Wages

The pool was half empty, because the schools had gone back.

He had not known that they would. He had not known that in Oklahoma-Sequoyah the schools went back in the middle of August, on a Wednesday, in a hundred degrees, and that the children who had been in the pool every day since the first Monday, the ones in armbands and the ones with noodles and the boy of eight with goggles who would have hated being the King, would be at their desks in Vinita and Ketchum and Langley and Afton from eight until a quarter past three, in their new shoes; and that the pool, from ten until four, would belong to the cabin people, who were going too, and to Walt, and to the very small, and to nobody.

So the last week was quiet.

It was the quietest week of the summer. Forty people in the pool on Monday, instead of a hundred. Thirty on Tuesday. On Wednesday the cabins along the shore under the trees began to empty, one after another, the families loading their cars in the mornings with cool boxes and inflatable crocodiles and children who did not want to go, and driving away up the graded road through the trees with their arms out of the windows, waving at nobody; and Bonnie Tackett went round the empty cabins in her golf cart with a clipboard and a bucket and her headset on, and came back, and said nothing, and went round again. On Thursday there were nineteen in the pool, and fourteen of them were Walt and the very small.

He did the bathrooms every morning anyway, at nine fifty-two, all twenty-two things, in the order they were written.

He did them for the last time on Friday the thirty-first of August, at a quarter to ten, because Kaylee was early too; and he did number twenty-two, HOSE THE FLOOR TO THE DRAIN, ALL OF IT, CORNERS, in GALS, last, the corners, and stood back, and looked at it, wet and white and clean and smelling of the yellow bottle; and Kaylee came and stood in the door behind him, and went in, and bent down, and looked behind the third cubicle, under the pipe, at the floor, where the pipe went into the wall.

There was nothing there.

She looked at it for a long time. She looked at it the way she looked at the pH tube held up against the sun.

“Huh,” said Kaylee.

She straightened up. She did not say anything else. She did not look at him. She went out of GALS, past him, in the doorway, in her red shorts and her white GUARD T-shirt and her visor, and as she went past she put out her hand, without looking, and took the hose from him, and turned it off at the tap on the wall, which he had forgotten to do, and gave it back.

“Towels,” she said, and went away to the chair.

---

He did the towels.

There were a hundred and forty of them, from the week, from the cabins that had emptied, washed and dried and not folded, in the two enormous canvas bins on wheels; and he folded all of them, in the towel hut, with the hatch open and the sun coming in, in thirds, long way, then in half, not in quarters, because quarters was for amateurs; and stacked them on the shelves to the roof, in rows, very neatly, the way the boards from the henhouse had been stacked in the barn and Earl’s wood by the barn and the jars on the shelves in the cellar; and when he had finished he stood at the counter and looked at them.

A hundred and forty towels, on the shelves, folded. For nobody. The cabins were emptying, and on Monday, which was Labor Day, the pool would close for the year, and the towels would be put in plastic bags in the store behind the office, Bonnie said, until May, when somebody else would take them out.

He thought about the somebody else. A boy or a girl of sixteen, from the county, who would come in next summer and sit in the chair in front of Bonnie Tackett’s desk under the eleven fish, and write in the box at the bottom of the form that they loved working with people. And take these towels out of the plastic bags, in May. And fold them, the way they were shown.

He thought that they would not know who had folded them last. He thought that this was right.

He took one off the top of the pile and unfolded it, and folded it again, in thirds, long way, then in half, and put it back.

---

Tucker came at a quarter to four.

He came straight from school, on a bicycle, a small red one with streamers, which was, Frederick saw as it came round the bend into the car park, the small red bicycle from the window of Royce Pettit’s pawn shop, the first Monday, on the stand made of scaffolding poles, the one for a child, with streamers; and he leaned it against the white fence beside the blue one, and came through the gate in his school clothes, a shirt with a collar and long trousers and shoes, with his goggles round his neck on their strap, and his school bag over one shoulder; and stood at the hatch of the snack hut, and looked up at Frederick through it.

“Snow cone,” said Tucker. “Blue.”

There was ice. Darrell from Grove had brought six bags that morning, because the nursing home at Afton had a new freezer and the churches had stopped asking. Frederick made the snow cone. Blue. The colour of the pool, and the bluebird on the stamp, and a pharmacist’s bottle. He put it on the counter.

“One seventy-five,” he said.

Tucker held out a five-pound note.

Frederick took it. He opened the till, and the drawer shot out and hit him in the stomach, the way it always did, and he took out the change without looking at the cups, a twenty and a five and a two-pound coin, because he knew where they were, now, without looking, the way he knew where the fourth stair and the seventh and the ninth were in Mrs Sixkiller’s house; and held out his left hand for Tucker’s.

Tucker put his hand out, flat, across the counter.

“One seventy-five,” said Frederick. “Two. Five.”

Tucker looked at the coins in his palm. He looked at them for a long time, standing at the hatch in his school clothes, with his goggles round his neck. Then he closed his hand.

“Right,” said Tucker.

He did not say good. He had said good every time, every single time, since the first Monday; good, without looking up, without any enthusiasm at all, the way you say it to somebody who has done a thing correctly that you expected them to do correctly. He looked up at Frederick now through the hatch, with his blue snow cone in one hand and his change in the other, and did not say good.

“You never got it wrong,” said Tucker. “After the first day. Not once.” He considered. “Bonnie’s girl last summer got it wrong eleven times. I counted.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” said Tucker, sounding exactly like Kaylee. “You counted it.” He looked at the snow cone. “You going home?”

“On Sunday.”

“To New Westminster.”

“Yes.”

Tucker thought about it, eating his snow cone, at the hatch, in his school shoes.

“Do you have a till at your house?” he said.

“No,” said Frederick.

“Huh,” said Tucker. He finished the snow cone. He put the paper cone in the bin by the hatch, the way he was supposed to, which he had not done once all summer. Then he went away across the hot concrete to the edge of the shallow end, and took off his school shoes and his socks, and rolled up his long school trousers to the knee, and sat on the edge with his feet in the water, by himself, in the late sun, with his goggles round his neck, looking at the pool.

---

At five o’clock Kaylee came down off the chair for her break.

She called Bonnie on the radio on her belt, Bonnie, I need ten, and Bonnie said ten-four, and came out of the pass hut in her headset and stood at the deep end with her arms folded and her eyes on the water, which was the rule; and Kaylee climbed down the six rungs and stood at the foot of the chair on the hot concrete and looked at the pool for a moment, with her sunglasses up in her hair.

Then she turned round and looked at him.

He was at the deep end with the skimmer. He had come to the deep end, skimming, the way he had come every day at five o’clock, and he was standing at the foot of the high white chair, two yards off, with the skimmer in his hand, looking at the water, not at the chair; the way he had stood every day at five o’clock since the first Monday, when he had put his hand on the ladder and taken it off again.

“Come here,” said Kaylee.

He came.

She looked at him for a long time. Over her sunglasses, which were up in her hair, so that it was not over them at all, it was simply looking; with her eyes, which were brown, and tired, and nineteen, and going to Tahlequah on Sunday for the term, and to be a pharmacist, in Vinita, at the hospital, on the day shift.

“Rule one,” she said.

“You don’t climb my chair. Ever.”

“Whose rule is it?”

“Yours.”

“Mine,” said Kaylee. “It’s my rule. It’s my chair. I made the rule.” She looked at the chair. “So I can change it.”

She stepped back. One step. Away from the foot of the ladder.

He looked at her. He looked at the ladder.

“Go on,” said Kaylee. “You’ve got ten minutes. Bonnie’s watching the water.” She looked at Bonnie, at the deep end, with her arms folded. “Bonnie, you’re watching the water.”

“I’m watching the water,” said Bonnie Tackett, without turning her head.

“Go on,” said Kaylee, to him.

---

He climbed it.

Six rungs, white, warm from the sun, smooth from Kaylee’s hands and from the hands of the lifeguards before her, every summer, since 1958; he climbed them one at a time, the way Castellanos took stairs, slowly, with the skimmer left at the bottom against the chair; and at the top there was the seat, wooden, painted white, with a cushion on it, red, faded, the shape of Kaylee; and the umbrella over it, blue and white; and the red float on its hook. He sat down on the seat.

He looked.

He could see everything.

That was the thing about it. He had known it would be; he had looked up at it every day at five o’clock for five weeks and known; and he had not known. He could see the whole of the pool, at once, every corner of the kidney of it, blue, with the light on it, and Walt in the shallow end doing his breaststroke with his chin up, and the very small at the edge with their mothers, and Tucker, by himself, with his school trousers rolled to the knee and his feet in the water. He could see the gate, and the pass hut with its window, and the towel hut with the hundred and forty towels in it, folded, and the snack hut with its hatch propped on its stick, and the bathrooms behind it, GUYS and GALS, white, clean. He could see Kimura, on her lounger at the shallow end, with her straw hat, who had lifted the hat an inch and was looking at him. He could see Castellanos, at his table under the blue and white umbrella, in the blue T-shirt with the mended shoulder, with his untouched iced tea, who was looking at him too, and whose face, at that distance, from the top of the chair, did something that he could not see clearly and did not need to.

And over the white fence he could see the lake.

The whole cove, from the top of the chair. Blue and gold in the late sun, going away to the point and round it to the open water beyond, where the old town was, under forty feet of it; and the marina, and the boats; and on the far side of the cove, the town, small, a grid of streets on the shore, the white spire of the Methodist church, and the roofs, dented, and the post office with its flag, and the highway, and the bend above the water, and on the bend, very small, a tall old sign with a coffee cup on it and an arrow of light bulbs, half of them gone; and beyond the town, on the far side of the cove, in the trees, a green house with boats round it; and further, over the fields, on a rise, very small, so small that he would not have seen it if he had not known it was there, a white farmhouse with an oak beside it, and a barn, and a windmill.

The windmill was turning.

He sat at the top of Kaylee’s chair and looked at it, at the windmill turning, two miles away, very small, in a wind that he could feel now, up here, on his face, that he could not feel on the ground; and at all of it, the pool and the gate and the town and the lake and the farmhouse and the sky, which was enormous, white going gold, from one side to the other, the whole of it, at once.

He did not say anything. He sat there for ten minutes.

---

When he came down the six rungs, Kaylee was standing at the foot of the chair with the skimmer in her hand.

“Well?” she said.

“You can see everything.”

“That’s the job,” said Kaylee. She held out the skimmer. “You sit up there, and you see everything. Every corner. Every kid. All day. And you don’t say anything.” She looked up at the chair. “Unless you have to. And then you blow the whistle, once, and everybody listens, because you never blow it unless you have to.” She looked at him. “That’s all it is.”

He took the skimmer.

He thought about the town. About the café, on the first Sunday, and the man folding his newspaper over, and the whole room talking about something else on purpose; and the queue; and the grandstand; and nine people on the radio; and Mr Vollmer’s thirty-eighth measure, in pencil, on the back of a slip of green paper. Seeing everything. And not saying anything, unless you had to.

“It’s the whole county,” he said. “That’s what they’ve been doing. All summer. All of them.” He looked at the chair. “They’ve all been sitting in the chair.”

Kaylee looked at him for a long time.

“Yes,” she said. “I know.” She climbed the six rungs and sat down at the top, on the red cushion the shape of her, and put the whistle in her teeth. “Who do you think taught me?”

---

The last envelope said LAST.

Bonnie Tackett gave it to him at six, across the counter of the towel hut, when the whistle had gone three times, short, for the last time on a weekday that summer, and the pool had emptied, Walt and the very small and Tucker, who went last, out through the gate in his school shoes with his trousers still rolled up and his feet wet, to the small red bicycle with the streamers, and rode away round the bend without looking back.

It was the same brown envelope, small, the size of his hand, with a flap that tucked in. HANOVER - WK 5 - LAST, in her quick round marker.

“Count it,” said Bonnie Tackett.

He counted it. The slip first. 37½ hrs @ £8.00 = £300.00. Less snack hut at cost (4 × hot dog @ £1.20, 1 × can @ 60p) = £5.40. TOTAL £294.60. B.T. And then the money, out loud, under his breath, at the counter, the way Tucker had shown him: the twenties, fourteen, and the ten, and the coins. Two hundred and ninety-four pounds and sixty pence. He counted it twice.

“Right?” said Bonnie Tackett.

“Right.”

“Good.” She put her hand in the pocket of her apron and took out something else, and put it on the counter beside the envelope.

It was a letter. An envelope, white, long, with the sailing boat on the flap and the sunset and the leaping fish, and COVE POINT RESORT - GRAND LAKE - EST. 1958, and on the front, in her quick round marker, To whom it may concern.

“For your next form,” said Bonnie Tackett. “Previous employment. So you don’t have to put Pettit’s, carrying.” She looked at the envelope. “Don’t open it here. Open it at home.” She looked at him. “Open it wherever home is.”

He picked it up. He held it, with the brown envelope that said LAST, both of them, in his hands, at the counter of the towel hut, with the hundred and forty towels on the shelves behind him folded in thirds; and he looked at Bonnie Tackett in her pink polo shirt with the sailing boat and her visor and her headset and the pens behind both her ears, and her quick brown face, which was not doing anything at all.

“Mrs Tackett,” he said.

“Bonnie.”

“Bonnie. Thank you. For the…”

“Don’t,” said Bonnie Tackett.

She said it quite gently. She said it the way Castellanos had said that’s not yours on the porch step at two in the morning. She put up her hand, flat, between them, over the counter, the way you stop a child from running.

“Don’t say goodbye, hon,” she said. “I don’t do goodbyes. I’ve done twelve summers of kids at this pool and I’ve never said goodbye to one of them, and I’m not starting now.” She took her hand back. “You did the job. You did it right. You never once climbed the chair when she was in the bathroom. You took a frog to the lake.” She looked at the envelope in his hand. “It’s all in there. I wrote it last night. Twice. Because I missed a bit the first time.” Her mouth did something at the corner. “You know about missing a bit.”

“Yes.”

“Then go home,” said Bonnie Tackett, and put her headset on, and turned round, and went into the office, and shut the door; and he heard her through it, a moment later, on the telephone, about ice.

---

He opened the letter on the porch, at seven, on the top step, by the post.

He did not open it at once. He sat with it on his knee for a long time, with the brown envelope that said LAST in his shirt pocket and the badge on his T-shirt, FREDERICK, going over both edges, which he had not taken off; and the yard in front of him, and the oak with its torn limb, and the windmill, turning, slowly, in a wind he could feel now, on his face, here, on the step; and the others inside, at the kitchen table, not watching him through the screen door, very hard.

Then he opened it.

It was one page. On the resort’s paper, with the sailing boat at the top. In her quick round marker, because she did not own a pen that worked either.

To whom it may concern.

F. Hanover worked at the Cove Point Resort pool, Ketchum, Oklahoma-Sequoyah, as a pool attendant, from Monday 30 July to Friday 31 August 2029, ten to six, five days a week, for eight pounds an hour.

He did the towels, the snack hut, the skimmer, the bins and the bathrooms. He did the chemicals only with the lifeguard standing next to him. He did not climb the chair.

He was late once, ten minutes, back from his lunch, on a Thursday, because he was on the telephone to New Westminster. It was taken out of his pay.

He did the bathroom floor twice when he was asked. By the last week he did not need to be asked.

He learned the till from a boy of eight and did not get it wrong again.

He took a frog to the lake.

I would employ him again.

B. Tackett, Manager.

And under the signature, smaller, squeezed in at the bottom of the page, in the marker, uphill:

P.S. He wrote “for the money” on his form. He was the only one who ever told me the truth.

---

He sat on the step with the letter on his knee for a long time.

Then he got up, and went in through the screen door, and let it bang, for once, on purpose; and the three of them at the kitchen table looked up.

He went to the refrigerator. He did not touch the list. He put the letter up beside it, on the door, under the corner of the magnet shaped like the State, so that it hung there next to the back of page fourteen of the Proposed Summer Programme with its nine ticks and its one line without; and the pink ticket, 412; and stood back.

“Well?” said Theo.

“I would employ him again,” said Frederick.

Nobody said anything at the table for a moment.

Then Felix got up, and went to the drawer, and took out the short pencil, and came to the refrigerator, and stood beside him, and looked at the list for a long time; and at number four, 4. Get a job, in Theo’s big slanting hand, a real one, with a form, with its tick beside it, small and neat, from the first Monday.

He made another tick beside it. Very small. Beside the first.

“What’s that for?” said Marcus.

“That’s for keeping it,” said Felix.