The Tennis Player from Bermuda

by Fiona Hodgkin

  When we reached the end of the beach, we sat down on the rocks facing one another and talked for two solid hours. We compared notes about pre-med at Smith versus the medical course of study at Cambridge, and he warned me about how difficult he had found organic chemistry. I would be taking organic chemistry in the fall. Mark told me about his first clinical rotation in medical school, which was fascinating. Someone must have taught Mark to make conversation: he expressed an interest in me, a girl, which was just about unheard of in my limited experience with boys. And he seemed to take what I said seriously. I couldn’t recall any boy ever taking me seriously.

  By the time we walked back to the staircase, and climbed up to the balcony, it was almost four o’clock. Mark said, “May I drive you home?”

  “No, I have my bicycle here.”

  Mark waited a moment. I was looking at him. He said, “Perhaps this is a bit forward of me, since we’ve seen each other today. But might I see you again tomorrow?”

  I didn’t reply.

  He said, “We could arrange something without Mrs Martin.”

  I didn’t reply.

  “I haven’t seen much of the island.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. You’ve explored the pub in St. George’s.”

  He grimaced. I knew I had been a shrew, so I said, “We could go to Gibbs Hill Lighthouse tomorrow. It’s one of my favorite places. We can take the bus from Hamilton.”

  “I’ve been using a roadster that belongs to my aunt. I could pick you up and drive you there.”

  “Mrs Pemberton owns a roadster? I’d be surprised if she can drive.”

  “She can’t.”

  “Why does she have a roadster, then?”

  “She and my father have an interest in British Motor. MG is part of British Motor. Aunt and Father thought having one of the MG roadsters in Bermuda would spark interest in MG autos here.”

  “It hasn’t worked.”

  “Unfortunately, you seem correct in that.”

  “I’ll make us a picnic lunch. If you could pick me up at home at, say, noon, we could go to Gibbs Hill Lighthouse and climb to the top to see the view. Then we could have lunch on the lawn there.”

  “That sounds perfect. Where do you live?”

  MARCH 1962

  SPRING HOLIDAY FROM SMITH

  SPITTAL POND

  SMITH’S PARISH, BERMUDA

  The next morning saw pouring rain all over Bermuda, so the Gibbs Hill expedition was off the calendar. I worked in Mother’s clinic, but in the early afternoon Mrs Pemberton rang Mother and invited me to tea later at Tempest. She offered to have Mark come collect me, but Mother declined. I could easily take the bus.

  I sat on the bus on the slow ride in the rain to Tucker’s Town telling myself not to become attached to Mark. He was probably bored to distraction staying at Tempest with his aunt. He couldn’t possibly like me. He was an exceptionally handsome boy; no doubt he had his pick of girls. He was probably just fitting me in between visits with Mildred.

  But when I got off the bus at the Mid-Ocean Club, Mark was standing there waiting in the rain under an umbrella. Despite the talk I had given myself on the bus, I thought it unlikely a boy would wait in the rain for a girl unless he liked her at least a bit. I had my own umbrella, but while we walked to Tempest, Mark put his arm around my shoulders and held his umbrella over both of us.

  While we were having tea, the rain cleared, and the evening became clear. Typical Bermuda weather; it often changes back and forth between rain and bright blue sky several times a day. Again, I was bumping up against the time for the last bus back toward Paget from the Mid-Ocean Club, but, once again, Mark offered to drive me home. This time, I accepted and asked his aunt if I might use her telephone to ring my parents to tell them I would be home later than the last bus.

  It was still quite light when we drove off from Tempest in the MG; Mark had the hood down. We swept along South Road past what must be some of the most perfect ocean views in the world.

  When we drove past Knapton Point, I said to Mark over the wind, “Do you want to stop and see Spanish Rock?”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a flat rock above the Atlantic. A sailor carved some letters, a cross, and the year 1543 into it. We’ve always called it ‘Spanish Rock,’ but someone in Portugal now says the sailor was probably Portuguese. Perhaps we should call it ‘Portuguese Rock’ instead.”

  “Is it authentic?”

  “You mean, was it really carved in 1543? I don’t know, but the first settlers in Bermuda saw the carving, so it’s been there a long time. The person who carved it must have been one of the first people on Bermuda. Do you want to see it?”

  “Certainly. Where is it?”

  “Just ahead, at Spittal Pond. Turn off here to the left.”

  Mark turned and brought the MG to a stop in a cloud of gravel dust at the entrance for Spittal Pond. We walked down a steep, rough path and then along a sandy track beside the pond. I told Mark, “The pond isn’t really fresh water. It’s a bit salty. We don’t have much fresh water on Bermuda, except the rain water we collect on our roofs. Let’s go this way, to the left.” We hiked up a hill through thick brush to the top, where we had a spectacular view of the Atlantic waves crashing against the rocks of the South Shore and sending salt spray up almost to where we were standing.

  “Down there,” I said, pointing for Mark.

  We scrambled down through the brush to a large, flat rock overlooking the waves. The rock was defaced all over with carvings. I said, “An American thought the carving, I mean the one from 1543, was going to be eroded away, so he made a plaster mold of the carving, and then covered it with a bronze impression. That was sixty years or so ago.”

  I stood looking out at the Atlantic.

  Mark asked, out of the blue, “Were you homesick when you were in the States?”

  “Terribly homesick. All the snow was a shock to me. And I missed my parents. I grew up in Bermuda, it was all I knew until I went away to the States. Well, I’d been to England several times but always with my parents.”

  Then I asked, “Did you grow up in London?”

  “No. Not really. I spent most of my time before I went off to Harrow at our country house in Hampshire. We have a dairy farm there. When my father joined the Royal Navy at the start of the war, he moved Mother and me, and my nanny, to our country house. I had just been born, actually, so I don’t have any memory of it.”

  “Do your parents live in Hampshire?”

  “Well, Father’s medical practice is in London, and we have a home in Hyde Park Gate. But it was bombed in October 1940, during the Blitz, and we couldn’t live there again until I was about 10 or so. Father couldn’t get a license for the building materials right after the war. But finally he was able to have it all put right. Mother and Father still live there. They spend long weekends in Hampshire during the summer.”

  Mark looked down at Spanish rock and pointed to the bronze impression. “This must be the bronze cover?”

  “Yes,” I said. The impression showed a crude R and a P, with a cross and the year 1543. “This fellow in Portugal thinks the R and the P stand for the King of Portugal, and that the sailor who carved it was claiming the island for his King.”

  We turned away from the rock, went as close to the edge of the cliff as I was willing to go, and looked down into the impossibly clear, blue water, with waves blasting against the rocks.

  It was getting on to dusk. We walked back to the sandy track toward the MG, and Mark took my hand in his as we were walking. Once we reached the roadster, he said, “You’d better tell me again how to get to your home, because I’m lost.”

  I pointed him back onto South Road. He made the turn into our lane and pulled over in front of Midpoint. He jumped out and opened the door for me.

  “Fiona?”

  “Yes, Mark?”

  “We had talked about a picnic, before the rain came. Are you still willing to stand me for a picnic? Perhaps tomorrow?�
�

  “Yes. At Gibbs Hill. I’ll make a lunch for us. When will you collect me?”

  We agreed on noon. He reached behind my head and tugged gently on my ponytail to tease me, then jumped into the driver’s seat and roared off.

  It was almost dark. I stood there for a moment in front of Midpoint. Mark hadn’t tried to kiss me goodnight, and I couldn’t decide whether I was relieved or disappointed.

  MARCH 1962

  SPRING HOLIDAY FROM SMITH

  GIBBS HILL LIGHTHOUSE

  SOUTHAMPTON PARISH, BERMUDA

  There was a bowl of Bermuda fish chowder in our refrigerator, which our housekeeper had made the day before, and it had been delicious when my parents and I had it last night. I took the left over chowder and poured it equally into two glass jars. And spoons. Then I made sandwiches with Irish cheese, the year’s first lettuce from our garden, and Portuguese bread our housekeeper had baked. What else? A thermos of coffee. Then I baked oatmeal cookies, and wrapped them in two cloth napkins to keep them warm. Finally, an old sheet from the bottom of Mother’s linen closet. I put all of this in a flower basket that Mother used to collect cut flowers in our garden. Then I sat down and waited for Mark to collect me.

  When he did, I walked out with my basket, and he said, “Fiona, you’re a beautiful girl.”

  I was startled; no one other than my parents and grandparents had ever said anything remotely like this to me. I didn’t get compliments often, or really even at all. My figure was athletic and boyish, and even at age 18 my breasts were small. My parents liked me to keep my hair long. It was straight and light brown, and since I was a small girl it had hung down to the small of my back.

  I loved hearing him say that I was beautiful. I said, “I’ll give you exactly 15 minutes to stop talking nonsense like that.” He laughed.

  It was a perfect Bermuda morning after yesterday’s rain, and Mark had the hood on the MG down. We drove along Middle Road and pulled alongside the road near Gibbs Hill.

  “Let’s take the basket and leave it at the foot of the lighthouse,” I said. “We’ll climb the stairs to the top and then have lunch.”

  As a girl, I must have climbed to the top of the lighthouse dozens of times – 185 steps up each time. As we went up the steep, narrow staircase, Mark said from behind me, “Now I know how you came to be so fit, if this is your idea of a pleasant way to spend a morning.”

  I laughed. “When I’m here by myself, I usually run up the stairs.”

  “Why am I not surprised?”

  The view from the top was terrific. We could see most of the island, and the Atlantic on three sides of the island. It was such a clear morning that we could pick out on the horizon the tiny fishing boats that sailed out of St. George’s.

  “When was this built?” Mark asked.

  “Every school child in Bermuda knows that the lighthouse gave its first light the night of May 1, 1846. The iron column of the lighthouse was made in England and then bolted together here.”

  Later, we walked to the edge of the tiny lawn below the lighthouse to a spot where there was a bit of shade. I spread out the sheet on the grass, sat down on it, smoothed out my skirt, and began pulling food from the basket. Mark sat down across from me. We ate and talked. We finished the chowder and sandwiches, and I poured him a cup of coffee.

  “I hope you don’t take milk. I entirely forgot milk. I never drank coffee until I got to Smith, but tea isn’t easy to find in the States, so I started drinking coffee.”

  We talked for a long time, and then he leaned toward me and drew his finger across my left cheek. I just looked at him, with my hands on my skirt in my lap. I was totally naïve, but even I realized what was about to happen.

  I had been kissed only once. That had been after a mixer at Smith – a ‘mixer’ being a chaperoned party with boys imported from nearby colleges. I liked that boy well enough, but he had not the slightest idea of what he was about. I had the sense that Mark was going to be different, and he was.

  He put his hand under my chin, lifted my face up slightly, and kissed me. I didn’t kiss him back, but only because I was so clueless that I didn’t know I was supposed to respond to him. He pulled back and shifted himself on the sheet so that he was sitting beside me. He picked up my hands and put my arms around his neck.

  “It’s customary,” he said, “for a girl to show some sign she likes being kissed. If she does.”

  I laughed. “What sign would you like?”

  He kissed me again, and finally I tumbled to the idea that this activity demanded joint participation. But I said, “This is crazy. We’re out in the open. A taxi full of tourists could show up anytime.” He smiled and kissed me again. The potential for the arrival of tourists bothered him not a wit.

  Then he put his hand gently under my breast. I immediately jerked back and brushed his hand away. Nothing like that had ever happened to me.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yes, of course. You startled me, that’s all.”

  He put his arms around my shoulders and pulled me to him. I put my face against his chest. I liked being there. After a moment, he lifted my face and kissed me, and then he put his hand back on my breast. I clamped my hand around his, but I didn’t move his hand away.

  “Mark, I like that, but it makes me uncomfortable.”

  I was sending mixed messages here, since I kept my hand on his, but I was new at all this. He slowly moved his hand away but not before squeezing me, gently. I had never felt anything like that before. It was amazing. I buried my face in his chest again, with my arms still around him, where I was prepared to remain as long as possible. Tourists or no tourists.

  He drove me home. It was late afternoon. We stood beside the MG, talking and holding hands, for so long that Mother finally came along walking home from the clinic, in her long, white lab coat.

  I dropped Mark’s hand.

  Mother said, “Hello, Mr Thakeham. What have you young people been doing this afternoon?”

  I answered quickly to avoid the possibility that Mark might say something not appropriate. “I took Mark to see Gibbs Hill, and we had a picnic lunch at the lighthouse. He’s just brought me home.”

  Mother looked up at the sky to see where the sun was over the horizon toward Dockyard. I could tell she was thinking that our picnic seemed to have lasted quite a long time, but she didn’t raise the issue.

  Instead, she invited Mark to come for tea the next afternoon, said goodbye to him, and went inside to begin making tea for Father.

  When I walked into Midpoint, I went to the kitchen to help Mother. For a minute or so, she was silent.

  Finally, she said, “I thought you didn’t care for Mark Thakeham.”

  “I’ve changed my mind.”

  MARCH 1962

  SPRING HOLIDAY FROM SMITH

  ‘TEMPEST’

  TUCKER’S TOWN, BERMUDA

  Mark and I played three hard sets on the grass court at Tempest, then we changed into our swimsuits and dived into the salt water pool. His aunt was shopping in Hamilton and the housekeeper was off, so we had everything to ourselves.

  I was sitting beside the pool with my legs in the water when Mark came up for air just in front of me. He folded his arms over my knees, and I leaned over and kissed the top of his head. He looked up at me and suggested that we go inside the house, to his room, and become lovers.

  A week before I had not even known he existed, and now instead of slapping him, which is what I ought to have done, I found myself thinking that he had come up with a thrilling, fascinating, and frightening idea.

  But good judgment got the better of me.

  “We’re going to do no such thing. Put it out of your mind.” With that, I placed my hand on top of his head, pushed him off my knees, and played at holding him under water for a second or so before releasing him.

  He came up for air, then pulled himself up on the side of the pool and sat beside me. “I can’t get it out of my mind, and I don’t
think you can either.”

  He was right about my part of that, at least.

  “What’s in my mind is my business. I have a question for you: have you ever slept with a girl?’

  “That’s certainly a personal question.”

  “Mark, you just asked me to sleep with you in the same tone of voice you might use to ask if I take milk in my tea. I think I’m entitled to ask a personal question.”

  He smiled ruefully. “Well, yes, I have slept with a girl before.”

  “More than one? How many?”

  “Another personal question.”

  “Answer it honestly, and I’ll leave off personal questions, at least for awhile.”

  “Two or three, I suppose.”

  I didn’t think he was exaggerating. If anything, I thought he was minimizing the truth to make himself look less of a philanderer in my eyes. I took ‘two or three, I suppose’ to mean ‘four or five.’

  “I’m not adding myself to your list. But I do think we need to get you and your English complexion out of the Bermuda sun.”

  I stood up, reached down to take his hands and helped him stand. Then I led him over to a chaise longue on the grass that was in the shade of a large tree. We stretched out beside one another, and he put his arm around me.

  After a few minutes, he reached up and pulled down the shoulder strap of my bathing suit and uncovered one of my breasts. I held my breath for a moment. He took my breast in his hand and then kissed me there, and the feeling was so wonderful that it frightened me. I put my hand on the back of his head and wove my fingers through his hair. We stayed like that for a minute or so, then I pulled my strap back up onto my shoulder. He didn’t resist; he just reached over and playfully tugged at my ponytail.

  We didn’t talk while we were on the longue together; we may have even dozed for a bit. But Mark and I were expected at Midpoint for tea, so finally we got up and went to change into our clothes – separately.

  After tea, Mother and I washed the dishes while Father and Mark went into the living room. There Father poured a Black Seal rum for himself, plus one for Mark. This was unusual; my parents normally didn’t drink alcohol because of the risk that one of them might be called to hospital unexpectedly. But now Father and Mark, who were both Cambridge men, sat down with their rum and began seriously debating the Tories versus Labour.