A Thousand Miles Away

by Dorothy Cork

  Yet what had she exchanged that ordered life for? Cecile had merely been stating facts when she had said Farrell wasn’t needed at the hotel. As for her assertion that she wanted to be a writer—once again her stepmother had stated facts. She hadn’t had anything like enough experience of life to write anything worth while. She just liked playing with words—though she hadn’t played with them all that much. She was honest enough to admit to herself that the idea of writing might be just a sort of—excuse. What had that Sandfort man said? If you want anything badly enough, you have a good chance of achieving it. Farrell knew she didn’t want to write nearly badly enough.

  He—Larry Sandfort—had been quite pleasant, she mused. Quite understanding. Unexpectedly understanding, in fact, she thought, as, head down, she tramped along in the sand. Had there been a—a sympathy between them? Or had he really been bored, and hiding it? And had he meant her to come over to their table and have a drink with him and Cecile?

  ‘Perhaps I behaved badly,’ Farrell thought worriedly. She wasn’t really very clued up when it came to relating to other people, thanks to the very limited social life she had led in Perth. For all she knew she had blundered there just as badly as she had blundered in taking over Cecile’s place at the smorgasbord. Perhaps Cecile had wanted Larry Sandfort to herself. Even married women of thirty-nine must enjoy a harmless flirtation, Farrell reflected. But would flirting with a man like Larry Sandfort be all that harmless? She didn’t know why she suspected that it would not. Perhaps it was something to do with the effect those blue eyes of his had on her. As if they were communicating some message that she, less than a year out of school, was incapable of interpreting.

  She thought of Mark, long-haired, casual, not much of a talker, not in the least like Larry Sandfort. She sensed no danger in her association with him. He had kissed her a few times, and she had steeled herself not to resist; that puritanical idealism she had caught from Aunt Jean had to be overcome. Nevertheless, she hadn’t enjoyed Mark’s kisses, though she thought she had hidden that from him quite successfully, and she was sure it must simply be a matter of getting used to such physical contact. A couple of days ago, things had gone a little further. She had fallen asleep on the sand, and Mark had found her there and tickled her nose with a bit of dry seaweed. She woke and they had wrestled together, but she had got away. He had chased her as far as the sandhills and then she had sought refuge in the hotel grounds. He wouldn’t follow her there and she knew it. He had come to the hotel only once, and she had introduced him to Cecile. He refused to come again. ‘All those tourists and holidaymakers get on my nerves,’ was his only excuse.

  Mark had cleared out from his father’s sheep station somewhere in the Pilbara. ‘I was being pushed around like a kid by my father,’ was all he told Farrell. ‘If you want to do your own thing you have to get right away from family interference. It’s the only way to become independent.’ Farrell too wanted to do her own thing, but she had come back to her father’s home to try to find her feet. And it wasn’t working out...

  The sky was beginning to darken when she turned back along the beach, and though she felt hungry, she didn’t hurry. It wasn’t like going back to the happy home she had envisaged when she had packed her bags and flown out of Perth. Not at all. It was practically dark and she had started to climb the sandhills when she almost ran into Larry Sandfort. She knew instinctively it was he, and he apparently recognised her as instantaneously.

  ‘Hello, it’s you, Farrell! I was on my way to look for you. You haven’t eaten, have you?’

  ‘No,’ she said uncertainly. They had stopped within a foot of each other, and she was once again impressed by his size.

  ‘I expected to find you in the dining room,’ he remarked. ‘What happened? Mrs. Fitzgerald was a bit put out at having to take over herself.’

  Farrell bit her lip. It seemed you couldn’t win. She had thought she was doing the right thing in disappearing after what her father had said. She hoped there hadn’t been friction between Cecile and Tony because he had put her off.

  ‘Nothing happened,’ she said helplessly. ‘I just—changed my mind.’ It was hardly the whole truth, but she didn’t feel inclined to explain the touchy relationship that had grown up between herself and her stepmother.

  ‘Perhaps that wasn’t a good idea under the circumstances,’ he commented. ‘Well, I haven’t eaten either. I think the best plan might be for us to go to that restaurant in town—what’s its name? The Lobster Pot?’

  Farrell felt slightly stunned. Was he inviting her to eat with him or was she going off her head?

  She said confusedly, ‘The seafood there isn’t nearly as good as ours—’

  ‘I daresay not. But as I’m more interested in you than in food—and I hope the same goes for you—and as you can eat at the Coral Reef any night of the week, it surely doesn’t matter all that much. Are you wearing sandals or thongs, by the way?’

  ‘Sandals,’ she said with a slight quaver. He was inviting her to eat with him and it was totally incomprehensible, and even apart from that she was so hungry she could hardly think straight. But at least she understood his question. All reputable eating places up here had a rule that people wearing thongs, or without a shirt, did not eat on their premises. Farrell felt a little relieved that she didn’t have to go back to the hotel and face Cecile, yet—why should this man want to take her out to dinner? Already he had taken her arm and they were moving towards the hotel.

  ‘Why—why are you taking me to dinner?’ she managed to ask as he guided her through the grounds to where his car was parked.

  ‘Why do you think?’ He opened the door for her, saw her seated, slammed the door shut, and in a moment was seated beside her. ‘Why does a man generally ask a woman to dine with him?’ he resumed.

  ‘I—I have no idea,’ Farrell said naively.

  ‘You haven’t?’ He sounded really amused. ‘Well, let’s say it’s so we can talk.’ He started up the motor and as the car moved forward, she asked:

  ‘What—what do you want to talk to me about?’

  ‘Various things,’ he said. ‘A lot of things. Far too many things for the time at our disposal, in fact. I’m afraid I have to leave in the morning.’

  ‘Tomorrow? Already? You only came yesterday,’ she exclaimed, turning her head to stare at his dark, unfamiliar profile.

  ‘Yes. But I’ve done what I came here to do—a little bit of private investigation. I didn’t count on meeting you. And unfortunately I have some urgent business to see to on the tableland, and in two days’ time I must be in Perth.’

  ‘Oh. Your work has something to do with iron ore mining, hasn’t it?’ Farrell, quite unnerved by his remark about meeting her, hardly knew what she was saying.

  ‘Well, how did you know that?’ He sounded mildly surprised.

  ‘What? Oh, my father told me.’

  ‘Was it information given gratuitously or asked for?’

  ‘I—I asked him.’

  ‘Why did you do that?’

  She shrugged in the dark of the car. ‘I don’t know—I just wondered, I guess.’

  He laughed. ‘I was hoping for a compliment. Still, at least you asked.’

  Farrell was silent. She hadn’t the least idea what this was all about. Neither of them said anything further until in not many minutes they reached the tiny town where the Lobster Pot was. Farrell had actually never been to this restaurant before, she had merely heard her father and Cecile discussing the food there. It was attractive enough, unpretentious, licensed. Taped music provided a background to conversation, and there were pretty and unsophisticated girls waiting on the tables. A quick look around assured Farrell that she didn’t look out of place in the clothes she was wearing, and she had run a comb through her hair in the car, feeling thankful she carried one in the pocket of her pants.

  Larry ordered wine first of all and then with the remark, ‘You haven’t been here so long you’re sated by seafood, I take it?’ he ordered
crayfish and a salad for them both. Farrell sat blinking in the rather dim pinkish light, feeling that somehow everything had suddenly been turned upside down or inside out, and that her life was going to be given a new twist. This was the first time since she had left Perth that she had dined anywhere other than at her father’s hotel. It was the first time in her life that she had eaten alone with a man, apart from her father.

  She glanced through her lashes at the man sitting opposite her and presently engaged in pouring wine into her glass. Who would ever have believed she’d be eating out with him tonight! He was really rather—impressive. He wore a dark brown long-sleeved shirt, and she noticed the disconcerting cleft in a chin that was otherwise aggressive. His eyes, when he raised them suddenly to meet hers, were quizzical, and almost dazzlingly blue. What on earth could he want to talk to her about?

  He raised his glass. ‘Well, let’s hear some more about you, Farrell.’

  ‘Me?’ Her bewilderment was obvious. She took a quick swallow of her wine, a very light rose.

  ‘Yes. You’ve opted out of city life to come back here where people are warm and friendly and relaxed. Or can be, should I say?’ he amended wryly, and she wondered if he were thinking of Cecile as he said it.

  ‘Yes,’ she murmured vaguely.

  ‘What’s brushed off on you from the company you mixed with in Perth?’

  ‘I—I don’t know what you mean,’ she stammered. Colour stained her cheeks as, madly, into her mind came the voice of Penny Watson, telling her, ‘My brother says you’re as cold as a frog’.

  ‘I’m thinking of Women’s Lib—that’s rife in university circles,’ he said after a moment. He moved his elbow off the table as the waitress brought the dishes he had ordered. There was a pause while they helped themselves to salad, started on the crayfish, then he gave her one of his frankly searching looks. ‘Have you been brainwashed with a lot of ideas on the subject by—members of the club, Farrell? Or have you managed to keep out of all that?’

  ‘I’ve kept out of it,’ she said." Oh, how she’d kept out of it! Surely no one could have been more untouched by Women’s Lib than Farrell Fitzgerald.

  ‘I thought as much,’ he said, and added, ‘I hope you don’t object if we begin to talk about love—or sex—over the crayfish? We don’t have all that much time.’

  ‘I—don’t mind,’ Farrell said awkwardly. She glanced around her, at other tables where people were talking, laughing, drinking, eating—young people, middle-aged people, elderly people. She and the man opposite her were surely no different from the rest—well, she amended that thought, no one else in the room had his charisma, but this conversation—where was it all leading? Hungry as she was, she tried to give her full attention to the crayfish, but somehow failed, commendable though it was. She felt almost transfixed by the man she was dining with.

  He looked across at her, his eyes glinting. ‘I rather think you have a nice clean slate, Farrell. I’d like to write something on it—something important.’

  ‘What?’ she asked, staring, not understanding what he was getting at.

  He laid down his fork and looked at her bemusedly, his eyes travelling from her fair hair to her soft, rather wide mouth.

  ‘Well, this for a start. That the love relationship between a man and woman is the most important thing in life.’

  Farrell stared and listened and repeated it in her mind.

  The love relationship between a man and a woman—Was he—could he be—talking about her father and Cecile? Warning her in some way about not upsetting the relationship between Tony and his new wife? Or was he talking about himself? They had talked about her this evening, she reflected, taking another sip of the rose, but they had not talked about him.

  ‘Are you married, Mr. Sandfort?’ she asked interestedly.

  He laughed. ‘Farrell, you are utterly charming and totally incredible. No, I’m thirty-five and I’m not married. But I’ve loved and lost a sufficient number of times to learn that life without love, without a woman who is part of you physically and emotionally and mentally, is as barren as the desert.’

  Yes, Farrell thought; he was probably right. This very evening, because she had had no one to talk to, her life had begun to feel as empty as a desert. She nodded soberly, and he said with a slightly sad crooked smile that did something to her heart, ‘You don’t really know anything about it yet, do you? You’re possibly more concerned with this idea of yours to become a writer.’

  She felt a fraud immediately. ‘Not really,’ she murmured. She realised it acutely. She was far more concerned with the warmth of human relationships—something that had been missing while she had lived with Jean Roseblade. But of course, she didn’t know anything of the kind of love he was talking about.

  ‘No? Well, as I said this afternoon, I couldn’t help you there anyway ... Is there a man in your life at this moment?’

  Farrell shook her head, and he leaned towards her, pushing his plate aside. ‘You’re lost, aren’t you? You don’t know what you’re looking for. Am I right?’ He paused and she nodded. His next words shocked her. ‘Marry me, Farrell. I promise you’ll never regret it.’

  Farrell was so completely astonished she wondered if she were hearing things—if the rose had gone to her head. She laid down her fork with a hand that shook.

  ‘Marry you? You—you must be joking!’

  ‘I’m not joking. I’m dead serious,’ he said, his blue eyes intent. ‘You’re in a spot at your father’s hotel, Farrell. Do you realise that, or don’t you? If you don’t watch it—and I’m afraid even if you do watch it—you’re going to break up your father’s marriage. Maybe you mean well, I’d guess so, but that stepmother of yours doesn’t think so. Putting it bluntly, if you love your father, you can’t stay around.’

  It was a conclusion Farrell was on the way to reaching herself, but she didn’t particularly like anyone pointing it out to her. Like Mark, she wanted to work things out for herself. She had followed the guide lines laid down for her by someone else for long enough.

  ‘So,’ Larry Sandfort pursued relentlessly, ‘marry me.’

  ‘Oh, please—’ Farrell pushed her plate aside and her wine glass as well. ‘I—I couldn’t—I don’t know you—people don’t do that sort of thing.’

  ‘Don’t do it?’ His eyebrows rose comically. ‘Good God, it’s being done constantly. Daily—hourly—people are rushing into marriage with someone they know nothing about. But I didn’t mean you and I would do it that way, Farrell. We can do a crash course to learn about each other.’

  ‘How can we?’ Farrell protested. ‘You’re leaving tomorrow. And if you mean—’ She stopped, her heart hammering, her cheeks red.

  ‘Now don’t jump to conclusions. I don’t mean we can do a crash course in bed tonight. I’m not making that kind of proposal, and I don’t want to marry you tomorrow. We can learn a lot about each other in a week, and I can manage to free myself for that long. Of course, it would still be asking you to take a drastic step, but if we married before you were completely ready, I’d give you all the time you needed to learn to love me. Don’t think I’d ask you to make marriage vows just so that I could have the privilege of going to bed with you. This other thing would work—I could as good as promise you that. Provided we both wanted it to, of course.’

  Farrell shook her head. ‘How could we want it to? I—I couldn’t possibly. It’s just—well, you can’t mean it.’

  ‘I do mean it,’ he said, and though his chin was aggressive, the line where his lips met was soft, and there was an expression in his eyes that baffled Farrell and gave her a strange feeling of weakness. ‘If you’re telling yourself I’m too old for you, that you want a man of twenty-three or four, let me assure you that experience is a help. An older man understands women better—the frictions, the abrasives are missing. I could make your life a Song of Solomon.’

  Farrell could only stare at him. She felt almost faint and her senses were reeling. This couldn’t be happening to h
er!

  ‘Now listen, Farrell,’ he said quietly after a moment. ‘I don’t want you to give me an answer now. I’ve told you I have to go away—for perhaps a couple of weeks. During that time, think about it, will you? Think about me—seriously. When I come back we’ll go all out to get to know each other. I promise you can ask me any question you want, however difficult, however personal, and I shall endeavour to answer you with complete honesty. I’d expect the same from you, of course. A week, and we’ll know each other a hundred per cent better than the average couple who get married. If sex is worrying you, don’t let it. That’s a natural part of love—you’d grow towards that.’

  ‘But—but why me?’ Farrell asked. Her cheeks had grown pale and she was trembling. The waitress brought coffee, and she began to drink hers, hot, black, unsweetened, as if to clear her brain. It was bitter, and shuddering she reached for the sugar.

  ‘Why you?’ he said, as if there had been no interruption. He considered her slowly, from her bright curling hair to her bosom, its soft contour revealed by the silky shirt. His eyes were unfathomable, and Farrell felt a stirring deep within her—a sort of stirring towards knowledge. ‘Because I want you,’ he said. He spooned sugar into his own coffee, then added deliberately, ‘And I’m pushing it because I know you’re in a predicament. Your presence here is fouling up your father’s marriage. If you’re not yet aware of that, you soon will be. Your pretty stepmother doesn’t want you around. But perhaps that’s your idea—to break the whole thing up? You don’t care—’