Break Point (11 page)

"OK, miss. Can
I go up and sort my room now?"

Is she for
real?

*

After lunch I
recline on my bed. I fondle the green ball and wonder if June was
thinking about the green ball when she rang Elliot's
yesterday.

Friday is
normally Men's Semi-Finals day but this year, because of all the
rain, they've still not even completed the Quarter-Finals. With
Shari here though I should get in some serious and uninterrupted
viewing this afternoon. With any luck she'll take Gwen out for a
walk to the memorial seat or somewhere, like she did
yesterday.

And here she
comes, the white floaty maid herself with her hair all clipped up,
having survived my ticking off, thank fuck. The last thing I want
to do is scare her off.

"I've just
come up for a fag," she says. "Mind if I come in?"

"Oh, that was
the other thing I meant to tell you. Gwen smelt the smoke. Better
smoke outside."

There I go
again, nagging the girl.

"I'll blow it
out the window," she says, all sort of defiant, and standing like
she did yesterday, leaning forward, bareing her stocking-tops. When
she's finished, she kicks off her shoes and sits on the other side
of my bed.

"Who are these
playing then?"

"Henman and
Pioline."

She catches
sight of the ball in my hand. "What's that?"

"This? This is
a genuine Wimbledon ball, this is. A souvenir from when I went up
there ten year ago with me ... friend."

"What, you've
sat on one of those courts?"

"In one of the
stands, yeah. On Centre Court and Number One Court."

"Wow." Shari
tucks her legs up and rests her chin on her knees. "Can I watch it
with you?"

Can't she take
a hint? She won't understand it. She hasn't been through it with
me.

"It's good,
isn't it?"

"There've been
better matches than this," I tell her, seeing as she’s a willing
ear.

"What does
that mean? Break point?"

"It means he's
got a chance to break the other's serve and win the
game."

"What's
deuce?"

"Their scores
are equal. Did you take Gwen out?"

"She didn't
want to go."

"Don't you
think you better see what she's up to?"

"She was
having a snooze in her chair. God, it's so gloomy down there with
that light on and that stupid clock."

It's the way
she says, that stupid clock. Has me in fits, and that sets her off.
I laugh until me belly aches, and Gwen can hear us getting on,
forging an alliance like in Doubles' tennis, though we're not
really, it's only an impression you get when you're hearing it
through the floor. But she doesn't like it because she's rapping
her stick on the bannister.

"Robina?
Robina? I want you down here!"

"You go," I
tell Shari. "You're supposed to be on duty now anyway."

"OK." She
slips on her shoes.

A moment later
and she's back again. "She wants you. She said she doesn't have to
take orders from a fifteen-year-old."

"Orders?"

"I just said
for her to go back and sit down. She was getting all worked up
about something."

I head towards
the door. "The whole point of you being here is so that I have me
afternoons free."

Downstairs,
Gwen's muttering on about not feeling well and what a crusty old
life this is, it's gone mouldy, no she doesn't want a doctor, just
a glass of Robina. And no she doesn't want to watch television,
it's just boring old tennis, neither does she want a magazine, nor
a walk to her father's seat, not even her box of photos. And I
scratch my head at the infuriating old woman who's making me miss
Wimbledon, and this is the other Quarter-Final, the one I can't win
because my balls just sag into the net, one after the other.
Sometimes you get days like that. Your backhand goes to bits, your
forehand won't work for you, you keep serving double faults, and
your opponent is outwitting you with every stroke, and so bed it
is, Gwen wins, and when I climb up the stairs again Rosemary's
bedroom door is open. Shari's sitting there on the floor in front
of the half-open bottom drawer, reading personal
letters.

"What
do
you think you're doing?"

"Getting to
know Rosemary. Guess what?"

"But these are
private."

"There's
photos here too. Look."

She's really
pressing my buttons. "Go on," I say. "Get out."

She's got a
dead crafty little game, that one. Little drop-volleys here and
there, catching you off-guard. At least I know where I am with
Gwen’s game.

I look
down at the confiscated bundle of photos and letters in my hand and
I can't ignore them. Shots of Rosemary, post-seventies, in a bright
cerise jumper down to her knees. Her arm is round the waist of
another girl with shoulder-length dark hair and familiar eyes, and
on the back is written, Rosie and Babs, Brighton '83. Babs!
The
Babs. With a past
before Tash, and now Rosie's got a coloured-in past too. What's
more, there are poems written in rainbow-coloured pencils about
Greenham, and love letters about the taste of your quim, and that.
Quim. Babs used to call mine that, and it makes me a bit jealous.
Babs going on about someone else's quim.

And there's a
whole stack of letters inside a rubber band addressed to Mrs G
McMahon. Most of them have never been opened. I look at the
date-stamps, which go back years, but there's nothing later than
'94. This is shady corner, this. None of the pride-of-place stuff
that's downstairs. But bottom-drawer stuff, where dark sides get
shoved. Among the photos and poems in my hand is a letter from
Rosemary to Gwen without its envelope. Gwen must have read it then,
or Shari. Or both. There's a Hove address in the top right-hand
corner.

Dear
Mum,

I've already
given you my reasons why I didn't come to your friends’ Golden
Wedding. I feel we're just going round in circles and this is the
last letter I'm going to write on the matter. Why should I feel a
sense of duty? Maybe when you start celebrating my relationship
with Penny instead of disapproving of it, then maybe I'll feel more
inclined to do likewise.

*

Shari's back
at the door, sniffing to come in. Like a cat you keep turning out.
"What did she want before?"

"To go to
bed."

"Are you still
cross at me?"

"You don't
like Gwen much, do you?"

"Dunno," she
says and I had this feeling when I first met her yesterday that she
was lying about the nursing home work. I don't think she's got much
experience with old folk at all, except with her grandad perhaps.
It's something you sense. She's probably lied about her age, but
she'll have done it to get the job. Loads of people do. But it
means I've got to watch over her. It means I can never be off duty,
not properly.

She sits down
next to me in front of the tennis.

"Did you see
any famous people playing when you went?"

"Course," I
say. "We had Centre Court tickets, didn't we? We saw Navratilova
and Graf."

"They're like
Rosie some of those women, aren't they?"

"Oh what?
Sexually attracted to other women? Do you have a problem with that
then?"

"No."

"I'm glad
about that because - "

"Anyway, it's
not all what it's cracked up to be, is it?"

"What
ain't?"

"Sleeping with men. I don't do it much any more. Not that I'm
a prude or nothing. But
they
can be when they hear some of my fantasies." She
does a smirky laugh. "Why do they go love, fifteen, thirty,
forty?"

"Dunno,
duck."

I don't
either. We never did find out, me and June. Part of us never wanted
to. Just in case it wrecked the mystery.

*

When I've
finished watching all the recorded matches played earlier in the
day, I look in on Gwen. "Can I get you anything to eat or
drink?"

"Oh, I don't
know, my old brain is coated with fur." She lets out this great
bark as I go towards the window. "Don't touch it. I want it
shut."

"What about
the curtains?"

"Half-shut.
Where has Anne got to?"

"She left,
remember?"

"Oh, so she
did," she says, spittle-mouthed. "We get so blunted as we get
older.” She points to her head. "I'm having a good clear out. But
the more I clear away, the more room there is for all the other
mess to come crashing down. A bit like dislodging a book from the
bottom of an unsteady pile. Crash. Bang."

I scratch my
head. "Have you thought of writing to Rosemary?"

"Writing to
Rosemary? Why ever should I? She never writes to me."

(But
she does. Well, she did. But you ignored them for that long she
just gave up
.
)

"Well, perhaps
you could make the first move, Gwen. I can help you if you
like."

"Will help,
not can. There's no point. You don't know Rosemary. Did you say
something about a drink? And a nice sticky bun like Mrs Parrott
brings."

"You must eat
more than that, Gwen. I'm making this nice thing with tuna and
rice. D'you want some?"

"Tuna?" she
says. "I don't think so. Not now."

*

"Bobbie?"

Shari calls me
during the Wimbledon highlights. She's in the bathroom, and I walk
into swirls of steam and the sound of hot water gurgling and
belching. She's sitting in the four-legged bath with the taps
behind her and the squashed-larvar window is now a deeper blue with
the darkening summer evening.

"Oh sorry,
duck."

"It's all
right, we're all girls together, aren't we?" She climbs out of the
bath, bubbles melting down her legs, and drips little pools on the
floor as she reaches into the airing cupboard for a towel, a
sumptuous tangerine thing which she fastens securely over her bust.
She wipes a space clear on the steamed-up mirror and says, "D'you
want to come up and see my room?"

I follow her
upstairs to the new look bolt-hole. It’s got a coral blanket and a
pleated pink lamp and a peep of sugar-white pillowcase trimmed with
tiny pink flowers. There's a record player on the floor, an old
tinpot thing, and Shari sifts through some singles on the floor and
puts on The Bee Gees.

But it's all
sort of wrong. That record player, the old record. She should be
playing some mini disc on some new-fangled gizmo.

"Ain't it a
bit before your time, this?" I say, leaning against the
wall.

"I love all
the old seventies stuff," she says. "Disco music and
that."

Skin still all
putty-soft from her bath, she slips into some knickers and lets the
towel drop to the floor in a damp heap. "Sit down on my mattress if
you like," she says, swivelling open the skylight.

She's got a
strong sense of herself, I'll say that for her. Like Dokic and
Lucic and Kournikova.

"You'll have
to stop walking around the place half-naked, duck."

"But I like
to," she says, combing through her damp hair, the watery chain on
her neck swinging forward with each movement. "Anyway, Gwen's miles
away. Down two lots of stairs, isn't she?"

"You better
turn the music down a bit."

She gives her
hair a shake. "What are you like? I've got to let my hair down
after the day I've had."

"You've hardly
done a tap."

"I've moved
house, haven't I?" She clambers onto the wicker chair purloined
from Rosemary's room, and pops her head and shoulders through the
skylight so she can blow smoke over the rooftops.

"Did Gwen
really say you could move in here?"

"Yeah?"

"You mean you
talked her round."

"So?" she says
to the summer night sky.

I peel back
the pretty pillowcase and when Shari's finished her fag she sits on
the other side of the mattress, giggling as I unpick a motley
collection of feathers. "Gwen's whiskers," I say, and we're both in
stitches. "Oh that was dead cruel. We shouldn't laugh, poor Gwen.
In fact it's time you checked up on her. You're on
evenings."

"She doesn't
want to see me," says Shari. "She said I'm just a slip of a girl
but she likes you. When we went on that walk yesterday she said she
didn't like the tennis but you were nice. She said she'd met your
bloke and everything and that you were saving to get
married."

"She said
that?" I throw back my head and howl. "That was my brother she
met."

"So she's not
met your bloke then?"