by Voss, Louise
But perhaps controlling the damn ball doesn’t even matter any more. Just because I can doesn’t mean that I have to. Perhaps I’d derive more satisfaction from training to be a…I can’t think of anything. What would I train to be? Not a tennis coach. Not a TV commentator, like Dad wanted to be, until they told him that he mumbled too badly to be trusted with a commentary. I don’t mumble, but I’m not exactly articulate in front of a microphone either. A physio?
I’ve had so much physiotherapy since the accident that I could probably qualify automatically. But I don’t really fancy the three or four year degree.
As usual, my thoughts on the subject go round in circles, until I realize that I’m not going to reach a conclusion, and knock them on the head. I’d like to talk to Mum or Gordana about it, just to broach the subject of me doing something else other than playing tennis – but every time I think about it, I chicken out.
When Kerry is at five games to three in the second set, a black cab chugs up to the gates of the club and a man gets out. I don’t pay him any attention at first, until he comes and sits on the bench next to me. I glance across at him and he smiles. He looks vaguely familiar; cute, too – burly and blond. He doesn’t say anything, though, until Kerry has polished off the final game with no difficulties. Zoe, disgruntled (although surely she couldn’t have hoped to beat her), stomps off court and lights a cigarette, and Kerry bounds over to me.
‘Rachel,’ the man says then, holding out his hand and smiling.
‘Um, hi?’ I reply, reciprocating with a question in my voice. Kerry and I exchange wary looks. Journalist, I think.
‘You don’t remember me, do you? I am Karl, from the hotel in Italy. Last time I saw you, you were in the hospital.’
‘Oh. Oh! Yes. Of course. How embarrassing…!’
‘Why?’ ask Kerry and Karl in unison.
‘Well …’ I remember my woolly concussed state after the accident, lying burbling in a bed, probably with my nightdress twisted up around my armpits. I could cope with my nearest and dearest seeing me in a state of disarray, but not really the van driver from the hotel. ‘I must have been a right state.’
Karl shrugs. ‘No. They gave you drugs; you looked peaceful. Your mother was more in a state than you were. I think she needed some of your medications.’
‘I remember now. You brought me flowers. Mum did tell me that you were over, and that you two had dinner,’ I say, feeling better. ‘But what are you doing here?’
Karl looks around him, almost as if he is also surprised to find himself here. ‘I am meeting Susie for lunch. She said she might invite you also, since she knew you would be here this morning. I found that I was too early, and I saw the signpost to the club. So I thought I would come and say hi. And to ask if you are going to join us for lunch?’
Kerry and I make eye contact again. This is a bit weird: why would he want me to come on their date with them? Mum had invited me for lunch, but she hadn’t mentioned anything about Karl. Perhaps she thought I wouldn’t want to come if he was going to be there. Perhaps she was right. But then I remember how she’d left me a message which had got cut off halfway through. I’d got the when and where bits, but evidently not the why. So she probably had told me.
‘I thought it would be nice to see you again,’ he repeats. ‘To check that you are now OK. It is nice to see you up and about, even with these…what are they called in English?’
‘Crutches. I’ve been using them since the accident. They wouldn’t let me leave hospital until I could go up a flight of stairs on them,’ I say, rather awkwardly, wondering what possible relevance that has to anything. I’m really not great at small talk. Flustered, I watch Kerry rub her sweaty face with a towel she takes out of her racket bag. It’s probably been in there for months – I can smell it from where I’m sitting. Her face is going to smell like that now, I think idly.
My mobile phone rings in my bag. ‘Excuse me.’ I fish it out. It’s Mum.
‘Rachel, hi, are you still at the club?’ she demands. She sounds stressed. ‘I’m really sorry, but there’s an accident on the A316 and I’m stuck in horrendous traffic. I don’t know how long I’m going to be. I’ve lost Karl’s number, so I can’t get hold of him. He’s probably on his way over.’
‘He’s here already,’ I say brightly and loudly, thinking it was just as well he’d turned up and explained that we were all having lunch, otherwise I wouldn’t have had a clue as to what she was talking about.
‘What, at the club? What’s he doing there? Anyway, could you take him off for a coffee? I’ll meet you in that place on the High Street; you know, the one with the grapevine in the conservatory. I’ll be about half an hour, probably.’
‘Mum!’
I don’t want to take a strange man out for coffee. I was looking forward to going for a drink with Kerry.
But just then a blue Mazda pulls into the club car park, and a tall blonde jumps out. It’s Mark’s new girlfriend, Sally-Anne. I grit my teeth; but worse is to follow.
‘Hiya, Kel!’ she honks. ‘Fancy a set or two? I absolutely have to work on my volleys. Oh…hello Rachel, long time no see. How’s the leg?’
‘I’m great, thanks, Sally-Anne,’ I say sweetly, managing not to add: No thanks to you for nicking my boyfriend. But I suppose we had split up before they got together, so I can’t really accuse her of stealing him, tempting though it is. ‘You’ll come for a coffee with us, won’t you, Kerry?’
To my surprise, Kerry looks at me awkwardly, brushing her lank hair out of her eyes. She has the most amazing eyes: bright green and clear. But she never has much luck with men, either.
‘I wouldn’t mind another couple of sets here, actually,’ she says. ‘I don’t have fitness training till two o’clock.’
I make pleading faces with her behind Karl’s back, to no avail. Karl wanders over to the boards outside the clubhouse, where he skulks about, reading the names of all the members’ tags, up there on Dymo-embossed tape attached to metal tags and stuck on hooks.
One of my earliest memories is of Gordana letting me punch out labels for new members’ names myself, clicking the dial to each letter on the handheld Dymo machine as she dictated the name. I must only have been four or five. Many of those same labels still hang up there on the board, nearly twenty years later, their hardy owners playing regularly, battling on in all weathers through arthritis or sprains, middle-aged spread and back problems. Or, in Gordana’s case, cancer. I glance at the tag bearing her name, and my chest constricts.
‘Just a quick one?’ I ask Kerry again.
‘Nah, thanks, Rach, but I think I’ll stay here.’
Great, I think to myself. Sally-Anne’s got her claws into Mark and Kerry. It’s silly, but I am more hurt than I care to admit.
‘No problem,’ I say stiffly. ‘See you around, then. Karl, would you like to go and grab a coffee down the road?’
He rushes back over with alacrity and hands me my crutches. I notice Sally-Anne’s eyes widen to take in Karl’s good looks, so I decide not to mention Mum’s lateness until Sally-Anne is out of earshot. Excellent, I think, that’ll get back to Mark.
A couple of minutes later, we are sitting in the warm cappuccino fug of the coffee shop. I send Kerry a discreet text under the table: ‘PLS DON’T TELL S.A. THAT KARL’S NOT MY BOYF’, hoping that she can do this much for me. When I look up, Karl is watching me, and I feel uncomfortable. I’m never sure how to interpret that particular type of look, so loaded with unspoken words, as if it is trying to explain something I’d never in a million years understand. Why’s he looking at me that way when he fancies my mother?
‘Mum says sorry,’ I say awkwardly, sliding my phone back into my tracksuit pocket. ‘She’s stuck in traffic, and she says she’ll meet us here, and then we can walk along to the restaurant.’
‘OK,’ he says easily. He leans back in his chair as the waitress brings us our coffee. Everything he does seems easy for him. He is very different to Mark, I think, who was a
bundle of nervous energy. Of late, I have been concentrating very hard on remembering all Mark’s bad points, in an attempt to get over him once and for all, and slowly it seems to be working. It’s strange how someone’s ‘bad points’ don’t even exist when you first fall in love. Then, gradually, you begin to identify them, and although they still don’t bug you, you can see how they have the potential to.
‘What are you thinking about?’ asks Karl, amused. I blush, realizing that I must have been frowning.
‘My ex-boyfriend’s bad burping habit,’ I reply, pouring milk into my coffee, and Karl snorts with laughter.
‘I see. Well, thank you for the honest answer. Is this why he is your ex-boyfriend?’
‘No,’ I say moodily. ‘He didn’t want to be with me anymore because he thought that my dad was too domineering.’
‘Ah. The famous Ivan.’ Karl blows on his black coffee and takes a sip. ‘Susie has told me quite a lot about Ivan.’
‘None of it good, I expect.’ I suddenly feel grumpy and out of sorts, and wish Mum would hurry up. I wonder if she’s told him about Dad’s charges? I hope not. I decide to bow out of the lunch and leave her and Karl to it – I don’t want to play gooseberry.
‘He’s actually not a bad person,’ I say abruptly. ‘He’s just his own worst enemy. He pisses people off without really meaning to. He’s so driven that he expects everyone around him to be the same, and sometimes it comes across as arrogance or bullying. But I feel sorry for him. He felt that his own career was a failure – at least, in his eyes – so he put everything into mine…but mine isn’t working out how he planned either. Now his girlfriend has left him too. He can’t keep a relationship…’
I laugh cynically. ‘But then again, neither can I. Like father, like daughter.’
The door of the café swings open and Mum bursts in, sooner than expected, waving hesitantly at us and simultaneously smiling and grimacing as she narrowly avoids tripping over a pushchair which has been carelessly parked by the counter. She’s got such a beautiful smile, although it looks a little strained today, probably as a result of having to rush. She hates being late.
But it usually lights up her entire face – when she smiles, she could pass for a woman my age. Her hair is bright blonde – not a bit brassy – and shiny in the way I’d love mine to be. I watch Karl watching her, and think: Yes, they’d make a nice couple.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ she says, rushing over and embracing us both over-enthusiastically. ‘But luckily it all cleared just after I rang you. How are you, Rach? How’s the physio going?’
‘Really well, Mum. He says I’ll be off the crutches in a few weeks. It’s killing me today though.’
She kisses the top of my head as I pop a couple of ibuprofens, washing them down with still-hot coffee.
‘Poor baby. You’ll be back in the tournaments in no time,’ she says, and I feel that old wash of emotions: fear, excitement, resignation …confusion. Do I want to?
I shake my head slightly as if to disperse the thought. ‘I don’t think I’ll come for lunch after all, thanks, I’m just going to get a cab back to Gordana’s and put my feet up.’
Mum pulls up a seat and shrugs off her coat. ‘Oh Rachel, are you sure? We were looking forward to you joining us. I wanted to take you to that nice little bistro round the corner, and I thought we could— Oh!’ She stops abruptly, staring at the door.
Dad is standing in the doorway, letting in all the cold air, glaring at us. He looks appalling: unshaven, his hair unkempt, eyes bloodshot, clothes rumpled as though he’s slept in them. He moves almost stealthily towards us; it’s more frightening somehow than a lunge, although he still manages to knock into the same pushchair Mum nearly tripped over. He doesn’t seem drunk, just clumsy with rage. The pushchair’s occupant, a lolling toddler, wakes up and starts to wail. The staff behind the café’s counter exchange worried glances across the domes of choc-chip muffins as Ivan advances, pointing a shaking, accusatory finger at Mum. Even Karl loses his complacent laid-back expression and straightens up.
‘Happy now?’ Ivan snarls at Mum, whose face has turned the colour of the dirty magnolia wall behind her. She reaches out to try and put a restraining hand on his forearm, and then obviously thinks better of it and drops it back down again, knocking over the salt grinder on the table. It falls with a bang, and the top comes off, scattering salt crystals like rough diamonds.
‘What are you talking about, Ivan?’ she asks quietly.
‘As if you don’t know!’
‘I don’t know, Ivan. Sit down and say what you’ve got to say without embarrassing us all, or just leave now.’
She begins methodically to pick up each spilt salt crystal on the plastic tablecloth by pushing her index finger down on top of it, then flicking it off on to the floor, trying and failing to act unconcerned.
‘Dad. Please, just sit down with us. Have my seat – I’ll get another one.’
‘No, don’t get up, Rachel,’ says Karl, quickly dragging another seat over to our table. ‘Here is a spare chair.’
‘Who’s he?’ Dad demands like a madman, jerking his head towards Karl. It crosses my mind that maybe he really has had a breakdown.
‘Dad – Karl; Karl – Ivan. Karl’s a friend of ours from the skiing holiday.’
‘I need to talk to you, alone,’ Dad says, ignoring the introduction and glaring at Mum again.
Colour is rising back into Mum’s neck and face, but apart from that, she remains cold and composed. People at the nearby tables are staring and whispering.
Dad crumples suddenly, sinking on to the chair and burying his face in his arms. Now he’s closer, I can smell that he has been drinking after all. I’ve never seen him drunk before, except at parties or Christmas.
I try to exchange glances with Mum, but she won’t look at me. Karl scratches his head.
‘Everything’s ruined,’ Dad says in a low, hopeless voice. Tears spring into my eyes at his tone. I’ve heard him angry, defensive, leery, accusatory; but this is new and, frankly, much more worrying.
Karl pushes back his chair and stands up. ‘Right,’ he says calmly, ‘I think we should all leave. You three need to talk privately. I will wait somewhere else.’ He takes in the agog faces of everyone else in the café. ‘OK, everybody, the show is over.’
All the other customers suddenly become deeply interested in their bacon sandwiches or custard slices as Karl marches up to the counter and pays for our coffees. Numbly, Mum and I follow, and Dad reluctantly brings up the rear.
What a sorry excuse for a parent, I think as we trail outside again into the cold December air. This would never, ever, happen in my Fantasy Family.
‘You go with Karl,’ Mum says, clutching at my elbow. ‘I need to talk to your father. I’ll call you when we’re finished and maybe we can meet up later.’
I am so worn down with emotion that I’m not even sure I can summon up the energy to find out what this is all about. I feel like lying down in a darkened room for the next six months with a cool damp facecloth over my eyes. In the end, though, I do ask.
‘What’s going on? Is this to do with you getting arrested, Dad? With Anthea? What?’
‘Don’t worry about it, Rach,’ says Mum, still in that strained voice. ‘Go and have some fun.’
Fun? I’ve just told her my knee’s killing me and I want to go home and chill out. But it doesn’t look like I have any choice.
‘Karl, I’m ever so sorry about all this,’ she continues. ‘You don’t really need to be plunged into the midst of our family dramas, do you?’ She smiles, but it’s not a real smile.
‘It is no problem,’ he replies. ‘I certainly am not complaining.’ He turns to me. ‘Come on. I think a nice bottle of wine to start will be good.’
‘I never drink during the day.’ I crane my neck to see where Mum and Dad are going. They appear to be heading back towards the club.
‘You don’t have to train, drive, or play later, do you?’
‘No,
but …’
‘We have a nice time then,’ he says firmly. ‘Let them sort out what they need to sort out. Where shall we have lunch?’
I stop on the pavement. My knee is hurting, and I feel it is a little insensitive of him not to ask me if I’m up to it, since I’ve already complained that I’m in pain.
‘Actually, Karl, I’m not really all that hungry. I’m happy to hang out with you for a while, but I’m just not sure that I want to sit in a restaurant. My leg gets really stiff when I can’t stretch it out.’
‘You want to go for a walk instead?’ He looks doubtfully at my crutches, and then up at the cold grey sky.
‘No…sorry, can’t really do that either.’ I am partly doing this out of bloody mindedness – I feel pushed into it and, while Karl seems perfectly nice, I’m not sure that I want to spend time with someone just because I’m told to go and ‘have fun’. In truth, it probably wouldn’t kill me to go for a hobble, since the painkillers will kick in soon, and I’m supposed to keep things moving…
‘Well, what shall we do then?’
We stand in silence for a moment. I can’t think of anything, except girly stuff like shopping, or a manicure. Wonder what he’d say if I suggested that?
‘I am a tourist,’ he announces after a while. ‘This is a historic part of London, ja? Are we near the Hampton Court Palace?’