Double Fault

by Lionel Shriver

  “You’re wrong, dead wrong—What are you doing?”

  “Just checking.” He was rifling through the cabinet under the sink, where Willy kept her diaphragm.

  When Willy peeked in the library, it was late, the lights were off. She assumed that Max had already called it a night until a flicker from a video alcove threw light on the opposite shelves. Willy picked her way around the reading tables to find Max seated before a screen, scotch at elbow and the remote control cradled in his hand. She stood behind him to watch the video: tennis.

  “She’s fantastic,” Willy remarked. He hadn’t moved since she walked in, but didn’t start when she spoke.

  “Isn’t she?” Max agreed, still riveted to the tape. “Graceful, quick, ingenious. And beautiful. Small but perfectly proportioned. What a fire under that woman.”

  “New acquisition?”

  “Ancient. But one of my best.” Max turned and cocked an eyebrow at the twist of her features in the glow of the tube. His lips parted in wonder. “You really don’t recognize yourself, do you?”

  “That’s me?”

  Max laughed. “You are far gone. Jealous of yourself.” He hit the pause; Willy’s face froze in a grimace. Max rewound and reran the point. “New Freedom; I took the camcorder. You were miles ahead of the field. They weren’t good enough to tie your shoes.”

  “I’m not good enough to tie my own anymore.”

  “Hey, there’s always Velcro. Drink?”

  “Sure.”

  “What brings you up here at this hour?” Max switched on the lamp in his usual corner and unlocked his liquor cabinet.

  “Is it OK? You’re glad to see me?”

  “I’m glad to see you.” He took the opportunity to touch her neck, just. His hand was warm.

  “I was bad.”

  “New Jersey qualies?” He handed her a whiskey the size of an apple juice.

  “Long tiebreak; one rabbity return of a shot I should have clouted.” She shrugged, accustomed to telescoping protracted disaster. “I mean I was badly behaved. Tried to decapitate the umpire with my racket. My language was unladylike. Eric went apoplectic. Does it matter?”

  “I’ve always found your temper rather magnificent. I’m sorry I missed it.” He clinked his glass against hers, and they plopped into perpendicular armchairs.

  “Max …” Willy wet the edge of the tumbler and traced its perimeter. “Why don’t I feel competitive with you?”

  “I’m a has-been.”

  “You can still run me around the court standing in place. Why don’t you make me mad?”

  “Simple answer? You’re not in love with me.” His delivery was deadpan. “Complicated answer?” Max proceeded when she didn’t rush to correct him. “We have a hierarchy. I’m your teacher. Hierarchies preserve the peace. Why do you think the divorce rate’s gone up? The old system worked. Marriages were spared head-to-heads because the battle was over before it began. Be your mother’s yes-massa sort of wife, Oberachiever would never piss you off. You’d just be grateful for his kindly pointers.” Before Willy could protest, Max raised a hand. “Too bad you can’t do that.”

  “I don’t get it. According to you, if Eric didn’t beat me, I wouldn’t respect him. If he does beat me, I don’t respect myself. How do two people ever—?”

  “They don’t, commonly,” said Max lightly. “Only two choices, Will: fight or knuckle under. Don’t capitulate, and he still trounces you?” Max smiled. “You might kill him.”

  Willy squirmed. “I read an article a while back about the marriage of two engineers. The husband got laid off, and couldn’t find a job. The wife was in a more generalized field of engineering, and made a bundle. He did, he murdered her. I told the story to Marcella and that bunch, in the locker room? Other women. They were all sympathetic with the man. But in the same conversation they expected me to be over the moon about Eric’s meteoric success, not homicidal. How do you figure?”

  “Nothing’s changed,” said Max, topping off her drink. “A wife’s subservience to her husband is still considered par for the course. Vice-versa is unnatural.”

  “How did you hack it, married ten years? You were famous.”

  “The apples-and-oranges ruse. Pretend your occupations don’t compare. Which they do, of course; other people rank your status whether you like it or not. Still, Angela handled my tournaments with a muscular condescension. Had some design business of her own … I never knew much about it. And Angela made my life hell when the crowds went home, which leveled the score remarkably.”

  “I’ve tried that solution. It widens the score. The victim racks up bonus points for long suffering.”

  “Think Oberjock could bear your ESPN interviews, while he made sure that in the apartment you never visited there was always ass-wipe in the can?”

  “In a word? No.”

  “If you could do a deal with the devil, would you switch places with him?”

  “Funny, I asked him the same thing. Sure, I’d trade 924 for 58 in a millisecond.”

  “At the price of turning your husband into a pumpkin?”

  Willy’s hesitation was slight. “Yes.”

  “Some love.”

  “I’m young and selfish.”

  “I’m not.”

  She looked at him harder, and stopped playing with her glass.

  “Watching you the last two years has been so …” Max spread his free hand helplessly in the air, then dropped it. “If Lucifer handed me the contract, I’d sign tonight. I’d deliver you my clipping file if I could, as a present.”

  “And you’d take mine? No way.”

  Max put his drink down and knelt at her feet. “You could have my Top Ten ranking. I’d inscribe your name on my All England cup. I don’t care.”

  “You won’t convince me that you don’t care about tennis.”

  He took her hand. “I don’t care about my tennis. I’m beyond ambition, kiddo. What I want the ATP can’t offer.”

  “You only want what you don’t have.” Willy fought a rising agitation. “The grass is greener.”

  “Your grass is very green indeed.” He wrapped his hand around her neck, and kissed her. He’d done that before, but had always pulled back with a pretense that it hadn’t happened. This time he didn’t pull back. It happened.

  “I said we had a hierarchy, Will,” Max whispered hoarsely a few inches from her face. “You thought I meant I was on top. Not so. You’ve been in the driver’s seat since you were seventeen. So go ahead. Dominate me.”

  He pulled her forward and kissed her more deeply. As he swept her body to the floor and pinned her on the carpet, he did not feel to Willy like a man who was being dominated.

  TWENTY

  WILLY ALMOST SKIPPED BREAKFAST, but avoidance was delay. Which dictated Max’s table; to sit anywhere else would be more awkward yet. Ordinarily a hearty eater, Max was propped before a lone cup, his face drained and inexpressive. Summer camp was in full swing; the rowdy shriek and tussle of kids jangled Willy’s nerves. A good proportion of this year’s intake were overweight. Their parents couldn’t have hoped that the little porkers would play Wimbledon so much as that on their return home there would simply be less of them. Sweetspot-turned-fat-farm no doubt depressed its proprietor, or would have depressed him on mornings he was aware that he had students.

  Willy nodded and assumed a seat opposite, stirring her cup and blowing on the coffee. Max sat immobile, at rest. He seemed relaxed. If the night before he was “beyond ambition,” this morning he was beyond something else.

  “You expect,” he introduced in a craggy monotone, “to do some line sprints, a few weights, and then of course I’ll spend a couple of hours with you on court.”

  “Unless you have other—”

  “But that’s what you expect.”

  The coffee tasted awful. “It is what we usually…”

  Willy could meet his eyes only in sorties, but Max stared at her squarely. “After sliding so far, your gall remains intact. Maybe
that hollow of yours isn’t all that cavernous. Your ego is remarkably robust. I wish I could say the same for mine.”

  Willy bowed her head, her stomach acid. The gray sludge in her cup looked like liquid dread.

  “Since we do have a business relationship,” he continued, “might you join me in my office? Before you avail yourself of my facilities? Consider yourself as having an appointment.”

  In his office, Max was bulwarked behind his desk, surrounded by copies of dunning letters rich with five-figure sums. This was the Max Upchurch whose implacable edifice met the parents of fat children, parents who would pay through the nose for every ounce he sweated off their kids. This was the Max Upchurch who had no intention of engraving his All England trophy with any other name than Maximilian E. Upchurch.

  “Our contract,” he began, clasping his hands, “bound me to cover your expenses in exchange for a cut of your earnings the first five years of your pro career. You turned pro at twenty-one. You’re twenty-seven. Our contract,” he paused, “has expired.”

  “What do you want to do about it?” She didn’t take a chair.

  “I originally had in mind a somewhat different arrangement, but last night you apprised me that my alternative proposal was not suitable.” He said syewtable, like a Brit.

  “I told you years ago that it wasn’t syewtable.”

  “I can take a long time to get the message.”

  “But you’ve got the message now.”

  “Entirely,” he said, tracing a light red scratch on his left arm. “So maybe we should proceed on a more à la carte basis. You are welcome to rent a dorm room on the premises for $700 per month, or $1000 with board. Court time is $15 per hour—”

  “Spare me—”

  “My own time,” he overrode, “is $100 per hour, and that is a discount.”

  “I’m bowled over by the break.” A light, cold sweat had broken out over Willy’s forehead.

  “A C-note would not be nearly enough compensation, I assure you.”

  “Is all this because I wouldn’t fuck you last night? Revenge?”

  “I’d call it justice,” said Max, mock-aggrieved. “Your ranking doesn’t merit a renewal of our arrangement. My investors would be rightly irate. I couldn’t even argue that you were a hard-luck case; your husband is well paid. For this year I can write you off as a tax deduction … You’re smiling?”

  “That I’m a write-off. Literally.”

  “My business is one of calculated risks.”

  “And you’ve been calculating.”

  “You haven’t been.”

  “So I should have kept my shirt off? To keep you on board.”

  “Might have worked for a while, too,” Max conceded. “But integrity is expensive. Why most people give it a miss.”

  “What about yours?”

  “What have I done to be ashamed of? I carried you for over a year I didn’t have to. And there’s an injury clause in your contract. After your ligaments tore, I could’ve cut my losses. In fact, if I’d documented that you were done for, your insurance would’ve paid me a lump sum of fifty thou.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I’m a nice guy?” Max supposed.

  “You don’t sound as if you believe that.”

  “I’ve felt nicer. Ask Angela: when it comes to subdividing property, I’m merciless.”

  “Is that what we’re doing?”

  “You’re the property. And uncharacteristically, I cede all claims. Please don’t imagine that I’m kicking you out. I’m treating you the way I would any other player at your ranking, at your age, with your prospects. Isn’t that what you wanted? And Eric can afford to buy you a bit of coaching, rent your room. Husbands have been financing their wives’ costly, eccentric hobbies for hundreds of years.”

  Blinded for an instant by the same blazing fury that her husband could ignite, Willy had to consider if maybe she loved Max, a little, after all.

  “We’ve worked together for a decade,” said Willy, the good loser. “Are you taking everything back?”

  “You do have one of my rackets.”

  Willy nodded at the files on his desk. “You get to keep your racket. No, I meant all those Good shot’s. The Well done, Will’s and You’ve got what it takes, Will’s. Did you really mean Nice tits?”

  Max winced, as if pricked by his own brass tacks. “When I came across you in Nevada you had more raw talent than any client I’d taken on in five years.” The compliment seemed to tax him; he dropped back in his chair.

  “So what went wrong?”

  “Talent’s only the half of it, Will. You know that.”

  “You used to say I had the other half.”

  “Your heart was once in the right place.” His eyes scrunched. “It shifted.”

  “My decline is all Eric’s fault?”

  “It could be partly my fault,” Max allowed, and taking some responsibility for her downfall appeared to cheer him. “I may have undermined you—”

  “Yes. You did.”

  “Ironic, isn’t it? Pretty girls throw themselves at me all day long. You might have been flattered.”

  “If I were Marcella. But I’ve never made a very good girl.”

  “And of course there’s one more thing. Which may reduce psychologizing to empty gab.” His gaze indicted her. “The Tanqueray.”

  “It healed,” she jumped in.

  “Not quite, Will. You might put one over on Eric. But how could you hide it from me? Look at the way you’re standing.”

  Willy glanced down at her bent right knee. The majority of her weight rested on her left foot.

  “You favor the left all the time,” Max noted. “And there’s a diffidence … You don’t trust it, and maybe you shouldn’t. Because it hurts, doesn’t it? Sometimes all day, or when it rains. During practice you grimace twenty times in an hour. Your admirable stoicism amounts to a hill of beans.”

  “I did my exercises,” Willy insisted. Standing symmetrically, she blinked, hard.

  “And how. You might have recuperated properly if it weren’t for all that mindless rope-skipping.” He added bitterly, “Eric’s routine.”

  “So I’m damaged goods?”

  “Tennis players arc a commodity. Even good ones are a dime a dozen. It’s not enough to manage a brisk walk without collapsing.” Max spread his hands. “You have to be perfect.”

  “This is my parting gift? An excuse?”

  “You need one.”

  Only while clearing out her dorm room did Willy realize that for the first time in years Max had used her husband’s real name.

  When she opened the door Eric jumped, guiltily, as if she’d caught him over a girlie magazine with his pants down, though he was only wrapping a new racket with a rubber grip.

  “You’re back early,” he observed, his face flushed.

  “Since we both know I only go to Westbrook to fuck my coach, I thought I’d skip the pretense of practicing my strokes.”

  “That’s not funny,” said Eric mutedly. He rushed to help her unload, but didn’t remark on the fact that she’d returned with twice as much luggage, most of it in plastic bags. His motions were jerky, and he didn’t look her in the eye. “Hungry? I got some—”

  “No.” There was a starkness to this day that Willy intended to preserve. She didn’t want props.

  “Say,” Eric raised, wiping his hands on his shorts as if something wouldn’t rub off. “I got some good news.”

  “How unusual,” said Willy.

  “For both of us. I got an offer that I couldn’t refuse.”

  “You’re not in the habit of refusing offers anyway.”

  “I, uh, I got a coach.”

  Willy stood in the middle of their living room, like a guest whom no one had invited to sit down. The apartment looked bedraggled. She didn’t care; with the drape of sponsorship sports clothes and conspiracy of alien rackets, this didn’t feel like her own place any longer. It was harrowing, to yearn to go home when you were alr
eady there. “Oh?”

  Eric collected the crimped strip of his racket’s original grip. Skirting around his wife to the trash can, he gave her wide berth, like a squash player midpoint avoiding the arc of his opponent’s swing. “It’s only six weeks to the Open. I’ve one warm-up scheduled, the Pilot Pen in August. Gary’s been pressuring me for months, and maybe it’s time I stop being so pig-headed, like, this is the big time, a Slam… Maybe I don’t know everything, and if I’m going to get some, ah, help, now’s the time.”

  “I fail to perceive why this turn of events is good news for me.”

  “Well.” Eric blushed. His laundry had been sent back damp; he began folding garish sports shirts drying on chairs. “It’s, you know… Max.”

  Willy remained standing in the same spot. She was practicing distributing her weight evenly between both legs. Straight and bearing a full fifty-two pounds, the knee began to ache. A ligament with which she’d grown intimate was tightening, slowly, like a violin string tuned gradually from D to E.

  “This way,” Eric went on hurriedly, “you and I can head up to Connecticut together. Spend more time—”

  “You couldn’t find,” she said evenly, “any other coach?”

  “Willy, you’ve said yourself that Max Upchurch is the best there is in this part of the country. Why should I opt for less? And what better recommendation than yours?” Though Eric could not have acquired his new confederate long before, the speech sounded rehearsed. “Max said he could have me up to Sweetspot, then leave the summer kids to his pros and accompany me to the Pilot Pen. I thought, if you had nothing else on, you could come along.”

  “Nothing else on. You mean, get chucked from the qualifiers of another satellite.”