On the Yankee Station: Stories

Hardly Ever

“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:

“On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore,…” He found her far and away the most alluring of the fictional heroines he had yet encountered in his brief acquaintance with English Literature. He read the opening of the poem again. He saw her lying in a huge rumpled bed, a lace peignoir barely covering two breasts as firm and symmetrical as halved grapefruits. He had had a bonk-on all the English lesson. It hadn’t happened to him since they’d read Great Expectations. What was her name? Estella. God, yes. She was almost as good as Belinda. He thought about his essay again. He liked English Literature. He wondered if he would be able to do it at university — if he could get to university at all. His father had not been at all pleased when he had announced that he wanted to do English A-level. “What’s the use of that?” he had shouted. “How’s English Literature going to help you sell machine tools?” Niles sighed. There was an opening for him in Gerald Niles (Engineering) Ltd. His father knew nothing of his plans for university.

Niles ran his hands through his thick wiry hair and rubbed his eyes. He picked up his pen. “Alexander Pope,” he wrote, “was a major poet of the Augustan period. ‘The Rape of the Lock’ was his most celebrated poem,” He sensed it was a bad beginning — uninspired, boring — but sometimes if you started by writing down what you knew, you got a few ideas. He scanned Canto One. “Soft bosoms,” he saw. Then “Belinda still her downy pillow prest.” He felt himself quicken. Pope knew what he was doing, all right. The associations: bosom and pillow, prest and breast. Niles shut his eyes. He was weighing Belinda’s perfect breasts in his hands, massaging her awake as she lay in her tousled noonday bed. He imagined her hair spread over her face, full lips, heavy sleep-bruised eyes. He imagined a slim forearm raised to ward off Sol’s tim’rous ray, Belinda turning on to her back, stretching. Jesus. Would she have hairy armpits? he wondered, swallowing. Did they shave their armpits in the eighteenth century? Would it be like that Frenchwoman he’d seen on a campsite near Limoges last summer? In the camp supermarket, wearing only a bikini, reaching up for a tin on a high shelf and exposing a great hank of armpit hair. Niles groaned. He leant forward and rested his head on his open book. “Belinda,” he whispered, “Belinda.”

“Everything okay, Quentin?”

He sat up abruptly, banging his knees sharply on the bottom of his desk. It was Bowler, his housemaster, his round, bespectacled face peering at him concernedly, his body canted into the study, pipe clenched between his brown teeth. Why couldn’t the bastard knock? Niles swore.

“Trying to write an essay, sir,” he said.

“Not that difficult, is it?” Bowler laughed. “Got the team for the league?”

Niles handed it over. Bowler studied it, puffing on his pipe, frowning. Niles looked at the sour blue smoke gathering on the ceiling. Typical bloody Bowler.

“This the best we can do? Are you sure about Grover at scrum-half? Crucial position, I would have thought.”

“I think he needs to be pressured a bit, sir.”

“Right-ho. You’re the boss. See you’re down for Pinafore.”

“Sorry, sir?”

“Pinafore. HMS. The opera. Didn’t know you sang, Quentin? Shouldn’t have thought it was your line really.”

“Thought I’d give it a go, sir.”

Bowler left and Niles thought about the opera. Holland had said it was a sure thing with the girls: they only came because they wanted to get off with boys. Niles wondered what they’d be like. Scottish girls from the local grammar school. He’d seen them in town often. Dark-blue uniforms, felt hats, long hair, miniskirts. They all looked older than he — more mature. He experienced a sudden moment of panic What in God’s name would he do? Holland and Panton would be there, everyone would see him. He felt his heart beat with unreasonable speed. It was a kind of proof. There was no chance of lying or evading the issue. It would be all too public.

They gathered in the music room behind the new chapel for the first mixed rehearsal. There had been three weeks of tedious afternoon practices during which some semblance of singing ability had been forcibly extracted from them by the efforts of Prothero, the music master. Now, Prothero watched the boys enter with a tired and cynical smile. This was his seventh Gilbert and Sullivan since coming to the school, his third HMS Pinafore. Two sets of forms faced each other at one end of the long room. The boys sat down on one set, staring at the empty seats opposite as if they were already occupied.

“Now, gentlemen,” Prothero began. “The ladies will be here soon. I don’t propose to lecture you any more on the subject. I count on your innate good manners and sense of decorum.”

Niles, Holland and Panton sat together. Whispered conversations were going on all around. Niles felt his lungs press against his rib cage. The tension was acute; he felt faint with unfamiliar stress. What if not one of them spoke to him? This was dreadful, he thought, and the girls weren’t even here. He looked at the fellow members of the chorus. There were some authentic tenors and basses from the school choir but the rest of them were self-appointed lads, frustrates and sexual braggarts. He could sense their crude desire thrumming through the group as if the forms they were sitting on were charged with a low electric current. He looked at the bright-eyed, snouty, expectant faces, heard whispered obscenities and saw the international language of sexual gesticulation being covertly practised as if they were a gathering of randy deaf-mutes. He felt vaguely soiled to be counted among them. Beside him Holland leaned forward and tapped the shoulder of a boy in front.

“Bloody Mobo,” he said quietly and venomously. “Didn’t you get the message? No queers allowed. What are you bloody doing here? It’s girls we’re singing with. Not lushmen, Mobo. No little lushmen.”

“Frig off, Holland,” the boy said tonelessly. “I’m in the choir, aren’t I?”

“Bloody choir,” Holland repeated, his face ugly with illogical aggression. “Bloody frigging choir.”

Then the girls came in.

No one had heard the bus from town arriving, and the room, to Niles’ startled eyes, seemed suddenly to be filled with chattering uniformed females. He heard laughter and giggles, caught flashing glimpses of cheeks and red mouths, hair and knees, as the other half of the chorus sat itself down opposite. The boys fired nervous exploratory glances across the two yards of floor between them. Niles studied his score with commendable intensity. He noticed Holland brazenly scrutinising the girls. Cautiously, Niles raised his eyes and looked over. They seemed very ordinary, was his first reflection. Dark-blue blazers, short skirts, some black tights. There was one tall girl with a severe, rather thin face. Her hair was tied up in an elaborate twisted bun and at first he thought she was a mistress, but then he saw her uniform. He scanned the features of the others but their faces refused to register any individuality; he might have been staring at a Chinese football team.

Holland bowed his head.

“Mm-mm. I’ve seen mine,” he said in a low voice. “The blonde in front.” He gave a whimper of suppressed desire. Some boys looked round and smiled, complicity springing up instantly, like recognition.

“Right, everybody,” Prothero shouted, banging out a chord on the piano. “Page twenty-three, please.”

“And I’m never ever sick at sea,” Prothero sang.

“What, never?” boomed the chorus of sailors.

“No, never,” replied Prothero.

“What, never?” the chorus sceptically inquired again.

“Hardly ever,” Prothero admitted.

“He’s hardly ever sick at sea.…”

“Fine,” Prothero called. “Good. That’ll do for today. Thank you, ladies. Your bus should be outside. Scores on the end of the piano as you go out, please.”

The bus was late and the girls had to wait for five minutes outside the chapel. Niles took his time finding his coat in the vestibule and when he went outside, Holland and Panton were already talking to four girls. “Niles, Niles,” they shouted as he emerged into the watery sunlight of a February afternoon. “Over here.” He walked over, the blood pounding in his ears like surf. Holland stood behind a slim blond girl with moles on her face, Panton by a cheery-looking redhead. Niles approached. One of the two remaining girls was the tall, sharp-faced one he’d seen earlier. The other was small, with wispy fair hair and spectacles.

“This is Quentin,” Holland said. “Hero of the rugby field, captain of the squash team. Master flogger extraordinaire.”

“Shut up!” Niles exclaimed, appalled at this slander. “You bastard.”

“What’s a flogger?” Holland’s girl asked. Panton was doubled up with mirth. The tall girl looked on expressionlessly.

“Never mind,” Holland said. “Sorry, Quent. Little joke. Now, this is Joyce.” He indicated Panton’s girl. “This is Helen”—pointing to his own. “And”—he looked at the tall girl—“Alison? Yes, Alison. And, um …”

“Frances,” said the small girl.

Niles had moved round to stand beside Alison. Frances was clearly on her own. She stood undecidedly for a moment before wandering off without a further word.

Holland and Panton had instinctively sensed out the kind of girl they were after. Innuendoes were already being exchanged with a wanton suggestiveness. Niles looked at Alison. She was tall. In her high heels slightly taller than he. She appeared older, in her twenties almost, but the severity of her face was partly an illusion caused by her schoolmarmy bun. Her skirt was not as short as Helen’s or Joyce’s; it stopped two inches above her knees. Her legs were long and shapely. On the lapel of her blazer were numerous badges: three Robertson’s gollies, a small Canadian maple leaf, a yellow square, and a blue rectangular one with “monitor” written on it in plain silver letters. She wore a white shirt and a tie with the smallest knot in it Niles had ever seen.

He had to say something. He cleared his throat. “Campaign medals?” he said, pointing to the badges. He realised his finger was two inches from her right breast and he snatched his hand away. He thought she gave the thinnest of smiles in response but he couldn’t be sure.

“Cold, though,” he said, huffing and puffing into his cupped hands.

She rummaged in her blazer pockets. “Cigarette?” she asked, taking out a packet and offering it to him.

Niles was taken aback by this unselfconsciously adult gesture. “Christ, no,” he said hurriedly. “I mean, we’re not allowed.”

But she was already offering them to Joyce and Helen. Alison took out a box of matches and lit the others’ cigarettes. For some reason Niles was impressed by the capable way she did this — she obviously smoked a lot. Meanwhile, Holland and Panton aped nicotine starvation. When Joyce and Helen exhaled they chased the clouds of smoke about, beating it into their gaping mouths with their hands as if it were vital oxygen. The girls laughed delightedly.

“What I’d give for a fag,” said Holland through gritted teeth.

“Oh yeah?” said lissom Helen.

“Now see what you’ve done,” Niles said to Alison with more accusation in his voice than he’d meant.

Alison laughed briefly.

Niles brushed his teeth, alone at the row of basins. He rinsed his mouth out and went to stand in front of the large mirror by the urinals. He looked at his square face. He rubbed his jaw. He’d need to shave tomorrow. He had to shave every two days now. Somebody shouted “virile!” through the washroom door. Niles whirled round but he didn’t see who it was. When he turned back to the mirror his face was red.

He thought about Alison. Everything about her was maddeningly indistinct and ambiguous. All he’d heard her say was “cigarette?” and “bye.” It wasn’t much to build a relationship on. He had an image of the back of her long legs in their tan tights as she’d climbed onto the bus. He wondered what her breasts were like. Her “soft bosoms.”

He sighed and belted his dressing-gown tighter around him. He walked through the quiet, empty house towards his dormitory. A junior came padding down the corridor in pyjamas.

“Where are you going, Payne?” Niles said tiredly.

“For a slash, Niles.”

“Where’s your bloody slippers and dressing-gown then?”

“Oh, Niles,” Payne moaned.

“Get back and bloody put them on.”

“Oh, God, Niles, please. I just want a pee. I’ll only be a second.”

“Go on, you little shit.” Niles raised his hand menacingly. Payne turned and ran back up the corridor.

Niles walked on towards his dormitory. It was a small one, only eight beds. He opened the door quietly. It was well past lights out. The long room was quite dark. He closed the door softly behind him.

“Okay, folks,” came a voice. “Stop flogging. Here’s Niles.”

“Shut up, Fillery,” Niles said. Fillery was fat and wicked. His mother was an actress who lived in Cannes.

“What’s she like then, Niles?” Fillery said.

“Who?”

“Who? The bloody bird of course, that’s who. Pinafore. What’s your one like.”

“Yeah, go on, Niles,” said another voice. “Tell us, what’s she like?”

“Shut up. I’m warning you lot.”

“Come on, Niles,” Fillery said wheedlingly. “I bet she’s all right. I bet you got a good one.”

Niles got into bed. He lay down and put his hands behind his neck. “She’s okay,” he said grudgingly. “I’m not complaining.” There were soft groans of envy at this. “Not bad, I suppose,” he went on. “She’s got nice long legs.”

“What’s her name?”

“Alison.”

“Oh, Alison, Alison.” People tried out the name on their tongues as if it were a foreign word.

“Tits?” Fillery asked.

“You filthy bugger,” Niles said. “Trust bloody Fillery.” But Niles felt the lie rise unprompted in his throat. “They’re nice, if you must know,” he said. “Average size. Sort of pointy, if you know what I mean.” There was a chorus of groans at this, deep and despairing. Someone jiggled furiously up and down on his bed, causing the springs to creak and complain.

“Shut up,” Niles hissed angrily. “That’s your lot. Now get to sleep.”

He saw Alison at the next rehearsal a week later. Already people had paired off, Helen and Joyce making straight for Holland and Panton at the first break.

“Fifteen minutes, ladies and gentlemen,” Prothero called.

Niles wandered over to Alison. Again he was impressed by her mature looks.

“Hi there,” he said, as casually as he could.

“Oh … hello.” She smiled. “It’s, um, Quentin, isn’t it?”

Niles hated his name. “ ’Fraid so,” he said.

“Phew,” she said. “Any chance of us having a quiet smoke somewhere?”

They picked their way through the small wood at the back of the chapel. It had rained heavily that morning and the stark trunks of the beech and ash trees were wet and shiny. Alison puffed aggressively at her cigarette. Niles had declined again. He turned up the collar of his blazer and remarked on the inclemency of the season. Alison looked suspiciously at him, as if he were making a joke. Her hair was mid-brown and her skin was very white. She had a thin mouth but her lips were well formed; there was a deep and pronounced dip to her cupid’s bow. Niles found this detail endearing, as if somehow this validated his choice of her. His heart seemed to swell with emotion. Their elbows touched as the path narrowed. Niles checked his watch.

“Better not go too far,” he said, then paused before adding: “They might get suspicious.…”

“Sure,” Alison said, flicking her cigarette away. “Smoking like a chimney. I’ve got Highers in a few months.”

“Mmmm,” Niles sympathised. “I’ve got my A’s,” he said. “Then Oxbridge.”

“Are you going to Oxford?” Alison asked. She had a mild Scottish accent; she pronounced the r in Oxford.

“Yes,” he said. “Well, that’s the general idea.” He wondered why he’d lied.

“I’m going to Aberdeen,” she said.

“Ah.”

They walked slowly back to the music room. They were the last to arrive. Holland and Panton looked up admiringly at him as he regained his seat.

“Quent,” Holland whispered. “You bloody sex maniac.”

“Shagger,” Panton accused. “Bloody old shagger, Quent.”

“Quiet, please,” Prothero called. “If you’re quite ready, Niles. Now can we have the ensemble? Jolly tars, female relatives and Josephine: ‘Oh joy, oh rapture unforeseen, for now the sky is all serene,’ right? Two, three.”

“What happened next?” Fillery prompted.

Niles lay in bed. He could sense the entire dormitory waiting in quiet expectancy. Hands on their cocks, he thought.

“We went round the back of the chapel,” he continued. “Walked into the wood a bit. We sat down on a log. Chatted a bit … I could feel the atmosphere between us just building up. We were talking about work, but not talking about it, if you know what I mean. It was more just something to say.”

“Who made the first move?” Fillery asked.

“I did, of course. I was talking. Then I stopped, and looked up. She was looking at me … in that sort of way.”

“Oh, God.”

“She was looking at me, as if to say … and we just sort of moved close together and kissed.”

There was a pause.

“Get your tongue down?”

“Jesus, Fillery. One-track bloody mind … Yeah, yeah, if you must know every detail. Not at first — the third or fourth kiss. But it got pretty passionate. Frenching just about all the time.”

“Stop it! Stop it!” somebody called. “I can’t stand it any more.”

“What else happened?” Fillery implored. “Did you … you know?”

“We kissed mainly. Hell, we didn’t have much time. She was just sort of running her hand through my hair. I got a bit of a feel but not much. I’ll have to wait until next week.”

Fillery was quiet. “God, you bastard, Niles,” he said. “You lucky bastard.”

On Saturday, after lunch, Holland and Panton bicycled the three miles to the coast. Helen’s family kept a caravan on the caravan site by the beach. Helen and Joyce had arranged to meet the boys there. Niles was playing in a first XV rugby match. He heard all about their exploits later in the afternoon. He was in his study changing out of his rugby kit — the school had lost and he thought he’d pulled a muscle in his thigh — when Holland and Panton burst in.

“Oh, my God, Quent,” Holland crowed. “I don’t believe it. It was incredible. They had booze too. I’m pissed.” He held up his middle finger. “Sticky finger, Quent. First time.”

Niles plucked at his laces. An irrational hatred and resentment for Holland and Panton festered inside him. Holland he didn’t mind. Pete was screwing all the time by all accounts. But Panton? He was short-arsed and had spots. Why should he have any luck?

“Get your rocks off then?” he asked without looking up.

“Not this time. They wouldn’t let us. But, my God, Nilo, we could, you know, we could. We’ve got to fix something up.”

Niles felt a vast relief. Just feel-ups then. Big bloody deal.

“Here,” Holland said. “Almost forgot. A message from Alison. Wey-hey!” With a flourish he handed over a lilac envelope. Niles felt his throat contract. He opened it carefully.

“Any clippings?” Holland asked with a snigger.

“Hardly,” Niles said. Holland had a French girl-friend who used to send him cuttings of her pubic hair. They were cherished and passed round like sacred relics. This fact had single-handedly boosted Holland’s reputation to near-legendary heights.

“ ‘Dear Quentin,’ ” Niles read. “ ‘I was wondering if by any chance you would like to come and have tea tomorrow (Sunday). I realise this is short notice but if I don’t hear from you I’ll expect you at four. I hope you can make it. Sincerely, Alison.’ ”

Niles felt his pulled muscle twitch spasmodically in his thigh. “I hope you can make it.” That was good. But “sincerely”? Really!

“What is it, for Christ’s sake?” Panton asked.

“Tea,” Niles said. “Tomorrow afternoon.”

Holland shook his head admiringly. “You got it made, Quent boy. You are home and dry.… We must get something fixed up, though. For all of us. After the last performance maybe. Jesus, the bloody show’s over in a couple of weeks.”

Alison’s house was a grey sandstone bungalow at the better end of the small Scottish county town near the school. Niles cycled the six miles there through a fine rainy mist and arrived damp and chilled. He met Alison’s parents — Mr. and Mrs. McCullen — and her fourteen-year-old sister, Diane. They sat in a warm, immaculate sitting room and ate scones and pancakes. The family were kind and genial and Niles relaxed almost immediately and made them laugh with anecdotes of school life. He was a great success with Diane. Alison sat quietly for most of the time, occasionally passing round plates or pouring out more tea. She was wearing jeans and a tight pale-blue sweater that gave her a firm breasty look. It was the first time he’d seen her out of uniform and the first time he’d seen her with her hair down. It was long and wavy, dull and thick. It made her look less severe. He felt buoyant with lust and desire, as if he were over-inflated, as if his lungs were crammed with extra capacity of air. He had a sherry before remounting his bike for the long ride back. He reached the school in time for supper.

“I undressed her very slowly,” he told the dormitory. “As if she was, sort of fragile, or very weak. I unfastened her bra and I kissed her breasts gently. Then … then I pulled down her pants and I told her to stand there while I looked at her. She was very slim. Her breasts were firm with almost perfectly round nipples …” He swallowed, gazing up unblinkingly at the ceiling as he elaborated his fiction. Even Fillery was silent. “Then I undressed and we got into bed. I ran my hands all over her body. I wanted to make love but, well, we couldn’t because I … I didn’t have a johnny.”

“I’ve got dozens,” Fillery said. “If you’d only asked me.”

“How was I meant to know it would happen?” Niles protested. “That her parents weren’t going to be in? I thought it was just an invitation for tea, for God’s sake.”

Niles, Holland and Panton stood at the back of the assembly hall. They were wearing cadet-force naval bell-bottoms rolled up to mid-calf, singlets and red-spotted neckerchiefs. In front of the stage Prothero was trying to get the school orchestra in tune. On stage Mr. Mulcaster, the art teacher, was applying final touches to his backdrop depicting the poop deck of HMS Pinafore. Mulcaster’s initials were T. A. M.: Thomas Anthony Mulcaster. He was known as Tampax Tony.

“Christ almighty, look at Tampax,” Panton said scornfully. “It’s pathetic. I think he’s actually painting in a seagull.”

“Ah, now that’s an original touch,” Holland confessed. “Almost as good as his rigging and halyards.”

“A seagull,” Niles said. “What’s it supposed to be doing? Hovering in one spot for the entire course of the play?”

“Oh, no. He’s painting in a ship on the horizon. A three-master, me hearties, ar.”

“We’ve got to work something out,” Holland said seriously. “We must have something arranged for after the cast party. Think of something, for Christ’s sake.”

“I’ve already told you,” Panton said. “It’s got to be the squash courts. They’re ideal.”

“Not a chance, mate,” Niles said. “Do you know what would happen to me if we got caught?”

“Yes. You’d lose your squash colours,” Panton said with heavy sarcasm.

“Jesus, Nilo,” Holland pleaded. “You’re captain of squash. You’ve got the keys. We can lock the doors behind us. No one’ll know.”

“It’s all very well for you. I’ll get the bloody boot.”

“Come on, Quentin. Think of the orgy we can have. I’ve got blankets, booze. Look, I promised the girls we’d have a party. They’re expecting one. We haven’t got much time. It’ll all be over after Saturday night. Gone. Finished.”

Niles was pondering Holland’s use of the word orgy.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll think about it. But I’m not promising anything, mind.”

Alison wore a long, flouncy dress that looked as if it were made out of mattress ticking, and a bonnet. Niles stood beside her in the wings. He could hear the audience taking their seats.

“Like the costume,” he said. “Nervous?”

Alison cocked her head. “No, I don’t think I am, actually.” Niles looked more closely at her. She grew daily more inscrutable. They had seen more of each other during the final run up to the play but he felt that the bizarre intimacy of their first encounter had never been approached. The prospect of inviting her to the party seemed an awesome task.

“Listen,” he began. “Some of us are having a little ‘do’ after the cast party on Saturday night. Wondered if you’d fancy coming. You know, select little gathering.”

“Saturday night? After the cast party? Yes, okay.”

“And I want you lot to think about me this time tomorrow night,” Niles told his cowed and quiescent dormitory, “because”—he paused, exultation setting up a tremor in his voice—“because this time tomorrow night I shall be making love. Got that? Making love to a real girl.”

Niles gazed transfixed across the stage at Alison. The final performance of HMS Pinafore was almost over. Mr. Booth, the physics master, as Captain Corcoran sang to Buttercup — a pre-pubescent boy called Martin — that wherever she might go, he would never be untrue to her.

“What, never?” Niles and Alison and the company wanted to know.

“No, never,” asserted Captain Corcoran.

“What … never?” the cast repeated.

“Well …” ad-libbed the Captain. “Hardly ever.”

“Hardly ever be untrue to thee-ee-ee …” the cast echoed at full volume.

“I mean, be honest,” Holland said to assorted members of the cast. “It’s pretty bloody, really. I mean, how these people turn up year in year out and pay good money to see that crap I’ll never know.” He ate some more of his cream bun and put his arm around Helen. “Ah, Quentin, old son,” he said as Niles came into the dressing room with a paper cup of Coke for Alison. “A word in your ear.” Niles came over. “I think we can make our move now. Discreetly, though. See you outside the squash courts in five minutes.”

“Be careful,” Niles said to Alison. He held her arm supportively. “Watch out for these paving stones.” Alison’s high heels seemed to ring out with unpropitious clarity as they walked across the courtyard to the squash courts. It was cold and dark and their breath hung in the air long enough for them to walk through the thin clouds before they dispersed. Alison’s hair was down and Niles thought she had never looked so beautiful. Her proximity to him and the thought of what was waiting suddenly seemed to make the simple act of walking hideously complicated. He felt as if a sob were lodged in the back of his throat, ready to spring from his mouth at any moment.

“I’m okay,” Alison said, and he released her arm.

Holland and Panton were already there with Helen and Joyce.

“At last,” Holland said. “What’ve you two been up to? Couldn’t wait, eh?” Everyone giggled. Niles bent his head more than he needed to unlock the door into the squash courts.

Inside number three court they spread rugs on the boards and sat in a circle round a solitary candle placed in a jam jar. Holland unpacked the picnic. There was some Gouda and Ryvita, a piece of Stilton, slices of salami, gherkins and two long, knobbled Polish sausages. From his coat pockets Panton produced a bottle of South African sherry and half a bottle of gin. Paper cups were distributed and the drinks passed round.

Niles drank some neat gin. “To Gilbert and Sullivan.” He toasted the company.

“Ssh,” Holland said. “Keep it down, Quentin. Your voice, I mean.” There were sniggers at this. Niles didn’t dare look at Alison’s shadowy face.

They ate their meal with a certain urgent decorum, conscious of the fact that it had to be got out of the way — but in no unseemly rush — before the night’s real business could commence. Eventually, after a prearranged nod from Holland, Panton said, “Quiet. I think I can hear someone outside.” Then he leant forward and blew out the candle. This act was followed by a muffled squeal from Joyce and a flurry of whispered instructions, scuffles and collisions as Holland and Pan-ton, Joyce and Helen, gathered up rugs and paper cups and groped their way out of the door to their respective squash courts, leaving number three to Alison and Niles.

Niles sat in a darkness so total it seemed solid and shifting, like deep water. He realised he was holding his breath and let it out slowly. He peered intensely in front of him, a screen of blasting mental supernova and arcing tracer bullets exploding before his eyes, brightening the absence of vision. Only the unyielding firmness of the court floor beneath his buttocks anchored him to the dimensional world.

He heard Alison move. How close was she?

“Are you all right?” he whispered. He stretched out his hand, encountering nothing.

“Yes,” she said. “Is there anyone?”

“I don’t think so. False alarm. Just Panton panicking.” His hand touched her shoulder. “Sorry. Can’t see a thing.”

“I’m here.”

“Oh.” The darkness began to retreat. He sensed rather than saw Alison. He moved across the rug, closer to her.

“Bloody dark.”

“Yes.”

He moved his head towards her, gently, almost blindly, like two docking spacecraft. After some soft bumps and readjustments, their lips connected tenuously, then sealed. Niles felt his heart swell to inflate his chest as he felt her thin cool lips beneath his. This was the fifth girl he had kissed properly. It remained as thrilling and exciting as the first time. He wondered if he would always feel this way. With little grunts and discreet pressures he managed to lie Alison down on the rug. Her long hair caught across his face, strands filling his mouth which he had to pull free with his fingers. They kissed again. Niles felt enormously humble and reverential. The accumulated sensations of triumph and release in a kiss were almost enough for him really, but he promptly banished such heretical thoughts from his mind. He managed to get both his arms round Alison and he felt her hands move on his back. His head was resting comfortably on his own left shoulder, Alison’s head nestled in the crook of his left elbow. Their knees were touching; her face was perhaps three inches away from his. Some faint source of light picked out a curve on a cheekbone, a glimmer in an eye. The warm breath of her exhalations grazed his cheek. What should he do now? he wondered. Had he much time? What would she like him to do? What was she expecting? Perhaps she wanted to make love too? The novelty of this last idea came to him as rather a shock. He felt suddenly vulnerable and insecure; he sensed the alien presence of her femininity descend on and enfold him. He became immediately aware of his vast ignorance about Alison — the person, the girl — separating him ineluctably from her. Despite the fact that they were lying in each other’s arms, they might have been facing each other across some great river estuary. The figure on the far bank was a girl’s, yes, but that was all he knew.

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.