Fall (4 page)

I stayed at school most Fridays. Sometimes I liked the change and the quiet. When I was younger I helped my parents at cocktail parties, passing around hors d’oeuvres, asking people what they would like to drink. Sometimes the parties were huge and I got lost in
them, overwhelmed—one question after another, a roomful of eyes, tiny false stars, staring at me with phony curiosity as the son of the Consul General. I liked standing in the same room after the parties, thinking that a disease was cured, or poison purged, and the house was healthy again. On Friday nights at St. Ebury I sometimes felt the same way, a comfort in knowing that week after week I could rely on time to kill everything that disturbed me.

In that hallway just outside my room at 3:45 p.m. there were three kids bouncing a tennis ball against the far wall. Two were waiting for a cab to take them downtown and one was waiting for his mother to take him away for the weekend. There was a window in the middle of the wall, and the kids were aiming the ball at the plaster below it. Every few throws the ball would hit the window and the noise would make them laugh. One of the kids was a lanky grade-niner from Pakistan. The other two were keeping the ball from him. He kept twisting and stretching and looking ridiculous, making whiny little grunts, and twice he said, “My uncle’s going to be here soon,” as though it didn’t matter that he couldn’t get the ball.

By four o’clock they were gone. I could stand in my doorway, look down the hall at the window, and think that time and I had won again. There was a confidential feeling, like the window and I shared relief, like the hallway and I knew what each other was really like when no one else was around.

I could pretend I felt some sort of communion with that empty hallway, but it was just an empty space with creaks and drafts, a throat in the middle of a yawn.

It’s 4:00 and what do you do? It’s 4:08 and what do you do? I could do laundry, but the laundromat closes at six. I could go to a movie, but matinees on Saturday are cheaper and I only have twenty dollars to last me the week.

The carpet was green. Stucco covered the walls like a million senseless nipples. I made a fist and pushed it along the walls—a punch that lasted until the next doorway. If someone came out of his door, he would get a slow weak punch from my rubbed-red knuckles; and no one came out of his door.

I can’t read when I am completely alone. I never think of a book as something to keep me company; it’s something to take company away. I can read in the middle of prep and the book will take me away from all the burps, giggles, and smells of a building full of boys. Six grade-niners could play ball hockey outside my door and my book would take me to Troy. But somehow reading on my own makes me more aware of the fact that I’m alone. I think of the effort of imagining myself into someone else’s world, and all I want is my own. And I think about how small.

On Fridays you could still hear doors slamming, and laughing off in the distance.

I walked the length of the hallway with my fist along the wall and I went down the stairs at the end. Most of the classrooms were along the main corridor. The main building and Chapel were the oldest parts of the school, and the number of students was still small enough to fit most of the learning along that hallway. There were a few teachers and students at work or chatting. I had changed out of my uniform and drew a few stares.

From Friday at four until Sunday at six we were allowed to wear casual clothes, which we called “Fridays.” Day-students were never allowed to wear Fridays on school property, so they often stared if they saw a boarder in the main hall out of uniform. Fridays were supposed to be your true identity, but there were still rules. No holes in jeans, no shirts without collars, no running shoes, and if a boy had an earring (which he was never allowed to wear during the week) he had to cover it with a Band-Aid until he was off school property.

I think day-students were jealous sometimes of boarders. I think they liked the idea of being casual at school, even of living at school. I think some of them thought it was all a big pyjama party.

I didn’t know any of the students who were still around that day. I knew the teachers, but not to talk to. Mr. Staples, who taught Algebra and Functions, nodded at me and said, “Mr. Reece.” His lips were tight and there was a look in his eyes that had developed a few years earlier whenever he saw me. Distrust or caution or just that squint of a half-formed opinion. I never liked him.

I headed to the end of the hall, toward the main door. One of the secretaries from the front office pulled herself in from outside, soaking wet. “Holy cow!” she said to me with a gigantic look of something. “It is THROWing it DOWN out there!” I realized she was talking to no one.

“Just when I thought I could leave,” she said. “HA HA HA!”

I went to the window beside the doors and saw hail falling like teeth. It calmed into rain every few seconds. The secretary came back with an umbrella in her hand and another big look of something more positive, saying, “Let’s try again, ha ha.” I watched her outside, still talking to no one and running down the front steps.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to go out, anyway. I settled into a numb state of indecision, a sort of mental slouch which got me through most weekends.

That foyer was what welcomed all visitors to the school. There were pictures of the last five graduating classes, and one old photo of the school during the First World War with all of the school’s students—no more than twenty of them—dressed in military uniform with guns on their shoulders.

The office to the right was separated from the foyer by a counter and a sliding window. A receptionist usually sat there, with a few secretaries behind, and right at the back, hidden from view, was the Head Master’s office.

The receptionist was still there but she was near the back, searching through a file cabinet. Everyone said she was only twenty-one and that she liked young guys. Everyone called her Christine instead of using her surname because she was the one adult in the school whom you didn’t have to respect. I saw her flirting with Julius once.

It was quiet now in the foyer. The sliding window through to the office was closed. I watched Christine at the file cabinet. She was bent over, opening drawers. She moved to the side, still bent over, and flipped through some files. Her hair fell over her face and she tucked it behind her ear, and every now and then she licked her finger to flip through pages in a file. I remembered seeing her once with an ankle bracelet.

She was moving slowly, as though she didn’t mind being there, which was strange on a Friday at five. She might have been waiting for a ride. I wanted her to turn her back to me again and bend further forward. I tried to think of a question I could ask her, an excuse for being there near the window. She flipped her hair behind her ear again and saw me out of the corner of her eye. She stood up straight and looked at me and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what the look on her face was. A bit of surprise. A bit of curiosity. A bit of “Can I help you?” I later thought there was a bit of sympathy or a sense of connection in her look. Definitely some fear.

I went upstairs to my room and looked at myself in the mirror. My eye was in a spasm.

In the sink there were toothpaste stains and whiskers. Julius had been the last to use it before he took off for the weekend. I washed it.

I had started weight lifting in Australia in December the previous year. It was summer there, and the best I’d ever had. We got long holidays at St. Ebury so boarders could spend more time at home with their families. I had three full weeks of warmth in the middle of Canada’s winter.

The house they gave my father in Sydney was huge. It was on a hill near the harbour and had a lighthouse on the property from earlier days when there were no houses between it and the water. I was proud of that house because it was bigger than anything my family had ever lived in—eight bedrooms for four of us, a great drawing room, all sorts of areas to escape to and be on my own. My favourite part of the house was a nook off the dining room. It had a big fireplace with a curved cushioned bench along the walls on either side. I sat there to read during the winters.

In the summer I sat by the pool. Our closest neighbours were at the back of the house, but one of my father’s predecessors had nonetheless decided to wedge a pool back there right under their eyes. I wasn’t keen on going out there until I learned how hot a Sydney summer could be. There were bush fires surrounding the city that
year. Ash was blowing in the wind. It was cool in the house, but I wanted to be outside. I’d never known heat like that, and I felt that there was life in it.

The coolest place near the pool was a shady area directly under the window of our blond neighbour’s bedroom. She was too old to be interested in me, but she was often in my mind when I was out there. Every day I was one day older, thinking I might suddenly click into the right age and force her to come to the window and notice me. I ignored the fact that I had seen her once on Channel 10 as the wife of a rugby player. The shade was a place to hide from the sun, but not from thoughts of her. I never actually saw her near the window during the day—she was probably not even home—but I felt like she might somehow be watching and I couldn’t relax there for long.

I focused sometimes on people who were most unlikely to notice me. Somehow it made Fall seem closer, part of a possible future.

I spent most of my time in the water or on the edge of the pool in the sun, with all my faith in sunblock and zinc. My skin would feel burned at the end of the day but there was usually no red or peeling. I often crouched low in the water, held my breath, and let the water come up to below my eyes. Ash from the bush fires was falling like black feathers and when it landed on the water it dissolved into a film.

It was my time of evolution. The heat I had never breathed before, the ash and chlorine creating some sort of reaction, the thoughts of the blonde in the window a catalyst like constant lightning. I thought every day that I would emerge from the pool as something different.

One day I came out of the pool and saw myself reflected in our sliding door. I was a pale and skinny sixteen-year-old who had forgotten to put sunblock on one of his shoulders. My lazy eye was swollen shut, my face was ugly and drained, my shoulder was livid, and I was still unformed.

My brother joined us that December. He was in his third year at the University of Toronto and had decided to visit for Christmas.
We weren’t close, and I rarely bothered talking to him. He was an athlete. He wanted to play professional football. We were far apart in age and never really thought of each other.

I knew he had found a gym in Sydney because his only contribution at dinner one night was: “Coach says I’ve got to train hard over Christmas.” I knocked on his bedroom door later and asked if he had joined a gym.

“There’s a police gym,” he said. “Like a community centre.”

“Is it far?”

“No.”

“Can I join?”

“I don’t know.”

I asked him if he would take me and he said, “Once.” He would show me a few things but he needed to train on his own to concentrate.

It seemed like a slightly rough place. There were old rubber mats all over the floor, rusty equipment. It looked like a junkyard for weights. Some locals in tank-tops were quietly bench-pressing a heavy-looking bar.

My brother said, “This is a dump.” He walked around and implied that I should follow him.

“But all you need is one weight. One piece of resistance to define yourself against.” He sounded wise. “Here,” he said, and started showing me exercises.

Do this ten times. Bring it further down. Wrong. Don’t straighten your arms. You’re cheating. Keep your back straight. Good. That’s too heavy for you. Do it ten then eight then six then four. I tried to remember everything he showed me.

“I’ll see you at home,” he said.

I started going every day. I took buses to get there which had no air conditioning. At the gym there were just a few ceiling fans. I was soaked in sweat before I lifted anything. There were never many people around. The guy at the front desk was the caretaker. Every day he smiled at me when I signed in and said, “Right, mate?” That was the only voice I heard for a while.

I did what my brother had shown me. I was very sore for the first few days. When there were other people in the gym I watched what they were doing, tried to figure out what muscles they were working. I wanted a bigger chest and shoulders. And arms and legs.

After a week I thought I’d figured it out. I felt less exhausted. I had gotten over my jet lag after ten days of being in Sydney. I was getting used to the heat. I was beginning to be in need of it. It calmed me.

From the upper storey of that house you could see most of Sydney Harbour. At night I often stared out my window, watching the Opera House, the lights on the bridge, the dark spaces between Mosman and Manly. I thought about how far I was from St. Ebury. I thought about how much I would like to take someone down to the water. Sometimes I thought about asking my brother or my father whether they wanted to go out for a walk; but I realized I didn’t really want their company.

There was an air conditioner in the window of my bedroom. The dust on the vents gathered itself into fragile brown lace. I liked to run my finger along the vent and destroy the dust’s pattern. “You’re dirt,” I would say in my head. I tasted my finger once and felt stupid.

Four months earlier a girl with a ridiculous name had arrived at St. Ebury, and her face and voice were my company whenever I imagined myself walking along the water. When the lamp was on near my window, all I could see when I looked out at night was my own reflection. I had a ritual of leaving it on, looking at my face, dragging my finger over the dust, turning off the lamp, looking past myself and over the water, thinking of being with that girl named Fall, she had more light and promise than anything out there.

At the gym I went up to strangers and asked them if they would spot me. One of them said, “Sorry, mate, I’m working here.” I vowed to be stronger than him some day. Others were friendly and gave me tips. “The bar’s going skew-whiff, keep it straight.”