Playing for the Ashes (50 page)

I stayed where I was and I hated him.

Start facing who you are. Start dealing with the truth. I can still hear him saying that. And I wonder how he’s facing who he is and dealing with his truths each time he meets with Amanda.

He’s breaking the organisation’s rules, just as I did. What sort of rationalisation has he developed to excuse himself? I have little doubt that he’s got a rationalisation ready for their involvement. He may call it
future wife or the test of loyalty
or
it’s bigger than we are or she needs my protection or I was seduced
or
I
fin
ally met the woman to risk everything for
, but he’s de
fin
itely developed some slick justification that he’ll trot out to vindicate himself once ARM’s governing core demands an accounting.

I suppose I sound cynical, totally without sympathy for his situation, bitter, vindictive, holding dear to the hope that he’ll get caught with his trousers dropped. But I don’t feel cynical, and I’m not aware of that hot little stone of indignation sizzling between my breasts when I think of Chris and her. I don’t feel compelled to make accusations. I merely think it’s wise to assume that most people rationalise at one time or another. Because what better way is there to avoid being answerable other than to rationalise? And no one really
wants
to be answerable, not when things get sticky.

It’s for the best
was Mother’s rationalisation. Only a fool would have walked away from what she offered Kenneth Fleming: Celandine Cottage in Kent, part-time employment at the printworks during the months that the county sides played, full-time employment in the winter. She had anticipated all possible objections that Jean might have raised to the plan, and she presented her offer to Kenneth in such a way that every objection was taken into account. It was a win-win for everyone concerned. All Jean had to agree to was Kenneth’s move to Kent and a part-time marriage.

“Think of the possibilities,” Mother would have said to Kenneth, hoping that he carried the message back to Jean. “Think of playing for England eventually. Think of everything that could mean to you.”

“Facing the finest players in the world,” Kenneth would have mused, with his chair tilted back and his eyes going soft as he saw in his mind a batsman and a bowler facing each other on the playing field at Lord’s.

“As well as travel, celebrity, endorsements. Money.”

“That’s counting chickens.”

“Only if you don’t believe in yourself as I believe in you.”

“Don’t believe in me, Miriam. I let you down once.”

“Don’t let’s talk of the past.”

“I could let you down again.”

She would have rested her
fin
gers lightly for a moment against his wrist. “Far more serious is the fact that you could let yourself down. And Jean. And your children.”

You can fill in the rest. Phase Two concluded on schedule. Kenneth Fleming went to Kent.

I don’t need to tell you of Kenneth’s success. The newspapers have been recounting the story ever since his death. Directly Kenneth died, Hal Rashadam said in an interview that he’d never seen a man “more designed by God’s beneficence and wisdom to play this game.” Kenneth had an athlete’s body and natural talent. He was only waiting for someone who knew how to put the two together.

Effecting this union of body and talent required time and effort. It wasn’t enough to practise with and play in the Kent county side. For Kenneth to reach his highest potential, he would need a programme that combined diet, body building, exercise, and coaching. He would need to observe the best players in the world whenever and wherever they were available to him. He would succeed only by knowing what he was up against and going them one better…in physical condition, in skill, in technique. He had to overcome the twin disadvantages of age and inexperience. This would take time.

Tabloid journalists have speculated that the demise of Kenneth’s marriage to Jean Cooper followed an age-old pattern. Hours and days spent in pursuit of the dream meant hours and days away from Jean and the children. The father-at-the-weekend plan fell apart as soon as Kenneth and Jean discovered exactly how much time was going to be necessary to reach optimum fitness, to hone his batting skills, to study the opposition as well as the other potential challengers for the England team. As often as not Jean and the children would faithfully make the trek out to Kent at the weekend only to discover that husband-and-father was to be Saturday in Hampshire and Sunday in Somerset, and when he wasn’t off either playing, practising, or watching, he was training. When he wasn’t training, he was fulfilling his obligations to Whitelaw Printworks. So the traditional explanation for the chasm that began to sink into the Fleming marriage revolves round the deserted but still demanding wife and the absent husband. But there was more to it than that.

Imagine it, if you will. This period in Kent represented the first time in his life that Kenneth Fleming had ever been truly on his own. He’d gone from his parents’ house to that brief year at school and from school to marriage, and now he was experiencing freedom. It wasn’t a freedom without obligation, but for the first time the obligations he had were directly related to the attainment of a dream, not merely to the grubbing for money. He needn’t even feel guilty about striving to attain this dream, since its attainment meant the future betterment of his family. So he could give himself single-mindedly to the pursuit of professional cricket, and if he loved being liberated from his wife and children, that was in reality a happy and unexpected by-product of the larger scheme of things.

I imagine he felt a little odd when he moved to Celandine Cottage, especially the first night. He would have unpacked his belongings and cooked himself a meal. In eating it, he would have felt the stillness press against him, so foreign to everything he knew. He would have phoned Jean but she and the children would have gone out for a meal, a special treat to divert their thoughts from the terraced house now empty of Kenny-and-Dad. He would have phoned Hal Rashadam to review their schedule only to hear that Rashadam was dining with his daughter and her husband that night. Finally, when the need for some sort of human contact was beginning to string out his nerves, he would have phoned Mother.

“I’m in,” he would have said, trying not to look at the windows and the black endless night smeared against them.

“I’m so glad, my dear. You have everything you need?”

“I suppose. Yes. I have. I suppose.”

“What is it, Ken? Is something wrong with the cottage? Is something amiss? You had no trouble getting in?”

“No trouble. It’s just…Nothing. Only…I’m blithering on. Sound like I’m going mental, don’t I?”

“What? What is it? Tell me.”

“I didn’t expect to feel…out of sorts, somehow.”

“Ill?”

“I keep waiting to hear Stan banging his ball against the wall in the sitting room. I keep waiting to hear Jean shout at him to stop. It’s odd they’re not here.”

“It’s natural that you should miss them. Don’t be hard on yourself.”

“I s’pose I do miss them.”

“Of course you do. They’re a large part of your life.”

“It’s just that I phoned them and…Hell. I shouldn’t be weeping on your shoulder about this. You’ve been good to me. To all of us. Giving me this chance. It might change our lives.”

Changing their lives was part of the plan. That night on the telephone, Mother would have advised him to take things slowly, to get used to the cottage and the countryside, to enjoy the opportunity that had fallen his way.

“I’ll keep in close touch with Jean,” she would have said. “I’ll stop by tomorrow after work and see how she and the children are coping. I know that won’t make you miss them less, but will it at least set your mind at rest?”

“You’re too good to us.”

“I’m happy to do whatever I can.”

Then she would have advised him to take a cup of coffee or a brandy out into the garden and to look up where stars unlike anything he could see in London were creating pyrotechnics in the sky. Get a good night’s sleep, she would have counselled. Throw yourself into work in the morning. There’s plenty to do, not only in cricket but at the cottage.

He would have followed her advice as he always had done. He would have carried the brandy outside, not only a glass but the bottle as well. He would have sat on the uncut lawn, on the part that slopes towards the lane. He would have poured his drink and looked up at the stars. He would have heard the noises the country makes at night.

A horse nickering from the paddock next door, crickets calling from field and verge, a tawny owl
kee-veck
ing as the night’s hunt began, a church bell sounding from one of the Springburns, the
whoosh
and rattle of a distant train. Not silent at all, he would have thought with surprise.

He would have rested back on his elbows and poured his drink. He would have downed the first one quickly and poured another. His mood would have lifted. He would have lain back on the lawn, crooked his arm behind his head, and realised that his life was his own.

Actually, I don’t think it really happened that quickly, all in the first night. It was probably a more seductive process in which the duties of training, practising, and scouting combined with a burgeoning sense of licence. What was initially strange ultimately became welcome. No bickering children, no wife whose conversation got rather tedious and repetitive at times, no job to drag himself off to in the morning, no neighbours’ arguments to listen to through thin walls, no dinners with the in-laws to try to avoid. He found that he liked the independence. Liking it, he wanted more of it. Wanting more of it, he set himself on a collision course with Jean.

He would have made excuses at
fir
st, to explain why he couldn’t see them at a weekend here and there. Pulled a muscle in my back that’s laid me flat, luv. Got an estimate for the printworks that I must attend to. Torn up the kitchen and the bathroom, I have; I’m setting them right for Mrs. Whitelaw. Rashadam’s insisting I dash up to watch a match in Leeds.

During these weekends without his family, he would have found he got on just
fin
e. If he went to a party that Kent was sponsoring, he would have drunk the drinks, chatted up the other players, their wives and girlfriends, and made what he probably told himself was a fair and objective assessment of the prospect of Jean’s fitting in with this group. He may even have given her a chance early on, watching how and if she interacted with the others, judging her movement along the edges of the crowd as unease rather than caution and reticence, reaching the convenient conclusion that an exposure to the superficial conversation of the women and the bantering of the men was going to take the mickey out of his wife if he wasn’t careful to shield her.

So he had indisputable reasons why he couldn’t see his family as regularly as he wanted. Once Jean began to question and to challenge him, once she pointed out to him that his responsibilities as a father extended beyond the money he was able to pass her way, he would have needed to come up with something better. Once Jean went for the jugular and began making demands that threatened his liberty, he would have decided to tell her a form of the truth designed to hurt her the least.

He made this decision, no doubt, with the delicate assistance of his primary confidante, my mother. She must have supported him well through his time of uncertainty. Kenneth was trying to evaluate his situation: I don’t know how I feel any longer. Do I love her? Do I want her? Do I want this marriage? Am I feeling this way because I was trapped for so many years? Did Jean trap me? Did I trap myself? If I’m meant to be married, why is it I feel like I’ve finally come alive since we’ve been apart? How can I feel this way? She’s my wife. They’re my children. I love them. I feel like a bastard.

How reasonable for Mother to suggest a period apart, especially since they were apart in the first place: You need to sort things through, my dear. Your life’s in a muddle, and that shouldn’t come as a terrible shock. Look at the changes you’ve faced in just a few short months. Not only you, but Jean and the children as well. Give yourselves some time and some space to decide who you are. You’ve never had the opportunity to do that in all these years, have you? Either of you?

Clever to phrase it that way. It wouldn’t be Kenneth who needed to “think things through.” It would be both of them. No matter that Jean didn’t find it essential to think anything through, least of all whether she wanted to continue in her marriage. Once Kenneth decided that a period on their own would clarify who they were and what, if anything, they could be to each other in the future, the die was cast. He was already out of the house. Jean could demand that he return, but he didn’t need to do so.

“Things’ve happened so fast,” he probably told her. “Can’t you give me a few weeks to suss out who I am? To sort through how I feel?”

“About what?” she demanded. “Me? The kids? What rubbish is this, Kenny?”