Howard Jacobson - The Mighty Walzer

THIRD DIVISION NORTH

LEADING INDIVIDUAL AVERAGES

P

W

L

%

O. Walzer (Akiva Social Club)

32

30

2

94

S. Waxman (Akiva Social Club)

40

37

3

93

D. Bromley (Freeman, Hardy & Willis T. T. C.)

42

37

5

88

D. Lockwood (Prestwich Hospital)

38

33

5

86

T. Starr (Akiva Social Club)

44

37

7

84

A. Mistofsky (Akiva Social Club)

44

35

9

80

D. Flewers (Water Board)

38

29

9

76

J. Cartwright (A. J. M.)

40

30

10

75

Manchester and District Table Tennis League, Official Handbook,

Season 1956/57

THAT WAS HOW the season went for us. Forgive the sin of pride. But percentages are percentages.

Having come of age against the Post Office I never lost another league match. What the figures don’t reveal is that I was never once taken to three games either. And never once to deuce. I was unbeatable. Until I took my revenge against him at home, Jack Cartwright was sitting pretty on top of the averages. Played thirty, won thirty. All without raising a sweat. The first of those subsequent ten defeats was inflicted by me. 21–5, 21–3. Funny how some scores you always remember. He must have had trouble forgetting too; he made the averages by the skin of his clicking teeth and retired at the end of the season. Fall to your prayers, old man.

Yes, there was needle in it. Aishky had made the brave but wise decision not to play Sheeny in the return match against Allied Jam and Marmalade. The Miles Platting Affair, for which Cynthia Cartwright had received neither compensation nor apology, still rumbled on. ‘When I see that little pervert Waxman again I’ll break his bloody nose, rules or no rules,’ Jack Cartwright was reported to have been going round saying.

This confirmed Selwyn Marks’s darkest suspicions. ‘There you are, didn’t I tell you? Nose. “I’ll break his bloody nose.” Didn’t I say they were anti-Semites?’

‘Selwyn, everyone’s got a nose,’ Aishky said.

‘Yeah, yeah. And everyone’s got a chin too. But he isn’t saying, “I’ll break his chin,” is he? He’s saying nose. Nose.’

To be on the safe side Aishky rested Selwyn as well. We were running hot, heading the table, certain of promotion. We could afford to risk Louis and go in a man short. We’d forgotten what it was like to lose.

Even with Sheeny and Selwyn out of the way the confrontation turned ugly. Our opponents came wanting to find fault with us, and to be honest that wasn’t difficult to do. For a start we were never well supplied with match balls. As Club Secretary it was up to Aishky to see to it that there was always a box of new *** balls to hand on match night. Week after week we ran out, discovered that the box was empty, or that it was full of used balls and cracked balls, balls of a lower denomination, two-star, one-star, no star at all, balls with dents in them or with ill-fitting seams, balls through which you could see a pin-prick of light, balls which inexplicably rattled or sighed, balls which seemed all right, which defied the most scrupulous investigation and testing, but which plocked hollow the moment you struck them. It wasn’t meanness that stopped Aishky going out and stocking up with new match balls. It was indifference. He no more understood the reason for a high quality ball than he understood why Twink needed to play in a Fred Perry shirt and short hasen. He himself could have played with a hard-boiled egg and not noticed the difference.

Two plocks into his knock-up with Twink, Jack Cartwright was asking for a new ball. Aishky emptied a long box of used and grubby pills on to the table. Jack Cartwright rolled each of them in turn with his bat, round and round as though he were trying to get an ancient stain out of the table, his ear cocked like a wise old rat’s, pressing until the table threatened to give way and his pimples squeaked. A golf ball wouldn’t have survived that kind of treatment. ‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Nope … nope … nope … nope.’

‘Those are all we’ve got,’ Aishky laughed.

Cartwright went over to the patchwork of leather elbow protectors that was his jacket and brought out the rule book from its inside pocket. It too was well worn, like a miser’s cashbook. ‘Balls …’ he said aloud, leafing through. ‘Balls …’

It was Twink who felt the humiliation most keenly. He had been skipping around the room during Cartwright’s interrogation of our stock of balls, running on the spot and practising attacking shots, anxious to keep his muscles stretched and his temperature even. Now he was furious with Aishky. ‘How many times have I told you about this?’ he said.

Aishky shrugged. Tomorrow he would need a long lie down, but tonight he could shrug. ‘If balls are so important to you,’ he said, ‘why don’t you carry some around yourself?’

‘You know why,’ Twink said.

‘Yeah — because you’re a nudnik. Because you like kopdreinish.’

Twink shook his head. ‘Believe me, Aishky, if you think this gives me any pleasure …’

‘If it doesn’t give you any pleasure, then stop. You look after the balls. I nominate you. Theo Starr, Ball Shamess.’

‘Aishky, please. Keep your voice down. You know why I can’t carry balls in my kit.’

‘Say it. I want to hear you say it.’

Twink lowered his eyes. He could be very girlish. ‘The dog.’

‘The dog!’ Aishky looked at each of us in turn. Our friend was a madman. Did we hear? ‘The dog!’ Then of Twink himself he asked, ‘What’s the dog got to do with it?’

‘You know what.’

‘I want to hear you say it.’

Twink fluttered again. ‘I’m frightened of the dog swallowing a ball,’ he said. ‘You know what happened to Jackie Strulovitch’s dog.’

‘Moody-merchant! That was a marble.’

‘No it wasn’t, Aishky. It was a table tennis ball. Jackie Strulovitch’s dog choked to death on a Barna ***.’

‘So because I don’t have a dog I’ve got to shlepp boxes of balls around with me?’

‘Aishky, you’re the team captain,’ Twink said. And then with slow and awful deliberateness, ‘Go. And. Get. A. Box. Of. Balls.’

He had that wild Bug and Dniester us-and-them look in his eyes. When one of us looked like that it was in the belief that we could magic words and that none of them would hear what we were saying.

Aishky consulted his watch. ‘It’s eight o’clock at night. Where am I going to get a box of balls? The off-licence?’

‘Aishk, get in your car,’ Twink said. ‘Drive over to the Maccabi. And beg them for a box of balls.’

Aishky threw him the keys.

‘Aishky, I’m in my shorts.’

‘So? Put your hasen on.’

‘Aishky, I suffer from asthma. You’re asking me to go out in the cold in my shorts when I’m sweating?’

‘You want the balls, you go for them.’

‘Aishky, you know I can’t drive.’

Now Aishky stood up. ‘Thank you,’ he said. He reminded me of my father. ‘Thank you for admitting there is something you can’t do.’

And he drove to the Maccabi on Middleton Road and begged them for a box of match balls.

Then there was the problem of the slippery floor. Why the floor of a room that was used only for table tennis, storing mops, and a once-a-year Chanukkah party had to be so highly polished that even a twelve-year-old could admire his moustache in it, no responsible person at the Akiva was able to explain. They were nice old boards and the caretaker took pride in them. Ask the caretaker … except don’t. The club had never had a caretaker who took better care. Just loz him ein. Leave him alone. Who can understand the mind of a caretaker? What he did, he did. You don’t upset the shaygets.