41-Love, page 27
Dan gets all misty-eyed and begins a long, tear-jerking monologue about how far I’ve come and how I can’t ever have thought, when I first came to the Indoor Tennis Centre, that I’d end up playing in a Grade 1. Both Dan and Josh offer to come and support me.
The only person who isn’t impressed is Margaret.
“You should do it too,” I say to her, knowing how much she loves Wimbledon, how obsessed she is with everything about it. “I mean, you love going to watch tennis there, why not play? It’s literally thirty-eight quid. You get to go in the actual changing rooms and everything.”
“That’s not the point, though, is it?” she says.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a Grade 1. It’s not for players like us. It’s for nationally ranked players.”
“Yes, well, I’m sure if enough of them sign up I’ll get thrown out,” I say.
But everyone else I tell is very excited, and no one listens when I say that all I did was press a button, that they could enter too if they really wanted to.
•
Tuesday evening I’m back in Canterbury for my first ladies’ match for Polo. I’m playing with Alison Meakin and our opponents are Knoll B, from Orpington. I hit with Alison to warm up and she complains that she won’t know what to do if there’s no pace on the ball. It’s the usual rant about dibbly-dobblers.
The poor old Knoll B team is a bit cobbled together. They don’t exactly whack the ball that hard, but Alison and I cope fine. We beat the first pair 6–0, 6–0. It’s my first proper double bagel in ladies’ doubles and I feel a little bad about it. When we shake hands over the net I say to Sylvia, the better of their two players and who was obviously having a bad day, that the score-line doesn’t reflect the actual match, and that they didn’t play that badly.
“I am disgusted with myself” is all she says.
The next pair go down 6–0 as well. At the next changeover they say things like, “Well, of course, we don’t really play tennis, usually. We were just roped in.” That, combined with my sudden obsessive need for Alison and me not to drop a game, gets them the next two. Then we close it out to win the second set 6–2.
Apart from the fact that I have not had my serve for the whole evening I’ve played well. I’ve sent some lovely little topspin rollers down the line behind the net player on the forehand side. In fact, I think I might like the deuce side again. Anyway, afterward I am happy. I’ve made an impression, perhaps. I help the stand-in captain fill in the result form. I drive her home. She can’t believe I’m forty-two, or that I’ve only really been playing seriously for a year. I wonder whether anyone will complain that I was too good, and whether Lucille would have dropped those two games.
•
I’m doing Pilates twice a week now, and I’m thinking of increasing it to three times. I’m playing tennis almost every day. On Wednesday I’m feeling tired and achy and tearful, I almost certainly do have PMS, but I play well with Dan that afternoon. Then I have a coffee with David Flusfeder and discover that his book launch clashes with Nottingham. I’ve also recently found out that it clashes with the graduation ceremonies of two of my favorite PhD students. I should withdraw, but I don’t.
I text Graydon in the evening to see if he’s on for tomorrow.
Can you do the morning? he texts back. I know you said afternoon, but I want to go kayaking.
I tell him I have Pilates in the morning. I explain that I have matches Saturday and Sunday and a tournament the following week, but what about Friday afternoon? No, he’s playing Josh in the morning and won’t want to play again in the afternoon.
Next week, then, he texts. I am disappointed. Now I have no tennis for Thursday or Friday. But on Thursday morning it’s raining and I guess kayaking is off because he texts me first thing to say he can play in the afternoon.
When I arrive at the leisure center just before three, Dolly is on reception, looking oddly glamorous.
“He’s already gone down, already paid. You don’t have to do anything,” she says.
“Your hair looks nice,” I say.
She fluffs it up a bit. “I washed it this morning. Anyway, that man, what’s his name?”
“Graydon.”
“Yeah, Graydon. He’s really excited about playing with you. He said so.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, and when I said the booking was for two hours he said ‘Even better’ with this kind of, well, look on his face. I think you’ve made an impression there.”
“Wow. Hope I don’t disappoint him.”
“You won’t.”
•
The tennis center is full of French kids sitting in circles gossiping. Some of them are playing a sort of tennis in jeans and sneakers. Graydon is talking on his phone to someone about an audition. We go over to Court 4. Jack Law is just leaving.
“Do you know him?” Graydon asks.
“Yeah, from the odd daytime session,” I say. “Do you go to those?”
Graydon makes a face. “I used to,” he says.
“But you’re too good now, right?”
I’d like to say that’s it’s only Graydon who brags for the next five minutes, but I am guilty too. I say how I used to play Lee but my winning easily each time was probably getting embarrassing for him. Graydon talks about playing with Josh. Says again that he takes a couple of games off him now and then. Aces him. I brag a bit about beating Paul Gregory in the box leagues.
“You beat a man?” says Graydon.
“I’ll beat you if you like,” I say. But this is not what happens.
We start hitting. I’m nervous, as I always am playing someone new who I suspect might be better than me. My grip is all over the place. I launch a couple of two-handed backhands skyward. A few nice forehands, though, and a couple of good volleys. Then the backhand again.
“Haven’t you got one of those nice hard backhands?” he says. “Hasn’t Josh taught you that yet?”
“Oh, he has,” I say, laughing. “But it still falls apart under any kind of pressure. I’m still transitioning from the one-hander.”
We play a bit more. I hit a better backhand.
“Good! That’s better,” shouts Graydon. I hope this doesn’t go on.
I’m really keen to experiment with playing from the baseline, rather than behind it, so I move in, looking to drive volley anything that’s long and wondering if I’m capable of half-volleys or doing anything at all with low balls that land at my feet. I dig a couple out and feel quite good about the resulting shots. A drive volley or two.
“Why are you standing there?” asks Graydon.
I laugh. “Oh, just pretending to be Eugenie Bouchard,” I say. “Even though I don’t really like her that much. Just trying to be a bit more attacking, you know?”
“Sorry?” he calls. “Can’t hear you.”
We move toward the net. I repeat what I said.
“I can go back to being Rafa if you prefer,” I say.
“You do like standing way back behind the baseline,” he says. “I talked about it with Josh. And by the time you hit the ball it’s so low. It’s around your feet.”
I sigh. “Yes, well, I hoped I wasn’t still doing that.”
“You are!” He demonstrates. “It’s like all the way down here when you hit it.”
“Right. Well, thus coming to the baseline.”
We sit down and have a drink. I ask him how he takes games off Josh. What’s his game plan? “Oh, I just wait for the unforced errors,” he says. From Josh? Right.
“The thing I like about hitting with you,” Graydon says, “is because the pace is so much slower I have much more time to think about my shots.”
We agree to begin playing points. Immediately Graydon’s whole style changes. I am standing behind the baseline waiting for his hard-hit crosscourt shots. But instead I get a drop shot, and then another one. Real men don’t play drop shots. I have never seen Josh play a drop shot, ever. Real men hit the ball hard and if they want a point they hit it past you. I admit I am angry about drop shots in general. But whatever. Graydon serves pretty big. His second serve is big too. When I do my second serve he just laughs. Which, OK, is sort of fair enough in a way, but also a bit rude.
“So this is the great Scarlett second serve,” he says, moving to the service box line to receive the next one.
I still win my service game. Then he wins his. We’re 1–2 and I’m serving at the other end. He’s a good receiver, that’s for sure. I’ve decided to go back to my harder, flatter serve, but it’s not working on him, and feeling embarrassed about my second serve means I just end up having to hit more of them. He attacks my first serve anyway. My second serves come back as drop shots. I get to deuce but then he breaks my serve and wins his to love. We change again.
“Are you going for winners?” he says. “Or are you just trying to get the ball back?”
“I think I’m just playing,” I say. Although he’s found another button to push.
“Go for your shots,” he says.
I’m still trying to be nice, and polite, and jolly, so I laugh.
“Yeah, sometimes I have to lose the first set before I do that,” I say.
All this is fair enough in one way, but he’s supposed to be the opponent. Opponents are supposed to be quiet. Opponents are supposed to win with dignity if they have to win at all. Opponents are supposed to respect you. I can’t imagine trying to give pointers to Sylvia after beating her 6–0 the other night. She was obviously a good player having a bad day. Why would I want to humiliate someone when I have won anyway? And Paul Gregory. I could have told him to hit the ball deeper, to be more precise, but he knows that. If I’d said anything at all to him I would have felt like an utter cunt.
I get one more game when Graydon is clearly too nervous to close out on his serve. Then we’re into the second set.
“So this is where you start really playing, right?” he says.
But I don’t. I can’t. I’m not enjoying this at all. He is a better player than me. He’s a better player than Dan. I’d like to be able to beat him, but I’m not good enough yet. He is also desperately competitive. He has worked out my weaknesses and is exploiting them. My second serves are still coming back as drop shots. Then finally he hits one that flops into the net.
“Can you try and hit your second serve a bit longer?” he says. “This is ridiculous.”
“Why don’t you hit your drop shot longer?”
My next first serve just misses the back line.
“That’s better!” says Graydon.
“Sorry?”
“That’s a better length.”
“That was my first serve,” I sigh. “Look, would you rather just hit? I mean I really think that this isn’t—”
“Go on,” he says. “Have your second serve.”
Of course it goes in the net. My poor fragile serve, which breaks down with even a mild compliment, let alone a set of outright insults, is now gone. I double-fault on the next two serves. I want to go home. For the next game I just think fuck you and I try to hit the hardest returns I can, but I just end up making my arm hurt. I am lost in the rectangle in which I usually feel so good, so right. Still, it’s OK. I don’t mind losing to a better player; I just wish there weren’t all these mind games. Is he doing it deliberately? He doesn’t have to. He’d be beating me without them. Just maybe 6–4 rather than 6–2. Although it looks as if he’s going to take the second set 6–0.
On the changeover, I’m not happy. But still he chats.
“Those balls I hit long,” he says. “It’s because, well, playing you is just so different from playing with Josh. I mean, when the balls are coming with basically nothing on them it means I have to generate all the pace myself. Then I end up overhitting.”
Did I just hear that right? I did. But I can’t storm off at 5–0 down.
“This is going to be the last game for me,” I say.
It’s only 4:20, but I can’t take any more. I pretend I need something in the office and so I go and stand in there until he’s gone.
“What was all that about?” asks Margaret.
“That man is completely insufferable!” I say.
But Margaret seems busy with her admin and so I leave.
Later that evening Graydon sends me a text message.
Did I upset you somehow? You seemed upset. And was I to infer that you didn’t want to play again?
I wait a few hours and then text him back: I guess I was a tiny bit miffed when you said how slow I play, lack of pace on the ball etc. A few too many comments/observations overall for me! But fair enough—you are a better player. I thought we were more evenly matched than we turned out to be. So I just thought you’d want to find someone else. No hard feelings though! I’ll look forward to your tennis documentary :-)
He texts back immediately.
Lol . . . I think it was my scary critical upbringing surfacing . . . so sorry about that. I’m also very thick-skinned in the sporting arena and forget that others might not be so (being an actor doesn’t help either . . . constant kick-backs and reminders about how mediocre you are).
Lol, I reply. I am the total opposite of all that!
Graydon clearly wants to carry on the conversation. I’m becoming uncomfortable. I mean, surely he knew this was not a date, right? That stuff he said to Dolly—I wasn’t supposed to take that seriously. Surely he knows I have a partner? Maybe not. He keeps texting into the evening, stuff about the film and TV industry and how it compares to books. He is making the point that everyone is brutal and we must all be quite thick-skinned by now, and I am saying that everyone in the book world is really quite thin-skinned. It’s one of those exchanges where he replies immediately and in depth and I take longer and don’t say very much. He’s actually a much nicer guy in text than he was playing tennis, but I’m still not interested. Eventually he says, Let me know if you want to hang out at any time. When I haven’t replied by the next morning, I get a message asking me to leave my half of the booking fee with Josh. When I get around to doing this, Graydon leaves me £3 change for the balls.
•
Saturday is our last Kent league mixed doubles of the season. Dan and I start a bit hesitantly against their first pair, Robert and Annette, but end up beating them 6–3, 6–1. We beat the next pair 6–0, 6–0. Afterward we whack the ball to each other for a bit, waiting for the others to finish. I rip one past Dan.
“Scarlett,” he says, in a whiny, put-on voice. “Can you just try to hit it a bit harder? Otherwise I think I might hit one long.”
Of course I’ve told him all about my exchanges with Graydon.
“You’re quite good. Have you ever thought about becoming a tennis coach?” I say back, which was what someone said to Dan once during a match.
The other team aren’t staying for tea, but we all hang around for a bit, chatting about Cheryl’s new house in France and the best strategy for a second serve. Someone’s put a moustache on Andy Murray. It’s quite realistic: bits of hair that someone found somewhere and stuck to his top lip with a piece of tape. While we drink tea, Adam is cleaning the cupboard and vacuuming the office. Dan takes pictures to prove he’s done it. Apparently Adam and Josh have been told off by Margaret for being such slobs. I ask Dan if he’s playing in the winter leagues with Hayley. If he is, I’m going to have to find someone else to partner me and start grooming them, but then suddenly Dan is asking Adam if he wants to play in our team. “Who would I be playing with?” Adam asks. “Hayley Palmer,” says Dan. “Good partner,” says Adam.
On Saturday night I dream of the box leagues match I’m playing against Nicholas Handley the following morning. We have both beaten poor Paul Gregory 6–0, 6–0 and since Fin Murray isn’t playing, our match is essentially the final of our box. In my dream I lose 6–0, 6–1. I’m up early with a bit of a hangover, eating primal cereal and drinking tea and forcing down some water with electrolytes. The electrolyte tablets do seem to stave off the lower leg cramps I was getting so badly in May and June. I drive off thinking that at least I can’t do worse than I did in my dream. At least I have a chance to do better in real life when the loss is in a dream.
Our match is due to start at 10:00 a.m. We’ve booked one of the indoor hard courts at Polo Farm because there’s a junior tournament taking place on all the outdoor courts. But when I arrive, it seems that the tournament is happening inside as well. Nicholas isn’t pleased. Simon Grieve comes over.
“What’s going on?” he says. “Apparently the system let you book a court regardless of the tournament?”
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s for our box leagues match. It’s kind of a final.”
“Right.”
“It took ages to arrange,” I say. “But I suppose we can try and reschedule.”
“No,” says Simon. “If you’ve booked it, you’ve booked it. Just let us know when you’re finishing up.”
Simon gets a couple of kids to help take all the mini-tennis stuff off our court. “Enjoy,” he says.
Maybe this’ll be the time that Simon notices me? I guess they want the court back quickly, but this is not a quick match. We grind out the first set to 5–5 by, rather bizarrely, losing all our service games. I’m using a game plan again, hitting only to his backhand. He comes into the net a lot, but I lob him, just like I did Paul Gregory. I also play some nice forehands down the line, and my usual crosscourt winner. I manage to win a service game at last and then take the first set 7–5.
In the second set Nicholas seems to wilt a bit, and I take full advantage of this. He still loses his serve but I win mine. I’m hitting the ball hard, grunting loudly, generally making a spectacle of myself. I have no idea what I actually look like, but in my head I’m Sharapova, Kvitová, Halep. I want people to look at me and think She’s so good! I win the next set 6–1. Simon comes over but doesn’t say anything about our match. He just starts replacing all the mini-tennis stuff.
•
Josh is obsessed with tennis. He lives for it. I admire and envy his ability to focus all his energy and talent into this one beautiful and pure thing. Whenever I bump into him around the leisure center—as I often do, because like me, he is always there—he is walking fast with a focused, amused look on his face, as if he’s just played the most amazing prank ever. As he walks he plays air-forehands. His knees bend slightly, a bit less than they would if he was playing a real forehand, and he reaches in front of him and swoosh. And again: swoosh. It’s a lovely smooth reaching movement.
