She sipped her drink as if considering the proposition. “All right,” she said. “One last fling.”
Neither of us voiced our feeling as to what was certain to happen if she lost.
I could not stop myself trembling as I set the board up once again. I cleared my mind, hoping she hadn't noticed that I had drunk only one glass of wine all night. I was determined to finish this one off quickly.
I moved my queen's pawn one square forward. She retaliated, pushing her king's pawn up two squares. I knew exactly what my next move needed to be, and because of it the game only lasted eleven minutes.
I have never been so comprehensively beaten in my life. Amanda was in a totally different class from me. She anticipated my every move and had gambits I had never encountered or even read of before.
It was her turn to say “Checkmate,” which she delivered with the same enigmatic smile as before, adding, “You did say the odds were on my side this time.”
I lowered my head in disbelief. When I looked up again, she had already slipped that beautiful black dress back on and was stuffing her stockings and suspenders into her evening bag. A moment later she put on her shoes.
I took out my checkbook, filled in the name “Amanda Curzon” and added the figure “£200,” the date, and my signature. While I was doing this she replaced the little ivory pieces on the exact squares on which they had been when she had first entered the room.
She bent over and kissed me gently on the cheek. “Thank you,” she said as she placed the check in her handbag. “We must play again sometime.” I was still staring at the reset board in disbelief when I heard the front door close behind her.
“Wait a minute,” I said, rushing to the door. “How will you get home?”
I was just in time to see her running down the steps and toward the open door of a BMW. She climbed in, allowing me one more look at those long tapering legs. She smiled as the car door was closed behind her.
The accountant strolled around to the driver's side, got in, revved up the engine, and drove the champion home.
“Life is a game,” said A. T. Pierson, thus immortalizing himself without actually having to do any real work: Though E. M. Forster showed more insight when he wrote “Fate is the Umpire, and Hope is the Ball, which is why I will never score a century at Lord's.”
When I was a freshman at the university, my roommate invited me to have dinner in a sporting club to which he belonged, called Vincent's. Such institutions do not differ greatly around the Western world. They are always brimful of outrageously fit, healthy young animals, whose sole purpose in life seems to be to challenge the opposition of some neighboring institution to ridiculous feats of physical strength. My host's main rivals, he told me with undergraduate fervor, came from a high-thinking, plain-living establishment that had dozed the unworldly centuries away in the flat, dull, fen country of England, cartographically described on the map as Cambridge. Now the ultimate ambition of men such as my host was simple enough: In whichever sport they aspired to beat the “Tabs” the select few were rewarded with a Blue. As there is no other way of gaining this distinction at either Oxford or Cambridge, every place in the side is contested for with considerable zeal. A man may be selected and indeed play in every other match of the season for the
University, even go on to represent his country, but if he does not play in the Oxford and Cambridge match, he cannot describe himself as a Blue.
My story concerns a delightful character I met that evening when I dined as a guest at Vincent's. The undergraduate to whom I refer was in his final year. He came from that part of the world that we still dared to describe in those days (without a great deal of thought) as the colonies. He was an Indian by birth, and the son of a man whose name in England was a household word, if not a legend, for he had captained Oxford and India at cricket, which meant that outside of the British Commonwealth he was about as well known as Babe Ruth is to the English. The young man's father had added to his fame by scoring a century at Lord's when captaining the university cricket team against Cambridge. In fact, when he went on to captain India against England he used to take pride in wearing his cream sweater with the wide dark blue band around the neck and waist. The son, experts predicted, would carry on in the family tradition. He was in much the same mold as his father, tall and rangy with jet black hair, and as a cricketer, a fine right-handed batsman and a useful left-arm spin bowler. (Those of you who have never been able to comprehend the English language, let alone the game of cricket, might well be tempted to ask why not a fine right-arm batsman and a useful left-handed spin bowler. The English, however, always cover such silly questions with the words: “Tradition, dear boy, tradition.”)
The young Indian undergraduate, like his father, had come up to Oxford with considerably more interest in defeating Cambridge than the examiners. As a freshman he had played against most of the English county sides, notching up a century against three of them, and on one occasion taking five wickets in an inning. A week before the big match against Cambridge, the skipper informed him that he had won his Blue and that the names of the chosen eleven would be officially announced in
The Times
the following day. The young man telegraphed his father in Calcutta with the news, and then went off for a celebratory dinner at Vincent's.
He entered the club's dining room in high spirits to the traditional round of applause afforded to a new Blue, and as he was about to take a seat he observed the boat crew, all nine of them, around a circular table at the far end of the room. He walked across to the captain of boats and remarked: “I thought you chaps sat one behind each other.”
Within seconds, four 180-pound men were sitting on the new Blue while the cox poured a pitcher of cold water over his head.
“If you fail to score a century,” said one oar, “we'll use hot water next time,” When the four oars had returned to their table, the cricketer rose slowly, straightened his tie in mock indignation, and as he passed the crew's table, patted the five foot one inch, 102-pound cox on the head and said, “Even losing teams should have a mascot,”
This time they only laughed, but it was in the very act of patting the cox on the head that he first noticed his thumb felt a little bruised, and he commented on the fact to the wicket keeper who had joined him for dinner. A large entrecôte steak arrived, and he found as he picked up his knife that he was unable to grip the handle properly. He tried to put the inconvenience out of his mind, assuming all would be well by the following morning. But the next day he woke in considerable pain and found to his dismay that the thumb was not only black but also badly swollen. After reporting the news to his captain, he took the first available train to London for a consultation with a Harley Street specialist. As the carriage rattled through Berkshire, he read in
The Times
that he had been awarded his Blue.
The specialist studied the offending thumb for some considerable time and expressed his doubt that the young man would be able to hold a ball, let alone a bat, for at least a fortnight. The prognosis turned out to be accurate, and our hero sat disconsolate in the stand at Lord's, watching Oxford lose the match and the twelfth man gain his Blue. His father, who had flown over from Calcutta especially for the encounter, offered his condolences, pointing out that he still had two years left in which to gain the honor.
As his second Trinity term approached, even the young man forgot his disappointment and in the opening match of the season against Somerset scored a memorable century, full of cuts and drives that reminded aficionados of his father. The son had been made secretary of cricket in the closed season as it was universally acknowledged that only bad luck and the boat crew had stopped him from reaping his just reward as a freshman. Once again, he played in every fixture before the needle match, but in the last four games against county teams he failed to score more than a dozen runs and did not take a single wicket, while his immediate rivals excelled themselves. He was going through a lean patch, and was the first to agree with his captain that with so much talent around that year he should not be risked against Cambridge. Once again he watched Oxford lose the Blues match, and his opposite number the Cambridge secretary, Robin Oakley, score a faultless century. A man well into his sixties sporting a Middlesex County Club tie came up to the young Indian during the game, patted him on the shoulder, and remarked that he would never forget the day his father had scored a hundred against Cambridge: It didn't help.
When the cricketer returned for his final year, he was surprised and delighted to be selected by his fellow teammates to be captain, an honor never previously afforded to a man who had not been awarded the coveted Blue. His peers recognized his outstanding work as secretary and knew if he could reproduce the form of his freshman year he would undoubtedly not only win a Blue but go on to represent his country.
The tradition at Oxford is that in a man's final year he does not play cricket until he has taken Schools, which leaves him enough time to play in the last three county matches before the Varsity match. But as the new captain had no interest in graduating, he bypassed tradition and played cricket from the opening day of the summer season. His touch never failed him, for he batted magnificently, and on those rare occasions when he did have an off day with the bat, he bowled superbly. During the term he led Oxford to
victory over three county sides, and his team looked well set for their revenge in the Varsity match.
As the day of the match drew nearer, the cricket correspondent of
The Times
wrote that anyone who had seen him bat this season felt sure that the young Indian would follow his father into the record books by scoring a century against Cambridge: But the correspondent did add that he might be vulnerable against the early attack of Bill Potter, the Cambridge fast bowler.
Everyone wanted the Oxford captain to succeed, for he was one of those rare and gifted men whose charm creates no enemies.
When he announced his Blues team to the press, he did not send a telegram to his father for fear that the news might bring bad luck, and for good measure he did not speak to any member of the boat crew for the entire week leading up to the match. The night before the final encounter he retired to bed at seven, although he did not sleep.
On the first morning of the three-day match, the sun shone brightly in an almost cloudless sky, and by eleven o'clock a fair-sized crowd was already in their seats. The two captains in open-necked white shirts, spotless white pressed trousers, and freshly polished white boots came out to study the pitch before they tossed. Robin Oakley of Cambridge won and elected to bat.
By lunch on the first day Cambridge had scored seventy-nine for three, and in the early afternoon, when his fast bowlers were tired from their second spell and had not managed an early breakthrough, the captain put himself on. When he was straight, the ball didn't reach a full length, and when he bowled a full length, he was never straight; he quickly took himself off. His less established bowlers managed the necessary breakthrough, and Cambridge were all out an hour after tea for 208.
The Oxford openers took the crease at ten past five; fifty minutes to see through before close of play on the first day. The captain sat padded up on the pavilion balcony, waiting
to be called upon only if a wicket fell. His instructions had been clear: No heroics; bat out the forty minutes so that Oxford could start afresh the next morning with all ten wickets intact. With only one over left before the close of play, the young freshman opener had his middle stump removed by Bill Potter, the Cambridge fast bowler. Oxford were eleven for one. The captain came to the crease with only four balls left to face before the clock reached six. He took his usual guard, middle and leg, and prepared himself to face the fastest man in the Cambridge side. Potter's first delivery came rocketing down and was just short of a length, moving away outside the off stump. The ball nicked the edge of the batâor was it pad?âand carried to first slip, who dived to his right and took the catch low down. Eleven Cambridge men screamed “Howzat!” Was the captain going to be outâfor a duck? Without waiting for the umpire's decision he turned and walked back to the pavilion, allowing no expression to appear on his face though he continually hit the side of his pad with his bat. As he climbed the steps he saw his father, sitting on his own in the members' enclosure. He walked on through the Long Room, to cries of “Bad luck, old fellow” from men holding slopping pints of beer, and “Better luck in the second innings” from large-bellied old Blues.
The next day Oxford kept their heads down and put together a total of 181 runs, leaving themselves only a 27-run deficit. When Cambridge batted for a second time, they pressed home their slight advantage and the captain's bowling figures ended up as eleven overs, no maidens, no wickets, 42 runs. He took his team off the field at the end of play on the second day with Cambridge standing at 167 for 7, Robin Oakley the Cambridge captain having notched up a respectable sixty-three not out, and looking well set for a century.
On the morning of the third day, the Oxford quickies removed the last three Cambridge wickets for 19 runs in forty minutes and Robin Oakley ran out of partners, and left the field with seventy-nine not out. The Oxford captain was the
first to commiserate with him. “At least you notched a hundred last year,” he added.
“True,” replied Oakley, “so perhaps it's your turn this year. But not if I've got anything to do with it!”
The Oxford captain smiled at the thought of scoring a century when his team only needed 214 runs to win the match.
The two Oxford opening batsmen began their innings just before midday and remained together until the last over before lunch, when the freshman was once again clean bowled by Cambridge's ace fast bowler, Bill Potter. The captain sat on the balcony nervously, padded up and ready. He looked down on the bald head of his father, who was chatting to a former captain of England. Both men had scored centuries in the Varsity match. The captain pulled on his gloves and walked slowly down the pavilion steps, trying to look casual; he had never felt more nervous in his life. As he passed his father, the older man turned his sunburned face toward his only child and smiled. The crowd warmly applauded the captain all the way to the crease. He took guard, middle and leg again, and prepared to face the attack. The eager Potter who had despatched the captain so brusquely in the first innings came thundering down toward him hoping to be the cause of a pair. He delivered a magnificent first ball that swung into his legs and beat the captain all ends up, hitting him with a thud on the front pad.
“Howzat?” screamed Potter and the entire Cambridge side as they leaped in the air.
The captain looked up apprehensively at the umpire, who took his hands out of his pockets and moved a pebble from one palm to the other to remind him that another ball had been bowled. But he affected no interest in the appeal. A sigh of relief went up from the members in the pavilion. The captain managed to see through the rest of the over and returned to lunch nought not out, with his side twenty-four for one.
After lunch Potter returned to the attack. He rubbed the leather ball on his red-stained flannels and hurled himself forward, looking even fiercer than he had at the start of play.
He released his missile with every ounce of venom he possessed, but in so doing he tried a little too hard, and the delivery was badly short. The captain leaned back and hooked the ball to the Tavern boundary for four, and from that moment he never looked as if anyone would pry him from the crease. He reached his fifty in seventy-one minutes, and at ten past four the Oxford team came into tea with the score at 171 for 5 and the skipper on 82 not out. The young man did not look at his father as he climbed the steps of the pavilion. He needed another 18 runs before he could do that, and by then his team would be safe. He ate and drank nothing at tea, and spoke to no one.