A Handful of Summers Read online

  There is no need for fervent greetings. Everything is back as it was – a tableau frozen into immobility for five years, then set moving again at the throw of a switch.

  Lew and Jenny Hoad, Gonzales, Teddy Tinling, Drobny, Rosewall, Torben Ulrich, Luis Ayala, Gimeno, Billy Knight, Emerson, Peter Ustinov, Fred Perry, Donald Dell. Allen Fox, craftier than before. The dressing-room is still damp and smells exactly the same, and the same old man with the same suspicious look hands me one of the same old towels, laundered now to a threadbare grey. Doubles against Alex Olmedo and Segura and afterwards, beer in the same little pub. The world we knew. I kept a diary for those three weeks, simply because I knew that they would soon be past and because I badly wanted to remember them. Parts of it tell the story as well as any other way.

  Diary Notes: London 1968

  It’s sunny. We’re staying in a flat in Putney, and if you look carefully through the bedroom window you can see the Thames through oaks. This morning it’s shopping. The King’s Road, so we go via Sloane Square and join the crowds. There’s madness here. A sort of happy irresponsible insanity. Definite scope for Abie’s strait-jackets. The British have found a stage large enough to accommodate a fair proportion of the population so they all join the cast. The result is a temporary loss of reason – a bomb attack on the mind. Gurus meditate on pavements in masses of hairy reflections. Napoleons and Nelsons, hands in jackets, scan imaginary horizons. Lord Kitchener is calling people up; a camel is tied to a parking meter. There are Zulus there and sheiks, hippies, Hindus, the directors of bowler-hatted companies, rajahs, squires, lairds, sultans, valets and jam sahibs. Monks abound, and other robed figures, and the armed forces are well represented: brigadiers, dragoons, commodores and brass. On a corner a bugler sounds a few military notes which bring a gungadin and several legionaries to attention. Skirts are up, underwear out and nipples on view, through the thinnest fabrics. The mood is sensuous, infectious and a little insanitary. We steer ourselves from shop to shop to buy clothes to match this crazy, new London. My South African flannels and shirt are outlandish. In the shops the new music hangs, thick and heavy, pummelling the brain with its beat; kneading at the senses. I squeeze myself into a number of outfits and am transformed into Davy Crockett; a page in velvet and flowing curls; a lean cowboy. A rather weak-looking sergeant-major, and a sly character in a black outfit that I don’t trust at all. So, at last we buy:

  Black and brown velvet trousers;

  shirts with great soft collars;

  belts, shoes and

  some long silk scarves.

  The morning softens; dissolves into a mass of images. London has done a trick and we have been taken in. In the afternoon there are international club matches at Queen’s. I am to play with Roger Taylor against Richey and Ashe. Ashe has a service which gets away so fast down the forehand side that it leaves me feeling as though I am standing knee-deep in fresh cow dung. Richey hardly has any service at all, but has a high-velocity forehand, the most determined jaw in tennis and a sudden unexpected smile, like sunshine after rain. We play. Set-all. No decision. I have grown to love matches where no decisions are reached. Draws grow on one as the years pass by.

  One of the junior players who had harassed Abie and me in our prime was a tow-headed fellow called Raymond Moore. He had worked diligently at his tennis since his early teens, and his game had developed into a logical if unimaginative arrangement of topspin backhands and forehands, and a not quite natural service action that caused his tongue to creep out of the side of his mouth at the start of his swing until it almost touched his left shoulder, against which he rested the left side of his jaw during the toss-up. I once mentioned this tongue movement to him, suggesting that perhaps he should attach a glucose tablet to the sleeve of his shirt.

  ‘With a little practice,’ I concluded, ‘you could easily get your tongue to lick the tablet on every toss-up. That would give you a sort of self-energising service; the only one of its kind in tennis!’

  ‘That’s right!’ said Raymond enthusiastically, ‘and if I could strap a Coke with a straw in it to my chest, I could have a light meal on the way in to net!’

  Raymond has the kind of personality which sparks off a certain amount of madness. Talking to him, one felt quite at liberty to fantasise. Although his tennis game was more utilitarian than brilliant, his style of life was ingenious and unmistakable. By 1968 he was a distinct personality on the tennis scene and, in addition, he had grown his hair.

  As he approached me that afternoon in the Queen’s Club lounge, my first impression was that I was being accosted by an animated, blonde witchdoctor. His voice, however, re-established him as the original Ray Moore, spilling news and information with every sentence.

  ‘Never mind what Abie says. Laver is the best player,’ was typical of his utterances, or:

  ‘Arthur Ashe and Diana Ross were together at Wimbledon. She is absolutely something else. I think that Arthur has breathing problems when she’s around.’

  Raymond, too, is full of tales of the escapades of Fowler and Lynch. Only this morning they had taken it upon themselves to infuriate the British public. Harry, prim, supercilious and white, had got himself all dressed up in morning suit, bowler hat and umbrella and climbed into the back of Kenny’s Rolls. Kenny, humble and black, put on a chauffeur’s uniform and cap and drove them through Chelsea. At crowded intersections or bus stops, Harry had rolled down the window, put his head out and shouted:

  ‘Down with the blacks! Keep England white!’ while Kenny, his face inscrutable, stared straight ahead.

  ‘At times,’ said Raymond gravely, ‘they nearly got stoned!’

  And last night they’d eaten at a restaurant where the waitress who served them had a dress made out of a sort of whitish tennis net.

  ‘And no underwear,’ said Ray, ‘except a pair of dodgy knickers. Her whole breast came through the top and pointed at my spaghetti, while Harry made humming noises and missed the table when he put down his wine glass!’

  London is determined to celebrate its recent escape from the old British reserve. There is a boom coming, people say. ‘Invest!’ they cry. Property, stocks, commodities, copper, wine! It is a very infectious mood and has the effect of making one rush into the nearest store and make an immediate purchase or two.

  Diary Notes: Summer 1968

  Queen’s Club. Monday. Lewis Hoad again, on the centre court, after eleven years. I watch, transported. All the impossible majesty of his game flies through my head like a moving-picture film. It doesn’t matter that the shots that he now plays are off-centre. Out of focus. That his service is hampered by a back injury. That he is slower. The style is the same; and with the style comes the memories. At his best, I truly swear that he was unbeatable. Unplayable. Some players do this, and others that. Lew Hoad did everything.

  Select, if you like, the best set of tennis ever played, and you will find quite unquestionably that Hoad played it – and then brushed it aside with an understatement. Rod Laver is a carbon copy of the original Hoad, only left-handed and without the full majesty. The mighty power.

  There is at Queen’s Club a little man from New York, named Bernie Schwartz. A true lover of tennis – an unqualified aficionado. Thank God for the Bernies of this world! He watches the matches all day long and carries with him a little plastic bag containing:

  A Brownie camera; film;

  toffees in a paper packet;

  his glasses; a clean handkerchief,

  and

  the day’s order of play.

  Each year he comes to watch Wimbledon by way of the Cunard mailships.

  ‘You know, Gordon,’ he says, hiding his self-conscious little smile behind his hand, ‘tennis heals people. When people who are ill go to watch tennis, they feel well again!’

  His drawl is rich, and so thick that the words ooze out over his lower lip like treacle. He loves talking to the
players, and if they are not inclined to talk, he just stands and listens to their conversations. But they know him now and all of them talk with him, which is a very good thing because hardly any of the players know what it is really like to be small and unknown.

  ‘What do you do in New York, Bernie?’ I ask him.

  ‘I’m an investigator!’ he says softly and I have swift, unimaginable images of this gentle man as a ruthless, cold-eyed detective.

  ‘I investigate the sidewalks,’ he is saying. ‘When people fall in the streets and blame it on the sidewalks, I defend the city!’

  Diary Notes: Summer 1968

  Raymond Moore has come up with an unbelievable story, which he insists is true. He is so excited that he leads me into a corner of the dressing-room while I am trying to build up concentration for my doubles match. Two totally mad Australian players have acquired a flat, one window of which overlooks the King’s Road. The Chelsea models, sensing a source of Wimbledon tickets, beat a path to the flat door, day and night. Raymond doubts whether by the time Wimbledon begins, either Australian will have the strength to change into tennis gear and reach the court. In their quest for tickets, says Raymond, the girls will dispense favours of every conceivable variety.

  ‘Will they do it standing up in a hammock?’ asks Roy Emerson, who has approached and is listening. Raymond refuses to be side-tracked. One of the girls has been particularly persistent, he continues, and is, in addition, impossibly kinky. She informs one of the Australians that her ambition is to lean out of the window that overlooks the King’s Road at three o’clock on a Saturday afternoon and wave to her friends below while he has his way with her from behind. The Australian, momentarily set back on his heels, quickly recovers and agrees. Meanwhile in cahoots with his friend, he hatches a cunning plot. The event has been arranged for the coming Saturday, and Raymond will keep me suitably informed.

  Today, Tom Okker beat Rod Laver. I used to think that Laver was the fastest man alive, but Okker outran him. Bursts of stupendous speed – like some mad hopper from science fiction.

  The far corner of the ancient lounge is full of Russians. They’ve infiltrated the world of tennis, playing solid, unimaginative games, chatting in Russian and thinking inscrutable thoughts. Allen Fox is in their midst, playing chess against Metreveli. He (Allen) goes demented when they discuss strategy in Russian.

  ‘I get claustrophobic and want to rend my clothes,’ he says. ‘Russian conversation can make the simplest pawn move look devilish. Yesterday we got down to a king and pawn each, yet I kept expecting something rookish to come up from behind!’

  The Eastern bloc is coming to light with some superb tennis players.

  Diary Notes: Summer 1968

  Watch Nastase. The most extraordinary talent. Doesn’t seem to concentrate at all, yet the shots simply flow forth. Walks about with the utmost nonchalance, making provocative remarks and swiping at the ball as it comes within reach. Superb swipes. Hardly ever misses. He and Tiriac are a complicated pair and play complicated doubles with some very dicey manoeuvres. Verging on banditry. So many players! You can’t move without seeing something wild. On the terrace above the players’ restaurant, Emerson nudges me and says:

  ‘Did you see that shot? Who is that guy? Could you do a shot like that? I couldn’t do a shot like that! How the hell can he do a shot like that?’

  Each day we practise at Wimbledon. You book a court for half an hour and get six new balls. The trick is to have a friend make a consecutive booking, so that you get an hour.

  Today, Abie and I had the very last court – fourteen, I think it was. We arrived to find Torben Ulrich on it, all alone, sitting cross-legged in the very middle of one side. We waited gravely for his ‘playing’ time to expire, then walked on. He climbed to his feet in a thoughtful way and began putting on the first of his several sweaters. His rackets were still in their covers, the six new Slazengers balls unused.

  ‘What’s been happening, Torben?’ I asked in a comfortable sort of way, so as not to startle him.

  He considered my question profoundly, with the air of a great philosopher who, while waiting for a bus, is suddenly asked by someone to explain all about God. I half-expected him not to reply, and was about to retreat on tiptoe when he did.

  ‘I have been emptying my mind,’ he said.

  I was deeply impressed. One doesn’t journey all the way out to Wimbledon, reserve a court for thirty minutes, change, collect new balls, then peel off three sweaters and sit on a grass court, just to empty one’s mind. It occurred to me briefly, I remember, that for my part I would much more likely take such pains to fill mine up. Abie, unimpressed at the best of times with anything smacking of the supernatural, conducted the inevitable private conversation that occurred when he felt himself confronted by a totally preposterous situation.

  ‘Torben’s emptying his mind,’ he explained to himself. ‘I mean, Jesus; here I’m looking for a grass court to get a few returns goin’ an’ Torben is sittin’ on one for thirty minutes, emptying his friggin’ mind.’

  ‘Hey, Torben,’ he said suddenly. ‘How do you know when it is empty? Does your mind have a dipstick, or what?’

  Torben favoured him with a long-suffering look, completely devoid of malice.

  ‘It would be very difficult to explain it all to you at this very moment,’ he said. ‘It might be better for you to practise some returns!’

  He left then, with the air of a man with a mind unfreighted with clobber, walking with a measured tread.

  I got ready for a heavy practice session, wondering vaguely how one set about refilling an empty mind. And with what? Later that afternoon I hunted Torben down and, unencumbered by Abie’s bull-and-gate methods, urgently asked him for an explanation. Poor Torben! He has spent a great deal of his life explaining things mystic and sensitive to thick-skulled tennis players!

  ‘It’s the Zen method, you know,’ he said. ‘They believe that you can only successfully embark on a new enterprise if your mind is emptied of previous enterprise. So you sit cross-legged for half an hour, looking at a point one metre in front of you and thinking of nothing. After ten minutes, your body begins to become weightless, in a heavy kind of way. After twenty minutes, the marrow in your bones is fluid and soft. Your body rises gently off the grass. Your mind is ready to accept new challenges!’

  Again, I was deeply impressed. Perhaps that was what had been the matter with my game all these years. I had been trying to play with a full mind! I was appalled.

  ‘Do you have to sit on a grass court in order to empty it?’ I asked Torben, cautiously.

  ‘That is not necessary,’ he replied. ‘It was simply that I had the court reserved, and my opponent did not arrive. A football field would do just as well!’ This he said with a twinkle in his eye.

  I decided at once to tell Allen Fox about Torben’s system. Allen accepts any advice on how to play better, and this advice will intrigue him to a degree.

  Diary Notes: Summer 1968

  Enormous serving today by Clark Graebner. Absolute devastation. Fred Stolle in ruins. Bernie Schwartz is so impressed that he eats a whole bag of peanuts during the match without noticing. Allen Fox beats one of the Russians at chess today, and for some time is speechless. He goes about wanting to tell people, but before he can find words, they’ve gone away! Pancho Segura has a new type of pill which he claims gives him enormous strength. He is still one of tennis’s great living legends, and is now simultaneously coaching a stunning mother and daughter in California. He calls them his ‘package deal’. Abie is definitely impressed, wanting to hear more but hiding it by biting his thumbnail.

  Tonight we all went out to eat at Provans and I told Raymond at some stage during dinner that he was a great liver of life. He replied that he was also a lover of life; then Abie said that he would rather be a great lover than a great liver, whereupon Raymond said that whereas he loved to b
e a liver, Abie lived to be a lover. Then Harry Fowler, who was studying the menu, looked up and announced that he was a lover of liver, and that was what he was going to order. That broke up the conversation. Later on, Harry squirted sneezing powder all up and down the room, and the place collapsed in a hurricane of sneezes. More of London’s madness!

  On Queen’s Club finals day, it rained. Steady London rain. Clouds down to window-level, and the tube trains smelling damp and warm. And talking of tube trains! Today I boarded the tube at Earls Court for the short run to Queen’s Club. The coach is fairly full, and I settle myself down. Raising my eyes quite innocently, I find my attention riveted to the extent that it is some time before I am aware that my entire side of the carriage is equally transfixed. Directly across from me, decked out in the shortest of miniskirts, is a perky blonde. She is wearing absolutely no knickers of any kind at all, and seems totally oblivious of it. Most unusual, but there’s nothing to be done about it, because Barons Court looms and I am forced to disembark onto the platform. Wits have to be collected and my raincoat donned before I proceed, with nothing to look forward to but tea at Queen’s Club. Here the clubhouse is jammed to bursting-point. Positively creaking. Outside, the soft, grey drizzle. Inside, the tea queue. Teddy Tinling, in defiance of the drab weather, is magnificent in a striped purple shirt, white collar, extravagant cuffs – a marvellous shirt that glows as though it has been plugged into some portable power source.

  ‘Filthy luck, dear fellow,’ he says to me over the heads of girl players like Rosie Casals or Nancy Richey. ‘I mean, how dare the weather gods?’

  His eyes, meanwhile, roam the room as though he cannot get enough of the sight, sound and general atmosphere of rooms full of tennis celebrities all crowded together: Fred Perry, permanently tanned, smelling of exclusivity, halls of fame and expensive pipe tobacco.

  Gonzales, surrounded by listeners, is wearing a black track suit.

  Gladys Heldman, Burt and Jane Boyar, Michael Davies.