Chapter 16
I enjoy it immensely. I mean, to a stupid extent.
How much of this is about the actual tennis, however, is a moot point.
It’s more that I end up so engrossed that, for the whole hour, neither Frankie nor the turmoil at work even enter my head.
It’s as if, when I step through those gates, the rest of the world ceases to exist and my only focus is getting a fuzzy yellow ball over a net and inside those lines.
I am convinced this won’t last, that all my anxieties will start to filter back into my head later.
But the rest of the day turns out to be a less fraught experience all round.
The other thing I like about the session is Nora herself.
She is a ray of sunshine in human form, one of the nicest, most encouraging and optimistic people I’ve ever met.
She’s exactly the kind of coach someone like me needs – I am free to make a complete idiot of myself and she doesn’t bat an eyelid.
I immediately organise another lesson on a day I’m working from home the following week and, when this has the same effect as previously, I make a snap decision to block-book a month’s worth of lessons and even try to practise in between.
Nora tries to persuade me that the best way to do this is to join other female members on Saturday mornings when three courts are reserved for a ‘friendly’ session.
‘The opportunity to practise in an unpressurised environment is exactly what you need. Honestly, you’ll love it. At the very least give it a go.’
I remain entirely unconvinced that I’m good enough and, when she finally twists my arm, I discover that I was right.
I am nowhere near as strong as their regular players, though admittedly the same can be said about Lisa and Rose and, either way, nobody seems to mind in the slightest about our duff shots.
The Saturday women are an eclectic bunch. The youngest is Samira, a twenty-two-year-old flight attendant, though there are others in their twenties and thirties. Then there’s an older contingent of age-defying Golden Girls, the original Ladies’ B team, who have been playing together for years.
Collectively, they are proof that skill on the court seems not to align to any stereotypes about age or body shape.
Josie and Rachael – two midwives who work together – are as tall and lean as Steffi Graf in her prime, but the rest are as different as any other group of women I know.
Some are big. Some are small. None of it seems to matter.
Of course, spending this much time at the club means I can’t escape the possibility of bumping into Sam Delaney again.
In the three weeks after his game with Denise, I see him twice: once arriving for Rusty Racquets when he’s on a different court, and another time after a Saturday practice session, when he waves at me from the clubhouse terrace, making my stomach twist. I’m on high alert whenever I set foot in the place after that – only to feel relief or a strange sense of deflation when he’s not around.
But as I’m leaving the courts the following Saturday, I end up coming out of the gate at the exact moment he’s walking in. I am suddenly very conscious of my red cheeks and sweaty hair.
‘How’d you get on?’ he asks, with a smile that’s so all-encompassing it illuminates his whole face.
‘With what?’ I ask, puzzled.
‘Your tennis match.’ He nods to the courts. ‘I presume that’s what you’ve been here for?’
My heart clangs. Of course I was here to play tennis, though right this minute my head has emptied of any real reason for anything.
‘Oh . . . not bad,’ I say. ‘I mean, I don’t think you could call it a match. We played a couple of sets, but it was just practice really.’
‘Always helps.’
I don’t know why the conversation feels so stilted. I’m like an awkward teenager at a school disco, blushing and stumbling over my words.
‘Are you playing with Denise again?’ I say, pulling myself together.
‘No not this time. Just a guy I work with. I’m trying to play a bit more these days as I rarely got the chance when I lived in Edinburgh.’
‘Edinburgh? How long were you there?’
‘Nearly two decades. My ex-wife was originally from there,’ he explains. ‘I stayed for a while after we got divorced, but then a job opportunity came up back here and it felt like the right time. There aren’t that many in my line of work.’
My mind briefly spins with all the gaps he’s just filled in with one short statement: about where he’s been living, whether he ever married, if they’re still together. But it’s none of those things I really want to know about.
‘You finally made it as a doctor then,’ I say instead.
‘I did!’ He says it as if he’s surprised that I remembered.
‘I know it was a burning ambition of yours once upon a time,’ I add. ‘You’d wanted to really make a difference.’
He raises his eyebrows then lets out a little laugh. ‘Well. It’s fair to say I was a very idealistic teenager.’
‘Nothing wrong with that,’ I say, trying to keep the disappointment out of my voice. Yet it’s still a little heartbreaking to me that he ended up devoting that incredible brain of his to giving the women of Greater Manchester the 32DDs of their dreams.
Maybe I shouldn’t be so sniffy about the plastic surgery thing.
I have no right to disapprove, and in many ways I don’t.
An old friend of mine in London had breast augmentation a decade ago and it made her very happy.
Also, who even said he does boobs? Could be noses.
Bums. Anything. It’s really not for me to judge, as long as it’s not that weird labiaplasty thing for people with the demented idea that their vulva needs to be prettier.
That night, I find myself replaying our conversation and wondering if we might ever get onto the subject of our past, that early summer in the mid-nineties, when I quietly lost my mind over him.
It would feel odd to bring up how it ended now.
I’d feel ridiculous after all these years.
He probably doesn’t even remember what happened.
He was just an eighteen-year-old guy who had a change of heart or, more likely, a better offer.
I’m sure he’s more mature these days. Honestly, though, I don’t even know why I’m thinking about it.
The unsettling thing is this: though I’ve barely given him a second thought for at least two decades, when I did, I’d placed him firmly in the same category as all the idiots I subsequently met at university.
The guys who messed me around, or said they’d call then didn’t.
But after being around him earlier today, I feel like I need to give my younger self a little more credit.
I can understand exactly how I got pulled in.
I found my heart beating a little faster as I contemplated how different he looks with a beard and now, his stupidly handsome face has been scorched into my visual cortex for most of the evening.
I am a little appalled with myself, a feeling that is exacerbated every time I glance up and see a photo of Ed.
Still, I end up lying on the sofa that night desperate to google his name.
It wouldn’t do any harm, surely? I could just see how much he charges for liposuction . . .
I get as far as ‘Sam De—’ and pause. Take a deep breath.
And ask myself a question: why am I even thinking about this man?
What the hell do I think I’m doing? If I should be googling anyone, it’s Gavin, but I haven’t done that since before our first date when I wanted to check that he wasn’t a serial killer.
I slam shut my laptop and consider the matter closed.