Creative Writing Assignment 2, Variation: Third Person

This is a variation on the last piece I wrote for my creative writing course at Birbeck University. I re-wrote that piece in third person, in an attempt to shorten it, and to see whether it worked better without the first person of the original. Have a look at both, and let me know what you think: Does this one or the other work better for you?
 
    "I do like tennis, but I swim," said the man with a German accent.

    His companion's eyes widened, but in typical English fashion, merely raised his left eyebrow, and inquired "but you like to swim?"

Diether, the German man, replied "that isn't the point—I do it for myself. My body likes it."

"But don't you get bored?"

"You don't understand," said Diether. He was right, the Englishman didn't understand, but it is unlikely that anyone, including Diether himself, did in fact fully understand.

The Englishman, James, was fascinated by Diether, and looked forward to their meetings. They were, in many ways, opposites, and Diether—tall, blond, formal, stiff—was seemingly the polar opposite of James—slight, dark, casual, and floppy. Diether's powerful, fluid strokes through the pool contrasted with James' frantic, almost manic, crawl stroke, 200 metres of which would have completely exhausted any normal human, but which he kept up for 1000 metres.

The regard they had for one another was, however, genuine enough, and their friendship deepened. James' voluble nature caused him to talk rather a lot, and Diether was by nature a listener, so this suited. But this disguised the fact that Diether had opened up far more to James than anyone since he had been married.

He told James about his failed marriage, his daughter, Hannah, and his childhood in Cologne. It must be said that it took him more than a year to divulge the most basic information, such as why he had come to the UK, what his ex-wife's name was (Jane), and what he thought of tennis, which is where we started.

They often found themselves in the club bar at the Porchester Pool & Racket Club, though generally for a coffee or cup of tea rather than a pint. The bar was a sort of cheap and cheery one, with comfortable cloth-covered sofas, likely from Ikea, brightly coloured lacquered tables, also likely from Ikea, and inexpensive red and yellow carpet tiles. The staff may have thought them a gay couple, which was mostly down to James' use of his hands, expressive in the way of an Italian, but floppy in the wrists, like some sort of marionette.

Neither Diether nor James had felt such a strong bond of friendship that they could remember since childhood, though of course neither would say so in such words. For Diether this was a surprise. With James, though he took the piss when he thought Diether wasn't paying attention, and had his annoying English manners and irony, there was a level of trust and regard, and something about the ever-chatty James that was very attractive, and drove him to make the effort to deepen their friendship.

For James, the fascination was with someone so set in his ways, so unyielding, so unlikely to change. Perhaps he had been betrayed by someone, and wanted a rock, or was simply fascinated by someone so extremely different than himself.

    Friendship, in their case, meant swimming together maybe once a week, it meant dinners every week or two, and drinks on Friday evenings. Because of Diethers requirement for routine and order, the times and activities were quite well defined. Diether worked as a print master in a printing plant of a daily paper, and worked from 9 pm to 5 am, Sunday to Friday. He had never, in his 34 year career, missed a day of work.

    One evening, James was at Diether's flat in Bayswater, on Inverness Terrace. Diether had a nice, large apartment there on the first floor of a Georgian townhouse. He liked, he said, to have somewhere for his daughter to stay, though by that time she was off at Oxford. His apartment was large by London standards, with a large kitchen/lounge/dining area with lovely high frescoed ceilings, wooden floors, two bedrooms, and French windows looking out on to Inverness Terrace.

    Diether was preparing a Spanish meal with fish, a very good gazpacho, prepared, actually that morning to let it gain spiciness over the day, and some tapas. He spent two weeks every summer (and for Diether that meant no lapses) in Mallorca, and that had been one of the things that had caused him to want to cook in the first place, to recreate some of the foods that he had there properly. He had never, in James' experience, cooked anything other than Spanish. When James had invited Diether to his own house, and had cooked Chinese, Diether had been unhappy with the food, which he found to be too exotic, and which was why the evening meals now always ended up at his house.

    "Your doorman has let some riffraff in the building, old boy," said James with a posh voice and a grin from the living room, after two loud voices in a language he didn't recognise continued outside Diether's door for nearly ten minutes.

    "Unfortunately, James, I do not have a doorman. Would you be so kind as to ask them to leave their position outside my door?" he requested from the kitchen, with no irony. Diether had an irony deficiency, one more thing James found very funny.

    Peeping out from the door, James saw an oriental woman in a red wool coat speaking loudly to someone, who didn't seem to be saying , and whose back was to the door. He coughed loudly, to try to indicate his annoyance, but foreigners never seemed to get such subtleties, forcing him to open the door and address the sources of his annoyance.

    "Can I help you?" he began to ask, but the woman with her back to the door turned and tried to force her way in. James, slight though he was, blocked her way.

    "What's going on out there?" Diether called from the kitchen.

    "Stop!" he yelled, but it was no use, she kept trying to get through him.

    "Stop right now, or I call the police," he tried again, still to no avail.

    "Stop or I slam the door and break all your fingers," he tried again. Her friend then shouted something at her in a foreign language.

    Right at about that point, Diether came out of the kitchen to see what the commotion was.

    The woman trying to get into the flat stopped dead, and spoke for the first time.

    "Diether!"

    "Nat!" said Diether, "Mein Gott! Was machen sie hier?" he asked in astonishment.

    James and the other woman just stood staring, as they embraced, she with her face buried in his chest, and silently racked with tears. After a bit of that, Diether led her into the living room, to the sofa, and the other woman followed the others in to the apartment.

    It turned out that Diether had been an exchange student in Thailand when he was young, and Nat had been his host sister. The woman in the red coat was her older sister, Pat. Diether and Nat had been in love, but her father had found out, and had Diether sent home.

On this evening, Pat, who lived in England, and who Nat was visiting, had been trying to convince her younger sister to drop things, as it was mad trying to get back with someone thirty years later. Her arguments were the ones James had heard outside the door prior to opening it, but had been to no avail.

    Probably because they were young, both ended up getting over things, getting on with their lives, getting married, and having families. But for both of them it was first love, and even 30 years later, they both held memories of one another dearly.

    Nat spoke English, and that had been one of the reasons that Diether had initially become so close to her: She was the only one in her family who spoke English. Diether hadn't spoken any Thai, and hadn't tried to learn at all. He had decided that he would improve his English, which was a lot more useful than Thai. This refusal to learn the language had meant that he came to depend on Nat's English ability. His world was somewhat limited by his rather stubborn and arrogant view of the place he lived in. For Nat that had been OK: He had been all hers.

    James was taken aback by the entire situation, from a mad woman forcing her way in to Diether's apartment, to a long lost love come from Thailand, information he gleaned from Pat, who stood with him in the entry to the living room as Nat and Diether sat on the sofa, murmuring to one another, Diether stroking her shoulder and her cheek.

    After some minutes, Diether, ever the gracious host, got up and asked James to set the table for an additional two.

It fell to James, the Englishman, to make polite conversation during the meal.

Chatter about the weather, football and jokes about politics followed, but the air was constrained, everyone thinking the same thing: 'What next?'

    That question was answered by Diether: He had to go to work. It was nearly eight o'clock, and that meant an end to the evening. The two women slept in the guest room, and James took his leave.

    Though James called Diether the next day to check up that everything was ok, Diether wouldn't say anything besides "I am dealing with things. I will let you know if I need any help."

Diether called James the next week, and requested that they meet up at the club. They usually met in the lobby before their swim, so that is where James was waiting when Diether came in. He had bought a new gym bag, and it was only when they got to the locker room that James saw that it contained tennis whites, shoes, and a tennis racket.

"Teach me to play tennis, James," said Diether, smiling.

"But Diether! Of course! But why?" said James in genuine surprise.

"I am tired of regretting what I have not done when I had the chance, and I have always regretted not playing tennis when I had a lovely girl who so wanted to play with me. But I also don't want to look foolish, so I thought a bit of practise first might be good," said Diether, his innate sense of organisation requiring certain steps prior to his first game with Nat.

    Nat loved tennis. She and Diether had gone to the country club in the posh Bangkok suburb where they lived nearly every day in the five months before he got sent back, but Diether had never played tennis with her and, despite her attempts to get him on the court, he had only swum.

"Crikey! Next thing you'll want to cook something besides Spanish. Thai or Chinese, maybe?"

"Don't be silly, James, I have friends who can cook those sorts of things for me" he said with an uncharacteristically happy smile, and just the faintest hint of irony.