Changeover

Jules wrote to me on Wednesday morning. Her message was shorter than I expected: Mara says you found something in the last return. Would you take a look at our next opponents? I can pay you for an hour. No pressure if you’re busy.

I was busy. I had promised Ivo a film session with two junior players and had an appointment to find out whether I could begin moving faster. I told Jules the truth, including that I would look another time if she still wanted an outside eye. She replied that she would hold me to it. There was no hidden disappointment to manage; she had asked a professional question and I had given a professional answer.

At the Vale, Ivo’s two players argued over whether a return had been short or simply unexpected. I stopped the film at the moment the receiver turned her shoulders and asked what each of them thought would come next. One knew. The other could see it after the pause. They tried again until they both did. Ivo stood at the back of the room and made me take the fee we’d agreed, though I would have stayed an extra half-hour for the pleasure of their argument.

Mara was on court when I came out. She was practising with Jules, calling early and leaving the middle open when Jules asked for it. The first time she saw me by the fence, she missed a simple volley. Jules turned to find what had distracted her. I lifted a hand and then wished I hadn’t.

Mara picked up another ball. She did not use the sight of me as an excuse for the next miss, because there wasn’t one.

My appointment was upstairs. The clinician checked how the leg responded to the exercises and asked me to demonstrate a few movements at a pace I could control. She said I could begin a gradual return to court work and gave me a progression to follow, with a clear instruction to stop and come back if the tightness returned. She didn’t give me an event date. I didn’t ask her to invent one.

Ivo booked half a court for me in the afternoon. When I arrived, Mara was packing away her practice balls.

“I can leave you to it,” she said.

“Ivo’s feeding. You can stay if you want to watch a person move at half speed.”

“I’d like that.”

I had imagined her watching would make the work harder. It did, but not in the way I feared. Every time I bent for a ball I remembered how she had waited in my kitchen with her hands at her sides, letting me come to her. Ivo asked what was wrong with my concentration. I told him he had put the basket too near the line and made him move it. Mara looked down at her shoelaces until she was done smiling.

After twenty minutes I stopped at the point the clinician had set. My calf was tired, no different from any muscle used after rest. I told Ivo how it felt, wrote it in the notes on my phone and did not ask for ten more minutes.

“That’s a complete session,” he said.

“I know what a complete session is.”

“Good. You’ll stop arguing when I tell you.”

Mara rolled the last ball to him with her foot. She had not said a word about my pace or the work. On the way out I thanked her for that.

“I had several words,” she said. “I chose not to use them.”

“What words?”

“Most of them would have been wrong. One was that you looked happy to hit a ball again.”

“That one was right.”

We walked to the service door. She reached it first and held it open. The hinge made its familiar noise; she had stopped trying to leave the building quietly. Outside, the sun had lowered enough to turn the car park windows gold.

“Have you told Ivo about us?” she asked.

“There’s an us to tell him about?”

She let the door close, giving the word the space I’d asked for without knowing I needed it.

“I’d like there to be,” she said. “I also work with him. If you’d rather keep it ours while we learn what it means, I can. I won’t tell him without you.”

“I don’t want a secret made out of shame.”

“Neither do I.”

“I don’t want to be introduced as your partner before I know when I can play again, either.”

“Those are different uses of the word.”

“Exactly.”

We agreed to tell Ivo we were seeing each other if the question affected the work, and otherwise to let a new thing have a little time without a public label. She didn’t ask me to keep it from Jules. I didn’t ask her to explain herself to the reporter at Southmere. I had thought a discussion like that would make our evening in my kitchen smaller. Instead it gave it somewhere to live when we were apart.

At her flat that night, Mara cooked rice correctly and a pan of vegetables badly. I ate both. She had a row of books on the windowsill and a racquet propped behind the front door, the grip taped so evenly that I could tell which hand had done it before I saw her spare roll on the shelf.

“I did not invite you here to ask about your leg,” she said as she cleared the plates.

“Good. The leg had dinner at home.”

“I invited you because I wanted more time after Tuesday.”

I looked at the books on her windowsill. One was open face down, a pencil tucked between its pages. She had chosen to cook for me in a flat where I could see what she did when she was alone. At my place we’d had an argument and a kiss with the dishes still between us. Here there was no task to hide behind. I wanted to cross the room and found myself waiting for her to make the first move, as if wanting could be made safe by leaving it to the person less frightened of a fall.

“You can sit down again,” I said.

“I could.”

“I think I’ve been asking you to come closer without saying it.”

“Is that what you want?”

“Yes. I also don’t want you to treat me like a medical instruction sheet.”

She smiled, but did not make the joke I’d offered. “I don’t. I’ve been watching your mouth since you arrived. I was waiting because I didn’t know whether tonight felt different to you.”

“It does. Not because the clinician said I could hit a ball.”

“Good. That isn’t the part of the day I was thinking about.”

The bluntness of it drew a laugh out of me. Mara had spent weeks being exact about where she stood. When she told me what she wanted away from a court, she was just as exact and much less able to look away. I put my hand on the back of the chair to steady it and felt my own decision arrive before hers could substitute for it.

“You have it.”

She stopped beside my chair. She was close enough that I could smell the soap she had used to wash the pan. I reached for her hand and she gave it to me. I stood without using her for balance, then kissed her. She answered, and for a while neither of us was trying to work out where the other would move next.

When I moved towards her again she met me halfway. I could feel her trying to be careful and wanting not to have to be. I told her she could put a hand on my waist. She did, and waited until I leaned into it. The room seemed to narrow around the place where we touched. She had a question ready; I kissed her before she could ask it, then drew back to say I had wanted to do exactly that. The look she gave me was almost a smile and entirely unlike the composure she carried onto a court.

When she drew back, I let her. She put her forehead lightly against mine and asked if I wanted her to take me home. The care in the offer did not make it the only choice.

“I want to stay,” I said. “If you want that too.”

“I do. We can stop at any point.”

“I know. You can too.”

She turned out the kitchen light. We went into her room and she closed the door behind us.

In the morning she made tea while I found my socks under the bed. There was no new rule written on the fridge, no sudden ease about the work ahead. Mara had a call with Jules. I had a second film session and a leg to build slowly. I took my cup to the window, where she joined me after hanging up.

“Jules has offered me three events this summer,” she said.

She didn’t turn it into a confession or a test. She let the offer exist in the room with the morning. I could hear the kettle cooling on its base.

“Do you?” I asked.

“I don’t know yet. I wanted you to hear it from me first.”

I wanted to ask how long three events would keep her with Jules, and whether there would be room for me at the end. I also wanted to be the person who could answer my own phone when an offer arrived. I put both wants down beside the cup.

“Thank you,” I said. “Let’s talk when you know what she means by three.”

Mara touched my shoulder once, waiting until I leaned back towards her. Then she went to pack her bag, and I stayed at the window long enough to finish the tea.