Джулиан Барнс: The Only Story

Susan’s tennis game comes back to me. Mine – as I may have said – was largely a self-taught business, relying on wristiness, ill-prepared body position and a deliberate, last-minute change of shot which sometimes bamboozled me as much as my opponent. When playing with her, this structural laziness often compromised my intense desire for victory. Her game had schooling behind it: she got into the correct position, hit fully through her groundstrokes, came to the net only when circumstances were propitious, ran her socks off and yet laughed equally at winning and losing. This had been my first impression of her, and from her tennis I naturally extrapolated her character. I assumed that in life too she would be calm, well ordered and reliable, hitting fully through the ball – the best possible backcourt support for her anxious and impulsive partner at the net.

We entered the mixed doubles in the club’s summer tournament. There were about three people watching our first-round match against a couple of old hackers in their mid-fifties; to my surprise, one of the spectators was Joan. Even when we changed ends and she was out of my eyeline, I could hear her smoker’s cough.

The old hackers hacked us to death, playing like a married couple who could instinctively read one another’s next move, and never needed to speak, let alone shout. Susan played solidly, as ever, whereas my game was stupidly erratic. I went for overambitious interceptions, took balls I should have left, and then fell into a lethargic sulk as the hackers closed out set and match 6–4.

Afterwards, we sat with Joan, two teas and a gin between the three of us.

‘Sorry I let you down,’ I said.

‘That’s all right, Paul, I really don’t mind.’

Her even temper made me more irritated with myself. ‘No, but I do. I was trying all sorts of stupid stuff. I wasn’t any help. And I couldn’t get my first serve in.’

‘You let your left shoulder drop,’ said Joan out of the blue.

‘But I serve right-handed,’ I replied rather petulantly.

‘That’s why the left shoulder has to be kept high. Holds you in balance.’

‘I didn’t know you played.’

‘Played? Ha! I used to win the fucking thing. Until my knees went. You need a few lessons, young Master Paul, that’s all. But you’ve got good hands.’

‘Look – he’s blushing!’ Susan observed unnecessarily. ‘I’ve never seen him do that before.’

Later, in the car, I say, ‘So what’s Joan’s story? Was she really a good player?’

‘Oh yes. She and Gerald won pretty much everything, up to county level. She was a strong singles player, as you can probably imagine, until her knees let her down. But she was even better at doubles. Having someone to support and be supported by.’

‘I like Joan,’ I say. ‘I like the way she swears.’

‘Yes, that’s what people see and hear, and like or don’t like. Her gin, her cigarettes, her bridge game, her dogs. Her swearing. Don’t underestimate Joan.’

‘I wasn’t,’ I protest. ‘Anyway, she said I had good hands.’

‘Don’t always be joking, Paul.’

‘Well, I am only nineteen, as my parents keep reminding me.’

Susan goes quiet for a bit, then, seeing a lay-by, turns into it and stops the car. She looks ahead through the windscreen.

‘When Gerald died, I wasn’t the only one who was hard hit. Joan was devastated. They’d lost their mother when they were little, and their father had to work every day in that insurance company, so they were thrown into depending on one another. And when Gerald died… she went off the rails a bit. Started sleeping with people.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with that.’

‘There is and there isn’t, Casey Paul. Depends on who you are and who they are. And who’s robust enough to survive. Usually, that’s the man.’

‘Joan seems pretty robust to me.’

‘That’s an act. We all have an act. You’ll have an act one day, oh yes you will. So Joan was a bad picker. And at first it didn’t seem to matter, as long as she didn’t get pregnant or anything like that. And she didn’t. Then she fell like a ton of bricks for… his name doesn’t matter. Married of course, rich of course, other girlfriends of course. Set her up at a flat in Kensington.’

‘Good Lord. Joan was… a kept woman? A… mistress?’ These were words, and sexual functions, I’d only come across in books.

‘Whatever you want to call it. The words don’t fit. They rarely do. What do you call you? What do you call me?’ I don’t reply. ‘And Joan was completely gone on the old bastard. Waiting for his visits, believing his promises, going off on the occasional weekend abroad. He strung her along like that for three years. Then at last, as he’d always promised, he divorced his wife. And Joan thought her ship had come home. She’d proved us all wrong, what’s more. “My ship’s coming home,” she kept repeating.’

‘But it hadn’t?’

‘He married another woman instead. Joan read the announcement in the papers. Piled up all the clothes he’d bought her in the sitting room of the flat, poured lighter fuel over them, lit a match, walked out, slammed the door, put the keys through the letterbox, went back to her father. Turned up on his doorstep. Smelt a bit singed, I expect. Her father didn’t say anything or ask any questions, just hugged her. It took her months even to tell him. The only luck – if there was luck – was that she didn’t set the whole block of flats on fire. Just burnt a hole in an expensive carpet. She could have ended up in prison for manslaughter.

‘After that she took care of her father devotedly. Became interested in dogs. Had a go at breeding them. Learnt how to pass the time. That’s one of the things about life. We’re all just looking for a place of safety. And if you don’t find one, then you have to learn how to pass the time.’

I don’t think this will ever be my problem. Life is just too full and always will be.

‘Poor old Joan,’ I say. ‘I’d never have guessed.’

‘She cheats at crosswords.’

This seems a non sequitur to me.

‘What?’

‘She cheats at crosswords. She does them out of books. She once told me that if she gets stuck, she fills in any old word, as long as it’s the right number of letters.’

‘But that defeats the whole purpose… and anyway, all the answers are in the back of those books.’ I am at a loss, so just repeat, ‘Poor old Joan.’

‘Yes and no. Yes and no. But don’t ever forget, young Master Paul. Everyone has their love story. Everyone. It may have been a fiasco, it may have fizzled out, it may never even have got going, it may have been all in the mind, that doesn’t make it any less real. Sometimes, it makes it more real. Sometimes, you see a couple, and they seem bored witless with one another, and you can’t imagine them having anything in common, or why they’re still living together. But it’s not just habit or complacency or convention or anything like that. It’s because once, they had their love story. Everyone does. It’s the only story.’

I don’t answer. I feel rebuked. Not rebuked by Susan. Rebuked by life.

That evening, I looked at my parents and paid attention to everything they said to one another. I tried to imagine that they too had had their love story. Once upon a time. But I couldn’t get anywhere with that. Then I tried imagining that each had had their love story, but separately, either before marriage or perhaps – even more thrillingly – during it. But I couldn’t make that work either, so I gave up. I found myself wondering instead if, like Joan, I would one day have an act of my own, an act designed to deflect curiosity. Who could tell?

Then I went back and tried to imagine how it might have been for my parents in those years before I had existed. I picture them starting off together, side by side, hand in hand, happy, confident, strolling down some gentle, soft, grassy furrow. All is verdant and the view extensive; there seems to be no hurry. Then, as life proceeds, in its normal, daily, unthreatening way, the furrow very slowly deepens, and the green becomes flecked with brown. A little further on – a decade or two – and the earth is heaped higher on either side, and they are unable to see over the top. And now there is no escape, no turning back. There is only the sky above, and ever-higher walls of brown earth, threatening to entomb them.