I was playing tennis on some of the finest tennis courts in Shepherd's Bush this afternoon. Needless to say the standard of tennis courts is not very high in the are. These ones are in a park behind the BBC and there are holes in the net and on our particular court there was a big patch of uneven resurfacing which enabled me to do one serve which upon hitting this patch did not bounce at all and just skidded off along the ground. My opponent felt we should take this point again, which I thought was churlish.
The courts proved to be quite popular despite their delapidated state and when we got there we had to wait for one to become available. A dad was teaching his son to play on one court (though it seemed to me that the son was better at tennis than his father) and three people were taking it in turns to play on the other. There was also a rogue group of kids wandering around on the courts getting in the way. The elder two were obviously brothers as they looked the same (though one was slightly bigger) and they kept kicking each other and calling each other stupid and this is what fraternal love amounts to. There was also a tiny girl of maybe three or four years old who had a badmington racquet (a bad portent -
the last time I had encountered a female with a badmington bat it had almost ended in violence) and who was walking around on the court where the father and son were playing trying to join in. I had assumed she was the daughter of the competitive dad man in his black track suit as she seemed to be interacting with them and no-one seemed to mind. The dad would often send the girl off to fetch loose balls and she would try and hit them with her badmington racquet which was unsurprisingly not very successful. Neither she, nor her racquet had the strength to cope with a tennis ball.
The brothers were loud and uncouth and kept sitting on the net of the other game and I resolved that if they did such a thing while I was playing I would hit them in the face. But they were trying to be helpful in their loutish way, acting as ballboys for the tennising menage a trois on court 1 and running to help to look for a ball lost in the bushes by the father and son on court two. I still hated them, but only because I was hoping for a game of tennis uninterrupted by tiny idiots. Boys as Preston has correctly observed, will be boys. My one consolation was that the older brother who had some trouble controlling his temper will almost certainly spend five years in gaol at some point in his life. This was enough to satisfy me, whilst making me acknowledge that I am a horrible and judgemental person. But also a correct person.
One of the brothers had a plastic machine gun which he kept getting out of a bag at the side and pointing at people in a menacing fashion. The little girl came by to pick up another ball and he got her in his sights. It was an unpleasant image in gun ravaged Shepherd's Bush, but the little girl was not phased by the violent act. She just smiled and went about her business, totally pricking the potential nastiness of the scene. It was sweet and amusing.
We waited over half an hour for a court to become available. It was annoying as the son of the competitive dad figure had clearly become bored of playing a good 15 minutes earlier, but the dad kept knocking balls over to him. "He's never going to make it to Wimbledon," I quietly observed, but the dad still believed it was possible.
Finally they left and we climbed through the hole in the fence (how nice to have this facility, so much quicker than walking round to the official entrance) and we were ready to play. I was surprised to see that the little girl did not leave with the others and it became quickly apparent that she was the sister of the sweetly yobbish lads with the machine gun - now her lack of fear and condescending look made even more sense. "I've got my own bat" she told me in the most wide-eyed and endearing manner ever. But I could only say "Yes, that's nice," because I was now aware that she would be hanging around our game just as she had done with the other patient strangers (though now the father's willingness to let her act as a ball girl for him looked less like trying to involve his daughter in the game and more like exploiting a toddler to do your work for you - I hated that dad with all my heart). Worse the loutish boys galumphed over and started acting as unwanted ballboys for our game. I felt bad for resenting them as they were just bored and trying to entertain themselves and be helpful at the same time, but I was worried I would have to carry through on my promise to punch a 9 year old.
Luckily court 1 became available and the much more magnanimous players there allowed the boys to borrow their tennis equipment so they could have a game (the boys it turned out had accidentally brought the badmington racqueyts, one of which was already broken on the ground), but the little girl kept wandering on to court, helpfully handing me balls that she had fetched.
I managed to shepherd her away on most occasions and told her to go and play with the boys and we were pretty much able to have an interrupted game.
But at one point my opponent banged in a fast serve to my forehand. I was out of position and had to quickly move to my right, flailing my racquet out hoping to make contact. Just as I was swinging back I spotted the girl had somehow managed to materialise on the court right between me and the ball. I had time to pull out of the shot and stop in my tracks before bowling her over, but I had come very close indeed to smacking a three year old in the head with a tennis racquet using my full force. And really she was the least deserving of such a punishment of all the kids on the court. Thank goodness I spotted her. It was a horrible moment. Not that it woudl have been my fault. This is why children shouldn't be left to play unsupervised in such an arean, but none of that would have been this tiny child's fault.
And if it had gone to a different kind of court the prosecution could have held up my previous written desire to harm a female with a badmington racquet and said that I had been taking out my frustrations on this tiny little child.
My opponent didn't start saying we should replay
that point though. Oh no. A child on court isn't worthy of taking a serve again. The hypocrite.
