Well-Matched
by Sheila
Cornelius
Wintry
sunlight glanced off the orange juice directly
into Tom's eyes as Diana came back into the
kitchen. The savage chewing of a piece of toast
belied the nonchalance with which she looked
through the window.
Tom crouched,
expectant, on the baseline and waited for her
opening shot.
‘Does
‘Coconut’ ring any bells?’
First service,
deceptively soft, intended to wrong- foot.
‘Is it a
crossword clue?’
Bounced off
the top of the net.
‘No.’
One false move
and there’d be days of atonement. His last
mistake had landed him in the spare room for a
week.
‘Someone
on the phone, a woman, said you left a sweater in
The Coconut.’
Second service;
the momentum unnerved him for a few seconds.
‘Sweater
in the coconut? Haha! Sounds like ‘motto in
the cracker’ or ‘dinner in the
oven’.
Well parried.
‘Ah, yes,
I remember, now. I lent it to Ed. He was going
out straight from the office and didn’t want
to look too formal. Something about a fruit-and-veg-themed
pub crawl.’
Superb
backhand return.
'You lent it
to Ed, but some-one from the pub rang you? How
did they know to do that? I thought you had a
squash fixture. And where exactly is The Coconut?’
Long lob, so
start running. Buy some time. Say something;
anything.
‘You know
what Ed’s like. He probably gave my number
to a girl he picked up. He wouldn’t give his
own number, would he? I think it’s somewhere
near the office.’
He surprised
himself sometimes. Match break while she busied
herself making coffee. She turned to look at him,
hand poised to ram the plunger home.
This one would
be carefully positioned.
Then, (oh
thank you, God), the phone rang. He straightened
up. Probably her mother.
Tossing him a
‘match postponed’ look, she left the
kitchen. That was OK though. A call on his mobile
to Ed and he’d have everything sorted by the
time he got back from work.
Either that or
he’d have to drag the 13 tog single duvet
out of the cupboard.
At lunch time
he rang the pub.
‘Hi,
Selina. This is Tom . About the sweater I left
behind last night … the one you talked to my
sister about this morning ?’
Nice little
drop shot.
‘Oh, hi
Tom. Your sister was it? She’s not very fond
of you, is she? Want to come round and collect?'
Too easy.
‘Sorry,
babes - not tonight.’
Why bother
with amateurs when there was a top seed waiting
for him at home, with everything to play for.
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