This is The Writer's Voice, New Fiction from the New Yorker.

I'm Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at The New Yorker.

On this episode of The Writers's voice we'll hear Douglas

Stewart read his story The Englishman from the September 14th 2020 issue of the

magazine. Stewart published his first novel Shooky Bain earlier this year.

Now here's Douglas Stewart.

The Englishman reminded me of my mother's lemons. When I was a boy, she would catch

the far fairy 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 flower and

the dried milk, she had been so surprised, so charmed by these golden sons that she bought a little

sack full of Sicilian lemons. My brothers and I hid together in her narrow pantry and

clawed at the waxy flesh, sniffing her claggy fingernails and delight, taken

a back that they smelled so green and oily and not a bit like sunshine.

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 Panhaligans cologne with its undertones of lavender and peppery heady citrus.

I didn't know how long William had been watching me sleep, but the curtains 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 moving quietly, unaware that I was awake.

He set my tea upon the dresser.

...