Games People Play

by Voss, Louise

  The crowd sits forwards and puts away their sandwiches, and I feel them urging me on. It is euphoric. I wish Mark could see me now. I wonder if there is any chance this match is being broadcast on Eurosport. I’ll do it for him. I have another fleeting fantasy, that he’ll have jumped on a plane and is, even as I think it, cheering me on silently, one of the blur of faces before me.

  I win the second set 6-1. Natasha tries desperately to maintain her expression of undiluted evil, but I can see I’ve upset her badly. Her brow is a furious furrow of concentration, and I can almost see her marshalling her strength to fight back.

  We start the third a little more cautiously, gauging each other’s respective fatigue and fury but, despite my queasiness, I still have the edge. I am 3-1 up, at thirty–all, waiting to receive Natasha’s serve.

  She suddenly kneels down and does up her shoelace – I’m sure it wasn’t undone, but it is a stalling tactic – and I make the fatal mistake of glancing into the crowd. Hearing a man’s voice calling, ‘Go on, Rachel!’ clear as a bell and sounding just like Mark. I even think I see him, sitting there, beaming at me: my wish fulfilment fantasy.

  By the time Natasha straightens up again, I’ve realized with disappointment that of course it isn’t Mark at all, just somebody who sounds like him, but it is enough to tip the balance of the match again. She aces me; and what makes me catch my breath isn’t the loss of the crucial point, but the acute pain of the loss of Mark. My concentration is shot.

  I haven’t realized that I am holding my breath until I begin to feel literally vertiginous, but as Natasha moves across to serve, at forty–thirty, and aces me again, it is too late to simply exhale. Suddenly I feel very, very unwell, rather than just the under-the-weather sensation I’ve had throughout the match. The court beneath my feet begins to rock slightly, and I know I have to sit down immediately, before blackness creeps up over me.

  ‘Three-two to Miss Anderson, third set. One set all,’ says the umpire, in German, and I realize with overwhelming relief that I have one minute to sit down and get myself back together. I sip cold water, dry the sweat off my face, put my head between my knees, and breathe as deeply as I can, feeling my ribcage expand and push against the tops of my thighs. It’s not over. I’m still winning, just. She held her serve, that’s to be expected. I’ve broken her once in this set. I can do it again. I just have to not let her break me in this game. She is not having this game, no way. I mutter to myself in the damp quiet between my trembling knees. It’s as if the crowd has vanished, and I know this is good, because if they aren’t there, then Mark can’t be there either, and I need him not to be there because his absence – or his imaginary presence – is putting me off.

  ‘Zeit,’ says the umpire. Time. Time to forget about feeling ill. I’ve got all evening for that. Time to work. Time to win.

  Thankfully, I’ve stopped feeling dizzy, but despite my pep talk, I lose the next game; and the next. It’s my serve, and if she breaks me again, it’s all over.

  I don’t serve well, but she makes a couple of unforced errors, and I’m thirty–love up. Then, after a long rally, she runs up to the net to take my drop shot, skids and slips up, her long legs splaying out on the court in different directions. The ball goes in the net and she bangs her racket head on the ground in frustration. We are both desperate.

  She’s not hurt, although she takes her time walking back to the baseline. I serve for the game – right into the net. Gritting my teeth, I put a huge spin on my second serve, sending the ball curving up and away, bouncing so high that she has no chance of returning it. The game is mine. Four-all. I wipe my face with my wristband, grateful that I’ve stopped feeling sick. Two more, I think. Two more games, then I can go and lie down and cry for my beautiful Mark.

  I feel like a gladiator in an amphitheatre, fighting to the death. Natasha wants to kill me, so I must kill her first. It’s weird – it’s not as if I’m playing the world number one, or somebody who’d boost my ranking hugely. Beating Natasha would hike it up a bit, but it’s not about points or rankings or getting through to the semis, or even winning this tournament.

  I just want to beat her, and I feel almost grateful that she hates me enough to get me this worked up.

  Perhaps she did hurt herself when she fell, or perhaps she’s just cracking under the pressure, but in the next game I break back again, with relative ease. Five-four. The match is within my grasp at last, and it’s my serve. As we change ends, I look up and see José, Kerry and Dad like the three wise monkeys, all leaning forwards in their seats, rigid with pressure; and somehow this reassures me. I’m not on my own. I can do this. As long as I don’t think about Mark’s face at the airport.

  As we walk back to our respective ends, the crowd is cheering loudly, expressing their excitement that this is a match which could go either way, a match which is the equivalent of a page-turning thriller that you can’t put down. In my head I hear an imaginary commentator’s voice: ‘Rachel, serving for the match. Can she hold her nerve?’

  I jog from foot to foot. The ballboy feeds me three balls; I put one in the pocket of my tight dress, discard one, and roll the third in the palm of my left hand. The lineswomen stand around like policemen, arms behind their backs, legs splayed in their unflattering beige trousers, waiting for my mistakes. I throw the ball high, lift my racket, drop it behind my head, bend my knees, and launch myself with all my strength into the serve. It goes so fast that I’m as surprised as Natasha. When I look at the read-out of the speed, it says 115 mph: my fastest ever.

  She gets it back, though, just about, and I have to run like hell to reach her return. I slam it past her, right into the far corner, and the cheers of the crowd gives me an almost sexual fluttery feeling in my belly.

  I serve again, not as fast this time, but another ace. There’s been a lot of aces in this match. Natasha’s eyes are narrowed and she is muttering to herself, staring at the ground.

  The next rally is a long, exhausting one. She has me running from side to side, as if she’s toying with me again – until one of her shots goes wide, and her strategy fails. Forty-love; three match points. Could I really be lucky enough to win the match on a love game? The crowd are no longer still, but fidgety and murmuring, slow hand clapping. The umpire has to shush them as I wait for the serve.

  It happens in slow motion, my body falling into the positions it knows as well as walking: the ball toss, the leg bend, dropping the racket behind my head, hopping forwards on impact, until the ball finally leaves me, flying away to the exact spot I want it to go to, right at Natasha’s big feet like a heat-seeking missile, too close for her to be able to react on one side or another. She scrapes it off the ground – straight into the net. It’s all over. I’ve won.

  Chapter 17

  Rachel

  I have to go and do a brief post-match press conference as soon as I get off court. I hate doing these all red-faced and sweaty, but at least I’m the victor, so I’ve got a smile on my face for the TV cameras. I’m used to them now; they no longer frighten me as they used to when I was an up and coming Junior. But as I gabble away about my performance, all I can think about is how I’m longing to get to my phone and see if there’s a message from Mark.

  As soon as I’m released I almost break into a run towards the locker room, stopping only to scrawl hasty autographs on outsize tennis balls for a group of clamouring Swiss schoolchildren. The locker room is empty. I rush over to my locker, open it and grab my phone out of my bag.

  No messages. I feel my shoulders sag. Much more slowly, I strip off my clothes and head for the showers.

  When I get back I check the phone again, just in case he’s rung or texted in the last four minutes. Still nothing. I am standing wrapped only in a towel, dripping on the floor, staring at the little blank screen, not thinking about the biggest win of my career, or the fact that I’ve got to do it all again tomorrow – only this time against the player ranked third in the world. I’m not thinking about my own rank
ing, or even the fact that I’m in with a good chance of winning the whole tournament …I’m just wishing there could be a text from Mark telling me he loves me after all.

  Suddenly the phone rings in my hand, making me jump, and my heart hurdle in tandem. As is often the case when I’m abroad, the caller’s number isn’t showing up, but I’m sure my prayers have been answered.

  Breathlessly, I press the green button and hold the phone to my ear.

  ‘Hi, darling, it’s Mummy,’ says a distant crackly voice. ‘Is this a good time?’

  I sink down on to the wooden slatted bench and begin to sob with disappointment. But the line is bad, and I don’t think she hears my distress.

  ‘Just ringing to tell you that I’ve booked the holiday! We’re going to Italy, in three weeks’ time, isn’t that exciting?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I manage. ‘But I’ve got to go, Mum, I’m about to be—’ I drop the phone on to the bench as a tsunami of nausea sweeps up from my knees to my throat, and I make it to the toilet just in time.

  If I ever needed a bloody holiday, it was now.

  I don’t tell anybody I vomited. Actually, I feel marginally better for it, as if I was puking out some of the stress and disappointment. I ring Mum back again later, after the fuss and excitement and congratulations from Kerry and José and a little coterie of British tennis supporters and journalists in the players’ enclosure of the stadium.

  Mum is thrilled to hear I’m through to the semi-final, and speechless when she hears whom I’m playing next. She can’t believe I’ve just been interviewed on Eurosport, or that my ranking will go up for getting to the semis, probably to eighth in the UK. She tells me a bit more about the holiday, and says she’ll post me my air ticket.

  ‘I bet Ivan’s pleased with you,’ she says eventually, and I look around me, puzzled. I see lots of fit young people in tracksuits milling about, and José and Kerry are laughing and messing around, sharing a sports drink with two straws. But I suddenly realize I haven’t seen Dad since the end of the match.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I reply. ‘He’s not here. I mean, he was, but he isn’t now. Maybe his migraine came back.’

  I hear Mum tutting in Kansas. ‘Probably can’t stand that you’re in the limelight,’ she says cattily. ‘Perhaps he and your opponent have gone off to console each other in private somewhere.’

  I think of how gutted Natasha must be, and feel sorry for her. I saw her briefly, giving her ‘loser’s debrief’ to the TV cameras, and then she had vanished, sloping away with her racket bag over her shoulder. She was barely able to shake my hand after the match, trailing her fingers perfunctorily across mine over the net, not even bothering to attempt a smile.

  Good riddance, I think, hoping I don’t have to play her again any time soon.

  ‘Well, I’d better go, Mum, I’ve got to get back to the hotel for some rest before the match tomorrow.’

  ‘Take care, darling,’ she says, as she always does. ‘I’ll keep everything crossed for you, you little star. You’re the best, you know that, don’t you?’

  Not as far as Mark’s concerned, I think. And then I think: But actually, in terms of tennis? Yeah, I’m getting there.

  I lose the next day’s semi, horrendously: 6-1, 6-1. I am no match for the world number three, who wipes the floor with me. But I don’t really care.

  I’m pleased with my performance, my ranking’s gone up, and even though I’ve been dumped, I haven’t fallen to pieces, and I’ve had my best win in years.

  On the plane on the way home I get to sit next to Kerry, who talks a lot about her physio, whom she fancies but who is married with twin sons, and who shows no interest whatsoever in her beyond the strictly professional. But at least I don’t have to sit with Dad.

  Dad and José sit in the row behind, talking tactics – or ‘TicTacs’, as José once called them – and planning the arrangements for the next tournament.

  It’s endless, this treadmill. I’m so glad I won’t be going to the next one; glad that I will be on holiday, like a normal person.

  Chapter 18

  Susie

  I couldn’t believe we were really here – I’d never even been to Italy before. Living in Kansas so long, I’d missed out on so much that Europe had to offer. Kansas was very handy for anywhere else in the USA, since it was smack bang in the centre of the country; but not at all for Europe.

  It was a ‘singles holiday’, which was all I’d been able to find at short notice, and all I could afford. I hadn’t told Rachel that when I invited her; I thought it would put her off. And it probably would have done – the men in the group were, it has to be said, no great shakes. I hadn’t had much of a chance to look them over while we were on the coach from the airport to the hotel, but as we picked our way through deep snow to a minibus waiting to take us up to the ski-hire shop, I studied them surreptitiously. More for Rachel’s benefit than my own – there was no way I could face another relationship so soon. But perhaps meeting someone new would be just what Rachel needed to take her mind off Mark. They all looked a bit old for her, though. Frankly, they all looked a bit old for me too.

  Our group, having been informed by the hotel manager that we had to collect our boots and skis right away, climbed gingerly aboard the minibus, which began to ferry us still further up the precipitous mountain road. I wasn’t sure what the point of the urgency was, since all I wanted to do was to have some food, a hot bath and a sleep – I’d been travelling for twenty-two hours. Rachel had only flown over from London, but even she, seasoned traveller she was, looked a little jaded.

  Although perhaps that was more to do with heartbreak. I thought how much less resilient the young seemed. She and Mark had only been together a few months, less than a year, yet she was acting like her whole world had crumbled. Her eyes kept filling up, and she’d turn to me, then turn abruptly away again.

  Surely she hadn’t been in this sort of a state ever since the break-up? She said she’d been ill, but still …after three weeks, she ought at least to be able to function.

  I felt awkward with her. I wanted to cuddle and console her but yet was conscious of this distance, unsure what she wanted of me. She clearly hadn’t noticed that anything was amiss in my own personal life. I’d been with Billy for nine years, and I was managing to hold it together…

  ‘You look fantastic, Mum!’ had been her first words to me when we met at Verona Airport, and for some reason, I still hadn’t been able to tell her about me and Billy. Perhaps I was afraid that she would think I was trying to steal her thunder. Or perhaps I couldn’t bear to admit to my daughter just yet that another relationship had failed. Or maybe it was simply that there was too much distance between us now. She could comment on the new highlights in my hair, but not notice that I wasn’t wearing an engagement ring any more.

  After the excitement of our initial reunion, Rachel had been almost completely silent, and I could see that any socializing with the group would need to be initiated by me. I was about to introduce myself to the man in front, when he turned around in his seat and spoke first.

  ‘So what do you two do?’ he asked. He was friendly, if a bit lecherous in the way he tried to look us both up and down. Not that he could see anything of our bodies, waist up, since our top halves were encased in all-encompassing puffy nylon like man-made pupae.

  Rachel looked better than I did, since she at least had trendy khaki snowboarding pants on, like weather-proofed combats. I was in what the ski-gear hire shop described as ‘racing salopettes’, which sounded glamorous but which were in fact skintight, thick, ugly leggings which flared out mid-calf, had two great fat built-in plastic kneepads and, to add insult to injury, braces attached to their ludicrously high waist. I could see the practicality of them as an item of sportswear, but they made me feel like Tweedledee and Tweedledum’s unattractive little sister. If I’d had time to try them on in the store, I would definitely have gone for something different. Plus, when I stood up, the crotch seam felt as if it was goi
ng to split me in half.

  However, at least the man couldn’t see this, so I smiled encouragingly at him. He was probably in his late fifties, long-necked, balding and very lined, like a tortoise; although from what I’d seen of his body as we crunched up the path earlier, he was still lithe and skinny.

  Rachel had completely ignored his question, and was gazing sullenly out of the smeary minibus window at the snowy mountain peaks, her jaw set in a hard line, lost in thought. I realized that this could be a difficult holiday.

  ‘I’m – um – in the process of changing careers,’ I replied, knowing I’d better tell him what I did first, since once he discovered that Rachel was a pro player, he more than likely wouldn’t be remotely interested in me any more. ‘I’ve been in real estate for some years, in the States, and now I’m thinking about becoming a life coach. I’m Susie, and this is my daughter, Rachel. She’s a professional tennis player.’

  ‘Really? ’ said the man, scrutinizing Rachel in the way people usually did when introduced to her: with the sort of attention implying I’d told him she was newly arrived from Jupiter. Rachel turned briefly, proffered a brief, tight smile, and went back to looking out of the window again.

  ‘How fascinating,’ he said, leaning further over the back of the seat. I waited for the barrage of questions to begin: Wimbledon? Success? Ranking? Etc. I always felt sorry for Rachel at being subjected to this inquisition every time anyone found out what she did. It was a bit like people finding out that I was an estate agent and instantly demanding to know how much commission I’d earned last year and what was the biggest house I’d ever sold. I’d hate it. But to my surprise, the man was looking at me. He had quite nice eyes, hazel with yellowy flecks in them. Pity about the appalling Eighties-style ski suit, though, all red and grey and lime green in blocks. It was odd, after all this time, looking at men as potential partners. I wished I didn’t have to. I only wanted Billy.