all the time. But terribly naïve. Dad’s a vicar and a bloody tartar – like that Mr Barrett of Walpole Street.’
O’Connor grinned. ‘And you see yourself as Robert Browning?’
‘Well something of the sort. Anyway, I can’t get within necking distance on home ground.’
‘Green is she? So you fancy an away fixture?’
‘An away fixture is what I fancy.’
O’Connor ordered another round of drinks.
‘I’ve always believed,’ he said, ‘that if a bird’s worth doing, she’s worth doing well. But a fortnight’s a hell of a long time. Don’t you think you better take her away for a week-end first?’
‘I’ve got tournaments every week-end for the next two months. Besides I doubt if the old vicar would let her.’
‘Well, he’s not likely to let her go on holiday, is he?’
‘He might. I can say we’re going in a large party. Parents seem to have some totally mistaken idea that there’s safety in numbers.’
‘Will she fight with Cable?’ asked O’Connor.
‘You’ve never allowed me to meet Cable.’
‘No more I haven’t. Come and have a drink with us this evening.’
The next day Nicky wrote to Imogen’s parents. He was planning to go to France for a fortnight in September with a couple of friends who were engaged, and there would also be another married couple in the party taking their own car. He’d thought Imogen was looking tired last time he’d stayed. She needed a holiday. Could she join their party?
To Imogen’s joy and amazement her parents agreed. Even her mother had noticed how down she was, and her father, who was looking forward to his three weeks’ exchange stint in the North Riding in September (the golf course was excellent there), had no desire to have his elder daughter slopping around with a February face spoiling the fun.
‘I’ll never, never be unhappy again,’ vowed Imogen. She dialled Nicky’s number in London to give him the good news.
All the same, it was a very trying summer. Wimbledon fortnight came, and Imogen and Gloria spent most of it with the transistor on or with a pair of binoculars surreptitiously trained on the television in the Radio Rentals shop opposite the library. Nicky was in coruscating form, reaching the last eight of the singles and only being knocked out after a marathon match, and the semi-finals of the doubles with Charlie Painter. Everyone commented on his improved game. And whenever he appeared on the television screen, clothed in white tennis clothes, mystic, wonderful, whether he was uncoiling like a whiplash when serving or jumping from foot to foot as though the court were red hot beneath his feet, waiting to whistle back a shot, he seemed a God infinitely beyond Imogen’s reach.
She had also seen him in the players’ stand, laughing with some of the more beautiful wives. Nor could she miss the way the tennis groupies (pert little girls with snake hips and avid eyes) made every match he played a one-sided affair by screaming with joy whenever he did a good shot, even cheering his opponent’s double faults, and mobbing him every time he came off court. Could this really be the man who’d eaten her mother’s macaroni cheese and wrestled with her on the sofa?
After Wimbledon he moved on to ritzy places all over the world and Imogen found that a diet of almost illiterate postcards and occasional crackling telephone calls was not really enough to sustain her. Oh ye of little faith, she kept telling herself sternly, but found herself increasingly suffering from moodiness and then feeling desperately ashamed of herself.
Even worse, everyone at work, having glimpsed Nicky and learnt they were going on holiday together, had turned the affair into a sort of office Crossroads . Not a day passed without someone asking her if she’d heard from him, or how long was it until her holiday, or how was he getting on in Indianapolis. Gloria’s attitude was ambiguous too. On the one hand she liked to boast, when out, of how her
O’Connor grinned. ‘And you see yourself as Robert Browning?’
‘Well something of the sort. Anyway, I can’t get within necking distance on home ground.’
‘Green is she? So you fancy an away fixture?’
‘An away fixture is what I fancy.’
O’Connor ordered another round of drinks.
‘I’ve always believed,’ he said, ‘that if a bird’s worth doing, she’s worth doing well. But a fortnight’s a hell of a long time. Don’t you think you better take her away for a week-end first?’
‘I’ve got tournaments every week-end for the next two months. Besides I doubt if the old vicar would let her.’
‘Well, he’s not likely to let her go on holiday, is he?’
‘He might. I can say we’re going in a large party. Parents seem to have some totally mistaken idea that there’s safety in numbers.’
‘Will she fight with Cable?’ asked O’Connor.
‘You’ve never allowed me to meet Cable.’
‘No more I haven’t. Come and have a drink with us this evening.’
The next day Nicky wrote to Imogen’s parents. He was planning to go to France for a fortnight in September with a couple of friends who were engaged, and there would also be another married couple in the party taking their own car. He’d thought Imogen was looking tired last time he’d stayed. She needed a holiday. Could she join their party?
To Imogen’s joy and amazement her parents agreed. Even her mother had noticed how down she was, and her father, who was looking forward to his three weeks’ exchange stint in the North Riding in September (the golf course was excellent there), had no desire to have his elder daughter slopping around with a February face spoiling the fun.
‘I’ll never, never be unhappy again,’ vowed Imogen. She dialled Nicky’s number in London to give him the good news.
All the same, it was a very trying summer. Wimbledon fortnight came, and Imogen and Gloria spent most of it with the transistor on or with a pair of binoculars surreptitiously trained on the television in the Radio Rentals shop opposite the library. Nicky was in coruscating form, reaching the last eight of the singles and only being knocked out after a marathon match, and the semi-finals of the doubles with Charlie Painter. Everyone commented on his improved game. And whenever he appeared on the television screen, clothed in white tennis clothes, mystic, wonderful, whether he was uncoiling like a whiplash when serving or jumping from foot to foot as though the court were red hot beneath his feet, waiting to whistle back a shot, he seemed a God infinitely beyond Imogen’s reach.
She had also seen him in the players’ stand, laughing with some of the more beautiful wives. Nor could she miss the way the tennis groupies (pert little girls with snake hips and avid eyes) made every match he played a one-sided affair by screaming with joy whenever he did a good shot, even cheering his opponent’s double faults, and mobbing him every time he came off court. Could this really be the man who’d eaten her mother’s macaroni cheese and wrestled with her on the sofa?
After Wimbledon he moved on to ritzy places all over the world and Imogen found that a diet of almost illiterate postcards and occasional crackling telephone calls was not really enough to sustain her. Oh ye of little faith, she kept telling herself sternly, but found herself increasingly suffering from moodiness and then feeling desperately ashamed of herself.
Even worse, everyone at work, having glimpsed Nicky and learnt they were going on holiday together, had turned the affair into a sort of office Crossroads . Not a day passed without someone asking her if she’d heard from him, or how long was it until her holiday, or how was he getting on in Indianapolis. Gloria’s attitude was ambiguous too. On the one hand she liked to boast, when out, of how her
Similar Books
