My Dad's name was Jack Pruitt and sixteen weeks and four days ago he fell from a cat-cracker at the oil refinery. The company's man in charge of bereavements called at the house and assured me Dad wouldn't have felt a thing. I nodded and said I understood then he gave me a gold badge that Dad had been due to get. He said it was an award for long service. After seeing the man out I went upstairs and read Dad's love-letters to Mum. She must have returned them after she left but he'd never opened the envelope. I found it, still sealed, in the bottom of the linen basket beneath his dirty clothes.
- That evening saw me driving for the first time along the lane that I'm taking tonight. It's developed into a habit. It could take me right to the edge of the sea but I'm not travelling that far. Not yet.
- Dark shapes loom up ahead, spectral, menacing in the pale moonlight. Then my headlights pick out a faded sign: Leastowe Ten is Club Members Only and I turn in through an open gateway and park on a gravel area where the grass courts used to be. The spectral shapes are revealed as two old Nissen huts, bolted together and painted black, scarcely menacing at all. Above a steel-clad door a flickering sign declares Love-All. Beyond the huts are three hard courts with sagging nets and thistles sprouting through cracked asphalt.
- A grill slides back to reveal the would-be fifty-something who owns the place. Her face is shrivelled, nut-brown and her name is Elsie. She holds out her hand for money - she always claims the membership is full, so I get to pay each time. I grunt my usual complaint and she gives her usual response: “If you don't like it, don't come.”
- And to think this was where I was conceived. I try to imagine the occasion - the lovers arrive on sit-up-and-beg bikes with wicker-basketed handlebars and racquets clamped to the forks. They play a few games then gaze at each other all daft and gooey-eyed before Dad serves for victory. It would have been on grass of course, perhaps in the exact spot where my car was standing.
- I glance into the dance room - dim lights, a sickly shade of pink, and Status Quo being mangled by a band in the corner. Elsie claims the Beatles played here once, before Love me do, cost her all of thirty quid.
- Apart from the band, things are quiet, just four girls dancing together. One waves. I wave back then go into the lounge, where the loudest sound is Hilly's laughter. She's a girl I went to school with. She makes room for me but my attention is focused on a dark-haired girl I haven't seen before. She's beautiful and she knows it.
- “Who's she?” I nod towards the girl.
- “Ann. Fancy your chances, Charlie?”
- “No, just wondered who she was.”
- I'm desperate to get Ann's attention, but everything I say is ignored. All the time, she's preening herself, gently shifting position on her stool so her little black dress rides ever so discreetly up her thighs.
- I begin to get annoyed. They're very nice thighs, but I'm anxiously seeking some flaw, something to take that look off her perfect face. Finally the words spill out.
- “Your lips are too thin.”
- Ann's quiver and she looks as if she's about to burst into tears. There's an uneasy hush, and everyone looks away.
- Joan, the girl who waved to me, is with me in my car. She's pretty enough, with neat blonde hair and soulful eyes I'm staring into.
- Joan loses the soulful look and starts to frown. “You look really odd, Charlie, what's the matter?”
- “Got something on my mind.”
- “But not me though?” She pushes me away. “No hard feelings tonight then, Charlie?” She chuckles at her joke, but it's high-pitched, edgy. She goes back to the club.
- I stay in my car, rocking forwards, backwards in my seat. I haven't seen my Mum for twenty years.
- I'm back the following evening and Hilly greets me with a wicked smile. “Joan reckons you're turning queer.”
- “Got it wrong then, hasn't she?”
- She shrugs. “How should I know?”
- I buy her a gin and tonic. “Wouldn't you like to try me out?”
- “Don't, Charlie.” Hilly sounds sorry for me. Then she gives me a curious look. “Ann talked of nothing but you after you left. You really got under her skin. She could be your next.”
- “Maybe I don't want her to be.”
- A country and western band is playing. Hilly grins, flutters her eyes. “Old-fashioned music, Charlie. Let's dance.”
- Soon we've had too much drink and we're swaying at dangerous angles. Elsie tuts. “One of you'd better take the other home.”
- Hilly sticks her tongue out as we leave.
- We sit in my car. We're petting but it doesn't seem right. I wonder if Hilly feels the same. I'm the first to stop and she sighs, strokes my forehead.
- “You're a funny guy, Charlie.” She kisses her index finger and traces a line across my lips with it. “Maybe we just got the timing wrong.” Her touch feels like a kind of absolution and before I can stop myself, I'm telling her all about my Dad, the letters, everything.
- Hilly suddenly seems very sober. “So when you're with a girl, you keep imagining she's your mother?”
- “Hey, perhaps I'm trying to lay the ghost.” I start to laugh but it feels like I am crying. “Don't you think that's funny, Hilly?”
- “No I don't, Charlie.” Hilly's silent for a long time, staring through the window. I look too, see it has started to rain. Hilly brushes my cheek with her fingertips. “Charlie, when you lose a parent…” She draws herself up until she's looking down at me. “D'you really want to know what I think? Your father's death has brought the loss of your mother home to you - something you'd suppressed deep inside.”
- “I was four years old when she walked out. Then they walled me up in a children's home. So you're damn right I suppressed it. Whingeing for Mummy didn't go down too well in Colditz.”
- “Jesus, Charlie, I'm sorry. But my point is that you're trying to come to terms with two deaths, one physical one and one symbolic. So you end up looking for closure here, in the place where you began.”
- “How long have you been sleeping with Freud?”
- Hilly looks apologetic. “I used to read a bit of psychology.”
- “So tell me why I'm trying to screw my way through the club.”
- She stares at me, unblinking. I've never noticed how tender her eyes can look. “It's part of the same process, I suppose, recreating your conception. But I think you've already worked that out, Charlie.”
- The drink seems to slide off me and I feel sober enough to drive Hilly home. On the way she says, suddenly, “Charlie, did you know I have a son?”
- “A son?”
- “Don't look so surprised.”
- I'm seeing Hilly in a new light. “What's his name?”
- “Luke. He's three and a half.”
- I must be wearing a stupid expression because she frowns. “Charlie, stop it. I'm telling you this because he began life a bit like you.”
- “What, at the tennis club?”
- She laughs softly, it sounds like muted bells. “I didn't mean that similar. Outside the Rugby Club actually - my very first time - one lousy fuck.” Her eyes are moist. “You see, you're not unique.”
- “Who's the father?”
- “Just a boy, we were both drunk.”
- Suddenly, I feel that I should have been the one. “D'you still see him?”
- “Charlie, I never even knew his name.”
- Hilly pays her baby-sitter and invites me in for coffee. Luke is still awake and his face lights up when he sees me.
- “Daddy!”
- I wonder if he says that to every man who visits.
- Hilly makes the coffee strong and black. Luke climbs onto my lap and she tries to move him but I say, “Let him stay.” I'm hoping he won't grow up obsessed about his father.
- “I've been thinking,” Hilly says. “Elsie might remember your parents, she's been at the club since the Stone Age, when they actually played tennis.”
- Elsie raises her eyebrows. “So you're Jack Pruitt's boy. And Sally Davis's. You should have said. I'd have offered you membership then.” She rummages through a drawer and passes me a photograph of young people dressed for tennis. Scrawled on the back is LTC August 1959, the year before I was born.
- I've already recognised Dad and suddenly I remember the girl smiling shyly by his side. She, leaning over my cot, tucking me in, kissing me goodnight. My small figure walking beside her, my arm outstretched, holding her hand. Then another, later time when I reached for her, only to find that I was looking up at a stranger.
- Elsie has trouble meeting my eyes. “I'm sorry about the orphanage.”
- I glare at Hilly, but she shakes her head and mouths “Not me.”
- Elsie says “Jack couldn't cope, he was drinking heavily.”
- “He managed to keep that up. What really happened? Why did my mother leave?”
- Elsie breathes in deeply. “Sally and her father were… very close. He used to interfere, give her money, things… Jack resented that. There were niggles, then full-scale rows and one night Jack gave Sally a beating and she left.”
- “He swore she ran off with another man.”
- Elsie turns her eyes away. “No, there was no other man. Sally and her father emigrated to Canada. A fresh start, they said...”
- “While I was incarcerated in that so-called Christian home.”
- Elsie chews her bottom lip. “She loved you, you know, she was heartbroken.”
- “Then why did she let me go?” My fists are clenched tight.
- “Sally was her father's daughter and he was a… persuasive man.” Elsie lowers her eyes.
- “Forget it, Elsie, I think I've heard enough.”
- Her face lightens and Hilly squeezes my hand.
- I leave Hilly and Elsie together then sit in my car. I expect I'll feel better now that I know.
- After an hour or so, there is a knock on my window. It's Hilly. “Someone to see you,” she says.
- It's Ann of the thin lips. Hilly hurries away, head bowed, towards the clubhouse. I get out of the car, start to follow her.
- “Charlie, it's cold. Can I get in?”
- A nerve snatches in my temple and I turn around. I've forgotten Ann was there.
“It's the most hurtful thing anyone's ever said.”
- Ann is tearful, asks me to take her home. I want to say no, but her eyes are begging me and I give in. Outside her door, she starts in on me, desperate to please but I can't even raise a smile. Instead, I tell her why I was so mean. I tell her she's beautiful and her lips are fine then I watch how quickly she can switch from desolation to victory. She pecks me goodnight and goes indoors.
- I drive home, can't sleep, go out again and at half-past six I'm outside Hilly's flat, trying to work out what's bothering me. I glance up at her windows but there's no sign of her stirring. As a church bell chimes seven I begin to cry over my Dad, my Mum, everything. Twenty years of grief and pain flood out. I cry for Hilly too, I want to hide myself in her arms.
- A light comes on in the flat and I see Hilly draw back her curtains. She's hugging Luke to her chest and I recall how easily I let her walk away. Maybe I'm not too early, I think. Maybe I'm too late.
- Hilly is looking out of her window. I don't know if she can see me in the morning gloom but I cross my fingers, breathe out as slowly as I can and begin the long walk towards her door.
