The Tennis Player from Bermuda

by Fiona Hodgkin

  She walked over to the side of the large bed and pointed to two small buttons on a brass plate set into the wall. The brass was highly polished.

  “There used to be markings to show which button was which, but the markings wore away with the polishing before I got here.”

  I had the impression that, if Miss Hanson had been around then, the polishing would have been done more carefully.

  She went on. “So, you just have to remember. The button on the left brings Janet until about nine o’clock in the evening. On Thursdays, her day off, it will be one of my other girls. The button on the right brings me, any time of day or night.”

  “I’m sure I won’t call. I won’t need anything.”

  “How old are you?”

  “I’m 18. I’ll be 19 on July 1.”

  Miss Hanson smiled. “You’re a long way from your parents. Don’t hesitate to call me.” She left.

  I learned later that, when Miss Hanson was 18, she had placed an advert in the magazine The Lady, seeking a position as a nursery nurse. She was engaged by Lady Thakeham, who was then expecting Mark. During the war, Miss Hanson worked in the dairy at Thakeham House, with Mark toddling along after her. Now, she managed both 16 Hyde Park Gate and Thakeham House, including the dairy, which, over the years, she had built into a large and profitable business for the family. Miss Hanson was regularly brought in by Doctor Thakeham to consult on the family’s financial affairs – unlike Lady Thakeham, who was consulted only on the new wallpaper for the front hall.

  Mark told me that once at Harrow he had been struggling a bit with mathematics, no doubt because of the competing demands of cricket. Miss Hanson taught herself basic calculus in a week and then began taking the Tube to the Harrow-onthe-Hill stop each weekday afternoon for a month. She would meet Mark in a tea shop, where she drilled him on equations for an hour. Mark no longer struggled in math.

  I put my head on the pillow and was quickly asleep. I didn’t even hear Janet unpacking my bags. I slept for two hours.

  I met Lady Thakeham that afternoon at tea, which was in a long, narrow conservatory that extended out from the house into the rear garden. There were glass doors on each side that opened onto the garden. With the doors opened, I felt that we were practically outside, but with protection from the rain and the (occasional) sun.

  Mark leaned over his mother and playfully kissed her on top of her exquisitely coiffed hair.

  “Mark, please don’t. You’ll muss my hair.”

  Then she turned to me. “You must be Miss Hodgkin, child. Thomas Hodgkin’s daughter. How kind of you to visit us from Bermuda.” She said ‘Bermuda’ in the way that some people might say ‘Antarctica.’

  I was wary of her from the start. I said, “My parents and I appreciate your invitation to me.”

  “We are pleased to have you. And thank you for your kind letter to me about your plans for tennis.”

  Mark said, “Fiona’s plans for tennis? We’re going to Wimbledon for an afternoon the first week of the fortnight. Do we have tickets? Should I ring the Club?”

  “Miss Hodgkin plans to play tennis for a day while she is with us. She wrote me a nice letter with all the details.”

  I hadn’t written to Mark about Roehampton, mainly because he had been quite stingy in writing to me. So I had reciprocated. Now I thought that perhaps I should have prepared him in advance.

  I hesitated. “Well, it may be for a day or possibly a few days.”

  Lady Thakeham, I sensed, knew that she had an opportunity to trap me, and she took it. “Miss Hodgkin, dear, where is it again you’ve been invited to play one afternoon?”

  “The Bank of England Sports Grounds at Roehampton.”

  Mark was tucking into a crumpet when I said this, and he choked slightly. “Roehampton? You’ve been invited to play at Roehampton?”

  Lady Thakeham smiled icily.

  Mark managed to control his choking. “Fiona, did you say you’re going to play at Roehampton?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “You mean the qualifying round for Wimbledon?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re not serious,” he said with a laugh.

  “Mark,” I said, maybe a little sharply, “I don’t care for your tone. The Committee invited me to play at Roehampton. I wrote your mother about the invitation. I’m going to play the first round, and we’ll see what we see.”

  “You could not possibly both compete at Roehampton and attend the season.”

  Lady Thakeham beamed.

  “Claire Kershaw did.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She told me.”

  “You know Kershaw?”

  I was a mere colonial from Antarctica – excuse me, Bermuda – but I’d had enough. “Mark,” I said stiffly, “I know Claire quite well.” Perhaps this was stretching things a bit. “She was kind enough to find me a place in the qualifying round at Roehampton. I told Lady Thakeham in my letter that Roehampton would in no way interfere with my social obligations during the season. I was entirely sincere.”

  Again, stretching things a bit.

  Mark was about to say something, but Lady Thakeham stopped him. “That’s all settled, then,” she said. “We should discuss our social obligations this week.” She pulled open her datebook.

  “Tomorrow, the Wilsons have invited Miss Hodgkin and Catherine for tea” – the Wilsons were my cousins – “and that evening is the party for Marjorie Boynton at the Savoy. Wednesday, Catherine is giving a luncheon at Simpsons in the Strand for Miss Hodgkin, and then, my dear, that afternoon you have invited 12 young ladies here for tea. Don’t be concerned, I’ve already arranged the details and sent invitations to your guests. That evening dinner is with the Ralstons, we’ll return home to dress for the party for Alice Herbert, but I’ve promised Catherine that we will leave by one in the morning and have breakfast at the party for Harriet Rutherford – Lady Thornton asked Catherine if we could come. Thursday, lunch is at Claridge’s with the Alstons, then tea with Mary Matthews, dinner with Lord Hawthorn at the Inner Temple, home to dress, then a dance at Grosvenor House for Hope McAllister. Friday, my dear, you and Catherine have invited 15 young ladies to an informal lunch here, then tea is with Anne Gofford and her parents. We’re invited to dinner at White’s by Lord Wilberforce, Princess Margaret will be there, so you’ll want to dress especially well, and then there will be Mary Sanford’s party, but we’ll leave by midnight or so to have an early breakfast with Lady Crawford and her daughters.”

  I was stunned. Maybe Mark was onto something when he said I couldn’t both attend the season and play at Roehampton. “Should I be writing this down?”

  “No, dear child, there’s no need. I will see that Harold takes you and Catherine to everything.” I had no idea who ‘Harold’ might be. Lady Thakeham smiled, closed her datebook, excused herself, and swept from the room.

  Mark was chuckling. “I told you.”

  “Maybe it’s busy just this week.”

  “Next week is worse.”

  Miss Hanson came into the conservatory. “There is a telegram for Miss Hodgkin.”

  Mark looked at me quizzically. I opened the telegram:

  POST OFFICE TELEGRAM

  RECEIVED LONG LETTER RACHEL TELLING ME EXACTLY HOW TO PREPARE YOU FOR ROEHAMPTON STOP SHE APPEARS TO THINK I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT TENNIS STOP WE HAVE A LOT OF WORK TO DO STOP MEET ROEHAMPTON 11 TUESDAY MORNING STOP

  CLAIRE

  Mark held out his hand for the telegram. This was rude of him, but I obediently handed it over.

  “So you do know Claire Kershaw. How does Kershaw come to know Rachel?”

  “Rachel was her coach back in the late 1940s. They’re friends.”

  Mark didn’t say anything. He simply held the telegram in his fingers.

  Finally, I said, “Mark, tomorrow I’ll need to spend some time practicing with Claire.”

  TUESDAY, 12 JUNE 1962

  ROEHAMPTON

  “I can’t be with you next week
for the qualifying round,” Claire said. “Eastbourne invited me to play there next week and sent along a nice packet for my expenses. So you’ll be on your own.”

  We were standing in the Secretary’s old, cluttered office in the clubhouse at Roehampton while credentials were checked, green eyeshades adjusted, papers stapled, applications stamped, notices issued, and procedures followed.

  If Claire hadn’t been with me, none of the Roehampton staff would have believed that I was actually on the Committee’s list of players invited to compete in the qualifying round. But Claire navigated the system for me, and I finally received an impressive pass with the word PLAYER splashed across it in red ink. With this pass hanging around my neck, I could come and go at Roehampton as I pleased, get tea at no charge, and even try to schedule practice time on the courts.

  Practice time wasn’t a problem as long as I was with Claire. She politely asked the referee, Mr Soames, if she and I might have the use of a court for three hours or so. “Certainly, Mrs Kershaw. Which court would you prefer?” Two Wimbledon singles championships carry definite privileges in the world of tennis.

  When I first practiced with Claire, it was immediately apparent that she’d been coached by Rachel. Claire knocked up for 10 minutes and then threw her racket out onto the grass. “Rough or smooth?” she asked. Just like Rachel, she thought the best practice was to play a match.

  On a changeover in our second set, I drank a cup of water with Claire beside me. She said quietly, “In my service game just now, at 30-15, just before I tossed the ball for my serve, you looked up at two people walking on the path from the clubhouse.

  I couldn’t recall. “Did I?”

  “Yes. I won the point. And the game.”

  “Well, if I looked away, it was just a quick glance.”

  “You won’t win, at least not at Roehampton, if you let your mind wander during a point, even for a half-second. Pull a curtain around the court in your mind so that it’s just you and the other girl. If Rachel were here, you might glance at her, quickly, just for reassurance. But she won’t be here. You’ll be by yourself.”

  I was a bit shaken by Claire’s lecture.

  When we finally finished practicing, we walked back to the Roehampton clubhouse. Claire asked, “How’s the season going? Found a potential husband yet?”

  “My first party is tonight, but Lady Thakeham read me my schedule yesterday at tea, and I can’t believe it. I don’t have clothes for half the parties I’m attending this week, much less next week. How did you manage both the season and qualifying at Roehampton?”

  Claire laughed. “It wasn’t easy. But I had only my own mother to deal with, and I didn’t have a boyfriend. Well, maybe I did, but not someone I cared about. So it was easier for me. Are you buying new clothes?”

  “Before I left home, Mother told me to go to shopping in London and buy an evening gown. I asked her for a budget, and she said, ‘Use your judgment, but don’t spend too much.’ Which isn’t helpful. How much does a gown cost?”

  “Between £2 on Saturday morning in Portobello Road and £2,000 any day in New Bond Street. Somewhere in that range.”

  “That’s about as helpful as what Mother told me. Where should I go to buy a gown?”

  “Let’s go shopping together, tomorrow. We’ll practice early and then look for a gown. You should find one that will make people talk about you.”

  “I don’t want people to talk about me.”

  “But that’s the whole point of the season.”

  WEDNESDAY, 13 JUNE 1962

  TEDDY TINLING’S SHOP

  MAYFAIR

  “We’ll start with Teddy,” Claire said. “He doesn’t design many evening gowns now, but let’s see what he might have on offer for you.”

  “Who’s Teddy?”

  “Teddy Tinling. In the 1930s, a girl couldn’t go to the season without at least a couple of Tinling gowns in her closet. After the war, Teddy mostly gave up on gowns because of the utility restrictions on clothes. He started designing tennis kit instead.”

  Claire was driving her white Alfa Romeo roadster with the hood down. She suddenly swerved to avoid hitting a young man who was crossing Ken High. Claire turned halfway around in the driver’s seat and blew him a kiss as we roared down the busy street at about 120 kph.

  “Maureen Connolly asked Teddy to make her wedding dress when she finally married Norman, and I did the same when I married Richard. But his main line now is tennis dresses.”

  She changed down to third gear as we whipped around the Wellington Arch and shot into Piccadilly. Claire’s favorite speed in the Alfa was as fast as it could go.

  I was desperately hanging onto a leather strap on the door. “Who in heaven taught you to drive? Or did you just teach yourself?”

  “My brother taught me. He taught himself. He bumped into a few things at first, but then he got the hang of it. Now he races autos in his spare time.”

  Just off Berkeley Square in Mayfair, she found a tiny parking spot and wedged in the Alfa. Then she led me to a narrow townhouse, where she didn’t bother knocking on the door. She walked in and called, “Teddy, it’s me.”

  I gathered from this entrance that Claire was well known in the Tinling establishment.

  From the back of the shop stepped the tallest person I’d ever seen. I guessed he was in his early 50s. His head was shaved entirely bald, and he was wearing a yellow shirt with an open collar, trousers with vertical mauve and white stripes, and white patent leather shoes. The effect was dizzying.

  He and Claire embraced and kissed one another. He said, “Claire, ma chérie, you remind me so much of Suzanne. We should take Le Train Bleu to Cannes tonight. Together. Alone. The two of us.”

  Claire linked her arm with his. “I don’t remind you of Suzanne in the slightest, but Cannes might be interesting. After Wimbledon perhaps. Now I need you to find a gown for my friend from Bermuda.”

  “Suzanne?” I asked, brightly.

  Tinling glanced at Claire with one eyebrow raised.

  Claire said, “My friend is young. But nice. Once you get to know her.”

  Tinling was skeptical.

  “Teddy, please meet Miss Fiona Hodgkin. She’s going to play at Roehampton. You remember Rachel Outerbridge, Teddy.”

  Tinling nodded.

  “Rachel coaches this girl.”

  This, I could tell, moved me up several notches in Tinling’s estimation.

  Claire turned to me. “Fiona, this is Lieutenant-Colonel Cuthbert Collingwood Tinling. Known to his friends, with one exception, as ‘Teddy.’”

  Teddy bowed slightly to me.

  “The exception,” Claire said dryly, “is Bud Collins, who calls Teddy ‘The Leaning Tower of Pizazz.’”

  I held out my hand to Teddy, but instead of shaking hands, he leaned forward and kissed my hand. “My dear Fiona, how delightful to meet you,” he murmured.

  Claire pointed to an old photo that hung on the wall. “Teddy is taller than even Bill Tilden was, and he’s got a photo to prove it.”

  The photo showed a young Teddy, with a full head of slicked-down hair, beside Bill Tilden, who was wearing a trench coat and holding two rackets. Teddy was slightly the taller of the two.

  “The verdict,” Teddy said, “Tilden 1.8 meters; Tinling 1.9 meters. Actually, I think the measurement of me was wrong. I’m two meters. Claire, I must show you what I’ve made for Maria Bueno.”

  With a flourish, Teddy picked up from a cutting table a white tennis dress. The skirt had a pink lining so bright anyone who saw it would feel faint.

  “I call this ‘Italian Pink,’” Teddy said.

  “Teddy, Maria’s dress is lovely, but have you lost your mind? If that dress makes an appearance on Centre Court, the Committee will have your head mounted on the Doherty Gates, as a warning to others.”

  “You’ve yet to see the matching panties.”

  “Don’t show them to me. I want to be able to tell the Committee truthfully that I knew nothing about
the panties.”

  “There’s nothing in the rules or on the entry form that prohibits colour on ladies’ tennis dresses.”

  “What about the sign in the ladies’ upper dressing room?”

  “It’s gone. I took it down last week.” He fished around in the fabric scraps on the table and finally held up a small, faded handwritten sign: ‘Competitors are Expected to Wear White Clothing.’

  I asked, “How could you take down a sign that was in a ladies’ dressing room?”

  Claire explained. “Kay Menzies always wore Teddy’s dresses, but one afternoon she couldn’t get her zipper up. Mrs Ward tried but couldn’t get it up either.”

  “Who’s Mrs Ward?”

  Teddy said, “She’s the attendant for the upper dressing room. Been there since Worple Road, probably.”

  “So Teddy was in the hallway, banging on the door and yelling for Kay to get onto Centre Court. Finally, Teddy barges through the door, gets Kay’s zipper up in one second, and hustles her out to the waiting room.”

  I looked at Teddy in shock. “You went into the ladies’ dressing room?”

  Teddy made an elaborate courtier’s bow, with his incredibly long arms outstretched.

  Claire said, “Maybe a couple of girls had to wrap towels around themselves. But the world didn’t come to an end. Since then, Teddy comes and goes as he pleases. He doesn’t even knock. He makes all the tennis kit, so it’s convenient to have him around.”

  I picked up the handwritten sign that Teddy had taken from the dressing room. “Why was there a sign like this in the first place?”

  It must be hard to look sheepish when you’re two meters tall, but Teddy did.

  Claire said, “The sign was thumbtacked to the wall in 1949. Just before l’affaire Gussy Moran.”

  “But it had nothing to do with Gussy,” Teddy objected.

  “I know. It was the pink and blue hems you sewed on the dresses for Joy Gannon and Betty Hilton in ’48.”