Katherine Bucknell - What You Will

Hilary used to be taciturn then, Gwen thought, pudgy and enslaveable. But that beastlike willingness pointed out to Lawrence, like the plunging salaams, had given way to something more sceptical, more self-regarding. And she was thinner now, Gwen noticed, lithe with maturity.

‘You could still do it, couldn’t you, Gwen? Cox that boat. You’re light as a twig. Look at you, scuttling all around me like a spider. And your voice – big as ever.’

‘I could cox a boat,’ Gwen agreed, turning back to run alongside her.

It was exactly what Gwen had said the day they had met. ‘I could cox a boat.’ There had been no maybe, no hesitation.

‘Remember when I came up to you in our Greek class, that first time?’

‘On your quest for short people?’

‘Was it just because you were short?’

Hilary had noticed her up in the front row and brought her along to practise the same afternoon, like a prize. Around this time of year, a few weeks earlier. Indian summer, humid, bright. The delirium of starting college still on them. Everything new. Everything desirable.

The others had treated them like a pair: here was Hilary’s friend she was introducing. Which had made them intensely aware of each other.

In the shadowy quiet of the boathouse, a dozen or so big girls leaning up against the long, smooth-hulled shells overturned on their racks, a few more sitting on the concrete floor, bare legs crossed or negligently splayed, the coach droning on about trials. In their innocence. Most of them were there because it was offered. None of them had a clue. They were all nervous, eyes on the floor, faking cool, glancing up now and again to check the postures, the expressions, the chemistry of the group, furtively hunting for anything that could be pegged, judged.

We played along with it, Hilary thought, side by side through all the sizing up. And she could remember the anxiety, as the impatient seconds ticked by, filled with talking rather than the doing craved by every physique in the room. What did we know about each other? Only a hunch. And we both kept silent, poker-faced, made the same bet. That’s how it started. Over the gruelling months that followed, unimaginable sweat and exhaustion, they privately crept towards the commitment they publicly seemed to have made already.

Those girls knew how to do what they were told; Gwen quickly learned how to tell them. In no time at all, she vaulted upwards a level in the team hierarchy, practically a coach herself. But she did the same training as the others. She was knitted into the boat by it, felt the challenge. And Hilary, at stroke, remained her inward captain. Setting the beat, silently communicating to Gwen what was physically possible – how quick, how long, how many – and Hilary had to make it happen, bring the other seven with her, pull their oars in time with Gwen’s commands. Gradually, Hilary and Gwen took complete possession of one another; it had to work between them or the whole boat failed. The adrenalin of the training, the races and victories, worked on them like a drug. They flew on it, face to face in the back of the boat.

‘Don’t you ever feel sorry about leaving early?’ Hilary asked. ‘Missing our last year?’

‘Never.’

‘I remember it as if you had been there, you know? That other girl who coxed after you, senior year. She was fine. But it wasn’t the same. She never mattered.’

Gwen felt hit by this. But she fought it. ‘Maybe I was there enough, if we both have such good memories. Maybe another year would have been less intense.’

‘I just mean I can’t picture her face, that girl. I can only picture yours, shouting abuse.’ Hilary laughed. ‘You were unbelievable, Gwen. If we could have harnessed your willpower –’

‘If you could have harnessed my willpower, maybe I wouldn’t have left!’

‘You had us all completely under your control, Gwen. Your face was all I could ever see out on the river – my whole world was inside the boat. You could see all of us and the race, all the other boats alongside, out in front.’

‘Other boats were never out in front for long, babe; you guys saw them all, too, once we passed them!’ Gwen barked out, ‘Power ten ,’ and sprinted away in front of Hilary along the path, playful. But then she slowed down sheepishly and waited.

‘It was a pretty big surprise,’ Hilary said, catching up with her, ‘you going off with Lawrence. Actually leaving the country. Like the boat, in a way – because to me, it felt as though I had my head down over work, over the school slog, and it turned out that you were looking around and seeing so much more. Seeing all the possibilities.’

‘I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, Hil. If you ask Lawrence, he’ll tell you. I wasn’t as sophisticated as you might think – trying to pick up some visiting professor.’

‘You went to his office hours. I would never have had the nerve.’

Gwen laughed out loud, broke stride. ‘Well, that’s what they’re for – office hours! I refuse to be embarrassed by that.’ And she laughed again. ‘You were no shrinking violet, Hil, shacked up with Mark by the end of freshman year as I recall. Maybe otherwise you would have had more nerve. Give me a break! I had questions for Lawrence. Who else was I going to ask? I hated what I was doing, and he guessed – I’ve told you that? Wrote it on one of my papers: “ You seem to hate Pliny. Why are you doing this ?”’

‘Probably you could sue for that now,’ Hilary chuckled.

‘Yeah. And how could suing be better than falling in love, dropping out, running away together?’

‘It seemed so womanly and grown-up – or no – old-fashioned. That’s what surprised me. Because we were all such tomboys, you know? The romance between you and Lawrence was something someone would do who wore skirts to class, or who wasn’t in college at all. Like something out of the 1950s, or even the nineteenth century.’

Gwen was a little stunned, irritated even. ‘Why? Because he was English? I’m still a tomboy. Look what I’m wearing.’ It was true; she had on men’s track shorts made from heavy, dark blue cotton, probably ten years old, a once white T-shirt turned grey with washing, holes under the arms and along the edge of the neck band where the material had disintegrated with use and with sweat. It was all far too big for her. ‘Not exactly a gym bunny’s exercise outfit. Not a stitch of Lycra. I’m out here to sweat, not to vamp anyone.’ She turned her head and looked Hilary up and down as they passed the Barn Elms boathouse.

Hilary was wearing a shirt she had borrowed from Mark and never returned; she looked at it now, smarting with dismay. And she had on skintight black stretch leggings, cropped at the knee, about which she self-consciously observed, ‘I think the high-tech stuff is OK if you actually exercise in it. I know people go around in sports stuff as a fashion thing, at least in New York they do, and it looks like a state of undress. Running around town in pyjamas. But if you sweat in them and ache in them, you get to love them, like anything.’ Next she said, ‘Maybe I just never got the difference between a tomboy and an actual boy.’

‘I found out the difference when I had Will – what a shock – that made me realise I was a girl. Man, I fought it – needing help. Needing anything at all. Maybe you’ll be better prepared than I was. But sometimes I think our whole generation is confused about it. Did we think we were boys? I swear. Do you remember how, when all the schools in the States were going co-ed, it felt like we could go to college anywhere we wanted? And the real girls went to the women’s colleges where they could be girls together, but the ones of us who went to the men’s colleges – we went as boys. Hiding our femininity. Why did we do that?’