Stephen Fry - The Stars’ Tennis Balls

‘Oh Jesus, Skipper. Look, I’m going to radio for a helicopter.’

‘Pass me that bag over there,’ said Leclare, as if he hadn’t heard.

‘This one?’

‘That’s the feller, hand it to me. Now Ned, look into my eyes.

Ned looked into eyes that he recalled as being merrily blue. They were bloodshot now and leaking tears from the effort of coughing.

‘I can trust you, can’t I, Ned?’

‘Of course, Skipper.’

‘Tell me the thing in your life that you hold most holy.’

'Skipper…'

‘For fuck’s sake will you answer me, boy!’ Leclare grabbed Ned’s wrist and squeezed it hard. ‘What is the thing that matters to you most in all the world? Are you thinking of it, is it in your head right now?’

Ned nodded as a vision of a laughing Portia arose before him.

‘Good. Now I want you to swear on that most holy thing that what I ask you to do you will do without telling a soul. Do you understand? Not a soul.’

Ned nodded once more.

‘Out loud! Swear it out loud.’

‘I swear it, Paddy, I swear it.’

‘Good … good. I trust you. Now then…’ Leclare scrabbled inside his bag. ‘Take this envelope here. It is sealed. If I don’t make it back and healthy to land I want you to deliver it for me. Personally. It must go direct into the hands of…’ Leclare beckoned for Ned to come close and leaned up to whisper a name and address, his hot breath panting into Ned’s ear. ‘There! You’ve got that?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘Say it back to me. Whisper it to me now.’

Ned cupped his mouth round Leclare’s ear and breathed, ‘Philip R. Blackrow, 13 Heron Square, London SW1.’

‘You’ve got it. And you’ll not forget?’

‘No, never. I promise.

‘That’s that then. Tuck the envelope away, let no one see it and we’ll say not one word more about it. And don’t you forget that name and address. There. Not such a difficult or dreadful thing to ask, after all, was it now?’

Leclare let go of Ned’s wrist and leaned back, gasping for breath. Ned watched the little remaining colour drain from his face.

‘Can I radio for help now, Skipper?’

‘We’ll be ashore in five or six hours. Make no difference either way.’

‘But what is it? What’s wrong?’

‘It’s no more than a touch of illness,’ Leclare said quietly, smiling and closing his eyes. ‘A little kiss of cancer, so it is. No more than that.’

Rufus Cade arrived back in time to witness Ned, with great tenderness, laying a sleeping-bag over the dying man’s shoulders and gently stroking his head.

Ashley Barson-Garland had written seventy letters that morning. Seventy calm, placating and – though he said it himself – beautifully expressed letters. Letters to old ladies unable to understand the changes to the law on pensions, letters to unemployed layabouts who chose to blame the government for their lack of self-respect, letters from delirious fascists who thought Sir Charles Maddstone was Soft On Crime and letters from transcendently sad individuals who were determined to tell the MP about Christ.

So much noise from the populace. So much clamouring for attention. So much inadequacy and resentment. The life of a politician was indeed one of lying, lying and lying. Not the lying that people supposed, not the trail of broken promises and cynical denials complained about by newspaper and bar-stool sceptics, another kind of lying altogether. Allowing people to believe that their bitter and ignorant opinions were of use or importance, this to Ashley was the great lie. There seemed to be millions out there who could not understand that their problem was not this or that injustice or social ill, but the diminished sense of self that caused them to blame anything other than their own bitterness and rage: to bolster this delusion, that was the supreme dishonesty. There were people who believed that their opportunities to live a fulfilled life were hampered by the number of Asians in England, by the existence of a royal family, by the volume of traffic that passed by their house, by the malice of trade unions, by the power of callous employers, by the refusal of the health service to take their condition seriously, by communism, by capitalism, by atheism, by anything, in fact, but their own futile, weak-minded failure to get a fucking grip. Ashley understood Caligula’s disappointment that the people of Rome had between them more than one neck. If only the British, he thought, had one backside. What a kick he would love to give it.

To his right on the desk lay the letters, open flat in their envelopes awaiting signature. They were elegantly typed on parliamentary writing paper, the green House of Commons portcullis above Sir Charles’s name, each letter clean, unblemished and perfect. Ashley moved the four piles to the left of the blotter, a more convenient position for signing for when Sir Charles arrived. Ashley prided himself on these touches. He was the perfect servant, intelligent, thoughtful, thorough and discreet and for the moment, this contented him.

From the briefcase at his feet he pulled his diary. Only five and a half pages to fill before he would need a second volume. He wondered if he would be able to find the same book again. The shop in St Anne’s Square where he bought the first had closed two years ago. Another colour would be ideal, but it must be the same book. If he found a source he would buy at least ten, a lifetime’s supply. Would ten be enough, however? He made a rapid calculation. Twenty would be safer. ‘The Invicta’ it called itself grandly, the kind of Empire name that used to be bestowed upon everything from urinals to pocket-knives. He riffled through, observing with pleasure the growth in confidence and style of his handwriting. The last entry had been made five weeks ago. There was much to squeeze into the final pages. He should pick up from his last sentence: ‘For the moment I must put this obscene invasion out of my mind, for I have the School Address to concern myself with.’

July 30th

Can it really be only five weeks since the end of term? The Oration, of course, was a triumph of wit, knowledge, flair and – as you might say – address. As such, it was understood by no one in the hall, not even by those who could decipher the Latin. The assembled parents, staff and boys knew just enough to imagine that it was clever and treated me afterwards to the embarrassed, sympathetic and bravely smiling looks which the British habitually save up for those afflicted with terminal cancer or with brains, brains being by far the more unfortunate condition in their eyes. Most people, after all, can imagine having terminal cancer, they can’t begin to imagine having brains. Ned introduced me to his father who came as near to bowing as one can these days.

‘Your own parents not here today, Mr Barson-Garland?’

‘My mother teaches, sir,’ I said, liking the ‘sir’ and liking the fact that Sir Charles liked it. I liked too Ned’s discomfiture and watched him trying to think of something to say which wouldn’t draw attention to the idea of my mother or my family.

‘Ah well,’ his father said. ‘She must be very proud of you.’

Ned delivered a feeble matey punch to my arm as they passed on. He knew of course what kind of teaching it is my mother does. He probably even guessed that I had told her to stay away.

‘Very few parents come to Speech Day,’ I had written to her. ‘You’ll find it a bore.’

What I had meant was, ‘You dare turn up and disgrace me in a bright print dress, cheap scent and a loathsome hat and I shall disown you.

I dare say Mother read all that between the lines because mothers do and I dare say that I had meant her to because sons do.

Having endured the sickly congratulations and sherry of the headmaster, (‘Ah, here comes our pocket Demosthenes!’) I escaped after lunch to the cricket match, only to find myself forced to witness the spectacle of Ned Maddstone distinguishing himself with unquestionable style against the Old Boys. Every time someone talked to me, they kept half an eye on him at the wicket and I could smell their minds weighing his tallness, blondness and smiliness against my squat, dark seriousness. The stench of that drove me back to the house where I looked up Rufus Cade whom I found in his study weltering in his own mephitic fug – cannabis, vodka and resentment. Now here’s an interesting thing. Whether to please me or not he professed a severe dislike of Maddstone. No, it cannot have been to please me, I had already sensed the fact and asked him outright. It had been instinct. And I was right. He loathes Ned. He is ashamed of loathing Ned, which makes him loathe Ned all the more. A treadmill of disgust and resentment I am all too familiar with.