Saturday (14 page)

When he arrives back on court, the consultant anaesthetist comes straight over to him. ‘You all right Henry? You pissed off?'

‘Yeah. With myself. But having to argue that let didn't help.'

‘You were right, I was wrong. I'm sorry. Are you ready?'

Perowne stands in the receiving position, intent on the rhythm of his breathing, prepared to perform a simple move, virtually a standard procedure: he'll volley the serve before it touches the side wall, and after he's hit it he'll cross to the ‘T' at the centre of the court and lob. Simple. It's time to dislodge Strauss.

‘Ready.'

Strauss hits a fast serve, and once again it's a bodyline,
aimed straight for the shoulder. Perowne manages to push his racket through the ball, and the volley goes more or less as he hoped, and now he's in position, on the ‘T'. Strauss flicks the ball out of the corner, and it comes back along the same side wall. Perowne goes forward and volleys again. Half a dozen times the ball travels up and down the left-hand wall, until Perowne finds the space on his backhand to lift it high into the right-hand corner. They play that wall in hard straight drives, dancing in and out of each other's path, then they're chasing shots all over the court, with the advantage passing between them.

They've had this kind of rally before – desperate, mad, but also hilarious, as if the real contest is to see who will break down laughing first. But this is different. It's humourless, and longer, and attritional, for hearts this age can't race at above one hundred and eighty beats per minute for long, and soon someone will tire and fumble. And in this unwitnessed, somewhat inept, merely social game, both men have acquired an urgent sense of the point's importance. Despite the apology, the disputed let hangs between them. Strauss will have guessed that Perowne has given himself a good talking-to in the changing room. If his fightback can be resisted now, he'll be demoralised in no time and Strauss will take the match in three straight sets. As for Perowne, it's down to the rules of the game; until he's won the serve, he can't begin to score points.

It's possible in a long rally to become a virtually unconscious being, inhabiting the narrowest slice of the present, merely reacting, taking one shot at a time, existing only to keep going. Perowne is already at that state, digging in deep, when he remembers he's supposed to have a game plan. As it happens, just then the ball falls short and he's able to get under it to lob high into the rear left corner. Strauss raises his racket to volley, then changes his mind and runs back. He boasts the ball out, and Perowne lobs to the other side. Running from corner to corner to grub the ball out when
you're tired is hard work. Each time he hits the ball, Strauss grunts a little louder, and Perowne is encouraged. He resists the kill shot because he thinks he'll mishit. Instead, he goes on lobbing, five times in a row, wearing his man down. The point ends on the fifth when Strauss's powerless ball falls feebly against the tin.

Love-all. They put down their rackets, and stand bent over, breathless, hands on knees, staring blindly into the floor, or press their palms and faces into the cool white walls, or wander aimlessly about the court mopping their brows with their untucked T-shirts and groaning. At other times they'd have a post-mortem on a point like that, but neither man speaks. Keen to force the pace, Perowne is ready first, and waits in the service box bouncing the ball against the floor. He serves right over Strauss's head and the ball, cooler and softer now, dies in the corner. One-love, and no effort wasted. This, rather than the point before, might be the important one. Perowne has his height and length now. The next point goes his way, and the next. Strauss is becoming exasperated by a series of identical serves, and because the rallies are brief or non-existent, the ball remains cold and inert, like putty, difficult to fish out of a tight space. And as he becomes more annoyed, Jay becomes even less competent. He can't reach the ball in the air, he can't get under it once it falls. A couple of serves he simply walks away from, and goes to the box to wait for the next. It's the repetition, the same angle, the same impossible height, the same dead ball that's getting to him. Soon he's lost six points.

Perowne wants to laugh wildly – an impulse he disguises as a cough. He isn't gloating, or triumphant – it's far too early for that. This is the delight of recognition, sympathetic laughter. He's amused because he knows exactly how Strauss is feeling: Henry is too well acquainted with the downward spiral of irritation and ineptitude, the little ecstasies of self-loathing. It's hilarious to recognise how completely another person resembles your imperfect self. And he knows how
annoying his serve is. He wouldn't be able to return it himself. But Strauss was merciless when he was on top, and Perowne needs the points. So he keeps on and on, floating the ball over his opponent's head and cruising right through to take the game, no effort at all, nine-love.

‘I need a piss,' Jay says tersely, and leaves the court, still wearing his goggles and holding his racket.

Perowne doesn't believe him. Though he sees that it's a sensible move, the only way to interrupt the haemorrhaging of points, and even though he did the same thing less than ten minutes before, he still feels cheated. He could have taken the next set too with his infuriating serve. Now Strauss will be dousing his head under the tap and rethinking his game.

Henry resists the temptation to sit down. Instead he steps out to take a look at the other games – he's always hoping to learn something from the classier players. But the place is still deserted. The club members are either massing against the war, or unable to find a way through central London. As he comes back along the courts, he lifts his T-shirt and examines his chest. There's a dense black bruise to the left of his sternum. It hurts when he extends his left arm. Staring at the discoloured skin helps focus his troubled feelings about Baxter. Did he, Henry Perowne, act unprofessionally, using his medical knowledge to undermine a man suffering from a neurodegenerative disorder? Yes. Did the threat of a beating excuse him? Yes, no, not entirely. But this haematoma, the colour of an aubergine, the diameter of a plum – just a taste of what might have come his way – says yes, he's absolved. Only a fool would stand there and take a kicking when there was a way out. So what's troubling him? Strangely, for all the violence, he almost liked Baxter. That's to put it too strongly. He was intrigued by him, by his hopeless situation, and his refusal to give up. And there was a real intelligence there, and dismay that he was living the wrong life. And he, Henry, was obliged, or forced, to abuse his own power – but
he allowed himself to be placed in that position. His attitude was wrong from the start, insufficiently defensive; his manner may have seemed pompous, or disdainful. Provocative perhaps. He could have been friendlier, even made himself accept a cigarette; he should have relaxed, from a position of strength, instead of which he was indignant and combative. On the other hand, there were three of them, they wanted his cash, they were eager for violence, they were planning it before they got out of their car. The loss of a wing mirror was cover for a mugging.

He arrives back outside the court, his unease intact, just as Strauss appears. His thick shoulders are drenched from his session at the washbasin, and his good humour is restored.

‘OK,' he says as Perowne goes to the service box. ‘No more Mister Nice Guy.'

Perowne finds it disabling, to have been left alone with his thoughts; just before he serves, he remembers his game plan. But the fourth game falls into no obvious pattern. He takes two points, then Strauss gets into the game and pulls ahead, three-two. There are long, scrappy rallies, with a run of unforced errors on both sides which bring the score to seven-all, Perowne to serve. He takes the last two points without trouble. Two games each.

They take a quick break to gather themselves for the final battle. Perowne isn't tired – winning games has been less physically demanding than losing them. But he feels drained of that fierce desire to beat Jay and would be happy to call it a draw and get on with his day. All morning he's been in some form of combat. But there's no chance of backing out. Strauss is enjoying the moment, playing it up, and saying as he goes to his position, ‘Fight to the death,' and ‘No pasaran!'

So, with a suppressed sigh, Perowne serves and, because he's run out of ideas, falls back on the same old lob. In fact, the moment he hits the ball, he knows it's near-perfect, curving high, set to drop sharply into the corner. But Strauss
is in a peculiar, elated mood and he does an extraordinary thing. With a short running jump, he springs two, perhaps three feet into the air, and with racket fully extended, his thick, muscular back gracefully arched, his teeth bared, his head flung back and his left arm raised for balance, he catches the ball just before the peak of its trajectory with a whip-like backhand smash that shoots the ball down to hit the front wall barely an inch above the tin – a beautiful, inspired, unre-turnable shot. Perowne, who's barely moved from his spot, instantly says so. A fabulous shot. And suddenly, with the serve now in his opponent's hands, all over again, he wants to win.

Both men raise their games. Every point is now a drama, a playlet of sudden reversals, and all the seriousness and fury of the third game's long rally is resumed. Oblivious to their protesting hearts, they hurl themselves into every corner of the court. There are no unforced errors, every point is wrested, bludgeoned from the other. The server gasps out the score, but otherwise they don't speak. And as the score rises, neither man moves more than one point ahead. There's nothing at stake – they're not on the club's squash ladder. There's only the irreducible urge to win, as biological as thirst. And it's pure, because no one's watching, no one cares, not their friends, their wives, their children. It isn't even enjoyable. It might become so in retrospect – and only to the winner. If a passer-by were to pause by the glass back wall to watch, she'd surely think these elderly players were once rated, and even now still have a little fire. She might also wonder if this is a grudge match, there's such straining desperation in the play.

What feels like half an hour is in fact twelve minutes. At seven-all Perowne serves from the left box and wins the point. He crosses the court to serve for the match. His concentration is good, his confidence is up and so he plays a forceful backhand serve, at a narrow angle, close to the wall. Strauss slices it with his backhand, almost a tennis stroke, so
that it drops to the front of the court. It's a good shot, but Perowne is in position and nips forward for the kill. He catches the ball on the rise and smashes it on his forehand, into the left rear corner. End of game, and victory. The instant he makes his stroke, he steps back – and collides with Strauss. It's a savage jolt, and both men reel and for a moment neither can talk.

Then Strauss, speaking quietly through heavy breathing, says, ‘It's my point, Henry.'

And Perowne says, ‘Jay, it's over. Three games to two.'

They pause again to take the measure of this calamitous difference.

Perowne says, ‘What were you doing at the front wall?'

Jay walks away from him, to the box where, if they play the point again, he'll receive the serve. He's wanting to move things on – his way. He says, ‘I thought you'd play a drop shot to your right.'

Henry tries to smile. His mouth is dry, his lips won't easily slide over his teeth. ‘So I fooled you. You were out of position. You couldn't have returned it.'

The anaesthetist shakes his head with the earthbound calm his patients find so reassuring. But his chest is heaving. ‘It came off the back wall. Plenty of bounce. Henry, you were right in my path.'

This deployment of each other's first name is tipped with poison. Henry can't resist it again himself. He speaks as though reminding Strauss of a long-forgotten fact. ‘But Jay. You couldn't've reached that ball.'

Strauss holds Perowne's gaze and says quietly, ‘Henry, I could.'

The injustice of the claim is so flagrant that Perowne can only repeat himself. ‘You were way out of position.'

Strauss says, ‘That's not against the rules.' Then he adds, ‘Come on Henry. I gave you the benefit of the doubt last time.'

So he thinks he's calling in a debt. Perowne's tone of
reasonableness becomes even harder to sustain. He says quickly, ‘There was no doubt.'

‘Sure there was.'

‘Look, Jay. This isn't some kind of equal-opportunity forum. We take the case on its merits.'

‘I agree. No need to give a lecture.'

Perowne's falling pulse rises briefly at the reproof – a moment's sudden anger is like an extra heartbeat, an unhelpful stab of arrhythmia. He has things to do. He needs to drive to the fishmonger's, go home and shower, and head out again, come back, cook a meal, open wine, greet his daughter, his father-in-law, reconcile them. But more than that, he needs what's already his; he fought back from two games down, and believes he's proved to himself something essential in his own nature, something familiar that he's forgotten lately. Now his opponent wants to steal it, or deny it. He leans his racket in the corner by his valuables to demonstrate that the game is over. Likewise, Strauss stands resolutely in the service box. They've never had anything like this before. Is it possibly about something else? Jay is looking at him with a sympathetic half-smile through pursed lips – an entirely concocted expression designed to further his claim. Henry can see himself – his pulse rate spikes again at the thought – crossing the parquet in four steps to give that complacent expression a brisk backhand slap. Or he could shrug and leave the court. But his victory is meaningless without consent. Fantasy apart, how can they possibly resolve this, with no referee, no common power?