A Handful of Summers Page 25

  The British types, Messrs Taylor, Cox, Stilwell, Barrett.

  Cliff Drysdale and Niki Pilic are arguing, arguing. They’ve taken over a corner table, and sit there like two hounds gnawing at a bone; their argument held between their paws. Cliff presents himself as the more philosophical, Pilic as the belligerent, although he would prefer to be the philosophical one. Between them, in the very corner, Jean, now Cliff ’s wife, watches and listens. Tables are at a premium, so, throughout, other players drop in on them, using the table for their cakes, strawberries and so on. Bernie Schwartz has drawn up a chair on the outskirts.

  ‘My dear Niki,’ Cliff is saying in his light, provocative, expansive way, ‘you must by now realise that your opinion of your game is higher than anybody else’s. We all think you play at this level, and you believe you play at that level.’

  He uses his hands to demonstrate the difference in levels. They have been discussing recent defeats, victories, records. Cliff sits back with a bland little smile, as though only half his attention is required to verbally engage Pilic. Pilic’s face is arranged into an expression of the profoundest disdain, his nose lifted as though Cliff represents a sewage disposal works upwind from him.

  ‘I have game for any level,’ Pilic says, ‘and also I can break eggs with volley!’

  ‘Does that imply that my volley cannot break eggs?’ enquires Cliff.

  ‘Not only eggs!’ cries Pilic. He feels he is winning the exchange. ‘And not only volley. You have only one big shot!’

  ‘And you, I suppose,’ says Cliff, ‘are blessed with a flawless game! What about that backhand that you have to dig out from behind you?’

  John Newcombe, who has paused at the table and overheard Cliff ’s last remark, throws an exploratory spanner.

  ‘He’s right, Niki! You’ve got a bloody terrible backhand. You couldn’t pass your grandmother with that backhand!’

  ‘Purpose is not to pass grandmother,’ says Niki. ‘Purpose is to make good shot on big point.’

  By now, Ray Moore, Owen Davidson and Torben Ulrich have also paused to listen, as well as the players at the next table. Cliff turns to the audience.

  ‘Have any of you guys ever seen Niki Pilic make a great backhand on a big point?’

  ‘Only forehands,’ said Moore. ‘Niki misses most backhands. That’s why he loses a lot of matches.’

  ‘Misses a lot of forehands, too!’ murmured Davidson.

  It is too much for Niki.

  ‘Screw you guys!’ he bursts out. ‘I have game for big matches!’

  I have always been intrigued by the fire of Niki Pilic. On court he walks about like a pressure-cooker that is stressed to its limit and about to erupt. But the argument has suddenly deflated itself and Niki, still a bachelor, is musing about his exploits with women.

  ‘I have new girl in Rome,’ he says. ‘Countess and model. She call when I pass through. I have time for lunch only. She wear through-see dress, and she have body. Unbelievable; all heads turn. At table she must keep changing seat so all can see. I have to keep moving. “Go ahead,” I say finally. “You move about. I finish lunch.”’

  ‘Models,’ he says with a wise look, ‘I can handle easily. I have no problems with women. I listen to what they say with one ear only!’

  It is not the narrative which is important – it is simply another stage in the construction of the Pilic image – international, intellectual and decidedly grand. Of all the travelling tennis players, it is Pilic who is, through and through, the great cosmopolitan.

  Cliff Drysdale is either unaware of, or unimpressed by this elaborate Pilic.

  ‘Tell me, Niki, dear chap,’ he says, again in a patronising voice, ‘how did you begin your tennis career?’

  ‘Accident,’ Nicki replies at last, rather shortly. ‘One day in Split, I pass club where they play; “What is that?” I ask. “Tennis,” they say, “you want to try?” So I watch the ball and win 6-3. First time I hold racket!’

  ‘No Niki,’ I say, ‘that’s not possible!’

  ‘Possible!’ cries Niki firmly, and he casts a glance at Drysdale who gives a snort of laughter.

  ‘Of course possible!’ cries Niki angrily. ‘Drysdale is capitalist. Never had to fight. I have tough time in youth. I have fight for everything. I beg money from my mother for racket. I sweep snow off court to play . . .’ One has brief visions of fur hats and the brothers Karamazov, and a small boy striving, striving.

  ‘I was nobody, so I fight to be somebody.’

  ‘Then you’re not a true communist,’ says Drysdale.

  This starts an interminable argument of infinite dimensions.

  ‘Look at you,’ says Drysdale. ‘How can you be a communist?’

  ‘Why look at me? Look at you!’

  ‘I’m not a communist!’

  ‘That’s what I say.’

  ‘What do you say?’

  ‘You can’t tell communist by looking!’

  ‘You didn’t say that. I said that . . .’

  ‘Not you, me, you dumb bum!’

  And so on. Niki Pilic. A colourful product of the world of tennis, and a student of the dying art of conversation.

  By evening, the rain is still falling steadily. No chance of tennis. Ray Moore arrives, wearing an expression which suggests unbelievable tidings bursting to emerge. He catches my eye, draws me into a corner of the bar and unleashes his story. It’s the Australians in Chelsea. Between them, they have pulled off the most extraordinary coup. Raymond is agog.

  ‘The girl arrives at two-fifty,’ he tells me, ‘and by three o’clock she is leaning out of the window overlooking the King’s Road, and waving to random friends passing by. Her upper half is demure in a white lace shirt; her lower half is not. Behind her, the cunning Australian gets under way. After several minutes of this remarkable activity, there comes a knocking on the apartment door.

  ‘Don’t move,’ says the Australian. ‘It’s me bloody roommate. I’ll send him away. No time right now for bloody roommates. Stay at the window and I’ll be right back with you!’

  He disengages and goes to the door. There, waiting, is the other Australian, fully prepared. They change places. The other Australian takes over without a hitch, saying cheekily in the accent of his friend that ‘Bloody roommates can be very inconvenient at times.’

  Meanwhile, the first Australian runs down the stairs, out of the back entrance, around the block and comes walking up the King’s Road underneath the window and waves at the girl! For a second or two she actually returns the waving – then her eyes get wide, her jaw drops, and she ducks back into the room. Raymond is delighted at the joke.

  ‘And what’s more,’ he says, ‘she didn’t mind at all. Probably delighted, once the surprise wore off.’

  Burt and Jane Boyar are here, busy with a new book about tennis. Their first book, Yes I Can, is about Sammy Davis Jr., and is a best seller. Davis is in London doing Golden Boy. He’s Abie’s and my number-one entertainer. Tonight, Burt and Jane invited us to see the show, and afterwards to have dinner with the great star himself. Unbelievable excitement. We eat at the White Elephant and the place is alive with film people. Altogether too much for a farm boy.

  Diary Notes: Summer Sunday 1968

  More rain, but not enough to dampen the spirits. Today it’s champagne at Frank Rostron’s; conversations are held at gale strength. Brian Fairlie, the young New Zealand champion, downs his glass of Dom Perignon, then allows a happy smile to cross his face.

  ‘Narce warn,’ he says with feeling. ‘Arh could handle another glass of that with ayse.’

  I come face-to-face with James van Alen, who is on about the tenth amendment of his Simplified Scoring System. He tries to explain it, but with all the champagne about, it is too complicated to follow. Meanwhile Bob Carmichael is telling me of a doubles match in which he played:

 
‘Absolutely abominably. Couldn’t hit my hat. So I said to my partner, “Hey, wait on, mate, hang about a bit. I can’t get any worse”; and I was right. I didn’t get any worse! but I didn’t get any better, ayther!’

  After Frank Rostron’s, Hurlingham again. The same little golf course; Lea Pericoli in Teddy Tinling’s ostrich feathers and her own superb Italian legs. The light-hearted exhibition matches. Tea at four, and afterwards a comfortable Sunday evening. The first open Wimbledon begins tomorrow!

  John Newcombe, the 1967 champion, opens the centre court against Owen Davidson. The first round is peppered with great matches. Gonzales against Krishnan, Emerson against Holmberg. Abie plays Ken Rosewall. The place is humming with excitement – but it is still raining. British weather has no respect for great occasions, so it is the players’ restaurant again. In the far corner, Ray Moore with his friends Fowler and Lynch, planning some new and private devilment, no doubt. They never miss the opportunity to tease Abe about his age. Standing behind him in the tea queue, they begin:

  ‘I do believe,’ says Fowler, ‘that that is Abe Segal.’

  ‘That’s Segal, all right,’ says Lynch. ‘He once played a great match against Don Budge in ’38.’

  ‘Budge was a junior at the time.’

  ‘Segal’s good for his age. Plays doubles with Forbes.’

  ‘Their combined ages are ninety-five.’

  ‘Ninety-six. Forbes just turned thirty-five!’ Bernie Schwartz stands near by, chuckling to himself and eating toffees. He loves listening to the conversations. Usually he just listens, but today he suddenly joins in.

  ‘No one really knows how old Abe Segal is,’ he intones in an oratorical way, ‘but they say that when Columbus first landed in the USA, Segal was there to meet him.

  “Hi Chris,” he said. “I’ve entered us for the US doubles.”’

  As usual, Abie is driving everybody mad in his quest for Wimbledon tickets. He has promised tickets to a large and miscellaneous cross-section of the London public – film people, models, people in the garment industry, a few assorted noblemen and millionaires. His friends get accosted hourly:

  ‘Christ, Forbsey, I’ve got Twiggy and her friend comin’ in at two, and I’ve only got one seat!’

  To make matters worse, he wakes up with a start at dawn, trying to balance out his supply-and-demand situation. At six-thirty he runs in the park. On his return he goes to the john, has a bath, reads several papers, swings his rackets and does twenty press-ups, then consults his watch. It is still only seven forty-five a.m. In spite of this information, he feels that his friends must, by now, be awake. So he phones them up.

  ‘Raymond!’ he cries, hearing Moore’s sleepy grunt. ‘Have you got the tickets?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Raymond.

  ‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’

  ‘Abie! I don’t even know who I am.’

  ‘Listen, idiot,’ Abie raves on, ‘where are we eating tonight?’

  ‘I’m still busy with last night,’ says Raymond.

  ‘Well, listen, hacker, there’s no way you’re goin’ to be in shape for your match at two if you sleep your brains out all morning!’

  Moore and Fowler, badly put out by Abie’s early phone calls, are determined to plan revenge. Their opportunity comes, quite unexpectedly, several nights later.

  Diary Notes: Tuesday

  One wanders about this extraordinary Wimbledon, bemused by the sensations that rise up in droves and flood the mind. First, the question of time – there is simply not enough of it. Whole blocks of conversations, friendships, tennis and laughter go to waste. Like a colour film, rife with images, crammed with humour, magnitude and the pathos of this remarkable circuit; a film that can’t be stopped; it simply rolls past, numbing the mind.

  In the players’ restaurant, all at the same moment, Gonzales is saying something vital about the evolution of tennis. Peter Ustinov is imitating Niki Pilic arguing with a linesman. Fred Perry is predicting the eventual men’s singles winner. Pancho Segura is talking about a new kind of pill for the over-forties that is guaranteed to ‘Get you through the night, keed!’ Fowler and Moore are discussing Abe Segal’s weight in relation to his age, while Abie, within earshot, is trying to listen to Hoadie telling him about Jenny’s purchases at the Way In! Diana Ross is having tea with Arthur Ashe. Teddy Tinling is on about the tigerish movements of Virginia Wade. Kathy Harter is just sitting there, all pony-tail and legs. And two girls unknown are standing in the tea queue, wearing transparent net blouses and causing the loss of more conversational threads in the course of male conversation than could readily be totted up. And that’s only inside!

  Outside, Newcombe has lost the first set to Davidson, Guzman is beating Bobby Lutz, Rod Laver is set-all with Eugene Scott, and Alex Olmedo is playing the same lithe, crouching kind of game that he played in 1959 when he won the tournament. On the stairs I encounter Teddy Tinling on his way from somewhere to somewhere, rigged out in the most extravagant finery. All cuffs and scarves and the wildest handkerchief.

  ‘My dear Gordon,’ he says in the tone of someone stretched to their limit, ‘I’m tearing myself to pieces! I need several more pairs of eyes and ears. I am trying to station myself in half-a-dozen different places at once!’ And on he hurries.

  I lose a close match to Mark Cox, after actually leading by one set and 7-6 with set point in the second. Typical of the tennis gods. They allow me a whiff of what would be, for me, a victory, and then snatch it away with sly chuckles when Cox hits a crosscourt backhand passing shot which seems decidedly fluky; on set point, in the second set, no less! Which would have given me two sets to love which would have . . . I find myself playing the game so often indulged in by defeated tennis players. The tantalising and hypothetical game called ‘If only’.

  Diary Notes: Summer 1968

  Go to the centre court and watch Ken Rosewall, the surgeon. He moves about with a racket sharpened to a razor’s edge, and carves his way through cumbersome opponents, leaving large slices of their games lying about on the grass. He is a precision instrument, a splitter of hairs, a specialist. Watching his backhand, one feels involuntarily that that is the only logical way that a backhand can be struck!

  Tonight we are to try a new restaurant. London is full of these new ‘in’ places, very modern and upstage. Provans, the Hungry Horse, Au Père de Nico, The Spot, Angelo’s, Alvaro’s, Aretusa’s, Tiberio’s, several Dino’s, Franco’s and Carlo’s. Tonight it’s to be a new and remarkable place – manned, says Raymond, entirely by homosexuals. Gay Blades. ‘But very funny,’ says Raymond. ‘Really funny. And good food; really good!’ So off we go; Ray and Rose, the Segals, the Hoads and a young and earnest fellow who takes life far too seriously and who is always worrying about saving money and the price of things. We seat ourselves around our table, settle our napkins, order our wine, and Aubrey arrives.

  ‘Raymond, darling,’ he says archly, running his fingers through Ray’s preposterous hair. ‘Ooh dear! So wiry, and full of nice clean sweat! Such a rough, male game you play. I do love rough males, you know!’

  ‘Aubrey, my dear,’ says Raymond. ‘How was your weekend?’

  ‘Oh my God! Lovely weekend, darling! Went to Amsterdam! Got mixed up with a whole crew of Danish sailors! Very rough, Danish sailors!’ A shiver of delight runs up his spine and he shifts his weight from one foot to the other.

  ‘Sit down, Aubrey,’ said Ray. ‘Sit down and tell us what happened.’

  ‘Sit down, darling!’ cries Aubrey. ‘Sit down? You must be joking!’ and he goes off, hugging his joke to himself.

  Laughter and mischief permeate the place. Only our serious young friend is appalled and is studying the menu with a worried frown. The wine arrives and Harry Fowler pours it, slipping, as he does so, a sleeping tablet into Abie’s glass. The meal is hilarious. By the time midnight comes, Abie is nodding off and ca
n’t wait for the coffee to be served.

  ‘Holy Hell, you guys, I’m bombed,’ he says. ‘I’ve got to leave. Let’s move, Mouse,6 before I fall asleep on the table.’ He leaves some notes to pay the bill and they depart.

  For Moore and Fowler, the night is just beginning. First, they must tease the serious one. The bill arrives. Fowler studies it, then hands it to Moore.

  ‘Are you paying cash?’ he asks in a serious voice, ‘or are you going behind the curtain with Aubrey?’

  ‘I’m short of cash tonight,’ says Raymond. ‘I’ll go with Aubrey.’

  It’s all prearranged. He gets up, takes the beaming Aubrey’s hand, and they disappear behind a curtain at the far end of the room. Sounds of ecstasy emerge.

  ‘What’s happening?’ asks the serious one. ‘What the hell is going on?’

  ‘Aubrey doesn’t mind how you pay him,’ says Harry. ‘He’s very accommodating.’

  ‘I don’t like it,’ mutters the serious one. ‘I’ve never done anything like this before. This kind of thing can scar a man for life –’

  ‘Well, pay cash then,’ says Harry. ‘You don’t have to go.’

  ‘Lot of money,’ he replies, frowning at the bill. ‘Damned expensive meal!’

  Moore emerges from behind the curtain then, with a broad smile on his face, doing up his trousers.

  ‘How was it?’ says Harry.

  ‘Two minutes for the soup,’ says Ray, ‘three for the main course, and two for the cheese and coffee!’

  ‘Not bad value,’ says Harry. He turns to the serious one: ‘OK, your turn next.’

  The expression on the serious one’s face suggests the most intense mental conflict. Suddenly he gives a huge half sob.

  ‘To hell with it!’ he bursts out. ‘I’ll pay cash!’ and wrenches out his wallet.

  By the time we are finally ready to leave, it is just two in the morning.

  ‘Right,’ says Fowler. ‘Raymond! It is time to phone Abie!’

  We gather round the telephone at the desk, and Raymond dials the Cumberland Hotel where Abie is staying. At last the connection is made.