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Authors: Kate Mildenhall
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refused all my offers to escape to the cove or for a walk, once our chores were done.
After one such rejection, I muttered, âLet me know when you do have time for me, Harriet; when youâve finished mooning over that stupid fisherman.â
âKate!â she snapped, no doubt more afraid of the fact that Iâd spoken the thought out loud where any of the children might hear and tattle about a tiff between the two big girls. Especially if they tattled that it involved a fisherman.
The men around us were basically family, and those who lived on the periphery of the lighthouse, at Bennettâs River and beyond, were outsiders: fishermen, loners, hermits. There was an unspoken understanding that it would be none of these men who wooed us and asked for our hand.
Even the brittle way in which my mother greeted Albert and me sometimes when we returned from the vegetable garden was enough for me to realise that there was a threat that had arrived with my coming of age. It was to do with my body, my womanhood, the electricity that I sensed every now and then with a sideways glance from Albert, or when lying in a sandy nook with Harriet, our skirts pulled up past our knees. Were all these things the same? Did they threaten the good order of the cape, of me, of the world in the same way?
The following day, as if in penance, Harriet asked me to join her for a picnic at the point.
âPlease, Kate. I even had Mother make us currant buns. Iâve found lemon cordial and bread and cheese ⦠the sun is out. Will you come?â
âWell, I suppose we havenât been down there in a while â¦â I wanted to make her plead. It felt good to have her focus on me so completely again. Her attention made me alive.
âCome on, Iâve made sure all the other children are busy â no one will follow us.â
I took her outstretched hand and ran with her, the satchel carrying our picnic lunch bumping between us.
The point was a knobby finger of rock that jutted out into the sea not far from the lighthouse. The cliffs hung over the rocks so that we had to walk a few bays further along the top and then clamber down and rock-hop back to the point. The rocks were jagged in some places, sticking up sharply so that we had to be careful not to twist our ankles as we stepped between them. The landscape changed then and gave way to huge boulders, orange lichen growing over them like onion skin, wedged in place, creating crevices, nooks, shady caves where we could sit and hide and while away an afternoon.
The adventure of the point was that you could only get all the way around when the tide was low; there was a deep gully that led back to a cave, and beyond it a sheer wall of rock. When the tide was in, the gully was awash with foamy water, surging and gurgling, sucking into the space and then rushing back out, fast and furious. If you got caught in it, you didnât stand a chance.
The width of the gully at the spot we crossed was only about four feet; two sure-footed hops across the backs of round rocks. As you approached the gully, if you knew it as we did, you could just make out a couple of indentations on the rock wall on the other side, enough space to get a toe in and be able to push yourself up and over the top, to the great expanse of the point, a long sloping slab of rock, smooth and always warm with the soaked-up sun.
Where the rock sloped into the water, it created a deep green pool. On a good day, when there was enough cloud so that there was no reflection and no wind to rumple the skin of the water, you could see all the way to the sandy bottom. Arrowed fish in triangles darted across the pool, and swathes of kelp swayed in and out with the current. Clustered along the tide line were the fat, black shapes of sea slugs, glistening as they waited for the water to come back up and cover them.
Crusting the sides of the pool, and scratching the backs of our legs as we dangled our feet in the
After one such rejection, I muttered, âLet me know when you do have time for me, Harriet; when youâve finished mooning over that stupid fisherman.â
âKate!â she snapped, no doubt more afraid of the fact that Iâd spoken the thought out loud where any of the children might hear and tattle about a tiff between the two big girls. Especially if they tattled that it involved a fisherman.
The men around us were basically family, and those who lived on the periphery of the lighthouse, at Bennettâs River and beyond, were outsiders: fishermen, loners, hermits. There was an unspoken understanding that it would be none of these men who wooed us and asked for our hand.
Even the brittle way in which my mother greeted Albert and me sometimes when we returned from the vegetable garden was enough for me to realise that there was a threat that had arrived with my coming of age. It was to do with my body, my womanhood, the electricity that I sensed every now and then with a sideways glance from Albert, or when lying in a sandy nook with Harriet, our skirts pulled up past our knees. Were all these things the same? Did they threaten the good order of the cape, of me, of the world in the same way?
The following day, as if in penance, Harriet asked me to join her for a picnic at the point.
âPlease, Kate. I even had Mother make us currant buns. Iâve found lemon cordial and bread and cheese ⦠the sun is out. Will you come?â
âWell, I suppose we havenât been down there in a while â¦â I wanted to make her plead. It felt good to have her focus on me so completely again. Her attention made me alive.
âCome on, Iâve made sure all the other children are busy â no one will follow us.â
I took her outstretched hand and ran with her, the satchel carrying our picnic lunch bumping between us.
The point was a knobby finger of rock that jutted out into the sea not far from the lighthouse. The cliffs hung over the rocks so that we had to walk a few bays further along the top and then clamber down and rock-hop back to the point. The rocks were jagged in some places, sticking up sharply so that we had to be careful not to twist our ankles as we stepped between them. The landscape changed then and gave way to huge boulders, orange lichen growing over them like onion skin, wedged in place, creating crevices, nooks, shady caves where we could sit and hide and while away an afternoon.
The adventure of the point was that you could only get all the way around when the tide was low; there was a deep gully that led back to a cave, and beyond it a sheer wall of rock. When the tide was in, the gully was awash with foamy water, surging and gurgling, sucking into the space and then rushing back out, fast and furious. If you got caught in it, you didnât stand a chance.
The width of the gully at the spot we crossed was only about four feet; two sure-footed hops across the backs of round rocks. As you approached the gully, if you knew it as we did, you could just make out a couple of indentations on the rock wall on the other side, enough space to get a toe in and be able to push yourself up and over the top, to the great expanse of the point, a long sloping slab of rock, smooth and always warm with the soaked-up sun.
Where the rock sloped into the water, it created a deep green pool. On a good day, when there was enough cloud so that there was no reflection and no wind to rumple the skin of the water, you could see all the way to the sandy bottom. Arrowed fish in triangles darted across the pool, and swathes of kelp swayed in and out with the current. Clustered along the tide line were the fat, black shapes of sea slugs, glistening as they waited for the water to come back up and cover them.
Crusting the sides of the pool, and scratching the backs of our legs as we dangled our feet in the
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