William Boyd - On the Yankee Station - Stories

At midnight Verschoyle rattles a spoon in a beer mug. Important news, he cries. There is to be a peace conference in the Azores. The squadron is finally returning to base at Bath. Randall has just got engaged to Rose.

SAINT JUDE’S DAY

The squadron left today for the city. The mess cold and sad. Verschoyle, with uncharacteristic generosity, said I could keep the monoplane. There’s a ’drome near Tomintoul in the Cairngorms which sounds ideal. Instructed Fielding to fit long-range fuel tanks.

First snows of winter. The Sow & Farrow closed for the season. A shivering Fielding brings news that the monoplane has developed a leak in the glycol system. I order him to work on through the night. I must leave tomorrow.

P.M. Brooding in the mess about Rose, wondering where I went wrong. Stroll outside, find the snow has stopped. Observation: when you’re alone for any length of time, you develop an annoying inclination to look in mirrors.

A cold sun shines through the empty beeches, casting a blue trellis of shadows on the immaculate white lawn.

Must write to Reggie about the strange temptation to stamp on smooth things. Snow on a lawn, sand at low tide. An overpowering urge to leave a mark?

I stand on the edge, overpoweringly tempted. It’s all so perfect, it seems a shame to spoil it. With an obscure sense of pleasure, I yield to the temptation and stride boldly across the unreal surface, my huge footprints thrown into high relief by the candid winter sun.…

Arthur’s got this amazing tongue. Very long and pointed, pale pink and thin as a knife. He can curl it right round my fingers — very flickery. And, it’s wet and warm — not like a cat’s, which is rough and dry. I can tell you it doesn’t half give me a funny feeling. I lie on my back and he licks away at my hands for hours. He seems quite happy and I get quite carried away sometimes. Shivers all through my body.

Arthur’s my bat, of course, and he and I do an “act” together. My aunt Reen runs the show. There’s me — Tracy, the bat-girl — and my younger sister Lorraine, snake-girl. I used to be snake-girl but that was when we only had one stall. Then someone gave Reen this big fruit bat and she thought, why not expand? She set up a new stall and here I am, having my fingers licked all day. SEE THE FABULOUS BAT-GIRL! £1,000 IF ANIMAL NOT REAL!!

It sounds quite glamorous, I know, but to be honest it’s not much of a job. We do the summer fairground circuit all over England and in the winter go back to Yorkshire where my uncle Ted’s got a battery hen-farm. I can tell you that after a few months with those bloody hens I’m aching to be out on the road again. You see, my big problem is that I always need some excitement in my life.

Above the pay booth and running the length of the front of the stall there’s a big picture of a blond girl with no clothes on, and there’s a bat crawling across her body with its wings spread. The booth is new, so the colours are still bright and not too badly chipped and also it’s quite warm, which is just as well because it can get quite parky lying around inside a cage all day. I’m not nude, mind you. I wear a swimsuit, one piece, pink with a big bow that holds the two halves of the front together. Arthur hangs upside down from the top of the cage licking my fingers. I dip them in a pot of honey — which he absolutely loves — and he just licks it all off.

Lorraine’s set-up is basically the same, except it’s not quite so smart. Also, the python does nothing but sleep and I think that what people like about the bat-girl is that they can see the bat is actually alive. He’s quite big, is Arthur; he’s got a brown furry body about a foot long with nasty-looking claws. And then of course there’s his tongue, in and out, slipping all over my fingers. It seems to fascinate some people — they stare for ages. His wings remind me of a leather umbrella.

We’d been in Swindon for a week and had just come down to Oxford for Saint Giles fair. It was my second year in Oxford, though my first as bat-girl, and I wasn’t looking forward to it that much. Funny mixture of people you get in Oxford, I always say. There’s some right rough ones, don’t you believe it. And then there are these student types, they think they’re so bloody clever, with their tweed jackets and their haw-haw voices. I remember when I was snake-girl last year, a whole crowd of them had stood and talked about me for twenty minutes as if I wasn’t there. Really rude too: “Eoh ai’m convinced she’s not alive,” one of them says. “Ai’m going to claim my thousand quid.” Gets on my wick, that clever-clever lark. Give me the lads from Blackbird Leys any day.

The thing was, I knew there would be extra trouble this year because of the painting Reen had put up of the naked girl. In Lorraine’s snake-girl painting she’s wearing a bikini, but for some reason Reen decided she’d make bat-girl nude. I said if they’re all coming in thinking I’m starkers I want an extra fiver a day for all the aggro I’m going to get. Reen paid up, so I’m not complaining, but my God, you should hear some of the things that get said to me: “Take ’em off, darling” and “Let’s have a look then” and that’s not the half of it. The problem is this revealing swimsuit Reen makes me wear and the fact that I’m fairly big up top. It’s a funny thing about being big-made — blokes seem to think they can say anything to you.

Still, it’s water off a duck’s back as far as I’m concerned. I’m used to it now so I just lie there and carry on reading my book. I always take a book into the cage because it’s a long day and it can get very boring. I read mainly men’s books: spies and thrillers, that’s what I like. I like a bit of excitement, as I said. That’s really why I joined up with Reen soon as I left school. I’m eighteen now and I’m saving up for this dance course in London that I’ve seen advertised in a magazine. “Felaine la Strade, Ecole de Dance.” Five hundred pounds for two months of lessons. You get a diploma, and at the bottom of their prospectus it says: “Many of our graduettes have secured positions in West End shows.” Well, I’ve always been keen on dancing — quite good at it, too — and as I say, you’ve got to have some ambition and excitement in your life. I mean, look at Lorraine for e.g.: after this summer she’s decided to go back to school and retake her O-levels. I ask you — no spirit.

We’d set up in Oxford on the Sunday afternoon. The site’s right in the middle of town on a wide street with trees which is the best thing about it. We had quite a brisk Monday and one woman had screamed when she’d seen Arthur’s tongue. A couple of lads from Didcot who I’d met last year tried to chat me up in the evening. They claimed Trevor had said it was okay for me to come out with them. Trevor’s my boyfriend; he works on the Whip taking money. I told them to push off. Trev would never let them do that. He’s a very jealous sort of guy, is Trev. Actually I’m not speaking to him at the moment. The last night we were in Swindon he showed up when we were taking down the stall with a big wad of cotton-wool Sellotaped to his forearm. I had told him not to get any more tattoos and he’d just gone and done it. He’s got enough of them as it is, all over his arms and shoulders, and in any case I’ve gone right off tattoos. He’d promised not to, so I told him to shove it.

I know we’ll get back together, as Trev is really quite strong on me, but I am enjoying not having him hanging around. I’m getting on with my reading too. I finished a complete book on Monday and I’ve started a new one called Hell Comes Tomorrow . It’s really exciting.