A Kind of Flying: Selected Stories (34 page)

In Edinburgh, we had to change trains. It was just before dawn, and I felt torn up by all the drinking. Porter walked me across to our connection, the train for Cape Wrath, and he went off—for some reason—to the stationmaster’s office. Checking on something. He was going to make a few calls and then we’d be off again, north to the coast. I’d wanted to call Allison, but what would I say? I missed her? It was true, but it sounded like kid stuff somehow. It bothered me that there was nothing appropriate to say, nothing fitting, and the days themselves felt like they didn’t fit, like I was waiting to grow into them. I sat sulking on the train in Edinburgh station. I was sure—that is, I suspected—that there was something wrong with me. I hadn’t seen a fire or found a body or stopped a fight or
been
in one, really, nor could I say what was going to happen, because I could not read any of the signs. I wanted with all my teeth for something real to claim me. Anyway, that’s as close as I can say it.

When Porter came back I could see him striding down the platform in the gray light like a man with a purpose. He didn’t seem very drunk. He had a blue package under his arm. “Oh, matey, bad luck,” he said, sitting opposite me in our new compartment. It was an older train, everything carpet and tassels and wood in remarkably good condition. It was like a time warp I was in, sitting there drunk while Porter told me he was going back to London. “Have to.” He tapped the package. “They’ve overnighted all the data and I’ve got to compose the piece by tomorrow.” He shook my hand heartily. “Wish me luck. And good luck to you. You’ll love Cape Wrath. I once saw a submarine there off the coast. Good luck to you and your Gulf Stream.” He smiled oddly with that last, a surreal look, I thought from my depth or height, distance anyway, and he was gone.

Well, I couldn’t think. For a while I worked my face with my hands, carefully hoping that such a reasonable gesture might wake me, help me get a grip. But even after the train moved and then moved again, gaining momentum now, I was blank. Outside now the world was gray and green, the misting precipitation cutting the visibility to five hundred feet. This was part of a typical spring low pressure that would engulf all of Great Britain for a week. I didn’t really know if I wanted to go on alone, but then I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t know if I wanted to get off the train, because I didn’t really know why I was on the train in the first place. I felt a little sick, a kind of shocky jangling that would resolve itself into nausea but not for about an hour, and so I put my feet on the opposite seat, closed my eyes, and waited.

Porter had been to our flat once. It was the day I had gone to the Royal Weather Offices in London, and when I came back, he and Allison were drinking our Whitbred at the tiny table. The place was a bed-sitter, too small for three people. I sat on the bed, but even so every time one of us moved the other two had to shift. Evidently Porter had come to invite us to some funky bar, the last mod pub off Piccadilly, he said. Allison’s face was rosy in the close room. I told them about my day, the tour I’d taken, and Porter got me talking about El Niño, and I got a little carried away, I guess. I mean, I knew this stuff. But I remember them exchanging glances and smiling. I was smiling too, and I remember being happy waving my arms around as the great cycles of the English climate.

Now I felt every ripple of every steel track as it connected to the one before it, and I knew with increasing certainty that I was going to be sick. But there was something more than all the drink rising in me. Something was wrong. I was used to that feeling, that is, that things were not exactly as I expected, but this was something else. That blue package that Porter had carried back. I’d seen it all night, the corner of it, sticking out of the blown zipper of his leather valise. He’d had it all along. What was he talking about?

It was like that for forty minutes, my stomach roiling steadily, until we stopped at Pitlochry. When I stood up, I felt the whole chemistry seize, and I limped to the loo and after a band of sweat burst onto my forehead, I was sick, voluminously sick, and then I was better, that is, just stricken not poisoned. My head felt empty. I hurried to the platform and wrangled with the telephone until I was able to reach Roger Ardreprice. I had tried Allison at home and at the museum, and then I called Roger at work and a woman answered the phone: “Keats’s House.”

“Listen,” I started after he’d come to the phone. Then I didn’t know what to say. Why was I calling? “Listen,” I said again. “I’m uneasy about something. . . .”

“Where are you calling from?” he asked.

“I’m in Scotland. I’m in someplace, Pitlochry. Porter and I were going north to the coast.”

“Porter, oh, for god’s sakes, you didn’t get tangled up with Porter, did you? What’s he got you doing? I should have said something.”

The phone box was close, airless, and I pressed the red-paned door open with my foot. “He’s been great, but . . .”

“Oh my, this is bad news. Porter, for your information, probably started the Lake fire. He was tried for it, you know. He is bloody bad news. You keep yourself and that young woman away from him. Especially the girl. What’s her name?”

I set my forehead against one of the glass panes of the phone booth and breathed through my mouth deeply two or three times. “Allison,” I said.

“Right,” Roger Ardreprice said from London. “Don’t let him at her.”

I couldn’t hear very well now, a kind of static had set up in my head, and I set the phone back on the cradle.

The return train was a lesson in sanity. I felt the whole time that I would go crazy the next minute, and this powerful about-to-explode feeling finally became a granite rock which I held on my lap with my traveling case. I thought if I could sit still, everything would be all right. As the afternoon failed, I sat perfectly still through the maddening countryside, across the bridges and rivers of Great Britain with my body feeling distant and infirm in the waxy shadow of my hangover. Big decisions, I learned that day, are made in the body, and my body recoiled at the thought of Porter.

From King’s Cross I took a cab to the museum. I didn’t care about the expense. It was odd then, being in a hurry for the first time that spring, impatient with the old city, which now seemed just a place in my way. Allison wasn’t there. I called home. No answer. I checked in the Museum Pub, where we’d had lunch a dozen times; those lunches all seemed a long time ago. I grabbed another taxi and went home. Our narrow flat seemed like a bittersweet joke: what children lived here? The light rain had followed me south, as I knew it would, and in the mist I walked up to the High Street and had a doner kebab. It tasted good and I ate it as I drifted down to the tube stop. There was no hurry now. Rumbling through the Underground in the yellow light, I let my shoulders roll with the train. Everyone looked tired, hungover, ready for therapy.

I’d never been to the Hotel Eden alone, and in the new dark in the quiet rain, I stood a moment and took it in. It was frankly just a sad old four-story white building, the two columns on each side of the doors peeling as they had for years on end. Norris was inside alone, and I took a pint of lager from him and sat at one of the little tables. The beer nailed me back in place. I was worn out and spent, but I was through being sick. I had another pint as I watched Norris move in the back bar. It would be three hours before Allison and Porter came in from wherever they were, and then I would tell them all about my trip to Scotland. It would be my first story.

KEITH

T
HEY WERE
lab partners. It was that simple, how they met. She was
the
Barbara Anderson, president of half the school offices and queen of the rest. He was Keith Zetterstrom, a character, an oddball, a
Z.
His name was called last. The spring of their senior year at their equipment drawer she spoke to him for the first time in all their grades together: “Are you my lab partner?”

He spread the gear on the counter for the inventory and looked at her. “Yes, I am,” he said. “I haven’t lied to you this far, and I’m not going to start now.”

After school Barbara Anderson met her boyfriend, Brian Woodworth, in the parking lot. They had twin red scooters because Brian had given her one at Christmas. “That guy,” Barbara said, pointing to where Keith stood in the bus line, “is my lab partner.”

“Who is he?” Brian said.

Keith was the window, wallpaper, woodwork. He’d been there for years and they’d never seen him. This was complicated because for years he was short and then he grew tall. And then he grew a long black slash of hair and now he had a crewcut. He was hard to see, hard to fix in one’s vision.

The experiments in chemistry that spring concerned states of matter, and Barbara and Keith worked well together, quietly and methodically testing the elements.

“You’re Barbara Anderson,” he said finally as they waited for a beaker to boil. “We were on the same kickball team in fourth grade and I stood behind you in the sixth-grade Christmas play. I was a Russian soldier.”

Barbara Anderson did not know what to say to these things. She couldn’t remember the sixth-grade play . . . and fourth grade? So she said, “What are you doing after graduation?”

“The sky’s the limit,” he said. “And you are going off to Brown University.”

“How did you know that?”

“The list has been posted for weeks.”

“Oh. Right. Well, I may go to Brown and I may stay here and go to the university with my boyfriend.”

Their mixture boiled and Keith poured some off into a cooling tray. “So what do you do?” he asked her.

Barbara eyed him. She was used to classmates having curiosity about her, and she had developed a pleasant condescension, but Keith had her off guard.

“What do you mean?”

“On a date with Brian, your boyfriend. What do you do?”

“Lots of things. We play miniature golf.”

“You go on your scooters and play miniature golf.”

“Yes.”

“Is there a windmill?”

“Yes, there’s a windmill. Why do you ask? What are you getting at?”

“Who wins? The golf.”

“Brian,” Barbara said. “He does.”

BARBARA SHOWED
the note to Trish, her best friend.

REASONS YOU SHOULD GO WITH ME

   A. You are my lab partner.

   B. Just to see. (You too, even Barbara Anderson, contain the same restless germ of curiosity that all humanity possesses, a trait that has led us out of the complacency of our dark caves into the bright world where we invented bowling—among other things.)

   C. It’s not a “date.”

“Great,” Trish said. “We certainly believe this! But, girl, who wants to graduate without a night out with a bald whatever. And I don’t think he’s going to ravish you—against your will, that is. Go for it. We’ll tell Brian that you’re staying at my house.”

KEITH DROVE
a Chevy pickup, forest-green, and when Barbara climbed in, she asked, “Why don’t you drive this to school?”

“There’s a bus. I love the bus. Have you ever been on one?”

“Not a school bus.”

“Oh, try it,” he said. “Try it. It’s so big and it doesn’t drop you off right at your house.”

“You’re weird.”

“Why? Oh, does the bus go right to your house? Come on, does it? But you’ve got to admit they’re big, and that yellow paint job? Show me that somewhere else, I dare you. Fasten your seat belt, let’s go.”

The evening went like this: Keith turned onto Bloomfield, the broad business avenue that stretched from near the airport all the way back to the university, and he told her, “I want you to point out your least favorite building on this street.”

“So we’re not going bowling?”

“No, we’re saving that. I thought we’d just get a little something to eat. So, keep your eyes open. Any places you can’t stand?” By the time they reached the airport, Barbara had pointed out four she thought were ugly. When they turned around, Keith added: “Now, your final choice, please. And not someplace you just don’t like. We’re looking for genuine aversion.”

Barbara selected a five-story metal building near downtown, with a simple marquee above the main doors that read
INSURANCE
.

“Excellent,” Keith said as he swung the pickup to the curb. He began unloading his truck. “This is truly garish. The architect here is now serving time.”

“This is where my father used to work.”

Keith paused, his arms full of equipment. “When . . .”

“When he divorced my mom. His office was right up there.” She pointed. “I hate driving by this place.”

“Good,” Keith said with renewed conviction. “Come over here and sit down. Have a Coke.”

Barbara sat in a chaise lounge that Keith had set on the floodlit front lawn next to a folding table. He handed her a Coke. “We’re eating here?”

“Yes, miss,” he said, toting over the cooler and the little propane stove. “It’s rustic but traditional: cheese omelets and hash brown potatoes. Sliced tomatoes for a salad with choice of dressing, and—for dessert—ice cream. On the way home, of course.” Keith poured some oil into the frying pan. “There is nothing like a meal to alter the chemistry of a place.”

On the way home, they did indeed stop for ice cream, and Barbara asked him: “Wasn’t your hair long last year, like in your face and down like this?” She swept her hand past his eye.

“It was.”

“Why is it so short now?”

Keith ran his hand back over his head. “Seasonal cut. Summer’s a-coming in. I want to lead the way.”

IT WAS
an odd week for Barbara. She actually did feel different about the insurance building as she drove her scooter by it on the way to school. When Trish found out about dinner, she said, “That was you! I saw your spread as we headed down to Barney’s. You were like camped out, right?”

Wonder spread on Barbara’s face as she thought it over. “Yeah, it was cool. He cooked.”

“Right. But please, I’ve known a lot of guys who cook and they were some of the slickest.
High School Confidential
says: ‘There are three million seductions and only one goal.
’
”

“You’re a cynic.”

“Cynicism is a useful survival skill.”

IN CHEMISTRY
, it was sulfur. Liquid, solid, and gas. The hallways of the chemistry annex smelled like rotten eggs and jokes abounded. Barbara winced through the white wispy smoke as Keith stirred the melting sulfur nuggets.

“This is awful,” Barbara said.

“This is wonderful,” Keith said. “This is the exact smell that greets sinners at the gates of hell. They think it’s awful; here we get to enjoy it for free.”

Barbara looked at him. “My lab partner is a certifiable . . .”

“Your lab partner will meet you tonight at seven o’clock.”

“Keith,” she said, taking the stir stick from him and prodding the undissolved sulfur, “I’m dating Brian. Remember?”

“Good for you,” he said. “Now tell me something I don’t know. Listen: I’ll pick you up at seven. This isn’t a date. This isn’t dinner. This is errands. I’m serious. Necessary errands—for your friends.”

Barbara Anderson rolled her eyes.

“You’ll be home by nine. Young Mr. Brian can scoot by then. I mean it.” Keith leaned toward her, the streams of baking acrid sulfur rising past his face. “I’m not lying to you.”

WHEN SHE
got to the truck that night, Keith asked her, “What did you tell Brian?”

“I told him I had errands at my aunt’s and to come by at ten for a little while.”

“That’s awfully late on a school night.”

“Keith.”

“I mean, why didn’t you tell him you’d be with me for two hours?” He looked at her. “I have trouble lending credibility to a relationship that is almost one year old and one in which one of the members has given another an actual full-size, roadworthy motor vehicle, and yet it remains a relationship in which one of the members lies to the other when she plans to spend two hours with her lab partner, a person with whom she has inhaled the very vapors of hell.”

“Stop the truck, Keith. I’m getting out.”

“And miss bowling? And miss the search for bowling balls?”

Half an hour later they were in Veteran’s Thrift, reading the bowling balls. They’d already bought five at Desert Industry Thrift Shops and the Salvation Army store. Keith’s rule was it had to be less than two dollars. They already had
PATTY
for Trish,
BETSY
and
KIM
for two more of Barbara’s friends, an initialled ball
B.R.
for Brian even though his last name was Woodworth (“Puzzle him,” Keith said. “Make him guess”), and
WALT
for their chemistry teacher, Mr. Walter Miles. They found three more in the bins in Veteran’s Thrift, one marked
SKIP
, one marked
COSMO
(“A must,” Keith said), and a brilliant green ball, run deeply with hypnotic swirls, which had no name at all.

Barbara was touring the wide shelves of used appliances, toys, and kitchen utensils. “Where do they get all this stuff?”

“You’ve never been in a secondhand store before, have you?”

“No. Look at all this stuff. This is a quarter?” She held up a large plastic tray with the Beatles’ pictures on it.

“That,” Keith said, taking it from her and placing it in the cart with their bowling balls, “came from the home of a fan of the first magnitude. Oh, it’s a sad story. It’s enough to say that this is here tonight because of Yoko Ono.” Keith’s attention was taken by a large trophy, standing among the dozen other trophies on the top shelf. “Whoa,” he said, pulling it down. It was huge, over three feet tall: six golden columns, ascending from a white marble base to a silver obelisk, framed by two embossed silver wreaths, and topped by a silver woman on a rearing motorcycle. The inscription on the base read:
WIDOWMAKER HILL CLIMB—FIRST PLACE 1987
. Keith held it out to show Barbara, like a man holding a huge bottle of aspirin in a television commercial. “But this is another story altogether.” He placed it reverently in the basket.

“And that would be?”

“No time. You’ve got to get back and meet Brian, a person who doesn’t know where you are.” Keith led her to the checkout. He was quiet all the way to the truck. He placed the balls carefully in the cardboard boxes in the truck bed and then set the huge trophy between them on the seat.

“You don’t know where this trophy came from.”

Keith put a finger to his lips—“
Shhhh”
—and started the truck and headed to Barbara’s house. After several blocks of silence, Barbara folded her arms. “It’s a tragic, tragic story,” he said in a low voice. “I mean, this girl was a golden girl, an angel, the light in everybody’s life.”

“Do I want to hear this tragic story?”

“She was a wonder. Straight A’s, with an A plus in chemistry. The girl could do no wrong. And then,” Keith looked at Barbara, “she got involved with motorcycles.”

“Is this her on top of the trophy?”

“The very girl.” Keith nodded grimly. “Oh, it started innocently enough with a little red motor scooter, a toy really, and she could be seen running errands for the Ladies’ Society and other charities every Saturday and Sunday when she wasn’t home studying.” Keith turned to Barbara, moving the trophy forward so he could see her. “I should add here that her fine academic standing got her into Brown University, where she was going that fateful fall.” Keith laid the trophy back. “When her thirst for speed grew and grew, breaking over her good common sense like a tidal wave, sending her into the arms of a twelve-hundred-cc Harley-Davidson, one of the most powerful two-wheeled vehicles in the history of mankind.” They turned onto Barbara’s street, and suddenly Barbara ducked, her head against Keith’s knee.

“Drive by,” she whispered. “Just keep going.”

“What?” Keith said. “If I do that Brian won’t see you.” Keith could see Brian leaning against his scooter in the driveway. “Is that guy always early?”

Keith turned the next corner, and Barbara sat up and opened her door. “I’ll go down the alley.”

“Cool,” Keith said. “So you sneak down the alley to meet your boyfriend? Pretty sexy.”

She gave him a look.

“Okay, have fun. But there’s one last thing, partner. I’ll pick you up at four to deliver these bowling balls.”

“Four?”

“Four
A.M.
Brian will be gone, won’t he?”

“Keith.”

“It’s not a date. We’ve got to finish this program, right?”

Barbara looked over at Brian and quickly back at Keith as she opened the truck door. “Okay, but meet me at the corner. There,” she pointed, “by the postbox.”

SHE WAS
there. The streets of the suburbs were dark and quiet, everything in its place, sleeping, but Barbara Anderson stood in the humming lamplight, hugging her elbows. It was eerily quiet and she could hear Keith coming for two or three blocks before he turned onto her street. He had the heater on in the truck, and when she climbed in he handed her a blue cardigan, which she quickly buttoned up. “Four
A.M.
,” she said, rubbing her hands over the air vent. “Now this is weird out here.”