Moonshine Page 15

  ‘You want me to play?’

  ‘We’d all be so grateful. The secretary’s been scouring the countryside for a stand-in but so far no luck. I’d do it myself but with my leg … Somehow I feel in my bones you’re a good player.’

  ‘Never gamble so much as sixpence on those bones of yours. I’m extremely average and haven’t played for at least two years.’

  ‘Not to worry. They’re all middle-aged to elderly, I promise you. Tennis clubs are rather vieux jeu, it seems. The young of Ladyfield prefer to go to the cinema or dance themselves into a stupor on amphetamines. I know for a fact that Dinwiddie – the man who’s having his tooth extracted – is my senior by several years. It’s just a bit of fun.’

  ‘The only difficulty is that I’ve a friend coming to stay. I’m picking her up from the station at half past one. What time does the match start?’

  ‘Two-thirty.’

  ‘In that case I can just about make it, if you don’t mind me bringing her.’

  ‘Of course, of course! I’m so grateful. I always feel a responsibility to see that all goes well. Ridiculous, really, since I’m nothing to do with them. But somehow when it’s in your garden …’

  ‘Just don’t expect too much, that’s all.’

  ‘You’re a perfect angel, Bobbie dear.’

  By the time I had dusted one of the spare bedrooms and made Jasmine’s favourite pudding (profiteroles), my finger had swollen a little and was red. I just had time to puncture the choux buns to let the steam out and put them on a rack to cool before driving to the station to meet the train. Jazzy was not on it. The next train from London was not for another hour. I drove home, feeling a little anxious. There was a note by the telephone in Mrs Treadgold’s writing. Your friend rang to say she is not coming. She will ring you from the Isle of White. She says a million apology’s for the change of plan.

  Before leaving for the station I had dug out my tennis racquet from the cupboard beneath the stairs and found that my old tennis skirt was grey from having been washed with someone else’s socks. One of my gym shoes had a lace missing so I was obliged to tie it with a black one borrowed from Oliver. I dreaded the tournament but it was the least I could do for Dickie who had entertained me so frequently and lavishly. I had once been reserve in the school team and could usually get my second serve in. It was fortunate, I reflected heartlessly, that my opponents would be much older than me and handicapped by things like arthritis and spectacles.

  Arriving at Ladyfield I was greeted on the drive by a man who must have been about sixty but whose calf muscles, below immaculate white shorts, bulged like grapefruits.

  ‘You must be Miss Norton.’ He shook my hand with an enthusiasm that made my cut finger throb. ‘I’m Roderick Bender, your partner for the afternoon. We do appreciate you standing in at the last moment. Our captain was in considerable pain or he’d never have let us down like this. I know he’ll be fed up at having to miss an opportunity to give the Tideswell Tigers a walloping. They’ve never beaten us yet.’

  I smiled politely. ‘I’m afraid I shall be a poor substitute. I’m rather rusty.’

  ‘False modesty, I’m sure. Of course, no one’s expecting you to be up to Dinwiddie’s standard. He once played at Wimbledon, you know.’ Before I could mutter some excuse, get back into my car and drive rapidly away, he gripped my elbow with fingers of steel and steered me across the lawn in the direction of the courts. ‘Luckily, we’ve some time in hand before the others get here. We’ll knock up together and see what sort of game you play before we decide on our strategy.’

  ‘I don’t think my game’s sufficiently consistent to deserve a strategy.’

  ‘Come, come! No defeatist talk, now, Miss Norton. Attitude’s extremely important. We’ve got to put winning into the forefront of our brains and keep it there. Attack’s the name of the game. Think slam, think smash, think victory!’

  ‘Do call me Bobbie.’

  ‘All right. And you can call me Roddy. Here we are. We’ve drawn hard. Less finesse required than on grass but it’s an opportunity to display a bit of vim. It’ll suit your game, I hope?’

  I was about to say that as far as my game went the surface was immaterial but thought better of it. There was no point in rushing to embrace disaster. Roddy made minute adjustments to the net while I changed into gym shoes. There was a delay while I struggled with the zip of my racquet cover, which had become corroded by the damp endemic to Cutham. After a minute or two Roddy left the net and came to help. He wrestled with the obstinate zip for some time before saying, rather pink in the face, ‘Dear me, this isn’t a good beginning, is it?’

  I humbly agreed that it wasn’t.

  ‘I’ll go and see if any of the ladies have a spare you can borrow.’ There was perceptible annoyance in the tilt of Roddy’s head as he strode back to the house.

  People in tennis whites began to drift in small groups across the lawn. I was delighted to see that no one was a day under sixty.

  ‘Yoo-hoo!’ hallooed a solidly built woman with fluffy grey curls as soon as she was in earshot. ‘Lovely day, isn’t it?’

  I looked up obediently. I was disappointed to see that there was not a raincloud in sight. ‘Lovely.’

  ‘I’m Peggy Mountfichet. You must be a new member.’

  ‘I’m Bobbie Norton. I’m just standing in for Mr Dinwiddie. He’s gone to have a tooth out.’

  ‘Three cheers!’ chortled Mrs Mountfichet, hurling up her racquet and failing to catch it. ‘Listen, folks,’ she carolled to her team mates. ‘Old Dinwidders isn’t playing today.’ She walked on to the court and flung off her cardigan, exposing sagging, liver-spotted arms from which I meanly took comfort. ‘Don’t think me unkind, dear, of course I’m sorry for anyone going to the dentist, but he takes it all so damned seriously you’d think we were playing for Great Britain instead of for the fun of it. This is Adrian Lightowler.’ She indicated the stooped old man behind her who seemed to be having difficulty in opening a box of new balls.

  ‘How do you do?’ I watched Mr Lightowler’s attempts to prise off the cellophane with palsied fingers, feeling further encouraged.

  ‘You’ll have to speak up, he’s terribly deaf. Nearly eighty, you know. Wonderful for his age. How extraordinary!’ Mrs Mountfichet looked about her. ‘Where’s Roddy Bender? In all the years I’ve played for Tideswell he’s always been first on the court. Makes a point of it so he can pretend we’ve kept him waiting, the old so-and-so! Typical of men, dear, really, isn’t it?’ she added to me conversationally as she exchanged her Clark’s Skips for a pair of plimsolls. ‘Such babies, hating to lose. I’ve made fifty meringues, two dozen sausage rolls and a lemon mousse this morning besides turning out the airing cupboard and walking the dog. I bet Roddy’s done nothing but blanco his shoes.’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s my fault he isn’t here.’ I confessed to the ignominious circumstances that had made Roddy break the habit of a lifetime.

  ‘Don’t you worry, dear. It’s sweet of you to give up your valuable time to play with a lot of old crocks like us. Take my tip and be sure to get to the tea table early on. The meringues go in a winking. And don’t, whatever you do, have any wine-cup until after the match. Mr Lowe-Budding makes it from lemonade and pomagne but Dickie always adds a bottle of brandy when he thinks no one’s looking. He likes to jolly us up, you see; stop the men taking it so seriously. It’s quite lethal. After one glass you won’t be able to hit a thing.’

  ‘Thanks for the warning.’ I was really beginning to like this game old lady.

  When Roddy reappeared he looked quite angry to find Mrs Mountfichet and Mr Lightowler already on the court, patting a ball gently back and forth to each other.

  ‘Hello, Roddy,’ she called. ‘Who’s a lucky boy then? You’ll be the envy of the other men with such a beautiful partner.’

  Roddy forbore to answer. ‘This ought to be about the right weight.’ He handed me a newish-looking racquet. ‘Don’t know about the grip, though.’ It s
eemed to have been made for a gorilla’s paw. I could hardly close my fingers round the handle. ‘Never mind,’ continued Roddy. ‘You’ll have to make the best of it. There isn’t time to find another.’

  ‘Hello, Bobbie my dear.’ Dickie limped over to the umpire’s chair. He looked smart in blazer and flannels and was carrying an official-looking clipboard. ‘Lovely to see you. Let’s make a start. The others have already begun their matches.’

  ‘My partner and I haven’t had a chance to warm up yet,’ protested Roddy.

  ‘Come on, you old fusspot!’ said Mrs Mountfichet. ‘You toss and I’ll call.’

  Mrs Mountfichet won the toss, to Roddy’s evident displeasure.

  ‘You’d better get up to the net as soon as you can,’ he muttered to me. ‘I’ll stay back.’

  I prepared myself to receive Mrs Mountfichet’s serve. I repressed a smile as I saw Roddy bent double with a fiendish grin on his face, hopping from foot to foot, the silly old—Whang! The ball left Mrs Mountfichet’s racquet at something near the speed of light and raised a cloud of chalk as it bounced on the line to thwack into the netting behind my head. I had not had time to lift my racquet.

  ‘Sorry, dear,’ she called. ‘I don’t think you were quite ready. We’ll play that point again.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Dickie breezily. ‘All right, everyone? Play!’

  This time I had my racquet lifted and my eye on the ball. It struck my racquet and knocked it clean from my hand, hurting my cut finger considerably.

  ‘Sorry!’ Mrs Mountfichet looked concerned. ‘Do you want to play that point one more time?’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, let’s get on,’ snapped Roddy.

  ‘Fifteen, love,’ called Dickie.

  Mrs Mountfichet changed sides and served to Roddy. He smacked it smartly back over the net and a pounding rally began during which he and Mrs Mountfichet whirled like dervishes and Mr Lightowler, standing at the net, volleyed like a champion without moving below the waist. The rally ended when I managed to hit the ball properly for the first time, unfortunately straight into the net.

  ‘Thirty, love,’ called Dickie with a suggestion of sympathy in his voice.

  ‘Watch out for the top-spin Mountfichet always puts on her serve,’ growled Roddy to me as I bent and grimaced into the sun.

  I had no idea what to do about top-spin even if I recognized it. The ball skimmed the net by a millimetre and bounced short. I gave it a wallop. Somehow it came into contact with the wood and shot off sideways.

  ‘Forty, love.’ Dickie’s voice was so sympathetic he sounded on the point of bursting into tears.

  Mrs Mountfichet served to Roddy. He returned it with a punishing backhand, slicing it across court at a impossible angle, but Mr Lightowler stretched forth a sinewy arm and just popped it over the net.

  ‘Yours!’ bawled Roddy.

  I rushed forward and in my enthusiasm scooped up a spoon’s worth of fine gravel, flinging it straight into Mr Lightowler’s rheumy old eyes.

  ‘Game,’ Dickie almost whispered as we all converged to offer handkerchiefs.

  Mrs Mountfichet fished and poked and prodded about in Mr Lightowler’s eyes with ruthless efficiency until his sight was more or less restored. After that, every time I caught sight of his scarlet eyeballs blinking at me over the net, I felt a stab of guilt. None the less he managed to return every shot that came his way with tactical brilliance.

  We had gathered quite a crowd of spectators now, who applauded almost every point and maintained a polite silence whenever I bungled a return. Roddy contrived to hang on to his serve by spinning about the court as though under attack from bees, intercepting any ball that was directed towards me. I was vastly encouraged when I managed to return one of Mr Lightowler’s rather feeble serves, sending it down the line between our opponents. There was a storm of applause quite out of proportion to the skill of the shot. I felt bucked to discover that I had the sympathy of the crowd.

  That, as it turned out, was my only moment of glory, but I did manage after that to whack the ball back over the net a few times only to see it driven practically through the tarmac by Mrs Mountfichet or directed cleverly just out of my reach by Mr Lightowler. They won the first set 6–2, owing to me losing both my service games.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ I said to Roddy as we changed ends. ‘I hadn’t realized you were all so good or I’d never have agreed to play.’

  ‘It’s too late to think of that now,’ said Roddy, rather ungraciously I thought. ‘It’ll be better if you stay back. Try to get the baseline shots and I’ll cover the rest of the court.’

  We got on better with this method and actually got to thirty all during my service game. Mr Lightowler sent up a high lob. Skipping energetically backwards to be sure of getting it, I slipped on the loose gravel and fell hard, grazing my elbow. The ball bounced two inches inside the baseline and, to add injury to insult, struck me on the chest. There was a murmur of concern from the spectators and a burst of laughter from several of the children so I could be certain I had looked a complete fool. Roddy bared his teeth at me.

  I was tempted to throw down my racquet and walk off in a huff but a glance at Dickie’s anxious face restored me to my senses.

  ‘I’m absolutely fine,’ I said in answer to his enquiry. ‘Not a bit hurt.’

  ‘Thirty, forty,’ he murmured kindly.

  My elbow was now throbbing every bit as painfully as my finger. I had a moment of mild success when I returned one of Peggy’s ballistic backhand passes, though the impact jarred my arm from my wrist to my shoulder. I was running forward with a renewal of confidence to tackle what looked to be a fairly easy drop volley when Roddy yelled, ‘Mine!’ but just too late. My outflung racquet collided with his prow of a nose. He gave a howl of pain as the ball flew unhindered into the tramlines.

  ‘Game.’

  ‘I’m awfully sorry,’ I said.

  There was another flourishing of handkerchiefs. Poor Roddy’s nose splashed his snow-white shirt with scarlet and the concerted mopping seemed to make it worse. A key was requested from the crowd and put down Roddy’s shirt but did no good.

  ‘Pinch his nostrils,’ suggested Dickie.

  ‘Ow-how!’ protested Roddy as Mrs Mountfichet almost twisted his nose off his face.

  After ten minutes of copious bloodshed it was agreed that he should go and lie down with an ice-pack.

  ‘I’m so terribly sorry …’ I began but Roddy was stalking away holding a towel to his face and affected not to hear me.

  ‘That’s put a spanner in the works,’ said Mrs Mountfichet.

  I hung my head.

  ‘Damn shame,’ said Mr Lightowler. ‘I was just warming up.’

  Dickie turned to address the audience. ‘Perhaps someone would be good enough to stand in for Mr Bender. Just for a few games until the bleeding stops.’

  ‘Good idea!’ seconded Mrs Mountfichet. ‘Come on, somebody,’ she urged the watching crowd. ‘Be a sport! It’s only a bit of fun.’

  The spectators blenched and shook their heads.

  ‘I will,’ said a voice from the crowd.

  I experienced a frisson of horror as Burgo stepped on to the court. He was wearing white duck trousers, a red shirt that had faded to pink and his ancient espadrilles. On his face was an expression of great good humour. He had told me that he had meetings all day. Had I not been absolutely sure that he would be in London I would never have agreed to come to Ladyfield. I wondered how much he had witnessed of the exhibition I had made of myself. He must have seen me flat on my back in the dust.

  ‘A round of applause, ladies and gentlemen, for our Member of Parliament, Mr Burgo Latimer,’ said Dickie.

  The crowd clapped and whistled, delighted that their entertainment was not to be cut short. I debated whether to faint or run away. Burgo was going to leap athletically round the court like a knight errant, demolishing the opposition, saving the day and completing my humiliation. Little did he know, I thought with savag
e satisfaction, that there was nothing I disliked so much as a show-off.

  ‘Hello,’ he said pleasantly as he strolled over to me, twirling Roddy’s discarded racquet with a careless assurance. ‘You seemed to be having such a good time that I couldn’t resist the call to arms.’

  ‘I suppose you’re going to make mincemeat of all of us.’

  ‘Hardly that. I haven’t played for at least ten years. I can barely remember the rules. But it seems a pity for the match to fizzle out.’

  I smiled coolly. At least it was an opportunity to impress the voters so his time would not be entirely wasted.

  ‘Play!’ called Dickie.

  Mr Lightowler flipped a gentle serve over the net. Burgo hit it so far into the air that we all peered for what seemed like minutes into the sky until our eyes watered.

  ‘I think it’s gone into orbit,’ giggled Mrs Mountfichet.

  ‘Ouch!’ Dickie rubbed his skull. ‘Fifteen, love.’

  Mr Lightowler served again. I slammed it back. It came flying over the net and Burgo took a swipe at it, missed, pirouetted on the spot, ran backwards, picked it up on the rim of his racquet and hurled it over the wire netting where it fell into the cheering crowd.

  ‘Thirty, love.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Burgo said easily. ‘I did warn you.’

  After that I managed to place a few unremarkable shots and Burgo got in a spectacularly good return by what was clearly a fluke. He had a way of running up to the ball, seeming to hesitate and then either rescuing the point with extraordinary brilliance or losing it with such spectacular ineptitude that I became suspicious. Whether he hit it in or out the spectators began to enjoy themselves so much that they reached a state in which they found everything funny. The prevailing good humour was irresistible. Soon I was giggling helplessly. Mrs Mountfichet and Mr Lightowler made stern attempts to control themselves but that only made us laugh more. In the end they stopped playing seriously themselves, to the detraction of their game.

  The match ran swiftly on to a final score of 6–2, 6–1, 6–3. The crowd revelled in it. That a Member of Parliament, an important man in the county, whose name was frequently in the newspapers, was prepared to make a cake of himself to save their tennis party was a marvellous thing and they loved him for it. When he came off the court they would willingly have carried him shoulder-high through the streets, had it been at all convenient.