The Ecliptic

by Benjamin Wood

  As I went up the steps to the viewing gallery, I could hear the rhythmic pop of rubber against walls, the skid of sports shoes. I had never seen a squash match in my life and did not understand how one was played, or how to follow it as a spectator. When Dulcie used phrases like ‘the nick’ and ‘counter drop’ and ‘short line’ in her summaries, I would nod as if I knew exactly what she meant. She had a certain skill for describing the to-and-fro of her matches and it seemed rude to interrupt her. I envied this gift of Dulcie’s, in fact—she could find enthusiasm for the most tedious of things and bestow it unto others through sheer force of will.

  The viewing gallery was empty, but for one man standing at the railing with his son. I was going to ask for the score, but then it struck me that the proper etiquette might be to wait for a break in play, so I held back. ‘Daddy,’ the child said, staring at me. ‘Do we have to move our things now?’ He was not quite tall enough to see over the top rail—a boy of seven or thereabouts, all buttoned up in a stiff Oxford shirt and trousers pulled too high over his waist. The balcony was smeared with his handprints; he was in the throes of driving his Dinky cars over the glass in slow figures-of-eight. His father hummed. ‘Huh, what?’

  ‘For the lady. She wants to sit down.’

  ‘Which lady?’

  The man turned. He was what Dulcie liked to call ‘a studious fellow’, meaning he was bearded and bespectacled and not especially handsome. He had hair that thinned on top and greyed around the edges. His jacket was slung over his left arm like a waiter’s cloth. It had not been apparent right away, but now I could see that his attention was on something other than the court. He was wiping a leaky fountain pen with a handkerchief. Blue ink marred the fabric of his shirt—a jagged island right below his nipple. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘just a moment.’ He finished cleaning off the pen and carried it to the chairs behind me.

  I told him not to worry. ‘Really, I’m better off standing.’ But he seemed intent on clearing his belongings, as though they were in some way humiliating. There was a briefcase full of dog-eared folders and a few of the child’s toys were scattered on the seat—plastic soldiers, horses and artillery; a tin rocket with chipped-off paint. The man snapped the case shut and began to collect the toys rather hurriedly. ‘Come and help,’ he told the boy. ‘Put them in your pockets.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘Don’t move anything on my account.’

  ‘No, no, we shouldn’t be acting like we own the place.’ He carried on gathering the soldiers. ‘Jonathan—come here! Excuse all this,’ he said. ‘My wife hates it when I do paperwork on holiday. Have to steal these moments when I can.’ His son just drove his little car along the glass, ignoring him. ‘Don’t pretend you didn’t hear me, son. Do you want that cream soda we talked about or not?’

  The boy came trudging over. Before he could reach his father, though, a cry rose up from the court. Dulcie was stretched out on her side, having lunged to reach a dropping ball, and her opponent was exalting in the glory of a shot well hit. Dulcie kept slapping the floor with her palm. The man rushed back to the railing. ‘What happened? Did you see?’

  ‘I think she might have lost that one.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Dulcie.’

  ‘Well thank God for that!’ he said.

  ‘Are they finished?’

  ‘No. It’s two all. They’ll have to play a final set.’

  ‘Oh. Exciting,’ I said, half-heartedly. ‘And really good news for your paperwork.’

  He smiled. ‘Well, it would be if all my pens weren’t broken. I don’t suppose you have one, do you?’

  ‘No, sorry.’

  ‘I’ll have to fetch another from downstairs. What’s that you’re reading?’

  I showed him the cover of my book.

  ‘Any good?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know—it depends how much you like the Plantagenets. I’m finding it difficult to care about them.’

  ‘Then why are you still reading it?’

  ‘Because I didn’t bring anything else.’

  ‘Ah. I used to make that same mistake. Now I don’t have time for novels at all—makes packing a lot easier.’ He offered me his ink-stained hand. ‘Victor Yail. Pleased to meet you.’

  His shake was very gentle.

  ‘Elspeth Conroy,’ I said.

  On court, Dulcie was adjusting her headband, walking back to make a serve. She glanced up and saw me on the balcony, giving a little gesture with her racquet. ‘Are you much of a squash fan?’ said Victor. ‘Don’t really have a choice in my house. Amanda has four brothers and all of them play for their county. I’ve married into the faith.’

  ‘Well, I’m just here for moral support.’

  ‘You don’t play yourself?’

  ‘No. You?’

  ‘Once upon a time.’ He flexed his arm. ‘Bad elbow.’

  The two women were hitting the ball at such a speed that I could barely follow the blur from wall to wall. Each shot gave a whipcrack. Their feet thudded the planks as they hustled back and forth. ‘Christ,’ I said. ‘They’re really smashing it. I never knew Dulcie had that kind of strength.’

  ‘Yes. Her game’s all power.’

  ‘Is that good?’

  ‘Can be, I suppose.’ Victor chuckled. ‘I prefer to see a bit of grace in the lady’s game, that’s all, a nonchalant slice and nimble footwork—you know what I mean. Élan.’

  ‘They both seem to be whacking it quite hard.’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s apples and oranges down there. Apples and oranges.’

  ‘Well, Dulcie’s not sweating as much as your wife is. I’m no expert, but that has to be an indication of something.’

  ‘Only that Amanda hasn’t changed her shirt yet.’

  I grinned. ‘A pound says she loses.’

  ‘A pound? Phew, that’s steep.’ He eyed the motions of his wife on court. ‘Frankly, I can’t trust Mandy to maintain this pace. She only plays well after an argument. Tried to pick one with me this morning, but I wasn’t having it.’

  ‘How selfish of you.’

  ‘Yes, that’s just what she said.’

  Victor was an easy man to talk to. There was a serene quality about his face that appealed to me: his eyes soft-lidded, his mouth all thick and pursy. Perhaps I just found him unthreatening. He seemed like a person who would be incapable of tempting me away from the life I should have had.

  ‘Daddy, is it OK if I lie on the floor with this?’ The boy came rushing to his father’s kneecaps, holding up a comic.

  ‘As long as you stay on the carpet, I don’t see why not.’

  ‘Yesssss.’ He dropped immediately and crawled into the space between the chairs.

  ‘And Jonathan?’

  ‘Uh-huh?’

  ‘Please read it in your head this time.’

  ‘OK.’

  Victor rolled his eyes at me.

  ‘Sweet boy,’ I said.

  ‘He’s a gifted actor, that’s what he is. You should see the hell he gives his mother. Are you on B Deck?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then you’ll have missed all the screaming last night. Lucky you.’ As if it were not clear enough that he was joking, he gave a little wink to underline it. Then he craned his neck to say to the boy, ‘Nearly had to throw you overboard last night, didn’t we, son? See if you could swim all the way to America?’

  ‘Shshhh,’ said the boy, ‘I’m reading.’

  ‘Oh, pardon me.’ Victor leaned close to my shoulder. ‘We mustn’t interfere with Superman and his adventures.’

  ‘Who?’

  He waved this away. ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  Dulcie was flagging now on court. She seemed to be stuck in a pattern of sending the ball back in the same direction—three times she hit it to the far left corner, and three times it came back, with added spin. I did not understand the point of having an opponent when the purpose of the game was to stand there striking the same shot repeatedly. ‘It’s getting a bit
attritional down there,’ Victor said. ‘I might just finish that paperwork, after all. Do you mind if I—?’ He thumbed towards the chairs.

  ‘Feel free.’

  He went to get his briefcase, but stopped partway, clicking his fingers. ‘Damn,’ he said. ‘Pen.’ For a long moment, he stood there looking from his son to me, his son to me, apparently caught in the same futile rhythm as Dulcie’s squash game. ‘Is there a chance you’d do me a huge favour and watch the pipsqueak here?’

  ‘Oh, I’m really not qualified for that . . .’ The boy was ensconced in the reading of his comic. He was flat on his belly, kicking his heels together. ‘But I suppose he doesn’t look like too much trouble.’

  ‘You’re very kind.’ Victor patted his son’s head. ‘Be good for Miss Conroy. I’ll be back in ten.’ And so the boy and I were left alone.

  I kept him at the edge of my vision, not wanting to seem overbearing, and tried to involve myself in what was taking place on court. The frantic squeal of shoes continued, as Dulcie scampered from one wall to the other like a captive rat, and Amanda Yail dodged around her. It was a claustrophobic sport, lacking in variety—the kind of game I could never imagine myself taking seriously—but it was obvious that Dulcie and the boy’s mother were deeply invested in the task of beating each other. They refused to concede a single ball that had the smallest chance of being redeemed, panting and wheezing between shots. It was quite an inelegant thing to watch. I tried to absorb myself again in Below the Salt, but could not focus on the words. Then I remembered I was supposed to be looking after Jonathan.

  He was still on the carpet, flipping through the pages of his comic. I went over and sat down on the chairs near by. ‘Do you understand this game?’ I asked.

  The boy twisted round to glance at me. He shook his head and turned away again.

  ‘Perhaps there’s something I’m missing. I don’t know about you, but if someone told me to go and run around inside a box for a few hours with a stick of wood, I’d say they were mad.’ He was not listening. ‘I suppose grown-ups can be funny, though, can’t they?’ The boy began to wriggle on his stomach then, as though irritated by my voice or the chafe of his trousers. ‘You know, I don’t mind if you want to read out loud. I’ve never heard of this super man before. What’s so super about him anyway?

  Jonathan climbed to his knees.

  ‘I mean, does he do his own washing and ironing?’

  ‘No!’ he said, aghast. ‘That’s silly!’

  ‘Does he look into your eyes when he’s talking to you?’

  ‘No, but lasers come out of them.’

  ‘Ah. Sounds dangerous.’ I smiled at him. He was gawping at me now, gauging my sincerity. ‘Well, he must open doors for ladies, then. Buy them flowers on their birthday, that kind of thing.’

  ‘No, no, no—he’s not super like that.’ His face was alight. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’ll show you.’ He came and sat in the empty club chair beside me, laying the comic across the armrest. The front cover had a masthead that said SUPERMAN in stocky 3-D lettering. A muscly blond wrestler in a blue-and-red uniform was swinging an identical man (but for his dark hair) into a telephone pole. The caption read: A GREAT 3-PART NOVEL: THE SUPER-OUTLAW FROM KRYPTON! ‘The one with the black hair is the real Superman. The other one is just pretending.’

  ‘He can’t be all that super if he’s being smashed through a pole,’ I said.

  ‘It’s because Kull-Ex is strong, too. That’s Kull-Ex—’ He prodded the blond man’s face. ‘You think he’s Superman to begin with and that he’s turned bad, smashing up all these buildings and things, and everyone’s upset with Superman for a long time, but then he takes off his mask and you see it’s really Kull-Ex and he’s from Kandor on Superman’s home planet. And he’s trying to get revenge on Superman because Superman’s dad stole his dad’s invention. But that turns out to be a lie, anyway.’ Jonathan gulped. ‘Want me to show you the bit where he finds out it’s a lie?’

  ‘Of course I do. I’m hooked.’

  He shifted closer. I could smell the lavender of ship-issue soap in his hair. There were dry flakes about his crown. I wondered what it might be like to comb that floppy fringe into a nice side parting, if it would make him look more like his father. Keenly, he set about unravelling the convolutions of his comic book story, conducting the flow of action from panel to panel with his finger, calling out the speech that jutted from characters’ mouths in white balloons. He did not have any trouble reading—even the longer words, like ‘confession’ or ‘solitude’, and the stranger ones, like ‘Zenium’—though I sensed he might have memorised the script in places. ‘And look, this is the bit when Supergirl goes into the Fortriss of Sollichood and tries to pull him out with tweezers! It’s silly, but I like it. I like that she can see things that are really really really small. And I think on the next page is where Superman comes up with his plan to save them. Or is it on—no wait—there it is.’ He went on breathlessly for minutes, rifling through the pages, until his father came back up the steps and we had to curtail things.

  ‘Managed to scrounge one off a steward in the lift,’ Victor said, flashing a silver pen at me. ‘I promised to get it back to him, but let’s just see how well it writes first, eh? This could be the pen of my dreams.’ He saw that Jonathan had been showing me the comic. ‘Oh God, sorry about him. Has he been boring you with Dr Telex and his Fortress of Whatever It Is?’

  ‘I believe it’s Kull-Ex,’ I said, ‘son of Zell-Ex.’

  ‘Right!’ the boy cried. ‘See, Daddy. I told you it was interesting.’

  Victor crossed his arms. ‘Oh, thanks for nothing, Miss Conroy. I leave you alone for one minute and you start colluding with the enemy.’ He strode to the balcony and gazed into the court. ‘What’s happening down there? Any idea?’

  ‘I’m afraid we got a bit sidetracked.’ I leaned back in the chair. ‘And, I have to tell you, this super outlaw from Krypton is much more riveting than any squash game. Isn’t that right, Jonathan?’

  ‘Yup,’ said the boy, sliding the pages. ‘Loads better.’

  His father spun round, looking half amused, half agitated. ‘They’re still playing. From the looks of it, Dulcie’s got the beating of her.’

  ‘That’s what Kull-Ex thought on the mountaintop,’ I said, ‘but it didn’t turn out too rosily in the end.’

  Victor stared at me, eyes bulging behind his spectacles. ‘Wow, he’s really done a job on you. I wasn’t even gone that long.’

  I reached to ruffle the boy’s hair as a show of unity, then thought better of it, patting his shoulder instead. Standing up, I said, ‘He’s impeccably behaved. A real credit to you both.’

  This seemed to resonate with Victor more than I anticipated. ‘Oh—well, yes,’ he said, ‘thank you for that. I mean, we’ve always liked him.’

  The crack of rubber on walls grew louder. I glanced down at the match: Amanda’s shirt was now so wet I could see the straps of her bra through it, and Dulcie’s knee was trickling blood. I was not sure how much longer the two of them would survive if they kept up this intensity of play. Their arms were shining, their faces burning red, like two old fighters in a Bernard Cale drawing.

  ‘To tell you the truth, I don’t really see enough of the boy these days,’ Victor went on. ‘That’s mostly what this trip is about. I thought, if work’s going to drag me to New York again, then we’ll all go this time—make a holiday of it. He’s never been further than Hunstanton before.’ His voice was quieter now but more intense. ‘Maybe that’s why he’s so fixated on the planet Krypton, I don’t know. Mandy is convinced the comics are stunting him socially.’

  ‘And what do you think?’ I said, peering back at the boy. He seemed content, even composed.

  ‘I think they definitely stimulate his imagination—no bad thing—but I worry how much they’re occluding his perspective on the world.’

  ‘I don’t follow.’

  ‘I’m saying, if he fixates too much on the land of superheroes
, there’s a danger that reality will always seem disappointing. That can lead to genuine behavioural problems in the long run. I’ve seen it in a lot of my patients. Not with comics, in their case, but science fiction novels, television. The research suggests we ought to be wary.’

  ‘You’re a doctor?’ I said.

  ‘Yes—a psychiatrist. Did I not mention that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, I try not to lead off with that leg, you know. Sets people against me before I’ve had a chance to lobotomise them.’ He coughed awkwardly. ‘That was a joke. An old one. Anyway—’ He sniffed and steered his eyes down to the court again. ‘You haven’t told me what you do. How’d you know an old tyrant like Dulcie?’

  ‘Her gallery represents me. I’m a painter.’

  ‘Oh, wow. Forgive me. That is exciting.’ He lifted his brow to edge up his glasses. ‘I suppose that means she works for you then, doesn’t it?’

  ‘That’s not quite how I’d put it. But she’s very good at what she does.’

  ‘No doubt she’s tenacious,’ Victor conceded. ‘What sort of pictures are we talking about here? Portraits?’

  ‘Now and then. I usually paint from memory. Things I’ve seen or imagined. But I’m not sure there’s much of a future in it.’

  ‘Why not?’