The Tennis Party (3 page)

The only child of a successful toy manufacturer, Cressida had been raised by her aristocratic mother to live on a stream of chequebooks, shop accounts and credit cards – all to be paid off by Daddy. Even now, she invariably carried little cash. Her portfolio
of investments, managed by a blue-blooded investment management firm in London, kept a steady flow of income into her Coutts account, and it was now Charles, not Daddy, who undertook the monthly reckoning up of bills.

The portfolio had diminished rather sharply in size over the last three years. A large chunk had gone on the house in the Cathedral Close, and another on buying out Angus, his former business partner. Charles was now the sole proprietor of the Silchester Print Centre, part gallery, part shop, dealing in prints of all descriptions. When he, Angus and Ella had run the Centre together, it had been different. They had put on lots of exhibitions of new young artists; had held printing workshops; had sponsored an annual print competition at the local technical and arts college. Now, running it more or less on his own, and engrossed with Cressida and the twins, Charles found himself veering towards the safer, more predictable end of the market. Old prints of Silchester Cathedral; prints of watercolours by Sargent; even posters of Van Gogh’s
Sunflowers
. He defended this path to himself on financial grounds: the figures weren’t as good as they had been; it was time to stop throwing money around on experimental projects and consolidate. When a small voice in his brain pointed out that the figures had only got worse
after
he’d given up on all the experimental projects, he ignored it.

He didn’t regret leaving Ella. Occasionally he felt momentary stirrings of nostalgia for their cosy existence together in Seymour Road. But that hadn’t been real life. This, mingling with important people in an important house in the Close, was real life. Discussing schools for the twins, instructing Coutts to open bank accounts for them, was real life. Being asked, as he had been today, to be godfather to the Hon. Sebastian Fairfax – that was real life.

Homely, red-brick Seymour Road had simply been a preparation for the real world. He remembered it fondly and still held affection for it – but it was the same affection he felt for his childhood rocking-horse when he outgrew it. As for Ella, he hardly ever gave her a thought.

The lights were on at eighteen Seymour Road when Stephen Fairweather pushed his bike through the gate and padlocked it to the fence. The overgrown front garden smelt of fresh evening air and honeysuckle; as he pushed open the front door, this was combined with the aroma of frying mushrooms.

Downstairs, in the cosy basement kitchen, Annie was making mushroom omelette while Nicola sat at the kitchen table, carefully colouring in a map of
Africa. Stephen stood at the door watching her for a moment. His heart contracted as he saw her clenching the pen, controlling the movements of her arm as best she could and frowning with impatience when a sudden jerk sent the green colour shooting outside the black outline of the map.

Colouring was good for her co-ordination, Nicola’s physiotherapist said. Anything that used the damaged right side of her body should be encouraged. So the kitchen table was permanently heaped with colouring-books, beanbags for throwing and catching, skipping-ropes, crayons, cutting-out scissors, spillikins, rubber rings, rubber balls, jigsaws. Next to her map of Africa, Stephen saw Nicola’s holiday project folder. ‘Africa is a continent, not a country,’ he read. ‘Zambia and Zimbabwe are in Africa. The weather is very hot and there is not very much water. Sometimes the people starve.’ Nicola had just been starting to learn to write when she had had the stroke. Now her writing was spidery, with ill-formed letters ground hard into the page. He could read frustration in every jagged line.

She looked up then, and her thick spectacles gleamed with pleasure.

‘Hello, Daddy!’ Annie looked up from the frying-pan.

‘Stephen! I didn’t hear you come in!’ He crossed
the kitchen, ruffling Nicola’s hair on the way, and gave Annie a kiss. Her cheeks were bright red from the heat and her dark hair had curled into tendrils around her face. ‘Did you have a good day?’ she asked.

Stephen closed his eyes and briefly reviewed the last twelve hours. An early train journey into London; an hour’s wait at the department to see his supervisor for fifteen minutes; a sandwich at the British Library while waiting for the documents he’d requested; a few hours’ good work; a late appearance at a seminar he’d promised to attend; back onto the train and home . . . He opened his eyes again.

‘Yes, not bad,’ he said.

Stephen was scheduled to finish his Ph.D. the next summer. At the rate he was going, it might just be possible – but still the thought of marshalling his assorted notes, ideas and theories into a coherent, substantial thesis filled him with a blank dread. Information that had seemed solid enough when he put together his thesis proposal, arguments that had seemed weighty and convincing, now seemed to have become gossamer thin, floating out of the grasp of his mind whenever he attempted to formulate them in academic English or even find a place for them in his introduction.

At the department, at seminars, even at home with
Annie, he remained outwardly confident, assuming with a worrying ease the veneer of someone who knows he is going to succeed. He never articulated his secret fear – that he simply wasn’t up to the rigours of such an ambitious project; that he should have stayed as he was: a humble schoolmaster with no pretensions to changing the face of fourteenth-century musical history.

He opened the fridge and cracked open a beer. ‘Did I say I had a good day?’ he said humorously. ‘I must be mad. Mark wasn’t free to see me when he’d said he would be, my papers took forever to arrive, and I was coerced into going to the mad Bulgarian woman’s seminar.’ Nicola giggled.

‘Is she really mad?’

‘Barking,’ said Stephen solemnly. ‘She entertained us for an hour with her views on the music that is all around us in nature.’

‘Birds singing,’ suggested Nicola.

‘If only,’ said Stephen. ‘No, she was talking about trees, and snails’ shells, and other completely soundless creatures.’

‘Definitely mad,’ said Annie. Stephen took a swig of beer.

‘And did you all have a good day?’ He looked around. ‘Is Toby in bed?’ Annie grinned.

‘Yes, we wore him out with a walk on the downs.
We took a picnic up there. It’s been such wonderful weather.’

‘And then we got everyone’s clothes ready for tomorrow,’ said Nicola. Stephen looked puzzled.

‘What’s tomorrow?’

‘The tennis party, of course,’ said Nicola in tones of amazement. ‘You must know about that!’

‘He does know,’ said Annie. ‘He’s just pretending he’s forgotten.’ Stephen shook his head.

‘No, this time I didn’t have to pretend. It really had gone straight out of my mind.’

‘Good thing Mummy remembered,’ said Nicola, ‘all our things needed washing.’ Stephen grimaced.

‘I didn’t know I had any “things”.’

‘Old white shorts and an aertex,’ said Annie briskly. ‘And your racquet’s just about OK. A string’s missing, but . . .’

‘But someone with my talent doesn’t need the equipment,’ said Stephen. ‘I know. What about you?’

‘Well actually,’ said Annie, blushing slightly, ‘Caroline very kindly said I could borrow some of her things. I think she realized . . .’ She tailed off and her dark eyes met Stephen’s green ones. For a moment, he felt a flash of anger. He knew Caroline’s sympathetic, slightly too-loud remarks; her appraising looks; her complete incomprehension as to why anyone would chuck in a perfectly good teaching job to do more
studying
, for Christ’s sake. He would be aware of her no doubt kindly meant gesture all day. But to say any of that to Annie would be unforgivable.

‘Very good of her,’ he said lightly. ‘Pity Patrick’s such a fat bugger. Otherwise I could have swanned around in his Lacoste. Perhaps I will anyway.’ And, hoisting his rucksack onto his back, he went out of the kitchen and up the stairs to put away his books.

Caroline woke up the next morning to the sensation of Patrick’s warm breath on her neck. Keeping her eyes closed, she registered first the fact that a brightness, which must be the morning sun, was penetrating her eyelids with a red glare. Then she became aware that Patrick’s stubby fingers were roaming over her body, under her nightdress, stirring her unwillingly into a pleasurable wakefulness. Still she kept her eyes closed, mimicking sleep, or at least inertia.

Even when Patrick pushed his way into her, with the unmistakable enthusiasm of the early-morning fuck, she managed to keep her face impassive. She focused her attention on what she was going to wear that day, then forced herself to wonder whether she ought to pluck her eyebrows, until suddenly, with an involuntary cry, her concentration was overcome and she surrendered to pleasure.

When Patrick had exhausted himself he collapsed
beside her. ‘You enjoyed that,’ he said in an accusing tone. Caroline ignored him. ‘Didn’t you?’ he persisted. She shrugged.

‘I suppose so.’

‘So why did you pretend you didn’t?’ He raised himself on one elbow and looked at her. Caroline smiled lazily. Her fingers were tingling and she felt benevolent.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Probably to piss you off.’

They lay in silence for a few minutes, then Patrick heaved himself up, avoiding Caroline’s eye. He wrapped an unnecessary towel around himself and disappeared reproachfully into the
en suite
bathroom. Caroline, staring after him, couldn’t quite summon the energy to call after him. Once upon a time she would have followed him into the shower; kissed and made up under the powerful blast.

But this morning she felt indolent and heavy limbed. She could barely bring herself to scrabble for her cigarette case, let alone leap up for a repeat session. She stared up at the white ceiling, at the white muslin curtains, translucent with morning sunshine, and wondered vaguely why she could no longer bring herself to respond to Patrick’s lovemaking. She certainly wasn’t frigid, and he certainly hadn’t lost his touch. Perhaps it was just that she didn’t want him to feel pleased with himself.

She sighed, reached for her lighter and, without moving from the pile of broderie anglaise pillows, lit up a menthol cigarette, inhaling deeply and blowing clouds of smoke up into the canopy of their dark, oak four-poster. She could hear the shower going; it wouldn’t be long before he came back in, probably still with that wounded look. Well, today he would just have to remain wounded. He would soon cheer up. And he should count himself bloody lucky that they still occupied – even if not always in perfect harmony – the same bed. She could think of couples who had experimented with single beds and separate rooms – never to return to the cosy familiarity of a shared duvet.

But when Patrick came in again, hair slicked back and chest gleaming with droplets of water, he was actually whistling. Caroline peered at him suspiciously through the haze of smoke and waited for him to say that smoking in bed was a fire hazard, but he briskly threw open his wardrobe, pulled out pristine white socks, shirt and shorts, and began to get dressed.

‘Why are you so bloody cheerful?’ she demanded, as he tucked in his shirt. He ignored her, and began to comb his damp hair. Then he pulled open the curtains and thrust open the window. A breeze billowed the curtains, and Caroline, warmly cocooned in the duvet, scowled as the cool air hit her face.

‘You should get up,’ he said. ‘It’s going to be another scorcher.’

‘What time is it?’

‘Nine o’clock. We should get cracking. They’ll probably all get here around ten-thirty, eleven. The Mobyns are leaving at ten.’ He looked at himself in the mirror and made a few imaginary shots.

Those bloody Mobyns again, thought Caroline, and gave Patrick a distrustful look.

Stephen and Annie arrived in Bindon at exactly ten-thirty. The roads out of Silchester had, contrary to Stephen’s predictions, proved remarkably clear, and even the children had chosen their ice-lollies at the service station with a brisk efficiency.

‘I hope we’re not too early,’ said Annie, as the car pulled into the tarmac drive of The White House. ‘Are there any other cars here yet?’ They all peered out of the windows. A sprinkler was playing on the semicircular lawn in front of the house, swinging round to douse the immaculate shrubs bordering the drive; then swinging back to play on the central flower-bed. As it changed direction, a spray of drops landed on the car, and the children shrieked with laughter.

‘There’s a car,’ said Nicola, pointing to the very shiny navy-blue Mercedes which was parked at a skewed angle in front of the house.

‘That’s Caroline’s,’ said Annie. ‘We must be the first. Well, they did say to arrive between ten and eleven.’

‘Can we go under the sprinklers?’ said Nicola. Annie glanced at Stephen.

‘I’m not really sure . . .’

‘Why shouldn’t they?’ he said, in a slightly defensive voice. ‘They won’t do any harm.’

‘OK then, but make sure . . .’ Annie tailed off as Nicola and Toby slithered out of the car. Toby ran cleanly towards the lawn, a little brown body in blue shorts and T-shirt. Nicola hurried along beside him, her right foot trailing slightly with an expedient awkwardness. She always forgot about using both feet when she was in a hurry. Once under the spray, they seemed unsure what to do; eventually they began to splash each other rather ineffectually.

Stephen sighed.

‘This is what Nicola needs more of,’ he said. ‘Fresh air, exercise . . .’ Annie bit back the retort that she already got plenty of exercise and looked sidelong at Stephen. He was frowning disconsolately; staring through the window at the impressive façade of The White House. He had been moody all morning; disparagingly plucking the threadbare strings of his racquet during breakfast, snapping at Toby when he knocked over the milk.

Annie was pretty sure the trouble was his work.
He had stopped coming back from the library overflowing with ideas and enthusiasm; whenever she tried to question him about it he became defensive and cut her short with some sarcastic rejoinder. So different from the way he’d been when his research was just a hobby; when there was no pressure on him to produce anything tangible. She longed for him to open up to her and share his worries – but then she wasn’t sure he’d even admitted them to himself.