The Stars’ Tennis Balls

Ned fucking Maddstone.

Gordon did not think of himself as a bad man, but he knew that lately he had been having bad thoughts. He had stopped being able to think of the shock of seeing his father tumble in a heap to the ground in front of him, roaring in pain and clutching at his throat. He had lost any sense of his mother, retaining only the memory of his suffocating desire to get out of the hospital and into the open air, away from that thin, yellow-skinned woman with a tube up her nose and a frightened look in her eyes.

He had considered his new situation on the flight over.

‘One, these guys are atheists,’ he had said to himself. ‘Saturdays, I won’t have to go to synagogue. Two, they’re anti-Zionist. I won’t be forced to go on kibbutz August. Three, they’re British, I won’t have to talk about my “feelings” like I did after Mom died. Four, these guys are obscenely rich. Aunt Hillary’s family were multimillionaire retailers or something, so I won’t be in that shotgun shit-hole in Brooklyn. I’ll have a car. We’ll vacation twice a year. Barbados and Hawaii.’

But oh no…

‘This will be your bicycle. We don’t believe in cars.

‘E. P. Thompson is delivering a lecture on Cultural Imperialism to the Fabian Society, we’ve forty-five minutes to get there.’

‘We booked a villa in the Tuscan hills. Porsh wants to see the Duccios in Siena and Hills is collecting material for her next novel.’

‘Gordon, let’s consider how you feel about Rose and Leo’s death, yeah?’

‘You’ll enjoy it! CND marches are always good fun. And they’re making a difference too.'

What a fucking joke. But worst of all was …

‘I’ve got this boyfriend…’

‘His name is Ned …

‘There! That’s him, sitting in the middle, holding a cricket ball …’

‘Look, Gordon! He’s done a drawing of himself bored in the middle of a French lesson…’

‘Look at that smile…’

‘Look, another letter already…’

‘Look…’

Ned fucking Maddstone.

Ned leant over the Orphana’s gunwale and felt the spray fly up into his face. The sea glistened like wet coal under a sky heavy with stars. It was Ned’s private ocean tonight. Below, the school sailing instructor Paddy Leclare and the five other boys on the trip were asleep in their berths. When it had become clear that, because of the extra hours spent in the Giant’s Causeway, they were going to have to sail back to Scotland through the night, Ned had offered himself at once for this watch. In the past he might have done so out of duty or good citizenship, but Ned knew that he had volunteered on this occasion because he so relished time alone with himself, time to think about Portia and time simply to take pleasure in being. On nights like these, in a good boat running free, a person could imagine himself the king of the world. On land, it seemed to Ned, man was always inferior to the animals and disconnected from nature. Cars and machines might be clever, but they bullied the natural world. At sea, man was using nature, but not using nature up. He would put this point in his next letter to Portia. Love was turning him into something of a philosopher. The clever ones, Ashley Barson-Garland for instance, would think him immeasurably stupid, but then Ashley might not understand that Ned liked being a little stupid. It was sometimes a comfortable thing to be. After all, Ashley’s cleverness was no kind of solace to him. In fact it seemed to make him deeply unhappy. Unhappiness to Ned, especially in his present condition of unassailable elation, was an incomprehensible and alien thing to afflict a fellow human, like acne or bad hand-eye co-ordination. He knew there were people who suffered from these plights, but he could only wonder why they didn’t snap themselves out of it and have more fun.

To be a lover was to be part of a group singled out by fate for special attention. Ned had never imagined that he might have possessed such pleasure in simply being himself. His skill at sport, his good looks, his easy-going nature, his popularity – he would never for a moment think of those with satisfaction – if anything they were sources of embarrassment. His being a Lover though, a Lover with the most capital of Ls, made him burst with so much pride he could scarcely recognise himself. He wondered for the millionth time if Portia really felt the same. Perhaps her feelings were stronger. Perhaps his were stronger. Perhaps she imagined that hers were stronger and would never believe how strong –

A sudden sound from below made him turn in surprise. ‘Maddstone!’

Peering astern Ned made out the shape of a head appearing in the hatchway.

‘Hello?’ he called into the darkness. ‘Who is it?’

‘Maddstone, you’ve got to come below.’

‘Rufus? Is that you?’

‘There’s something wrong with Paddy. He’s been making weird noises.’

Ned leapt to the hatch and scrambled down into the galley.

Lit by nothing more than a single tile-lamp and the glow of the radio set, Paddy Leclare’s body was slumped forward in his chair, face down over the charts.

Ned approached him softly. ‘Skipper?’

‘Is he dead?’ whispered Cade.

‘I can’t tell,’ said Ned, stretching out a hand to Leclare’s neck. ‘Skipper! Paddy! Are you all right?’ He felt a bumping pulse beneath his fingertips and breathed a sigh of relief.

Leclare suddenly gave a great cough and started to struggle upright. Ned was shocked to see a long trail of bloody saliva suspended between his mouth and the chart table.

‘Is that you Ned? Is it you?’

‘Yes, skipper, it’s me. Is everything all right?’

‘Ah, well now, I wouldn’t say that … who’s that with you?’ Leclare stared over Ned’s shoulder, a look of fright in his eyes.

‘Sir, it’s only Rufus, sir.’

‘Rufus, that you there?’

‘Yes, skipper.’

Leclare’s breath came in short shallow bursts and his skin gleamed with sweat.

‘Well then,’ he panted. ‘I want you to do me a favour, young Rufus. I want you to go astern to the starboard locker.’

Rufus nodded, white-faced.

‘You remember when I showed you the locker where the flares are stowed? Good lad. The locker beside it is padlocked. Here’s the key…’ Leclare pushed a keyring across the table. ‘It’s the bright gold one. I want you to open it up and fetch me out a bottle of Jameson’s.

‘Skipper are you sure?’ said Ned. ‘If you’re not well…

‘I know what I need, so I do,’ said Leclare. ‘You stay with me, young Ned. Off you go, Rufus. Quick as you like.’

Rufus turned and clambered noisily up the ladder to the main deck.

‘What a lump,’ said Leclare. ‘He’ll never make a sailor, that one.’

Ned put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Paddy, please don’t be angry with me, but I really don’t think you should be drinking. Whatever it is that’s wrong with you, I’m sure it won’t be made any better by – ‘

‘Calm down, Ned. There’s no whisky in that locker, and I told him the wrong key too. It gives us a little time.

Laughter at the neatness of his strategy set Leclare off into a renewed fit of coughing that sprayed blood and spittle into Ned’s face.

‘Oh Jesus, Skipper. Look, I’m going to radio for a helicopter.’

‘Pass me that bag over there,’ said Leclare, as if he hadn’t heard.

‘This one?’

‘That’s the feller, hand it to me. Now Ned, look into my eyes.

Ned looked into eyes that he recalled as being merrily blue. They were bloodshot now and leaking tears from the effort of coughing.

‘I can trust you, can’t I, Ned?’

‘Of course, Skipper.’

‘Tell me the thing in your life that you hold most holy.’

'Skipper…'

‘For fuck’s sake will you answer me, boy!’ Leclare grabbed Ned’s wrist and squeezed it hard. ‘What is the thing that matters to you most in all the world? Are you thinking of it, is it in your head right now?’

Ned nodded as a vision of a laughing Portia arose before him.

‘Good. Now I want you to swear on that most holy thing that what I ask you to do you will do without telling a soul. Do you understand? Not a soul.’

Ned nodded once more.

‘Out loud! Swear it out loud.’

‘I swear it, Paddy, I swear it.’

‘Good … good. I trust you. Now then…’ Leclare scrabbled inside his bag. ‘Take this envelope here. It is sealed. If I don’t make it back and healthy to land I want you to deliver it for me. Personally. It must go direct into the hands of…’ Leclare beckoned for Ned to come close and leaned up to whisper a name and address, his hot breath panting into Ned’s ear. ‘There! You’ve got that?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘Say it back to me. Whisper it to me now.’

Ned cupped his mouth round Leclare’s ear and breathed, ‘Philip R. Blackrow, 13 Heron Square, London SW1.’

‘You’ve got it. And you’ll not forget?’

‘No, never. I promise.