Under a Croatian Sun (24 page)

Zoran came over. ‘There, I told you so! The cult of the axe!’

Petar now hit out at every delivery. As with all games, even though cricket’s a team sport, in the end, it’s all about personal glory, and Petar wanted to shine. But, although his strokes were just as fierce, his early promise began to pall and, after two more overs and two missed catches by hungover fielders, he was bowled out for twenty-one.

As no one seemed to have explained the game to the spectators, the consensus after an hour of play was that the object of the game was to hit the fielders with the ball. I think they’d come to this conclusion because the hungover fielders were either being struck by the ball or were trying to dodge it when they realised they couldn’t see it well enough to stop it. I gave a brief explanation of what was supposed to be happening to those around me, and one of them then asked when it was going to finish. Having assumed it would be over in time for their Sunday lunch, they were rather taken aback
when told it could last all day and maybe most of the next day, too. Ten minutes later, the crowd had dwindled to Ivana and me, the girlfriends of the players, the national TV crew and a handful of others.

In the meantime, things were not going well for the SWHKK. Having sweated off most of the alcohol, the opposition were rapidly sobering up, and, as a consequence, wickets were beginning to fall. By midday, we were all out and in time for an embarrassingly early lunch.

‘This is dreadful,’ I said mournfully to Ivana. ‘It’s going to be a humiliating defeat and it’ll put the island off the game for ever!’

‘Don’t worry. Look! Everyone’s having a great time and it’s not raining. If it was England, it would be pouring down, the pitch would already be a wet sponge and I’d be sitting in the car in a monumental grump.’

After lunch, Luka placed the team, and Bozo stood behind the wicket in his pads and gloves looking like one of those Russian moustachioed wooden dolls. Petar was to open the bowling, and he paced back from the wicket like he’d seen the professionals do. He then swivelled round, thrust out his chin and almost pawed the ground before leaping off towards the wicket like a Vulcan out of the clouds. The ball left his hand with frightening velocity, but, fizzing like a top, it shot past the batsman, the stumps and Bozo’s gloves to find its mark in Bozo’s stomach. It sank into it like a cannonball sinking into the oak of a French frigate, bringing a hideous groan from Bozo before he toppled to the ground. The team gathered round, and, after some deliberation, they picked him up and carried him to the boundary. Having divested him of his pads, they gave them to Dali the postman, and, after giving Bozo an affectionate pat,
they left him there, groaning, with his wife, his three sisters and his two daughters fussing over him.

Once Dali was at the wicket, Petar hurtled towards the pitch again like Jonah Lomu coming at an England scrum, and once again his massive right arm flung down a ball with appalling ferocity. This time it was so wide and going at such speed that in two bounces it was over the boundary. Four wides!

By the end of the over, Petar had got his eye in, but Dali behind the wicket was struggling to cope. The speed of the ball was one problem, but the other was Dali’s misconception that, if he thrust out his gloves, spread his pads and yelled loudly enough, the flight of the ball would somehow be arrested.

Our next bowler was Marin, who also spent most of his first over delivering high-velocity wides (at one point I wondered if we might qualify for an entry in the
Guinness Book of Records
for the record number of wides bowled in one match), but by the third over Petar had got the right pace and was putting more spin on his balls. One of them came down with such a turn on it that it shot up off the Astroturf at the batsman’s head. Now there’s only one way to deal with a bouncer and that’s to swivel on one foot and hit it when it’s almost on your nose, and the batsman tried to do this, but his timing was out and the ball caught him on the ear. He fell as if pole-axed. The fielders helped him up and he came off holding his hand to his ear in evident pain.

As we waited for the next man, I saw Petar and Luka huddling by the scoreboard and went over to ask what was up. They had just discovered that there was such a thing as bodyline bowling. No one had told them about it but they had worked it out. Once again, I should have said that it just wasn’t cricket, but once again I didn’t and the cock crowed thrice. It probably
was
the only way we’d ever get them out.

The play recommenced with the new tactic in force, but the ball only did what was required when it found a hard patch. The only victim was Filip at slip, who got a ball on the kneecap and hopped about on one foot in agony like a clumsy stork before being helped off the field.

Forty-five for one wicket; one batsman and two fielders retired hurt, I noted in the score book.

But, try as they might, our bowlers just couldn’t get the measure of the batsmen who by now were carting balls off to the boundary. The high point of the afternoon was when one of the shots put up a pheasant in the next field. (A descendant of the pheasants that Captain Hoste had brought over to provide sport for his officers, which have survived ever since on a nourishing diet of island berries.)

Finally, at six o’clock, we drew stumps. A crushing defeat some might say (although no worse than England’s 2012 performance against India). However, no one seemed at all upset by the result and we had a terrific celebration party that night at Marko’s.

The highlight of the evening was watching excerpts of the match on the national TV news and hearing the newsreader calling it ‘a historic event in Croatian sport’.

T
wo important lessons were learned from our first match by the Kriket Klub. First, that English cricket players had an extraordinary capacity to down a phenomenal amount of liquor and still be able to wield a bat quite effectively, and, second, that practising on a tennis court wasn’t going to get us very far. We needed some nets.

So, for the next week, I badgered every yacht flying a red ensign that came into the harbour for a contribution, and the response was terrific. I was overwhelmed by the generosity, and soon I had enough to buy everything we needed in Split. Now we could get down to some proper practice.

On the opening practice, though, an almighty thwack from Petar broke the only oversized bat we had. As no one had seen a broken bat before, they all crowded round to look, but Petar was distraught. At six foot five, he needed it. However I was going to London to talk with my Dutch friend Kaes about
his job offer the next week, so I told Petar that I’d get him another.

I had thought that a meeting with Kaes at the opening of the artist’s exhibition in a Cork Street gallery would serve as a good crossroads. I’d be able to compare my old life shoulder-to-shoulder with my new one and come to a decision. I’d been thinking a lot about the offer and the more I thought about it, the more attractive it seemed. I wouldn’t have the financial worry of owning a company, and, if it went well, the money would be good.

How at home I felt the minute I arrived in a sunny, bustling, August London. How safe and anonymous I felt in my funny-old-buttoned-up Fulham, and how strange it felt not having anyone to greet as I walked down the high street – but at least there was no one scowling at me.

The opening was well under way when I arrived at the gallery. I wasn’t sure how I rated the art – large abstract expressionist paintings in shades of black, violet, red and green with a hint of realism. I’d take a closer look at them later. Right now, I needed a drink and I made a well-practised dive for the hospitality table in case the champagne ran out. Spotting Kaes talking to one of the art critics, I made my way over to him. He was holding an unlit cigarette in one hand and was clearly dying to go outside and smoke it, but the critic kept asking him questions.

Pleased to see me, Kaes motioned to a waiter to bring me another glass (he knew me well) and called to the artist. A sharp-featured, serious-looking young man from Zambia wearing a black T-shirt under a dark-grey Armani-type jacket, he smiled confidently when introduced and asked me about the American galleries. We started to talk, but were interrupted by a journalist
asking a fatuous question about the scars on his cheeks. I moved away. We could talk later.

‘You’re looking tanned,’ said a voice in my ear. It was Ben, an old colleague who looked like a cross between Alfred Hitchcock and Johnny Vegas.

‘It’s the outdoor life,’ I replied.

‘Looks more like George Hamilton III after a session with a lamp. Your tan looks ominously even, dear boy. I bet if you dropped your drawers, we wouldn’t see white cheeks! What’s happening on this island of yours?’

‘Darling,’ interrupted the editor of
Arts Today,
giving my cheek a quick peck. ‘Don’t you look wonderful! Must go and see your island one day. Sounds too divine for words!’ She sighted someone else and disappeared.

‘In the opinion of the wise, sunshine isn’t good for you at all,’ said Ben, who had the pallor of a blancmange.

‘Coming from you, that’s a bit rich. You must be the unhealthiest person I know. But to tell the truth, I do feel rather alien among all you pale-faces.’

‘I never really went for that tanned look myself,’ said Ben. ‘I’ve always thought it shows a rather unmanly narcissism. Methinks a pale and interesting look befits me better.’

‘You mean you don’t think my masculine weather-beaten look suggests an active and adventurous life and might serve me well as an allurement to the fair sex?’

‘Despite the tan, you still look like a scarecrow, mate. Mind you, you could always get yourself a part in one of those films where they have ragged, weather-beaten slaves rowing Roman galleys.’

‘Piss off, Ben. You’re just jealous.’

I rejoined the artist, but a younger critic was now with him. I listened in. ‘Is the abstract engagement in the question of
temporality really relevant to the current debate on whether art can truly be part of a society based on hedonism?’ I heard the man saying, and then without giving the artist time to reply he added, ‘And, if it is, how does it contribute to the ongoing didactic of art?’

Er…? Was I just unaccustomed to this art-speak or had the months of hanging around with the crowd at Zoran’s degenerated my brain?

The artist seemed equally befuddled by the question and discreetly steered the conversation to the beginnings of African art. Bright young man. He’d go far.

Looking around, I could see all the usual faces from the other galleries and the usual bunch of art critics. Those I knew came up to ask how I was getting on with my new life, but I had forgotten how noisy these occasions were and how difficult it was to have a conversation. After the token questions, most of my ex-colleagues gave up and went to see what business was to be done in the room. No one seemed particularly interested in the art.

Had it always been like this, or had I just never noticed?

As the evening wore on, the crowd thinned and I was able to have a word with Kaes. He was very buoyed up by the show and we talked about what I might be able to do for the American promotion. We then looked at the work together. It was totally original and rather beautiful in an abstract way, but didn’t exactly gladden the heart and quicken the blood. We’d have to put together a pretty convincing story if we were going to succeed in America.

I told Kaes I’d get back to him about his offer and took a taxi to the tiny flat we’d bought when we sold the house. Sitting in the back of the taxi, I realised how unsettled I had felt at the exhibition. I’d only been away for six months and yet I’d felt
like a duck out of water. Why did it all seem so contrived, and why had this never struck me before? Did I really want to go back to all that again?

I spent the night being woken up by police sirens and I got into the minicab for Gatwick with a certain sense of relief. On the way, I stopped off at the Oval shop to buy Petar the bat, but, as the only oversized bats they had weren’t knocked in, I bought a bottle of linseed oil as well. I didn’t need a hammer as my father’s old wooden one was decorating our mantelpiece on Vis.

Once back on the island, I went to tell Ivana about my meeting and then took the bat round to Petar. He listened politely as I explained how to knock it in, but I could tell that he thought I was just being an old cricket bore and that it wasn’t really necessary. And, sure enough, a week later, it was broken. Shamefaced, he asked if I could get him another, and, since he always gave me a case of his best wine whenever I got him anything, I was only too delighted. I rang Richard who was coming out again, and, when he brought it, Petar was so happy that I got two cases. I hoped he’d break this one, too.

It wasn’t long before the news of our first match had spread throughout the world of cricket. From Yorkshire to Delhi to Cape Town to Jamaica to New South Wales, websites, newsletters, blogs and tweets carried the historic news to every cricket-playing community on earth and the reaction was overwhelming. Clubs from everywhere rang and emailed (some thought Vis was a country). The players hadn’t really believed me when I’d told them about the worldwide cricketing fraternity, and were gobsmacked by the response. I was on top of the world and felt as if I had scaled Everest, sailed the Atlantic or got a date with Keira Knightley. Perhaps one day I really would be walking the members of the
SWHKK down the hallowed, high-ceilinged Long Room in Lords and standing underneath with them to look up in awe at the giant painting of W.G.

Our first new challenge came from a Royal Navy destroyer on a UN patrol of the ex-war zone. I was worried that they might also be too good for us. Last time, we’d been able to laugh off our defeat, but how long could we continue to do that? As Richard was still with us and as he had played for his university (and could have played for his county had he not wanted to spend his life wearing funny wigs and talking the hind leg off a donkey), I thought that if he was on the team it might strengthen our hand. So I took him round to Petar, who, as the only club member with an email and a fax, had been given the job of fixtures organiser and team selector.

But Petar looked embarrassed when I said that we might have a chance of winning with Richard playing. ‘I am sure your skills would be a great help to us,’ he said apologetically, ‘but every young man on the island now wants their wife or girlfriend to see what sort of man they are, and they are all wanting a place on the team. You would never think that only a few weeks ago Luka, Anthony and I couldn’t even find eleven men. Now there are so many wanting to play that we cannot possibly give a place to an outsider, even if it might help us win.’

‘Of course you can’t,’ said Richard quickly. ‘We’ve got just the same “locals first” policy in my club, too.’

‘But maybe you can give us some coaching. Yes?’ said Petar, clamping a tree trunk of an arm round Richard’s narrow shoulders and squeezing hard.

Richard winced and acquiesced.

That settled, Petar uncorked a bottle and told us that an Australian club had just telephoned.

‘The Australian captain was talking in English, but there were many words I did not understand. What is the meaning of “stick-it-up-them” and “slaughter”?’

‘I’m afraid our Australian cousins are not known for their silken tongues,’ I said. ‘They’re world-class swearers and they’ve got more names for vomit than any other language in Christendom.’

‘But do they use these words when they are playing?’

‘Oh, yes. You can count on that,’ said Richard. ‘I sometimes think they could win the Ashes just by swearing at us.’

Petar looked apprehensive. ‘My mother wants to be at all our matches.’

Still worried about the possibility of another crushing defeat, I got the destroyer’s telephone number from the Admiralty and rang the games officer to ask about the strength of his team. I was answered by one of those wonderfully nasal voices you hear in World War II movies. ‘Our opening bowler has a slipped disc; our opening batsman hasn’t scored double figures all season; our number two only plays because Ian Botham used to patronise his mother’s pizzeria; our number three is frightened of getting injured in case he’ll lose some of his shore-leave allowance… Shall I go on?’

We laughed. It sounded like we were going to be in good company.

I was a bit worried when I saw a black rubber assault craft roaring into the bay and a bunch of horribly fit-looking young men leaping on to the beach as if it was a D-Day landing, but, when I saw the state of their equipment, I relaxed.

As they had to be back on board by nightfall, we went straight up to the field and the captains tossed. We won and Marin went in to open. This time he got to the pitch of it and I
swelled with pride to see how much he had improved since we’d had the nets. Domigoy, in at number two, had much improved, too, and was making some pretty impressive wristy drives, even though his footwork still needed working on. He was also making some of the top-edged clips he’d seen the Indian batters doing on the videos.

Petar, in at number three, had improved beyond all measure, and chalked up thirty in three overs. He could now deal with slow spinners and was handing out some pretty aggressive drives when he remembered to be patient and play them late. Like most village cricketers, however, patience was not Petar’s strongest suit, and in his fifth over he forgot to wait for it, and a good length ball spun off his bat into the hands of the wicket keeper. Fifty-one in six overs. Not bad.

The rest of the club acquitted themselves fairly well, too, but, when Filip was out for a duck, he took it badly. He stormed off the field and chucked his bat on to the ground with his tombstone face contorted like a man in the early stages of rabies. Bubbles weren’t quite coming out at the corners of his mouth, but he was having difficulty swallowing and the only sounds coming out were X- and Z-filled words involving God and unnatural sexual practices.

None of the club had ever experienced cricket rage before and didn’t know what to do. Luka and Petar went over to try to calm him down, but he stomped off over the heather, cursing as he went. Don’t worry, I told the team, it was considered quite normal behaviour in most cricket pavilions the length and breadth of England.

In fact, I hardly even registered it when any of my old teammates threw a wobbly. I’d got inured to it – first the ritual throwing of the bat across the changing room followed by the pads and perhaps the box, then the stomp round the
boundary uttering expletives, and then the eventual return to the pavilion where the teammates, of course, do that English thing of pretending they haven’t noticed anything untoward. Mind you, if the player has a wife or a girlfriend, things end differently – usually with the loved one proclaiming that, if he behaves like that one more time, she’ll never go to his stupid matches again and will most probably leave him. (There are usually a few side threats thrown in too; like sticking his whites into a mixed wash or putting a virus into all his cricket websites before she leaves.) But the members of the Kriket Klub had no experience of cricket-rage and were baffled by the sight of the most solemn of their members in such a state of apoplexy.

I wasn’t unduly worried. After a season or two of hearing the Croatian version of ‘
would you fucking believe it!
’ being shouted and seeing bats being hurled to the ground or pads skied into the air, they’d get used to it.

In the end, Filip calmed down and we drew stumps at six. The score: HMS
Invincible
: 94 for 7. The Sir William Hoste Kriket Klub: 114 for 8. Our first win!