and least productive agents, both women as it happened,and both resenting their change of handler for obvious reasons; my lunch hour soothing Prue’s feelings after she had received a hurtful email from Steff demanding that her mobile phone, which she had left on the hall table, be sent by registered mail to an unfamiliar address c/o Juno – who the hell is Juno? – and my afternoon weeding out yet more gratuitous statements about Orson’s disgracefullifestyle, after I had twice instructed Florence to remove them.
Bear in mind finally that by the time Ed charges into thechanging room, giving a good imitation of a man on the run, I have been hanging around fretting in full badminton rig for all of ten minutes watching the clock. Starting to undress himself he grumbles half intelligibly about some ‘fucking cycle-hating lorry driver’ who didunfriendly things to him at the traffic lights, and his employers who ‘kept me late for no fucking reason’, to all of which I can only reply ‘poor you’, then settle down on the bench to observe the rest of his chaotic progress in the mirror.
If I am a less relaxed man than the one he met a couple of weeks back, so the Ed before me bears little resemblance to the shy man-boy who needed Alice’sassistance to approach me. Freed of his jacket, he makes a downward swoop of his upper body without bending his knees, slams open his locker, fishes out a tube of shuttles and a couple of racquets, then a rolled-up bundle containing shirt, shorts, socks and sneakers.
Big feet, I’m noting. Could be slow on them. And even while I’m thinking this, he’s slung his brown briefcase into the locker and
turned the key on it
. Why? The man’s halfway through changing into his badminton kit. In thirty seconds he’ll be loading his day clothes into the self-same locker at the same frenzied pace with which he’s currently tearing them off. So why lock it
now
, only to have to
unlock
it half a minute later? Is he afraid somebody’s going to nick his briefcase while his back’s turned?
I don’t make a consciouseffort to think like this. It’s my
déformation professionnelle
. It’s what I’ve been taught to do and have done all my working life, whether the object of my interest is Prue doing her face at her dressing table in Battersea or the middle-aged couple in the corner of a café who’ve been sitting there too long, who talk to each other with too much earnestness and never look in my direction.
He hashauled his shirt over his head and is displaying his naked torso. Good physique, a bit bony, no tattoos, no scars, no other distinguishing marks, and from where I sit very, very tall.He removes his spectacles, unlocks the locker, tosses them in and
relocks
it. He pulls on a T-shirt, then the same long shorts he was wearing when he first accosted me, and a pair of ankle socks, originally white.
His knees are now in line with my face. Without spectacles his face is bare and even younger-looking than when he first approached me. Twenty-five at most. He leans over me, peers into the wall mirror. He’s fitting his contact lenses. He blinks his eyes clear. I am also noticing that throughout these contortions he has still not once bent his knees. Everything hinges from the waist, whether he’sfastening his shoelaces or craning to fix his contacts. So despite his height, maybe problems with reach when it comes to low and wide. Yet again he unlocks his locker, stuffs his suit, shirt and shoes into it, slams the door shut, turns the key, removes it, peers at it as it lies in the palm of his hand, shrugs, unpicks the ribbon attached to it, kicks open the trash bin at his feet, chucks theribbon in and stows the key in the right-hand pocket of his long shorts.
‘All set then?’ he demands, as if I, not he, had kept us waiting.
We head for the court, Ed stalking in front of me twiddling his racquet and still fuming to himself, either about his cycle-hating lorry driver or his
Bear in mind finally that by the time Ed charges into thechanging room, giving a good imitation of a man on the run, I have been hanging around fretting in full badminton rig for all of ten minutes watching the clock. Starting to undress himself he grumbles half intelligibly about some ‘fucking cycle-hating lorry driver’ who didunfriendly things to him at the traffic lights, and his employers who ‘kept me late for no fucking reason’, to all of which I can only reply ‘poor you’, then settle down on the bench to observe the rest of his chaotic progress in the mirror.
If I am a less relaxed man than the one he met a couple of weeks back, so the Ed before me bears little resemblance to the shy man-boy who needed Alice’sassistance to approach me. Freed of his jacket, he makes a downward swoop of his upper body without bending his knees, slams open his locker, fishes out a tube of shuttles and a couple of racquets, then a rolled-up bundle containing shirt, shorts, socks and sneakers.
Big feet, I’m noting. Could be slow on them. And even while I’m thinking this, he’s slung his brown briefcase into the locker and
turned the key on it
. Why? The man’s halfway through changing into his badminton kit. In thirty seconds he’ll be loading his day clothes into the self-same locker at the same frenzied pace with which he’s currently tearing them off. So why lock it
now
, only to have to
unlock
it half a minute later? Is he afraid somebody’s going to nick his briefcase while his back’s turned?
I don’t make a consciouseffort to think like this. It’s my
déformation professionnelle
. It’s what I’ve been taught to do and have done all my working life, whether the object of my interest is Prue doing her face at her dressing table in Battersea or the middle-aged couple in the corner of a café who’ve been sitting there too long, who talk to each other with too much earnestness and never look in my direction.
He hashauled his shirt over his head and is displaying his naked torso. Good physique, a bit bony, no tattoos, no scars, no other distinguishing marks, and from where I sit very, very tall.He removes his spectacles, unlocks the locker, tosses them in and
relocks
it. He pulls on a T-shirt, then the same long shorts he was wearing when he first accosted me, and a pair of ankle socks, originally white.
His knees are now in line with my face. Without spectacles his face is bare and even younger-looking than when he first approached me. Twenty-five at most. He leans over me, peers into the wall mirror. He’s fitting his contact lenses. He blinks his eyes clear. I am also noticing that throughout these contortions he has still not once bent his knees. Everything hinges from the waist, whether he’sfastening his shoelaces or craning to fix his contacts. So despite his height, maybe problems with reach when it comes to low and wide. Yet again he unlocks his locker, stuffs his suit, shirt and shoes into it, slams the door shut, turns the key, removes it, peers at it as it lies in the palm of his hand, shrugs, unpicks the ribbon attached to it, kicks open the trash bin at his feet, chucks theribbon in and stows the key in the right-hand pocket of his long shorts.
‘All set then?’ he demands, as if I, not he, had kept us waiting.
We head for the court, Ed stalking in front of me twiddling his racquet and still fuming to himself, either about his cycle-hating lorry driver or his
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