Authors: Sebastian Faulks
serve for the set, Gorner called out, ‘Excuse me, Mr Bond. Will you forgive me? A call of nature. I shan’t be one minute.’
He jogged off the court to the clubhouse.
Bond pushed his hand back through his damp hair in irritation. The man was shameless. And the trouble with people who are shameless is that they are curiously invulnerable. At the umpire’s chair, Bond pulled a bottle of Pschitt from the fridge and took a couple of sips. He was playing as well as he knew how, but he was wary that Gorner might have yet further means to avoid the possibility of losing. He was clearly a man who would rule nothing out.
Gorner returned swiftly from the clubhouse. ‘Do forgive me, Mr Bond. Now where were we? Was I serving?’
‘No. I was. It’s forty–thirty. Five–three.’
‘How could I have forgotten? So this is set point?’
There was a guileless yet patronizing note in his voice, implying that such matters as the score were generally beneath his notice.
Bond said nothing. He had worked over Gorner’s backhand so much that it must be time for something new. Taking careful aim, he served hard down the centre. Gorner anticipated well, but Bond’s serve hit
the line – a tape that stood a fraction proud – and bounced up awkwardly towards Gorner’s chest, where he mis-hit it into the base of the net. It was the first bit of luck Bond had had all morning, and there was no point in Gorner calling the service ‘out’
as only the line-tape itself could have caused the difficult bounce.
As they sat on their chairs, Gorner said, ‘You’re quite a fighter, aren’t you, Mr Bond?’
‘Does that bother you?’
‘On the contrary.’ Gorner stood to one side and did some stretching exercises. ‘I would like to propose that we raise the stakes a little.’
He didn’t look at Bond as he spoke, but busied himself with the strings on his racquet.
‘All right,’ said Bond. ‘It’s a hundred pounds, isn’t it?’
‘I believe so. So . . . Shall we say a hundred thousand?’
Gorner was still not looking at Bond. He was bending over his bag to extract a new racquet and was testing the tension by banging the frame of another racquet against the strings. He said, ‘I mean francs, of course, Mr Bond.’
‘Old, presumably,’ said Bond.
‘Oh, no. New. As new as we can find them.’
Bond calculated rapidly. It was more than seven thousand pounds, silly money, far more than he could afford, but in the strange tussle to which he now appeared committed, he felt he could show no weakness. ‘All right, Dr Gorner,’ he said. ‘Your serve.’
‘Ah, the good old English ‘‘fair play’’,’ said Gorner, heavily, in his oddly accented voice. ‘I suppose to turn down my bet would be ‘‘not cricket’’.’ He spat out the words with such bitterness that it took a moment for him to register the joke. ‘Not cricket,’
he repeated, laughing mirthlessly as he walked back to serve. ‘Not cricket at all. Ha ha. Just tennis.’
The sum of money that had been bet and all the antics with racquet and bag and stretching added up to just one thing, thought Bond: a threat. You can’t beat me, Gorner was saying, and it’s foolish to try. Be sensible, be realistic, let me win and it’ll be better for you in the long run.
The means by which he’d made himself clear were subtle, Bond had to admit. Unfortunately for Gorner, however, the threat only made Bond more determined.
For the first six games, the set went with service. With the score at 3–3, Gorner served again and went 15–40 down. Bond knew it was a crucial moment. He sliced a backhand return deep – but not deep
enough to risk being called out – then retreated to the baseline. Gorner slashed a fizzing forehand slice down the centre of the court. Most of these shots stopped and stood up as the backspin told, though occasionally they didn’t grip, but merely hurried through. This was a hurrier, and Bond was almost cut in two as he tried to slice it back. Gorner was on to his weak return, pushing him deep into the corner, but Bond lobbed diagonally, and drove his man back. He didn’t charge the net, but stayed back, and the rally ground on for sixteen strokes, from side to side. Bond felt his lungs burning and eyes aching with concentration. He kept pounding Gorner’s backhand, pushing his forehands as close to the line as he dared. When he could hear Gorner panting and gasping with the effort, he suddenly dropped the ball short. Gorner ran in, but failed to make it. Game to Bond.
‘Bad luck,’ said Bond, unnecessarily.
Gorner said nothing. He raised his racquet and smashed it down on the net post, so the wooden frame collapsed. He chucked the racquet to the side of the court and pulled another from his bag. The show of rage seemed to galvanize him, and he ripped into Bond’s service with no sign of the nerves that had threatened both players in the cautious
exchanges of the previous games. With his combination of slice, lob and competitive line-call, he broke back at once. Four–all. Bond cursed himself silently as he prepared to receive.
For the first time that Bond could remember, Gorner hit the netcord with his first service. The ball ballooned out, and Bond successfully attacked the second with a cross-court forehand. Emboldened, he unleashed an aggressive backhand to the incoming Gorner’s feet to go love–30 ahead. Suddenly the tightness in Bond’s chest and the heaviness in his legs seemed to have gone. He felt confident, and hit another low, flat return of serve that skimmed an inch above the net to give him three break points. Gorner circled three times in the advantage court, finally tossed the ball high with a flash of white glove and served with a grunt. The ball hit the top of the net and dropped back. He gathered himself and hit a flat second serve, which hit the netcord, ran along three feet and fell back harmlessly on his side.
‘ That is unbelievable!’ he exploded. He ran to the net and hammered it with his racquet.
‘Steady on. You’ll have the secretary out here,’ said Bond. ‘Five–four. My serve, I think.’
Bond drank a full glass of Evian at the change.
The match was almost over and he wasn’t bothered about having too much fluid in his stomach. While he waited for Gorner to complete his changeover rituals, Bond bounced the ball and planned his service game. Three-quarter speed down the middle to the deuce court, out wide to the backhand on the advantage court. Then, if 30–love up, hit the variants: slice wide to the forehand, then straight down the middle in the advantage court. Gorner finished towelling himself and went slowly back to receive. As Bond prepared to serve, Gorner advanced almost to the service line, then doubled back. He managed a decent backhand return, but Bond put the volley away a safe two feet inside the sideline.
Gorner advanced to the net. ‘I wonder if you’d like to raise our bet, Mr Bond. I was thinking of a double.’
Bond didn’t have the money and he didn’t have the authority of the Service to presume on theirs. But he felt that in the last two games the odds had turned inexplicably in his favour.
‘If you insist,’ he said. ‘Fifteen–love.’
He netted his first serve, but hit a deep second with topspin. Gorner’s return was short and Bond was able to pressure him into a backhand mistake.
Following his plan, he swung the next serve out wide and stunned Gorner’s return with a drop volley, giving himself three match points.
Now for the middle line, he thought. He threw the ball a little lower than usual, and slightly further in front of him, then hit with all his power, flat down the centre. It bounced in the corner of the service box and curved away from Gorner’s flailing racquet to hit the back netting half-way up. It lodged there, whitish grey, smudged with red.
Bond went to the net and held out his hand. Gorner came to meet him and, for the first time since they had met, looked him in the eye.
The relief and elation of victory evaporated as Bond felt the intense and violent hatred of the eyes that bored into him.
‘I look forward to a rematch,’ said Gorner. ‘In the very near future. I do not think you will be so fortunate a second time.’
He went to gather his belongings without another word.
6. Quite a Girl
When he emerged from the shower, Bond found no trace of Gorner in the changing room, though on top of his racquet was a white envelope, stiff with banknotes. On it was written: ‘
A
` bientoˆt
.’
Bond tracked down Scarlett to one of the upstairs bars, where she sat on a stool in the window, innocently sipping a drink.
‘Did you enjoy your game, James?’
‘Good exercise. I think I lost a few pounds. Not as many as Gorner.’
‘But you did win?’
‘Yes.’
‘And are you going to take me out to lunch to celebrate?’
Bond pushed back his hair, which was still damp
from the shower, and smiled at the girl’s earnest expression. ‘Let’s have a drink first,’ he said. Bond joined Scarlett in the window, bringing a fresh
citron presse´
for her, a litre of Vittel and a bottled beer for himself.
Scarlett crossed her legs and turned to Bond. ‘It all seemed to come right for you just at the end.’
‘You were watching?’
‘From a safe distance. I didn’t want Gorner or Chagrin to see me.’
Bond nodded.
‘ The thing is,’ said Scarlett, with an enigmatic smile, ‘that you seemed to have no luck at all until the last three games.’
‘ That can happen in any sport,’ said Bond. ‘Golf, tennis . . .’
‘Well, it seemed more than a coincidence to me,’
said Scarlett, ‘so I did some investigation.’
‘You did what?’
‘Every time you hit the ball into the netcord, it seemed to rebound out of play. Gorner’s shots never seemed to touch the net. I became suspicious.’
Bond leaned forward, intrigued despite himself.
‘And?’
‘I noticed that your court was the only one without
a handle on the net post to tighten the net – that the cord just ran down out of sight.’
‘Yes, I presume there’s a wheel let into the ground there.’
Scarlett laughed. ‘Not so fast, James. I worked out whereabouts indoors would be directly under the net post and went to have a look. I reckoned it would be a small storeroom to one side of the indoor courts. I found my way to the room and looked through the glass in the door. And there was Mr Chagrin, watching television.’
‘ Television?’
‘Yes, on closed circuit, like the ones in the entry hall. But in this room there’s a monitor with a console which allows you to follow any of the games going on outside. You know, like the director’s room in a television studio. And Chagrin was watching your game.’
‘And?’
‘ There was a brass handle attached to a wheel in the concrete wall. It seemed to have something that looked very like a netcord running down to it. Depending on who was serving, Chagrin could turn the handle one way or the other to raise or lower it. Very simple – just an extra long netcord.’
‘So that’s why Gorner insisted on playing on Court Two.’
‘Chagrin waited till he could see on the screen that your back was turned,’ said Scarlett. ‘He’d got the cord wound so tight when you were serving that any shot of yours that touched it just flew out.’
‘And Gorner kept hitting it with his racquet between games. Presumably that was some sort of signal. So what did you do?’
‘I ran upstairs and looked around till I found someone I knew. A young man called Max, who works for Rothschild’s. He’s asked me out a few times and I knew he’d want to help. Obviously the staff are all in on Gorner’s little game, so I couldn’t go to the secretary or anything. Anyway, I got Max to go into the storeroom and tell Chagrin he knew what he was up to and if he didn’t stop fixing the net that he, Max, would go on court and tell you in front of Gorner.’
‘At what point in the game was this?’ said Bond.
‘I’m not sure exactly. By the time Max had got Chagrin out of there and reported the all-clear to me, it must have been well into the third set.’
‘ Then what did you do?’
Scarlett looked slightly ashamed. ‘I took Chagrin’s place and made things a bit fairer.’
Bond smiled. ‘ That must have been when he
smashed his racquet. He thought it was impossible for him to serve a double fault.’
‘I’m afraid so. But I only raised it a fraction. Nothing like as much as Chagrin had been doing.’
‘And for me?’
‘I let it go back to the correct height. So all those lovely winners you hit were legitimate.’
Bond smiled. ‘You’re quite a girl, aren’t you, Scarlett?’
‘So now am I invited to lunch?’
‘I think it’s . . . destiny,’ said Bond.
‘Good,’ said Scarlett, jumping down from her stool. ‘First I shall show you the Sainte Chapelle. Culture before gluttony. I don’t suppose you’ve ever been there, have you?’
‘I’ve always been too busy for rubbernecking,’ said Bond.
‘I’ll go and get the car,’ said Scarlett. ‘See you on the steps.’
There was a short queue of weekend sightseers outside the Sainte Chapelle, but after ten minutes Bond and Scarlett were inside. The ground floor was bare and unremarkable, largely taken up by an extensive souvenir stall.
‘Not impressed, are you?’ said Scarlett.
‘It’s like a bazaar.’
‘My father told me that outside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem he was offered an egg from the cock that crew.’
‘ The cock that – ’
‘When Peter denied Christ for the third time.’
‘Improbable.’
‘For a number of reasons.’
‘And what’s special about this place?’ said Bond.
‘ This is,’ said Scarlett. ‘Follow me.’
She went to a stone staircase and began to climb. Bond followed, watching the muscles of her slim calves and thighs in the shadow of the short linen dress. The upper chapel was a blaze of stained glass.
‘It was a miracle of engineering,’ said Scarlett.
‘ They managed to build it without flying buttresses to support it, otherwise you’d see them and they’d spoil the pictures in the glass.’
Scarlett spent some minutes walking round the chapel, and Bond watched the reflections of the coloured glass as they played across the stone floor and over the slim figure of the girl who so admired them. Her enthusiasm seemed quite guileless. Either she was the most accomplished actress he had ever met, or she was what she claimed to be.