41-Love, page 16
I talked to Dan last week about coming to this mix-in session. I’ve looked it up on the website: visitors can pay £5 to join in. “I love going to mix-ins at tennis clubs when I’m on holiday,” he said. “I just turn up and don’t tell them I’m a coach or anything.” It sounded quite glamorous when he talked about it, something from the film that everyone wants to be the star in, where you walk around by day unassumingly, wearing something anonymous like a hoodie, and then it turns out you’re a martial arts star, or one of those amazing Korean dancers from TikTok, or a tennis sensation. I once read a book of my brother Sam’s—probably Christopher Pike; we loved those—where someone in a small town is a secret author. Imagine that, I’d thought, when I was about twenty. What a dream. But when you’ve achieved one dream and found it disappointing, isn’t it natural to want a different one?
Obviously, I have fantasized about arriving at Totnes Tennis Club in some humble disguise, with no hint of my brilliant ground strokes and my new knowledge and then blowing them all away. I have a coach. I’m not a beginner anymore! But at this point I have yet to even take a point off Dan, and I’ve barely ever played doubles. I’ve played no league tennis at all.
It’s a complete, total disaster. It’s all doubles, of course. I’m the person no one wants to play with. I’m put with the stronger players to “even things up.” Everyone has to take their turn at playing with me, the shit one. They tut and bark instructions to “cover the tramlines!” when I let shots go past me down the line. I have no idea how this game works: where to stand, what to look for. I get lobbed, people volley balls into my face. It’s fucking terrible. I’m not a prodigy; I’m just shit.
“With great power comes great responsibility.” That’s what Peter Parker decided after he got bitten by the radioactive spider that would turn him into Spider-Man. Is the inverse true? What do you do when it turns out you have no superpower? With no power comes great irresponsibility? Perhaps.
•
Back in Canterbury I’m wondering if I’ll have time to buy new sunglasses before getting on my train to Bath. All I have to do before that is teach my last class of spring term 2014. It’s inexplicably great, perhaps because I won’t have to teach again until the end of September—or, if things go according to plan, the beginning of January. I’m now going to be able to focus purely on tennis, and my tennis book, and not bother about all this silly teaching, which I hate. (I do hate it, right?)
Still, it’s a really good class. Everyone’s relaxed. They all have good projects. Even Steph, who said she had no interest in narrative nonfiction and didn’t like any of the reading they’d been given, had finally come up with an excellent idea for a project. Granted, it was sort of my idea.
“Tell me something—anything—you like,” I’d said in our emergency tutorial a couple of weeks before. “Something you feel passionate about.”
“I don’t know,” she’d said. “I don’t know if I like anything. I definitely don’t feel passionate about anything.”
“A film, a book?”
“I do love Wuthering Heights,” she’d admitted eventually. “It’s my favorite novel. I’m obsessed with it.”
“So go to Haworth,” I’d said. “Recreate something from the book. Walk the moors. Even if it goes wrong it’ll be interesting.”
Initially she said she couldn’t get the time off work and wouldn’t be able to afford it anyway. But the week before the end of term, she’d actually done it. She’d taken the train to Haworth and stayed in a B&B and then walked the moors. On her own. It’s her presentation this week, and we’re all blown away by what a coherent, entertaining project this is. She’s gone from being the worst student in the class to being one of the best.
“When I said I was going to walk on the Yorkshire moors on my own, my parents were worried I would die,” says Steph, with a new sparkle in her eyes.
“When I said I was going to Dungeness, my mother seriously thought I was going there to kill myself,” says Matt. He’s presenting this week as well. He’s another weak student who’s pulled something amazing out of the bag.
I look around the room and I’m so proud of them. And we’ve actually had a laugh this term. I used to overprepare, fuss over what I was going to teach, worry about the students too much. This term I have taken the most laid-back approach possible. After all, I’ve been more interested in my tennis book and my tournaments and my coaching sessions. And I’m giving all this up, right? So when the students ask me when the deadline is for their final assignments, my response is, “How am I supposed to know? Look on the website.” When one of them says they have trouble completing projects, I shrug and say, “Great. One less thing for me to mark.” Each week I’ve gone in with my cup of tea, sat back in my chair, and told them: “Entertain me. Talk about the reading in an interesting way. I’m contributing nothing.” And they have. It’s probably the best class I’ve ever had. My lack of engagement has allowed them to relax somehow. The lack of expectation has made it possible for people to shine. Huh.
I’m feeling dreamy and blissful anyway, for some reason I can’t fathom. Is it all the meditation and yoga? Everything seems happy and funny and light. And today I don’t even get a parking ticket, despite being on the double yellow lines as usual. I drive straight from my class to the Canterbury train station, where I park in one of the commuter spots that no one will need until Monday and then get on the train for London. At Paddington I get a small bottle of white wine from M&S and it’s the most delicious thing ever, sitting in my First Class seat on the train drinking wine with a tennis tournament ahead of me, and almost a whole year of tennis still in front of me.
Obviously, I know I’m going to lose. I’ve talked to Dan about it. In our session on Wednesday, I asked him how I was going to beat eighteen-year-old girls who’ve played about 300 tournaments each. He’d shrugged. “You’re not,” he said. “But you might learn something.” That session was one of the best I’ve had with Dan. I even served an ace, my first one against him. And when we played a set I even took it to 4–3 before he won 6–4. I was one point away from going 5–3 up! Gradually, slowly, I am getting somewhere. And anyway, results don’t matter. I love the feel of my tennis racquet in my hands, the rasp of my new strings, the chalky smell of the grip, and especially the way my breathing sounds when I’m on my own in the ITC, surrounded by the green of the acrylic courts.
•
Pratt’s Hotel really is a joke. It’s only a couple of minutes’ walk from the train station and right by Yak Yeti Yak, the Tibetan restaurant where I’m planning to have dinner. I try to be amused by the chintzy, floral, ancient dayroom that looks like a residential home for the elderly in which everyone has recently died. I try to tell myself that it’s humble to sleep in 50 percent polyester sheets, with a sanitary-napkin pillow. I’m an athlete. I’m really doing this. I bet beds in the Olympic Village were like this. Don’t those athletes have to share rooms? Humble is good. Brutal is good. It’s all fine. And it’s super cheap, less than £300 for two nights. The other hotel I was looking at had a spa, but I haven’t got time for a spa anyway, and it was £350 a night.
I’ve booked two nights because I still have no idea when I’m playing. My first match is at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, and the final is on Sunday. It is extremely unlikely I’ll make it to the final, but you never know. I’ve hit some awesome shots against Dan lately. And I was a child prodigy. Maybe everyone else will die except for me and the one person I could possibly beat.
I’ve been looking at the Yak Yeti Yak menu on the train. I’ve been there only once before, despite coming to Bath quite a lot. It’s my mum’s favorite weekend-break destination, and Rod and I came here for a sad, alcohol-infused ten days not long after Dreamer died. On that trip, I couldn’t stop drinking and crying. The only thing that made life worth living was my first glass of wine of the day. I’m so glad I don’t live like that anymore. Yak Yeti Yak is the kind of place my ex-vegan self would have loved. It has lentil dishes galore, but that stuff is poison, right? It certainly always makes me bloated. So what’s left? Meat and vegetables. I still have some lingering vegetarian food rules, though. Lambs and ducks are too cute to eat. Pigs are too intelligent. That leaves beef or chicken, and I am always drawn to beef and then feel guilty for eating it, even after all these years.
What would a real athlete eat? I’ve no idea.
I order a single gin and tonic and a beef stir-fry. My drink has barely any alcohol at all, but is nicely sweet. Fizzy. My stir-fry is nice, but has a lot of onions and not enough chili. I ask for more, not sure whether I sound like a total dick. I enjoy my cauliflower with peas. I’m reading Serious by John McEnroe, the book held open by the salt cellar on one side and my phone on the other.
Back in my tiny hotel room I am busy, so busy. I have to meditate and stretch and set out my clothes for the next day. I have to speed-read parts of books I have bought recently, called things like You’re Trying Too Hard. What I really need to do is try much harder to try less hard. Then, maybe, I could win? My first match is at 10:00 a.m., but I’m not quite sure how far away the university campus is. The tournament is being held in their “Sports Training Village,” which sounds glamorous and terrifying. They’ve said “outside” but no more than that.
I can still taste onions when I wake up the next morning, too early, to a dark rainy day that looks deep, rich, and moody, but is obviously not good for playing tennis outdoors. Breakfast is not until 8:00 and I have a cab booked for 8:45, so after a brief meditation the first thing I do is shower, but I can’t get it right. The flow is a tiny trickle. It would be like being pissed on, although by someone with quite a weak bladder, if the water was warm. It isn’t. OK, this is not the most expensive hotel in the world, but it’s the same price as a Travelodge and the last time I stayed in one of those there was hot running water. I haven’t got the energy to complain, and I don’t need all that angst before my first match. I wash as best I can, tell myself McEnroe would have had it worse in the 1980s, and get dressed.
I am there much too early, as always. The only address I have is for the Sports Training Village, so I get the taxi to drop me there. At the reception they have never heard of the tournament I have entered. I tell them it’s a Grade 3. They don’t know what that is. They realize I can’t possibly be there for the inter-schools indoor tournament they are running on their warm, glitzy indoor courts, but they just don’t think they have any other tournaments running. They are confused. I’m inevitably a bit of a dick. Is it nerves? Undoubtedly.
“All I know,” I say, “is that I am signed up for a tournament and the postcode is here. You must have some idea of roughly where I might be supposed to go?”
Nope.
Eventually I find a phone number at the bottom of the confirmation email. I get through to a man with a Somerset accent who tells me that it is indeed the outdoor courts, and these are to be found half a mile back down the road. A pleasant ten-minute walk, he assures me.
It’s raining. My massive black Wilson bag is heavy. I’ve bought it specially for this tournament. It’s a bit like the one I was so impressed with at Leicester, but more up-to-date and snazzy. It can fit nine tennis racquets and has Thermoguard protection that not just keeps your drinks cold, but protects your racquets’ string tension from extreme temperatures. It’s also—usefully—waterproof.
I arrive at the outdoor courts disheveled and frizzy but miraculously still early. So early, in fact, that there’s no one else there apart from an old bloke in a battered red Adidas cap. He’s organizing his big bucket of balls.
“Hello,” I say. “I’m here for the tournament? Scarlett Thomas?”
“Oh right. Lady from the phone? Bit early, aren’t you? The girls won’t get here for another hour. I’m Bob, by the way.”
“Right. Hello! But I think my first match is at nine thirty?”
“Yeah, we’re all very relaxed here, love. I’d go and get a coffee if I were you.”
There is nothing around us apart from the tennis courts and Bob’s shed. There’s the road, some grassy banks, a field.
“You’ll get a nice cup of coffee back at the training village,” he says.
“Yeah, I just walked from there.”
“Great facilities up there. They’ve got a Grade 1 in there today.”
“Exciting.”
“And the men’s Grade 3 of course.”
“Of course.”
“So anyway, I’ll see you back here at about half ten? You’re playing Vanessa Brill, I think. Nice girl. Good player. But then they all are.”
He looks me up and down. What’s he seeing? He realizes that my green shoes are punky and irreverent, right? And my leg warmers are for my poor stiff calf muscles, and—
“You played a Grade 3 before?”
“No,” I say. “I’ve only just started playing tournaments, to be honest. I’m actually writing a book about it. I—”
“You might find a Grade 3 a bit taxing in that case.”
“Well, I tried for the Grade 4, but it was canceled.”
“You’ll enjoy playing with the girls. Nice crowd. Just try your best.”
“OK.”
“Right! See you in a while, then.” He turns to go back into his shed.
“OK. Um, my bag’s really heavy. Can I leave it in your shed?”
“Sure.”
“And is there any chance of hitting up with someone?”
“You can hit up with the girls when they get here. They always have a hit-up together. Elle’s playing too. And the twins.” He says this as if I should know these people. As if everyone knows them. Obviously I’ve stalked them on the LTA website. They are all between fourteen and nineteen and have ratings of between 4.1 and 5.2. What the fuck am I doing here? I trudge back up to the training village, telling myself that at least it’s not raining any more.
•
I am now so ancient I can’t tell how old individual young people are. The ones at the Sports Training Village could be anything between fourteen and twenty-two. The girls have amazing arses. There’s the odd fat one that probably plays in goal, but mainly these are tall, slim, pert, slightly sulky young people. I looked like that once. I hated myself. I hated my flawless skin. I hated my body, the way it did what I wanted it to do. I wanted to be older, wiser. I wanted confidence. I wanted interesting flaws. I didn’t want to play sports or win at anything. I wanted to be able to walk into a record shop and know what to say to seem cool. I wanted to be Baby, but after she’d become Penny.
Why did I not appreciate my skin and my hair? Why did I not appreciate my sleek veal-calf arms and my hairless nipples and my unlined face and my cute little B-cup boobs? Everyone says I look really young even now, and I always laugh and say something about expensive face cream. But compared to the people here, who are genuinely, authentically young, I look about 150. My boobs are DD now. Not even the fat goalkeepers here have DD boobs.
Back then I wanted so badly to be a grown-up. And now I am. Yay.
I stand out a little in the big, bright canteen. I’m obviously not anyone’s mum, so what am I doing here? Objectively, my tennis outfit could seem a touch comical: my black Adidas skirt, black leggings, leg warmers, and green shoes look quite glam at the Indoor Tennis Centre, but here the whole thing looks like a dare or a parody. I wear my hair in a single plait, because that’s what Victoria Azarenka does, but my hair is not as thick as hers and the overall effect is to make me look uptight, like a pompous, aging lapdog with a stiff pomaded tail. Thank God I have dispensed with my matching set of black Adidas sweatbands (one for my head, two for my wrists) and now only wear one wristband and a black Adidas cap. My stuff is all black Adidas, but feels a bit matchy-matchy. The kids here are happy mixing Nike with Adidas and New Balance. Their limbs are bare, sleek, beautiful. They sit on the floor as if they have never had lower back issues or a tight knee. No one has their hair in a plait.
My gluten-free toast breakfast has left me a bit sugar-crashy, even though that’s not supposed to happen on a primal diet. Are you supposed to eat gluten-free toast on a primal diet? Perhaps not. It’s always the same when I have breakfast away: I want eggs, sausages, and bacon but I don’t eat those because pigs are intelligent and pink and sweet. And do athletes eat bacon? Unlikely. Athletes eat oatmeal. I eat oatmeal from time to time now too. It gives me energy, but it’s a fuzzy, hazy sort of energy. Porridge is supposed to stick to your ribs and last. With me, it goes straight to my brain and leaves me feeling empty and tearful.
Or do I feel tearful for some other reason?
I buy a cup of tea and ask if they have any gluten-free food here.
“No, sorry,” says the busy young guy behind the counter, looking beyond me to one of the teenage girls in the queue I’m holding up. “Next!”
•
Vanessa Brill might be the sulkiest teenager I’ve ever encountered. She even makes Becky Carter seem friendly and animated. She’s beautiful, of course. And she’s the opposite of me in every possible way. We do have the same hair, but hers is loose and natural. Mine is not just plaited, but stuck through the hole in my new cap like I’m some perky summer camp leader from the 1980s. I am weighed down by all the things I need to play tennis: my sports drinks and my sweatbands and my schedule and my ibuprofen and my anorak in case it rains and extra shoes and extra laces and energy bars and motivational books and notes on how I should play my forehand.
She’s wearing cropped Nike leggings and a little tank top. She hasn’t even bothered to put on tennis shoes—she’s wearing Nike Frees that are certainly in fashion, but definitely not good for your feet and ankles. But then she’s small, like 100 percent willowy muscle and perfect tendons: she’s never going to break. She has a massive tennis bag, but it’s battered and old. I don’t want mine to get rained on again, even though it’s supposedly waterproof. She chucks hers on the grass. It’s seen some action, unlike mine. Cute childish keyrings dangle from it. She’s too young to drive, to have sex, to drink alcohol.
