Nothing Sacred (7 page)

Our opponents were two young lads who, I thought with a trace of nostalgia, could almost have been Gabe and me twenty years ago, one lean and agile, the other thick-set and silent and imposing. I guessed they were in their late teens and they came with a reputation, up-and-comers from a tennis club on the coast who had been their club champions and managed a respectable fifth in the county doubles.

They had walked onto court and taken one look at us, an amputee and a bulky bruiser better suited to a boxing ring, and exchanged glances that were so transparently readable they might as well have walked up to us and told us that we had no chance, that the match was already won. But Gabe and I had been playing together for over two decades now and although we were not as mobile as we once were, we could read another player's moves before he had even considered what shot he was going to hit.

Gabe served the first game and we narrowly won it; not by such a margin that our opponents felt a moment of doubt about the final outcome, but winning the first game has its own psychological significance. Gabe hit a beautiful volley to break them in their first service game, and then I stepped up and served so accurately, so viciously and so mercilessly that by the end of that third game their resolve was shot, their pride ruined and their minds set on trying, at least, to keep the score line respectable. I felt sympathy for them; I had been in their position enough times as a young man. But tennis is a cruel game and I decided that this would be a valuable lesson for them: never underestimate your opponents.

Now Gabe was serving for the match, slicing a serve out wide to the deuce court, which, although not fast, pulled the lean player well out into the tramlines. He was returning nowhere but cross-court, so I stepped over to cover the centre of the net and, when his return came, punched it backhand behind his big partner into the open court. Out-thought and, ultimately, outplayed; sometimes tennis felt almost too easy, a re-enactment of a million previous points stored deep in some atavistic muscle memory. There is something to be said for age.

‘Played,' said the lean guy, shaking my hand at the net. Despite the fact that they had just been beaten six–three, six–one, there was a smile in his eyes. He seemed a fine young man. I held my hand out to his surly partner who had said perhaps five words since arriving, expecting nothing, but he slapped his big hand into mine and, to my surprise, laughed generously.

‘Fucking hell,' he said. ‘That's what being murdered feels like.'

‘You played well,' said Gabe.

‘Bollocks,' he said. ‘You two took us apart.' He took Gabe's hand. ‘Fucking awesome.'

‘Buy you a drink?' I said.

He gave me a mock hard-man stare. ‘Be the least you could do.'

The big guy was an apprentice electrician and the younger man working to go to university where he hoped to study architecture. They had been playing together for five years, and Gabe and I had to go some way to persuade them to keep playing together for another.

‘Never been beaten like that before,' the lean guy, whose name was Jonny, said as I handed him a bottle. ‘Thanks. For the beer.'

‘You do play well,' Gabe said. ‘Don't get down.'

‘Know how many times we've been beaten?' I said.

The big guy, Jake, made a show of counting on his fingers, looked up at me like he had the answer. ‘Never?'

‘Unbelievable tennis,' said Jonny. He paused, said to Gabe, ‘What happened to your leg?'

I was surprised and at the same time impressed. Very few people would ask that question of anybody, too stymied by embarrassment; even fewer would ask it of Gabe, a man who is as approachable as an aerosol on a fire.

‘Lost it,' said Gabe shortly, turning his head and taking a drink to prevent any further questions. The young guy nodded, mortified, and there was an awkward silence. Christ's sake, Gabe, I thought. Lighten up.

The clubhouse was full of people; it was a Saturday and there were squads on, children playing and parents looking on, other members milling around waiting for the courts to clear to get a game. I nodded hello to George, one of the oldest members and one of the first to have spotted my talent. He winked back.

‘So,' Jake asked, breaking the silence, ‘got any advice?'

‘Practice,' I said. ‘Never stop.'

‘Like you two need it.'

‘You reckon,' I said. ‘Know what I'm going to be doing for the next two hours? Feeding volleys.' Pointed at Gabe. ‘To this.'

In many ways, Branfield Road Lawn Tennis Club had been my salvation, a place of solace from my home, a place that offered praise and goodwill rather than misery and neglect. I had been accepted and encouraged by people here who were more generous and less judgmental than any I had met before in my life, and I owed them a debt of gratitude that I could never fully repay.

I could not count the number of times Gabe and I had passed afternoons together honing different aspects of our game, critically dismantling each other's ground strokes, serves and volleys before together rebuilding them into more effective, elegant weapons. These memories were, from all of my childhood and youth, the purest and most precious that I held.

Now I was lacing ground strokes towards the net where Gabe was hitting forehand volleys and backhand volleys and drop shots with an almost robotic disdain, pivoting and jumping with his prosthetic leg, exploiting it rather than letting it handicap him. I wondered if he would be able to apply this lesson – that the loss of his leg did not mean the end of ambition – to the rest of his life.

‘Bit more depth on the backhand,' I said. ‘Too much backspin.'

‘You feel sorry for those guys?'

‘A bit. Do them good.'

Gabe hit a backhand, crisper, flat and fast and an inch from the baseline.

‘Better.'

‘Remember those finals we got beaten?'

‘Yep.' I did not even have to ask which finals. As young men Gabe and I had won our fair share of competitions, but one year came up against two boys who seemed to share a connection that was almost telepathic. Technically we were on the same level, but tactically they might as well have been a different species.

‘Did us good,' I said.

‘Eventually.'

‘I think I'm over it.'

‘I'm getting there,' said Gabe. ‘One day at a time.'

A man had been watching us play for the last couple of minutes; the club was now empty and he was hanging around the edge of the court, looking through the wire fence. He was behind Gabe and Gabe had not noticed him. Now the man was pushing open the wire door, walking onto the court. He was not wearing tennis gear, had on a black nylon jacket, jeans, white trainers. He was young, mid- to late-twenties, short hair. He walked onto our court with an assurance that felt somehow insolent, like every step he took was a challenge.

‘Help you?' I said.

Gabe turned and looked at the man and stopped, still. From his reaction I guessed that he must know him. The man picked up a tennis ball and this small act, of holding a tennis ball that belonged to me, seemed like a calculated provocation. He smiled.

‘All right, Gabe?' he said.

‘What do you want?' said Gabe. I could see that he was gripping his racket tight, his knuckles white. There was a change in the air like the onset of a thunderstorm, a subtle heaviness in the atmosphere. Something was going down of which I had no idea.

‘Want? Nothing,' said the man. ‘Had a match?'

Gabe did not reply.

‘You win?'

Gabe just stood there, not backing away, not approaching, a standoff. He did not say anything.

‘We've not heard from you,' the man said. ‘Wanted to check in.'

Still nothing from Gabe. I wondered how long he could keep silent. There was something surreal about the scene, a stranger talking, nobody answering, here on a quiet tennis court. The man had something of Gabe about him, an assured yet undemonstrative air of capability. He did not appear aware of any tension.

‘Wanted to let you know,' he said, ‘that we know where you are. If we need you.'

This was too much for me. Gabe may have been able to suffer this man's brash intrusion, but my blood had always run hotter.

‘If you don't drop that ball and get off this court—' I began, but Gabe waved his tennis racket to silence me.

‘Who are you with now?' said Gabe. ‘Left the company?'

The man smiled. ‘Out, on to better things.' He rubbed his forefinger against his thumb. ‘And don't want anybody fucking it up.'

Gabe nodded. ‘You've got five seconds to walk off this court or my partner and I carry you.'

‘Touchy,' the man said.

‘One,' said Gabe.

The man held up his hands in a gesture of surrender, my tennis ball still in one hand.

‘Two,' said Gabe.

The man backed up to the edge of the tennis court, stopped in the steel frame.

‘Three,' said Gabe.

The man threw my tennis ball to the ground, derisively, pointed a finger at Gabe.

‘Goodbye,' said Gabe, turning his back to him. The man sauntered out of the tennis club, through the two tall bushes at its entrance, an exaggerated swagger to his walk. I watched him go, made sure he was gone, turned to Gabe.

‘Friend of yours?' I said to him. He did not answer, but then I had not expected him to.

*

Later, I was at home in my kitchen with Maria. I had just had a shower and had a glow that only a decisive victory at tennis could give me. Maria also played tennis, had played for the county, and watched me with a knowing amusement.

‘I hope you didn't beat them too badly,' she said.

‘They'll be crying themselves to sleep,' I said.

‘So sad, the extent of the delusion.'

Gabe and I had wrapped things up after the man left. Gabe was no longer in the mood to play and he would not answer my questions: a good day ending in an atmosphere of suspicion and discord. I did not understand what had happened on the tennis court, what had passed between Gabe and the man. This was a story I had no part in.

Still, I could not help but worry. Gabe was into something and he was deliberately keeping me out of it; I could only imagine that it was something illegal, something that I would not condone. Gabe's skills were, essentially, twofold: leading men, and killing them. The former had many legitimate applications in civilian life; the other I did not want to think about.

But I was at home with Maria and I shook off these thoughts. She had cooked and the kitchen was warm and she had opened a bottle of Rioja, poured me a glass.

‘Sit,' she said, turning to take something from the oven.

‘What is it?'

‘Tagine,' she said, placing it on the table and prodding it as you would a family pet that may be dead. ‘Supposed to be.'

But I did not care. The simple act of somebody putting food down in front of me, going to the trouble to prepare it for me, was near enough to a miracle that I had to close my eyes for some seconds, compose myself.

Perhaps it was the emotional toll of the last few days, I do not know, but I looked Maria candidly in the eyes and said, ‘I don't deserve you. All this.'

Her eyes were so wide that I could see almost the whole iris, green with flecks of grey; her gaze was so forthright and uninhibited that it seemed as if she was showing me all she was, leaving nothing hidden. She reached her hand out to my cheek, stroked it. Said: ‘You haven't tried it yet.'

7

THAT NIGHT WHILE
I slept peacefully next to Maria in a bed that felt cut adrift from the world of ordinary concerns, a blaze started in Vick's home. A lit gas fire in the living room ignited drying clothes, and within minutes black smoke from burning material, net curtains and cheap furniture was covering the ceiling like the roiling clouds of a medieval vision of the apocalypse, pushing at the edges of the room before stealing out, into the hall and up the stairs, silent and stealthy as a team of killers. Vick did not have her bedroom door closed and soon she was inhaling the tarry chemical smoke in her sleep, its strange smell and harsh taste invading her dreams so that she believed she was confined within her own version of hell.

A neighbour, a Polish man who everybody called Peter and who worked a night shift repairing rolling stock for the railway, was passing and saw flames, Vick's curtains falling in bright embers from around her living room window. He pounded on the door and, knowing that Vick had children, called the fire service before kicking in the door and running upstairs, throwing open doors and screaming as loudly as he could in Polish words that Vick did not understand.

By this time she had inhaled so many toxic fumes that she felt as if she had been drugged and could not tell her legs to straighten. She still felt trapped in some hellish netherworld and that the man in her room was a demon of some kind. He lifted her up, put her over his shoulder and clattered down the stairs through smoke so thick that he could not see his feet or hands, felt as if he had to pass through another dimension before he could get to the front door.