The Rules of Play (5 page)

This outpost of order and discipline, sealed against the surrounding chaos, is, I imagine, like a missionary’s hut in Africa. She civilized, we godless. But there is so little evidence of Agnieszka herself, barely even—I stand still and inhale—the scent of her. And then I am surprised by a framed photograph, of Agnieszka and Selwyn on skateboards in the park, her hand on his shoulder to stop him from falling. It was taken years ago; Selwyn looks about eight or nine; and it’s not the photograph itself that surprises me—grazed knees and joy-and-terror in the park are worth remembering—but where it is: not among the ones on the dresser of brothers and dogs and mum and dad in what looks like an underground drinking-den—but by her bed. Before sleep and dreams, the last thing she sees.

Traditionally, it is the father of the house who sleeps with the au pair, who then gets fired. But there is also the other tradition, which I have been blind to—perhaps Selwyn is right, when he says I still think of him as a child and always will—of the maidservant who gets pregnant by the son. Again she gets fired. But this is not the same thing at all.

Which doesn’t mean, I tell myself, it’s going to happen, let alone happening right now. Because my father died of coronary heart disease I probably have an above-average chance of going the same way, but it doesn’t mean I
will
; in fact I’m much more likely to fall off a cliff or stumble under a bus because I’m thinking of words to describe the way the loss-adjuster smells instead of looking where I’m going. And if I try to picture Agnieszka in bed with Alan, or Selwyn, or both of them, it becomes ridiculous. Alan is too sane, Selwyn too stubborn, Agnieszka’s taste in men too eccentric. Those permutations are about as plausible as me leading England’s bowling attack in their next cricket match. They may be templates of some kind but they’re definitely not one-size-fits-all. And the same goes for that even older story that Dr Freud liked so much. So much is contingent, up in the air; if Oedipus had slept with his mother
first
, rather than waiting till his father was out of the way, things might have turned out differently.

The loss-adjuster, I think, will have something to say about Oedipus. In fact we could go through the whole book of classical myths and legends together, rewriting the endings. In the meantime I decide I need tea, or a drink.

On the way downstairs I see that the door to the other bedroom, the bedroom I still share with Alan, is open. I close it.

While the kettle is boiling in the kitchen I retrieve from the oven Selwyn’s plate of chicken and beans, which has been there since Friday night, and scrape the congealed orange mess into the bin. As I bend I’m aware of the stern, yellow, Old Testament presence of
Wisden
on the worktop, looking over my shoulder.
The Lord thy God
is a jealous God.

It’s two o’clock. Except that Agnieszka told me to be home at this time, and I am, and nothing is happening, it’s numbers that hold the world together, if sometimes a bit loosely. If I shop for some gloves I expect most of them to come in pairs and with five fingers for each hand, and the temperature can’t be minus 50 degrees Celsius or I wouldn’t be out shopping at all. Two plus two does equal four, otherwise the supermarket could be delivering three radishes and forty-nine packets of rolled oats and charging me £798 and I’d have no cause for complaint. Any one number is what it is because of other numbers—they hang together, so that in the end
E
does equal
mc
2 and we walk upright and most of the time we don’t have to think about them. It’s when they don’t hang together—5,000 hungry people fed by five loaves and two fishes, with twelve baskets of leftovers—that we need to start worrying.

I take it on trust that someone has checked all the numbers in
Wisden
with a calculator and that they do hang together, but the sheer number of numbers in these pages is terrifying. This is a parallel universe in which good and bad, heroism and solid worth, are defined numerically. Also-rans don’t get a look-in, the ‘criteria for inclusion’ being 15,000 runs, 1,000 wickets, 500 ‘achieved dismissals,’ or 10,000 runs
and
500 wickets, or . . . Divinities include the ones with most runs (B. C. Lara, West Indies, 131—232—6—11,953—400— 52.88—34—48—164: presumably the biggest number) and most wickets (S. K. Warne, Australia, 145—40,705— 1,761—17,995—708—25.41—871—37—10—57.4— 2.65: take your pick). A man called G. Allott squeaks in because he managed to score 0 runs in 101 minutes. There are thousands upon thousands of numbers here, and I am becoming dizzy. If I take just one of them away, will they all come tumbling down? Like G. Allott, I much prefer my numbers in small quantities, or even singly, like grapes. Such as the apparently random but unarguably exact numbers which Selwyn once recited from some off-the-wall website: the age of the youngest pope (eleven), the number of spiders eaten by a human being over the course of a life (eight), the number of newborn children given each day to the wrong parents (twelve).

Two-thirty, and just when I’ve noticed that the cat has gone from its chair and am thinking I may have shut it in the bedroom when I closed the door and it will pee on the bed, Agnieszka rushes through the door, grabs me by the hand and leads me out to the car. Alan is already there, in the driving seat, and I sit beside him. He is wearing that expression he has for when we are late and it’s my fault—even though, this time, it
isn’t
my fault— which is entirely different from the one he has for when it’s his fault. From behind, Agnieszka places a scarf around my eyes and ties it tightly. I am being kidnapped. I wonder how much ransom they will demand, how much the loss-adjuster will pay to get me back.

It’s not unpleasant, being driven blindfold, sealed in my unknowing, though I’m sure it would be different if anyone other than Alan was driving. If we are seen by anyone we know, he is sure to have some thoroughly plausible explanation. I have been training my eyes to count bricks, and have overdone it. I have been staring too long at the sun.

Maybe twenty minutes later we stop, and the scarf is untied. We have arrived at the park, a place I haven’t been since the days of grazed knees. Another whole generation is here, with their high-spec turbo-charged buggies and their curious hairstyles and their colorful new vernacular. They are waving at me.

‘This is Tomas, this is Alessandra, this is Marek, this is Jadwiga, this is Gino, this is Fang,’ says Agnieszka. And this, hanging behind the others as if he’s trying to avoid me, is Harvey.

As we all walk towards an open green space, herded by Agnieszka, enlightenment dawns. One of these people is carrying the plastic bag with the bat and wooden sticks. Wickets, I mean. Or stumps. Alan is tossing a red ball so it spins in the air and catching it with one hand. He has the same glint in his eye as when he sees a bottle of good red wine being uncorked.

Very reluctantly, and only after I point out that there are many tiny children within hitting range, and might even be seagulls too, Agnieszka agrees that we play not with Alan’s hard red ball but with an old tennis ball that I remember as being in the boot of the car. It’s a visual memory: the ball is wedged between a carton of motor oil and a Wellington boot, and has been there since time immemorial, waiting for this very occasion. The question of teams takes longer to resolve; eventually, after dismissing women against men and five against five, we decide everyone is to bat individually, in turn. Except that I am not allowed either to bat or to bowl or even to run, because I, having read
Wisden
, am the umpire.

It is fun, almost. It might even be wisdom, almost. If Selwyn were here and if the loss-adjuster were here it would be both.

I have no idea what I’m doing, but I do know I’m wearing the wrong shoes. I stand behind the stumps, which I thought would give me some protection but doesn’t, because the batter is facing me and not at all far away. Every so often I hold up both my hands or use one hand to make a sort of scattering motion, like sowing seeds, like I’ve seen the umpires do on TV. Agnieszka applauds; for her I can do no wrong. But when they all shout and look towards me to decide if the batter’s turn is over, I can do no right. I decide to do it alternately, which seems fair: the first time I pretend I haven’t heard anything, the next time I hold up one finger, the next time I pretend, etc.

It’s not easy, being an umpire, even after I’ve kicked off my shoes. On the other hand I could, if I wanted, make them all play while standing on one leg—rule 347, paragraph C—and they’d have to obey me.

Alan is seriously trying not to take this seriously. He chases the ball hard and throws it back very accurately and when the person he’s throwing to ducks under it he grins sheepishly—odd expression: do sheep grin?—as if it’s all his own fault. Which it might be. But really I think that grin is worth ten runs, or more.

There is, of course, a large and excited dog who believes that the ball is entirely its own, and from whose mushy jaws only Alessandra seems capable of retrieving it.

Fang—or Feng—is the all-time star. I never knew they played cricket in China. He runs, he catches, he hits, he shows Jadwiga how to hold the bat, he bowls very slowly to Alessandra and very fast to Marek, he rushes off to the café to get Cokes at half-time (half-time?), he is everywhere. He will go far. I wonder who his mother is, and what she knows. Agnieszka and Feng, I think. Feng and Agnieszka. But neither shows any interest in the other.

Everyone is laughing, sweating, exclaiming; there is a fellowship here that, even though most of us have only known each other for one hour, might allow for the exchange of the most private secrets. And then it is all brought to a sudden end, arrested, aborted, by guess who. Harvey, who for most of the afternoon has been as invisible as a man his size is capable of being, stumbles after the ball and stops short, wheezing. His face turns beetroot, his eyes bulge, his arms flap wildly around him as if he is a bird that can’t fly but hasn’t been told. He is hyperventilating.

Agnieszka takes his hand and tells him to breathe deeply. He closes his eyes, like someone who is preparing to make some grim but unavoidable announcement, and then opens them wide as if expecting it to be another day. He is indecently grateful. I pray to God, cruelly, that he is not telling Agnieszka that he loves her.

Feng calls an ambulance but by the time it has arrived Alan and Agnieszka have bundled Harvey into the car and themselves driven to the hospital. I am over-apologetic to the ambulance crew, who seem to regard me as personally responsible for the waste of their time, the obstruction at the park gate, the traffic congestion throughout west London, and having to work on a Sunday afternoon. I sit on the grass with Feng, Marek, Gino, Jadwiga and Tomas. Alessandra has disappeared, I think with the owner of the enthusiastic dog. We are a team, we depend on one another. Tomas wants to play football. Feng attempts to teach us an alternative and much simpler form of cricket called French cricket, though no one knows why. I am good at this, because my legs are thin.

THERE ’S STILL A throbbing pain in my hip where I fell last night in the cupboard but I know now why I married Alan. Because Selwyn was under-age. It wasn’t Alan I fell in love with but Selwyn. There is nothing selfish or sly or malicious or capricious about Alan—he is, as they say, especially when they’re choosing a new captain for the team, a safe pair of hands—but it was Selwyn who bowled me over. After years of working my guts out at this thing called human relationships, he taught me how to play.

WE USED TO play in the park, hide-and-seek. He wouldn’t close his eyes, or he’d skip numbers when he was counting to a hundred. So would I, sometimes. And a kind of kick-ball, never my favorite.

We used to play draughts on his bed, and whenever he was about to lose he’d wriggle his feet and upset the board.

We used to play in the kitchen. Because Alan supports Chelsea we made him a supper in which every item of food was blue. We once managed to bake a chocolate cake with a pencil-sharpener inside it.

We used to play in the bathroom, with funnels and jugs, and making cave-paintings on the walls with washable ink (do
not
trust the label).

We used to play in the swimming pool. ‘Can you touch the bottom?’ Going under water isn’t natural, you have to learn to do it. There are two ways: either you breathe out before you go under, pushing all the air out your lungs that would otherwise keep you on the surface, or you breathe in first and then out as you go down, the air rushing upwards in a trail of bubbles. Then you can sit on the floor of the pool, watching the other bodies moving slowly around you without knowing which is which, who is who.

We used to play on buses, making up rude rhymes, showing off.

In any place where we were together, we used to play: arm-wrestling (his propped on a fat book), not-blinking competitions, nonsense languages.

We used to play.

SOMEWHERE NEAR UR, on the plains of Mesopotamia 5,000 years ago, a bored young goat-herd starts chucking a stone at some object on the ground a few yards away— another stone, or a pile of them, or the Mesopotamian equivalent of an old Coke can. Some mangled piece of hardware left behind by an invading army. Boys do this— watch them on a pebbly beach. The bored goat-herd’s bored companion picks up an old thigh-bone that happens to be lying around and uses it to hit away the first goat-herd’s stone before it can knock over the Coke can.

This goes on for some time. Up above, two birds are swooping and circling—buzzards maybe, or vultures. The sun beats down. When the second goat-herd hits the stone far away he’s happy, and the first goat-herd is annoyed. When the first goat-herd’s stone strikes the Coke can, it’s his turn to hit—
smite
—with the thighbone.

‘No!’ shouts the first goat-herd at one point. ‘That would have hit! You’re not allowed to get your leg in the way!’

At another point, fed up with running to fetch the stone that has been hit by the second goat-herd, the first goat-herd goes to the foot of the scree and brings back a little stock of stones clutched in both hands. There happen to be six of them. But this is just wishful thinking.