THE INFORMATION

pottery in The Little Magazine. Demi came in and served him his drink (a dry sherry) in its crystal capita. And she lingered, arms folded, with her long glass of Perrier. He had stopped being nice to Demi. On account of information conveyed to him by Richard, he hadn't looked at her for two days. And for two mornings he had taken his breakfast in the visitors' room, with Pamela.

'How was your lesson?'

'Good,' said Gwyn. 'Positive.'

'Maybe I'll go to him. He could teach me a few tricks or two.'

'… What?' It was quite an effort, asking a question without looking up.

'Just a thought.'

'Teach you what?'

'Some tricks.'

'You said 'a few tricks or two.' It's 'a few tricks.' Or 'a trick or two.' Not 'a few tricks or two.' '

Demi shrugged and said, 'Um-'Pamela' told me about your incident. How very unpleasant. Are you sure you're all right?'

His face formed the expression that meant: work. Research. Demi apologized and left the room. Gwyn started reading-or vetting-a piece from the recruitment methods of Albrecht Wallenstein (1583-1634). This piece fell into the (by now capacious) category where it was the very distance of the subject from his own concerns that claimed his interest. Things were either pleasant or unpleasant, after all, and, if pleasant, they might be compared to the world of Amelior, and, if unpleasant, they might be contrasted with it.

Three hours earlier: Gwyn, hunkered down courtside with the great Buttruguena, in the vast fridge of the Oerlich.

The great man looked even older than he looked on TV-when they picked him out in the royal box or the celebrity enclosure, or when he stepped forward, as he did every year, to congratulate the champion at Roland Garros. Older, and less benign. In fact he looked almost as savage and stupid as some carnivorous ray or eel of the deep-after a more or less satisfactory kill (no poisons-yet; no impenetrable carapaces). Gwyn didn't feel any of this. He was a busy man with an immediate purpose. And if, in the mind of Richard Tull, there was always a kind of blues playing, with Gwyn the signature tune was much more upbeat; it was usually easy listening. The two men were introduced by affable Gavin in the bar, and had then walked slowly and silently down a long bunker of a passage whose walls were studded with framed photographs of famous tennis players and of famous people playing tennis, newscasters, soap stars, mountaineers, royals (Gwyn spent much of his time at the Oerlich wondering when Gavin was going to get out his camera. But maybe there wasn't any room). When he walked, the sole of the great Buttruguena's right gym shoe was almost fully exposed to the air. His right foot seemed to be upside down.

'We'll hit,' he said. And they began.

In terms of trajectory and weight, there was no difference between the forehand and the backhand of the great man, the forehand hit flat, the backhand with a slice that made the ball hum as it crossed the net. Without apology or embarrassment Gwyn skipped and twirled around the baseline, his game a disastrous miscellany. Steadily the great man reduced the power and the depth of his drives. After ten minutes he pointed to the bench and limped toward it shaking his head.

'I don't understand,' he said, staring at the net post. 'You have no talent.'

'I know there's a long way to go.'

Using his forehead only, the great Buttruguena shrugged: traduced, trifled with. 'It's quite hopeless.'

'I know there's a lot to do.'

'What you want? Spend a fortune to be one percent better?'

Buttruguena sat there, fierce, old, handsome, sour. He had won the French on clay and the Australian on grass. He had been a star in the days before the star system. Now he taught nineteen- year-olds who had their own airplanes.

'The thing is, there's only this one player I want to beat. I thoughtyou might be able to-you know, give me a few tips.'

Buttruguena showed interest.

'He's not a whole league better. He beats me 6-3, 6-4. His backhand is pretty weak but it's-'

Buttruguena erased all this with his hand. 'Okay. We can do it in five minutes right here and then we walk off the court. Okay?'

'Perfect.'

'Are you richer than him? Who buys the balls?'

Afterwards, with his hair still wet from the shower, Gwyn had a Danish and a cup of espresso, more out of a sense of duty (duty to the expensive amenities) than hunger or delectation. Next he went and pretended to look around the pro shop: here you got a good view of the girls who policed Reception, shell-suited blondes from Sweden and South Africa, their tans growing lusterless under the striplight of public relations. He moved past them with his smile, his jerked nods, his colossal sports bag.

Outside he turned right, under the tube track where members such as himself were allowed to park. There was the builders' yard, there was the dead pub (peer through the glass: it looked as though it had been wiped out by some criminal knees-up, thirty years ago). He walked on. He hesitated, and walked on. A big black guy in a big black leather coat was leaning on the driver's door of Gwyn's Saab. Now what? Gwyn approached briskly, producing his keys: a busy man with an immediate purpose.

'Excuse me. My car.'

They smiled at each other. The black guy didn't move. He announced: 'Tennis.'

'That's right,' said Gwyn. 'Just had a lesson.'

'No you ain't.'

'Excuse me?'

He unfurled his leather coat. There was a pouch sewn into the lining which contained a baseball bat. He lifted it out between finger and thumb and lowered it to the ground.

Gwyn felt the impulse to run, but the impulse was youthless; it wouldn't get him anywhere.

'You want a baseball lesson?'

'No thanks,' he whispered.

The black guy stepped aside saying, 'Nah. You don't want any of this. You don't want any of this …'

He had to step forward. He could feel the back of his own head, the hair cringing, or trying to grow-to pad and cover the helpless egg of his skull. As he beeped the lock-release and opened the door he could hearthe swathes cut by the bat through the surprisingly heavy resistance of the air.

The time had come for him to share the good news with Gina.

'Bad news,' he said. 'You know Anstice? Brace yourself. She's dead. Sleeping pills. She just went home and did it.'

Of course, it wasn't all good news, and Richard had been wretched at first. Say she'd fingered him in some suicide note and Gina found out about it. Say the police came round-with the diary he knew she kept. But he seemed to have got away with it okay. And that was that. It was done. And nothing would ever persuade him that Anstice was having a worse time dead. On the other hand, he was free to wonder why so many writers' women killed themselves, or went insane. And he concluded: because writers are nightmares. Writers are nightmares from which you cannot awake. Most alive when alone, they make living hard to do for those around them. He knew this now-now that he wasn't a writer. Now that he was just a nightmare.