Chapter 27
We rally for a little while before he suggests a game.
‘What, with actual points?’
‘I believe that’s how it works,’ he grins.
‘I’m not going to play against you.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’ve seen the way you serve and I’d like to keep both of my kidneys, thanks,’ I say.
‘I wouldn’t dream of patronising you by saying I’ll go easy on you. Unless of course . . .’
‘Oh, feel free,’ I interrupt. ‘Patronise at will.’
We play just one game, in which he does indeed go easy on me, but I still lose. Though not hopelessly. There is one long rally and a Hollywood-style winner that I clinch near the end. But watching the way Sam moves on a court suddenly makes me realise I could be making better use of this situation.
‘Okay, I give up. How do you serve like that? Please tell me. Spill the beans.’
He raises an eyebrow. ‘Are you asking me for tips?’
‘If you can help me win on Thursday, then yes. I’ll take any scraps of knowledge you can offer.’
He slides a ball into his pocket and walks to my side of the court, until he’s standing next to me at the baseline.
He smells of something I can’t pinpoint.
Apples. Spearmint. Morning sunshine. As he positions himself in front of me, I notice I only come up to his shoulders.
Was he always this tall? Or am I shrinking?
‘First things first. You need to relax.’
I pull a face. ‘I am looking for technical insight, not a pep talk about my emotional state.’
‘This is technical. Know what the first thing I noticed was when I was watching you earlier?’
‘I dread to think.’
A smile flickers on his lips as it clearly occurs to both of us that this invites a flirtatious response. ‘Go on, do tell,’ I say, before he even thinks about it.
‘It was how tightly you hold your racquet. You don’t need to choke the thing . . .’
‘I thought you weren’t watching.’
‘So I peeped. The point is, to get power, you need speed. And to get that, you have to loosen up. Seriously. Just . . . relax.’
I look down at my hand and can see the whites of my knuckles.
It strikes me that, for all my new-found appreciation of this game, there’s still a bit of me that is fourteen years old, nerves as tight as the strings on a bow as I step up to serve.
I wiggle my fingers and soften my grip around the racquet’s handle.
He nods. ‘Second thing to note is: when you step up for this shot, take your time. You’re in control at this point, so there’s no need to rush. All you need is to mosey on up and have a moment to gather your thoughts.’
‘You want me to mosey?’
‘Absolutely. Moseying is exactly what’s required in this situation.’
I snort. ‘If you say so.’
‘Then you look over and decide the exact spot in the box that you’re going to land that ball.’
‘I’ll settle for in.’
‘In is always good,’ he laughs. ‘Let’s try right in the middle then.’
He bounces the ball a couple of times, then, with apparently zero effort, his legs bend, his arm stretches, his body uncoils and he fires it over – at what is very probably 140mph. It lands bang in the middle of the service box.
I shake my head and tut.
‘I know. I’m such a show-off,’ he grins, which makes me laugh. ‘Honestly though, it’s easy when you’ve got the knack. Come over here.’
He steps aside and I move into place.
I loosen everything. My limbs, my shoulders, my grip. I hold the image in my head of the serve he’s just performed and essentially decide my best approach is simply to copy it, like I’m doing an impression of him.
The result is . . . well, it’s astonishing. The serve isn’t perfect, but it’s as close as I’ve ever been. Hard, fast, and in the precise centre of the box.
‘Good lord,’ I splutter, staring at my racquet in disbelief. When I look up, there is a big, goofy grin on his face.
‘My advice is: do that, every time. My current prediction on the basis of what I’ve just seen is that you’ll win 6–0, 6–0 on Thursday.’
I step forward. Bounce the ball four times. And then . . .
The next serve is brilliant too.
‘Jeez,’ he laughs, incredulous. ‘Why didn’t I become a tennis coach for a living?’
I continue to practise. And while not all of them go in, there is a definite improvement. When I hit one that ends up way too long, he asks me to show him how I’m holding my racquet.
I lift it up and he steps closer and looks.
‘If you want a little more spin, try it with your hand a little further round.’
‘Why would I want spin on a serve?’
‘Makes it more unpredictable. Shakes things up a bit.’
I clear my throat and start to adjust my grip on the handle.
‘So, the base knuckle of your index finger is on the second bevel like . . .’
He reaches out for my wrist automatically but stops and withdraws before he sees it through. Instead, he steps back and demonstrates how to do it with his own racquet.
‘Like this.’
Although there is now a civilised three-foot gap between us, my mind is rapidly filling with thoughts about those hands. How once, a long, long time ago, they smoothed sun cream into my warm skin and massaged the blades of my shoulders. I suddenly feel light-headed.
‘Listen, I’m going to have to get back to work,’ I say.
He looks at his watch. ‘Time flies. Okay. Let me help you pick these up.’
Once we’ve circumnavigated the court to collect the training balls and put them back in their bucket, he carries it while I chat alongside him.
I feel as energised and relaxed as I always do after playing.
But today, there’s something else too that I struggle to pinpoint until we’re almost at the shed.
It hits me as I start to unlock the door.
I feel like I’m walking home from a date.
After a brief wrestle with the lock, I switch on the light, though it was hardly worth bothering.
The bulb flickers, fades to a dim glow and then dies.
But there’s enough daylight to see where the equipment goes, so Sam steps in and, as he raises the bucket of balls to the highest shelf, I stretch up to slide the pick-up tube into its spot at the side.
I’m halfway there when the edge of my shoe catches on the step and sets off a chain reaction that, even as it’s unfolding, feels like a giant game of Mousetrap.
I lurch forward, crashing into his back.
He releases an ‘oof’ but manages to stop all but a handful of balls from spilling out.
Of those that do, one bounces onto my leg, another is loose around his heels.
I reflexively reach for it in a bid to halt the chaos.
But it rolls past his shoe and as I try to chase it down, the door slams behind me and I gasp.
We are in darkness. In a space that is marginally bigger than a phone box once the equipment has been accounted for. And I am on my hands and knees, in a position that could only be described as optimal if I were about to have a rectal exam.
‘Shit!’ I hiss.
‘Hmm. Shit indeed.’
I try to push the door open with my heel, but it’s stuck.
The next few moments involve an odd game of Twister, in which he attempts to shuffle around so he can reach for the handle as I try to stand up.
The primary objective of this particular parlour game, however, is to not allow my face to touch any part of his body.
Not his knee, not his bare thigh and, definitely, absolutely not his groin.
All of this is so difficult that by the time I’m upright, I am breathless, sweating and feel like every cell in my body from the shoulders upwards is on fire. And still the door isn’t open.
‘The handle’s stuck,’ he tells me.
‘It can’t be,’ I reply, as if I can reason my way out of this.
‘Well . . . it is.’
I perform a funny little 180-degree shuffle and wrap my fingers around it. Then I take a deep breath and give it the hardest yank I can possibly muster. It promptly comes off in my hand.