The Match

by Romesh Gunesekera

  Sunny took the cocktail decoration out of his glass and shredded the flimsy paper. Clara and Ranil shared things he had no way of reaching. Jimmy’s? What did Jimmy’s have? Cod? Haddock? Skate? Fat soggy chips? Wrapped in what? The Liverpool Echo? What could the sea possibly look like from a grease pot in Wallasey? Nothing like the sea from Galle Face in Colombo, or from Roxas Boulevard along Manila Bay. He remembered the sunsets, the luscious, swirling, sexy sky.

  Clara ignored the small pile of debris accumulating between her knife and Sunny’s fork. ‘I miss the water. Being near it.’

  Sunny experienced a rush of unexpected loyalty. ‘What about the Thames? Brighton isn’t that far. And Southend?’

  She smiled at him as though to shield him from a world he could never understand.

  Ranil snorted. ‘Not the same thing at all. There is no sense of freedom. You need freedom.’ For a moment he sounded like Lester before martial law had changed him. ‘And anyway we have had industrial-strength pollutants to lace our sunsets.’

  The food arrived and the young Thai waiter tried to explain the contents of each dish in tentative, puckered English.

  Clara picked at her food like a bird, tasting a little bit at a time. She said it was delicious, but Sunny was not placated. He wanted to make up for their lack of a shared heritage of Mersey chips, industrial sirens and frigging Woodside foghorns.

  He picked up a plate of prawns and passed them over. ‘Try these. At least it’s seafood.’

  She spooned them on to her plate, skewered one with a fork and nibbled it. The prawn still had its boiled tail, which stuck out of her mouth like an exploded cigarette. She pulled it off and licked the sauce from the bright red fan and then from her fingers. Her face coloured as the fresh chilli drew heat from somewhere inside her. ‘I like these.’ She closed her eyes and tore the tail off another one.

  Ranil scooped up a huge helping of the masaman and grunted. ‘I’m not sure about prawns.’ He looked with drunken disdain at Clara’s plate. ‘They are such a low form of life.’

  Sunny was incensed. ‘Higher forms of life are what you prefer then? Chicken, lamb, cattle? Why not go all the way up the food chain? What about people, Ranil? Human beings?’

  ‘OK, all right. Easy. I am just not a seafood person, tha’s all.’

  ‘Chips with battered fish, huh?’

  ‘What?’

  Clara intervened. ‘Can you pass the rice?’

  Sunny wanted to hurl it across the table. A massive storm was building up in his chest. She must have sensed it, although he was sure the metaphysical head case next to her hadn’t. She held out her hand for the bowl. They were connected by the gilt rim of the porcelain for only a moment, but it was enough to discharge the fury.

  ‘Thank you.’ She helped herself to a spoonful of scented rice.

  Sunny knew he wanted too much, he knew it couldn’t be, it shouldn’t be. Somehow things had fallen into the wrong places, but there was nothing he could do about it. Not just then.

  Ranil stared at his food and ate with the kind of intensity with which he sometimes talked of divinity and revelation.

  Clara began to describe her impressions of London. She was living beyond Archway, sharing a small flat with Holly, a girl she’d known at school and who had moved to London a few months earlier. She said it didn’t feel like the London of her imagination, but it did seem close to it, as though she might find the other place if she walked just half a mile down the road. She said she felt she was near something very big, bigger than anything she’d known. ‘Sometimes I think I might be able to hear the real city if only the buses would stop for a bit.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I can walk over to Waterlow Park. They’ve got ducks and birds of all sorts there.’

  ‘Migrants? Temporary visitors?’ Sunny tried to find some common ground.

  The waiter came and asked if they wanted to order more food. Sunny looked at Ranil and couldn’t stop himself. ‘Prawns?’

  He wouldn’t be baited. Clara clammed up after that. For dessert, the waiter suggested rambutan but it could have been monkey testicles for all Sunny cared.

  ‘I think I’ll go home now.’ Clara said when they’d finished. ‘I should get back.’

  ‘I’ll drive you.’ Ranil rose unsteadily to his feet.

  ‘No. It’s OK. The tube is fine.’ She put her coat on and wrapped a scarf around her neck.

  ‘I’ll drive you back through the park. Hyde Park.’

  ‘No, Ranil. I want to take the tube.’

  It was clear that any expedition with Ranil would be risky. ‘We’ll walk you to the station, then.’ Sunny chimed in, feeling stupid but gallant.

  She softened and touched him. ‘Yes, that’ll be good. Thank you.’ They walked in the cold night air swaying gently, each with an arm through hers.

  Over the next few months the three of them would meet up from time to time in Kensington, or Chelsea, or Fulham. Clara liked to explore new areas. Ranil was content to let things drift until the moment, as he put it, was ripe.

  Sunny tried to focus on his second-level part-time course without any notable success, and then let things drift too, as was his natural inclination.

  In the spring of 1980 Sunny received an envelope addressed by his father’s secretary – Miss Esmeralda Ramos – whose hand he had learnt to recognize from the annual payouts sent by Lester. It contained a twice-folded blue aerogramme addressed to him in Urdaneta. On the sender’s line was Robby’s name and an address in East Finchley. Sunny couldn’t believe it. Robby wrote with the familiarity of someone for whom ten years or so was of no significance. He said he was living in London and had been to a Sri Lankan restaurant in Hendon where he had eaten egg hoppers like the ones Lester had cooked after their big match. It made him want to get in touch. Sunny imagined Robby with his mouth full, his keeper’s paw around Tina’s waist. Robby went on to describe the pubs of Tufnell Park as though they were the inns of paradise. Sunny found this unsettling, as though he was eavesdropping on someone else’s conversation. He hadn’t been to Tufnell Park, Hendon or East Finchley, but from Clara he had a rough idea of the area.

  Robby had not given a telephone number. Sunny toyed with the idea of writing to him via the Makati post office with the help of Miss E. Ramos, or turning up on his East Finchley doorstep with a suitcase, but then decided on a postcard of Big Ben sent first-class direct. He suggested a rendezvous at the Half Crown in South Ken.

  At twenty-five Robby had become quite rotund and a little bow-legged, as though he’d been crouching behind Tina for longer than he should. He sat down with his legs wide apart, nurturing his belly like a pregnant woman. Stubble had grown along his lower jaw as if to compensate for his false womb, or his prematurely receding hair. He wore black in a cool, carefree sort of way.

  ‘Kumusta ka, paré?’ His eyes looked to Sunny for a familiar response. ‘C’est moi, Robby.’

  Sunny took his hand, unsure whether to clasp or shake or return to the arcane rituals of their adolescence. ‘Guinness?’ He wanted to show how deep he was into the local culture. Robby preferred cider, his most recent discovery.

  ‘I was amazed, man, to get the Big Ben postcard. Amazed.’

  ‘Me too. A letter after so long.’

  ‘Yeah, you know how it is. I never used to write letters. But then last year everything all changed and I discovered . . . many new things.’

  ‘You mean, like cider?’

  He laughed, proudly shaking the modest scrub on his chin. ‘Health. Not easy these days with all the fucking scares we get.’

  Sunny passed him his cider, bemused. ‘So, how come you are in London? What are you doing here?’

  ‘Following the hard path of love, paré. These days you must stick to the one you find first. If you understand . . .’

  ‘Oh yeah. Love the one you’re with . . .’

  Her face came back to Sunny then, like a familiar refrain, looking back over her shoulder as she walked up to the chalked
crease. Her bare legs shining behind the hot pads of a batting fantasy. ‘I see.’

  ‘We have a small company. We do lingerie.’

  Sunny saw ivory lace garters beneath her kneepads. ‘Both of you? In East Finchley?’ He could understand it, yes. Tina’s teen passion.

  ‘Mostly mail order. We have a shop front on the high street for seasonal wear. But our speciality is the exotique in our catalogue.’ Robby fluttered an eye. ‘You know, like the barong materials. We do a fantasy range with banana and pineapple fibre from the Philippines. Murder to wear. You remember what it feels like? Piña? Jusi? That stiff harsh material. But some people just love the idea.’

  ‘So, you go back to Manila?’

  ‘We have a good supplier.’

  ‘And Tina? How is she?’

  Robby looked perplexed. ‘Tina? You mean from Makati days?’

  ‘I thought . . .’

  ‘She went to America, didn’t she?’

  Seeing Robby again made Sunny realize something about his life. He had always seen himself as existing in a special world of his own making. People who entered it and left it only seemed to do so; they were shadows on a window which became something more only if he wanted them to. They were there, but not really there. It had never occurred to him that he might appear in the same way to other people: an image in a lens. Someone who went away and never looked back. He had not understood before that they each had the power to be wherever they wanted to be.

  Robby gave Sunny his number in East Finchley and they’d meet up every now and again, but it was never quite the same as the old days. Robby was too busy with his business and his partner, whom he preferred to keep to himself.

  The fact that Robby had changed made Sunny feel as though he was the only one incapable of moving on in life. The ghost of Tina still haunted him. Lost love, lost opportunities. Robby reminded him of it all. One time he brought up the subject of cricket. ‘You play the game here?’

  Sunny made a face. ‘It is not so easy in this country.’

  Robby laughed. ‘The home of cricket? Not easy?’

  ‘It’s a team game. I don’t know how to get into one here.’

  He told Robby about the guys upstairs, at work, who were dedicated cricketers and spent all their summer weekends in some green and pleasant county field. Somehow he couldn’t see himself in their team, not even in the same field. ‘It’s a very exclusive game here.’

  ‘Like everything, na?’

  Sunny shrugged. Over the years he had come to understand that England ran on eccentric notions of privilege. With the new Conservative government getting into stride it looked set to become more so. Was old Veera in Birkenhead right? Was it only a matter of time before Makati-style villages sprouted here too, separating rich from poor with rubber truncheons and high-voltage wires? Perhaps even guns one day.

  At the end of July that year, the summer of 1980, Ranil suggested a picnic by the river. ‘I’ll ask Clara and some old college buddies. Why don’t you ask your Filipino friend to come along?’

  ‘Robby?’

  ‘Yes, Robby. We can go to an island in Teddington.’

  The prospect of Ranil, Robby and Clara together filled Sunny with anxiety.

  He was pretty low because of his work. His section head was becoming more demented by the hour and the sight of his desk almost made Sunny physically ill. It was not a good time. A stupid mistake he’d made with the accounts for the first quarter had affected the whole section; his colleagues were not pleased, especially the three exiles from Makerere – the experts – who had to redo the ledgers. Coffee breaks were grim and the Jaffa cakes he’d taken in as recompense hadn’t made much difference.

  On the day of the picnic, the sun bloomed with a soft lazy light. Pretty fuchsias, their pink slips showing, swayed over the walls of Redcliffe Gardens and the smell of lavender drifted over the bleached larch. Bees swooned between slowly opening buds and tumbled down warm yellow trumpets. In the blue sky a plane traced a line towards the warm south.

  Ranil was painstakingly cutting feta cheese into ragged cubes. ‘I got a cooler. If you look in the fridge there are two ice packs for it.’

  Sunny got them out, as well as a whole tray of sliced meats covered in greaseproof paper.

  At eleven o’clock precisely, the buzzer went. Clara was on the steps with a rucksack on her back. She wore a pale scarf around her head with small, beaten gold disks attached to each edge.

  ‘Hi. You guys ready?’ She smiled. Her face seemed to float up in the clear morning light. She pulled off her scarf, and shook her hair loose.

  ‘You got the chicken?’ Ranil yelled, putting the final touches to his Greek salad.

  ‘Lots.’ She looked at Sunny. ‘And what about you, Sunny? Did you bring the drink?’

  ‘There’s another guy bringing wine.’ Sunny tried to sound nonchalant, but there was a sharp pain in his gut.

  Ranil parked in a sodden field of cow parsley and urban debris. Robby, who had been picked up at Turnham Green, was first out. They unloaded the car and set off, carrying cardboard boxes, the hamper, the cooler, carrier bags, Clara’s rucksack and the back seat of the 2CV in a procession that rivalled A Passage to India. Ranil’s island lay like Sindbad’s whale in the dark water with a bridge, as he had promised, to its green forehead. ‘We must face south,’ Ranil declared and spread the blanket.

  Clara stripped to a strapless buttery top and started applying cream to her arms.

  ‘I brought cider,’ Robby announced. ‘Anyone for a glass?’

  ‘Lovely.’ She slipped off her sandals and rolled up her jeans to rub more cream on to her legs.

  Ranil turned to Sunny. ‘Those two can look after the food, while we go look for the other chaps.’

  The water was dark despite the summer sun. The river eddied and seemed to flow in both directions. Ranil marched on ahead. When Sunny caught up, Ranil shook his head as if to clear it. ‘Strange girl, you know, Clara. Sometimes I really don’t understand her. When I first mentioned the picnic, I couldn’t get a smile out of her. Then when I said we could have a bit of a do, with you and the others, she perked up and offered to make chicken drumsticks. Next thing she goes all quiet again. How is a fellow to know what to do?’

  ‘Yes.’ Sunny didn’t know either.

  Three figures appeared on the path ahead: John, Matthew and Rachel, Ranil’s old college mates. ‘Hey, you made it.’

  Although clueless about Clara, Ranil was good at maintaining his friendships. Sunny just couldn’t manage it. Even Robby had had to seek Sunny out.

  Clara peeled herself off the car bench as they returned. ‘Oh, hallo.’

  Robby, who had been lying on the ground next to her, stood up too.

  ‘There you are.’ Ranil beamed. ‘Robby.’

  Wine was opened and passed around with the cider. The newcomers started a conversation about voices in the wilderness and the iconography of world religions.

  Robby opened the Tupperware, while Clara removed the foil from her chicken dish.

  A warmth spread across Sunny’s shoulders. ‘Your recipe?’

  A patch of skin near her throat had burned a foxy red in the sun. ‘I learned a bit from Mrs V., you know? Our lady of Birkenhead.’

  ‘She taught you to cook?’

  Clara picked up a celery stick. ‘I used to go over and help with her ironing as a sort of Saturday job and she started teaching me a few things from the Kama Sutra.’

  ‘What?’ He saw her naked limbs entwined above her head. The celery in her mouth. Steam. Her nipples popping out.

  ‘Just teasing. God, Sunny. You are getting as intense as Ranil.’

  ‘I’ll never forget that Christmas party.’ He struggled lamely for something to say.

  ‘You’ve never come back, have you? Up North?’

  Sunny told Clara that apart from the trip with Ranil, and one other works outing, he had not ventured much beyond Euston Road.

  ‘Come up to Archway then. I can show you W
aterlow Park. Robby lives only a little further on.’

  Sunny looked around and saw Robby lying on the ground between Matthew and Rachel, his head propped on a green wine bottle and his knees bent. Occasionally his whole body would shake to one of his unfathomable jokes. Clara was not Tina, but she put thoughts in his head that he wanted to chase.

  ‘Like to feed the birds?’ Sunny stood up and offered his hand to pull her up. They walked down to the water’s edge, each holding a handful of brown crusts.

  Two coots had found a still patch of water. Sunny threw some bread to them and they gobbled it up.

  Clara threw some too. Sunny looked at her. A feeling of extraordinary happiness flooded him as he stood there with her, breathing as the wind might do over the unfurling petals of a wild flower on some distant mountainside. When the bread had all gone, the birds squawked out a few complaints and then drifted out into the current. After a few seconds in silence, Clara turned to go. It hadn’t lasted long, but Sunny treasured their moment together.

  The rest of the summer slipped by uneventfully. Then, when the leaves in Kensington Gardens began to turn, Sunny finally decided to brave the upper reaches of the Northern Line. He arranged to meet Clara at her flat. Ranil was out of town inspecting Durham cathedral for a footnote in his thesis.

  Sunny had dithered because he didn’t know what to say, or do. There was no one he could ask for advice. Ranil no doubt had her wedding ring on deposit. Robby probably had her ringed and unringed, clothed and unclothed, every other day.

  The door opened.

  ‘Sunny. So early.’

  The hallway was narrow and had been turned into an architectural puzzle of locked doors. Clara opened one with a Star Wars poster stuck to it, revealing a flight of cheaply carpeted stairs. ‘This way.’ She bounded up, two at a time, in rainbow socks.

  At the top she held back yet another door with her bum. ‘It’s not as big as Ranil’s, but you can see trees out of the window. Well, some twigs anyway.’ She laughed with her head tilted to one side.

  ‘I brought you these.’ He gave her the bag of shy cashews he’d bought instead of flowers or chocolates.