The Tennis Player from Bermuda (14 page)

We were met at the door by a slender, middle-aged lady who said, “Miss Hodgkin. I’ve heard so much about you from Mark. I’m Myrtle Hanson. Mark, bring Miss Hodgkin’s luggage upstairs. I’m putting her in the second rear bedroom.”

The three of us climbed a magnificent curved staircase with a wrought-iron balustrade with the initial ‘T’ worked into the intricate design.

“Here you are,” Miss Hanson said. “I thought you’d be comfortable here because this bedroom has its own bath and a nice view of the rear gardens.”

We were in a large, airy room with two tall windows. Mark dropped two of my bags and went back downstairs for the third.

“When I first came through the front door, I thought you were Lady Thakeham.”

Miss Hanson laughed but in a friendly way. “I was the nursery nurse for Mark from the time he was born and then the same for Catherine. Now I’m the housekeeper.”

Mark returned with my third bag, dropped it, and dropped himself into a side chair in the bedroom.

Miss Hanson said, “Mark, your services are no longer required here. Miss Hodgkin has had a long flight and needs to rest before lunch.”

He started to say something, but Miss Hanson cut him off. “Goodbye, Mark.”

Mark gave me a rueful smile and left the room. I gathered Miss Hanson was more than a housekeeper.

Miss Hanson said, “Young Janet works for me, and she’ll be here in a minute with a pot of tea for you. Then she’ll unpack your bags and put away your clothes. You should wash your face and stretch out on the bed for some rest. Janet won’t bother you. If you’re tired, you may have lunch here in your room whenever you want, or Mark will be having lunch downstairs in an hour or so. Suit yourself.”

She walked over to the side of the large bed and pointed to two small buttons on a brass plate set into the wall. The brass was highly polished.

“There used to be markings to show which button was which, but the markings wore away with the polishing before I got here.”

I had the impression that, if Miss Hanson had been around then, the polishing would have been done more carefully.

She went on. “So, you just have to remember. The button on the left brings Janet until about nine o’clock in the evening. On Thursdays, her day off, it will be one of my other girls. The button on the right brings me, any time of day or night.”

“I’m sure I won’t call. I won’t need anything.”

“How old are you?”

“I’m 18. I’ll be 19 on July 1.”

Miss Hanson smiled. “You’re a long way from your parents. Don’t hesitate to call me.” She left.

I learned later that, when Miss Hanson was 18, she had placed an advert in the magazine
The Lady
, seeking a position as a nursery nurse. She was engaged by Lady Thakeham, who was then expecting Mark. During the war, Miss Hanson worked in the dairy at Thakeham House, with Mark toddling along after her. Now, she managed both 16 Hyde Park Gate and Thakeham House, including the dairy, which, over the years, she had built into a large and profitable business for the family. Miss Hanson was regularly brought in by Doctor Thakeham to consult on the family’s financial affairs – unlike Lady Thakeham, who was consulted only on the new wallpaper for the front hall.

Mark told me that once at Harrow he had been struggling a bit with mathematics, no doubt because of the competing demands of cricket. Miss Hanson taught herself basic calculus in a week and then began taking the Tube to the Harrow-onthe-Hill stop each weekday afternoon for a month. She would meet Mark in a tea shop, where she drilled him on equations for an hour. Mark no longer struggled in math.

I put my head on the pillow and was quickly asleep. I didn’t even hear Janet unpacking my bags. I slept for two hours.

I met Lady Thakeham that afternoon at tea, which was in a long, narrow conservatory that extended out from the house into the rear garden. There were glass doors on each side that opened onto the garden. With the doors opened, I felt that we were practically outside, but with protection from the rain and the (occasional) sun.

Mark leaned over his mother and playfully kissed her on top of her exquisitely coiffed hair.

“Mark, please don’t. You’ll muss my hair.”

Then she turned to me. “You must be Miss Hodgkin, child. Thomas Hodgkin’s daughter. How kind of you to visit us from Bermuda.” She said ‘Bermuda’ in the way that some people might say ‘Antarctica.’

I was wary of her from the start. I said, “My parents and I appreciate your invitation to me.”

“We are pleased to have you. And thank you for your kind letter to me about your plans for tennis.”

Mark said, “Fiona’s plans for tennis? We’re going to Wimbledon for an afternoon the first week of the fortnight. Do we have tickets? Should I ring the Club?”

“Miss Hodgkin plans to play tennis for a day while she is with us. She wrote me a nice letter with all the details.”

I hadn’t written to Mark about Roehampton, mainly because he had been quite stingy in writing to me. So I had reciprocated. Now I thought that perhaps I should have prepared him in advance.

I hesitated. “Well, it may be for a day or possibly a few days.”

Lady Thakeham, I sensed, knew that she had an opportunity to trap me, and she took it. “Miss Hodgkin, dear, where is it again you’ve been invited to play one afternoon?”

“The Bank of England Sports Grounds at Roehampton.”

Mark was tucking into a crumpet when I said this, and he choked slightly. “Roehampton? You’ve been invited to play at Roehampton?”

Lady Thakeham smiled icily.

Mark managed to control his choking. “Fiona, did you say you’re going to play at Roehampton?”

“Yes, I did.”

“You mean the qualifying round for Wimbledon?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not serious,” he said with a laugh.

“Mark,” I said, maybe a little sharply, “I don’t care for your tone. The Committee invited me to play at Roehampton. I wrote your mother about the invitation. I’m going to play the first round, and we’ll see what we see.”

“You could not possibly both compete at Roehampton and attend the season.”

Lady Thakeham beamed.

“Claire Kershaw did.”

“How do you know?”

“She told me.”

“You know Kershaw?”

I was a mere colonial from Antarctica – excuse me, Bermuda – but I’d had enough. “Mark,” I said stiffly, “I know Claire quite well.” Perhaps this was stretching things a bit. “She was kind enough to find me a place in the qualifying round at Roehampton. I told Lady Thakeham in my letter that Roehampton would in no way interfere with my social obligations during the season. I was entirely sincere.”

Again, stretching things a bit.

Mark was about to say something, but Lady Thakeham stopped him. “That’s all settled, then,” she said. “We should discuss our social obligations this week.” She pulled open her datebook.

“Tomorrow, the Wilsons have invited Miss Hodgkin and Catherine for tea” – the Wilsons were my cousins – “and that evening is the party for Marjorie Boynton at the Savoy. Wednesday, Catherine is giving a luncheon at Simpsons in the Strand for Miss Hodgkin, and then, my dear, that afternoon you have invited 12 young ladies here for tea. Don’t be concerned, I’ve already arranged the details and sent invitations to your guests. That evening dinner is with the Ralstons, we’ll return home to dress for the party for Alice Herbert, but I’ve promised Catherine that we will leave by one in the morning and have breakfast at the party for Harriet Rutherford – Lady Thornton asked Catherine if we could come. Thursday, lunch is at Claridge’s with the Alstons, then tea with Mary Matthews, dinner with Lord Hawthorn at the Inner Temple, home to dress, then a dance at Grosvenor House for Hope McAllister. Friday, my dear, you and Catherine have invited 15 young ladies to an informal lunch here, then tea is with Anne Gofford and her parents. We’re invited to dinner at White’s by Lord Wilberforce, Princess Margaret will be there, so you’ll want to dress especially well, and then there will be Mary Sanford’s party, but we’ll leave by midnight or so to have an early breakfast with Lady Crawford and her daughters.”

I was stunned. Maybe Mark was onto something when he said I couldn’t both attend the season and play at Roehampton. “Should I be writing this down?”

“No, dear child, there’s no need. I will see that Harold takes you and Catherine to everything.” I had no idea who ‘Harold’ might be. Lady Thakeham smiled, closed her datebook, excused herself, and swept from the room.

Mark was chuckling. “I told you.”

“Maybe it’s busy just this week.”

“Next week is
worse.
”

Miss Hanson came into the conservatory. “There is a telegram for Miss Hodgkin.”

Mark looked at me quizzically. I opened the telegram:

P
OST
O
FFICE
T
ELEGRAM

RECEIVED LONG LETTER RACHEL TELLING ME EXACTLY HOW TO PREPARE YOU FOR ROEHAMPTON STOP SHE APPEARS TO THINK I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT TENNIS STOP WE HAVE A LOT OF WORK TO DO STOP MEET ROEHAMPTON 11 TUESDAY MORNING STOP

CLAIRE

Mark held out his hand for the telegram. This was rude of him, but I obediently handed it over.

“So you do know Claire Kershaw. How does Kershaw come to know Rachel?”

“Rachel was her coach back in the late 1940s. They’re friends.”

Mark didn’t say anything. He simply held the telegram in his fingers.

Finally, I said, “Mark, tomorrow I’ll need to spend some time practicing with Claire.”

T
UESDAY
, 12 J
UNE
1962
R
OEHAMPTON

“I can’t be with you next week for the qualifying round,” Claire said. “Eastbourne invited me to play there next week and sent along a nice packet for my expenses. So you’ll be on your own.”

We were standing in the Secretary’s old, cluttered office in the clubhouse at Roehampton while credentials were checked, green eyeshades adjusted, papers stapled, applications stamped, notices issued, and procedures followed.

If Claire hadn’t been with me, none of the Roehampton staff would have believed that I was actually on the Committee’s list of players invited to compete in the qualifying round. But Claire navigated the system for me, and I finally received an impressive pass with the word PLAYER splashed across it in red ink. With this pass hanging around my neck, I could come and go at Roehampton as I pleased, get tea at no charge, and even try to schedule practice time on the courts.

Practice time wasn’t a problem as long as I was with Claire. She politely asked the referee, Mr Soames, if she and I might have the use of a court for three hours or so. “Certainly, Mrs Kershaw. Which court would you prefer?” Two Wimbledon singles championships carry definite privileges in the world of tennis.

When I first practiced with Claire, it was immediately apparent that she’d been coached by Rachel. Claire knocked up for 10 minutes and then threw her racket out onto the grass. “Rough or smooth?” she asked. Just like Rachel, she thought the best practice was to play a match.

On a changeover in our second set, I drank a cup of water with Claire beside me. She said quietly, “In my service game just now, at 30-15, just before I tossed the ball for my serve, you looked up at two people walking on the path from the clubhouse.

I couldn’t recall. “Did I?”

“Yes. I won the point. And the game.”

“Well, if I looked away, it was just a quick glance.”

“You won’t win, at least not at Roehampton, if you let your mind wander during a point, even for a half-second. Pull a curtain around the court in your mind so that it’s just you and the other girl. If Rachel were here, you might glance at her, quickly, just for reassurance. But she won’t be here. You’ll be by yourself.”

I was a bit shaken by Claire’s lecture.

When we finally finished practicing, we walked back to the Roehampton clubhouse. Claire asked, “How’s the season going? Found a potential husband yet?”

“My first party is tonight, but Lady Thakeham read me my schedule yesterday at tea, and I can’t believe it. I don’t have clothes for half the parties I’m attending this week, much less next week. How did you manage both the season and qualifying at Roehampton?”

Claire laughed. “It wasn’t easy. But I had only my own mother to deal with, and I didn’t have a boyfriend. Well, maybe I did, but not someone I cared about. So it was easier for me. Are you buying new clothes?”

“Before I left home, Mother told me to go to shopping in London and buy an evening gown. I asked her for a budget, and she said, ‘Use your judgment, but don’t spend too much.’ Which isn’t helpful. How much does a gown cost?”

“Between £2 on Saturday morning in Portobello Road and £2,000 any day in New Bond Street. Somewhere in that range.”

“That’s about as helpful as what Mother told me. Where should I go to buy a gown?”

“Let’s go shopping together, tomorrow. We’ll practice early and then look for a gown. You should find one that will make people talk about you.”

“I don’t want people to talk about me.”

“But that’s the whole point of the season.”