Tennis Shoes (11 page)

M
Y DEAR
T
WINS
,

As you will, I think, be eleven quite shortly, it is time you joined a tennis club. I hear there are excellent covered courts in your neighbourhood on which, for one guinea a year, you may play from Monday till Friday. I expect the tennis house is in a poor way, since I noticed three new rackets last summer, so I enclose a cheque for two guineas.

Your affectionate

G
RANDFATHER
.

Grandfather was quite right. The tennis house was in a poor way. As a matter of fact, it was in debt. There had been in it grandfather's first four pounds; then his one pound that came at Easter. There was the four shillings and tenpence halfpenny from the children. They had meant to put more in at Christmas but, having measles, they felt they needed their money for other things. There was two guineas Dr. Heath got from a patient, which he looked on as a present as he had knocked it off as a bad debt. There were two ten-shilling notes Pinny had earned knitting jumpers for nurses at the hospital. There was one pound eighteen shillings and sixpence, put in by Dr. and Mrs. Heath out of what they called their odd money. All this, of course, came to ten pounds five shillings and fourpence halfpenny. But out of the front door had gone: the money for the table-tennis set. One pound five shillings for Nobby's wall. They had used the twins' original rackets until they were not worth re-stringing. Before they had gone to grandfather's, Dr. Heath (who knew someone from whom he could buy wholesale) bought three really good rackets. They had also bought a dozen used balls. As well the house was in debt. When the three rackets were bought an IOU was put in for David. It was signed by Dr. Heath for the house. It said:

‘IOU David. One tennis racket. When you require a racket it shall be purchased before satisfying any other tennis need in the family.'

There would be some more money put in the house, but not nearly enough to join a club. Grandfather's present could not have come at a better moment. The twins were so glad he had not just sent the money for the house, but had said how it was to be spent. If it had gone into the house it would have belonged to them all and could not very well have been used as club subscriptions for two.

The covered courts club made them feel very grand. From the moment you passed the ‘Members Only' written on the gate you felt in a world of real tennis. There were three boards in the hall, looking like the boards in the hall at St. Clair's. On one board were the names of the boys and girls who had won the club junior championships. There were some such distinguished names amongst them that Jim and Susan, reading them for the first time, could only nudge each other and stare. It seemed magnificent to belong to a club where people like that had once played.

There were three hard courts. Of course there were a lot of members to play on them. When you had finished a set you booked one of the others for later on. Waiting about did not matter, for there was a lovely big lounge, with lots of arm-chairs and newspapers. There was also table tennis. There was a place where you could get tea and things to eat. The twins were not there at tea-time, but sometimes when funds allowed they had glasses of lemonade.

The whole of that holiday the twins went to their club every day, except Saturdays and Sundays, which were not included in their subscriptions. They had to come home to meals, and they had to be out of doors for two hours, unless it was raining. They never spent less than three hours a day in the club. Sometimes their father went down with them for half an hour. There was a gallery on one side of the courts. He would go up and sit and watch them and take notes. Driving home he would tell them a few of the things they did wrong.

‘No good having a smashing first service, Jim, if it never conies off. Just a lot of wasted energy. Besides, it means you play safe with your second ball and just tap it over. Better work at something less ferocious that comes off the first time.

‘You could both do with a daily quarter of an hour's practice against the wall. All your strokes want working at. As for you, Jim, it wouldn't hurt you to give a week to it—you're still running all round the ball rather than take it on your backhand.

‘It is stupid to slash about on a court all day thinking of nothing but who's winning. Keep looking at yourself. Feel where you're going wrong. It's a pity to give up your wall practice. No need to go to the club every day just because you belong to it. Keep an eye on yourselves, or you'll turn your faults into habits.'

Nicky was disgusted with the whole way life was going. She had always fought against being classed with David as ‘the little ones.' Now it was David or nobody.

‘I do think it's mean, daddy,' she grumbled, ‘not to join me to the tennis club too.'

Dr. Heath laughed.

‘Tennis clubs are not for babies.'

Nicky was very cross.

‘I shall be nine next October. That's not a baby. Even last summer, when I wasn't even eight, I was allowed to play in a tennis tournament. So I should think I'd be old enough for a club now.'

‘My dear Nicky, playing pat-ball at a local tournament with a lot of kids who don't know how to hold a racket, is a different thing to joining a club.'

Nicky looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

‘You didn't call it pat-ball when Susan won a clock.'

He ruffled her hair.

‘Maybe I didn't. But you are not joining the club, which I take it is what we are really discussing. For one thing, I can't afford it. The twins' joining was a present from grandfather.'

Nicky thought a moment.

‘If you and grandfather gave me next birthday presents now, I could join.'

‘You could not. Not if you had a hundred birthday presents. As a matter of fact, as far as my present is concerned, aren't there two more umbrellas owing?'

That was the end of the discussion. Nicky said no more. It did seem awful to think of two more umbrellas. She had not realized it would take so long. It was mean, when all she got for them had been one shilling and a penny. She tried her mother next.

She found her arranging flowers. Someone had sent her a box of daffodils.

‘Mummy!' Nicky picked up one of the daffodils. ‘I was wondering if there was any way I could earn some money?'

‘What for?' Mrs. Heath popped a daffodil into her vase and stood back to look at the effect.

‘I want to join the tennis club.'

Mrs. Heath took the daffodil from her.

‘Don't kill the poor flower. The tennis club!' She smiled at Nicky. ‘You are much too small, darling. We hope perhaps to manage it in a year's time.'

‘A year!' Nicky looked shocked. ‘Why, I might be dead.'

‘I don't think so. You don't look a bit like dying. Talking of tennis, run up to Pinny and tell her I'm going out, and say does she want some buttons for Susan's tennis frocks.'

Pinny was at the sewing-machine. She said she had enough buttons. Nicky yelled this news over the stairs to her mother. She came back to Pinny.

‘Have you saved much money, Pinny?'

‘No, dear. Hardly any. I've a little put into a society. It will pay me a lump sum when I'm sixty-five. Why?'

‘I was just wondering.' Nicky spun the cotton-reel round on the top of the machine. ‘It's dull with the others out all day.'

Pinny came to the end of the seam she was machining. She took up the dress and examined it.

‘Well, dear, we reap as we sow, you know. I dare say, if the truth were to be told, you are not very good when you go out with them.'

‘All the same, it is dull.' Nicky caught her finger in the cotton and unthreaded it. She laid the end beside the needle, hoping Pinny would not notice. ‘I wish I could join the tennis club.'

Pinny saw her needle was unthreaded.

‘Oh dear! Look what you've done. And my eyes aren't what they were. Don't fidget with the machine. Join the tennis club, did you say? I'm sure your dear daddy and mummy would never hear of it. You are much too small to be wandering about alone. I personally never have a minute's peace while the twins are out. But you! Indeed no. Most unwise.'

Nicky, growing more dispirited every minute, went into the kitchen. Annie was washing dish-cloths. They smelt very nasty. She looked up.

‘Hallo! Look what the cat's brought in. You've a face as long as a wet week. What's the matter?'

She sounded friendly and nice. It was too much for Nicky. She burst into tears.

‘It's the beastly tennis club. The others go all the time. There's no one for me but David, and he sings all day and plays farms and——'

‘There.' Annie came and knelt beside her. She put her arms round her. ‘It is dull for you, and that's a fact. Why don't you come in to me more? I might teach you a bit of cookin'.'

‘I don't want to cook,' Nicky wailed. ‘I'd rather do more juggling and patter dancing.'

‘Come on, then, let's dance a breakdown. Nothing like it for raisin' the spirits.'

Annie whistled. Then she began to dance. Presently Nicky joined in. They finished with a kind of cake-walk round the kitchen. When they had done they were both so out of breath they fell exhausted into two chairs.

‘You do that nice,' Annie panted. ‘Funny kid, you are. You can do anything you put your mind to.'

‘I know that bit. Could you teach me some more, and some more juggling? Just me, while the others are at that club?'

Annie laughed. She got up and fetched basins and things to make cakes.

‘I've taught you most all of what I ever knew. 'Tisn't like as if it was my own stuff. It's only what I picked up from the other acts when I was a kid.'

Nicky eyed the basin hopefully.

‘Are you going to make cakes?'

Annie nodded.

‘Just a dripping one for your tea.'

Nicky helped herself to a little bit of dripping. She licked it off the end of her finger.

‘I suppose you learnt a lot of things from the other acts?'

Annie shook her head.

‘No. Not learnt. Just got a smattering. That's very different. Learning's what you're doing out there with the doctor on Nobby's wall. I like to hear your father. Keeps at it same as dad done to me. When I hear him going on at you to do the same thing over and over, I say to meself: “That's the stuff.”'

Nicky sat on the table where she could watch the mixing better.

‘But you were learning to do it properly. That's different.'

‘And what are you learning for? Fun? The doctor thinks different. Do it well if you're goin' to do it, he says, and I reckon he's right.'

Nicky sighed.

‘It's all right for Susan. She liked practising. Besides, daddy says she might play well. He never says that to me. He doesn't even let me join a club.'

Annie stopped working. She leant on the table and put her face close to Nicky's.

‘I tell you this, Nicky Heath. No matter what the doctor says, nor nobody else, you could do as well as Susan, and better, if you'd work. I seen it happen over and over again. All may start the same. All learn their stuff. But there's one got something different. One you can't hold back. That's the one you'll see at Olympia of a Christmas.'

Nicky looked puzzled.

‘Do you mean I play well?'

Annie sniffed.

‘No. Anyhow, I've never seen you. Judging by the trouble you take I should say you play like a foot. But what I do say is that if you did work, and knew your stuff backward, you got it in you to go right up. Trust me. I know.'

Nicky felt excited. Was Annie right? If she worked, could she? If she worked! There was the point. She thought work such a bore. Would she do it? She could. Why not? Secretly, so that no one would know. It would be nice if she was really good. Such a surprise for everybody.

‘I'd like to play well. Perhaps I'll try.'

‘I should.' Annie looked at the clock. ‘No time like the present. You take your racket. Pop along out and do a bit of practisin'. When you've finished I'll have a cake for you, hot from the oven.'

Nicky had been the black sheep for so long she simply could not start being a white one. No one knew but Annie how hard she worked. If anybody came out she would lie down on her racket and pretend to be doing nothing. She got a kind of pleasure at getting things right all by herself. Of course, it was Annie who made her stick at it.

‘Now then, where's all this tennis practisin' we heard so much about?'

‘Well, I thought——' Nicky would start to explain.

‘Whatever you was thinkin' will keep,' Annie would retort. ‘You go out and swing that bat.'

All the same, quarters of an hour practising tennis, walks with David and Agag, spending pennies with Mrs. Pettigrew, and gossips with Annie did not make very gay holidays. Nicky got crosser every day. Luckily for her something nice happened at the end of them.

One day after tea they had all been playing Lexicon, but Nicky was cross and David would talk to Agag, so they gave it up. Jim lay flat on his back and stared at the ceiling.

‘I wish we could go and see Annie's father's circus.'

‘One would have thought,' said Nicky, ‘a boy who belonged to a tennis club, and who could go out alone, wouldn't have wanted any more.'

‘Oh, shut up!' Jim growled. ‘How you grumble! As a matter of fact, it was because of something I saw in a paper at our club. It was about a man in a circus who could walk on the ceiling like a fly, holding on upside-down.'

Susan sat beside him holding her knees.

‘He couldn't really, could he? It must be some sort of trick.'

Jim rolled over.

‘There was a picture of him. I think it must be something in his boots.'

‘But flies don't wear boots,' Nicky objected. ‘How do they keep up?'

Jim looked scornful.