The Tennis Player from Bermuda (7 page)

I looked over at Mrs Martin. She was nodding. I guessed what she was thinking: ‘Better to try, and hit it out, than not to try at all.’

I walked across to my ad court for his next service. I set up on the baseline. Mark tossed and hit a remarkably fast serve, which again went straight down the middle. A beautiful serve. It kicked up above my shoulder. I took the ball with my forehand, above my shoulder, as hard as I could swing, and sent the ball crosscourt into his deuce court. I hit the return so hard and flat that Mark didn’t get within a meter of it. A clear winner.

I looked over at Mrs Martin.

She said, “Like that.”

No more lollipops.

Mrs Martin left for home after our first set, and then Mark and I played two more. That was a total of six sets for me that morning, and I was done in. I had to shower before lunch, so I pointed Mark in the direction of the balcony overlooking the Atlantic where we would have lunch, and I went to the dressing room.

My hair was wet when I arrived on the balcony and sat down with him. “I hope you don’t mind my hair being wet. To dry it would delay lunch by probably an hour.”

“Your hair looks beautiful wet.”

I had no idea what to think about that.

The waiter came and we ordered. Mark began to ask, “Who on earth – ”

I put my hand on his forearm to stop him in mid-sentence. “I should have warned you about Mrs Martin. But I had no idea she would stay to watch us play.”

“Who is she?”

“Well, really, she’s my coach, but since on Bermuda it’s considered unsporting and Not Done for a young lady to have a tennis coach, Mrs Martin would never think of herself as my coach.”

“What would she say she is?”

“She would say just that she and I play tennis together. She’s my father’s cousin, so we’re related. She’s a wonderful person and good to me, but she’s a bit of a character. She reached the singles final at Wimbledon just before the war.”

“Wimbledon? Can you beat her?”

“Yes. For years I couldn’t, but now I haven’t lost to her for a year or so. But her play is at an international level, still.”

“How long has she been coaching you?”

“Well, longer than four years.”

“How often do you play with her?”

“On spring holiday, we’ve had good luck with the weather, and so we’ve played every morning. She thinks the tennis coach at Smith has given me some bad habits, and she’s trying to fix them in the short time before I go back to school.”

“What bad habits?”

“She thinks the Smith coach is making me play more cautiously and to work the percentages. He’s influenced by Jack Kramer a great deal.”

“So Mrs Martin doesn’t believe in playing the percentages?”

“No, she doesn’t.” I thought for a moment. “I think she believes in playing each point as though your life depends on winning it.”

After lunch, we walked down the steep staircase to the beach, took off our shoes, and walked along Coral Beach together.

“This must be the most beautiful beach in the world,” Mark said.

“Most people would say this isn’t even the most beautiful beach in Bermuda.”

“Which beach is the best?”

“Oh, probably one of the beaches farther along the South Shore. Warwick Long Bay is where I usually go to swim.”

When we reached the end of the beach, we sat down on the rocks facing one another and talked for two solid hours. We compared notes about pre-med at Smith versus the medical course of study at Cambridge, and he warned me about how difficult he had found organic chemistry. I would be taking organic chemistry in the fall. Mark told me about his first clinical rotation in medical school, which was fascinating. Someone must have taught Mark to make conversation: he expressed an interest in me, a girl, which was just about unheard of in my limited experience with boys. And he seemed to take what I said seriously. I couldn’t recall any boy ever taking me seriously.

By the time we walked back to the staircase, and climbed up to the balcony, it was almost four o’clock. Mark said, “May I drive you home?”

“No, I have my bicycle here.”

Mark waited a moment. I was looking at him. He said, “Perhaps this is a bit forward of me, since we’ve seen each other today. But might I see you again tomorrow?”

I didn’t reply.

He said, “We could arrange something without Mrs Martin.”

I didn’t reply.

“I haven’t seen much of the island.”

“Oh, I don’t know. You’ve explored the pub in St. George’s.”

He grimaced. I knew I had been a shrew, so I said, “We could go to Gibbs Hill Lighthouse tomorrow. It’s one of my favorite places. We can take the bus from Hamilton.”

“I’ve been using a roadster that belongs to my aunt. I could pick you up and drive you there.”

“Mrs Pemberton owns a roadster? I’d be surprised if she can drive.”

“She can’t.”

“Why does she have a roadster, then?”

“She and my father have an interest in British Motor. MG is part of British Motor. Aunt and Father thought having one of the MG roadsters in Bermuda would spark interest in MG autos here.”

“It hasn’t worked.”

“Unfortunately, you seem correct in that.”

“I’ll make us a picnic lunch. If you could pick me up at home at, say, noon, we could go to Gibbs Hill Lighthouse and climb to the top to see the view. Then we could have lunch on the lawn there.”

“That sounds perfect. Where do you live?”

M
ARCH
1962
S
PRING
H
OLIDAY FROM
S
MITH
S
PITTAL
P
OND
S
MITH’S
P
ARISH
, B
ERMUDA

The next morning saw pouring rain all over Bermuda, so the Gibbs Hill expedition was off the calendar. I worked in Mother’s clinic, but in the early afternoon Mrs Pemberton rang Mother and invited me to tea later at Tempest. She offered to have Mark come collect me, but Mother declined. I could easily take the bus.

I sat on the bus on the slow ride in the rain to Tucker’s Town telling myself not to become attached to Mark. He was probably bored to distraction staying at Tempest with his aunt. He couldn’t possibly like me. He was an exceptionally handsome boy; no doubt he had his pick of girls. He was probably just fitting me in between visits with Mildred.

But when I got off the bus at the Mid-Ocean Club, Mark was standing there waiting in the rain under an umbrella. Despite the talk I had given myself on the bus, I thought it unlikely a boy would wait in the rain for a girl unless he liked her at least a bit. I had my own umbrella, but while we walked to Tempest, Mark put his arm around my shoulders and held his umbrella over both of us.

While we were having tea, the rain cleared, and the evening became clear. Typical Bermuda weather; it often changes back and forth between rain and bright blue sky several times a day. Again, I was bumping up against the time for the last bus back toward Paget from the Mid-Ocean Club, but, once again, Mark offered to drive me home. This time, I accepted and asked his aunt if I might use her telephone to ring my parents to tell them I would be home later than the last bus.

It was still quite light when we drove off from Tempest in the MG; Mark had the hood down. We swept along South Road past what must be some of the most perfect ocean views in the world.

When we drove past Knapton Point, I said to Mark over the wind, “Do you want to stop and see Spanish Rock?”

“What is it?”

“It’s a flat rock above the Atlantic. A sailor carved some letters, a cross, and the year 1543 into it. We’ve always called it ‘Spanish Rock,’ but someone in Portugal now says the sailor was probably Portuguese. Perhaps we should call it ‘Portuguese Rock’ instead.”

“Is it authentic?”

“You mean, was it really carved in 1543? I don’t know, but the first settlers in Bermuda saw the carving, so it’s been there a long time. The person who carved it must have been one of the first people on Bermuda. Do you want to see it?”

“Certainly. Where is it?”

“Just ahead, at Spittal Pond. Turn off here to the left.”

Mark turned and brought the MG to a stop in a cloud of gravel dust at the entrance for Spittal Pond. We walked down a steep, rough path and then along a sandy track beside the pond. I told Mark, “The pond isn’t really fresh water. It’s a bit salty. We don’t have much fresh water on Bermuda, except the rain water we collect on our roofs. Let’s go this way, to the left.” We hiked up a hill through thick brush to the top, where we had a spectacular view of the Atlantic waves crashing against the rocks of the South Shore and sending salt spray up almost to where we were standing.

“Down there,” I said, pointing for Mark.

We scrambled down through the brush to a large, flat rock overlooking the waves. The rock was defaced all over with carvings. I said, “An American thought the carving, I mean the one from 1543, was going to be eroded away, so he made a plaster mold of the carving, and then covered it with a bronze impression. That was sixty years or so ago.”

I stood looking out at the Atlantic.

Mark asked, out of the blue, “Were you homesick when you were in the States?”

“Terribly homesick. All the snow was a shock to me. And I missed my parents. I grew up in Bermuda, it was all I knew until I went away to the States. Well, I’d been to England several times but always with my parents.”

Then I asked, “Did you grow up in London?”

“No. Not really. I spent most of my time before I went off to Harrow at our country house in Hampshire. We have a dairy farm there. When my father joined the Royal Navy at the start of the war, he moved Mother and me, and my nanny, to our country house. I had just been born, actually, so I don’t have any memory of it.”

“Do your parents live in Hampshire?”

“Well, Father’s medical practice is in London, and we have a home in Hyde Park Gate. But it was bombed in October 1940, during the Blitz, and we couldn’t live there again until I was about 10 or so. Father couldn’t get a license for the building materials right after the war. But finally he was able to have it all put right. Mother and Father still live there. They spend long weekends in Hampshire during the summer.”

Mark looked down at Spanish rock and pointed to the bronze impression. “This must be the bronze cover?”

“Yes,” I said. The impression showed a crude R and a P, with a cross and the year 1543. “This fellow in Portugal thinks the R and the P stand for the King of Portugal, and that the sailor who carved it was claiming the island for his King.”

We turned away from the rock, went as close to the edge of the cliff as I was willing to go, and looked down into the impossibly clear, blue water, with waves blasting against the rocks.

It was getting on to dusk. We walked back to the sandy track toward the MG, and Mark took my hand in his as we were walking. Once we reached the roadster, he said, “You’d better tell me again how to get to your home, because I’m lost.”

I pointed him back onto South Road. He made the turn into our lane and pulled over in front of Midpoint. He jumped out and opened the door for me.

“Fiona?”

“Yes, Mark?”

“We had talked about a picnic, before the rain came. Are you still willing to stand me for a picnic? Perhaps tomorrow?”

“Yes. At Gibbs Hill. I’ll make a lunch for us. When will you collect me?”

We agreed on noon. He reached behind my head and tugged gently on my ponytail to tease me, then jumped into the driver’s seat and roared off.

It was almost dark. I stood there for a moment in front of Midpoint. Mark hadn’t tried to kiss me goodnight, and I couldn’t decide whether I was relieved or disappointed.

M
ARCH
1962
S
PRING
H
OLIDAY FROM
S
MITH
G
IBBS
H
ILL
L
IGHTHOUSE
S
OUTHAMPTON
P
ARISH
, B
ERMUDA

There was a bowl of Bermuda fish chowder in our refrigerator, which our housekeeper had made the day before, and it had been delicious when my parents and I had it last night. I took the left over chowder and poured it equally into two glass jars. And spoons. Then I made sandwiches with Irish cheese, the year’s first lettuce from our garden, and Portuguese bread our housekeeper had baked. What else? A thermos of coffee. Then I baked oatmeal cookies, and wrapped them in two cloth napkins to keep them warm. Finally, an old sheet from the bottom of Mother’s linen closet. I put all of this in a flower basket that Mother used to collect cut flowers in our garden. Then I sat down and waited for Mark to collect me.