by Voss, Louise
Perhaps Rachel would come with me – it could be her birthday present, since I’d forgotten to send her anything. It was her birthday today, too. I’d ring her and ask her. It would be perfect; she was a competent skier already. I could learn – I’d always wanted to. I wouldn’t mind going to Europe, and we’d never been on holiday together. It would cost a fortune, but who cared?
‘Do it, then,’ said an elderly woman wheeling her trolley near mine. She smiled at me with large brown teeth and straightened what was clearly a wig. ‘You can do whatever you like, you know.’
I couldn’t quite smile back at her, but I tried to look appreciative.
‘I always wanted to go skiing,’ the woman said conspiratorially. ‘Never got the chance, and it’s too late now. My hips don’t work so well.’
She moved away, heading for the herb tea, and I thought: wouldn’t it be great if I could help people like that; help them make changes in their lives. Give them encouragement, and confidence. I wished there was a career in that.
‘There is a career like that,’ said Rachel when I called her to wish her a happy birthday and to tell her that I wanted to treat her to a skiing trip. She seemed vaguely interested in the idea of me changing careers, but overall was so distracted that I wondered if she was even listening.
‘It’s called life coaching. It must be big over there – it is here. You can do a course. Why don’t you come over for a bit and study for it, after our holiday, then you could go back and be the only life coach in Kansas? If Billy can spare you, of course.’
‘Oh, Billy can spare me,’ I said grimly.
It seemed like a good idea at the time. But already, by that night, my enthusiasm was slipping, like the wig worn by the old woman in the supermarket who’d given me the original idea. Maybe, I thought. Maybe not. I didn’t even want to go to Europe any more. It didn’t feel like my home any more than Kansas did. I wanted to see Rachel, but I couldn’t face Ivan or even Gordana, having to tell them that my next relationship had failed too. But I’d promised Rachel a holiday now, and once she’d got used to the idea, she’d sounded pleased. Well. Kind of pleased…
‘Sounds great, Mum. You sort it out and let me know. I’ll email you the dates that I’m not at tournaments – no, I can’t, the computer’s broken. I’ll call you with them later. I’ll probably only be able to spare a week at the most, though. Anyway, I’ve got to go. I’m flying to Zurich in a couple of hours, and the taxi’s about to arrive.’
She rang off, and I was left with the silence around me. I was going to have to do something.
Chapter 11
Gordana
‘OK, Mama, please keep it to yourself. I was questioned, but it wasn’t even the police, it was just two brainless jobsworths from Immigration. One of my girls got herself into some trouble; tried to get into the country on illegal documents. Immigration came round to talk to me because they thought I had something to do with it, seeing as I coached her for a couple of years after she arrived over here. You know they’re really clamping down on the Eastern Europeans coming in. Then they jumped to conclusions; thought I was responsible for every silly Czech girl who comes in on forged papers – like I’m some kind of criminal mastermind! It’s ridiculous. I soon put them right. That’s all it was. In fact, I’m really hacked off with them, coming to the house like that so early. The bit about the migraine was true, which is hardly surprising. The whole thing was really stressful.’
I stare at my boy, my eyes narrowy and my lips pressed into a line. I always used to be able to tell if he was lying, but it seems that once his Adam’s apple shrunk and his chest got hairy, he also learned to be so good at it that it was no longer so easy to fool me.
‘So why did you lie to Rachel and tell her the story about the Jehovah’s Witnesses?’ I ask. He is driving me back from tennis in his posh car, the one that makes me feel I am in a hovercraft, it is so smooth and floaty.
‘I don’t want to worry her. You know what a fusspot she is; and this is a huge tournament for her. It could really move her career on to the next level – about time, too. I don’t want any distractions for her. None. So you’re not to say a word, Mama, all right? Besides, we have to keep it quiet. Mud sticks, you know, and it could do my reputation no end of harm.’
‘Very well,’ I say, not happy about having to tell lies as well. But I hope I will not see Rachel until she gets back, and then, if Ivan is telling the truth and it is a mistake, it will all have blown away. ‘And what happens now?’
It is the day after the horrible row with Elsie. No wonder my boy looks so tired, but I am pleased that he’s asked to see me before he and Rachel go off to Zurich. I wonder if he needs more money.
‘Nothing happens,’ he says crossly, beeping his horn at a poor old lady who had dared put one foot off the pavement. Even the horn sounds smooth and …what is that word? It was in Ted’s crossword last week, he taught me it. Melluflious? No, that doesn’t sound right. Mellifluous, I think. Melly-flewus. ‘Nothing except that, thanks to Elsie, all the Midweek ladies get something other than Rachel and Mark to gossip about for weeks on end.’
‘Excuse me, Ivan, but I am a Midweek lady,’ I say with dignity, forgetting about that tricky English word.
‘You’re different,’ he replies, turning to me and for the first time managing something which was almost a smile. Or perhaps it is a grimace. I am not sure. With Ivan it is sometimes hard to tell.
‘I certainly am. So,’ I continue, determined to make the most of it, ‘how is the club doing?’
There is a tiny little pause. Someone who doesn’t know Ivan so well – Anthea, for example – might think it is because Ivan is fiddling with the button which makes his wing mirrors flap in and out, but I know better.
‘It’s not going well? Is this why you wanted to see me?’
He clucks with exasperation. ‘Did I say that? No, I didn’t. Honestly. It’s fine, Mama. I just wanted to reassure you. And you said you needed to give me Rachel’s birthday present, to give to her.’
‘It’s OK. I already post it.’
I know I must proceed with much cautiousness.
Three years ago, Ivan, with a great fanfare and as much publicity as he could beg for, spent a huge amount of money – quite a lot of it borrowed from Ted and me – to re-launch the tennis club as his own academy. It was supposed to be the first of many. Like David Lloyd, only better, he said. At the time I said that ought to be his slogan, but he didn’t think that was so funny. It made me chuckle though. I could see the banner outside the club in my imagination: ‘LIKE LLOYDY’S ONLY BETTER.’
The real banner, outside our much improved and extended little club, reads ‘I.A.T.A’. The Ivan Anderson Tennis Academy. I was so proud when it opened. Me and the Midweek girls all got our hair done first, and lots of real tennis players were there.
Elsie nearly fainted when Pat Cash signed her sun visor – I think this is the closest she ever come to having an orgasm – and Valerie drank too much champagne and vomited into a tub of petunias next to Court Six. Ivan and Pat played an exhibition match, and Ivan won easily. Then Rachel played Anne Keothavong, and also won with no problems – and Anne was the British number one at the time.
Apparently she had the flu that day, but I’m sure Rachel would have beaten her anyway. It was a perfect day for this proud mother and grandmother.
Most of the pupils at the academy are Eastern European girls who come over for a couple of years at a time. But people are saying there don’t seem to be so many of them around any more. Our club remains the only branch of the academy. Ivan has been managing to pay back the money Ted and I lent him though, so I suppose things must not be too bad.
‘New players enrolling all the time?’ I ask casually, looking close at my fingernails. They are in very poor state at the moment. I think it’s because the last time I had a manicure, the girl painted some clear cement on them. It was supposed to make them strong, but it keeps flaking off and taking bits of my nail along.
Very distressing. And my hair is getting thin, and my feet are getting ugly. I don’t like growing old. Ted just gets more leathery and creased, and grumbles about his bowels. I feel that I am falling apart from inside out. I wonder when we will have false teeth? Soon, I fear.
I wonder if Ted’s false teeth will be crooked, in the way that his old ones are? I suppose not. I will miss those Dracula teeth.
‘You’ll get all your money back,’ Ivan snaps at me, taking a corner so carelessly that his car tyre rides up on the kerb. Which is most unlike him. ‘I don’t miss a payment, do I?’
‘Ivan! That is not very nice, to talk to me like that.
When have either of us ever told you to hurry up and pay back that loan? Never. I think it’s great you’re paying us back but there is no need to be so cross about it.’
Now Ivan looks like a sulky boy again. ‘I don’t like being in debt,’ he says.
‘And I only asked how your membership is going,’ I reply. ‘I said nothing about the money, so don’t be so touchy-feely otherwise I will think I have something to worry about.’
He sighs. ‘Touchy, Mama, not touchy-feely, that’s different. Anyway, there’s nothing to worry about, at least not yet. I just had a bit of a slow year, that’s all. Especially since I launched the clothing range…’
Ah, yes, the clothing range. Anthea’s little project.
She begged Ivan to let her design some tennis dresses and tops and things, and he, foolish boy, agreed. He must not have seen the designs before she made them.
And the colours! She is very fond of lime green and orange swirls. ‘Like Nike,’ she said. More like an explosion in a sorbet factory, I thought. I was in Lillywhites the other week and I didn’t spot a single item of I.A. tennis wear. Rachel refuses blankpoint to wear it to any of her tournaments, which makes Anthea very cross. Ivan has given up asking her. I think he is embarrassed that his name is on them. He prefers that she wear Nike too.
The only times Anthea ever comes to the club is when she decides to hold a sale. She brings a wheely rail of these garments, then sits next to them all day, pleading with her eyes for people to buy them.
Sometimes some of the older, kinder Midweekers do, or occasionally an impressionable Intermediate member, but I don’t know what they do with them when they get them home. I only ever saw one girl wearing any of it on court. It was a turquoise and pink swirly top – quite put me off my strides. In fact I think Rachel should wear it in her tournaments. It would give her the advantage straight away.
‘You will tell me, darling, won’t you, if you have any problems?’ I keep my voice light; try to sound like I wasn’t giving him a hard time in any shape, form or way.
‘Don’t hassle me, Mama,’ he growls back.
‘You are so grumpy sometimes,’ I say, raising my voice slightly because we have just got on to the motorway and the car fastens away, an easy ninety miles an hour. ‘I don’t know how Anthea puts up with you.’
‘She doesn’t hassle me as much as you do,’ he replies, shooting me a sideways look.
‘I only do it because I care about you, darling.’
‘I know, Mama,’ he says. He sounds almost sad. My big, beautiful boy.
Chapter 12
Rachel
By the time the taxi drops us off outside Terminal One at Heathrow, I am jumpy with worry and irritation.
Every attempt to initiate conversation with Dad is met with grunts; all the way to the airport he just stared either out of or at the car window, at the raindrops which skated across the glass, lit gold from the reflection of the street lamps.
‘Hope it’s not raining like this in Switzerland,’ I say as we climb out of the cab, resorting to the desperate measure of discussing the weather. Dad doesn’t even pretend to be interested in replying, just wordlessly peels off a twenty-pound note which he hands to the driver, leaving me to heft my racket bag and holdall out of the boot. I grit my teeth, biting back the urge to ask him why the hell he was even bothering to come if he wouldn’t talk to me or help me with the bags or anything – he’d be sorry if I pulled a muscle in my back, wouldn’t he? What a waste of time and money that would be, if I couldn’t even play once we got there …I hate it when he ignores me.
Worse is to come. The queue inside the terminal is obscene. It looks like a ball of yarn, twisting round on itself so many times that it is impossible to know where it begins or ends; it’s just a solid mass of fed-up looking adults and disconsolate children sitting on stationary trolleys and bulky luggage.
‘Great,’ says Dad, breaking his vow of silence. ‘Just…great.’ He stands next to the revolving doors, looking utterly defeated.
Mum had an expression she used to use for crowds of people. It took me a moment to remember what it was: ‘Like a Brueghel depiction of hell’. I never understood what that meant until she showed me a picture of his in an art book. I think of it now: hundreds and hundreds of sour-faced harassed people, crammed together in lines. From the second we squeeze through the revolving doors, it is impossible even to see a single tile of the floor for the great mass of bodies inside.
‘Computers are down. They’re cancelling flights all over the place,’ a glum businessman with halitosis informs me as I look desperately around for the end of a queue – any queue. A small boy, trying to wriggle past, trips over the end of my racket bag, which is protruding from the side of my trolley, bumps his head on a suitcase, wets himself, and bursts into noisy tears. His mother swears volubly at me.
‘Sorry,’ I say.
‘Keep your child under control,’ Dad snaps at the woman, staring disgustedly at the yellow puddle spreading out near the wheels of our trolley.
The boy’s mother rounds on us. She is rather fat, with an orange sleeveless top on, displaying a smudgy tattoo on her left arm. I stare at it, mesmerized, trying unsuccessfully to work out what it says. ‘Kevin’, perhaps. Or maybe ‘Heaven’, or even ‘Devon’. The complicated calligraphy has not aged well, somewhat like the canvas on which it is painted.
‘Oi, misery guts, you don’t bleedin’ well talk to me like that, all right?’ She jabs a finger at him, making the fat on her arm wobble, and I feel like asking her to hold still, please, because she was making it even more difficult for me to decipher the tattoo. ‘And what are you staring at?’ she snaps in my direction.
‘Come on, Dad. Let’s try down here.’ Ignoring the fat woman, I negotiate the trolley and Dad with difficulty away from the altercation. Her aggression has shaken me but, in the grand scheme of things, it is the least of our problems.
As we pass the First Class checkin, I permit myself a lingering, envious gaze: no queue there, just one supercilious woman in a fur coat carrying a small dog, being fawned over by the uniformed man behind the desk. Just think how much easier everything would be, if you were only more successful, I tell myself. No queuing. No smelly minicabs or sulky fathers. People jumping to attention when they saw you, being nice all the time. Maybe if your volleys were crisper or your footwork better or your stamina higher or your will to win stronger …I wish I knew. If I knew why I couldn’t quite break through into the big time, maybe I could fix it. But I don’t know.
Eventually, by asking several different but equally miserable-looking people, we manage to find what appeared to be the end of the line for the BA flights.
‘How long have you been waiting?’ I ask the woman in front. She is digging her thumb into the skin of a satsuma, and the fresh sharp smell of its juice cuts through the toxic exhalations of thousands of frustrated travellers, making my mouth water.
‘Twenty-five minutes so far,’ she replies. ‘Haven’t moved yet, and my flight leaves in half an hour – although it’s probably been delayed. They all have.’
Settling in for a long wait, Dad and I automatically go into our ritual queuing behaviour. After hundreds of trips to tournaments around the world, we’ve honed to perfection our ways of dealing with the tedium of checkin or flight delays. I always doodle, leaning on the
handlebar of the trolley (abstract doodles, not drawing, in case anybody sees) and Dad takes out his book, usually a sportsperson’s biography. As the queue inches infinitesimally slowly towards its destination, he nudges his holdall forwards with his foot, without looking up from the pages of the book. We rarely speak to one another, as if talking is banned until we are comfortably seated on the plane; anybody observing us would conclude that we were strangers travelling independently of one another. I don’t mind. On this occasion, it doesn’t make any difference anyway, Dad being in such a strop already.
I swallow down the bitter disappointment that Mark hasn’t contacted me on my birthday, wondering if he has a good excuse, or if he is going to make the sort of husband who always forgets birthdays and anniversaries, like Dad was with Mum. And with me, come to think of it. The sort of husband for whom you have to leave Post-It notes around to remind them, with wish-lists of gifts so that you don’t end up with some heinously unattractive vase which even your worst enemy would know you’d hate …
But Mark is different from Dad. Even if he started out a bit hopeless, I’m sure I could train him. At least he has taste, also unlike Dad, who is sadly lacking in discernment in the gift department. Poor Mum had to endure years of tacky teddy bears and sickly Hallmark-type posters, which Dad would hand over beaming with pleasure, and which Mum would display for the minimum amount of time possible and then stuff into a cupboard.
Twenty minutes later, the queue has still only moved fifteen feet. Bored of my doodles, I pull my mobile out of the side pocket of my backpack, telling myself I’m only doing it to see if Kerry is here yet and trying to contact me. Since all the flights are delayed, she might even end up being on time for once. But the screen is blank again, even though I’d left it switched on.
‘That’s the fourth time today. Why does my phone keep turning itself off?’ I ask Dad, who totally ignores me. Again. I roll my eyes and turn on the phone again.