The Rules of Play (11 page)

THE LOSS - ADJUSTER ’S SMILE is not sheepish. It’s goatish.

I want them both, the sheep and the goats, and if I can’t have them then a way has to be invented. It’s called civilisation, the progress of.

A Hundred-and-One Great Inventions.

I want to be this batter, and that bowler, not either/ or, and right now I have easily enough strength to do this. An
all-rounder
, yes, and more than that: an all-rounder who can play for both teams. I don’t care who’s umpire but I trust the dark-skinned man more than the other one. He has something Mesopotamian, Sumerian, about his features. Something aquiline.

He shakes his head.

Actually he doesn’t even do that: he just tilts his head sideways and slightly upwards, as if some unidentifiable smell has just wafted within range of his nostrils, or as if Agnieszka has asked a question about seagulls, or—more precisely—as if the bowler has just flung his arms up in the air and appealed in a voice of 150 decibels for a wicket. The answer is no. The answer is that the question isn’t even worth considering.

We are grown-ups here. We are not children in the park. No one can play for both sides, that’s not how it works.

I am down, now, at the level of choosing, between the platforms. A train rushes in: the noise of its approach drowning out words, and the air it displaces rushing against my face—grit in my eyes, my hair all to pieces. It’s full, and I let it pass. As the doors are closing an Indian woman wriggles her way in, pressing against a Chinese couple who in turn are squeezed against an Englishman who is trying to read a book. This is the same in all languages and really it has nothing to do with choosing, not now; it is about knowledge, and consciousness. I’m completely relaxed. The body—which is never just flesh, but is that first of all—knows. It’s not just an envelope for a clever letter, explaining things. It seeks— to be stretched, tested, to score runs off the fastest or most awkward delivery that’s sent towards it: intelligent play, the best it can do. I live in it; I trust it. It is spiced best with desire.

Another carriage halts in front of me and I step in, ridiculously happy to be without my handbag—I have nothing to guard, I am free. The train gathers speed, carrying me towards the loss-adjuster’s flat. Selwyn may already be there, before me, or he may not.

Oddly, for someone who is such a defensive driver, for someone who has said sorry so often and stood aside to let a stranger past—I could go on: for someone who has always (usually) been happy to share; someone who’s more interested in the view than where she’s going to; someone who almost never ticks the ‘strongly agree’ or ‘strongly disagree’ boxes; someone who never ticks boxes at all because there must be something more interesting to do than tick boxes, even if it’s just staring out of the window; someone who always assumes that she’ll be doing the washing up, even when it’s not her turn; someone who is always among the last to be picked, because she’s easily distracted and lacks what they call the killer instinct; someone who thinks of herself as someone who’s not bothered about winning—oddly, then, as I say, I don’t want to play for a draw, I want to win. But it doesn’t feel odd.

What it does feel is good, if a bit dark, even though it probably isn’t, outside. Just more clouds. External factors: age, income, prospects, dependants. The game will still be going on, heading towards whatever will be its conclusion, and the umpires, the big burly one with the wedding hat and the small dark one, will be still standing in the field like statues. Now the burly one is walking over to the dark one and they are whispering together. Conferring, is the word used. Everyone else is quiet, as if they are trying to overhear what is being said, but they can’t. The burly one has a meeting arranged with a woman at seven-thirty and he really wants to get this game wrapped up, over and done. The woman once won a singing competition on a TV show and the pearls she wears are real. This is unlikely but true. Together, the umpires look up at the clouds, seeking guidance from on high. If they offer me the light I will not take it.