by Tim Jeal
Almost from the moment they began their first and only set, Andrea played far above what she thought of as her normal form. Freed from the need to direct easy shots to her girls, so that even the no-hopers could return them, she found herself hitting with the same pinpoint accuracy but with a power that surprised her. Mike’s admiring looks embarrassed her at first, but, as game followed game, she began to enjoy his praise as her natural due.
‘So dreary,’ muttered Sally to her son, ‘most Americans start tennis lessons when they’re two or three.’
Sally played a stately game, with solid ground strokes, but showing no inclination to run for the ball. Consequently, she missed most of her volleys. Her son played better at the net, but was reluctant to poach on his mother’s side of the court and so lost numerous points he would easily have won had he not been inhibited by his fear of offending her.
Occasionally, Andrea poached from Mike, which always made him laugh. In fact he was a stylish, though erratic player, who mixed plenty of double faults with good serves and tended to smash balls out on points when a drop shot would have been best. Yet as the game went on, he played with more control, and as his shots improved, Andrea had trouble stopping herself from kissing him passionately, when he won a fiercely contested point. As it was, they only ever touched fingers very briefly, when handing over a ball – a most infrequent event, given Justin’s prowess as a ball boy.
Once, while changing ends, Andrea heard one of the officers on the next court shout at Leo, before serving, ‘Balls come in pairs, lad, so where’s my second?’ Though the man had obviously meant to be funny, Leo plainly longed to sink beneath the court’s dusty surface.
Quite often, Andrea saw Peter applauding Mike’s shots, and again found herself wishing that he had not taken such a liking to him. It would also have been easier on her conscience if Peter had argued against coming here, or had at least complained because Mike had broken his promise to bring ropes and pulleys to the house for the boys’ scientific amusement. But though Peter had mentioned this earlier arrangement to Andrea before being told about the tennis, he had shown no irritation at all when the change of plan had been presented as a fait accompli.
After their easy victory, Andrea left the court with Mike and chatted amiably with Peter, whose praise for her playing struck her as disingenuous. He could easily have suggested she continue to play with other people after he had ceased to be able to partner her himself, but he had never said anything of the sort. So Andrea had virtually given up the game, except when coaching girls.
Andrea’s and Mike’s next match was against Miss Millington-Harris. But since Elspeth had paired this former county player with Dr Lowther, whose game was extremely rusty, points could easily be won by returning exclusively to him. As soon as Mike and Andrea had discovered the doctor’s weak backhand, they exploited it ruthlessly. Starved of the ball, Miss Millington-Harris was soon making increasingly desperate interceptions at full stretch.
‘Show some sportsmanship,’ screeched Sally, appalled by the sorry figure her husband was cutting.
‘Pah! We play to win,’ laughed Mike, sending a tantalising lob looping over the tip of the doctor’s racquet.
Soon after Sally’s interjection, Andrea began to take on Miss Millington-Harris directly, finding, to her amazement, that she won as many points as she lost.
After a string of archaic oaths, the champion was heard to mutter, ‘Dashed impossible to play against a rotten length.’
During this game, Leo acted as their ball boy without causing any annoyance, but without matching Justin’s seamless delivery. As soon as the game ended, he congratulated his mother and said that, since he and Justin had now ball-boyed once each for her, they ought to toss for who was given the final. Knowing that Justin deserved to be chosen on merit, Andrea was trying to think how to disappoint her son without upsetting him too much, when Mike came over.
‘Look, old chap, no offence meant, but Justin’s so dashed good, you two ought to do the job together.’
‘What if I want to toss up instead?’ A smudge of the reddish dust from the court was streaked across the boy’s forehead.
‘That wouldn’t be fair on Justin,’ replied Mike in a firm but friendly voice.
‘Why should you decide? We’re not your sailors.’ Leo was almost too breathless to get his words out.
‘What’s gotten into you, Leo?’ cried Andrea, horrified by her son’s hostility.
Leo went on in a quavering voice, ‘Justin’s so quick and clever, but I’m so clumsy, aren’t I, mum?’ He turned to Mike tearfully. ‘I wouldn’t ball-boy with your little pet if you begged me.’
‘What side of the bed did he get out of?’ exclaimed Mike, as Leo stumbled away.
Andrea watched Peter lever himself out of his garden chair and stagger towards them.
‘My God, what’s up with Leo?’
Andrea studied the grass. ‘He won’t let Justin ball-boy with him in the final.’
Peter frowned. ‘Not like him at all. I bet he and Justin have fallen out over something else.’
‘Seemed like a fit of jealousy to me,’ murmured Mike.
‘But why?’ ruminated Peter. ‘Leo shouldn’t be jealous of Justin … if anything, it should be the other way round.’
Mike was about to mention the way the boys competed for his attention but thought better of it.
Over by the table where Elspeth was serving drinks, Andrea saw Leo say something to Justin. She could not hear his words, but they froze Justin where he stood. By the time Andrea reached the spot, Leo was walking towards the house and Justin was trying not to sob. Andrea put an arm round him.
‘What’s wrong, honey?’
Tears were trembling on the boy’s long lashes. ‘I can’t come back in August. Leo just told me.’
‘I don’t know if we’ll do that ourselves.’
‘I won’t see Mike any more.’ Justin’s voice was very small and frail.
‘Sure you will.’
‘Maybe he’ll come to Yorkshire once or twice. Then finito.’
‘Hey, nothing’s decided,’ she soothed, shaken by his distress, and feeling furious with Leo.
Suddenly he could not hold back his tears. ‘It’s no good,’ he sobbed, ‘Leo won’t change his mind.’
‘He might if I twist his arm.’
But, ten minutes later, as Andrea stepped out onto the court for the final, she doubted whether she would be able to change her son’s mind. Indeed it would be wrong to try to force him to.
As she and Mike were struggling and failing to overwhelm a tall RAF officer and his well-built wife, it bothered Andrea that Leo had not returned to help Justin with the balls. His absence seemed to underscore his determination to stick with his decision. Perhaps Justin was aware of this. At any rate his face was heartbreakingly sad as he moved about the court.
‘What the hell’s the matter with Justin?’ muttered Mike, while they were changing ends.
‘Tell you later.’
It must be whatever her introverted son had said, thought Mike. And, very likely, the boy’s remarks also explained Andrea’s mysterious loss of form. Though not addicted to winning, in the present circumstances Mike definitely wanted to. Having always considered Wing Commander Bertie Harrison a pompous fool, it offended him to be facing defeat at his and his wife’s pudgy hands. As if he had fallen from a sunlit cloud, Mike suddenly understood how insubstantial his illusion of brilliance had been. To win points now, he found himself obliged to do something he loathed: volley from right under Andrea’s nose and whip these stolen balls at Jane Harrison’s sturdy legs. But such tactics only stemmed the tide for a few games.
As Andrea thwacked another half-volley into the net, Mike took twisted consolation from observing Peter’s pain as his wife’s game fell apart. The man could have been forgiven if he’d resented Andrea’s success in the earlier sets. After all, he would never play again. But no matter – while Andrea’s racquet had been magically putting away
ball after ball, Peter’s face had been transfigured. Still more surprising to Mike had been the scientist’s keen enjoyment of his best shots. Was there even something nostalgic about this appreciation, as if Peter were watching Andrea and himself playing together before illness had struck him down? Certainly – when the match had been lost, and the posturing wing commander was boasting that there had only been ‘one or two moments’ when he’d feared he might lose – Peter commiserated most sympathetically with Mike.
‘Don’t you have something nice to say to me, too?’ muttered Andrea, as she sank down into a chair. Mike thought how radiant she looked with a bloom of colour in her cheeks and her red-gold hair falling free.
‘Maybe it was just one game too many for you,’ suggested Peter kindly. ‘You were fantastic till then, my love.’
Seeing them together, as an obviously married couple, Mike felt as if the ground had opened under him. If he failed to come back from France, they would simply stay together and carry on with their lives. Andrea would weep for a while, and would admit to their affair, promising that it would never happen again. Peter would forgive her, of course. With a wife like Andrea, what else could he be expected to do? Her grief would encourage him to forgive her very quickly. But that had always been the way things were likely to work out, when statistical probability finally had its way with him. His eyes were still fixed upon Andrea as a light hand touched his arm.
‘Bad luck about losing.’
Mike swung round and saw Justin pulling an exaggeratedly despondent face. He smiled. ‘As the poet said, what matters is not the winning, but playing the game.’
‘It’s still nice to win.’
‘I’m afraid so.’ Mike put a hand on Justin’s shoulder and guided him away from Andrea and Peter. ‘You’re upset.’
Justin picked up Mike’s racquet and started rolling a ball back and forth across the strings. ‘I won’t see you in the summer.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Leo won’t ask me here again.’
‘You may be wrong about that. In any case, I may not still be stationed here.’ He paused. ‘In fact I may not even be around.’ The ball fell from the racquet, but Justin replaced it. ‘I’m really sorry, Justin, but that needed saying.’
‘As if I didn’t know.’
‘Of course you did. You’re a sensitive person, and that’s why I’d really hate it if you felt lousy for a long time. Will you promise to get back to normal quite soon afterwards.’
‘What if I can’t?’
‘You must try.’
‘Why?’ The question flicked out bitterly.
Mike said very quietly, ‘Because it’s what I want, and because you owe yourself something a lot better than the grief you’ve been through.’ The boy was still rolling the ball round inside the rim of the racquet. ‘Okay, sermon over. Believe me, I’m not planning to pop my clogs just yet.’
Justin looked at Mike solemnly for a moment. ‘Wouldn’t someone have to pop them for you?’
‘You’re right.’ Mike was surprised to see Justin smiling. Somehow he managed to smile back as the boy tossed aside the racquet and hugged him.
*
Leo and Justin were washing and getting ready for bed.
‘Funny the way tennis court dirt sticks between your toes,’ said Leo, rubbing at it with a finger.
Justin watched him without speaking. His heart was hammering and he longed to scream his hatred. Instead he sat on the side of the bath next to the geyser, which reminded him of a ship’s boiler. He no longer knew why he had liked Leo. He hadn’t backed him up one bit when he’d been trying to find out about the trawlers – the opposite really. His feet were too long and thin for his size and his freckles had all joined up across his face making his eyelashes and eyebrows look peculiarly white. In Kenya, Justin had once seen an albino and had been shocked by the strange pink blotchiness of the child’s skin, and by his white eyebrows. At school, saying someone looked as bad as that would usually make him cry. Sometimes Justin had made himself think of his father’s charred flesh, before saying the cruellest thing he could think of to whoever crossed his path. Why should they get off scot-free, without a day’s unhappiness?
‘Why did you upset your mum before that game?’
Leo was cleaning his teeth and went on scrubbing until spitting noisily. ‘You were the one who looked like a sick cow before the game. You upset her, not me.’
‘I could make you cry for days.’ For a moment Justin was not sure he had spoken. He had certainly been thinking this. But the way Leo’s toothbrush hovered in the air put the matter beyond doubt. At last Leo put it down, and swilled his mouth.
‘You don’t scare me.’
Justin knocked the geyser with a clenched fist as if intending violence. Then he said suavely, ‘You know I said my bike had been borrowed in the night.’
‘You said you’d lied.’
‘Well, it was borrowed.’
Leo started for the door, but Justin stuck out a leg to stop him. ‘I want to go to bed,’ Leo complained.
Justin held him around the waist. ‘Your mother took it.’
‘Oh ha, ha. You didn’t see it taken, so how do you know?’
‘The saddle was a different height in the morning.’
‘Maybe it slipped.’
‘Slipped higher, I don’t think! Anyway she lowered it just before we went crabbing.’
‘You saw her?’ The sharpness of the question did not deceive Justin; Leo was challenging him, yet he was also terrified. Justin knew that to admit he hadn’t seen anything would be to lose all advantage.
‘Yes, I saw.’
‘You’re lying.’ Leo pushed him so hard that he fell back into the bath tub.
Rubbing his head where he had bumped it, the pain goaded Justin. ‘She’s in love with Mike,’ he screeched.
Leo glared at him from the doorway, his eyes wide and staring. ‘When I tell mum, she’ll chuck you out of the house.’
Justin pulled himself up out of the bath. ‘I wouldn’t tell her anything if I was in your boots. She’ll tell your father if you do. Then there’ll be a huge row and maybe they’ll split up.’
‘They bloody won’t, you rotten liar.’ Though Leo was trembling, his voice was steady. ‘You just want me to keep my gob shut so your precious Mike doesn’t get to know what a lying pig you are.’
‘He may be grateful to me for telling.’
For a moment Justin managed to believe this, but the seriousness of what he had done was finally sinking in. Mike might be furious with him. Maybe he only liked Andrea a lot, but didn’t love her. Yet it must go further. He remembered his own mother in love: much more lively than usual, then gazing into space and smiling to herself for no reason, just like Andrea. But the clincher had been taking that bike in the middle of the night. If she’d only been going for a ride, she wouldn’t have changed back the saddle so slyly. She must have met someone.
Leo was still standing quivering in the doorway. Fearing that he would suddenly rush at him, fists flailing, Justin snatched up the lavatory brush as a defensive weapon. Seeing him do this, Leo let out a stifled cry and ran from the room.
*
The following morning, Leo got up early though he had hardly slept. He meant to catch his father alone and tell him what Justin had said. But his mother chose this morning to give his father breakfast in bed, it being Peter’s last day before leaving for London. And because she then chose to sit with Peter while he ate, Leo lost his chance of being alone with his father. Sitting in the dining room a little later, he felt thankful, on reflection, that he hadn’t been able to blurt out everything. Imagine, if he had, how awful it would have been if Justin had been lying, and dad had actually been taken in by the lie. Believing he had narrowly escaped a disaster, Leo swore to himself that he would continue to hold back, although his longing to scream at his mother was almost beyond resisting. Recalling what Justin had said about careless talk causing separations, Leo wondered whether it w
ould be foolish to tell his father at any stage, even if Justin’s bombshell turned out to be true. Perhaps he should work on his mother instead. Could he even make her feel guilty enough to give Mike up? Yet being direct with her could easily go wrong. She might turn round and say, ‘You’re right. I do love Mike. In fact I love him more than your father and I want to be with him always.’
And then what? Panic seized him. Leo was eating toast and marmalade, and some sour-tasting bits came up into his mouth, though he managed to swallow them again. He imagined living somewhere with his father, like a bigger version of his shed-like workshop in Oxford. Really it would be more like living alone, since dad would go on working day and night. Leo’s throat felt tight and choky. How often would he get to see his mother? Probably not at all if Mike was around. A few months ago he would have found it impossible to imagine such a thing. But that had been before Andrea had let him be sent to St Bede’s. Now he knew he would go on living whatever happened.
When his mother came into the room, he could not look at her. He imagined her letting Mike put his tongue in her mouth, and wanted to get up and hit her. He knew she was wearing her stripy sweater, which made her bosom seem to stick out, because he could see it reflected in the polished surface of the table.
She said, ‘I gave dad his coffee in bed so you and I could talk.’
Leo felt scared. Was she about to say she’d decided to go away? To end the awful silence, he asked in a chirpier tone than he had intended, ‘Where’s Justin? Did he have breakfast in bed, too?
‘He ate early. Now what’s this stuff about him going to his aunt? He says he’s leaving because you’re so mean to him. He’s even ’phoned her for Chrissakes.’
‘I only said I didn’t want him in the summer.’
‘You must have said more.’