William Boyd - On the Yankee Station - Stories

In the late afternoon I go to work. I work at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Vanessa’s brother-in-law got me the job. I park cars. I keep hoping I’m going to park the car of someone really important. Frank — that’s Vanessa’s brother-in-law — will say to me, “Give this one a shine-up, Charlie. It belongs to so-and-so. He produced this film.” Or, “That guy’s the money behind X’s new movie.” Or, “Look out, he’s Senior Vice-President of Something Incorporated.” I say, big deal. These guys hand me the keys — they all look like bank clerks. If that’s the movies nowadays I’m not so sure I want back in.

Afternoons are quiet at the hotel so I catch up on my reading. I’m reading Camus at the moment but I think I’ve learned all I can from him so I’m going on to Jung. I don’t know too much about Jung but I’m told he was really into astrology, which has always been a pet interest of mine. One thing I will say for quitting the movies when I did — it means I didn’t miss out on my education. I hear that some of these stars today are really dumb; you know, they’ve got their brains in their neck and points south.

After work I drive back down to the Santa Monica Pier and think about what I’m going to do all night. The Santa Monica Pier is a kind of special place for me: it’s the last place I saw my wife and son. I got married at seventeen and was divorced by twenty-two, though we were apart for a couple of years before that. Her name was Harriet. It was okay for a while but I don’t think she liked Vanessa. Anyway, get this. She left me for a guy who was the assistant manager in the credit collection department of a large mail-order firm. I couldn’t believe it when she told me. I said to her when she moved out that it had to be the world’s most boring job and did she know what she was getting into? I mean, what sort of person do you have to be to take on that kind of work? The bad thing was she took my son, Skiff, with her. It’s a dumb name, I know, but at the time he was born all the kids were being called things like Sky and Saffron and Powie, and I was really sold on sailing. I hope he doesn’t hold it against me.

The divorce was messy and she got custody, though I’ll never understand why. She had left some clothes at the house and wanted them back so she suggested we meet at the end of the Santa Monica Pier for some reason. I didn’t mind — it was the impetuous side to her nature that first attracted me. I handed the clothes over. She was a bit tense. Skiff was running about; he didn’t seem to know who I was. She was smoking a lot, those long-thin menthol cigarettes. I really didn’t say anything much at all, asked her how she was, what school Skiff was going to. Then she just burst out: “Take a good look, Charlie. Then don’t come near us ever again!” Her exact words. Then they went away.

So I go down to the end of the pier most nights and look out at the ocean and count the planes going in to land at L.A. International and try to work things out. Just the other evening I wandered up the beach a way and this thin-faced man with short gray hair came up to me and said, “Jordan, is that you?” And when he saw he’d made a mistake he smiled a nice smile, apologized and walked off. It was only this morning that I thought it might have been Christopher Isherwood himself. The more I think about it, the more convinced I become. What a perfect opportunity and I had to go and miss it. As I say: “Walk. Don’t Walk.” That’s the bottom line.

I suppose I must have been preoccupied. The pier brings back all these memories like some private video loop, and my head gets to feel like it’s full of birds all flapping around trying to get out. And also things haven’t been so good lately. On Friday, Frank told me not to bother showing up at the hotel next week, I can’t seem to make any headway with the screenplay, and for the last three nights Vanessa’s tried to climb into my bed.

Well, tonight I think I’ll drive to this small bar I know on Sunset. Nothing too great, a little dark. They do a nice white wine with peach slices in it, and there’s some topless, some go-go, and I hear tell that Bobby De Niro sometimes shows up for a drink.

“Think of it,” Holland said. “The sex.”

“Sex,” Panton repeated. “God … sex.”

Niles shook his head. “Are you sure?” he asked. “I mean, can you guarantee it? The sex, that is. I don’t want to waste time farting around singing.”

“Waste bloody time? Are you mad?” Holland said. “It only happens every two years. You can’t afford to miss the opportunity. Unless you’re suffering from second thoughts.”

“What, me ?” Niles tried to laugh. He looked at Holland’s blue eyes. They always seemed to know. “You must be bloody kidding, mate. Jesus, if you think … God!” he snorted.

“All right, all right,” Holland said. “We agreed, remember? It’s got to be all of us.”

Niles had never asked for this last fact to be explained. Why, if — as Holland attested — the sex was freely available, on a plate so to speak, why did they all have to participate at the feast? Holland made out it was part of his naturally generous personality. It was more fun if you all had a go.

“Let’s get on with it,” Panton said.

They walked over to the notice-board. Holland pushed some juniors out of the way. Prothero, the music master, had written at the top of a sheet of paper: GILBERT AND SULLIVAN OPERA — HMS PINAFORE — CHORUS: BASSES AND TENORS WANTED, SIGN BELOW. Half a dozen names had been scrawled down.

“Cretins,” Holland said. “No competition.” He wrote his name down. Panton followed suit.

Niles took a Biro from his blazer pocket. He paused.

“But how can you be so sure? That’s what I want to know. How can you tell that the girls just won’t be — well — music lovers?”

“Because I know,” Holland said patiently. “Every Gilbert and Sullivan it’s the same. Borthwick told me. He was in the last one. He said the girls only come for one thing. I mean, it stands to reason. What sort of girl’s going to want to be in some pissing bloody operetta. Ask yourself. Shitty orchestra, home-made costumes, people who can’t sing to save their life. I tell you, Nilo, they’re doing it for the same reason as us. They’re fed up with the local yobs. They want a nice public school boy. Christ, you must have heard. It’s a cert. Leave it to Pete.”

Niles screwed up his eyes. What the hell, he thought, it’s time I tried. He signed his name: Q. Niles.

“Good old Quentin,” Panton roared. “Wor! Think of it waiting.” He forced his features into a semblance of noble suffering, wrapped his arms around himself as if riven with acute internal pain and lurched drunkenly about, groaning in simulated ecstasy.

Holland grabbed Niles by the arm. “The shafting, Nilo, my man,” he said intensely. “The royal bloody shafting we’re going to do.”

Niles felt his chest expand with sudden exhilaration. Holland’s fierce enthusiasm always affected him more than Panton’s most baroque histrionics.

“Bloody right, Pete,” he said. “Too bloody right. I’m getting desperate already.”

***

Niles sat in his small box-like study and stared out at the relentless rain falling on the gentle Scottish hills. From his study window he could see a corner of the dormitory wing of his own house, an expanse of gravel with the housemaster’s car parked on it, and fifty yards of the drive leading down to the main school house a mile or so away. On the desk in front of him lay a half-completed team list for the inter-house rugby leagues and an open note pad. On the note pad he had written: “ ‘The Rape of the Lock,’ ” and below that, “ ‘The Rape of the Lock’ is a mock heroic poem. What do you understand by this term? Illustrate with examples.” It was an essay he was due to hand in tomorrow. He had no idea what to say. He gazed dully out at the rain, idly noting some boys coming out of the woods. They must be desperate, he thought, if they have to go out for a smoke in this weather. He returned to his more immediate problem. Who was going to play scrum-half now that Damianos had a sick-chit? He considered the pool of players he could draw on: asthmatics, fatsos, spastics every one. To hell with it. He wrote down Grover’s name. They had no chance of winning anyway. He opened his desk cupboard and removed a packet of Jaffa cakes and a large bottle of Coca-Cola. He gulped thirstily from the bottle and ate a few biscuits. “The Rape of the Lock.” What could he say about it? He didn’t mind the poem. He thought of Belinda: