George's Bar
Created | Updated Sep 20, 2010
George's Bar
The following is part of a series of short stories written by Pheroneous II.
Remy unbolted the gate from the bar to the beach, top and bottom, stepped outside onto the white sand, already hot on his socked feet, hitched up the back of his swimming trunks and lit his first cigarette of the day. Leaning against the salt scarred gate post he gazed out, as he always did, at the rocks separating his little bay from the town beach.
Remy was not an attractive man. A barrel chest, sagging pot belly and skinny bum and legs: hence the falling trunks. The glossy black hair that used to be on his head sprouted luxuriantly from his nostrils and ears and smothered his belly, back and shoulders. Later in the season he would be walnut brown from head to toe, but, for now he appeared possibly the least attractive person on the beach, normally frequented by the beautiful people, along from St Tropez.
Some ten years before, Remy had been performing almost the same morning routine when he heard shouting from a luxury yacht moored close inshore. He understood immediately that someone was overboard and in trouble. With a surprising turn of speed, he had raced to the shoreline, pulled one of the up-ended dinghies into the sea, paddled it, following the pointing arms on the yacht, towards the rocks, and had dived in. A sea swimmer since birth, like a great seal he was graceful and fluent underwater, belying his appearance onshore. He rescued a young girl, trapped underwater by her foot stuck firmly in a cleft in the rocks. He had freed her foot, tugged her in a great bear hug, to the surface, thrown her in the dinghy and, after some agonisingly dreadful minutes of attempted resuscitation, revived her. The parents, on the yacht, were, it turned out, the most vaunted of celebrities, Oscar winners both, and overwhelmingly grateful to Remy for the rescue of their only child, Polyanna, usually called Anna.
Remy resisted all their overtures and offers of reward, not least because he understood no English, but the couple took to visiting his beach bar every afternoon of their holidays in a nearby villa. Consequently, such was the stellar attraction of this couple, that the bar soon filled with the almost as well known and nearly famous. Remy was oblivious to the fame and notoriety of his guests. He rarely watched TV and never visited the cinema. His bar had always been rough and ready and remained so. The grateful parents continued their patronage every year, and Remy found – without much wondering as to how and why – that his bar had become busy and successful. Even so, through laziness rather than any thought-through strategy, Remy kept things, including prices, much as they always had been, thus becoming the subject of conversation at many a Hollywood dinner party.
"If you are in San Tro' this year, dahling, you really must visit Remy's, so charmingly rustic and authentic!".
The years passed, the beach bars proliferated, but Remy's remained the haunt of the glitterati and, most especially, their sons and daughters. Fortunately, Remy's grandfather, in the days when a successful fisherman could afford such things, had acquired a fair patch of land between the main road and the beach. There was little use for it and it had been left as low scrub, the track from road to bar bisecting it. It was easy, therefore, for him to control who came and went by posting a sentry at the turn-off. Similarly, the bar was raised a little from the beach so that it was impossible for any passing paparazzi to see who was on the platform. In this way Remy was able to ensure total privacy for his guests, although he was rarely aware of who they were.
Anna, the child Remy had rescued, grew over the years into a somewhat reserved teenager. Remy was, given their history, especially protective of her as she grew through the awkward and clumsy early teens. She, for her part, enjoyed the solid reliable company of her 'uncle' Remy, using him to practice her French and, eventually, took every opportunity to help out at the bar, growing, year by year, in confidence. In high summer, the children of the rich and famous congregated at the bar mid-morning, their parents arriving for the gentler evening sun and supper.
Remy spent most of his time leaning on the bar, keeping an indulgent, avuncular, eye on the teenagers. He made sure they didn't drink too much weak French beer – the only alcohol he allowed them – and didn't fall asleep in the searing sun. He left the supervision of the smaller children, the actual bar-work and waitressing to Anna and some of the friends she had made over the years. He didn't mind that his age and appearance made him something of an object of derision, most of which was in any case in English and thus passed him by completely. He took no notice of their skimpily clothed bodies. He tolerated a fair amount of bad behaviour, indulging them as an older brother might. He never understood that most of these kids had minimal contact with their actual parents, but nevertheless knew that these were his charges, his children, and he took his responsibility seriously.
But, kids being kids, and rich kids being particularly spoiled and brattish, there were, from time to time, incidents. That summer, one boy in particular, the son of a Swedish banking magnate, took to testing Remy, measuring himself against the older man, and beginning to taunt and annoy him. One of Anna's friends told Remy the boy was using and selling marijuana. Remy banned him from the bar for two weeks.
Sentence served, the boy returned. Remy noticed his little coterie in the corner, but paid little attention. They were plotting revenge, but this time were careful of Anna and her friends.
Some days later a new guest appeared. An attractive woman of Remy's vintage introduced herself as Lady Georgina Faraday;
"Call me George, darling, everyone does!"
She spent the day sat near Remy at the bar. He acknowledged her presence, questioned the sentry as to her introduction – her now dead husband was a good friend of one of the regulars, she claimed – but otherwise paid her little attention. Nevertheless, she returned the next day, wearing less, and tried, as one 'oldie' to another, to engage Remy in conversation. Remy, however, had little idea of how to socialise with such a woman, and moved from his traditional seat at the corner of the bar. So the game continued, the Lady George, returning daily and Remy uncomfortably shifting his daily routine.
It took a week, but eventually she cornered Remy and forced him to make some sort of conversation. Gradually, Remy became less wary, and as the scorching summer days passed, the two of them formed some sort of a relationship. Much to his surprise, the usually taciturn Remy found himself looking forward to their conversations. Eventually their talk turned to childhood and, in answer to the question of whether he had ever had a sweetheart – he had seemed virtually asexual to her, expecting all red-blooded males to respond to her practised wiles – he took a deep breath and told her something he had never ever told anyone.
Yes, he had had a sweetheart, in his early teens. She was from a neighbouring fishing family and they had known each other from childhood. They played together, swam together, and eventually come to love each other as they entered their mid-teens. She was pretty, he was not, she was clever, he was not, but, together, they formed a bond that seemed unbreakable. She had died when they were fourteen. Whilst the two of them were swimming at the beach by what was then his father's bar, she had trapped a foot in a cleft in the rocks and he, despite his almost suicidal effort, had been unable to save her. As he told the tale his eyes filled and tears tracked down his cheeks. From the day of her death he had never thought, not for a minute, of another woman. He turned away, the focus of attention, and went down to the the sea's edge, close to the rocks. It was some two hours before he returned to his place at the bar.
George was so moved by this gentle man's breakdown that she could not continue her role. She confessed to Remy that she was, in fact, an 'escort' and had been hired by the stupidly rich Swedish boy to seduce Remy and claim rape. She didn't know why she had been so commissioned, but needed the money.
The next day, when George did not appear, Anna, worried by the previous day's episode, took Remy aside and told him that she, George, had some connection to the Swedish boy and she, Anna, suspected that they were out to trap him in some way. He should be careful. Remy smiled at her gently, thanked her, and told her not to worry. George did appear at the bar the next day, no make-up, no husky voice, properly dressed and full of apologies for her subterfuge.
With the cathartic confession and revelation, Remy changed. He understood how his previously tightly contained memory of his childhood had haunted him and made him so fond of Anna and protective of the kids. With that understanding he lowered some barriers and George became first a friend and companion, and, once the season had ended and they were alone, his first and only lover.
Through a Mediterranean winter Remy, taciturn innocent Remy, was educated in the ways of the world, of sex and, yes, of love. The Remy that appeared next summer was a different man altogether. He was trimmer, groomed, his trunks fitted. Even so, he took his duties as protector of the sons and daughters of the rich and famous just as seriously as before. Not every, but some, mornings would find him, still, leaning against the newly painted gate post of his bar, now called "George's Bar", smoking quietly and gazing out at the offshore rocks.
Fiction by Pheroneous II Archive
