HOSTEL

I’ve never told my husband this story, but I suppose I will eventually, on some sticky night in, say, February, as we lie naked in bed with the ceiling fan set at its highest speed.

- Fiona McFarlane

We’ll be waiting for a storm to bluster in from the south, and I’ll see the relevant part of him lying flushed and heavy against his thigh, and I’ll think about how I’d consider taking it in my mouth if the room were cooler by as little as two degrees. That will remind me of Roy and his wife, and I’ll feel like talking about them. And I’ll start by telling my husband that I used to know this couple who, on learning they were going to have a baby, began taking long walks together in the evening.

I might not use their real names. It would be hard, though, not to reveal Roy’s, which seemed almost to have shaped his personality. His given name— much to his embarrassment—was Royal, and, in defiance of his parents’ grandiosity, he’d cultivated an unroyal persona. He was a humble guy, self-effacing. He lived his life—at least his public, social life—as if he were answering a survey about it. If someone asked, “How was your trip to Fiji, Roy?,” his answer might be “I’d describe myself as having enjoyed it.” The trouble was that he took his humility to such lengths that he actually came across, in the end, as kingly—detached, benevolent, devoid of individuality. His opinions and tastes and desires were as carefully bland as a king’s must be. A polite king, I mean, who coexists with a constitution, and whose irrelevance now and then sparks a complicated optimism about the possibility of a republic. Or, of course, a queen.