The Stars’ Tennis Balls

‘Apart from money,’ said Cade with relish. ‘His father is dirt poor.

‘Yes,’ said Ashley, quietly. ‘Dirt poor.

‘Not that there’s anything wrong with that,’ Cade added with tactless haste. ‘I didn’t mean to say… I mean, money isn’t … you know …

‘Isn’t everything? I often wonder about that.’ Ashley spoke clearly and coolly, as he always did when angry, which was often. Anger fed him and clothed him and he owed it much. Cade’s clumsiness had pricked him hard, but he used the rage to let his mind fly. ‘Shall we formulate it this way? Money is to Everything, as an Aeroplane is to Australia. The aeroplane isn’t Australia, but it remains the only practical way we know of reaching it. So perhaps, metonymically, the aeroplane is Australia after all.’

‘Gin then?’

‘Why not?’ From vexation to amusement, at speed. Ashley found it very hard to stay angry with a species as low down the evolutionary ladder as a Cade.

‘Your oration was … it was amazing,’ Cade said, handing Ashley a bottle and a glass tumbler. Ashley noticed that the bottle was half empty while Cade already appeared to be more than half full.

‘You liked it?’

‘Well it was in Latin, wasn’t it? But, yeah. Sounded good.’

‘We aim to please.’

‘Want to stick some music on?’

‘Some music?’ Ashley scrutinised Cade’s proudly filed stack of records with a fastidious and entirely self-conscious disgust. ‘But you don’t appear to have any. I mean what, for example, is a Honky Chateau? A castle filled with geese? A claret that makes you vomit?’

‘Elton John. It’s years old. You must have heard of it – shit!’

A gentle, loose-knuckled knock on the door brought Cade bolt upright. Before he had time to embark once more upon his Colditz routine, Ned Maddstone had entered the room.

‘Oh gosh, sorry. Didn’t mean to… Hey, for goodness’ sake, don’t worry. I’m not … I mean bloody hell, it’s almost the end of term. Carry on please. I just…

‘Come in, Ned, we’re just, you know, having a bit of a celebration,’ said Cade, standing up.

‘Wow, that’s really kind, but actually…, well, I’m going off to have dinner with my father. He’s staying at the George. Thought you might be here, B-G, and I wondered if you wanted to come along? Er, both of you. Obviously. You know, last night of term and everything.’

Ashley smiled to himself at the awkward inclusion of Rufus.

‘That’s really kind,’ Rufus was saying, ‘but you know. I’m a bit hammered actually. Don’t think I’d be much use. Probably embarrass you, as a matter of fact.’

Ned turned anxiously to Ashley. ‘Unless you’re doing anything else, Ash?’

‘I should be honoured, Ned. Truly honoured. Will you let me go upstairs and change into something a little more vespertine?’ He pointed mournfully at his speech day garb. ‘You go on ahead. I shall join you at the George if I may.'

‘Great. Great. That’s great,’ said Ned grinning happily. ‘Okay then. And Rufus, till August, then?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You are coming on Paddy’s school trip?’

‘Oh. Yeah,’ said Cade. ‘Sure. Absolutely.’

‘I’ll see you in Oban, then. Can’t wait. Right. Okay then. Good.’

There was a silence in Cade’s study after Ned had backed himself out of the room. As if the sun had been blotted out, thought Ashley with great bitterness.

That he, Ashley Barson-Garland, should be patronised by this brainless, floppy-haired, goody-two-shoed, squeaky-clean, doe-eyed, prefect-perfect, juicy-fruity piece of- He saw it, of course, Ashley saw it quite clearly in Ned’s eyes. The sorrowful apology. The friendly sympathy. Ned was too stupid to know that he knew. If anyone else, anyone else in the school had read his diary, they would have teased him, mobbed him to hell, spread it all over the school. Ashley wasn’t popular, he was fully aware of that. He wasn’t one of them. He sounded right, but he wasn’t one of them. He sounded too right. These cretinous sons of upper-class broodmares and high-pedigreed stallions, they were loutish and graceless, entirely undeserving of the privilege accorded them. He, Ashley Barson-Garland, stood apart because he wasn’t enough of an oik. Such splendid irony. But, since it was Ned who had stolen a look into his diary, Ashley’s secrets were safe.

Yet, no secret is ever safe when another has possession of it, Ashley told himself. It was intolerable to imagine his life, any part of his life, having a separate existence inside another person’s head.

His mind considered the possibility that he had left his bag open beside Ned deliberately. When the message had come that the Headmaster wanted to see him, why had he not taken the bag with him? He was certain that he had never been so lax with his diary before. In the first place he almost never carried it around the school. It was always safely locked up inside the desk in his study. It must be noted too that Biology was the only lesson he took in which he sat next to Ned. Did he therefore want Ned to read it? Ashley shook himself out of this spurious cul-de-sac. Cheap psychological guesswork would get him nowhere. More to the point was this question: which pages had Maddstone read? Ned being Ned, Ashley reasoned, he would have started at the beginning. It was impossible that he had got very far. Speed-reading was not one of his accomplishments.

What would Ned have done next? Prayed probably. Ashley wanted to snort at the very idea of it. Yes, Ned would have gone to the chapel, fallen to his knees and prayed for guidance. And what manner of guidance would have been offered by Ned’s shining auburn-haired shampoo-commercial Christ? ‘Go thou and hold Ashley to you as a brother. My son Ashley is frightened and filled with self-hatred. Go thou then and may the kindness and love of God shine upon his countenance and make him whole.’

Sympathy. Ashley’s whole body tightened. He wanted to bite Ned’s throat open. Wanted to pull the veins and nerves out with his teeth and spit them over the floor. No, that was wrong. That wasn’t it at all. He didn’t want that. That was a scenario that only ended in Ned’s martyrdom. Ashley wanted something far more perfect. He was feeling a new anger that he had some difficulty in identifying at first. It was hatred.

Cade had finished up the gin. ‘You’re not really going to have dinner with his parents are you?’ he asked.

‘Going? Certainly I am going,’ said Ashley sweetly.

‘Don’t think he wanted to invite me,’ said Cade. ‘Cunt.’ He banged a fist into the arm of his chair, sending up a puff of dust. ‘I mean, what the fuck did I stand up for? Like he’s a master or something. He acts so fucking straight. What a typocritical turd.’

‘Typocritical?’ said Ashley. ‘I like that. Typocritical. You surprise me sometimes, Rufus.’

‘Another toke?’ Cade proffered a half inch of joint. ‘I meant hypocritical.’

‘No, you didn’t. You may think you did, but your brain knew better. You can’t have failed to read The Psychopathology of Everyday Speech, surely?’

‘Bollocks,’ said Cade.

Ashley rose. ‘Well, I had better be going up to change. What a joy to get out of this confining nonsense.

This was a lie. Ashley rarely felt more joy than when dressed in the Sunday uniform of striped trousers, tailcoat and top hat.

‘Arsehole,’ said Cade. ‘Fucking fucking arsehole.’

‘Why thank you, dear.’

‘No, not you. Maddstone. Who the fuck does he think he is?’

‘Quite,’ said Ashley, leaving. ‘Sweet dreams.’

‘Mind you,’ Rufus Cade rumbled to himself, leaning back in his armchair as the door closed. ‘You’re an arsehole too, Ashley Bastard-Garland. let’s face it, we’re all arseholes. Ow!’ He had burnt his bottom lip on the last thin quarter inch of joint. ‘All arseholes, except Ned fucking Maddstone. Which makes him,’ he reasoned to himself, ‘the biggest arsehole of all.’

Pete and Hillary were wearing the insufferably smug look they always assumed when they had made love the previous night. Portia tried to cancel out its atmosphere by moving around the kitchen with extra noise and impatience, banging drawers so loudly that the cutlery inside resonated and jingled like a gamalan. Fierce Tuscan sunlight streamed through the window and lit the big central table where Pete was slitting large batons of bread.

‘This morning,’ he said, ‘we shall feast on prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella. There’s cherry jam, there’s apricot jam and Hills is brewing up some coffee.’

‘We have feasted on exactly the same things every morning since we got here,’ said Portia sitting herself down with a glass of orange juice.

‘I know. Isn’t it wonderful? Hills and I were up early this morning and we went into the village for fresh bread. Smell that. Go on. No, go on.’

‘Pete!’ Portia pushed the proffered loaf away.

‘Someone got out of bed the wrong side this morning

Portia looked at her father. He wore an unbuttoned batique shirt, an elephant hair bracelet, wooden sandals and, she saw with a shudder, tight maroon swimming trunks that emphasised every bulge and curve of his genitals.

‘For God’s sake – ‘ she began, but was interrupted by the sleepy, shuffling entrance of her cousin.

‘Aha!’ said Pete cheerfully. ‘It’s awake. It’s awake and needs feeding.’

‘Well hi there!’ said Hillary who had developed the strange habit of going slightly American whenever she spoke to Gordon. This also drove Portia mad.

‘So what’s up?’ Gordon said, moving a shopping bag from the seat next to Portia and sitting down.

‘Well now,’ said Hillary brightly, as she set down a coffee jug between them, ‘Pete and I were thinking of maybe checking out the palio.’

‘Its been and gone, Hillary,’ said Portia with the exasperated air of one addressing a child. ‘We met that family who’d seen it last week, remember? A rider fell off his horse right in front of them and there was a bone sticking out of his leg. Even you can’t have forgotten that.’

‘Ah, but there’s more than one palio in Italy, precious,’ said Pete. ‘Lucca has its very own palio this evening. Not as spectacular or dangerous as Siena, but rather fun they tell me.’

‘Lucca?’ said Gordon through a mouthful of bread. ‘Where’s Lucca?’

‘Not too far,’ Pete replied, pouring coffee into a large bowl to which he added hot milk. Fragments of skin floated to the top. Looking at them made Portia want to retch. ‘I wanted to go there anyway. It’s the olive oil capital of the world, they say. You can watch it being pressed. I thought we might swim and read this morning,