Devil May Care

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Authors: Sebastian Faulks
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muscular, tanned legs. He had retained the long-sleeved flannel shirt and the white glove on his large left hand. Over his right shoulder, he carried a bag with half a dozen new Wilson racquets.
    Without speaking, as though he merely expected Bond to follow, Gorner led the way upstairs and out into the playing area, which consisted of a dozen immaculate grass courts and the same number again of beaten earth with a powdery red dirt dressing. The club was proud of the surface, said to give a fast but exceptionally regular bounce and to be kind to the joints of knee and ankle. At each court there was a raised umpire’s chair, four smaller wooden seats for the players, a supply of fresh white towels and a fridge, which contained cold drinks and new boxes of white Slazenger tennis balls. Marshals in the club’s striped green and chocolate colours moved busily between the courts to make sure the members were happy with their arrangements.
    ‘Court Four is free, Dr Gorner,’ said one of them, as he ran to meet them. He spoke in English. ‘Or Number Sixteen if you would prefer grass this morning.’
    ‘No, I shall take Court Two.’
    ‘Your usual court?’ The man appeared anxious. ‘It’s occupied at the moment, Monsieur.’
    Gorner looked at the marshal as a vet might inspect a spavined old horse to whom he is about to administer a lethal injection. He repeated, very slowly, ‘I shall take Court Two.’
    The bass-baritone voice retained a slight Baltic thickening of the vowels in the otherwise cultured English pronunciation.
    ‘Er … Yes, yes. But of course. I shall ask the gentlemen to move to Court Four straight away.’
    ‘You will find Court Two a better surface,’ said Gorner to Bond. ‘And one isn’t troubled by the sun.’
    ‘As you wish,’ said Bond. It was a beautiful morning and the sun was already high.
    Gorner took a fresh box of tennis balls from the fridge, threw three to Bond and took three for himself. Without consultation, he selected the far end, though there was no obvious advantage that Bond could see. They knocked up for a few minutes and Bond concentrated on trying to find a nice, easy rhythm, hitting the forehand well in front of him with a good long swing, and slicing the backhand with a proper follow-through. He also kept an eye on Gorner’s game to see if there were obvious weaknesses. Most players concealed their backhands in the knock-up, but Bond hit several wide to that side to give Gorner no chance. He chipped each one back to Bond’s baseline without difficulty. His forehand, however, was not really a tennis stroke at all. He slashed downwards at it with heavy slice, so that it fizzedflat over the net. Either he could not play a regular forehand drive with topspin, thought Bond, or he was keeping it in reserve. In the meantime, Bond knew he must not let the awkward slice unsettle him.
    ‘Ready,’ said Gorner. It was less a question than a statement.
    He marched up to the net and began to measure it carefully with the metal yardstick that hung from the end. ‘You think I am wasting my time with this, Mr Bond, but I invite you to consider. At our level, almost every shot passes only a few inches over the net, and perhaps once each game the ball will actually strike the netcord. Add in the “lets” from services and the figure is higher. In a close match there are perhaps two hundred points and a typical winning margin of less than ten. Yet of those two hundred points perhaps thirty, including services, are affected by the net – more than three times enough to win the match! One should therefore leave nothing to chance.’
    ‘I’m impressed by your logic,’ said Bond. He swung his racquet a few times to loosen his shoulder.
    Gorner adjusted the net by slightly tightening the chain that was attached to the central vertical tape and hooked to a bar in a hole in the ground. He then slapped the netcord three times with his racquet. There was no handle, Bond noticed, to raise or

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