On the Yankee Station: Stories

by William Boyd

  MEMO. RANDALL’S INTERROGATION

  Where is the offside line in a rugby scrum?

  Is Kettner’s in Church Street or Poland Street?

  What is “squegging”? And who shouldn’t do it?

  How would you describe Zéphire de Sole Paganini?

  Sing “Hey, Johnny Cope.”

  Which is the odd one out: BNC, SEH, CCC, LMH, SHC?

  Complete this saying: “Hope springs eternal in the—.”

  DOMINION DAY (CANADA)

  Randall arrives. Like shaking hands with a marsh. Cheerful round young face. Prematurely bald. Tufts of hair deliberately left unshaved on cheekbones. Overwhelming urge to strike him. Why do I sense the man is not to be trusted?

  Verschoyle greets him like a long-lost brother. It seems they went to the same prep school. Later, Verschoyle tells me to forget about the interrogation. I point out that it’s mandatory under the terms of the draft constitution. “Duke” reluctantly has to back down.

  NB. Verschoyle’s breath smelling strongly of peppermint.

  WEDNESDAY NIGHT

  Sagging, moist evening. Sat out on the lawn till late, writing to Reggie, telling him of Verschoyle’s appalling influence on the squadron—the constant rags, high jinks, general refusal to take our task seriously. Started to write about the days with Phoebe at Melton, but kept thinking of Rose. Curious.

  JULY—?

  Sent to Coventry by no. 3 flight for putting their drunken Welsh mechanic on a charge. Today, Verschoyle declared the monoplane his own. I’m left with a lumbering old Ganymede II. It’s like flying a turd. I’ll have my work cut out in a dogfight.

  P.M. Map-reading class: Randall, Stone, Guy and Bede. Stone hopeless, he’d get lost in a corridor. Randall surprisingly efficient. He seems to know the neighbourhood suspiciously well. Also annoyingly familiar. Asked me if I wanted to go down to The Sow & Farrow for a drink. I set his interrogation for Thursday, 15.00 hours.

  BANK HOLIDAY MONDAY

  Drove down to the coast with Rose. Unpleasant day, scouring wind off the ice caps, grey-flannel sky. The pier was deserted, but Rose insisted on swimming. I stamped on the shingle beach while she changed in the dunes. Her dark-blue woollen bathing suit flashing by as she sprinted strongly into the breakers. A glimpse of white pounding thighs, then shrieks and flailing arms. Jovial shouts of encouragement from me. She emerged, shivering, her nose endearingly red, to be enfolded in the rough towel that I held. Her front teeth slightly askew. Made my heart cartwheel with love. She said it was frightfully cold but exhilarating. Her long nipples erect for a good five minutes.

  JULY 21

  Boring day. Verschoyle damaged the monoplane when he flew through a mob of starlings, so he’s temporarily grounded himself. He and Randall as thick as thieves. I caught them leering across the bar at Rose. Cleverly, she disguised her feelings on seeing me, knowing how I value discretion.

  RANDALL’S INTERROGATION

  Randall unable to complete final verse of “Hey, Johnny Cope.” I report my findings to Verschoyle and recommend Randall’s transfer to Movement Control. Verschoyle says he’s never even heard of “Hey, Johnny Cope.” He’s a deplorable example to the men.

  Note to Reggie: in 1914 we were fighting for our golf and our weekends.

  Went to the zoological gardens and looked at the llama. Reminded me of Verschoyle. In the reptile house I saw a chameleon: repulsive bulging eyes—Randall. Peafowl—Guy. Civet cat—Miss Bald. Anteater—Stone. Gazelle—Rose. Bateleur eagle—me.

  475TH DAY OF THE STRUGGLE

  Three battalions attacked today, north of Cheltenham. E. went down in one of the Griffins. Ground fire. A perfect arc. Crashed horribly not two miles from Melton.

  Dawn patrol along the River Lugg. The Ganymede’s crude engine is so loud I fly in a perpetual swooning migraine. Struts thrumming and quivering like palsied limbs. Told a disgruntled Fielding to de-caulk cylinder heads before tomorrow’s mission.

  Randall returned late from a simple reconnaisance flight. He had some of us worried. Claimed a map-reading error. It was because of his skill with maps that he was put on reconnaisance in the first place. Verschoyle untypically subdued at the news from Cheltenham. Talk of moving to a new base in the Mendips.

  RANDALL: Did you know that Rose was a promising young actress?

  STONE: Oh, yes? What’s she promised you, then?

  As a result of this flash of wit. Stone was elected entertainments secretary for the mess. He plans a party before the autumn frosts set in.

  63RD WEDNESDAY

  On the nature of love. There are two sorts of people you love. There are people you love steadily, unreflectingly: people who you know will never hurt you. Then there are people you love fiercely: people who you know can and will hurt you.

  AUGUST 1. MONDAY

  Tredgold tells me that Randall was known as a trophy maniac at college. Makes some kind of perverse sense.

  AUGUST 7

  Luncheon with Rose at The Compleat Angler, Marlow. Menu: Oeufs Magenta; Mock Turtle Soup; Turbot; Curried Mutton au riz; Orange Jelly. Not bad for these straitened times we live in. Wines: a half bottle of Gonzalez Coronation Sherry.

  SUNDAY

  Tea with the Padre. Bored rigid. He talked constantly of the bout of croupous pneumonia his sister had just endured.

  Suddenly realised what it was that finally put me off Phoebe. It was the way she used to pronounce the word “piano” with an Italian accent. “Would you care for a tune on the piano?”

  AUG. 15, 17.05

  Stone crash-landed on the links at Beddlesea. He was on the way back from a recce, of the new base in the Mendips. Unharmed, luckily. But the old Gadfly is seriously damaged. He trudged all the way back to the clubhouse from the 14th fairway, but they wouldn’t let him use the phone because he wasn’t a member.

  Rose asked me today if it was true that Randall was the best pilot in the squadron. I said, don’t be ridiculous.

  Read Reggie’s article: “Air power and the modern guerrilla.”

  500TH DAY OF THE STRUGGLE

  It’s clear that Verschoyle is growing a beard. Broad-mead and Collis-Sandes deserted. They stole Stone’s Humber. It’s worth noting, I think, that Collis-Sandes played wing three-quarter for Blackheath.

  WED. P.M.

  Verschoyle’s beard filmy and soft, with gaps. He looks like a bargee. The Padre seems to have taken something of a shine to yours truly. He invited me to his rooms for a drink yesterday evening. (One Madeira in a tiny clouded glass as big as my thumb, and two petitbeurres.) Croupous pneumonia again …

  On the way home, stopped in my tracks by a vision of Rose. Pure and naked. Harmonious as a tree. Rose!

  Mendip base unusable.

  71ST MONDAY

  Verschoyle shaves off beard. Announcement today of an historic meeting between commands at Long Hanborough.

  6TH SUNDAY BEFORE ADVENT

  Working late in the hangar with young Fielding (the boy is ruined with acne). Skirting through the laurels on a short cut back to the mess, I notice a torch flash three times from Randall’s room.

  Later, camped out on the fire escape and well bundied up, I see him scurry across the moonlit lawn in dressing-gown and pyjamas with what looks like a blanket (a radio? semaphore kit? maps?), heading for the summer-house.

  The next morning I lay my accusations before Verschoyle and insist on action. He places me under arrest and confines me to quarters. I get the boy Fielding to smuggle a note to Rose.

  Visit from Stone. Tells me the autogiro has broken down again. News of realignments and negotiations in the cities. Drafting of the new constitution halted. Prospects of Peace. No word from Rose.

  3RD DAY OF CAPTIVITY

  Interviewed by Scottish psychiatrist on Verschoyle’s instructions. Dr. Gilzean; strong Invernesshire accent. Patently deranged. The interview keeps being interrupted as we both pause to make copious notes. Simple ingenuous tests:

  Word Association

  DR. GIL
ZEAN ME

  lighthouse — a small aunt

  cave — tolerant grass

  cigar — the neat power station

  mouth — mild

  key — kind

  lock — speedy vans

  cucumber — public baths

  midden — the wrinkling wrists of gloves

  Rorschach Blots

  DR. GILZEAN

  Dr. Gilzean pronounces me entirely sane. Verschoyle apologizes.

  FIRST DAY OF FREEDOM

  Stone’s party in the mess. Verschoyle suggests the gymkhana game. A twisting course of beer bottles is laid out on the lawn. The women are blindfolded and driven in a harness of ribbons by the men. Stone steers Miss Bald into the briar hedge, trips and sprains his ankle. Randall and Rose are the winners. Rose trotting confidently, guided by Randall’s gentle tugs and “gee-ups!” Her head back, showing her pale throat, her knees rising and falling smartly beneath her fresh summer frock, reminding me painfully of days on the beach, plunging into breakers.

  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.…

  Bat-Girl!

  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 i
t.

  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.

  On Tuesday after lunch, business really tailed off and I was racing through the book when I realised someone had crept into the booth on their own and was staring at me. I looked round and saw a thin bloke with round gold specs who was carrying a briefcase. Only a student, I thought, and went back to my book. Arthur was asleep so I prodded him awake and he hooked his wing-claw over my thumb and gave it a good licking. I thought I’d better do that so’s the guy could claim he’d got his money’s worth. However, a few minutes later he was still there, so I turned round again and gave him a look—as much to say, that’s your lot, mate—and he scurried out pretty sharpish.

  But blow me if five minutes later he wasn’t back. Just standing and staring. It was beginning to get on my nerves; I couldn’t concentrate on my book at all. So I sat up and said: “That’s all there is, you know. He doesn’t do tricks or anything.”

  He looked a bit startled. He had quite a nice face and shiny-clean black hair with a middle parting.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “I … I find it fascinating, that’s all.”

  Well, I could tell by the way he kept touching the knot of his tie and the look he was giving me that “it” didn’t refer to Arthur. He kept on standing there all the same, as if he’d never seen a girl before.

  To this day I don’t know what made me do it. The heat perhaps—it was muggy and sunny outside. Maybe it was just plain boredom, and he looked so “nice” and decent—the sort that wouldn’t say boo to a goose.

  When I got the idea, I felt this excited feeling at the bottom of my spine—a sort of electric tingling. So, very slowly—not taking my eyes off him—I leant back on the cushions and pulled out the cord of the bow on my swimsuit. Well, the two front bits kind of fell away—not completely, but he wouldn’t miss much. But then I went and laughed. I couldn’t help it. The expression on his face—I swear his specs steamed up.