Simon Brett - The Corpse on the Court

As Jude entered the court and walked past the pros’ office, George Hazlitt looked up from sewing yet another tennis ball to greet her. He glanced at his watch. ‘Morning. In good time.’

‘Want to get myself in the right frame of mind,’ said Jude.

‘Good idea.’ He grinned. ‘You know where the changing rooms are?’

‘Sure.’

‘And do you know about the etiquette of when you can walk down there?’

‘Wait until the players on court change ends.’

‘Very good.’

‘Piers gave me very specific instructions on that.’

‘Excellent.’

‘Though he still hasn’t managed to explain satisfactorily to me why they change ends.’

‘Don’t worry. All will be clear by the end of your lesson.’

Jude went through the door into the court and waited in the proper manner at the end of the walkway that ran along the length of it. She recognized the player at the other end as Ned Jackson, the junior professional, but the wall prevented her from seeing his opponent. What she didn’t recognize was the game they were playing. Her experience of watching the Sec’s Cup and the Old Boys’ doubles had not prepared her for the speed and power of a high-class singles match. Ned seemed to anticipate every return, taking a few small steps to position himself, plucking the ball out of the air with his racket and redirecting it with incredible accuracy. One of his balls came rocketing straight towards her and she was glad of the netting that stopped its progress. As the shot hit home, a hanging bell rang and Jude congratulated herself on remembering that the ball had found the winning gallery.

‘Forty-thirty,’ said Ned Jackson. ‘Chase better than two.’

Still for no reason that made any sense to Jude, this was apparently the signal for the two players to change ends. While they did so, she made her way towards the club room. She could now see Ned’s opponent, whom she didn’t recognize but he, like the junior professional, looked supremely fit, without a spare ounce of fat on him anywhere.

When she was changed into her over-tight shorts, white cheesecloth shirt, socks and trainers, she sat in the dedans, clutching the racket Piers had lent her, and watched more of the young men’s game. She was again impressed, not only by their athleticism, but by their retrieval skills. From anywhere in the court, even the lowest and tightest corners, they seemed able to pick the ball out and return it with interest. She came to realize that real tennis was a serious sport, not just a leisure activity for old fogies. Also the vowels of Ned Jackson’s opponent suggested that it wasn’t just a game for toffs either.

During one of her marriages Jude had played quite a lot of lawn tennis. Not at a very competitive level, it had been purely social, but she wondered how much of it would come back to her when she stepped out on to the court. She also wondered, the longer she watched the young men play, how much use anything she remembered from her old skills might be. Real tennis really was a very different game from ‘lawners’.

It was ten past ten. Ned and his opponent had got to five-all in what appeared to be the deciding set, so Jude was reckoning either she’d have to wait for her lesson or the young men wouldn’t finish their game. From her experience of lawn tennis, she knew that the winner of a set had to be two games clear. But then at forty-thirty ahead, Ned Jackson sent another shot zinging into the winning gallery and his opponent capitulated. He slumped forward and shouted, ‘Lovely shot!’

‘Thanks!’

‘Should help get your handicap down.’

‘That’s the aim of the exercise.’

The two young men clasped hands across the net. ‘You’re on fire today, Ned,’ said the vanquished one. ‘Is that because you’re going to see Tonya tonight? Another of your “love-all” assignations?’

‘Maybe, maybe not,’ the junior professional replied enigmatically.

‘You dirty dog,’ said his opponent and they both roared with laughter.

Just as Carole Seddon would not in a million years have gone near LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter, she was also very circumspect about her email address. Her name did not appear in it; instead she used her house ‘High Tor’ with a combination of numbers that had featured in her staff ID when she worked for the Home Office. This precaution might have seemed excessive, given that most of her email communication was with Stephen and Gaby, but, when it came to approaching Iain Holland, Carole was glad of her anonymity.

She had run through a lot of ideas on Fethering Beach the previous day, but it was not until the Wednesday morning that she had decided on the wording that would go into her email to the contact box on the local councillor’s website.

The message read simply: ‘I am interested in the whereabouts of your daughter Marina Holland. If you are also interested, get back to me.’

Carole was aware of the ambiguities in her words. They implied greater knowledge than she had. And the word ‘whereabouts’ might suggest an unsubstantiated belief that Marina Holland was still alive. Carole was taking a risk, but reckoned that risk was worthwhile. The worst that could happen — and indeed the most likely thing to happen — was that Iain Holland would ignore her email and send no reply. But there was the distant possibility that her message might provoke a response.

Carole Seddon took a deep breath and clicked on the ‘send’ button.

When Jude’s lesson started and they were standing at the net by the entrance to the court, the first thing she asked the track-suited George Hazlitt was about the scoring. ‘In real tennis,’ he explained, ‘it’s different from lawn tennis. You only need to be one game ahead to win the set. Get to six-five and you’ve won it.’

‘Any other differences?’

‘Well, you still go fifteen — thirty — forty — game, like in lawn tennis. But you call the score of the person who’s won the last point first.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ said Jude, whose hope that there couldn’t be any further perversity in the rules of real tennis had just been disappointed.

‘Well, you see, Jude, in lawn tennis the players take the service in alternate games. In real tennis the service can change any number of times in a single game.’

‘So that’s what happens when they change ends?’

‘Exactly.’ George Hazlitt nodded encouragingly.

Now for the big one. ‘But why do they change ends?’

‘Ah well, this is to do with chases.’

Jude raised her hands in horror. ‘Please, not chases. Piers has tried to explain chases to me more times that I care to remember and-’

‘Don’t worry.’ The pro grinned. ‘Forget about chases. We’ll come to that later. Let’s start with just the basics — hitting the ball.’ He reached down to a circular recess in the court floor and picked up the basket full of balls that nestled there. ‘Look, I’ll go down the service end — that’s where the dedans is — and you go down the hazard end and I’ll just send a few balls down to you and see how you go. You say you have played a bit of lawn tennis?’

‘Not for a long time.’

‘Well, the first thing you’re going to notice is that the bounce of a real tennis ball is very different.’ He picked one out of the basket and slammed it down with considerable force on to the stone floor of the court. It bounced up about his shoulder height. ‘See? Now if I’d done that to a lawn tennis ball, it would have shot up into the air, way over my head. So you’re going to get much less bounce and you’re going to have to bend down really low to reach a real tennis ball. Let’s try some. As usual, doing it is much more useful than talking about it.’