics and one barman we knew actually died from alcohol poisoning."

"I suppose I shouldn't be drinking this stuff, then," said Glen, indicating his whisky.

"You're a doctor so you should know it kills the brain cells."

Glen laughed and said, "All dead a long time ago."

Sarah made a move to leave and on impulse Glen said, "Don't go…that is if you haven't got anything else to do."

"No, apart from this I'm finished for the day, but I thought you might want to be on your own."

It had been on the tip of Sarah's tongue to suggest what Glen had thought a few minutes before, that he might prefer the main bar, but instead she said "We can talk for a while if you like."

There ensued an awkward pause; the sort of pause you often get when someone has said, "Let's talk," and having decided to do so they don't know what to say.

Sarah looked curiously at Glen. When Ron had phoned to make the arrangement all he had said was that Glen hadn't been very well, he had said nothing about what had actually been wrong with him. She had learned not to be too inquisitive about the pub's patrons because they sometimes took this to be an intimate interest in them and it could lead on to other things, especially if they'd had a few drinks. Then she would have to extricate herself from a situation that was getting out of hand.

Now she found that she was interested in Glen and deciding he was safe she said. "Ron said you hadn't been very well."

Glen wondered just how much Ron had said, but agreed that yes, he hadn't been well.

"A virus?" asked Sarah.

"No."

The brevity of his response and the way Glen had said it, suggested that further enquiries would not be welcome, and that was unusual in itself since most people are only too willing to discuss their ailments.

She turned the conversation in what she assumed was a safe direction.

"Have you known Ron and Trish long?"

He explained that he had met Trish in medical school but had only got to know Ron when he married Trish.

"She's lovely, isn't she? We were all so glad when she married Uncle Ron, and now they're going to have a baby. It seems funny, doesn't it? Trish is a doctor and now she'll have to have a doctor, won't she?"

Glen found himself warming towards this ingenuous girl. "Doctors sometimes need a doctor, we get sick too."

"Have you got a doctor…one you go to when you're not well?"

"Yes, Trish is my doctor and my…"

He was about to say "my wife's," but he stopped himself in time.

"There's something I've often wondered, I don't want to pry, but do doctors pay doctors when they consult them?"

Glen laughed and said, "No, not usually; it's a case of noblesse oblige; you fix me up now and I'll fix you up later."

"What about if you're married and have children?"

"Much the same applies, they get a free ride."

Sarah smiled and said, "I think I'll marry a doctor…or…do dentists do the same?"

"I believe so."

"Then perhaps I'll marry a dentist; they charge much more than doctors. Wouldn't it be good if you could marry a doctor, dentist, lawyer, plumber, electrician…? "

"You mercenary little thing," Glen laughed; then suddenly wondered what free services Rosemary got in return for her services in bed.

"Thinking it over, I should probably marry a computer expert, the dammed things are always going wrong."

She laughed again but Glen did not join her. He had become very sombre and Sarah wondered if she had said something wrong.

"I was only joking," she said shyly.

Glen looked at her and managed a smile, "I know you were."

Realising that his sudden change of mood had troubled Sarah, he asked if she would like to be married.

"Yes and no. I mean, if you look at the way marriages are these days with people breaking up, and especially if they have children, all the misery it causes, it makes you wonder if it's worth getting married."

"How right you are," thought Glen, and was thankful that he and Rosemary hadn't had children. He tried for a positive note and said, "I don't think Trish and Ron will break up."

"No…no they do seem to be very devoted to each other. I love to watch them when they come here to stay for a few days. They seem to know each other's thoughts even before they've spoken them. I think that's beautiful, don't you?"

"Yes, I suppose it is. You're parents haven't broken up."

"No, and that's odd in a way…I mean, it's never occurred to me that they would. Perhaps a lot of children feel like that until it happens. When I was at school a lot of the boarders had parents who'd broken up and it was as if they didn't really belong anywhere and some of them could be very disruptive."

She looked at the clock on the wall and asked, "Is there anything else you want?"

Glen decided he wouldn't kill any more brain cells and said, "No thank you."

I usually go for a short walk about this time along the beach, it helps me to sleep, so if you'd excuse me."

"Of course," replied Glen regretfully. He had enjoyed talking with this agreeable girl.

She went to leave saying, "Goodnight," then turned back. "Why don't you come with us, it's lovely at this time in the evening when the weather's calm."

"Who is ‘us'?"

"I take my dog Fred."

Glen thought it might help him sleep too, so he said, "Okay, but hadn't you better ask your dad, I mean, you hardly…"

"I'm over eighteen you know…over twenty one, so I don't have to ask." She smiled and added, "But I do tell mum or dad when I go."

"I thought you were a lot younger than…"

"Yes, a lot of people do. Perhaps I shall start to look old very quickly."

"Your mother doesn't look old."

"No, your right, she doesn't and she looked very like me when she was younger. Perhaps we're both lucky."

She went through the curtained arch into the main bar. She was gone for about half a minute and then came back. "Right, let's go."

They went down the corridor, though an empty kitchen and into a garden. It had grown dark and it was a moonless night and there being no other light but that of the stars Glen was dependent on Sarah to guide him.

Fred came bounding up and proved to be a large pinscher that sniffed at Glen suspiciously. "Friend" said Sarah and the sniffing ended with a lick on the hand. Glen could see why Sarah might go walking along the beach at night alone. If she had a word like "foe" as a command Fred would probably tear an arm off any poor wretch who sought to molest Sarah.

"There's a path down to the beach," Sarah said, "it's a bit tricky so hold my hand."

Glen felt a small firm hand in his. It was almost like a child's and felt very pleasant. The difference was that instead of like an adult leading the child, the child was leading him.

They went for about three hundred metres and then came out onto the sandy beach. The night was very calm and still and the stars were reflected on the smooth surface of the water. Glen was surprised to discover that he felt at peace. He made a deliberate effort to think of Rosemary, and found that it didn't hurt as badly as it had.

Fred had bounded away into the dark and they went off in the direction he had taken. Glen's eyes had become adjusted to the dark and he saw Sarah, who had not relinquished his hand, pointing with her free hand and saying, "Over there you can see the Rascals Point lighthouse."

He could not actually see the lighthouse but could see its light flashing out to sea. He tried to gauge how far away it was but it was difficult in the dark. He conjectured about two or three kilometres.

"Do you know how this place came to be called "Rascal's Point?" he asked.

"I know what I've been told and it's rather a nasty story. The town sort of took on the name Rascals Point, but the real Rascals Point is where the lighthouse is.

"Just below and behind the lighthouse is a small bay. Back in the days when we still had convict settlements some of the convicts would escape. They made their way to remote places; Rascals Point was only one of the places. I think at one time there were up to fifty men living around that bay. They weren't all escaped convicts; some of them were sailors or sealers who had jumped ship."

"They mostly lived off what they could catch and hunt but out beyond the point are rocks just below the water at high tide. There were coastal sailing ships that plied between the colonies and some of them got wrecked on the rocks before they erected the lighthouse. They went out in small rowing boats and killed any men who had survived, but kept the women. Then they got what they could from the ship and took it back into the bay."

"They raped the women and kept them as sex slaves. As well as that groups of them would come inland and kidnap aboriginal women and take them back to the bay. I believe there were terrible fights and men killing each other. You see, there were never enough women to go round so if one man wanted a particular woman and another man wanted her at the same time, there was trouble."

"They must have created hell on earth and a lot of the women died, either from what the men did to them or disease or giving birth to the children these men had put in them."

"In the end, and as the authorities took more and more control of the country, expeditions were sent out to round up people in those sort of places. A lot of the men died in the fights with the soldiers, and those that didn't die in the fights were hung."

"So that's how this place got the name, ‘Rascals Point.' I've always thought that the word rascal sounds a bit tame for what they were and that Hell Point would have been more suitable, but there you are. If you like I'll take you out there and show you."

"Would you have time?"

"Oh yes. If we could leave early, say about eight o'clock; I need to be back about eleven to help mum. We usually get a few people in for counter lunches, and there's your lunch as well. Or we could go in the afternoon; I get time off then until the evening meals have to be prepared."

"Could we go tomorrow morning?"

"Yes, of course."

They had reached the place where the beach ended and the first low rocky cliffs that ran out to the end of the Point began. Glen could not see them, but the cliffs became higher and more rugged as the got closer to the end of the Point.

They turned back and he could see the lights of the town. Some of these, like the stars, were reflected in the water.

"It looks beautiful," he said.

"Yes, I've often thought that…where's Fred got to? Fred...Fred."

Fred came leaping out of the dark. "Heel," Sarah commanded, and Fred obediently came to walk beside her. Somehow it seemed ridiculous that petite Sarah could with a single word command Fred.

"He's very obedient," commented Glen.

"Yes, I've had him since he was a puppy and I trained him myself. Some people are frightened of him but he's lovely really. I suppose he looks a bit fierce. That's like people, isn't it? Someone looks fierce so you think they are fierce but when you get to know them they might turn out to be really nice and gentle. Then there are others who look nice, but later you find out that they are horrible people. Appearances can be very deceptive.

"Yes, they can," replied Glen, a picture of beautiful but deceitful Rosemary coming into his mind.

They walked on in silence until they reached the pub. Sarah let go of his hand and said, "Tomorrow morning at eight then. If you tell me what you'd like for breakfast I'll have it ready for you and we can get away early."

Glen regretted the necessity of relinquishing her hand; he gave his breakfast order and said, "I'll be in the dining room at seven thirty, goodnight."

"Thank you for walking with me, goodnight."

Glen wanted to tell her that the pleasure had been all his, but she was gone.

For the first time since his departure from Rosemary he slept well. There were no nightmares of Rosemary in a lover's arms and when he woke at seven, as far as he could recall, he hadn't dreamt at all.

He showered and shaved with care, then dressed with equal care in the best casual clothes he had with him. He no sooner arrived in the dining room than smiling Sarah came in with his breakfast.

She was dressed in dark green slacks and a matching shirt. He thought she looked like a pixie, having always imagined pixies as wearing dark green. He wondered if she was as mischievous as pixies were reputed to be.

He said, "You look lovely in that outfit," and wondered if she looked equally lovely without it. He gave himself a mental slap on the wrist and remembered he didn't trust women and anyway Sarah was years younger than him.

She smiled and said, "We'll go in my car. Fred always goes with me on these trips and a lot of people don't like having dogs in their vehicle. Glen wondered if she was taking the dog for protection in case he tried to interfere with her. He also wondered how many other men had gone with her "on these trips."

When he finished Sarah came in with Linda who collected his empty plate and coffee cup.

"Be careful on that road out to the Point," she said, it can be very dangerous."

"I will," said Sarah, "Shall we go?"

"I'm ready."

Sarah's car turned out to be a station wagon, and Fred jumped into the back and stuck his head out of an open window. They set out along the main street of the town and into the country beyond. They came to a dirt road running off to their right and turned onto it.

Glen soon found out why Linda had called it dangerous. Its surface was poorly maintained and the road ran along the top of the cliffs. The vehicle lurched and bounced over the rough surface and Glen could now see how, as they approached the point, the cliffs reared up higher and higher.