Break Point (9 page)

Gwen's deep
blue eyes are moving in on Finbar's wide brown ones. "Hello, young
man. And you must be ... ?"

Finbar carries
on with his wide-eyed stare, a slight crease in his
forehead.

"Say hello to
Mrs McMahon, Finbar. Now you're going to be a very good boy while
you're here, aren't you? And this lady is Miss - ? Mrs ...
?"

"Just call me
Bobbie."

Karen licks
her teeth. "Bobbie also cares for Mrs McMahon like mummy
does."

"Is she a
nurse?"

"Yes, that's
right. A sort of nurse."

Finbar sighs
and squats down to his heap of toys. He opens up a plastic
box.

"I can make
you better with this," he says, pulling out a stethoscope, and
going over to Gwen. He prods her a bit roughly in the stomach with
it, which has Karen gasping and clutching her
corkscrews.

"Stop it,
Finbar, at once, otherwise I'll have to confiscate it. I'm so sorry
about that, Gwendoline. It won't happen again."

"Oh, no harm
done. Boys will be boys, and it's so nice to have a child around
the place. Rosemary let me down so badly ... "

Karen pats
Gwen on the arm. "Now don't you go fretting yourself,
Gwendoline."

"How can I
not? She's deprived me of being a grandmother ... "

Gwen stares
with disapproval at the growing disarray on her carpet. "I think
you're going to have to move those toys over a bit, Kathy. They're
causing a bit of an obstruction."

"Oh sure."
Karen shifts the pile wholesale to the side of the room. "She never
contacts you then?"

"Mummy?"

"Who?"

"Your
daughter."

"Mummy? Can I
play in the garden?"

"Nothing for
years."

"So
you
could
be a
grandmother for all you know."

"Mum
my
can
I play in the gar-den?"

"I'd know if
I'd got grandchildren."

"MUMMY CAN I -
?

"Don't shout,
Finbar. No you can't. We haven't got time. I have to run Mrs
McMahon to the hospital."

"Why?"

"Because she's
got an appointment to see the physi ... to see someone who helps
make her aches and pains better."

Gwen gives one
of her rare smiles. "The garden's nice and clear now, if a bit
damp. Robina's boyfriend came and did it on Sunday."

"I don't want
to go to the hospital. I want to play in the garden."

"Well, you
can't. You've got to come with mummy and if you're very good I'll
get you a bar of chocolate on the way back."

*

Everything's
all out of sequence this year because of the rain, but the covers
are off and Henman and Courier are out on court warming up, hoping
to carry on their match from yesterday, but it starts to rain
again. Alan Mills is calling them off. When you see him you know
that skies are grey, and starting to drip. You see him and think,
Uh-oh, because you know that any minute you're going to hear those
heart-sinking words, Ladies and gentlemen play is
suspended.

But it's great
that Karen's come, Finbar or not. It's good that she's got a car
and can take Gwen to her physio appointments and things. I can just
see Gwen now. Stripped down to her petticoat and being humped onto
one of them leather beds. They'll be kneading and pummelling her
while Karen waits beyond the curtained-off cubicle with Finbar
who's on his best behaviour because of the promised bar of
chocolate.

The rain
continues at Wimbledon and they decide to show us some tennis from
thirty years ago. Recorded tennis doesn't usually hit the same spot
as live tennis, but this match is something else. Pasarell is
playing Gonzales in a right epic with no tie breaks, no chairs to
sit on between games, and only barley water to drink. The match is
dead quiet and tame. The men are wearing their T-shirts tucked into
their mid-length shorts and they're playing all sort of dainty, and
though one of them is a lot older than any of the men today, the
commentator calls them "the boys". No action replays either, no
calls from the crowd, and the umpire's got a dead old-fashioned
English voice. Even Gwen would approve, I reckon.

*

The
others arrive home. I could have gone with Gwen to the clinic after
all and brought our relationship back to deuce but you never know
with the tennis, you've got to keep watching in case of live play.
Karen's working downstairs, she'll be ironing or preparing tea
while Gwen's snoozing and Finbar's playing in the garden. To be
honest, I prefer to be alone in the house with Wimbledon. Other
people downstairs makes me feel a bit anti-social, especially after
what Gwen said before about me to Karen.
Robina's only here to watch the tennis.
She disappears upstairs with her meals and treats the house
like a hotel.
But I'm not normally like
this, ask anyone. Wimbledon just brings this out in
me.

Still, a bit
of noise downstairs won't hurt.

But there it
doesn't stay. It climbs up the stairs, then down them again. Stairs
give a lot of pleasure to young kids and Finbar seems to be running
something along the bannister rails as he climbs up and down, up
and down. No one below seems that bothered, and it's not my place
to restrain his play. If I did he'd more than likely step it
up.

I turn the
telly up.

He's right
outside my door now. His stomping across the landing is annoying
enough but it's the sound of that laser gun.

Quiet please,
ladies and gentlemen. Quiet please.

He bursts into
my room, aiming the gun at me. "Hands up or your dead."

Ignore him and
he'll go away.

He starts to
go, even closes the door behind him, but then it's thrown open
again more dramatic than before. I stand up and goad him outside.
"Not in here. I'm trying to watch telly."

Ladies and
gentlemen, play is suspended.

I wish someone
would suspend him. From a rope on high.

"What are you
watching?"

"Tennis."

He comes in,
gazes at my telly for a moment and then sighs dismissively. Such
dead straight hair and all, nothing like Karen's corkscrews. He's
not a horrid kid either, just a typical one, and normally I like to
play with children.

We were
planning to have one once, me and June. We were going to put an ad
in The Pink Paper.
Solvent healthy man
wanted for MBA
. We knew all the initials
but we hadn't sorted out in our minds what would be a Mutually
Beneficial Arrangement. Then we flagged it up with Gordon and Colin
because we knew Gordon had sometimes dropped it into the
conversation about wanting to be a dad. June would have gone for
the natural way with Gordon, though it was me and Gordon that had
that snog, but June wanted to be the one to carry the baby, and I
was happy with that. But if she hadn't have wanted to, I'd have
done it, but I might have gone for the sperm and syringe method.
Anyway, we went over all the financial and practical things but
then Gordon backed down, and so it came to
nothing.

Finbar's
outside the door again, with his noisy gun. I can hear a handle
turning, like the sound of a locked door being rattled. Finding the
key isn't too tricky for a bright four year old like Finbar and now
he's mounting the stairs up to the bolt-hole attic.

Karen calls
from below. "Finbar? Finbar? Are you up there?"

I go onto the
landing and lean over the bannister. "He's gone upstairs to the
attic."

"Oh boy."
Karen hurries up the first flight of stairs and then on up to the
attic. "Gwen'll go spare. Finbar! Come down now, please." And when
at last he's persuaded down, Karen locks the door after him and
hands the key to me.

When they’ve
gone downstairs I decide to check up on the bolt-hole. Make sure
Finbar's not trashed it or nothing.

Up in the
attic I lie out on the stained mattress, resting me cheek on one of
the pillows with stripes on a sacky background, like liquorice. I
feel a slight prick on me face, the sharp edge of a feather poking
through, and I pull it out, like a whisker. Like the kind that grow
on Gwen's chin. It's curled and white and moist, and behind it a
dark brown one has taken its place. I bet that's how it is with
Gwen's face and all, stuffed with whiskers, a line of reserves
ready to stand in if one gets plucked. I pick out a few more, dark
and light and dun.

SECOND
WEDNESDAY

Hazel phoned
this morning. "I'm afraid Karen won't be able to come any more,"
she said. "She's not found herself another childminder so she's had
to let it go I'm afraid."

"Are you
sending someone else then, Hazel?" I said, panic in me
voice.

"We'll try. I
don't suppose you're able to do afternoons and evenings until we
find someone else?"

"No, sorry,
duck. Otherwise I'm working all day without a break."

"But there are
quiet times, aren't there? You can take time in lieu when we've
found a replacement."

"No, I've got
other things on this week, duck. Perhaps next week I can put in
more hours."

"OK." Hazel
sighed. "I'll see what I can do. Is Gwen there? If you put her on I
can explain the situation."

*

"Well," says
Gwen, slapping the receiver down, "what a pretty useless lump of
nothing she turned out to be."

"Did Hazel say
when they'd be sending someone else along?"

"Today or
tomorrow. I must have help in the evenings."

"I've written
today's shopping list, Gwen. Have a look. Anything you want to
add?"

"Mmm." She
scrabbles around on the standard lamp ledge for her reading
glasses. "See if my skirt is ready at the cleaners, would you?
Well, thank goodness you're still here, Robina. That's all I can
say."

Well, she's
changed her chuffing tune, hasn't she? She wants us on the same
side of the net today. She wants me as her Doubles' partner. But
come tomorrow I bet I'll be her opponent again.

*

When me
and June were first shacking up, Wimbledon wasn't even green and
white, it was shades of grey. You had to colour in the lawns
yourself, the hair and eyes, the umbrellas. Perhaps
that's
how June's white
balls started: from our black and white telly. We didn't get a
coloured one for a few years. Perhaps she took it with her, the
white ball, and sort of superimposed it over the new coloured
world.

Centre
Court has charisma, I hear Becker say in his interview. There's no
other place like it in the world, and it's just like Boris says -
the crowds don't just scream, they scream at the right point, and
they support both players, though they have their favourites.
That's one of those three key things that makes for a classic
match. 1) Favourite player. You've got to be rooting for one player
and almost hating the other guy across the net. It gives you a
vested interest in the match. 2) Good tennis. You have to get those
long, exciting rallies, those breathtaking shots and impossible
returns where the crowd keeps gasping
oooooo, aaaaahh, oooorrr
and 3)
Unpredictable outcome. You know, an upset, matches turned around
against all the odds, your player making a comeback, drawing on
something inside, some magic.

But the tennis
they're showing now has got little going for it, and it's a good
time to start making Gwen her tea.

I go
downstairs and as I open a tin of ravioli, I worry that there's
been no word from Carewise about a replacement for Karen. There's
only a few more days left of Wimbledon, but they're decisive games,
crucial.

Then I hear
rustling up the path. Someone fleet-footed coming to the back door.
Mrs Parrott. Even she would do. "I've just brought these over for
Gwen." She's holding an open Tupperware bowl full of strawberries.
"These are from our garden. I'll just transfer them to one of
Gwen's bowls." She flaps around the cupboards and helps herself to
a right-sized vessel. "Is Gwen around?"

"She's in the
sitting room."

There's a load
of gushing and thanks and comments about Gwen's health and Will you
join me for tea? and Sorry but I've already eaten because it's my
choir on Wednesdays and Anne gone? Really? And then the voices are
lowered so I have to fill in the blanks myself.

Who'd have
thought it? A top seed like Anne knocked out but then Wimbledon's
always full of surprises. Karen's been and gone too but Karen had a
much lower ranking and was never going to be able to sustain any
sort of consistent performance, and what are we to make of Robina?
Oh, Robina doesn't always live up to her seeding, though she's
stayed the course so far - I will say that for her.