Love in Revolution (12 page)

The crowd quietened down, and I heard the grunt and smack of Jelek’s serve. Someone’s shoes skidded on the clay, and the ball thudded on the line. I saw it through a haze. The official called, ‘Out,’ but his voice and the applause at the end of the point were muffled, as if I had cotton wool in my ears. Skizi, here . . .

I kept my eyes on the court, my face blazing, praying that Martin wouldn’t notice anything.

‘Ten love,’ the referee said.

I didn’t even know who had won the point. I turned my head and looked at the blackboard. The girl chalking up the points was simpering, brushing her hair back over her shoulder, trying to catch Jelek’s eye.
CORAZON v JELEK, 0–10
.

Then I looked again at Skizi. She was watching, still as stone. Most people were looking at Jelek, who was about to serve again; but she was staring at Angel. I wondered if we two – we four, with Martin and Leon – were the only people rooting for him. Surely he had family here, or friends . . . ? But I scanned the front rows of the stands, where they would have been – where Jelek’s glamorous wife and younger brothers were sitting – and there was no one wearing green. I suddenly wished I was.

I clasped my hands in my lap, squeezing until it hurt, and watched Jelek serve.

He served well. It was lethally fast, and it spun off the wall and went wide, just clipping the sideline. Angel moved, but not fast enough, and he seemed to catch his foot on something. He stumbled sideways, too late.

‘Fifteen love,’ the referee said, and the crowd cheered.

Angel managed to get his hand to the next serve, but his return was straight and slow. Jelek had time to adjust his stance, twist backwards and then put his whole weight into smashing the ball straight back at Angel’s face. Angel made a surprised, frightened noise, like an animal, and ducked. Everyone laughed; and it
was
funny, or should have been. Someone called out, ‘Careful of your good looks, mate!’

The ball bounced a good two metres inside the court, and rolled to a stop. The referee said, ‘Twenty-five love.’

‘What’s
wrong
with him?’ Martin hissed. ‘He looks like someone drugged his coffee.’

I shrugged. My mouth was too dry for me to speak.

Jelek took the ball from the official, rolling his shoulders, and then stood for a few seconds flexing his wrist and bouncing a little from foot to foot. Angel stared at him, a crease between his eyebrows, and I felt a surge of frustration, that after all the other matches he’d played he
still
wasn’t used to a bit of gamesmanship . . . I wished Skizi would call out to him, the way she had when he played the Bull.

Finally Jelek served, and it was as good as I expected it to be. This time Angel lunged for it, stumbled, and fell over his own feet. He dropped to his knees on the clay, catching himself awkwardly on his hands.

‘Thirty love,’ the referee said. His voice was very flat.

The crowd had started to mutter restlessly: the excitement was turning to resentment. They’d paid to see a proper match, not some clown who couldn’t find his backside with both hands . . .

Angel stood up. His face was very white, and I could see his hands still shaking, even from where I was sitting.

Jelek got ready to serve again.

‘I don’t want to watch this,’ Martin said. ‘This is going to be horrible . . .’

He was right. I didn’t want to watch it either. Instead I looked at Skizi, staring and staring, trying to imprint her face on my retina. I thought of what she looked like when we slept together – mouth open, a crease between her closed eyes – and the shape of her body, small breasts, thin sinewy limbs . . . I thought about the smell of her bed, the musty blanket and indoor–outdoor smell, and about the drawings on her wall, beautiful and primitive, like cave paintings . . . I shut my eyes and tried to remember exactly what it had been like the first time we kissed. It made my heart beat faster just to think about it, and the hard, cold weight in my stomach softened. Somewhere a long way away the crowd applauded half-heartedly, jeered a little, muttered and unwrapped sweets and flapped their programmes. There was the thud of the ball, then a pause, another thud, shoes skidding on clay, more muttering . . . The referee said, ‘Thirty-five love . . . love thirty-five . . . thirty-five love . . . forty-love . . .’

‘He hasn’t got a
point
yet,’ Martin said. ‘Come on, Corazon, go for his head, like you did with the Bull . . .’

I tried not to listen. Skizi, I thought. Skizi . . .

‘Forty-five love,’ the referee said, as if he was bored, and then, ‘Game, Mr Jelek.’

Martin caught my eye, and grimaced. ‘Best of five, Esteya,’ he said. ‘There’s hope yet.’

‘Not the way he’s playing.’

‘He’s only a kid, anyway. Maybe he’ll win it next year.’

I shrugged. Opposite me, Skizi was watching Angel. She looked very serious, as if she was praying. Suddenly I realised that the grass stains on her shirt were in a wide band, across her chest, like a sash: she’d stained her shirt on purpose, because she hadn’t got any green material. I felt a surge of something like amusement and jealousy, mixed.

‘Second game, Mr Corazon to serve. And . . . play.’

To my surprise, he served well, and Jelek only just managed to get his hand to it. It smacked against the wall and came back wide, where Angel could lunge for it and send a gentle little lob looping back against the wall. It grazed the stone – just
brushed
the stone – and then dropped, dead weight. Jelek had run forward, but he swiped at the ball too soon, and hit it too hard. It shot past Angel, and bounced beyond the baseline.

The referee cleared his throat, and said, ‘Ten love.’ He sounded relieved.

The crowd cheered, although there was an ironic note underneath the encouragement.

‘There, you see?’ Martin said. ‘It’ll be all right. He was just nervous.’

But he was still nervous; in fact, he looked even more tense, as if that point had reminded him of what he was playing for.

He lost the serve on the next rally.

I glanced sideways. Martin was chewing his bottom lip, his chin propped on his hands. On the other side of me, Leon was glowering. And in the stands opposite, Skizi was sitting still, so still . . .

At least now I’d stopped hoping. I forced myself to breathe slowly, not to feel anything, while Jelek tore Angel apart. Jelek wasn’t even playing that
well
; it was just that Angel was like a rabbit transfixed by a weasel. I watched in a kind of miserable trance. That game passed very quickly. The final score was fifty fifteen.

The excitement had gone out of the crowd now. They’d wanted to see Jelek win, most of them, but not like this, not so easily. A couple of people shouted insults as the players had their break. Angel glanced up, hunching his shoulders as if the words were missiles. And if it went on like this, someone probably
would
throw something – an apple core or a tomato, if he was lucky; a penny or a glass bottle, if he wasn’t.

‘Time, please. Mr Jelek to serve. And . . . play.’

I watched the players walk back to the middle of the court, and wondered dully whether we’d be able to get an earlier train home than the one Mama had decided on.

Jelek’s serve was sloppy, and spun away out of the court. His second serve was a little better, but it was out too. It was Jelek’s first double fault, and the crowd whistled and booed, as if they couldn’t believe that now
he
was playing badly too.

A man in the stands opposite, just in front of Skizi, stood up and shouted something. He brought his hand up, jerked it forward in what I thought was the Communist salute, and then –

But it wasn’t the Communist salute.

And the bottle he’d thrown spun end over end so fast I only caught a glimpse of it, curving through the air towards the players.

No one seemed to see it. No one reacted. The world stood still, and the only thing moving was the bottle, flashing in the sunlight, blurring, lethally fast. From where we were sitting, you couldn’t tell which player it was aimed at – where it was going to land, which face it was going to smash –

I saw Skizi’s mouth open, her whole body jerk forward as she yelled. I couldn’t hear her voice, but her lips made the shape of, ‘Angel!’

And somehow, magically, he looked round.

I have never seen anyone move as fast as Angel did at that moment.

Suddenly he was there, next to Jelek, with his hand in front of his face as if he was shielding his eyes from the sun.

And the bottle was in his hand, intact.

There was a moment of stillness. Jelek stared at him, his eyes wide. Then he glanced up at the stands, taking in what had happened. His mouth opened, and then closed again. He cleared his throat. In the silence it made a hoarse, dry sound.

He said, ‘That would’ve hit
me
. . .’

‘Oh,’ Angel said. He hunched his shoulders and bowed his head, as if he’d done something wrong.

‘Bloody hell,’ Jelek said. He looked at the stands and back at the bottle in Angel’s hand. ‘Bloody hell,’ he said again, shaking his head. ‘If you can do
that
, then what the hell . . . ?’ He started to laugh.

Angel frowned, and he followed Jelek’s gaze, staring at the bottle in his hand as if he was seeing it for the first time. He said, in a small voice, ‘I just . . . thought . . .’

Jelek was still laughing. And slowly, with a kind of warm rumble, the audience joined in. Angel raised his head, and you could see that for a moment he thought everyone was laughing at him. Then the cheers began, and someone in the top of the stands started to chant: ‘Ang-el! Ang-el!’

Jelek’s grin faded, but he slapped Angel on the shoulder and winked at the audience, as if Angel was a fan who wanted his picture taken with him.

The referee blew a short blast on his whistle. The audience subsided, but they were still clapping, and Angel was looking round with an incredulous expression in his eyes. You could see he was confused – as if, as far as he was concerned, he hadn’t done anything special – but he had colour in his face now, and a spark in his eyes.

And Hiram Jelek, I noticed, was looking definitely tight-lipped.

‘Love all,’ the referee said. ‘Mr Corazon to serve.’

Angel served. It was a soft, wide-angled serve, that seemed to bounce off a hidden dent in the wall, and just clipped the line. Jelek hit it back, with a grunt, and Angel’s return was straight and low. The rally went on, shot after shot, the longest of the match so far. Jelek was suddenly having to fight; and he didn’t like it. He grunted again and smacked the ball, aiming for the corner of the court, and it flew over the line and hit the referee’s chair.

‘Five love,’ the referee said.

And slowly, without doing anything spectacular, Angel went on getting points. I wouldn’t have recognised the way he played – nothing fluky, nothing clever – but it worked, all the same. Ten, twenty, thirty . . . Jelek was getting rattled, and he made mistake after mistake, while Angel just kept on playing.

And between the points, there was a new note to the audience’s noise: a kind of hum of surprise and pleasure. They might see a decent game, after all . . .

‘Forty five,’ the referee said.

Angel served. It was his first really fast serve. Jelek didn’t move: he just stared at the little puff of paint where the ball had landed on the line, and shrugged, shaking his head.

‘Forty-five five.’

And the same serve again, precisely; except that this time Jelek scowled, and spun on his heel to walk back to his bottle of water and his towel.

And the audience erupted.

‘Game Mr Corazon,’ the referee must have said, but no one heard him. ‘Mr Jelek leads, two games to one.’

‘My God,’ Martin said, shouting above the noise. ‘I can’t believe it.’

Leon turned and said, ‘It’s just Jelek, being surprised that he can play at all. Once he’s got used to the idea, he’ll start playing properly again. You watch.’ He added, almost to himself, ‘They always underestimate their opponents, the upper classes . . .’

But Jelek didn’t get used to the idea. When they walked back into the middle of the court he seemed distracted, and when the audience yelled he looked round, scanning their faces. He kept smoothing his moustache.

And the next game went quickly. It was funny, because Jelek wasn’t exactly making mistakes any more; it was more that he seemed to be moving too slowly, not quite matching Angel’s pace.

‘Forty twenty,’ the referee said. His voice had taken on a new authority.

The shouts of ‘Come on, Hiram!’ and ‘Come on, Angel!’ built to a crescendo and then died away. There was quiet again, only broken by the claxon of a police car a long way away.

Martin whispered, ‘Breathe, Esteya.’

Angel served. Jelek returned it. Then Angel sent it skimming vertically up the wall – it looped high over Jelek’s head – and it dropped just inside the baseline. In.

‘Game Mr Corazon. Two games all . . .’