The tennis club was not a natural venue for a wedding, second or otherwise.
I’d driven past it a thousand times but never bothered to take the right turn down the long driveway to see the place for myself. In my mind, tennis clubs were Wimbledon, Roland-Garros, champagne and strawberries and lots and lots of Robinsons squash. I’d expected civilized-looking types to be wandering around in tennis whites, shouting things like ‘Jolly good forehand, wot wot’, and I’d hoped for at least one Roger Federer lookalike to ease my distress at having to race home from work and take two different buses to meet Mum and Dad at their venue of choice for six thirty, on Thursday night.
I was disappointed on all counts.
‘This is where Dad comes every Sunday?’ I whispered in Mum’s ear as we let ourselves through the fingerprint-smeared glass doors and inside the club. It looked as though someone had thrown it up as an afterthought in 1962 and hadn’t bothered to update it since. Faded sky blue and primrose yellow panels that had been patched up with bits of painted plywood ran all the way around the bottom half of the outside, with big, mucky windows above.
‘It’s looking a bit worse for wear at the moment,’ Mum agreed. ‘But I’m sure they’ll give the windows a rinse before the event. We haven’t got a lot of time to find anywhere, you know. I’m grateful they can accommodate us at all.’
‘No, you’re right,’ I replied, looking for the potential as we passed the changing rooms and entered a large, empty space.
‘And this,’ Dad said, holding his arms out wide. ‘Is the event space.’
The tennis club was impossibly sad but Dad looked more relaxed than I’d seen him in a long time. It was weird to think this was my dad’s happy place. When you think of someone in their element, you assume it’s going to be a tropical beach or a five-star hotel or a no-holds-barred spending spree at Tiffany but here he was, surrounded by pine-clad walls and orange plastic chairs and the smell of stale smoke that was baked into every single surface despite a thirteen-year-old smoking ban, walking around like a pig in shit.
‘Oh,’ Mum said weakly, pulling her beige Marks & Sparks cardi tightly over her neon-pink boob tube as the regulars around the bar leered in her direction.
My phone began to vibrate in my hand. I looked down and saw Ted’s name in all caps, screaming at me.
‘I’ve got to take this,’ I said, throwing Mum a supportive smile before run-walking back out to the foyer. ‘Hello? Ted?’
‘Snazz wants Beezer Go-Go as his guest on the first episode of the pod,’ he announced, as though there was something I could do about this at almost seven p.m. on a Thursday evening.
‘Right, OK,’ I replied, wandering over to the noticeboard. Lots of people trying to sell second-hand Ikea furniture at this tennis club.
‘It’s only a couple of weeks away, Ros. Can you get him?’
‘Yes, absolutely I can.’
The Ros reflected back at me in the sliding glass door of the noticeboard did not look as certain as I sounded. Possibly because she had no idea who Beezer Go-Go was.
‘He’s going to want first-class flights and I’m sure there’ll be a fee,’ Ted said, audibly exhaling with stress. ‘He’s only getting two companion flights though.’
‘Only two,’ I clucked, pressing my fingers into the skin around my eyes and lifting it up and back. Did I always look this tired or had I aged considerably in the last forty-eight hours?
‘And they’re business, not first-class,’ he warned. ‘I can be flexible with the budget for this episode if he’ll do it, what Snazz wants …’
‘Snazz gets,’ I finished for him, wondering where all this money was coming from. My salary was reasonable but it was not in any way, shape or form generous. It was days like this that I was furious I’d wasted all the time reading books and learning when I could have been playing computer games and practising talking shit into my phone camera for hours on end.
‘I’m kind of in the middle of something,’ I said, glancing over my shoulder to see my mum hanging by the doorway of the event space while a man in a rugby shirt climbed on top of an orange plastic chair to poke a fluorescent light with a snooker cue. ‘Can we pick this up tomorrow?’
Ted tutted and muttered something under his breath that I couldn’t quite make out but sounded a lot like my twenty-six-year-old boss was suggesting that I, his thirty-two-year-old employee, was an entitled little millennial.
‘Fine, tomorrow,’ he replied and immediately ended the call.
‘And I don’t know if you’re thinking about a band or a DJ but we’ve got connections with both,’ the man in the rugby shirt said as I walked back into the events space. ‘My friend Keith does a brilliant disco, gets everyone boogying on the dance floor, does Keith. But if you’re looking for live music, we had a Welsh turn on at the Valentine’s dance, fantastic fella. His band performs modern covers in the style of Elvis, they’re called The Wonder of Huw.’
‘Ros,’ Mum said, speaking in the voice of a strangled cat. ‘Didn’t you say you wanted to do the music?’
‘Yes,’ I said as smoothly as possible, agreeing enthusiastically with this imaginary conversation my mother and I had definitely, absolutely had. ‘I am very particular about music, very much wanted to be in charge of that, so no need to bother Huw.’
The rugby shirt looked me up and down and shrugged. Clearly he considered this my loss. ‘Shall we have a look in the kitchen?’ he suggested.
‘I promised I’d FaceTime Jo,’ I said, looking past him into a stainless-steel miseryland. ‘Show her the venue.’
‘That’s nice,’ Mum said. She ran a fingertip along the windowsill and her shoulders sank. ‘Don’t let her go without us saying hello.’
‘So she’ll answer the phone to you, will she?’ Dad chuntered as he followed on into the kitchen. ‘Tell her we need to have a conversation about her last phone bill. There’s a cap on her data usage for a reason, she’s supposed to be in Cambridge to work.’
I returned to the lobby, smiling briefly at an older gentleman on his way into the changing rooms as I found my sister’s contact info.
‘What?’
Jo appeared on the screen in front of me, bored before we’d started.
‘I’m at the tennis club where Mum and Dad want to have the wedding,’ I said, flipping the camera to show her the lobby. ‘It’s a bit sad.’
‘It’s murder–suicide depressing,’ she replied.
Jo’s face truly was perfection, like a Disney princess come to life, little pointed chin, bright blue eyes and long, glossy brown hair she had pulled back in the perfect messy bun, one it would take me an hour to achieve.
‘What do you want?’ Jo asked, driving the heel of her hand into her eyes. Her dark circles only served to emphasize her fragile prettiness. Who looked better when they were tired? My genius sister.
‘I thought you’d want to be involved,’ I replied, flipping the camera back to selfie mode and rubbing at my own dark circles. ‘Since you’re not here.’
‘Don’t try to guilt-trip me because it won’t work.’ She shoved a pencil into her bun and pouted. ‘I’ve only got two months until the semester starts, I haven’t got time, Ros. I’ve said I’ll show up but honestly, I don’t know why you or Mum and Dad expect me to be happy about their celebrating the fact they’re spent more than half their lives reinforcing one of the key institutions that props up the patriarchy.’
‘Jo,’ I said, too tired to get into it. Two months until the semester started and she didn’t have time. Because it wasn’t as though I had a job or anything.
‘Marriage is death,’ Jo declared, staring daggers right at me. ‘It limits both parties, traps everyone financially and emotionally and forces people to become co-dependent. Did you know male suicide rates are soaring? It’s not just women that suffer in this shitty society, men are just as at risk, they’re not allowed to—’
‘The man who runs the club was asking if we wanted a DJ or a live band,’ I interrupted loudly, right as someone opened the door to the men’s changing room and left it swinging back and forth to reveal the elderly gentleman stepping into a jockstrap. Why did this keep happening to me? ‘Do you have a preference?’
‘Remind me to bring my AirPods,’ she groaned as I spun on my heel and turned to face the corner, praying that was not a glimpse into my future. Did all balls get that saggy? ‘Do not, under any circumstances, allow them to get a band. My boyfriend is a musician and I would rather eat red meat than make him suffer through any local shit.’
Jo had AirPods? I didn’t have AirPods.
‘You don’t eat meat?’ I wondered out loud. ‘And since when do you have a boyfriend? What happened to your girlfriend?’
‘Meat is killing the planet and if you’re not plant-based, so are you,’ she replied. ‘Don’t be so close-minded, you can have a girlfriend and a boyfriend at the same time, you know. He’s obsessed with me, it’s so cute, he’s so cute, we’ll probably move in together or whatever.’
I could not wait to see her try to explain that one to our parents.
‘I’ve got to go, I’m cooking dinner for the homeless shelter by the halls,’ Jo said, checking the time on an Apple Watch. Where was she getting all this stuff? Last Christmas, Mum and Dad had sent me an old-lady dressing gown from Marks & Spencer and a spiralizer. I lived in that bloody dressing gown. The spiralizer remained in its box.
‘That’s nice,’ I replied, smiling at my little sister. ‘How did you get into that?’
‘Wilf’s mum runs it?’ she said, as though I might know who Wilf was. ‘Wilf is my boyfriend? We’re going to give a lecture on the importance of avoiding conflict diamonds while they eat. It’s a cause Wilf feels, like, really strongly about.’
I chewed on the inside of my cheek for a moment.
‘You’re going to give a group of homeless people coming to a shelter to eat a meal a lecture on the ethics of the diamond industry?’
‘They’re homeless, not stupid,’ she snapped. ‘God, Ros, you’re such a bigot.’
And then she hung up.
‘Serves me right for calling, really,’ I muttered, tucking the phone in the back pocket of my jeans.
The door to the men’s changing room opened again and the gentleman walked out, thankfully dressed in crisp tennis whites.
‘Good evening,’ he said with a polite nod. I smiled back, unable to form words.
‘Ros?’ I heard Mum shout. ‘Are you still on with Jo?’
‘Um, she didn’t answer,’ I called back before joining them. ‘I was just checking work emails, talking to myself.’
I was a terrible liar.
‘Maybe we’ll cut off her credit card,’ Dad suggested. ‘See if that gets a response.’
I said nothing. I did not have a credit card when I went to university, let alone one that my parents paid for.
‘Shall we have a look outside?’ rugby shirt proposed. ‘You can have the rose garden as well as this room, in case you want a bit of outside space.’
‘Rose garden!’ I said to Mum, giving her an encouraging nudge. She forced a smile, attempting to reinflate herself for a moment as we ventured outside.
A moment was more than long enough. The rose garden was not a rose garden. The rose garden was a square of ancient Astro turf with a battered white picket fence around the outside and half a dozen plant pots filled with plastic flowers.
‘Nice spot for the smokers,’ rugby shirt said. He nudged one of the plant pots and I realized it was brimming with cigarette butts.
‘We can make it nice,’ I said as my mother’s face fell so far, I’d have had to get down on my hands and knees to pick it up. ‘Lucy’ll help. You know she’s amazing at this kind of thing.’
‘If we burn it to the ground would there be time to rebuild?’ she asked.
I was trying to work out just which shade of lipstick to put on this particular pig when my phone buzzed again. Only when I saw the name on the screen, this time I was very keen to answer.
‘Sorry!’ I said, holding the ringing phone aloft again as evidence. ‘Another important call. I’ll be two seconds.’
‘She’s a producer,’ Mum explained to our host with a warm edge of pride in her voice. ‘She just got back from a very important job in Washington and they always need her help at her new job.’
‘She’s never off the bloody thing,’ Dad clarified. Rugby shirt rolled his eyes and nodded in understanding as I skipped along to an empty bench next to the tennis courts.
‘Hello?’ I answered, breathless.
‘What are you doing tonight?’ Patrick asked. ‘I want to see you.’
I shivered with delight.
‘Sorry, I’m with my parents,’ I told him, all regret. ‘They’re doing wedding stuff and I said I’d help.’
‘That’s a shame,’ he said sadly, even though I could hear the smile in this voice. ‘I finished my chapter early, I was hoping I might lure you out for a drink.’
‘I wish I could but it would be at least …’ I looked down at my watch. It was after seven now and we clearly wouldn’t be done here any time soon. I’d have to go home, pick up some clean knickers, give myself a Vegas shower with a bunch of baby wipes and then scoot back across London. ‘I think at least nine by the time I could get to you? Maybe even nine thirty?’
‘Then I’ll just suffer without you,’ he lamented. ‘I was just sat here, thinking about the first time we met.’
‘Oh?’ I replied, my body prickling to attention. I remembered the night with violent clarity.
‘I remember walking into that party with my editor and all I wanted to do was turn around and walk out again,’ Patrick said. His voice was rich and warm and heavy and I could taste him as he spoke.
‘And I nearly didn’t go in the first place,’ I replied, my pulse quickening as my voice lowered. I heard liquid being poured into a glass. ‘The Mapplethorpes’ annual Christmas tree trimming. Mum bullied me into going.’
‘I walked in and saw you and I couldn’t believe my luck.’ He took a sip of something and the sound of it sent tingles sparking all along my scalp. ‘This gorgeous creature, all those wild brown curls and big eyes, just boring into me.’
Someone nearby was calling out scores for a tennis game but I was somewhere else entirely. A warm living room in East Mosely, the smell of homemade mince pies in the air mixed with a freshly cut Christmas tree and too many middle-aged women wearing the same Estée Lauder perfumes. I’d actually had my hair up that night but I wasn’t about to spoil his fantasy with pedantic facts. It had certainly been down by the end of it.
‘And you were wearing a white shirt and grey trousers,’ I said quietly. ‘And you were laughing about something then I caught your eye and you came over to say hello.’
‘What did we even talk about?’ Patrick asked. I imagined him lying on his bed, holding his whisky glass, loosening his top button. ‘I can’t remember.’
We talked about books we’d both read, the books he had written, we talked about the places he travelled to, the places I wanted to travel to, we talked about my job, we talked about the sad state of modern Christmas number ones, we talked about homemade versus shop-bought Christmas cakes, we talked about the importance of Fleetwood Mac and my unpopular opinion that Tango in the Night was better than Rumours and we talked about how his editor was friends with the Mapplethorpes but didn’t know my parents, how I was there out of daughterly duty, how he was there to meet some journalist who hadn’t turned up and maybe that was all just meant to be.
‘I have no idea,’ I replied. ‘Absolutely no idea.’
‘I remember you said we should leave and get a drink somewhere else.’
‘That was you!’ I exclaimed, ducking to the left as a stray tennis ball swooshed past me and bounced off the plastic window.
‘No, it was definitely you,’ Patrick laughed. ‘You asked me with your eyes, I translated it into words.’
My lips curved into a smile.
‘And then we got in that taxi and …’ His words trailed off into a deep, satisfied sigh. ‘Where are you right now?’
I gulped and tucked my hair behind my ears.
‘On a bench outside a tennis club in Worcester Park.’
‘I wish you were here.’ Patrick’s breathing, the sound of a zip, a body moving on soft sheets. ‘I wish you were doing what I’m doing right now.’
I stared at the grass in front of my feet, face hot, palms sweaty.
‘What would you do?’ he asked. His voice was slightly hoarse. ‘If you were here right now?’
‘Patrick, I’m at my dad’s tennis club,’ I whispered.
‘Go into the ladies’ room,’ he instructed. ‘Go into the ladies’ room and do exactly what I tell you.’
I stood up without hesitation, only thinking about one thing.
‘Watch out!’
Which meant I was not thinking about low-flying tennis balls.
‘Oh, shit!’ I wailed, dropping my phone and clutching my face. ‘Shit bugger bollocks ow.’
‘Goodness, I am sorry,’ the elderly gentleman from the men’s changing room tottered over. Clearly all his strength was in his backhand. ‘Are you all right? Should I get the first aider?’
‘Ros?’
Patrick’s voice echoed out my phone speaker from the ground. ‘Ros, are you there? What happened?’
I gave my assailant a pleasant smile and a thumbs up as my head throbbed. Trying not to pass out, I bent over and picked up my scratched but not shattered new phone.
‘Ros?’
‘I’m OK, I got hit in the head by a tennis ball,’ I said, wandering back towards the rose garden, a little dazed and very sore. ‘Give me a minute?’
‘I think the moment’s gone,’ Patrick replied, clearing his throat. ‘I might give today’s pages another once-over if you really can’t tear yourself away.’
‘Sorry,’ I told him, wincing as I poked my fingers into my new injury. Fantastic. What this week needed was a black eye from a septuagenarian tennis player.
‘Can’t be helped,’ he said briskly. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow,’ I agreed. His first scheduled visit Chez Shed. ‘Maybe you should think about what you’d like me to do for you then.’
‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he said with a soft promise.
‘Rosalind, what the bloody hell happened to your face?’ Mum asked, practically running across the club as I ended the call. ‘You’ve been gone two minutes.’
‘Stray ball.’ I pulled my head out of her hands, turning away from her inspection. ‘It’s fine.’
‘It’s going to bruise,’ she replied. ‘We need to put some ice on that.’
‘We usually have ice packs but I just defrosted the freezer,’ rugby shirt said. ‘Ice cream van should be around in a minute, we could stick a Mister Whippy on it?’
‘Let’s get you home,’ Mum said, tenderly brushing my hair back from my forehead. ‘I’ve got some arnica gel, that’ll help.’
‘Thanks for the tour,’ Dad said to our host. ‘Apologies, can’t take this one anywhere.’
Rugby shirt looked me up and down and scoffed. ‘I thought she was supposed to be some sort of genius?’ he guffawed.
‘That’s the other one,’ Dad explained, clapping me hard on the back before giving his friend a sharp salute. It hurt almost as much as my eye.
‘Home, James,’ Dad said, striding off towards the car. ‘And don’t spare the horses.’