The Captain and the Cricketer

by Catherine Curzon

  All of Henry’s breath escaped his body in one go, then he recovered and laughed.

  “I won’t give up Longley Parva Manor—the only home I’ve ever had and ever want—for anything!”

  “What if I were to say to you,” Cheese raised his eyebrow, “name your price?”

  “Mr. Cheese, I tell you kindly, sir—my house is not for sale.”

  “You’re a man of honor too, Mr. Fitzwalter. You passed the test!” Cheese laughed. “I’m gonna build my own British village out in Vegas. Eighteen holes, a Tudor palace, baseball pavilions and a good old British tavern. Cheese Acres, Nevada, opening 2020!”

  “Maybe we’ll visit, but that’ll depend on Nim and Jez!” George shook Cheese’s hand. “I don’t know how Tab convinced you out of Manhattan, but welcome to Longley Parva!”

  “She’s a hell of a woman,” Cheese told them as he turned and gave a nod of acknowledgement to Tabitha. “I’d hate to be married to her.”

  Tabitha raised what look like a vase to Cheese in salute. Henry looked again and realized it was a particularly large glass of wine.

  “To the lunch, George—I’ve got a surprise for you!”

  “I like the sound of that!” George kissed his cheek. “It’s a day for them!”

  Henry held his hand. They might be in public, but it really didn’t matter.

  “This way, this way…this way to— Oh, there’s hardly any left.”

  An old china cake stand dug out from a crockery cabinet somewhere in the manor stood on the refreshments table, covered mainly in crumbs. Henry rescued the last remaining slice and put it on a plate for George.

  “You said you wanted me to make you a chocolate cake, so I did.”

  “Oh, Fitz!” George rested his head on Henry’s shoulder. “I think my inner Reverend approves.”

  “I’ll make you lots more, I promise. But now—ah, cucumber sandwiches!”

  They took their loaded plates outside and sat next to each other, their animals beside them. Henry was aware of a camera shifting about in the corner of his eye and saw Tabitha wave them away. Nimrod made short work of a pork pie and immediately headed off to hunt down more from other plates. He returned with crumbs in his whiskers and found a patch of shade, where he lay down to sleep.

  Dark clouds threatened the game immediately after lunch, but they rolled away toward the coast and the Parvans went back to their match. Still no one got a century, and still the England team fielded kindly. Then it was Captain George Standish-Brookes’ turn to bat, and Henry’s turn to bowl.

  “The last time I did this, I scored a big zero,” George told the assembled audience. “And the man who is now my fiancé tried to brain me with a cricket bat. Let’s hope I do rather better today!”

  Henry flushed and scraped his fingers through his hair as he went to his position. When he turned, the rapt attention of all the spectators and the players was on them. Several television cameras had readied themselves for the big moment. Television’s Captain George Standish-Brookes, challenging the Single Wicket record.

  “Ready, darling?” Henry backed away so that he could get a good run-up, rubbing the ball up and down his thigh. George blinked, his gaze fixed on the movement of Henry’s hand. He tapped the bat on the grass, glanced to where Jez watched, safe in the care of Lil, and winked.

  “Ready!”

  Excited chatter rippled through the spectators, followed by several admonishing shushes. There was silence. Even Nimrod’s snores had quietened.

  Henry ran on long powerful legs which, day to day, carried him through muddy fields, over stiles and fences, up hillsides. Solid, muscular legs that gripped farm animals to keep them still, that saved him—these days—from advancing, angry animals. Firm legs, that had gripped George around the waist while they made love.

  Henry’s overarm was perfect, the ball bouncing once two-thirds of the way along the pitch, rising into the air at the perfect height for George to hit.

  And, just as he had fifteen years earlier, George missed.

  In fact, he didn’t only miss, he didn’t even try.

  When a cry of surprised sympathy rose up from the crowd George seemed to come back to life. He blinked and looked around before announcing, “Falling in love is very bad for my cricket score.”

  Henry dragged both his hands back through his hair, laughing.

  “Oh, George, what shall I do with you?”

  “Break your record, Fitz.” George kissed his cheek as they passed each other. “If I don’t bowl you out first!”

  Here’s the moment, then.

  Henry puffed out his cheeks. With his bat, he poked down the uneven ground where the turf had been torn by the game. Perhaps it was unwise to challenge oneself as a youth. Where was the energy of that young man? Or perhaps, in the intervening years, had Henry matured, like a fine wine, or maybe a wheel of cheese? He might not have the energy he’d once had, but all the silly anger had gone.

  Yet George’s routine hadn’t changed. He stood back and gave that same casual salute that said to Henry, may the best man triumph. Then he polished the ball on his jumper a few times until his head dipped and, just as he always did, hitched the leg of his whites a little. Up came his hand again, ruffling his hair, touching his lips, then he tossed the ball into his palm and ran, bowling it at Henry with a flourish.

  Henry saw nothing, heard nothing, save that ball coming toward him through the air. He lifted his bat and it met the advancing ball with a satisfying slap. It arched up, but its trajectory didn’t quite match what the younger Henry had been capable of. It plummeted too early and hit the ground just inside the boundary. It rolled over the white rope, three of the England team running after it, and scored Henry a four.

  But still, it was a four.

  The spectators clapped politely.

  One of the fielders hurled the ball toward George. He caught it and off they went again, setting the pattern for what promised to be a very entertaining innings for the final batsman, Longley Parva’s finest ever wielder of the willow.

  After the initial good but not brilliant attempt, Henry imagined himself back in the practice nets with the friendly stray at his heels, and hit a six with the second ball. The England team gave him a round of applause and Henry bowed awkwardly to each of them, acknowledging their praise.

  On the game went, George’s ritual never changing. Henry had to avoid meeting George’s glance or risk distraction, but the spectators did their best to put him off. Nimrod barked and ran around in circles, apparently helping the fielders to collect the cricket ball. Ed wandered into Henry’s eyeline, barking into his mobile phone. Someone popped a champagne cork. A small child squealed and ran onto the field.

  Henry reached his century, but not as quickly as he had done before. He paused to stand up straight, stretching out his arms and his back. Then they continued.

  The sight of Ed, wandering into his eyeline yet again, made Henry clench his jaw. The bloody man had lost, yet he was still there, an irritant determined to rob Henry of his triumph. Not that it mattered now, because Henry had bested all the other batsmen who had played in the tournament today—but he had that hot-headed youth of fifteen years ago still to challenge.

  On and on they went, Henry’s record creeping closer, the crowd cheering louder and louder, the sense that they were witnessing a moment for the ages seizing hold of the Parvans. That infamous score of one-thirty had never been bettered but today, with Henry standing at the wicket with one hundred and twenty-five runs to his name, the record might be broken by the very man who already held it.

  The numbers were stark on the scoreboard, shouting to everyone present, Just hit a bloody six, Henry!

  “This one for the record and the new trophy,” George called. “Make it a good one, Fitz.”

  “Wait a minute—wait a bloody minute!”

  “Oh, Christ.” Henry paused and leaned against his bat, feet crossed.

  Bloody Ed Belcher.

  He was smiling a particularl
y fake sort of smile. Once he’d barreled onto the pitch, Ed declared, “I should get this go. Seeing as at the last match I couldn’t even play after I fell out of a helicopter! Only fair I bowl now!”

  Tom Golding had started to jog onto the field after Ed. He waved to Henry and George.

  Henry bit his lip in thought. He could very easily—and very gladly—tell Ed to sod off. It was George’s ball to bowl. And if Ed threw some terrible, confusing ball that went haywire and knocked off the stumps, or didn’t land solidly enough and was an easy catch, then Henry’s attempt at breaking his own record was finished.

  But.

  Henry had beaten everyone else who’d played today. And he’d got within touching distance of his record. The hot-headed boy he’d been would’ve gone after Ed with his bat. But this was the older, more mature Henry.

  A gentleman.

  And on this day, two hundred years ago, Ed’s ancestor had played with Henry’s ancestor, while George’s had kept the score.

  History was pushing in on Henry, guiding his hand.

  “Well—okay, Ed. You can have your go!” Henry waved back to Tom and gave him a thumbs-up. He grinned. Still not all that mature. “Make it a good one, or I’ll brain you with my cricket bat!”

  “Hang on, old man!” George waved his hand. “Fitz, can I have a minute?”

  “Yes?” He jogged across to meet George at the center of the pitch. George’s expression was a frown, his eyes darkened with concern, and when he spoke again his voice was a whisper.

  “Do you think it’s wise to let ’orrible Ed bowl such an important ball?” George blinked. “I’m all for an independent bowler so people don’t say I gave you an easy time, but—Ed?”

  “You do remember what happened two hundred years ago today, on this very spot?”

  “Then I wish you the very best of British.” George kissed his cheek. He turned and gently bowled the ball to Ed, who caught it with a look that said, just you wait. “Knock it into next week, Fitz.”

  “That’s exactly what I intend to do.” Henry smiled as he walked back to his position by the stumps. George wandered across to join the spectators and sank down onto the grass beside Jez, resting his head against the horse’s leg.

  “I’m not beaten yet.” Ed drew himself up and weighed the ball in his hand. “But you’re about to be. You’ve crossed me one too many times.”

  Henry shone his sweetest grin on Ed and tapped his bat against the ground. The dry, hollow earth echoed like a drum.

  “Really? Says the man who grabbed me by the balls and tried to steal my house. The man who was going to have a bolt put through the brain of a perfectly healthy animal that just needed love.”

  The man who married my ex-girlfriend, who— No, Henry was too much of a gentleman to mention it. Knowing that Ed now had Sussex’s least enthusiastic bedfellow beside him every night was enough.

  “Here it comes, Fitzwanker.” He looked at George and bellowed, “Stick this on television, nancy boy!”

  Ed took his run and let the ball fly. The bodyline bowl was just suited to Ed’s way of life and it hurtled toward Henry at a hell of a speed, daring him to miss and endure the agony of a cricket ball somewhere he didn’t want it. Clearly already sensing victory as it left his hand, Ed made a fist and pumped the air, shouting, “Come on then!”

  Henry’s shoulders burned, sore from the length of his innings. All he was aware of was bringing his bat forward with such speed that he barely saw the ball connect with the willow. But it had done—there was now a massive red mark on the bat, with a nick in the varnish to show where it had hit.

  But where the hell was the bloody ball?

  He turned, as had everyone else, in the direction the ball had gone. To the pavilion.

  Was someone hurt? He hadn’t hit a spectator, had he? There was commotion, a scream, followed by shouting, then laughter. Tom running with a ladder.

  Had he hit the ball into the gutter?

  But no. Tom was climbing higher than the gutter, and a collection of film crew and spectators held the ladder steady as he went onto the roof.

  To a hole smashed through the tiles.

  “Oh Jesus bloody hell! I’ve wrecked the pavilion!”

  Applause. Cheering.

  Henry rubbed his shoulder, staring at the hole in the pavilion roof that stared back him like a dark, unblinking eye.

  He felt George’s arm encircle his waist and Nimrod licking his hand as the cheers grew louder and someone, possibly the captain of the England team, called, “Six! One three one!”

  “I’ve beaten my own record, George! I’ve also destroyed a roof—but—I did it!” Henry held George as tightly as he could, tears of relief and joy staining George’s cheek.

  When he looked up from their embrace, Henry saw the pavilion again, Tom climbing down from the ladder with something in his hands. Not the ball, no. A surprised gasp ran through the spectators as each of them realized what it was.

  It can’t be.

  “The Longley Parva Cup,” George whispered as Tom reached the ground. Then he turned and held up the willow pattern vase by both of its handles, as though he had just won the Grand Prix. Yet this willow pattern wasn’t a scene of chinoiserie, but of Sussex life, and nobody had seen it for fifteen years.

  All that time spent searching, turning the village over, and it had been there all along, hidden in the corner of the cricket pavilion’s cobweb-strewn loft space.

  George and Henry looked at each other and George said impishly, “Not guilty, Fitz.”

  Henry nuzzled his face to his fiancé’s neck, laughing softly. “Dear old George! But—how the heck did it get up there? It didn’t fly!”

  “Hahahahahaaaa!” It was the laughter of a madman, of Rumpelstiltskin stamping on the floor, of Ed Belcher standing at the wicket, his hands on his hips. “We got you, Pops and I! We took your trophy that day and hid it because your fucking family was always getting one over on us! No trophy for you, Fitzwanker, and all of you stupid inbreds crawling all over the village. And it was there all along, what a bloody prank! And because of that, you couple of queers didn’t get to bum each other for fifteen years! Hahahahaaaa!”

  Henry and George stared at him. Everyone on the field, all the spectators, stared at him. The television cameras swooped nearer.

  “You hid the Longley Parva Cup?” Henry gaped in disgusted surprise. “You stood there and saw me accuse George and you— You are not a gentleman, sir!”

  “Not a— At least I’m not a bloody bumchum!” Ed wrenched the stump out of the ground and hurtled toward Henry with a cry of, “Bloody Fitzwanker!”

  Henry’s heart thudded in terror and he raised his bat, knowing that if he hit Ed with it, when he was running at him, he could fracture his skull. And yet, the sharp end of that stump—

  “So help me God, Ed—don’t you—”

  A flash of black and white and sandy fur shot across the cricket field and Ed yowled as he went flying to the ground.

  Nimrod stood with his front paws on Ed’s chest, fabric ripped from the crotch of Ed’s trousers in his teeth.

  “No lasting damage, Ed?” Not getting any other reply than a dismayed moan, Henry threw aside his bat and grabbed Nimrod by the collar. “Nimrod, bad dog!”

  He didn’t hear Tom’s shout of surprise, or wonder at the sound of shattered china.

  “Oh, Fitz.” George’s voice was very quiet and the crowd, so loud a moment ago, was suddenly silent. There in Tom’s hands were the handles and attached narrow neck of the recently rediscovered Longley Parva vase while, in a hundred pieces at his feet, lay the remains of the lost trophy. Atop them, like an X marking the spot, was Henry Fitzwalter’s discarded cricket bat.

  Tom looked down, then up, then down again. With a soft whisper, a scroll of yellow paper slid from the shattered end of the neck and dropped down onto the mound of broken china.

  George moved first, every camera pointed at him as he crouched and scooped up the scroll. It was tied with a
red ribbon that Henry recognized from the papers of Reverend Standish and he met George’s gaze as his lover slowly unfastened the bow. Like a court page he unrolled the scroll and cleared his throat.

  “I, Reverend Tobias Standish, do bear witness that a game of cricket was played on this eve between Messrs Octavius Belcher, Esquire, and William Fitzwalter, Esquire, both of Longley Parva. The stakes are decided upon thus.”

  He raised his eyebrow, teasing the spectators as he unrolled the scroll further. Henry tried to catch George’s eye, shaking his head very slightly, mouthing Don’t read it! But George was in character. Despite the absence of a cassock and a shovel hat, this was verily Reverend Standish before them. Henry took a deep breath. He was a gentleman, and he must accept the outcome.

  Maybe he would, after all, lose the manor.

  “Should the victor of the game be named as Mr. Fitzwalter, Mr. Belcher agrees to grant the said Mr. Fitzwalter deed and title to his Sussex estates in perpetuity.” He looked at Henry, then at Ed. “Should the victor of this game be named as Mr. Belcher, Mr. Fitzwalter agrees to grant the said Mr. Belcher deed and title to Longley Parva Manor in perpetuity.”

  “Bloody fucking right!” Ed called from his place on the floor. He was silenced by Nimrod’s bared teeth, a low growl vibrating in his throat.

  “Let all present here agree that the score of Messrs Belcher and Fitzwalter as recorded in The Green Man, witnessed and dated by those signed below, is inscribed herein.”

  This was the moment that would decide their fate, yet George paused to milk it. He stroked his hand over Jez’s mane and slowly revealed to himself alone the numbers written there by Tobias two hundred years ago.

  “Mr. Octavius Belcher, Esquire, one hundred and seventeen runs.” He glanced at Ed, who pumped his fist in the air, clearly smelling victory. George’s poker face was unreadable until he met Henry’s eye and gave a broad, delighted grin. “Mr. William Fitzwalter, Esquire, one hundred and thirty-one runs. Let all present agree that Mr. William Fitzwalter, Esquire, is the victor!”