Six Weeks

Northmere’s second remote film session was meant to last an hour. The player kept bringing the clip back to a return she’d missed, then telling me she had seen it. On the recording she had. I could see the instant she recognised the ball and the later instant her feet had accepted the information. They were not the same.

“I’m going to send you the clip without my notes,” I told her. “Watch it with your partner. Ask her where she thought you would move.”

“She’ll say I should have gone left.”

“She might. Ask before you give her the answer.”

It was advice I had needed on a different court. She said she’d try it, and the session ended ten minutes late. I charged for the hour we’d agreed. The coordinator had stayed on the call to ask how it went. She said another group of players would arrive the following month and asked whether I would do six weeks of remote sessions, with two days on site at the beginning.

I looked at the calendar. The two days fell after the next stage of court work with Ivo and before Mara’s third event with Jules. I didn’t know whether I’d be cleared to compete by then. I knew I’d like to do the job.

“Can I have until tomorrow?” I asked.

“Of course. The fee and schedule are in the email. If you need either changed, tell me.”

She sent the details. The money was fair, more than a favour and less than a season on tour. The work would be mine whether I played another match or not. I read the dates while the room grew dark enough for the computer screen to show my face in the glass.

Mara came over that evening with a container of food Jules had bought at a station where they’d stopped on the way home. It was a practical, unromantic meal, and I had asked her to bring it because I’d lost track of dinner while working. We ate at my table. I told her about the player, then the six-week offer.

“Do you want it?” she asked.

“I think so. It takes two days at Northmere.”

“You liked it there.”

“I did. I don’t know what it says about me if I sign for six weeks before I know whether I can play again.”

“It says you want six weeks of good work.”

“It might say I’ve started building a place to stand if I can’t get back on court.”

She put down her fork. “Would that be a bad thing?”

“I don’t know. You play three events with Jules and nobody asks whether you’re planning for a life after tennis. I do film work and people speak to me as if I have been gently moved aside.”

“I’m not asking you to move aside.”

“You said it might not be bad.”

“Because you said the work is good. I didn’t say anything about your court.”

I took the container to the sink though we weren’t finished. She had asked the right question and I had supplied the wrong accusation. I knew it. I also wanted the offer to be safe from her opinion, even a favourable one, because I had only just begun to trust my own.

“I hear you say you like the work,” she said behind me. “I hear you say you want to compete. Those can both be true. I don’t know which dates you’ll take. That’s your decision.”

“You sound as if you’ve prepared a speech.”

“I have prepared several. You would dislike all of them.”

That was enough to make me turn around. She had folded her hands on the table to keep them from arranging my calendar for me.

“Tell me the one you want to say,” I said.

“I’m disappointed the two Northmere days might fall when I come back from Jules’s event. I wanted a few days with you. I also think you should take work you want. The disappointment is mine.”

I sat down again. For a week she’d been the person I called when the leg made me frightened; she’d stayed at another event and told me she wanted to be with me while I said it. Now she had brought me dinner and admitted she wanted a weekend. I had treated her answer about the work like an attempt to run my life because it was easier to resist that than to tell her what I wanted from her.

“I want the weekend too,” I said. “I’m afraid if I take the job you’ll think I keep choosing something other than us.”

“I took three events. You didn’t make me call it a choice against us.”

“I hated some of those dates.”

“You can hate these. You can still take the job.”

I had no gracious reply. We finished dinner after the food had gone cold. She didn’t try to turn an argument into a kiss, and I didn’t ask her to stay until I could feel forgiven. At the door I said I would call the coordinator in the morning. Mara said she would be at practice and could answer afterwards if I wanted to talk. Then she left. The room seemed too quiet for an agreement that had cost us both something.

I slept badly, but not because the calf hurt. In the morning I went to the Vale and watched the junior pair whose film work had given me the first fee. They had learnt to call the middle. One of them still moved late when she was tired. They were not evidence that I should become a coach. They were people whose practice I knew how to help, and whose improvement made me glad.

I called the Northmere coordinator from the car park. I asked whether the on-site days could begin a morning later so I could keep a clinician appointment. She checked the timetable and moved the first session without making the request into a problem. I accepted the six weeks, subject to the schedule she’d confirmed, and wrote the fee and dates in my notebook. If an event came up during that period, I’d negotiate it like any other paid commitment. I didn’t need to abandon one career to prove I wanted the other.

I told Ivo at lunch. He asked whether I intended to stop our court progression.

“No. The film calls are remote. The two travel days are on the calendar with the clinician’s appointment.”

“Then I know where you are. That’s all I needed.”

“You’re not worried about losing your assistant?”

“I have two film mornings from you. They were good mornings. I’m your coach as long as you want me for the court. Northmere’s buying a separate part of your eye.”

He had never named my life for me, even when I offered him the chance. I took the next basket of balls and went outside. The progression called for movement I could control, not a sprint to test whether I had been fixed. I did the work as written and stopped when the session ended. Boredom arrived again near the final feed. I welcomed it.

Mara rang after practice. I told her I’d taken Northmere’s offer and changed one morning for the appointment. She said she was pleased for me. I could hear the disappointment she had already admitted, and it did not make her pleasure false.

“I should have heard what you said last night before I argued with the thing I was afraid you’d say,” I told her.

“You heard it eventually.”

“I want to see you before I travel. Not to make up for an absence I haven’t had yet. Just because I do.”

“I can come on Sunday. No food in a plastic box this time.”

“Mum would like you to come to lunch. She thinks I haven’t told you because I’m embarrassed by her cake.”

“Are you?”

“The cake was excellent. Her questions may be harder.”

“I’ll answer the ones she asks me. You can answer yours.”

On Sunday Mum set three plates on the table before either of us arrived. Mara brought bread and, despite being warned, a bag of lemons. Mum asked her about a match she’d watched. Mara answered without turning it into a report of my leg. I watched them disagree about a return and then move on to whether the cake needed more sugar. They didn’t need me to translate the sport or the affection in the room.

Mara walked me home. We stopped by the service door at the Vale, the one that always complained before anyone could leave quietly. I told her I had a court assessment in a few weeks; the clinician would decide then whether competition was next. I didn’t know the answer. She didn’t ask me to guess.

“When you’re ready to play,” she said, “I want to know because I’m interested in the player you are, whatever you decide about our entry.”

“And when I work for Northmere?”

“I want to know how that goes too.”

I put my head against her shoulder for a moment. My next appointment could disappoint me again. The six-week contract might be more work than I’d planned. She had a third event with Jules. None of those facts cancelled the hour we’d spent at Mum’s table or the sentences we’d managed to say afterward.

The door squeaked when we went in. This time neither of us apologised for being heard.