And above the collar, tipped to one side in appeal, eyebrows raised in invitation, the creaseless face of a fifty-something man with soulful brown eyes beaming a dolphin smile at him. The absence of creases did not suggest inexperience, rather the opposite. It was a face that to Perry the outdoor adventurer seemed cast for life: the face, he told Gail much later, of a formed man, another definition that he aspired to himself, but for all his manly striving did not feel he had yet attained.
‘Perry, allow me to present my good friend and patron, Mr
‘Wanna game?’ Dima inquired, without taking his brown, apologetic gaze off Perry, who by now was hovering awkwardly at his full height.
‘Hi,’ said Perry, a bit breathlessly, and shoved out a sweated hand. Dima’s was the hand of an artisan turned to fat, tattooed with a small star or asterisk on the second knuckle of the thumb. ‘And this is Gail Perkins, my partner in crime,’ he added, feeling a need to slow the pace a bit.
But before Dima could respond, Mark had let out a snort of sycophantic protest. ‘
‘Mark says you play Queen’s,’ Dima said, the dolphin smile still directed at Perry, the voice thick and deep and guttural, and vaguely American.
‘Well, that was a few years back now,’ said Perry modestly, still buying time.
‘Dima recently acquired Three Chimneys, right, Dima?’ Mark said, as if this news somehow made the proposition of a game more compelling. ‘Finest location this side of the island, right, Dima? Got great plans for it, we hear. And you two are in Captain Cook, I believe, one of the best cabins in the resort, in my opinion.’
They were.
‘Well, there you go. You’re neighbours, right, Dima? Three Chimneys is perched slap on the tip of the peninsula across the bay from you. The last major undeveloped property on the island but Dima’s going to put that right, correct, sir? There’s talk of a share issue with preference given to the inhabitants, which strikes me as a pretty decent idea. Meanwhile, you’re indulging in a bit of rough-and-ready camping, I hear. Hosting a few like-minded friends and family. I admire that. We all do. For a person of your means, we call that true grit.’
‘Wanna game?’
‘Doubles?’ Perry asked, extricating himself from the intensity of Dima’s stare in order to peer dubiously at Gail.
But Mark, having achieved his bridgehead, pressed home his advantage:
‘Thank you, Perry, no doubles for Dima, I’m afraid,’ he interjected smartly. ‘Our friend here plays singles only, correct, sir? You’re a self-reliant man. You like to be responsible for your own errors, you told me once. Those were your very words to me not so long ago, and I’ve taken them to heart.’
Seeing that Perry was by now torn but also tempted, Gail rallied to his rescue:
‘Don’t worry about me, Perry. If you want to play a singles, go ahead, I’ll be fine.’
‘Perry, I do not believe you should be reluctant to take this gentleman on,’ Mark insisted, ramming his case home. ‘If I was a betting man, I’d be pushed which of you to favour, and that’s a living fact.’
Was that a
Was it here too that Perry first became aware of the two white men loitering at the gateway to the court with nothing to do? One with his hands loosely linked behind his back, the other with his arms folded across his chest? Both wearing trainers? The one blond and baby-faced, the other dark-haired and languid?
If so, then only subconsciously, he grudgingly maintained, to the man who called himself Luke, and the woman who called herself Yvonne, ten days later when the four of them were sitting at an oval dining table in the basement of a pretty terrace house in Bloomsbury.
They had been driven there in a black cab from Gail’s flat in Primrose Hill by a large, genial man in a beret and an earring who said his name was Ollie. Luke had opened the door to them, Yvonne stood waiting behind Luke. In a thickly carpeted hall that smelled of fresh paint, Perry and Gail had their hands shaken, were courteously thanked by Luke for coming, and led downstairs to this converted basement with its table, six chairs and a kitchenette. Frosted windows, shaped in a half-moon and set high in the exterior wall, flickered to the shadowy feet of passing pedestrians on the pavement overhead.