The sun is still strong enough at six o’clock to penetrate Alan’s skin, soothing the gnarled joints that huddle on his pen. It glares across his open score-book, makes long black shadows of the white-clothed players dotted around the field. He breaths in treasured scents of linseed oil and the sun-soaked timbers of the old pavilion.
A shaft in which dust motes idle, falls through the pavilion’s windows. It falls across cricket bats, as straight-shouldered as infantrymen, that are propped against the wall. Their handles are tight-bound with black, glossy thread, their bases chipped and stained by almost a season at the crease. That particular lemony tang of whitener still emits from a pile of stark pads. Is it that sharpness which stings his eyes now, or end-of-season blues, or regret?
The grass has lost the fresh-cut aroma of mid-morning, when he started recording the day’s play, and is now bruised and trampled. Deck chairs lining the boundary ease and creak, but from his seat on the pavilion’s veranda, all Alan sees of the spectators are scalps that shift and bob with the conversation. Voices murmur, a background to the clunk of ball on yew, the occasional call. He responds now to the umpire’s signal and records a ‘wide’.
When the captain had first broached the idea of scoring for the team, Alan had bristled. He was raw then, frustrated and dismayed by the diagnosis of what he had always supposed was an old man’s complaint.
‘You don’t have to take up the offer, Alan, but a place on the course is yours if you’ll consider qualifying. We don’t want to lose you altogether,’ Joe had said.
***
Spring-cleaning, Tessa dragged out his cricket gear from its graveyard under the stairs. His heart lurched; it was good stuff. He had used and maintained it well for years, he reminded her. ‘Precious things!’ he said, stroking his favourite bat.
“Shame to see it lying idle, though. You could ask the new coach if he’d like to use it?’ she said, her voice rising to soften the suggestion.
“Pain stopped play, you mean?” he replied, his tone bitter.
Alan was standing at the kitchen window when she rejoined him. Conciliatory he said, , ‘You keep the garden looking nice.’
‘Thanks. Wine?’ She took a bottle from the fridge, her head tilted in enquiry.
“Yes. Thanks.’ Propping a crutch, he sat down. ‘I miss working with you out there,’ he said, his voice tight, ‘but I really miss the cricket you know. Playing and coaching. It’s tough.’
Tessa said, ‘I’m sure. Remember though how you got to be so good at that?’ She positioned the corkscrew and pressed down. ‘You spent hours in the practice nets working on any little weakness. You were always open to making improvements. It was always you, Alan, who spotted where a different posture could improve someone’s stroke or a different grip change a spin.’ She set the wine glasses on a low table beside him. Peanuts rattled into a dish.
Alan did not reply, but massaged his knuckles. It seemed a long time since he had advised on the angle of a run-up, suggested an altered wrist action, spent weeks working on a bowler’s follow-through. He expected the youngsters he coached to be willing to adapt, and his faulty body was not so different from their faulty techniques. It took an open mind to acknowledge a problem and sometimes needed persistence and guts to put it right. He adjusted his own sporting performance in the past; surely he could now change his attitude to living with this disability.
‘I think I’ll go on that scoring course,’ he said. ‘Sounds interesting.’
***
The sun dips behind the trees fringing the cricket pitch. Alan knows the sky will flush with that precious glow in the sky – turquoise, red and purple – that always crowns a day such as this. His skin tingles with the hours of warmth and he imagines how the club’s pool will have absorbed the sunshine too. When the match ends he plans to slip in and let the water take his weight for a while.
A roar erupts, the deck chairs wobble under the laughter and applause of the spectators. The umpire checks his watch, signals end of play and pockets the bails. At the pavilion the scorer finishes his entries, signs off the page and greets the team-mates who drift towards him.