The guest book stays open.

The Blackwater Inn, August 1986

Dear Mrs Voss,

I write, as I have written every August for fifteen years, to put three matters before you.

First, breakfast. Eight o'clock is not early. The pike rise at six, and by eight they have risen, eaten and gone home.

Second, boat number three. It leaks. I have told your boatman. Your boatman has told me it doesn't. One of us is wet to the knee every morning, and it is not your boatman.

Third, the fish. Forty-one pounds, taken on Tuesday off the north shallows: the largest pike ever landed on this lake, as your own scales will tell you. I offered it to the bar, mounted at my own expense. I understand you have declined.

I shall, of course, be back next year.

Yours, as ever,
B. Quayle (Room 138)

In the margin, in Eleanor's hand: “Filed.”