The Match

by Romesh Gunesekera

  Sunny’s mother Irene, a woman with the striking features of a thirties screen idol, had been a pianist in Colombo. She had never been one to show a great deal of affection, but Sunny had accepted her remoteness as a feature of her prized artistic temperament. The delegation of childcare to servants was not peculiar to her – it was common among many mothers of her class and generation in a mid-twentieth-century backwater – and her need to concentrate on her music seemed perfectly natural to him. What he found difficult to understand was her bizarre decision to draw into their house dozens of freakish children in an effort to develop their musical abilities, while at the same time assuming that he, like his father, had none. She’d wear gorgeous dot dresses, bright lipstick, Chanel by the gallon and play minuets, polkas and duets with anyone but him. He was not even allowed in the piano room and had to suffer outside, in the front yard, until the last note had faded and only her perfume still lingered. Sometimes he was sent further, to scout meetings or on school trips he hated. One day, when he was eight years old, he came home from a special rice-planting camp and was told that something had happened to his mother. Something had gone wrong inside her and she’d died. Her complete disappearance was hard for him to comprehend, but slowly he came to believe that in death she was much closer to him and safe from distractions. He had a portrait of her – a photograph by the outrageous Kandyan photographer Alphonso – that showed her sharp elongated face in the three-quarter pose of a Madonna, her graceful fingers poised above the keys of a polished piano. Finally it seemed she was ready to play for him. Nobody could come between them.

  Lester’s unmarried sister Aunty Lillie was drafted in to look after Sunny after his mother’s death. She was a small, hardy woman of great misguided determination who had never been pleased with her brother’s choice of a highly strung, preening artist for a mate. While Irene had been alive, she rarely came near the house, but immediately afterwards she had rushed in and turned the place upside down. She had the walls distempered, the cupboards fumigated and the linen steeped in bleach for days. She banished the piano to a convent school in the hope that the devil in it might be tamed. Her profound aversion to secular music and the modern world meant that toys, films, records, ice cream – anything plastic, artificial or sweet – was also forbidden. She put her chubby young charge on a special diet of lentils and raw spinach. Astrological forecasts of impending Armageddon were her lullabies of choice.

  In Aunty Lillie’s considered opinion Sunny was a born idler and his father – her brother – a thoroughly useless loafer. The long years wasted at a corroded typewriter in the semi-darkness of a suburban house polluted with ungodly sounds and distilled spirits had, she reckoned, dulled her brother’s senses. She declared his plan to abscond to the Philippines an even bigger mistake than his marriage. ‘You can’t see for toffee, Lester. You’ve been sitting on your backside for too darn long, just listening to that . . . rubbish and dreaming of dirty money.’

  Now, in Manila, Lester had achieved a balance of affluence and sloth that would have turned Aunty Lillie’s stomach. Luckily she never got the chance to see him thrive in his consumerist paradise. Lester never brought her over. Family life, Sunny had heard him confide to his friend Hector, was a much overrated business. He was glad of the chance of a new life in a new land with none of the impediments of the past. Despite being free of Aunty Lillie, Sunny didn’t entirely agree. Although he didn’t much grieve for his mad aunt, her rickety Morris Minor or the faggoty boys’ school she’d unwittingly sent him to, he recognized that there was a piece missing from his sense of himself. Because of his mother’s antics – genius perhaps – he’d felt a little out of the ordinary, but now as a teenager in Makati’s shallow wonderland he found the void created by that abandoned world almost too scary to think about.

  Robby’s mention of cricket launched Sunny into a reverie. By five-thirty, when Lester was due back from his uptown office, Sunny was ready. He had a plan that was simple and rather beautiful. It was going to transform their uprooted lives. There had been a time when Sunny and his father had played garden cricket on a strip of lawn barely wide enough to swing a bat. Lester favoured the leg-spin; Sunny wanted to be a fast bowler. He’d aim for the body, while Lester tried his best to get his little boy to learn to go for the wicket instead. But golf was Lester’s sport in their new world. Big broad fairways and luscious, well-watered greens were where the word was for a lapsed journalist of his inclinations, the real news: Manila moolah. Sunny wanted to get it back, that closeness they’d once contained on a makeshift pitch.

  He heard his father’s Buick roll in, the car door open and shut. Lester was an incredibly slow mover. Even in his journalist days he’d never rushed, whatever the story, walking as though he had to weigh every step. ‘To catch the little ones, you have to run, but to catch the big ones you have to be patient,’ he liked to say. Sunny thought he was more suited to fishing than chasing stories of any kind.

  By the time Lester reached the front door, Sunny had banished the cartoons from the TV and was on his feet. ‘Dad, did we bring my bat?’

  Lester pulled off his brown knitted tie and looked at his son suspiciously. The Sunday supplements had recently declared the discovery of a ‘generation gap’ and his son, he reckoned, was very unlikely to be the one who would bridge it.

  ‘Or your bat?’

  ‘Bat?’

  ‘I wanna – want to I mean – play cricket . . .’ Sunny remembered the time he’d bowled a hard ball, dead on, and hit his father right between the eyes.

  Lester opened his mouth and the metal flints in his teeth sparkled. ‘Ah . . . ha.’ Something moved across his face. There was almost the hiss of gas in the guarded Makati air. ‘Cricket?’

  ‘I thought we might have brought some gear with us.’

  Lester narrowed his eyes. ‘There are a couple of boxes in the back. We might have a bat and a ball in there.’

  ‘Stumps? For the wicket?’

  ‘You can use sticks, you know.’

  Sunny wasn’t sure about that. A few bits of bamboo were unlikely to impress a trendsetter like his pal Robby. ‘Isn’t there a weird shop in Ermita, or someplace, selling the stuff? Like on the black market?’ Manila was famous for every kind of vice.

  ‘Cricket gear is not contraband.’ Lester rubbed the edge of his grey sideburn. ‘Why don’t you ask your Australian friend – that Thompson boy? He is sure to have the lot.’

  Sunny was horrified. ‘He’s not a friend.’

  ‘Why not? Any fellow can be a friend. If you are in need.’

  As it turned out there was no need for Steve Thompson. Not yet. The box in the storeroom did contain a neglected bat and a barely used red leather ball. With the two essentials in his hand, Sunny agreed that he could improvise a wicket.

  ‘Hey Robby, I have the bat and the ball.’

  There was a pause at the other end of the line. Sunny could hear Robby aerate his brain with a smoky intake of breath as he searched for the right word. Eventually it appeared, a little mangled. ‘Baileys?’

  Sunny laughed. ‘Bails?’

  ‘Yeah. What about them?’

  ‘No problem.’ Sunny told him to come to the park. Urdaneta Park.

  ‘I can’t. Not today.’

  ‘This is not good news, man. You must come.’

  ‘I’ve got to go to Cavite with my Dad. Export presentations, na.’ Robby’s father was said to be in the garment industry, although Sunny suspected it was something much shadier.

  ‘Tomorrow then?’

  Sunny put the cricket ball in one of his white gym socks and tied the end of a rope to it. Then he hung the rope off one of the metal poles supporting the tin roof of the porch outside the kitchen. The ball swung eighteen inches off the ground, perfect for rehearsing the basic block, forward punch and offside cut. Within seconds Sunny had launched himself into what was once his favourite fantasy. Out on the playing fields of Kingston and Port of Spain, clocking in the runs to cheers of adulation.
His first heroes – West Indian cricketers all, especially Kanhai, who looked almost like Sunny – appeared, wowed by his every stroke. They were toasting him on the beach. The daydream grew and soon all Urdaneta, Makati, the whole of the Philippines basked in the glow of his Caribbean innings.

  As he made his second imaginary century, his father’s car turned in at the gate and stopped. Lester hauled himself out with a pipe in his fist. He lit the pipe, puffing with great determination, shifting his concentration from his lumbago to his lungs. He had bought the pipe after reading about the Royal College of Physicians’ report on the dangers of smoking cheap cigarettes. He didn’t look at Sunny, but kept sucking and puffing until the smoke enveloped his whole head. ‘So, how is it? Hit the ball?’

  Sunny didn’t answer. He showed his father a neat flick of seasoned willow. A boundary on tap.

  ‘Good. Use those wrists. You have good wrists.’

  Sunny was chuffed. It had been a long time since his father had said anything like that. Lester’s natural tendency was towards the sardonic – Hector called it the Fernando house style of total annihilation.

  Lester ambled over and held out his hand for the bat. ‘Let’s see.’

  Sunny handed it to him. Lester adjusted his pipe, clamping hard on the stem. He pulled up his sleeves and grasping the bat firmly, went into a block position with his right leg trailing behind like a superhero’s cape, his back straighter than it had been for ages. He nudged the ball with the face of the bat. It swung out. On the return arc he almost missed it, but managed a slight glance off the side, somehow giving the impression that this was deliberate. He made a clicking sound out of the side of his mouth and handed the bat back. Unplugging his pipe, he grunted before going inside.

  When Lester reappeared after a nap he found Sunny with the newspaper open at the TV page. ‘You have no homework?’

  ‘Saturday night, Dad.’

  ‘Not even geography homework?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You are doing what, then?’

  ‘I have to see Herbie.’

  ‘See him for what purpose?’

  ‘We might go over to Bel-Air together. He’s got my geography book anyways.’

  Lester hesitated as though he had something important to say, but then he shut his eyes and rubbed his back. His lumbago reminded him of more pressing problems. ‘Desai has a party tonight, but it’ll be impossible to get a decent drink out of that stingy fellow. I can’t stand in that damn house for very long sipping bloody calamansi juice. Shall I pick you up on the way back?’

  Sunny shook his head. ‘We might go bowling, or something, later.’

  ‘Are you sure you can take all this sport?’ Lester tried to catch his son’s eye and share a joke at his expense, but Sunny ignored the gibe and went to phone Herbie.

  ‘Bowling? No way. Listen, I’m going to Quiapo with Ricardo. You wanna come?’ Herbie’s voice creaked.

  ‘What about the Black Naz thing? Isn’t the big Jesus procession over there this weekend? It’ll be chaos.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Perfect timing.’

  ‘OK. I’ll come over to your place.’

  Herbie lived on Cerrada Avenue, a ten-minute walk away. Sunny slipped out of the house while his father was still yodelling in the shower.

  The streetlights hummed fat and bright. The night was hot. Nobody was around. Cerrada Avenue had a curve to it unlike most of the others slotted into the Urdaneta grid and Herbie’s house was one of the last on the street. Sunny’s canvas shoes barely made a sound on the white concrete. The hum in his ears could have been pure electricity, or fireflies beating their wings.

  Sunny rang the bell and waited to see who would come to the door. He’d never met Herbie’s parents, or any siblings. The only people who ever appeared were Herbie’s peculiar friends and a stream of hapless maids, none of whom lasted longer than a month or two before going berserk. He didn’t recognize the one who opened the door, but she smiled sweetly and showed him in.

  Herbie’s room was dark. ‘Herbie?’ Sunny called out above the familiar refrain of The Doors playing in Herbie’s home-made speakers. ‘What’s happening?’

  Someone scrabbled in the dark.

  ‘Cool, man.’

  ‘Is Ricardo here?’

  ‘Not yet. He’s coming. Relax.’

  The tape came to an end and the hiss of the air-conditioner filled the space. ‘Any new sounds, Herbie?’

  ‘Ricardo. He’s bringing the new album.’

  ‘Which new album?’

  ‘Their new album, man. You know?’ The music started again.

  Sunny tried another tack. ‘So, what’s in Quiapo besides the fiesta?’

  Herbie giggled. ‘It’s a big deal. Ricardo . . .’ He didn’t bother to finish the sentence.

  Two hours later Sunny was still waiting to hear about the big deal. Ricardo had not turned up. Or if he had, he was lost somewhere in Herbie’s room. Sunny had listened to The Doors bang again and again until his fire at least was quite blown out.

  ‘Hey, I’m going home, Herbie.’

  ‘Wait,’ Herbie started. ‘Ricardo.’ The mantra. Ricardo. He switched on a red lamp as though that might conjure up his fiendish friend. Herbie’s moonlike face was flat and thin and sloped to one side like a severe mudslide.

  In the glow Sunny made out a cricket ball snared inside an empty pickle jar. ‘Hey, Herbie, you have a ball.’

  ‘Fuck you, too.’ Herbie snorted.

  ‘A cricket ball, yeah? You know how to play, right?’

  Herbie groaned as the tape wound itself around the tiny metal capstan inside the cassette machine.

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘What are you talkin’ about?’ Herbie forced the cassette out and pulled the tape until his hands were full with the brown plastic ribbon of Jim Morrison’s unspooled words.

  ‘Robby and I are looking for people to play cricket.’

  ‘Robby?’

  ‘Yeah. He wants to learn.’

  ‘Learn?’

  After a while Herbie admitted that he had played cricket in junior school when he lived in Hong Kong and that he was pretty good with the googly.

  Sunny yelped, thrilled, when he heard the word: googly. ‘Fantastic.’ It was the kind of bowling he wished he could perfect, alongside the bouncers and bodyliners he’d spent so long practising.

  Back in the Fernando house, Rosa the maid and Beatriz the cook had gone to sleep. Rex the driver, who had been given the night off, was out on the town undaunted by the continuing jeepney strike – down to Grace Park where, he said (usually for Rosa’s benefit), he liked to have his buttocks massaged.

  Sunny was still up, fantasizing, when Lester got back from his party with Hector in tow, both men uncomfortably hamstrung by starched pineapple-fibre shirts – barongs – the Filipino national dress. The two men had been friends since their school days, but it was chance that had brought them together again in Manila. Hector was an administrator at the new Asian Development Bank, the ADB. He was a great listener and a great nodder. His large, sharp head would regularly bob, up and down, like a pecking bird. His eyes tended to be wide open, as though he was in a continuous state of surprise. For an ex-hack like Lester, he was the ideal companion. Everything Lester said he took as breaking news. He lived down the same road as Lester and Sunny and often walked over. He had no family – no wife, no children – and took an avuncular interest in Sunny. ‘Look at the world every way you can, Sunny,’ he would croon. ‘There’s a lot of world out there to see.’

  Lester brought out a bottle of whisky and an ice bucket.

  ‘Soda?’

  ‘Soda.’ Hector nodded.

  Sunny came and stood at the doorway.

  ‘Ah, Sunny, Mabuhay eh?’ Hector raised a hand in greeting. ‘How’s the young fellow?’

  ‘OK.’ Sunny shrugged.

  ‘So, you went bowling with Herbie?’ His father measured out three fingers of Scotch.

  Sunny didn’t reply.

&nbs
p; Lester poured a pretty stream of bubbly soda. The glass ended up too full. Hector’s tongue peeped out of his lips while he considered his options. Lester filled his own glass with half an inch to spare. ‘Cheers!’ He took a loud sip. ‘That’s better. How those fellows can throw a party without any whisky is beyond me. No liquor at all. Are they paid to make enemies, these diplomats? And that Mrs Desai, poking her nose into everyone’s affairs. Always on about the need of a woman’s touch in my house . . . Tcha. Cheeky ass.’

  Hector started to reach for his glass but then, hand in mid-air, hesitated. ‘I say, Lester.’

  ‘Yes, Hector?’ He chuckled at the pat little rhyme that echoed each time they addressed one another.

  ‘This is a little full, no?’

  ‘What? Your hand not steady any more?’ Lester hooted merrily. ‘Drink up, drink up. Very good for the old sciatica.’

  Sunny decided to intervene. ‘We didn’t go bowling, but you know what, Dad? Herbie is a bowler. Googlies.’

  Hector looked up. ‘Googlies? What’s this about googlies?’

  ‘Cricket, Uncle. Cricket.’

  Hector nodded solemnly.

  ‘I found my bat and ball and some friends who want to learn the game.’

  Hector managed a sip, spilling just a few drops from his glass. He smacked his lips and settled back. ‘I see. A cricket team. But is there another team to play against? The Quezon XI perhaps?’

  ‘You,’ Sunny declared. ‘You and Dad. You must have a team you can get together? The Old Boys’ Brigade.’

  Lester slapped his thigh, a habit he had developed to aid his thinking, particularly after a whisky or two. ‘Desai. Those fellows must have a cricketer or two among them. Bloody soberers, no?’ He took a big mouthful. Slap, bang, his hand went again hard against his thigh.