What I’m enjoying is getting to spend time with Jeff. Having a laugh with some nice people. Breathing in some fresh air. It’s not the tennis per se that’s putting the smile on my face. And while there’s something undeniably satisfying about the act of hitting a ball, it’s no better than, say, getting to the bottom of your laundry basket or popping some bubble wrap.
It’s my turn to serve. I toss the ball, strike it with an overhead swing – and it goes in. What follows is less of a performance and more of a pantomime. Annabel returns the ball and, when it’s unclear who’s closer, Jeff and I both dive for it, clash racquets, but miraculously get it back. Lisa, in what I’m sure she’d admit is a fluke, returns it down the middle.
I’m closest so scramble for it, headless chicken-like, before the ball plops directly at my feet. I somehow get it back over the net in a technique I last used on Shrove Tuesday when flipping pancakes. Annabel dives for a volley, Jeff returns it and for the next four shots the three of us play a game of ping pong – going back and forth – as I am vaguely aware of gasps from the five other students in the session, alongside Nora.
The rally finally ends with an overhead smash from Annabel that is impressive in every way but one – it goes out.
Jeff flies towards me, flings his arms around my shoulders and spins me round.
‘You were amazing!’ he laughs, before pulling away with a grimace. ‘Urgh. And alsoverysweaty . . .’
A burst of applause makes me look up and realise that our fellow students weren’t the only ones watching. There’s a handful of people on the clubhouse terrace including, atthe very front, the guy I had a run-in with on the day I had to rescue Frankie’s passport. He’s not wearing sunglasses or a hat now. And even with a beard and the flecks of grey in his hair, I’d know the wide smile and playful eyes anywhere. Something swoops from my breastbone to my belly the moment I realise who exactly it is. Sam Delaney, my first ever school crush.
Chapter 8
An uncomfortable sensation sweeps over me. A contradictory mix of nostalgia, with something else far less rosy. It’s a twist of my stomach, a spurt of nausea in my gut. The tiny hairs on my forearms seem to rise. This is more a deep-seated instinct than a thought-out response. I feel defensive for reasons I can’t pinpoint.
I first became aware of Sam Delaney around the time of my first bout of hormone-related anxiety, when puberty hit. I’d had a very happy childhood, but started to feel an existential angst caused by all manner of things. AIDS.Jaws. Nuclear war. Andboys,at least those in our secondary school, who as a breed were obnoxious, smelly, boisterous and absolutely nothing like Marty McFly inBack to the Future.
My approach to the opposite sex was generally troublesome. I was desperate to fall in love but painfully shy – and it’s hard to form a relationship with a boy when you can’t actually speak to any of them, with the exception of my brother who obviously didn’t count. Besides, I had that peculiarly adolescent sense of body dysmorphia that was alive and well before anyone had thought of social media. I considered myself to be pale, chunky and plain. All in all, it felt like a better idea to hang around with girls, live vicariously through mySweet Valley Highbooks and dream of some distant future in which Jordan from New Kids on the Block would be bewitched by my hidden depths and ask me to be his girlfriend.
It was around this time that Sam Delaney joined the school orchestra. By dint of the fact that he played second violin and I the French horn, we were seated next to each other. He wasn’t a great musician, though none of us were. I had at least graduated from the bugle, though my latest hobby was tolerated by my parentsonlyif I agreed to practise in the shed at the end of the garden and while they were watching something noisy likeThe A-Team.
Sam was one of those kids whose surname was read out way too many times during school prize-giving ceremonies, mainly for achievements in science but, just to prove a point, there was the odd swimming or running award too.
When his mother turned up at those events or our orchestra recitals, she made a big impression on me. She looked like a Celtic goddess, bohemian and beautiful – all floaty skirts and silver bangles, tousled hair as black as an opal. She had this soft, Irish lilt that made teachers fall over themselves to say hello and wives sharply nudge their husbands as a reminder to put their tongues back in.
I would have sat next to Sam at music practice all term without saying a word, but he made a point of always saying hello. He had a general aura of niceness. As this was unprecedented, I started to fantasise that he might be the boy I’d have my first kiss with. As a result, I became unable to meet his gaze without blushing and would stumble over my words. Jordan from New Kids on the Block was replaced in all of my daydreams and, for a brief period, I was fizzing with adolescent lust. I don’t think I was the only one who felt this. One of the other girls got a detention for writing ‘jaime SD’ on the inside cover of her French textbook. Plus, he had a solid personal hygiene routine that on its own would have been enough to make him the class stud.
In the weeks running up to an inter-school orchestra competition – for which we would have to travel to the brightlights of Preston – I had a growing sense that decisive action was required. Inspired by the final scene in the movieGrease, in which Sandy turns up in skin-tight hot pants, stilettoes, and a smouldering cigarette between her lips, there seemed to be an obvious solution to this problem.
I needed to get a perm.
My hair had recently become very unsatisfactory, pin straight and greasy at the roots less than a day after washing it. That was all going to change. I was full of high hopes. So I went to the hairdresser clutching a photo of Olivia Newton-John . . . and emerged looking like a character fromFraggle Rock.
Jeff attempted to reassure me, but as he cast his gaze over my tight curls, I could see the whites of his eyes. I tried to throw a sickie the following day. But that hadn’t worked since the time I’d copied that scene inE.T.and held a thermometer against a lightbulb, resulting in my mother driving me to A&E.
I was Preston-bound whether I liked it or not. All I could do was disguise the perm by pulling my hair back in a bun so tight that my scalp itched and I looked to be in a permanent state of surprise. I found a seat in the middle of the bus, fixing my eyes on the window as Sam and his friends piled on. Halfway down the aisle, his feet slowed. My heart soared. At which point, someone called from the back . . .
‘That your girlfriend, Sam?’
There was a roar of laughter and I blushed furiously. This is not how myGrease-style seduction was supposed to unfold. I was expecting him to shuffle along and sit with his friends, but after a moment’s hesitation, he sat down next to me. We chatted all the way to Preston, about how we’d both like a computer for Christmas and how neither of us liked Spam. I had to stop myself from gushing, ‘We’ve got so much in common!’
I wondered again if this could be it: the glimmers of my first relationship.
The answer, sadly, was no. Not long afterwards, Sam won a scholarship at a boarding school somewhere in the countryside and disappeared almost overnight. I forgot about him altogether, until I was in sixth form, on the brink of final exams and with my whole future ahead of me. That is another story altogether.
Chapter 9
I find myself thinking about Rusty Racquets a lot in the days after the session. I’m in the gym with Gavin on Tuesday night after work and am mentally replaying that final rally: Lisa’s frantic sprint, my fluke of a volley, Jeff’s comic dart across the court, the pop and slice of the ball.
‘Penny for your thoughts?’ Gavin asks, as I straighten my face, realising I’d been smiling.
‘I’m just in two minds about these tennis lessons. I hadn’t really expected to like it but it was kind of enjoyable,’
I confess.
The vein in his forehead begins to throb, as he sinks into a squat with an unfeasibly huge barbell on his back. His technique is to push on until ‘failure’, which from what I can tell is when he’s on the verge of a stroke. He finally slams the bar back in its cradle and releases an extravagant breath.
