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Double Fault
Lionel Shriver
‘When feminism has become the politics that dare not speak its name, it is refreshing to find an author who will bring such renewed vigour to the gender wars’ Guardian“Love me, love my game,” says professional tennis player Willy Novinsky at twenty-three. Tennis has been Willy’s one love, until she meets the uncannily confident Eric Oberdorf. Low-ranked but untested, Eric, too, aims to make his mark on the international tennis circuit.They marry. But their life together soon grows poisoned by full-tilt competition over which spouse can rise to the top first. Willy discovers that her perfect partner may also prove her most devastating opponent.An unflinching look at the ravages of rivalry in the two-career relationship, Double Fault is not so much about tennis as about marriage—a slightly different sport.
Copyright (#u57133e17-4d27-5126-9658-d84753027c6d)
The Borough Press
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
Copyright © Lionel Shriver 1997
Cover design by Stuart Bache © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017
Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com (http://Shutterstock.com)
Lionel Shriver asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books
Source ISBN: 9780008209773
Ebook Edition © June 2017 ISBN: 9780008209780
Version: 2017-04-06
Praise for Double Fault: (#u57133e17-4d27-5126-9658-d84753027c6d)
‘A brilliant tale of doomed love’
Observer
‘The scenes between Willy and Eric are terrific pieces of writing: the dialogue crackles with rage, frustration and bitterness’
Independent
‘That Shriver refuses to avert her gaze, much less sweeten the pill, is what makes her such an interesting writer. She does not coax, or wheedle: she challenges. She makes you think’
Daily Telegraph
‘Shriver is a truly remarkable star in the literary firmament. She has an uncanny sense of the way women subject themselves to secret, inward torture, weighing themselves down with passionate feelings they believe socially unacceptable to bring out in the open … I doubt there is any thoughtful woman who does not recognise herself somewhere in Shriver’s writing’
LISA JARDINE, Financial Times
‘The characters and situations are utterly convincing and the level of detail in the narrative provides a ghastly gossipy pleasure’
LESLEY GLAISTER
‘Shriver doesn’t care whether her characters are likeable or not: they play off one another’s strengths and weaknesses in a mesmerizing grudge match’
Saga
‘With prose as taut as a well-strung racquet, you’ll be captivated’
Marie Claire
‘Her writing is as precise and devastating as a Federer forehand’
Belfast Telegraph
‘When feminism has become the politics that dare not speak its name, it is refreshing to find an author who will bring such renewed vigour to the gender wars’
Guardian
‘Her exploration of her characters is so fearless that although readers may not sympathise with her, they’ll understand why she’s driven to destroy what she loves’
Metro
Dedication (#u57133e17-4d27-5126-9658-d84753027c6d)
To Jonathan
Whose real name I may use so rarely to save it for special occasions.
Dedicated in the fervent hope that we will confine this plot to paper.
Epigraph (#ulink_251658de-1f2e-50be-add7-c5e8ba534122)
‘Rarely do you get something if you want it too much.
There isn’t a tennis player in the world who
can’t tell when an opponent is frightened.’
TED TINLING
Contents
Cover (#u37e8b66c-22b2-5ceb-a5c2-36b86bc0a07d)
Title Page (#u2522de39-741b-5bab-b644-1b67a4918560)
Copyright
Praise
Dedication
Epigraph (#uea04f907-bcb7-58fb-98c0-16a2844622fe)
Author’s Note
chapter 1 (#ufd3b960a-43ea-5d52-87f4-f50954785af4)
chapter 2 (#u8e18ff7e-aba0-50d7-825f-90b8e53919ee)
chapter 3 (#ubcf5c6a5-9297-5064-9037-7d9dc19072ef)
chapter 4 (#uba6f2071-2d27-54b5-b018-b6c3e4e3a96b)
chapter 5 (#uc4a1e709-f798-55bd-a8b2-f1fc5d9c7db9)
chapter 6 (#u43d1af60-6c82-5d19-b631-91978d747b91)
chapter 7 (#u637f38ab-dd45-5e4e-90ef-087e254c1de4)
chapter 8 (#u0768a500-d8bc-55b5-a754-d9d65e84620c)
chapter 9 (#u10b31de6-4b6f-50b9-9b54-ea8dfe69ac97)
chapter 10 (#u511572c3-38f5-5a87-9665-db8eeb481336)
chapter 11 (#u79a8fbb5-47a1-5a93-925c-8973075d16d2)
chapter 12 (#u8a4adee1-cf53-576c-99d9-8a64a6f17ab6)
chapter 13 (#ud3e3ada7-e879-542d-bb7c-880283d57dfc)
chapter 14 (#u9631a441-7a33-567e-b3c0-3ba7f6f37ba7)
chapter 15 (#u052bb139-c278-57bc-8c2c-4f85e37a53ac)
chapter 16 (#ud9238bb9-3136-5f6e-839f-9edcbc0e088a)
chapter 17 (#u698296c1-1f58-538f-9e7d-6705451fb2da)
chapter 18 (#u85ec3785-db32-5a74-afdf-751beca64b1b)
chapter 19 (#u5fb06305-9aec-5164-8151-924239864247)
chapter 20 (#uaf817325-24f2-5691-bd33-97ab73f84824)
chapter 21 (#u32a3f691-4459-588e-95fa-bdbbe90dd1a8)
chapter 22 (#u8d000e09-17c8-5b6b-830e-8ae3d6416064)
About the Book (#u0a4b8be7-3f01-5127-aceb-f1983db0be56)
About the Author (#uf03ba42c-e167-5493-ac47-cd47cc9594f1)
Also by Lionel Shriver (#u396d027f-ba3d-5fec-ad82-189e154ec4ce)
About the Publisher (#u0f22144d-6a9e-5091-a33b-f39dadf276b2)
Author’s Note (#u57133e17-4d27-5126-9658-d84753027c6d)
In the interests of storytelling, the tennis ranking system has been simplified in this novel. Readers curious about the complexities of national versus international rankings, or the WTA versus Virginia Slims computers, should consult the copious nonfiction on the subject. A few additional liberties have been taken, for Double Fault is not so much about tennis as marriage, a slightly different sport.
chapter 1 (#ulink_019b25e5-2b94-59d7-bab0-5b7cf7786ba9)
At the top of the toss, the ball paused, weightless. Willy’s arm dangled slack behind her back. The serve was into the sun, which at its apex the tennis ball perfectly eclipsed. A corona blazed on the ball’s circumference, etching a ring on Willy’s retina that would blind-spot the rest of the point.
Thwack. Little matter, about the sun. The serve sang down the middle and sped, unmolested, to ching into a diamond of the chain-link fence. Randy wrestled with the Penn-4. It gave him something to do.
Willy blinked. “Never look at the sun” had been a running admonition in her childhood. Typical, from her parents: avert your eyes from glory, shy from the bright and molten, as if you might melt.
A rustle of leaves drew Willy’s gaze outside the fence to her left. Because the ball’s flaming corona was still burned into her vision, the stranger’s face, when she found it, was surrounded by a purple ring, as if circled for her inspection with a violet marker. His fingers hooked the galvanized wire. He had predatory eyes and a bent smile of unnerving patience, like a lazy lion who would wait all day in the shade for supper to walk by. Though his hairline was receding, the lanky man was young, yet still too white to be one of the boys from nearby Harlem scavenging strays for stickball. He must have been searching the underbrush for his own errant ball; he had stopped to watch her play.
Willy gentled her next serve to Randy’s forehand. There was no purpose to a pick-up game in Riverside Park if she aced away the entire set. Reining in her strokes, Willy caressed the ball while Randy walloped it. As ever, she marveled at the way her feet made dozens of infinitesimal adjustments of their own accord. Enjoying the spontaneous conversation of comment and reply, Willy was disappointed when her loping backhand tempted Randy to show off. Ppfft, into the net.
This late in the first set, she often gave a game away to keep the opposition pumped. But with that stranger still ogling their match from the woods, Willy resisted charity. And she wasn’t sure how much more of this Randy Ravioli (or whatever, something Italian) she could take. He never shut up. “Ran-dee!” echoed across all ten courts when his shot popped wide. Between points Randy counseled regulars in adjoining games: “Bit too wristy, Bobby old boy!” and “Bend those knees, Alicia!” Willy herself he commended: “You pack quite a punch for a little lady.” And the stocky hacker was a treasure trove of helpful advice; he’d demonstrated the western grip on the first changeover.
She’d smiled attentively. Now up 4–0, Willy was still smiling.
The Italian’s serve had a huge windup, but with a hitch at the end, so all that flourish contributed little to the effort. More, intent on blistering pace, Randy tended to overlook the nicety of landing it in the box. He double-faulted, twice.
As they switched ends again, Willy’s eyes darted to her left. That man was still leering from behind the fence. Damn it, one charm of throwaway games in Riverside was not to be scrutinized for a change. Then, he did have an offbeat, gangly appeal … Ignoring the passerby only betrayed her awareness that he was watching.
Newly self-conscious, Willy bounced the ball on the baseline six, seven times. If her coach knew she was here he would have her head, as if she were a purebred princess who mustn’t slum with guttersnipes and so learn to talk trash. But Willy felt that amateurs kept you on your toes. They were full of surprises—inadvertently nasty dinks from misconnected volleys, or wild lobs off the frame. And many of Riverside’s motley crew exuded a nutritious exultation, losing with a shy loss for words or a torrent of gee-whiz. With Randy she was more likely to earn a huffy see ya, but she preferred honest injury to the desiccated well done and two-fingered handshake of Forest Hills.
Besides, Riverside Park was just across the street from her apartment, providing the sport a relaxing easy-come. The courts’ wretched repair recalled the shattered Montclair asphalt on which Willy first learned to play: crabgrass sprouted on the baseline, fissures crazed from the alley, and stray leaves flattened the odd return. The heaving undulation of courts four and seven approximated tennis on the open sea. Poor surface mimicked the sly spins and kick-serves of cannier pros, and made for good practice of split-second adjustment to gonzo bounces. Craters and flotsam added a touch of humor to the game, discouraging both parties from taking the outcome to heart. An occasional murder in this bosky northern end of the park ensured generously available play time.
In the second set Randy started to flail. Meanwhile their audience followed the ball, his eyes flicking like a lizard’s tracking a fly. He was distracting. When the man aped “Ran-dee!” as the Italian mishit another drive, Willy’s return smacked the tape.
“You threw me off,” she said sharply.
