THENEWYORKER,SEPTEMBER14, 2020 53
T
he Englishman reminded me
of my mother’s lemons. When
I was a boy, she would catch
the far ferry to the distant mainland to
stock up on dried goods. It was a day-
long pilgrimage that she made four
times a year. Once, while gathering
the flour and the dried milk, she had
been so surprised, so charmed, by these
golden suns that she bought a little
sack full of Sicilian lemons. My broth-
ers and I hid together in our narrow
pantry and clawed at the waxy flesh,
sniffing our claggy fingernails in de-
light, taken aback that they smelled so
green and oily and not a bit like sun-
shine. My mother made each of us suck
one, and then shook with muffled
laughter as we winced. We were happy
until my father caught us.
It was those lemons that I thought
of, years later, lying in this stranger’s
bed. The Englishman was standing over
me and all I could smell was his Pen-
haligon’s cologne with its undertones
of lavender and peppery, heady citrus.
I didn’t know how long William had
been watching me sleep, but the cur-
tains were alive with London sunlight.
The day threatened a sticky sort of heat
that we rarely enjoyed in the North.
The air was heavy, as if there were too
much of it crammed into the small room,
and it didn’t hurry or sing like it did at
home on the island. William was mov-
ing quietly, unaware that I was awake.
He set my tea upon the dresser. Then
he carefully lifted my cotton bedsheet
as though he were peeling a bandage
from tender flesh.
His eyes travelled up my bare leg as
it emerged from the sleep-twisted
sheets. I pretended to be asleep. I let
him travel. William ran his finger along
my calf, then he tapped my anklebone
gently. I stirred as if he had woken me.
He was glowing—stewed pink from
his morning bath—and everything
about him smelled lemony and bright
and feminine.
I
am the youngest of five brothers, each
son fading slightly, becoming paler,
more flaxen. It was as though our mother
were a rubber stamp that was running
out of ink—and she was. She always
seemed to be weary.
All spring, my brothers had been
stockpiling the most thankless chores
for my return from college. I’d been
warned that I would be lugging the
drystanes from our old blackhouse and
repairing the sheep fank with them. It
was lonely, monotonous work. Even in
the summer, the scouring Atlantic wind
barely ceased its howling. At the end of
the day you were likely to be soaked or
sunburned or wind-chafed—often all
at the same time.
Any shite that my brothers did not
want to handle, they’d left aside for me.
So, when I told them I would not be
home for the summer, they each came
on the telephone and roared at me, say-
ing I was an ingrate.
I could sense that my father was dis-
appointed in me. If he told you that
you’d done a fair job then he meant it;
his praise could be enough to send you
floating for days. But he said nothing
when I told him that I was going to
London. I love him, but perhaps he does
not love me. How could he? I am care-
ful never to be myself around him.
L
ondon was farther than I had ever
been. I sat at the back of the over-
night coach, tucked between the chem-
ical toilet and two derrickmen who were
coming off the North Sea rigs. In the
darkness I listened as the oilmen bragged
about all the women they would pump
when they got home. They were drink-
ing as if to make up for lost time, com-
pacting six weeks of drought into one
sleepless night. They handed me a can
and I felt calmer for the warmth of
it in my gut. I watched them as they
watched girls come and go to the toi-
let, somehow less pretty but better
painted as we neared the South.
All I wanted was a summer in which
to be myself. The position paid four
hundred pounds a week, cash in hand,
and offered free bed and board (bath-
room en suite). The Englishman said
that he would buy me a plane ticket,
and I had refused. Then came a berth
on the Caledonian Sleeper, and I re-
fused that also. It was stupid to be so
proud but I knew it wouldn’t do to be
beholden so soon—certainly not to an
Englishman. They were not to be
trusted, my father would tell us, although
as to why, he could never quite say.
The Englishman met me at Victo-
ria Coach Station. As I followed him
through the morning rush, the gentle
slope of his shoulders reminded me of
my mother. He was a small, neat man
and I guessed he was in his late fifties.
His swept-back hair reminded me of a
plowed field, furrowed into rows by his
comb. He was dressed in a navy three-
piece suit that was blurred with chalky
pinstripes. They made him appear as
though he were vibrating when he was
standing perfectly still. Underneath his
tailored clothes there was a frailty to
him; his wrists were all bone and his
shoes were almost child-size. I imag-
ined he had never been handsome, even
when he was younger; there was too
much of a fussy, hummingbird quality
to him for me to find him masculine in
any way. He smiled too much. He told
me to call him William.
I tried to hide my nerves as we crossed
the congested station. He seemed
pleased to meet me and talked in a light,
gossipy manner that would have an-
gered my father. His E-type Jaguar was
double-parked outside; it was as shiny
as his monk-strap shoes. As we pulsed
through the clogged London traffic
William said he worked in the “City,”
in “banking,” two words that were so
vague I felt the vagueness was deliber-
ate. I asked my new employer what I
would be doing. “Oh, this and that—
cooking, cleaning, gardening. Let’s make
it up as we go along, shall we?” I tried
to relax into the bucket seat, but I was
sweating under the plastic bags I’d piled
in my lap.
William’s home sat near the River
Thames in Chiswick, on a street of dis-
creet, interlocking town houses. There
were two separate living rooms on the
ground floor, and a large messy kitchen
that spilled out into a glass conserva-
tory. On the upper floors there were six
bedrooms. There were cats lurking be-
neath the beds.
It was peculiar that this man should
be so fastidiously dressed, because his
home was a shambles. The house was
overstuffed with fine furniture: bureaus
were turned to the wall, dressers were
piled upon daybeds and crowned with
end tables. Every surface was littered
with curling paperwork and half-read
quarterlies and there was a musty smell
throughout, as if the rugs had never
been lifted since the day they were laid.
It was a way that only rich people could
live. My mother would have died from
