The Tennis Player from Bermuda

by Fiona Hodgkin

  “Macmillan is fundamentally sound,” Father said.

  “If Gaitskell steps down, though,” Mark replied, “and Labour is led by Wilson, then Macmillan will have a tussle on his hands.”

  Mother and I, in the kitchen, laughed softly to ourselves while listening to them. Neither of them had a clue about politics. Mother leaned over to me and whispered, “Where do we find these silly men?”

  It was thrilling for me to have her treat me, almost, as an equal.

  MARCH 1962

  SPRING HOLIDAY FROM SMITH

  AMERICAN GRANDMOTHER

  The day before Mark left Bermuda for England, English Grandmother gave a formal ladies’ lunch in my honor at her home, which was less than 20 meters or so from Midpoint. The two houses had shared a garden for – well, for longer than anyone in Bermuda could remember.

  English Grandmother’s lunch was the reason I wasn’t having a goodbye lunch somewhere else with Mark.

  American Grandmother’s idea of a formal ladies’ lunch in my honor would have been to walk with me down to Hamilton Harbour and buy a freshly grilled fish, wrapped in newspaper, from one of the fishermen. Then she and I would sit down on the seawall around the harbour and dangle our feet in the water while we picked the fish apart with our fingers and ate it.

  To American Grandmother, when I was young, this would be an opportunity to teach me the names of the bones in the foot, or the muscles in the hand, or how to take my pulse. Aside from her family, American Grandmother was interested only in medicine: she didn’t garden, she sewed and mended only when essential, her house looked as though a hurricane had just passed through, and she was a truly terrible cook.

  But she was an extraordinary physician.

  When she was a girl in Massachusetts, she told me, somehow she had heard about Mary Elizabeth Garrett of Baltimore, who, in the early 1890s, had given a large share of the money needed to start the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. In doing so, Garrett had extracted the painful promise from the Hopkins trustees (all male, of course) that women would be admitted to the medical school ‘on the same terms as men.’ American Grandmother couldn’t recall how or when she had heard Garrett’s story, but she had instantly decided to become a doctor.

  I gather her parents (my great-grandparents) were at first amused that young Fiona wanted to attend medical school. When American Grandmother excelled at chemistry at Smith, they were less amused, and in 1912, when she was accepted at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, they were horrified – which bothered American Grandmother not the slightest.

  American Grandmother became one of the first researchers to explore the biochemical basis of the menstrual cycle. In 1915, in her third year of medical school, she published a groundbreaking paper in The Boston Medical & Surgical Journal – then, as now, one of the leading medical journals, although today it is known as The New England Journal of Medicine.

  For a woman medical student in 1915, life didn’t get better than that.

  I have an old, yellowed reprint of her paper: ‘Ovulation and the Luteinizing Factor. Ashburton FA. From the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.’ In the paper, she explained how she had drawn a blood sample from a “human female volunteer” each day of the volunteer’s cycle.

  “How did you find a volunteer?” I asked.

  “It was me!” she laughed. “By the third week, my left arm looked like a pincushion from all the needle sticks!”

  No doubt she had a great future in medical research ahead of her at Hopkins, but she happened to visit Bermuda on holiday, where, by chance, she met a young doctor, who would become my grandfather. Apparently without a backward glance, American Grandmother chucked her career at Hopkins to marry him and practice general medicine on Point Finger Road in Bermuda. (Good for me, since otherwise I wouldn’t be here to tell you this story.)

  I once asked her why she had done it. At the time I asked, my daughters were her great-granddaughters. Without hesitating, she replied, “Because your grandfather was quite sexually attractive.”

  As the ladies’ lunch in my honor was at long last drawing to a close, I heard the roar of Mark’s MG pulling up in front of Midpoint. I quickly kissed Mother, then American Grandmother, and finally English Grandmother.

  “I have to leave,” I told them.

  MARCH 1962

  SPRING HOLIDAY FROM SMITH

  MID-OCEAN CLUB BEACH, BERMUDA

  Earlier that spring, I had gone to Boston with four of my friends from Smith – all of us were in Emerson House – on a shopping expedition. I bought several sensible knickers and two nice blouses, and then, under the influence of my friends, a two-piece swimsuit. Certainly not a bikini, but at least it had a separate top and bottom. Today, none of my granddaughters would consent to be seen even dead in this swimsuit. It was quite modest, and they could easily make three of their bikinis out of one of this swimsuit. But for me, then, it was daring.

  I had never worn the swimsuit outside the fitting room of the store in Boston, and I seriously doubted Mother would let me out of the house wearing it. I had stuffed the swimsuit into my beach bag with a couple of towels so Mother wouldn’t see it. I would change at the Mid-Ocean Club.

  Mark and I had the beach entirely to ourselves that weekday afternoon. By the time I emerged from the dressing room, still tugging at the edges of the swimsuit trying to make sure it was covering everything that absolutely had to be covered, Mark was already on the beach. He turned around and was dazzled. He took my hand, and we walked toward the ocean.

  “What have I done to deserve this amazing swimsuit?” he asked.

  “Don’t get any ideas. I don’t want you trying to remove any part of it.”

  “There aren’t many parts to remove. One would have to be selective.”

  I laughed. “That makes it easy; just stay away from it.”

  “I would never do anything improper with your swimsuit.”

  “Excuse me? What exactly happened at Tempest?”

  “I don’t recall any objection made to my conduct.”

  “Perhaps not, but today, behave yourself.”

  We dived into the water, which at that time of year was still cold, and we splashed one another. I swam toward the reef, and Mark swam up beside me; he was a strong swimmer. Eventually, we turned around and swam back to the beach. We walked up toward the wildly jumbled rocks at the top of the beach, and Mark spread a towel on the sand for us. I sat down and ran my hands through my ponytail to squeeze out the salt water.

  Mark sat down beside me, put his arm around me, and then spread another towel on top of us, which felt warm and comfortable.

  He kissed me, and all I could think about was that he would leave tomorrow. How many thousands of kilometers away would he be? I’d probably never see him again.

  Mark reached below me, put his hand under my bottom, lifted me up, and dropped me between his legs, so that I was leaning back against his chest. I was scared at first, but then I found that leaning back against him, with his arms folded around me, was quite nice. I closed my eyes, and if I could have stayed like that for a long time, that would have been fine with me. Mark tucked the towel around me.

  Then I was shocked when he pushed his hand under the front of the bottom of my swimsuit. I instantly went rigid, and I kept my eyes shut, but I didn’t say ‘No,’ and I didn’t grab his hand. But I did clamp my legs together.

  He whispered, “I’m just going to touch you, don’t worry, that’s all.”

  After a moment he said, “Fiona, this won’t work unless you move your legs apart, just a bit.”

  I spread my legs maybe a centimeter.

  He laughed. “Fiona, it just can’t happen unless I can put my hand between your legs. I promise you it will be all right. I’m only going to touch you; nothing more.”

  I spread my legs just a bit more. Mark touched me, lightly, but it felt like a small electric shock. I yelped, grabbed his hand, twisted away from him, and gasped for breath. He held me for a moment, and kisse
d me on the top of my head.

  “Fiona,” he said, pulling me back against his chest again. “It might be more comfortable for both of us if you took off the bottom of your swimsuit.”

  “I’m not going to do that.”

  “Fiona. Lift yourself up and pull off the bottom. It will be easier that way.”

  I was frightened, but I wanted him to touch me. “Don’t look at me.”

  “I won’t,” he lied happily.

  I pulled the towel back over me, reached down, and took off the bottom of my suit. I thought, ‘I must be crazy to do this.’

  I leaned back against him, holding the towel around me, and kept my eyes shut. He began touching me, gently, and it was instantly clear that he knew exactly what to do. At the end I cried out so loudly that I probably alerted everyone in Tucker’s Town that I was there with Mark.

  That moment, Mark could have made love to me without a word of protest from my side. Instead – to give the devil his due – he just held me for a minute or so, and then he stood up. He folded my legs so that they were in the shade of the rocks and out of the Bermuda sun. He put the towel over me and leaned over and kissed me on my forehead. I still had my eyes shut.

  Then he walked down to the Atlantic and dove in. Mark, thoughtfully, was going for a swim so that I could have a few minutes alone to pull myself together.

  When he came back, dripping wet, I had reassembled my swimsuit, and I was sitting with my back against the rocks. If that was just Mark touching me, what on earth would it be like to make love to him? He sat down beside me and put his arm over my shoulders.

  I said, “I should have made love to you yesterday. You’ll be on your way to England tomorrow, and I’ll kick myself for not going to bed with you. But I’m so scared of making love.”

  “You’re scared? What about me the first time? You think I wasn’t scared?”

  “Why would you have been scared? I would have thought it would be the girl who would be scared.”

  “I was scared out of my wits because I had no idea of how it was supposed to be done. And the young lady – it was her first time, as well – was absolutely no help. She kept saying, ‘Mark, what are you trying to do?’” He said this mimicking a girl’s higher pitched voice, with a slight accent I couldn’t place.

  I had to laugh at him.

  Mark went on. “It was a complete embarrassment for me, and I’m sure the young lady wished she had picked someone experienced to sleep with for the first time. You know how I touched your clitoris just now?”

  I’m sure my face turned red, but I nodded. I’ve subsequently found that in matters of human anatomy medical students are carelessly blunt.

  “Well, my first time, I didn’t know there was a clitoris. No idea.”

  “You seemed to have learned all about it.”

  He laughed. “Is that a compliment?”

  I smiled. “Yes, it is. Was she your girlfriend? I mean, the person you slept with the first time.”

  “Yes.”

  “She must not still be your girlfriend, because you told me you’ve been with more than one girl.”

  “No, we broke up” – he stopped to think – “in the summer of 1959.”

  “Why did you break up?”

  He shrugged. “She wanted to see someone else. But she’s still a good friend of mine. I hope you’ll meet her some day.”

  Meeting Mark’s first lover was not going to be high on my list of social priorities, but I didn’t tell him that. Then I had an uncomfortable thought. “Do you have a girlfriend now?”

  “Not in England.”

  I didn’t like the qualified sound of that answer. “Do you have a girlfriend somewhere else?”

  “I seem to have acquired one in Bermuda.”

  I was so pleased I practically glowed.

  After that, we walked along the beach together. Mark put his arm around my waist and, in a proprietary sort of way, tucked his thumb under the waistband of my swimsuit bottom.

  The day Mark was leaving Bermuda, I was working for Mother and Grandfather in the clinic. Mark was having lunch with his aunt in Hamilton, and her driver was going to take him to Kindley Field later that afternoon. Mark said he would stop at the clinic after lunch to say goodbye. When I saw him pull up in front of the clinic and park the MG on Point Finger Road, I promised myself that I absolutely would not cry.

  I smoothed my skirt down, checked the mirror to make sure my ponytail was neatly tied back, and walked outside. There couldn’t be a more public spot in Bermuda. Mother’s clinic was just across the street from hospital, and people were everywhere. Not the ideal place for goodbyes. Mark got out of the MG and put his arms around my shoulders. I put my arms around his waist, and we kissed. I was making myself the talk of Point Finger Road.

  I said, “We’ll never see each other again.” I was keeping my promise to myself not to cry, but it was a close thing.

  “Certainly we’ll see each other again.”

  I leaned my forehead against his chest. “Doubtful. I’ll be in the States, and you’ll be in England.”

  “Not doubtful.” He lifted up my chin with his hand and smiled at me. “I promise you we’ll see each other again.”

  With that, he kissed me a final time, pulled lightly on my ponytail, got in the MG, and drove off. I stood there alone and disconsolate.

  Mother came through the door of the clinic in her white lab coat with her stethoscope hanging out of the pocket. I expected her to scold me for making a spectacle of myself in public. Instead, she stood beside me and said quietly, “I know exactly how you feel.”

  Then she took me by the hand, led me back inside and began making me a cup of tea. I started crying. “You said you know how I feel. What did you do?”

  “There’s nothing to do. You put one foot in front of another.” She handed me a tissue and kissed me on my forehead. “Now, stop crying. I have patients waiting for me, and you have work to do.”

  APRIL 1962

  SMITH COLLEGE

  NORTHAMPTON, MASSACHUSETTS

  Three weeks after I returned to Smith from spring holiday, Mother wrote me a letter that I received on a Thursday evening, when I arrived back at Emerson House from tennis practice.

  This was unusual; Mother and I wrote one another every Sunday afternoon. This was a tradition that Mother and American Grandmother had started when Mother began at Smith, and Mother and I had decided to continue it. It took the mail about a week to travel in either direction from Bermuda. So normally I received a letter from Mother on Monday or Tuesday, which she had written on Sunday the week before – usually with a quick note from Father at the end of her letter. But I had already received a letter from her earlier that week, and now here was a second letter. I was a little concerned, though if anything were seriously wrong she would have telephoned me. A telephone call was not easy, and it was expensive, but occasionally we would speak by telephone.

  I opened the letter and got incredibly wonderful news. Mark’s mother, Lady Thakeham, had written Mother to invite me to London for the season of parties in June, and Mother was asking me if I wanted to accept.

  Actually, Lady Thakeham’s invitation was to just one party, which the Thakehams were giving for Mark’s younger sister, Catherine. Lady Thakeham, though, told Mother that, once it became known that I would be in London, I would likely receive invitations to many other parties. Mother said in her letter to me that this was certainly true. I would need an escort, but Lady Thakeham said that Mark would be willing to escort me unless I had some other young man in mind. (Reading this, I knew that Mark, as a joke on me, had suggested to his Mother that I might prefer someone other than him as an escort.)

  Mother also told me that Lady Thakeham had invited me to stay with them, but she also knew that I had family in London, and that I might prefer to be with my own family, and if so that was completely agreeable. (Since my London relatives were elderly great aunts, this would be an easy choice.) Finally, Mrs Thakeham had said that she und
erstood I was interested in tennis, and since Wimbledon would be on during June, it might be possible to find tickets for Centre Court one or two afternoons during the fortnight.

  Mother went on to say in her letter that, if I wanted to accept the invitation, Father would have to make my travel plans and establish credit for me at the Butterfield’s bank office in London, that she would have to reply to Mrs Thakeham, and she and I together would have to think about my clothes for the parties. So, if I wanted to accept, it might be best for me to telephone home.

  There was one telephone in Emerson House, down in the front hallway, and I was dialing the international operator about two seconds after finishing this extraordinary letter.

  The best part was that, obviously, Mark had put his mother up to this scheme and must have done so promptly after returning to London. I had not heard from Mark since we parted in Bermuda. He had asked for my address at Smith, and I had given it to him, but I pointedly did not ask for his address. Not having a letter from him in three weeks, I had almost decided he simply didn’t want to write me. Now, it seemed, he had done something better than write; he had arranged to keep his promise that we would see one another again.

  The invitation also solved an unspoken but real problem in the Hodgkin household, which was that at some point I would have to make an appearance at the London season. Both Mother and English Grandmother had done so.

  I was about to turn 19, and our English relatives would expect that this year, or next, or at the latest when I was 21, I would spend the season in London, going to parties and perhaps finding a husband from a good English family. Back in the 1930s, American Grandmother had taken Mother to the season; that must have been an interesting cultural clash. But I couldn’t go to the season alone. That was Not Done, and it was always difficult for Mother and Father to close their clinics and leave for England on holiday.