Free The Tennis Player from Bermuda by Fiona Hodgkin Page B

again.
    The invitation also solved an unspoken but real problem in the Hodgkin household, which was that at some point I would have to make an appearance at the London season. Both Mother and English Grandmother had done so.
    I was about to turn 19, and our English relatives would expect that this year, or next, or at the latest when I was 21, I would spend the season in London, going to parties and perhaps finding a husband from a good English family. Back in the 1930s, American Grandmother had taken Mother to the season; that must have been an interesting cultural clash. But I couldn’t go to the season alone. That was Not Done, and it was always difficult for Mother and Father to close their clinics and leave for England on holiday.
    I finally was able to ring our home in Paget, and Father answered. When he heard me on the line, he said, “I told your mother that you were far too busy with your studies to run off to London for the month of June.” And we both laughed.
    When Mother came on, she seemed most concerned about my clothes, which surprised me. Mother normally cared little about clothes, and, in any event, I had plenty of nice things. But she said, “Fiona, you have no idea about the season.” And she was right about that. So Mother wrote Lady Thakeham, thanked her for the kind invitation, and said I was pleased to accept.
    And that was that.
    Smith for me that spring was a blur of chemistry labs, calculus, and tennis. I received a letter from Mark, which pleased me a great deal. It was just a page and a half of scribbled comments about his clinical work in medical school, but just after his signature, he added a postscript: “Heard that my mother has invited you to stay with us in June; what a coincidence given that you and I just met in Bermuda a few weeks ago; hope you can accept.”

M AY 1962
E XHIBITION M ATCH WITH C LAIRE K ERSHAW
L ONGWOOD C RICKET C LUB
C HESTNUT H ILL , M ASSACHUSETTS
    By the end of April, I was ranked number one in singles tennis among girl college students in New England. My ranking led to an invitation for me to play early in May in a ladies’ tournament one weekend at the Longwood Cricket Club, on grass. Longwood was in Chestnut Hill near Boston. I arranged to stay with my cousins in Boston for that weekend, and late Friday after my classes, I took a Greyhound coach to Boston. There would be three rounds on Saturday, and then the final would be on Sunday morning.
    But there was a surprise: when I arrived at Longwood Saturday morning, I learned that, on Sunday afternoon, the winner would play an exhibition match against Claire Kershaw. I recognized that name instantly. Kershaw had won the singles championship at Wimbledon in 1960 and 1961. I had seen her only in newspaper photographs. She had been 25 and recently married when she won Wimbledon her first time. Now Kershaw must be close to 27.
    At the end of 1961, Lance Tingay, the tennis correspondent of London’s Daily Telegraph newspaper, had ranked Kershaw the number one woman player in his World Rankings. Before the objective, computerized rankings began in 1973, Tingay’s World Rankings in the Daily Telegraph were considered authoritative.
    I asked the referee what Mrs Kershaw was doing here, and he told me that she was on a tour of America before defending her championship at Wimbledon.
    When I was handed the draw, I saw that I knew most of the players. I had beaten all the ones I knew, and I had been seeded number one. With luck, tomorrow afternoon I would play the defending Wimbledon champion. My knees went weak as I thought about it. I didn’t lose a set on Saturday; I can’t recall how many games I lost but not many.
    When I went home to my cousins late that afternoon, I was trembling. I could barely talk. All I could think about was playing Kershaw.
    ‘Please don’t let it rain on Sunday afternoon,’ I thought. I wolfed down dinner and went straight to bed, where I tried to force myself to sleep.
    Sunday