For many decades he rarely thought of his father and he never spoke of him, not until the day he and Joy went to Wimbledon and he heard his father’s voice, so clear and deep in his ear, as if he were sitting right next to him, ‘Well, isn’t this something for a boy from the bush.’
That was the first time in Stan’s life that he could remember his body overreacting to a feeling, to a mere thought in his bloody head. He never told Joy what he felt that day. They both pretended it was some strange, unspecified illness that had struck him down. How could he tell her that being at Wimbledon didn’t just cause him to grieve his own lost career, and his children’s lost careers, but the long-ago loss of the kind, loving man who so notoriously assaulted his mother?
It was his father who taught him to be on guard for the ghastly apparition of a man’s temper.
‘This is what you do,’ he told him, more than once, as they sat sweating companionably in the shade after each Friday afternoon match. ‘If you ever lose your temper with a woman or child, you must leave. Walk out the door. Don’t stop to think. Don’t say a word. Don’t come back until you’re calm again. Just walk away. Like I should have done.’
Stan took that advice literally, precisely, with death-like seriousness. He believed a man’s temper to be his most hideous flaw. When Troy jumped the net and attacked Harry Haddad all those years ago, Stan knew he’d failed, and when Troy made stupid decision after stupid decision, Stan wiped his hands of him. He had done what he told his children and students to never do: he’d given up. You never give up. You fight to the last ball. The match isn’t over until the last point is played. But he gave up on his son.
Recently, he’d begun listening to one of Joy’s podcasts about trading. Joy said it was boring and she was right, but Stan persevered and yesterday he’d called Troy and said, ‘How’s work?’
‘Work is good, Dad,’ said Troy tersely.
Stan took a breath, took courage, and said, ‘I guess the market is like your opponent. Is that it? You’re competing against the market? Trying to predict what it does next?’
There had been such a long silence that Stan felt the colour rise on his face. Had he said something so unbelievably stupid that Troy was rolling about laughing? Because his old man was as thick as a brick?
But then Troy said slowly, ‘Yeah, Dad, it’s exactly like that.’
‘Right,’ said Stan. ‘So –’
Troy interrupted him. He said, ‘You know when I got really good at this, Dad?’ and he didn’t wait for Stan to answer. He said it all in a rush. ‘When I stopped being a show pony. When I put my ego away. When I got consistent and strategic.’
He said, and it was hard to understand him because his voice went a bit wonky for a moment, ‘Every single thing you taught me on the court, Dad, I use every single day of my life.’
He’d never taught the boy to get fucking pedicures, but still, it was nice to hear that.
It had been bloody nice to hear that.
A plane flew above, and Stan tipped back his head and watched it streak across the sky. It was possible he might never step on board a plane again, which was fine with him, he was happy down here.
Joy came to the net. She wore her hair in a young girl’s ponytail when she played. She still had the best legs he’d ever seen. Her volley still needed work but she wouldn’t listen. Her cheeks were flushed from exertion and the cold air. She loved the sport as much as he did, as much as he loved her, which was more than she would ever know. He’d had no interest in playing doubles until he met her. They were better players together than apart.
Each time she fell out of love with him, he saw it happen and waited it out. He never stopped loving her, even those times when he felt deeply hurt and betrayed by her, even in that bad year when they talked about separating, he’d just gone along with it, waiting for her to come back to him, thanking God and his dad up above each time she did.
Joy shielded her eyes to watch the plane disappear on the horizon. She dropped her hand and looked back at Stan.
She said, ‘Let’s play.’
chapter seventy-one
‘If you hear the cabin crew say, “Evacuate, evacuate, evacuate,”’ said the flight attendant, ‘first check that the area outside the aircraft is safe.’
She said ‘evacuate, evacuate, evacuate’ in such a bored, bureaucratic monotone, it was funny. You couldn’t find the horror in the words.
The girl in 12F stopped listening to her exit row responsibilities. No plane would crash during a pandemic. That would be too many disasters for the nightly news. Anyway, in the unlikely event of an emergency the muscly guy seated next to her would shove her aside and fling the exit door free.