'Well, she'll pull through this one,' Perowne says as he takes up his position to receive. 'At least it'll be her own decision to crash. Let's go.'
He's spoken too soon. Jay's serve is on him, but his own word 'crash', trailing memories of the night as well as the morning, fragments into a dozen associations. Everything that's happened to him recently occurs to him at once. He's no longer in the present. The deserted icy square, the plane and its pinprick of fire, his son in the kitchen, his wife in
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Ian McEwan |
**P
*
bed, his daughter on her way from Paris, the three men in f1
the street - he occupies the wrong time coordinates, or he's in them all at once. The ball surprises him - it's as if he left the court for a moment. He takes the ball late, scooping it from the floor. At once Strauss springs out from the The' for the kill shot. And so the second game begins as the first. But |
this time Henry has to run hard to lose. Jay's prepared to let ^
the rallies go on while he hogs centre court and lobs to the --
back, drops to the front, and finds his angle shots. Perowne 1
scampers around his opponent like a circus pony. He twists j,
back to lift balls out of the rear corners, then dashes forwards "* '
at a stretch to connect with the drop shots. The constant ._i
change of direction tires him as much as his gathering self- f\
hatred. Why has he volunteered for, even anticipated with *
pleasure, this humiliation, this torture? It's at moments like 4
these in a game that the essentials of his character are exposed: "
narrow, ineffectual, stupid - and morally so. The game '
becomes an extended metaphor of character defect. Every error he makes is so profoundly, so irritatingly typical of himself, instantly familiar, like a signature, like a tissue scar or some deformation in a private place. As intimate and self evident as the feel of his tongue in his mouth. Only he can go wrong in quite this way, and only he deserves to lose in just this manner. As the points fall he draws his remaining energy from a darkening pool of fury.
He says nothing, to himself or his opponent. He won't let Jay hear him curse. But the silence is another kind of affliction. They're at eight-three. Jay plays a cross-court drive probably a mistake, because the ball is left loose, ready for interception. Perowne sees his chance. If he can get to it, Jay will be caught out of position. Aware of this, Jay moves out from his stroke towards centre court, blocking Perowne's path. Immediately Perowne calls for a let. They stop and Strauss turns to express surprise.
'Are you kidding?'
'For fuck's sake,' Perowne says through his furious
106 Saturday
breathing, and pointing his racket in the direction he was heading. 'You stepped right into me.'
The language startles them both. Strauss immediately concedes. 'OK, OK. It's a let.'
As he goes to the service box and tries to calm himself, Perowne can't help considering that at eight-three, and already a game up, it's ungenerous of Jay to query such an obvious call. Ungenerous is generous. The judgment doesn't help him deliver the service he needs, for this is his last chance to get back in the game. The ball goes so wide of the wall that Jay is able to step to his left and reach for an easy forehand smash. He takes the service back, and the game is over in half a minute.
The prospect of making small talk on court for a few minutes is now unendurable. Henry puts his racket down, pulls off his goggles and mutters something about needing water. He leaves the court and goes to the changing room and drinks from the fountain there. The place is deserted except for an unseen figure in the showers. A TV high on the wall is showing a news channel. He splashes his face at a basin, and rests his head on his forearms. He hears his pulse knocking in his ears, sweat is dribbling down his spine, his face and feet are burning. There's only one thing in life he wants. Everything else has dropped away. He has to beat Strauss. He needs to win three games in a row to take the set. Unbelievably difficult, but for the moment he desires and can think of nothing else. In this minute or two alone, he must think carefully about his game, cut to the fundamentals, decide what he's doing wrong and fix it. He's beaten Strauss many times before. He has to stop being angry with himself and think about his game.
When he raises his head, he sees in the washroom mirror, beyond his reddened face, a reflection of the silent TV behind him showing the same old footage of the cargo plane on the runway. But then, briefly, enticingly, two men with coats over their heads - surely the two pilots - in handcuffs being led
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towards a police van. They've been arrested. Something's happened. A reporter outside a police station is talking to the camera. Then the anchor is talking to the reporter. Perowne shifts position so the screen is no longer in view. Isn't it possible to enjoy an hour's recreation without this invasion, this infection from the public domain? He begins to see the matter resolving in simple terms: winning his game will be an assertion of his privacy. He has a right now and then - everyone has it - not to be disturbed by world events, or even street events. Cooling down in the locker room, it seems to Perowne that to forget, to obliterate a whole universe of public phenomena in order to concentrate is a fundamental liberty. Freedom of thought. He'll emancipate himself by beating Strauss. Stirred, he walks up and down between the changing-room benches, averting his eyes from a ripplingly obese teenager, more seal than human, who's emerged from the shower without a towel. There isn't much time. He has to arrange his game around simple tactics, play on his opponent's weakness. Strauss is only five foot eight, with no great reach and not a brilliant volleyer. Perowne decides on high lobs to the rear corners. As simple as that. Keep lobbing to the back.
When he arrives back on court, the consultant anaesthetist comes straight over to him. 'You all right Henry? You pissed off?'
'Yeah. With myself. But having to argue that let didn't help.'
'You were right, I was wrong. I'm sorry. Are you ready?'
Perowne stands in the receiving position, intent on the rhythm of his breathing, prepared to perform a simple move, virtually a standard procedure: he'll volley the serve before it touches the side wall, and after he's hit it he'll cross to the The ' at the centre of the court and lob. Simple. It's time to dislodge Strauss.
'Ready.'
Strauss hits a fast serve, and once again it's a bodyline,
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aimed straight for the shoulder. Perowne manages to push his racket through the ball, and the volley goes more or less as he hoped, and now he's in position, on the The'. Strauss flicks the ball out of the corner, and it comes back along the same side wall. Perowne goes forward and volleys again. Half a dozen times the ball travels up and down the left hand wall, until Perowne finds the space on his backhand to lift it high into the right-hand corner. They play that wall in hard straight drives, dancing in and out of each other's path, then they're chasing shots all over the court, with the advantage passing between them.
They've had this kind of rally before - desperate, mad, but also hilarious, as if the real contest is to see who will break down laughing first. But this is different. It's humourless, and longer, and attritional, for hearts this age can't race at above one hundred and eighty beats per minute for long, and soon someone will tire and fumble. And in this unwitnessed, somewhat inept, merely social game, both men have acquired an urgent sense of the point's importance. Despite the apology, the disputed let hangs between them. Strauss will have guessed that Perowne has given himself a good talking-to in the changing room. If his fightback can be resisted now, he'll be demoralised in no time and Strauss will take the match in three straight sets. As for Perowne, it's down to the rules of the game; until he's won the serve, he can't begin to score points.
It's possible in a long rally to become a virtually unconscious being, inhabiting the narrowest slice of the present, merely reacting, taking one shot at a time, existing only to keep going. Perowne is already at that state, digging in deep, when he remembers he's supposed to have a game plan. As it happens, just then the ball falls short and he's able to get under it to lob high into the rear left corner. Strauss raises his racket to volley, then changes his mind and runs back. He boasts the ball out, and Perowne lobs to the other side. Running from corner to corner to grub the ball out when
109 Ian McEwan
you're tired is hard work. Each time he hits the ball, Strauss grunts a little louder, and Perowne is encouraged. He resists the kill shot because he thinks he'll mishit. Instead, he goes on lobbing, five times in a row, wearing his man down. The point ends on the fifth when Strauss's powerless ball falls feebly against the tin.
Love-all. They put down their rackets, and stand bent over, breathless, hands on knees, staring blindly into the floor, or press their palms and faces into the cool white walls, or wander aimlessly about the court mopping their brows with their untucked T-shirts and groaning. At other times they'd have a post-mortem on a point like that, but neither man speaks. Keen to force the pace, Perowne is ready first, and waits in the service box bouncing the ball against the floor. He serves right over Strauss's head and the ball, cooler and softer now, dies in the corner. One-love, and no effort wasted. This, rather than the point before, might be the important one. Perowne has his height and length now. The next point goes his way, and the next. Strauss is becoming exasperated by a series of identical serves, and because the rallies are brief or non-existent, the ball remains cold and inert, like putty, difficult to fish out of a tight space. And as he becomes more annoyed, Jay becomes even less competent. He can't reach the ball in the air, he can't get under it once it falls. A couple of serves he simply walks away from, and goes to the box to wait for the next. It's the repetition, the same angle, the same impossible height, the same dead ball that's getting to him. Soon he's lost six points.
Perowne wants to laugh wildly - an impulse he disguises as a cough. He isn't gloating, or triumphant - it's far too early for that. This is the delight of recognition, sympathetic laughter. He's amused because he knows exactly how Strauss is feeling: Henry is too well acquainted with the downward spiral of irritation and ineptitude, the little ecstasies of self loathing. It's hilarious to recognise how completely another person resembles your imperfect self. And he knows how
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annoying his serve is. He wouldn't be able to return it himself. But Strauss was merciless when he was on top, and Perowne needs the points. So he keeps on and on, floating the ball over his opponent's head and cruising right through to take the game, no effort at all, nine-love.
'I need a piss,' Jay says tersely, and leaves the court, still wearing his goggles and holding his racket.
Perowne doesn't believe him. Though he sees that it's a sensible move, the only way to interrupt the haemorrhaging of points, and even though he did the same thing less than ten minutes before, he still feels cheated. He could have Laken the next set too with his infuriating serve. Now Strauss will be dousing his head under the tap and rethinking his game.
Henry resists the temptation to sit down. Instead he steps out to take a look at the other games - he's always hoping to learn something from the classier players. But the place is still deserted. The club members are either massing against the war, or unable to find a way through central London. As he comes back along the courts, he lifts his T-shirt and examines his chest. There's a dense black bruise to the left of his sternum. It hurts when he extends his left arm. Staring at the discoloured skin helps focus his troubled feelings about Baxter. Did he, Henry Perowne, act unprofessionally, using his medical knowledge to undermine a man suffering from a neurodegenerative disorder? Yes. Did the threat of a beating excuse him? Yes, no, not entirely. But this haematoma, the colour of an aubergine, the diameter of a plum - just a taste of what might have come his way - says yes, he's absolved. Only a fool would stand there and take a kicking when there was a way out. So what's troubling him? Strangely, for all the violence, he almost liked Baxter. That's to put it too strongly. He was intrigued by him, by his hopeless situation, and his refusal to give up. And there was a real intelligence there, and dismay that he was living the wrong life. And he, Henry, was obliged, or forced, to abuse his own power - but
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he allowed himself to be placed in that position. His attitude was wrong from the start, insufficiently defensive; his manner may have seemed pompous, or disdainful. Provocative perhaps. He could have been friendlier, even made himself accept a cigarette; he should have relaxed, from a position of strength, instead of which he was indignant and combative. On the other hand, there were three of them, they wanted his cash, they were eager for violence, they were planning it before they got out of their car. The loss of a wing mirror was cover for a mugging.
He arrives back outside the court, his unease intact, just as Strauss appears. His thick shoulders are drenched from his session at the washbasin, and his good humour is restored.
'OK/ he says as Perowne goes to the service box. 'No more Mister Nice Guy.'
Perowne finds it disabling, to have been left alone with his thoughts; just before he serves, he remembers his game plan. But the fourth game falls into no obvious pattern. He takes two points, then Strauss gets into the game and pulls ahead, three-two. There are long, scrappy rallies, with a run of unforced errors on both sides which bring the score to seven-all, Perowne to serve. He takes the last two points without trouble. Two games each.
They take a quick break to gather themselves for the final battle. Perowne isn't tired - winning games has been less physically demanding than losing them. But he feels drained of that fierce desire to beat Jay and would be happy to call it a draw and get on with his day. All morning he's been in some form of combat. But there's no chance of backing out. Strauss is enjoying the moment, playing it up, and saying as he goes to his position, Tight to the death/ and 'No pasaran!'