Tennis Shoes (20 page)

Jim took down the tennis house and shook it.

‘That's just it. Susan thinks Nicky ought to do a lot of that.'

Dr. Heath put his matches back in his pocket.

‘What I take it you are trying to tell me is, that if it comes to a pinch you'd rather I spread myself on Nicky than tried to do you a bit of good all round?'

‘That's it, darling.' Susan patted his shoulder. ‘But don't think we're being noble. We're not. It's just we think it's a worth-while gamble.'

He puffed at his pipe.

‘I take it that if you're gambling away your shares out of the tennis house, that I can trust all of you to see that if Nicky gets any extra chances she doesn't waste them?'

Jim put the tennis house back on the mantelpiece.

‘You bet you can. We'll see the little tike works.'

Susan giggled.

‘Poor Nicky! She'll have a dog's life. If she doesn't get to Wimbledon it won't be our faults.'

David caught hold of Agag, who was lying beside him. He stood him up on his hind legs.

‘Us two will even give up our singing practice to see she works. Won't we, Agag?'

How Nicky's nose was glued to the grindstone! She would not have minded if it was only her tennis practice she was made to work at; but a good deal of the rest of her time somebody was doing something towards her training.

Susan considered that Nicky ought to know how the great tennis minds of the past had worked. She ransacked the public library for books for her. Nicky, who was no great reader at any time, grew to dread the sight of Susan with books under her arm. She eyed the bundle nervously.

‘You've not got another one for me, have you?'

Susan nodded proudly.

‘I've managed to get
Lacoste on Tennis
.'

Nicky made a face at the book.

‘But I'm still reading Suzanne Lenglen, and I've read Alice Marble.'

‘When you've finished with Lacoste, I'm getting you Hazel Wightman and Helen Wills, and I expect there are a lot more if I look around.'

‘Oh, don't look!' Nicky pleaded. ‘It takes me ages and ages to read even something interesting. But these books I just can't get through.'

Nicky would have skimmed the books, but Susan kept her eye on her. Every morning before they got up she gave her a short examination on what she had read the day before.

‘What does Kathleen MacKane say about smashing and overhead play? What did Betty Nuthall say about footwork? What did Perry say about position on the court?'

Once or twice Nicky refused to answer a question.

‘I don't know what they said and I don't care. They all say the same things and they all use the same words, and it's miserably dull. I read
The Secret Garden
yesterday, if you want to know. I chose it because nobody plays tennis in it.'

‘All right,' Susan retorted. ‘If you aren't keen on being good I don't care. Jim was letting you have an extra racket and making his old one do. I'll write and tell him not to bother.'

Something of that sort usually brought Nicky to heel. Not for worlds would she have owned just how keen she was. It was spoiling her reputation for laziness. Without any bullying from any of them she had learnt just how hard you had to work to get something even nearly right. She tried to work at the wall when nobody was about. She was not going to have them all looking at each other and saying: ‘Fancy, do you know I saw Nicky work for over half an hour at just one stroke. You wouldn't have thought she would, would you?' She wanted them to think she was just as lazy as ever, and became good by luck.

It was Jim who invented the part of Nicky's training she hated most. One day in the Easter holidays he overheard the coach tell her that she must concentrate more, must not notice what was going on around her. After that he invented games for her. Sometimes it was a general knowledge paper on things she knew quite well. Sometimes it was a memory test with trays of mixed things. Sometimes tricks, such as picking up peas with knitting-needles, or something of the sort. Whatever it was she was going to do, he and Susan did it first. They worked out how long she ought to take. Then they put her at a table with her watch in front of her and told her to begin.

The moment Nicky began the other three began too. But theirs was a different game. They thought out the most ingenious ways of distracting her attention. Once Susan rushed in with a parcel and said: ‘Look, this has come for me.' Jim and David sat down by her. All their backs were to Nicky. Slowly they cut the string and started unwrapping, until finally they all said: ‘Oh!' Of course Nicky looked up. It was not human nature not to. She was furious she had, when she found it was just an empty box they were staring at.

David thought of dozens of ways of making Agag a distraction. Sometimes he would make him bark. Sometimes he dressed him up. Sometimes he would say: ‘My goo'ness, look at Agag! He's never done that before.' To begin with he nearly always caught Nicky.

Nicky started by never getting any of the things done. She was always looking round and wasting time, and then was made to start all over again until they were worn out. Then quite suddenly one day (it was a day when she was given hundreds of needles to thread) she did them on time. She found she had never heard Jim tell the others they were all going to a cinema that night. She had never noticed the roars of laughter when Agag came in dressed as a baby. It was a good many nights after that before she did as well again, but she was improving. When the boys went back to school, Susan carried on with the game and got the grown-ups to help. Nicky nearly always loathed it because usually she had something else she wanted to do. But she could not get out of it, because Dr. Heath said it was a splendid idea and she was to do it every day. As a matter of fact, it must have been a splendid idea, for by the summer holidays she was mostly on time, and if she was not it was because she was stupid at whatever she had been given to do, and not because she lacked concentration. In the end she would not have noticed if the house had fallen down. It was useful. It made her concentration at tennis remarkable. Not from one end of the game to the other did she think of outside things.

Dr. Heath stopped coaching Nicky. He thought she was better left entirely in the coaches' hands. But he made her skip for a quarter of an hour before breakfast every day, and on Saturday afternoons he gave her half an hour's special exercises to make her supple.

Annie, on hearing that ‘keep your eye on the ball' was important, got Nicky to come to the kitchen every day for ten minutes' juggling. She got to the glorified stage at last of using three balls. She thought, having reached that point, she had done enough, but Annie nipped that in the bud.

‘Think it's any fun for me to watch you messin' about with the balls? Well, I'll tell you it's not. But if they're goin' to make a champ of you, Annie's not goin' to be the only one who hasn't done 'er bit. Now then, get on with it, and don't let me hear any more of your nonsense.'

As a reward for her efforts she was given a chance of a lot of tournament play that summer. She was to play at Bournemouth, the Pleasure Gardens, Folkestone, the County Junior championship, and the South of England Junior at Eastbourne. Jim and Susan were playing only at Bournemouth and in the County Junior championships.

They were all to stay with grandfather. Pinny was in even more of a fuss than usual before they started.

‘All this match play means more tennis things.'

‘If you're going to make my things,' said Nicky, ‘for goodness' sake see they don't hang down between the legs. They look simply awful if they do.'

Pinny was worried.

‘I'll do my best, dear, but there's many a slip, you know, between the cup and the lip.'

Nicky scowled.

‘I'd rather you didn't make them. I'd rather just have two lots ready made. They could wash.'

‘You need more than two, dear,' Pinny explained, ‘and I've said I'll try.'

‘And I've said I'd rather you didn't, unless they're right.'

Mrs. Heath was writing while this argument went on. She looked up.

‘Come here, Nicky.' Nicky came over slowly. She could see her mother was cross. ‘Everybody in this house gives up some of their time to improving your tennis. Now here's Pinny planning to make for you, and all you do is to be rude before you've seen what she's making.'

‘But you see——' Nicky broke in.

‘I see a very spoilt child. Now we don't like punishments, but you must learn you can't behave like that.' Mrs. Heath turned to Pinny. ‘Nicky seems to have clear ideas how she wants her tennis things. Very well, she can cut the pattern herself.'

‘Oh, I say!' Nicky gasped. ‘I can't cut a pattern.'

Her mother looked at her.

‘You should have thought of that before you were rude to Pinny. You will cut a pattern, and it's the only one Pinny will use. And you will wear the frock cut from the pattern at all your tournaments.'

Pinny looked horrified. She could not bear the children not to be well turned out.

‘Oh, Mrs. Heath——!' she pleaded.

But Mrs. Heath was firm.

‘I trust you not to touch the scissors, Pinny. You can give advice if you like, but the cutting Nicky is to do by herself.'

It was difficult to know who had the worst afternoon. For all Pinny's advice, what Nicky cut looked like nothing on earth. Nobody could have worn it. After two and a half hours, Nicky was almost in tears.

‘This is over the fortieth I've cut, and I can see it's no good.'

‘Oh dear,' Pinny sighed, almost in tears herself. ‘Do try, dear. Remember, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again.'

Nicky held up a dreadfully shaped piece of newspaper.

‘Do you honestly and truly believe I'll cut a good pattern if I go on trying, Pinny? Do you?'

Pinny struggled between a strict regard for the truth and a wish not to discourage Nicky.

‘There's no such word as can't,' she said feebly.

Nicky dug the scissors into another piece of paper.

‘If there isn't, I expect there will be when I've finished.'

At that moment Mrs. Heath came in. She looked at the floor, at Nicky, then at Pinny. Then she burst out laughing.

‘I see you've cut plenty of patterns.'

The laughter was too much for both Nicky and Pinny. They began to cry.

‘They're all awful,' Nicky sobbed. ‘Nobody could ever get them on.'

Mrs. Heath picked up a pattern. She looked at it, trying to keep her mouth from turning up at the corners.

‘No more they could.' She turned to Pinny. ‘What pattern had you meant to use, Pinny?'

Pinny dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief.

‘A nice little McCall.'

Mrs. Heath sat down by Nicky.

‘To-morrow morning we'll ask Pinny to put the McCall over a paper and you shall cut a pattern from it.'

Nicky looked up.

‘Oh, thank you, mummy.'

‘But don't forget,' Mrs. Heath added, ‘it's you that cut it. If it hangs down anywhere, it'll be your fault.'

The tennis dresses Pinny made might have been made by a tailor. Nicky looked very nice in them. It was as well she did, for she got a lot of notice that summer. She was small for her age, and with her flaming head she caught the eye. She did nothing very spectacular, but somehow that summer she came definitely on to the junior tennis map. She won no event, although she was a semi-finalist at Folkestone and at Eastbourne. But she was news in the way some people suddenly are. No critic described any of the tournaments in which she played without mentioning her. None of the attention given her made her swollen-headed.

‘I suppose she couldn't get more proud,' Susan said to Jim. ‘She's always been the proudest person I know.'

At Folkestone a sister of grandfather's was living. Her name was Great-aunt Selina. She lived in a little house overlooking The Leas. She had an old servant, a very aggravating parrot, and a very, very old dog called Pom-Pom, who wheezed a great deal. Great-aunt Selina agreed to put Nicky up for the tournament, provided, as she wrote, ‘the dear child brings her governess and a brother or sister. One child by herself in a house makes trouble.'

It was decided that David should go and, of course, Pinny. Just before they were starting David got a bilious attack from eating too much unripe fruit, so Susan had to go. She was very annoyed, because if she had known she was going she would have entered for the tournament. In any case she hated being away in the middle of Jim's holidays.

They got to Folkestone, hot and cross, after a tiresome journey with a lot of changes.

‘Lovely, dears,' Pinny said as brightly as she could, ‘to smell the beautiful sea.'

‘I'd rather smell grandfather's garden,' Nicky argued.

‘I like that,' said Susan. ‘We'd none of us be here at all if it wasn't for you.'

‘Now come along, dears,' Pinny said briskly. ‘Dogs delight to bark and bite, but not two little girls. We must get a porter.'

They moved up to the luggage-van. It was then the awful thing was discovered. The suit-case was missing.

It was not a good introduction to Great-aunt Selina to arrive with no clothes at all. Pinny bought tooth-brushes. They all used Great-aunt Selina's sponge to wash with. They had to sleep in Great-aunt Selina's night-dresses. They were made of linen and were enormous. They had long sleeves and were right up to the neck.

Pinny sent a telegram to Dr. Heath about the luggage. As it happened Dr. Heath was out when the telegram arrived at grandfather's. In any case, telegraphing him was not the right thing to have done. Pinny should have gone to the station-master and the luggage would have been found at once. It would have come either that night, or at least the first thing next morning. As she did not see the station-master they woke up in the morning with still no suit-case. At ten o'clock they went round to the Pleasure Gardens. Nicky signed her name on the attendance-sheet at the referee's office. She looked at the draw and saw that she was playing against a girl called Coral Dean. She had never heard of her. Then she went to where the list of matches was posted. She had to play Coral at twelve. Luckily she had carried her rackets on the journey, so these at least were with her.