William Boyd - On the Yankee Station - Stories

He felt a gentle shaking. He woke up with a start. His eyes were open but he saw nothing. He sat up. His left arm was dead. It flopped lifelessly at his side.

“You’ve been asleep,” Alison said. “I’ve got to go.”

“What?”

“It’s just gone eleven. I’ve got to get the last bus.”

“Jesus. Asleep? You mean I …? How long was …?”

“You just drifted off. You’ve been sleeping about half an hour. I didn’t want to wake you.”

Niles felt shame and disgrace cause tears to prickle at the corner of his eyes. He picked up his left hand and started to massage it. In the darkness it was like holding an amputated limb. To his right hand his nerveless left felt rough and calloused, like a stranger’s.

“Can you find the door?”

They went outside. Alison wondered about the remains of the picnic. Niles told her he’d clean up in the morning before anyone came.

He was about to lock the door. “What about the others?” he asked, fighting to keep the bitterness from his voice.

“They left about ten minutes ago. I heard them going.”

Niles locked the squash court door. He gazed bleakly round him. Alison stood patiently, knotting her scarf at her throat. It was a sharp, frosty night. The school buildings loomed on either side, dark and unpeopled.

“I’d better go, Quentin,” Alison said.

“I’ll come with you to the bus stop.”

They sat out together, Niles looking nervously back over his shoulder. He was taking a calculated risk. The bus stop lay half a mile beyond the school gates. If he was caught out of bounds with a girl at this time of night he would be in serious trouble. But equally he felt that whatever happened, nothing should prevent him from being with Alison at this moment. They walked on in silence. Niles’ mind was a tangle of conflicting emotions. Sentences formed in his head, only to split into whirling separate words like some modish animated film. He felt he should say something, explain that he hadn’t meant to fall asleep, allude to his romantic plans, but his tongue and his mind refused to co-ordinate. His brain seemed to lock into an imbecille stupidity. He couldn’t do anything right.

At the school gates he let Alison stride confidently through and go a little way down the road before he snaked beneath the lodge windows, squirmed through the side gate and made a sequence of zigzag dashes from bush to tree trunk, like a commando behind enemy lines, before he caught up with her.

Alison stood in the middle of the road waiting for him. “That’s a bit dramatic, isn’t it?”

“I’m out of bounds, you see. If I get caught …”

“I don’t want you to get into trouble, Quentin.”

“Forget it, really. I don’t care.” He took her hand. There was a small shelter by the bus stop.… “Come on, let’s go.” They walked briskly down the road.

The shelter was empty. A nearby street light threw the graffiti carved on its green wooden bench into high relief. Small drifts of cigarette packs, soft-drink cans and wrappers were banked beneath it.

“Alison,” Niles began. “Listen. I have to say this. I don’t want you to think that …”

“Here it comes,” cried Alison, as the bus appeared round the corner. “That was lucky.”

The bus stopped. She gave him a swift kiss on the cheek, so swift it was almost a clash of heads, and got on. Niles looked at the single-decker bus. Inside, it was soft-yellow and smoky. A couple of old women looked curiously back at him. On the rear seats some louts drank beer from cans. Alison stood at the top of the steps, her back to him, buying her ticket from the driver. Her long legs seemed twin symbols of rebuke.

“I’ll phone,” he shouted, louder than he meant. It sounded like a grievance, a threat. She turned, smiled, and walked down the bus to take her seat. Niles saw her thick dark hair on her blazer, saw her head toss as she sat down. She waved. The bus drove off. He didn’t wave back.

Niles walked morosely up the drive. He walked on the verge, ready to duck behind one of the beech trees that lined the road should a car come by. He stumbled over a root, stopped, turned and kicked savagely at it. In a sombre mood of reassessment he cursed his school, the closed society he was compelled to live in, his demanding, predatory, so-called friends. “Women,” his father had once patronisingly told him, “are a lifetime’s study.” He was off to a late start then, he observed grimly, and wondered if he would ever catch up. He felt suddenly exhausted by the daily, monotonous absorption with sex, disgusted by the lonely idolatry of masturbation. He felt that his sexual nature, whatever it might be, was irretrievably corrupted.

He paused and took a few deep breaths, trying to shake the mood from him. At this point the drive curved gently to the right, back towards main school. On his left and ahead of him lay a wide flat expanse of playing fields, fixed and still under a faint starlight. His house lay in that direction. It would be quicker, but he wondered if he dared expose himself on the open space. He made up his mind. He set off, breaking into a steady jog, feeling the frost cracking under his feet, puffing his condensed breath ahead of him like a steam engine. He loped silently and strongly across the pitches. He felt that he could run for ever. He would be back in the dorm before twelve. They would all be waiting for him. Fillery had said they’d stay up specially. They wanted to know everything, Fillery had said, every little detail. The bastards, Niles said to himself, smiling. His mind began to work. He’d give them a good story tonight, all right. They wouldn’t forget this one in a long time. He ran on, a strange jubilation lengthening his stride.

Listen to this. Read it to yourself. Out loud. Read it slow and think about it.

A swimming pool is like a child,

Leave it alone and it will surely run wild.

Who said that? Answer: Me. I did.

WINTERING

“Can I swim?” says Noelle-Joy. “It’s a fantastic pool.”

Much as I would like to see her jugs in a swimsuit, I have to say no.

“Aw. Pretty please? Why not?”

“I’m afraid the pool is wintering.”

Noelle-Joy squints skeptically up at the clear blue sky. There’s not even any smog today. She exposes the palms of her hands to the sun’s powerful rays.

“But it’s hot , man. Anyways, we don’t get no winter in L.A.,” she argues.

Patiently I explain that, four seasons or no, every pool has to winter. A period of rest. What you might call a pool-sabbath. I’ve lowered the water level below the skimmers, surchlorinated, and washed out my cartridge filter. A pool, as I explain several times a day to my clients, is not just a hole in the ground filled with water. Wintering removes constant wear and tear, rests the incessantly churning pump machinery, allows essential repairs and maintenance, permits cleansing of the canals, filter system and heating units. You can’t do all that if you’re splashing around in the goddam thing. Most people realize I’m talking sense.

We walk around my pool. It’s small but it’s got everything. No-Skid surrounds, terrace lights, skimmers, springboard, all-weather poolside furniture, and a bamboo cocktail bar plus hibachi. I’ve got to admit it looks kind of peculiar stuck in my little backyard. (In this part of the city it’s the only private pool for seventeen blocks.) But so what! I busted my balls for that little baby. I got me a new vacuum sweep last month. I’m aiming for a sand filter now, to replace my old cartridge model.

I stand proudly behind the bar and pour Noelle-Joy a drink. She’s wearing a yellow halter-neck and tight purple shorts. Maybe if she were a little thinner they’d look a bit better on her … I don’t know. If you got it, flaunt it, I guess. Her legs are kind of short and her thighs have got that strange rumpled look. She stacks her red hair high on top of her head to compensate. She lights a Kool, sips her drink, sighs and hugs herself. Then she sees my hibachi and screams. I drop my cocktail shaker.