Thrown to a small dog
Exhibit: Amber Rudd, Cheltenham Ladies College independent school
Extract…
Just 16. C strikes up a very casual conversation. This is unusual. “You play squash, Wilson?” This is true, he’s played a handful of times as the school had been granted out-of-hours use of the new Kent University courts. As the hybrid offspring of the skills from his two sports, tennis and badminton, he has taken to it like a right-wing editor to racism, the start of a lifelong love of the game.
Would he like a game? As finding people to play is difficult, he says he would whilst wondering about the conditions of sale. A few days later, the two of them set off to walk the mile or so to the courts. Chat. Bonhomie. Weird. Gift horse thoughts.
C is first team everything. His torso is supported by two more torsos. His thews have thews, he’s built entirely of muscle and is both fast and powerful. C smiles. Wilson feels slight and nervous. The court is cold and the door slam-lam-am-m reverberates round the building (think church or prison) raising memories of old sweat and floor dust.
If you know nothing about squash, the court is completely enclosed, an intimate arena. Unlike tennis or badminton, you’re not separated from your opponent by distance, a net and sporting consideration. You constantly move round each other like manic dance partners engaged in a combination of sprinting, physical chess and sweat. You can smell your opponent’s perspiration, feel them brush past you, hear their breath and effort. Combat.1
They warm the ball. Initially, a squash ball is about as vivacious as putty, only beginning to bounce as the air inside heats up until it’s inflated and hardened into a rubber bullet (as advertised to riot police in “What Bullet” monthly). Being hit by a 105 mile-an-hour squash ball leaves a white mark surrounded by a 30mm diameter red welt that evolves into a spectacular, multi-hued bruise. It’s like being stung by a wasp the size of a small dog.
C considers that speed and aggression make up for a lack of racquet skills. Wilson considers they don’t. He feels he can compensate for his somewhat slow and hobbly movements with court craft. He is proved right, so right that he has to throttle-back to make it more of a game. They play.
The court has a 1st floor gallery round three sides where spectators can lean over to look directly down onto the action, part theatre, part dog-fight pit, part echo chamber. Glove puppet heads begin to appear over the balcony as others from their year arrive. Comments also arrive. It appears this is no friendly game, rather it’s an arena where he is to be auditioned for entertaining humiliation. “Go C, make him run, wipe him out…” Cripple jokes, spaz taunts. It’s an elaborate, well-choreographed set-up. He feels the feelings from dreams where, in public spaces, you suddenly realise you’re naked from the waist down.
He feels exposed. He feels sick. He wants to stop, to leave, to disappear. But that means they win, both here and now and for the next couple of weeks of verbal flagellation. So he stays. Plugging into a sense of injustice and anger, he begins to play in earnest. He runs C ragged to raise a small, very temporary, revengeful lift in self-esteem. For three games he resists the temptation to summon small dog welts to strike back at his tormentor, keeping the rallies going and going and going until his opponent wilts. 3 – 0. The spectators make it very, very clear they are not at all happy at seeing their lion being mauled by a Christian.
After inappropriate thanks for the game, feigning a need for the toilet, he sits in a cubicle like a monk at confession, reviewing his sins and his shame. What had he done to deserve this? How had he behaved? He’s internalised his lesson so well, so thoroughly. The blame must lie with him.
The thought of encountering any of them, of being in range during the walk back cannot be contemplated. He waits until all sounds stop, then waits again. The walk back to school seems both interminable and far too fast.
The surplus small dog sits in the corner of the court, watching the door and whimpering as the light fades.
Even though the game is never mentioned, it plays over and over in his head for days.
I have loved squash throughout my life, my sport of choice. I still dream about playing (polio finally put an end to my ability to play – hop stride, hop stride doesn’t lend itself to any semblance of rapid movement), vivid dreams of movement and stroke-play. It was always a way to put up two fingers to polio using finesse and fitness to compensate for physical shortcomings. As school is insistent that you be judged on sporting aptitude, to be in the first team in any year automatically confers ranking points, many ranking points and many pecking privileges that you can then visit on those further down the order.
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