On the Yankee Station: Stories by William Boyd

Author:William Boyd
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Short Stories, Short Stories (single author), General, Literary, Fantasy, American, American Fiction, Fiction, Short stories
ISBN: 9780375705113
Publisher: Vintage International
Published: 2001-04-15T08:26:05+00:00

Histoire Vache

“So you are still a virgin,” Pierre-Etienne said triumphantly, stubbing out his cigarette.

It had to come out, Eric thought. They had been talking earnestly about sex all afternoon. Under cross-examination Eric had mentioned an older girl-cousin called Jean and suggestively introduced the notion of a seaside holiday and a sand dune picnic à deux. He had tried to keep the details vague, but conversations of this sort remorselessly turned towards the specific and Pierre-Etienne and Momo (Maurice) had been unsparing in their search for the truth. They had really pinned him down this time. Yes or no, they demanded; did you or didn’t you?

“I don’t believe it,” Momo said. “You never?”

Eric shook his head, trying to smile away his blush. They were sitting at a café in the main square of Villers-Bocage. It was market day and the place was full of livestock and people. Momentarily Eric’s attention was distracted by the sight of a red-faced farmer in the typical knee-length Normandy blouson, energetically tugging on the tail of a cow as if he were trying to wrench it out by the roots. Eric winced.

He looked back at his two companions. Pierre-Etienne was the same age as he; last Easter he’d spent two weeks in England at Eric’s home. Momo was Pierre-Etienne’s brother, a little older—nearly seventeen—plump and trying to grow a moustache. Eric didn’t like him that much; his air of amused tolerance towards the two younger boys was extremely irritating. Momo had a girlfriend of sorts, Eric knew, but he’d never seen Pierre-Etienne with one.

Eric sipped his Diabolo-menthe. He adored the chill green drink, clear and clinking with ice cubes. It was the best thing about France, he decided. He’d never learn the language, he was sure, and as far as he was concerned it wasn’t worth the last two weeks of his summer holiday. Pierre-Etienne’s father was the director of the Villers-Bocage abattoir, and as a result of his job the family ate meat for every meal; every sort and cut imaginable: pork, veal, beef, kidneys, heart, brains, revolting spongy tripe, lamb, oxtails, trotters, fatty purple sausages, all of it pink and undercooked and oozing with blood. Eric was returning directly to school in three days and he sometimes found himself longing for shepherd’s pie or a thick Bisto stew.

“But surely you’re one—a virgin—too?” he said to Pierre-Etienne in half-hearted counter-attack.

“Of course not.” Pierre-Etienne looked offended.

“But you don’t have a girl-friend,” Eric said. “How could you?”

“No,” Momo said, “he don’t have a girl-friend, but he has Marguerite.”

“And who’s she?”

Marguerite Grosjean shouted goodbye to her mother and eased her bulk into her tiny 2-CV. As usual her mother didn’t reply. Marguerite lit her fifth Gauloise of the day. She sat for a moment in her car. It was only half past five and Villers-Bocage was just ten minutes away through early morning mist. She puffed on her cigarette and scratched her thigh. Her mother leaned out of the upstairs window and shouted at her. It was just a noise.

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