The Stars’ Tennis Balls

‘I am proud of him. I don’t need your endorsement.’

‘Of course not.'

‘I notice,’ said Portia, ‘that you did not say that you had no wish to hurt my husband.’

‘Mrs Fendeman, it’s very important that you try to understand the complex relationship that exists between a newspaper publisher and his editorial staff.’

‘Oh please…’

‘Ah, thank you, Lily. That’s fine. Definitely no calls now, okay? Thanks, love.’

Simon watched her pour the water into a glass. She looked across at him and gave a sad half-smile.

‘If I hadn’t known when I came in, I would have known now,’ she said.

‘Excuse me?’

‘That habit of jogging your knee up and down. I can see you as you were. A little lost boy.’

Simon stood up. He took a deep breath. ‘Oh Portia,’ he said. ‘Portia. I can’t tell you what…’ He started to pace up and down the room. ‘I went to a lecture you gave last April. I have watched you in your kitchen, from the street. That same house in Plough Lane. I’ve read your books. I’ve seen your light in Albert’s eyes. But to have you here. It’s very.

‘There is no light in Albert’s eyes. Not any more. You’ve put it out.’

Simon had no wish to be side-tracked down paths opened up by Portia. ‘I suppose it was that page on his website, was it? I had a go too. Gave myself blond hair. Rather frightening. That’s what told you, is it? Or did you know before?’

‘I’m really not sure. I had only seen you on television and in magazines. There was something in my mind. A distrust. A worry, I suppose…'

‘A distrust?’ Simon came and sat down opposite her again. ‘How can you say distrust?’

‘An uncomfortable feeling. It should have been distrust. Please, Ned. I don’t want to talk to you about anything but my family. My son.

‘He should have been my son!’

‘But he isn’t. Half of him is Gordon, half of him is me. None of him is you.’

‘I know. I know. I thought … it crossed my mind … maybe you had lied about his age. Maybe he was actually two years older. Maybe he was conceived…’

‘There go those knees again…

Simon stood up. ‘But I realise that he is Gordon’s. What you have to understand,’ he started pacing again, ‘is what happened to me. What they did to me.’

‘Ashley, Gordon and Rufus. I know what they did to you.

‘You know? How could you possibly know? There isn’t the slightest possibility you could know.’

‘Gordon told me.’

Simon stopped and turned. ‘He told you?’ He resumed his pacing. ‘Yes. I see. He told you. I suppose that makes sense. You realised who I am and you told him. He confessed all and sent you to me. It makes sense.

‘You may know many things, Mr Cotter, but… ‘Portia, please. You know my name. Use it.’ ‘You may know many things, Mr Cotter,’ persisted Portia, ‘you may speak many languages, run many businesses and control many lives, but you do not know the first thing about people. Gordon told me years ago. Years ago. Around the time Albert was born in fact. It had been preying on his mind like a tumour. He had watched me go into the hospital and talk to your father day after day after day and he knew that he was responsible. It burned him up. He loved me, you see. He never stopped trying to find you. I gave up long before he did.’

‘That was certainly a clever way to win you. I never doubted his brains.'

‘Well you should have done, he hasn’t many. A good heart, but no brains. Look at the mess he’s in.’

‘Mess? Look at the mess that African tribe is in. A good heart?’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake. You don’t want a debate about moral responsibility do you? Do we prefer to treat Africans like children? When they hurt their own, must it always be our fault? Was he more wicked than the government that actually did the deed? More wicked because he’s white and “should know better” than those poor helpless little piccaninnies? Yes, it was wrong of him. It’s wrong of us every time we buy a doll made by children in sweat shops. Good, decent, high-minded, liberal men and women once stirred sugar into their coffee knowing it was picked by slaves. You’re wearing leather shoes, one day such an act will be regarded as the height of immorality. We buy things, we live in the world, we’re all involved, all messed up together in the same moral soup. For the love of God, how can you be so arrogant? Can’t you extend a moment’s sympathy to a man floundering in quicksand?’

‘A quicksand of his own making.’

‘That’s what makes it so pitiful still. If it was not his fault he could be like you and wallow in the luxury of divine rage. If fate throws brickbats at you, it’s easy. When they’re your own and they bounce back at you, it’s hopeless. It is his fault, so he … he pretends. You should see him… he’s so lost. So completely helpless.’ Portia was furious to hear her voice quavering and she knew that there were now visible tears in her eyes.

‘I’m sorry, Portia. Truly sorry.

‘I don’t want your pity, I want your promise. I suppose it’s too late to do anything for Gordon’s reputation, but Albert. Leave him alone. For God’s sake leave him alone.’

‘He’s the one picking the fight,’ said Simon. He was leaning against the opposite wall. ‘If I know him, he’ll be sitting in a cybercafé somewhere with a laptop, using an alias with a free account and not accepting any email for fear of more viruses. It’s quite an intellectual challenge.’

‘He’s a child. You can let go.’

Simon considered the letter he had written to Oxford that morning. A letter that would certainly reverse the college’s decision to accept Albert as an undergraduate.

‘I’m sorry, Portia,’ he said. ‘Everything is in train.

Portia looked at the space above his head. ‘Everything thoroughly thought through, in fact.’

‘One day you’ll understand.’

‘I can’t pretend that I know everything that’s happened to you. But I can see the result. Perhaps you should be thanking Gordon. You have almost boundless wealth and a mind that everyone assures me is terrifying in its breadth, knowledge and power. You seem to have everything that the world covets.'

‘Not you, Portia. I don’t have you. I don’t have your children. I don’t have a family history, a youth.’

‘Whatever had been done to him, do you know how Ned would have reacted? If Gordon had cut his arm off, say, in a fit of rage? Ned would have blushed and stammered and said, “Gosh, that’s all right. My fault, actually. Please don’t worry yourself. Awfully sorry.” That’s how Ned would have dealt with whatever fate had thrown him. With a dazzling smile and an embarrassed shuffle of the feet.'

‘I am Ned and that is not how I reacted.’

‘I don’t know who you are, Mr Cotter, but I can state with absolute assurance that you are not Ned Maddstone. I knew him well, you see.’

‘You will understand. And soon.’ Simon moved towards her. ‘I am not responsible for what is happening. All this will soon be over and you will understand completely. We will have time to talk and remember. You will see that I am merely an instrument. An instrument of God.’

From the doorway Portia shuddered. ‘Oh dear heavens,’ she whispered. ‘You poor man. I’m so sorry.’

Simon stood for while alone in the office, thinking. After a while he called Lily on the internal phone.

‘That post I put out. It hasn’t gone yet, has it?’

‘Still here, Simon.'

‘Bring it in would you? There’s a love.’

He found that he still could not sit down without his knees jiggling up and down, so he leant against the window as he reread the letter to St Mark’s. He laid it on the desk and smiled to himself. It could keep.

V. Coda

Albert and Portia had sat quietly in the kitchen for a quarter of an hour each smelling the residue of Gordon’s fear, neither speaking of it. He had left the house for his board meeting at half past eight.

‘Doesn’t do to look overkeen,’ he had said, cheerfully stuffing papers into his briefcase.

Mother and son were each proud of the other’s hypocrisy. Albert had not imagined Portia capable of a phrase like ‘Go get ‘em, Tiger!’ and she had not thought that the day would ever dawn when Albert would punch his father on the arm and say ‘Attaboy, Dad!’

Gordon had swept out with a brisk nod of the head, as if to show that it was an ordinary day. On ordinary days, as Albert and Portia were all too well aware, he would have kissed them each and said, ‘Time to cast some pearls before swine’, ‘Wish me luck’ or even ‘Yeugh! Another shitty day for our hero.’

While the coffee went cold in their cups and Java howled in vain for admission, Portia had told Albert everything she knew about Ned Maddstone.

‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ he had wanted to know. ‘Why didn’t Dad tell me?’

‘I expect we would have told you one day. It didn’t seem … necessary. But Dad doesn’t know that Ned has come back. And there’s no reason why he should either. I only realised myself the other day. None of us knows what happened to Ned after he disappeared. I don’t suppose we ever shall. But your father worried about him terribly for years. Perhaps he still does. We don’t speak about it.’

‘Do you…, do you still love Ned?’

‘I love your father very much. And I love you.

‘And grandpa.'

‘And grandpa, of course.

‘And Java?’

‘Naturally Java.’

They had both laughed. Portia had squeezed Albert’s hand in appreciation of his lightening her load and he had returned the pressure.