‘What is it,’ inquired Barthes, ‘that makes Joyce different from the others?’
‘He’s got music,’ said Chekhov.
Joyce went to see an ophthalmologist after the match and was unavailable for comment.
Lenya and Dietrich beat Gonne-MacBride and Markievicz in a women’s doubles match, although just beforehand it was revealed that Gonne-MacBride’s husband had recently been shot ‘as a result of an incident involving a post office’, and Markievicz acknowleged she was to be arrested as soon as she returned to Dublin. Asked if they would like the match to be postponed, the Irish women said, ‘No. The tennis is great. At least it has an element of chance.’
Dietrich has a huge following among young American men and photographs of her are in constant circulation on the internet even though she has never won an individual event of any kind. She was signing autographs long after everyone else had left.
Maxine Elliott was back on court again today with Ruth Draper, up against Sackville-West and Stephen-Woolf in their quarter-final match. ‘It’s OK,’ said Elliott, ‘I’m used to playing in the afternoon and then again at night, and so is Ruth. This is what we do.’
Sackville-West and Stephen-Woolf arrived late and instructed a doorman to bring their racquets in and place them near their chairs. ‘Within reasonable reach,’ said Sackville-West, ‘like tools in a garden shed.’ They acknowledged their friends in the crowd, did a few deep knee-bends and gave the signal to the umpire that the hit-up could commence. They were mightily affronted when they lost the first set, flew about like caped crusaders to win the second and, even though Sackville-West went off the boil in the third, Draper and Elliott could not stop laughing at some private joke and the English pairing took it 7–5.
There were surprises ranging from mild to extreme in the other women’s doubles matches. The New Zealanders Mansfield and Hodgkins took out de Valois and Pavlova and, in an upset that must rank with the fate of Mr Dumpty, Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan beat Akhmatova and Arendt. The two Europeans made no attempt to conserve energy before their women’s singles semi-final tomorrow. They gave it everything and were in strife all the way. Part of their problem was working out who was in charge at the other end. Keller and Sullivan communicate like no one else, using words, signs and anything else they can find. With Sullivan yelling, ‘Helen. Backhand. Topspin. Now!’ to Keller who couldn’t see where the ball had landed, and Keller pointing to Sullivan to go down the tramlines, it was impossible to assess their match plan. Keller was even cautioned for calling ‘Yours!’ to the umpire as an unplayable Akhmatova serve scorched by.
‘It was a shambles,’ said Sullivan. ‘We didn’t really have a plan. We just wanted to see if we could do it, I suppose.’
Semi-finals
Day 34
Duchamp v. Orwell • Joyce v. Eliot • Beckett and Duchamp v. Braque and Derain • Magritte and Dali v. Chaplin and O’Neill • Chekhov and Miller v. Cocteau and Picasso
The first man through to the singles final would be French or English. It was a battle sanctioned by history. Neither Duchamp nor Orwell is a big powerful player, neither has a huge serve and neither is a dominator.
If this were happening at a velodrome they would both sit high up on the bank, immobile, balancing on the pedals, each watching, waiting for the other to make a move, and then pouncing. This is sprinter behaviour, but it also entails a capacity for endurance, for patience, and for being right in the long run.
Duchamp had more patience in the first set. He waited and he planned and he thought. Orwell bolted at 5–5 and Duchamp smiled slightly, knowing the set was lost but the trap was in place. In the second, Orwell sprinted earlier, winning it 6–3. Duchamp had a twinkle in his eye as he sat down and he took no drink. He was on court waiting for Orwell to begin the third and now he played like a mind-reader. Wherever Orwell went, he found it covered. Whatever he tried to set up, he found it blocked. Whenever he took a risk, he was punished.
In the fourth set Duchamp built an attack designed to neutralise Orwell and stop him from creating opportunities. Part of Duchamp’s strategy was to take the sting out of Orwell by getting him to accept the possibility of a draw. The Frenchman made no effort to win some points and took others easily. When he ‘accidentally’ broke serve to take the set, Orwell realised he had been duped. Furious, he served faster in the fifth than at any time in the tournament. Although this heightened the likelihood of what he called ‘Doublefault’ (the idea that a player who is serving a lot of aces can convince himself he is winning a match he is, in fact, losing), he controlled it admirably and Duchamp’s endgame began to come apart in his hands. The attack was mounted faster than it could be dismantled and Orwell went through to the final, with a chance to be the last man in Europe.
Joyce and Eliot arrived on court for their match at 2.15 pm. Three hours later they were still out there. It was clear from the start that Eliot had never encountered anything like Joyce before, and that he didn’t much like what he saw—a man whose playing gear was old and faded, whose glasses were held together with gaffer-tape and who was wearing borrowed shoes.
Joyce took the first before Eliot worked out quite what he was doing. As the players sat between ends, Eliot drew the umpire’s attention to ‘a number of crude remarks’ Joyce made to friends in the crowd, which SuperTom thought ‘brought the game into disrepute’.
‘Disrepute, is it?’ said Joyce. ‘Disrepute? Do you think arseholes shooting their own players is bringing the game into repute? Do you think that, Tom? You think not letting
