The Tennis Player from Bermuda

by Fiona Hodgkin

  The telegram was signed with a single word: CLAIRE.

  I burst out laughing, which startled Simon. In 1962, the members of the Committee were all men, with an average age of probably 75. (The first woman on the Committee would be Virginia Wade, but that wouldn’t happen until 1982.) In their dreams, the Committee members no doubt wished the beautiful Claire actually meant to sleep with them.

  But they had obediently put me down for Roehampton.

  In the rain, under my umbrella, I walked back to Gate 5. The young security guards at the gate wore bright orange jackets and had coiled wires from their radios running under their collars to earphones. They must have been told who I was or, more accurately, who I had been before they were born, because they quietly stepped aside as I approached.

  I stood at the gate for a moment, looking across Church Road at the Wimbledon golf course.

  Then, instead of turning left, back to Southfields, I turned right and walked toward to the point where Church Road met Somerset Road, at the south end of the Club’s ground.

  I wanted to say hello to my poor old friends, the Doherty Memorial Gates.

  SATURDAY, 9 JUNE 1962

  MIDPOINT

  PAGET PARISH, BERMUDA

  The day before my flight to London, Mother was helping me pack. We were going to have a family dinner that evening with my grandparents to say goodbye for a month.

  While we were in my room, surrounded by piles of clothes, Mother said, “Fiona, during the season in London, many young people drink too much at the parties and do not conduct themselves well; in fact, quite badly sometimes. Drinking is a risk for girls – I mean drinking alcohol.”

  I was glad she had cleared that up for me.

  “Your father and I are sending you off for the season because we can count on you to show good judgment and to conduct yourself well. Can we rely on you?”

  “Yes, Mother.” I predicted to myself what was coming next. Mark Thakeham. And I was right.

  “I know you like Mark a great deal. And he seems to like you. Maybe over the next few years you’ll have a friendship that’s important to both of you. If that happens, all well and good. But Mark is four years older than you, and I’m confident he’s sexually experienced. Perhaps quite so.”

  She was right about that, I thought.

  “You, I take it, are not sexually experienced?”

  “Uh, well, not very.”

  She sighed. “I meant my question to ask whether you’ve had sexual intercourse.” She had been a physician for a long time and didn’t shy away from biological facts.

  “No.”

  Mother looked at me. “But something close to it, I think,” she said.

  I said nothing.

  Mother arched her eyebrow. “Well?”

  “Mark touched me once.” I dreaded telling her what I was talking about, but to my surprise she seemed to know exactly what I meant.

  “And that’s all?”

  “Mark said he would just touch me, nothing more. That’s all he did.”

  “Well, good for you, Mark Thakeham,” Mother said softly. She sounded a bit surprised at the show of at least partially responsible conduct from this quarter.

  Then she asked, “Do you plan to sleep with him while you’re in England?”

  I hesitated. “I don’t think so.”

  “Good. I don’t want you to. Fiona, I know how tiresome it is at your age to have adults always saying that you’re too young to do this or that, but here you really are too young. I want you to wait.”

  “I won’t sleep with him while I’m in London.”

  “Good.”

  “But maybe someday?”

  “Fiona, if in two or three years you decide this is what is right for you, and you protect yourself with a contraceptive, then go straight ahead. But when you decide to start, do it on your terms, not on Mark’s terms, or on some other boy’s terms. And not now.”

  “I promise that’s what I’ll do.”

  “Good. So I don’t need to take you to the clinic in the morning and fit you with a diaphragm. Am I right about that?”

  “I don’t need a diaphragm,” I almost whispered.

  The idea of having Mother fit me with a diaphragm made the blood drain from my face. I knew about contraception because, a year or so earlier, while I was on a walk in Paget with American Grandmother, she had told me, in great and embarrassingly graphic detail, how to use a diaphragm. Then, having built up a full head of steam on the subject of human reproduction, American Grandmother had gone on to explain the biochemistry of the menstrual cycle.

  It was extremely interesting, and when I had arrived at Smith I found, to my surprise, that I was far better informed that most of my classmates.

  “And when the time comes,” Mother said, “don’t hesitate to ask me for help with a contraceptive. Or ask American Grandmother, if you feel more comfortable talking to her.”

  We both laughed; we knew that if I so much as said the word ‘sex’ to American Grandmother, she’d have me on her examining table within five minutes.

  Mother said, “Now, which of these tennis dresses do you want to pack?”

  “How old were you when you married?”

  Mother did not like the implication behind this question in the slightest. “I was 27, almost 28, so nine years or so older than you are now. I was a medical doctor in practice. Your father was serving on a Royal Navy destroyer in the war, and I knew I would be lucky to see him again.”

  “Were you sexually experienced then?”

  “That’s an impudent question, and I shouldn’t answer it. But I will. You’ve been honest with me, and so I should be honest with you. Yes, but only with your father. While I was in medical school, I decided it was time I should take him to bed.”

  Mother chuckled but almost just to herself. “When I did, I couldn’t tell whether he was more surprised or thrilled.”

  She paused, probably thinking that she shouldn’t make this sound to be so much fun. “But I protected myself. Contraceptives were difficult to obtain in the States, but I went to the Baltimore Birth Control Clinic, where there were five women physicians. One of them fitted me with a diaphragm. When I said I was a medical student at Hopkins, she told me to get to work in the clinic. This was the Depression; almost no one had money, but I replied, ‘Oh, no, I can pay for the diaphragm; I don’t need to work to pay the fee.’ The doctor said, ‘You don’t understand. We need the help.’ So I volunteered three evenings a week at the clinic.”

  “But how did you see Father? You were in the States, and Father was in medical school at Cambridge.”

  She smiled. “We found ways to meet twice a year or so. And for the two days we were together after our wedding, before his destroyer left Bermuda, I didn’t use a contraceptive. I wanted to have his child, and I did.”

  She reached over, took my chin in her hand, and playfully waggled my head. “Obviously.”

  “Now,” she said with relief, “back to packing.”

  SUNDAY, 10 JUNE 1962

  CORAL BEACH & TENNIS CLUB

  PAGET PARISH, BERMUDA

  My flight to London did not depart until the evening, so early the next morning I played a match against Mrs Martin and won in two sets.

  Afterward, she sat down on a bench beside the court. She was thinking, with her head cocked to one side.

  After a few moments, she told me to sit down. Then she said, almost in a whisper, “I didn’t mean for Claire to arrange for you to play at Roehampton, not this year anyway. She’s so headstrong. I wouldn’t have written her about you if I’d thought she would do this. You should wait one or two years. Not now.”

  “Are they that much better than I am?”

  “No. But most of them are older and more experienced. It will be different than anything you’ve done, and harder. Much harder.”

  “How old were you?”

  We both knew that in June 1939 she had been my age now.

  “Yes, but I had played in interna
tional competition before. I knew what it is like.”

  “I played Claire.”

  She shook her head. “In an exhibition, not competition.”

  “You think I can’t win.”

  “No. I think you might win. But this year, when you’re so young, winning will take so much it will change you. Maybe not for the better. Especially because you’ll have to do it alone.”

  It dawned on me that she was thinking of herself. “Did that happen to you?”

  She nodded.

  I thought for a moment. “And maybe Claire as well?”

  “Claire had a difficult time on the circuit. I wasn’t there to help her. I couldn’t leave my family.”

  “You can’t imagine how much I want this.”

  “I know exactly how much you want it. But go to the parties for the London season, watch some matches at Roehampton and Wimbledon, come home to Bermuda, and then we’ll prepare for next year. Now is too early.”

  “I have to do this.”

  “You’ll be a long way from home. I won’t be there to help you.” Mrs Martin was speaking so softly I could barely hear her.

  She straightened up. “I’ll talk to your parents and suggest you take time off from college to play at Kooyong this winter. I might even be able to come with you. Then next year you’ll have experience with international competition.”

  The odds that my parents would agree to my taking time off from Smith to play tennis in Australia were vanishingly small. I put both my hands around her left hand and held it.

  “I have to do this now. I know I can win. I won’t let anything happen to me.”

  She used my Christian name. “Fiona, I haven’t prepared you for this. It’s my fault. I know I’m difficult. I’m weak. I haven’t helped you. Now you’re going to play at Roehampton, and I haven’t shown you what it’s going to be like.”

  She began crying.

  I put my arms around her; she was so important to me. “Rachel, that’s nonsense. You’ve done everything for me. Look, I love tennis. This is what I want. And if I can get it, the only reason is you. Please stop crying, because if you don’t stop, then I’ll start crying.”

  She had her head on my shoulder. “I’ve been terrible for you. I haven’t taught you anything you’ll need.”

  “Rachel, stop. You’ve always told me that you can’t show me what I need, that I have to find it by myself.”

  She nodded. Then she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, stood, and walked to her bicycle. She lifted something wrapped in tissue out of the basket. She came back to me.

  “I want you to have this.” She held it out to me.

  I took off the tissue. It was an old tennis sweater. A long time ago, it had been white, but now it had faded to beige. There were narrow navy and green borders at the neck and cuffs. The cuffs and the hem were coming a bit unraveled. Over the left breast was embroidered ‘KOOYONG,’ and just below that were crossed tennis rackets and ‘EST. 1892.’

  “Nell and Harry Hopman gave me this sweater. I wore it in my third set against Alice on Centre Court.”

  “Rachel, you shouldn’t give this to me.”

  “It can be chilly in London in June. I’ll feel better if I know you have something warm to wear.”

  “Claire is bound to see me wearing this. She might feel you could have given her your sweater.”

  “Claire will understand.” Rachel paused. “She’s probably known since she played you at Longwood.”

  I had no idea what Rachel meant.

  I held the sweater to my chest. Rachel leaned over and kissed me on top of my head. “Good luck, Fiona.”

  She walked back to her bicycle and left me alone on the court. It happened to be the same court where I had served for her the first time, years before. I sat on the bench thinking for several minutes. Then I got up and bicycled home. Neither of my parents was there; we had called a taxi to Kindley Field for five o’clock. Now it wasn’t even yet noon; I was all packed. I still had time.

  First I put Rachel’s sweater into one of my suitcases. Then I left Midpoint and walked down to the dock at Lower Ferry and waited for the ferry across the harbour to Hamilton.

  Once I got off the ferry near Albuoys Point, I began looking in the shops on Front Street that catered to tourists and the passengers on ships calling at Hamilton. It took me 20 minutes or so to find what I wanted. In a small, dark shop, there was a bin of miniature cloth flags glued to short sticks of wood, a bit longer than a matchstick. I think these little flags were meant to be stuck in the tops of cakes for celebrations.

  I was taking five tennis dresses to London; I bought five of the small flags. These flags had the Union Jack in one corner, with a coat of arms showing a shipwreck and a lion, all against a bright red field.

  They were the flag of Bermuda.

  On the ferry back to Lower Ferry, I stood at the railing looking out at the blue water and the Bermuda fitted dinghies with their triangular sails racing across the Great Sound. I had lived almost my entire life beside this harbour. Now I was going to sew these flags onto my tennis dresses, just above my left breast. I was determined, one way or another, whatever it took, to win all three rounds at Roehampton – and qualify for the Wimbledon draw.

  Whatever it took.

  PART TWO

  LONDON

  MONDAY, 11 JUNE 1962

  16 HYDE PARK GATE

  KENSINGTON

  LONDON, ENGLAND

  When I came through the barriers after passport control and customs at Heathrow, I was clutching just my tennis rackets, a paperback copy of Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth I had read on the flight, and my pocketbook. I had checked as baggage everything else. I was groggy and rumpled after the bumpy 10 hour flight from Bermuda, which had been on a BOAC turboprop aircraft, not a jet. There had been a time when I thought I’d never see Mark again, but now he was standing right there, on the other side of the barricade. I didn’t have to go to him; he jumped over the barricade and hugged me.

  And then he kissed me.

  Originally, the Thakeham family was Dutch and certainly not named ‘Thakeham.’ Mark’s ancestor, Marcellus ter’ Joopt, came to England with William of Orange at the time of the English Revolution in 1688. ter’ Joopt amassed a large fortune after arriving in England – how exactly isn’t known – and then retired to Hampshire with a young bride from an aristocratic English family.

  ter’ Joopt sensed that his Dutch name might not be ideal for an upwardly mobile family in England. He noticed that the house he had purchased in Hampshire, which was called ‘Thakeham House,’ had a perfectly good English name. And for good reason: the house had been built a 100 years before by one of Queen Elizabeth’s courtiers.

  So, one day, ter’ Joopt simply changed his name to ‘Thakeham,’ and the next day, William made him the first Viscount Thakeham

  Basically, my boyfriend had been named after a house.

  For longer than a hundred years, the Thakeham family was content in Hampshire. Dutch thriftiness and industry ran in the family – the Thakehams conserved and increased their fortune. No drunken, gambling wastrels in this family. Mostly, the men were physicians.

  In about 1830, the sixth Viscount Thakeham decided to build a fashionable London residence (though he retained Thakeham House). The Campden Charities were then attempting to develop Hyde Park Gate just south of Kensington Palace, and Viscount Thakeham bought a lot and built an unusual, red brick, L-shaped house that was now entirely overgrown with Boston ivy. The front door was an arched lattice of frosted glass and wood.

  Hyde Park Gate is actually two streets, side by side, with the same name. The more famous street is to the east, with the house where Virginia Woolf was born, and the house where Winston Churchill died. Generations of London cabbies have called the other street, just to the west, the ‘Frying Pan,’ because it leads to a circular drive around a small sylvan park surrounded by a rustic wooden fence. The street looks like a frying pan.

  The Fryi
ng Pan always has a London bobby casually standing at the entrance on Kensington Road, because several of the greatest families in England, including Mark’s, make their London homes there.

  It was to 16 Hyde Park Gate that Mark took me after I landed at Heathrow.

  We were met at the door by a slender, middle-aged lady who said, “Miss Hodgkin. I’ve heard so much about you from Mark. I’m Myrtle Hanson. Mark, bring Miss Hodgkin’s luggage upstairs. I’m putting her in the second rear bedroom.”

  The three of us climbed a magnificent curved staircase with a wrought-iron balustrade with the initial ‘T’ worked into the intricate design.

  “Here you are,” Miss Hanson said. “I thought you’d be comfortable here because this bedroom has its own bath and a nice view of the rear gardens.”

  We were in a large, airy room with two tall windows. Mark dropped two of my bags and went back downstairs for the third.

  “When I first came through the front door, I thought you were Lady Thakeham.”

  Miss Hanson laughed but in a friendly way. “I was the nursery nurse for Mark from the time he was born and then the same for Catherine. Now I’m the housekeeper.”

  Mark returned with my third bag, dropped it, and dropped himself into a side chair in the bedroom.

  Miss Hanson said, “Mark, your services are no longer required here. Miss Hodgkin has had a long flight and needs to rest before lunch.”

  He started to say something, but Miss Hanson cut him off. “Goodbye, Mark.”

  Mark gave me a rueful smile and left the room. I gathered Miss Hanson was more than a housekeeper.

  Miss Hanson said, “Young Janet works for me, and she’ll be here in a minute with a pot of tea for you. Then she’ll unpack your bags and put away your clothes. You should wash your face and stretch out on the bed for some rest. Janet won’t bother you. If you’re tired, you may have lunch here in your room whenever you want, or Mark will be having lunch downstairs in an hour or so. Suit yourself.”