54 THENEWYORKER,SEPTEMBER14, 2020
the slatternly shame. William apolo
gized for none of it. My heart sank at
the thought of cleaning it all.
T
hat first morning, he rapped on my
anklebone and asked me to join
him downstairs for breakfast. Then he
didn’t leave the room as I got out of bed.
He raked through some drawers as if
he were looking for something impor
tant, but it was me he was watching.
William surveyed me the same way
my father looked at sheep at the wool
market. He assessed my broad shoulders,
my concave stomach with its line of fair
hair blooming from the waistband of my
boxer shorts. “You’re awful pale,” he said,
but he was deadfaced, so I didn’t know
if it was a good or a bad thing. “I should
call you.. .” He drummed his fingers on
the nightstand. “Casper! Bit better than
dull old David, don’t you think? I’ve grown
tired of Davids.” I cupped my hands over
my crotch, my threadbare boxers gaping
with the stubborn bloat of a good dream.
Downstairs, over wholewheat toast,
he handed me five hundred pounds, a
neat brick of twenties that seemed fake.
It was more money than I had ever
held. It was not my wages, he explained,
but money to buy whatever I needed
for the house: cleaning supplies, fertil
izer, milk. He gave me no more instruc
tion than that.
After he left for the office, I tried my
best to clean the house. I put my Walk
man on and played one of the mixtapes
I’d secretly dubbed from the radio, big
ballady women’s music that I would
never dare play at home. I worked my
way down from the top of the house,
wiping or vacuuming everything that
lay before me. Mostly I just pushed the
mess around. Anytime I lifted some
thing, I felt that it would be wrong not
to return it to exactly where I found it.
When I finally reached the parlor
floor, I was startled by a woman and her
two young daughters. The woman, who
was Portuguese, was slicing a green apple.She chuckled when she saw the clean
ing rags in my hand, but she did not
seem surprised to see me. Her daugh
ters were pulling the tails of their school
shirts out from their pleated skirts. They
pushed past me and sprawled on the
rug in front of the color television.
The Portuguese woman didn’t speak
much English—or she didn’t want to talk
to me. I couldn’t be sure. She pried the
rags from my hand and shooed me from
the kitchen. I took my jacket and found
my way to the river. I spent the afternoon
drinking cold cider in a pub that over
looked some brightly painted houseboats.
Later that night, when I asked Wil
liam who the Portuguese woman was,
he laughed at me. Then he said I needn’t
bother cleaning anymore.T
he next morning, I went to an over
priced grocer’s and bought a cut
of sirloin and too many potatoes. That
evening, William stared at the heaped
plate of charred meat I had prepared.
He told me not to bother cooking for
him again. He reassured me that he was
not irritated by the inedible food that
had been laid before him. “Oh, dear,
poor Casper’s not getting it,” he said.
He took me back to the pub by the
river. We sat in the beamed snug and
William dined on scallops while I ate a
burger and chips. I tried my best to be
good company. He described the spec
tacular light in the South of France, then
talked about Derek Jarman, and a writer
called Hollinghurst or something like
that. I find it hard, unnatural, to conjure
talk out of nothing. I was telling him
about home, about the Western Isles,
when he interrupted me. “God. I find
fishing ghastly.” William was wearing a
jumper the color of fullcream butter. It
looked so thick and soft that I wanted
to reach out and stroke it. “Wouldn’t
want to do it for food. Wouldn’t want to
do it for fun.”
“Nobody I know does it for fun.”
William was tipsy. He ordered more
drinks. When he returned, he stopped
feigning interest in my stunted, inartic
ulate description of the islands. He was
watching me very closely. “You’re hand
some, you know. Hale like all the best
Scotch. Pale like the top of the milk.”
He was drinking port now and his lit
tle teeth were staining purple. “How tall
would you say you were?”“Hey, jackass! Keep it down, you inconsiderate jerk! And stay
safe and healthy during these difficult times!”