Sioban Whitney Low

Sioban Whitney Low was born in 1964. She read English at Jesus College, Cambridge, spent five years working for a fashion designer while trying to first write this novel, and from 1990 has worked extensively in the Arts, first in script development and now as a fundraiser. She is married with three sons and lives in Southeast London.
Contact: swhitneylow [at] gmail [dot] com

The Cricket Match

 

Two days before the Archduke’s assassination in Sarajevo, Solly was chosen to play for the school’s First XI. He had played a couple of trial games for the Seconds but to be promoted from the Thirds to the Firsts felt like a big step and he was apprehensive. He knew that his biggest danger was self-sabotage. The match was an annual fixture with a rival school against which Solly had his own reasons to feel resentment. When the home team was posted on the board in the cloisters, he read the list in astonishment, the Gilligan twins, Gilkes, Evans, Lloyd, the boys were legends amongst the pupils, Gods amongst men in their reputation for cleverness, competence and charm. It was June 1914 and, even he had to admit, that the weather had finally improved, the chestnut trees in the clump were vivid and motionless. In front of him, two groundsmen were rolling the wicket, he had never got used to the fact that staff here were white. When he had arrived from Jamaica, he had been amazed to find the dockers at Southampton were not only white but on strike!  

Solly went out to the Pavilion which overlooked the 1st XI pitch and sat in hot shade on the steps. He leant back against the changing room wall and stared at the Gothic school buildings, which glowed warm red in the tea-time light.  He imagined the letter he would send to his GramMa: he could see her in his mind’s eye reading it on her verandah above the chickens and vegetables and breadfruit trees. New Hall had been a source of wonder to him from the beginning. He had made his first friend here and begun to recover from the brutality of his schooling in Jamaica, where his shyness had been mistaken for arrogance. His intelligence was a bonus. His teachers acknowledged that he had done well in his entrance exams and they nodded as they passed him in the cloisters. He had been placed 3rd in class in the Science Remove.

As the bell in the clock tower struck four, two boys walked past him, up the steps into the Pavilion. Both were tall, eighteen years old, with straight, pale features and, in the harsh light, white-blond hair. The one nearest to Solly had a pronounced jaw, as if his teeth were clenched.

“Can’t you do something about it?” he asked his twin in a voice trained to carry. “You are the Captain!”

“The coach pulled rank and insisted that we play him. He’s a good all-rounder apparently.”

“But he’s almost unknown. We can’t risk him in a match which is so important.”

“So we’ll have to be tactical. We’ll field first if we can, he can’t do too much damage there, and then put him in at six so he may not have to bat at all.”

“Yes, I suppose that could work.”

The young men’s voices faded as they moved further into the building and Solly shook his head. He felt shivery, disappointed in the twins, though they had rarely extended him a hand of friendship. Yet compared to his school in Kingston, he had experienced little bullying here beyond the occasional blocking on the main staircase. When he had arrived at the school, everything was foreign. He had to wash in cold water with a hard block of carbolic soap which raised dry, flaky patches on his skin and left him smelling of yellow tar. When he didn’t the boys teased him for smelling as if he had come off the banana boat. He struggled with the uniform, which was bulky and more uncomfortable than he was used to and, in particular, with the starch stiffened collar and stud pin. In that first February, when for several days the temperature plummeted, his fingers swelled with chilblains so painful that he could not get the pin through collar at all. Solly was not feeble but the morning that a boy showed him how to put his hands under his arm pits to warm them would remain with him forever.  

The following day, Solly walked out with the team in bright white flannels into the sharp white light, the temperature was 75 degrees and the sky above the school was violet, stretched like a Grouts silk parachute over their heads. The home team won the toss and elected to bowl first as they had planned.  Solly was sent as deep cover so that he could defend against the batsmen’s square cuts. He felt dreamy as he watched the Captain bowl the first ball. There was a smattering of staff and boarders gathered on the Pavilion steps, he saw his new boarding house master, Thornton, who clapped loudly.  

“Jolly good show, Gilligan. Same again.”

Watching the rival team, Solly thought about his interview at their school two years earlier. He had sat their summer exams and had scored highly but their headmaster had refused him a place. He noticed a disparity between the batsmen, some were much stronger than others. The younger player who came in now, for example, was good, while the boy at the far end wouldn’t last long. Solly watched the freckled face of the stronger player beneath his mop of springy red hair and considered where his weak spot might be, how they could get rid of him. As the clock chimed two, Solly turned automatically to the score board. They were 123 for 9 and he knew they would only have to chase down 124 to win if the opposition were bowled now. Between overs Gilligan brought Solly in to Backward Point.  

“It’s crucial we don’t let this run away from us,” he said.

Solly glanced across the playing field because he saw his Headmaster arrive, a giant of a man dressed as always in heavyweight Harris tweed with a matching cap, clothes he wore regardless of the temperature. He had his niece with him, a young dancer visiting from America, who was slight and lovely in a sprigged muslin. Solly smiled at the contrast between them, and at that moment, he heard rather than saw the ball thock off the player’s bat as it flew upwards and travelled high into the cloudless sky. He was running before the action connected with his thoughts, sensing instinctively that the ball was coming in his direction, that this was what he had been training for all those hours, that this was his moment of revenge. He threw his body into a perfect arc up off the ground, his feet leaving the earth, his hand outstretched in readiness to make contact with the ball and he felt the ridge of stitching on the red leather as it grazed his fingers. He was aware, even as the ball escaped him and he began to descend back down to earth, before he skidded empty-handed, burning his skin on the dry grass, that he had lost his team this match.

“I don’t believe it,” he heard Gilligan say, “what a lost opportunity.”

The red-head took all the bowling now. He kept the ball away from the poorer player and racked up a decent innings so that the opposition finished at 189 and the home team hung their heads as they went in for tea. 

“Are you cold, Shirley?”

“No, Sir.” 

Solly was never sure if the Master was joking when he asked him this question, which he did whenever he came across him. He pulled down the cuffs of his shirt over his wrist knuckles, aware that he was the only one of the team wearing long sleeves because he believed they made him look taller. The Headmaster put one of his Goliath-an hands on his shoulder.

“What number are you batting, Shirley?”

No one called him Solly here, they used only last names. He felt the damp-warmth of the kind hand through the cotton of his shirt.

“Number seven, Sir.”

He had not been surprised when Gilligan had relegated him in the batting order. 

“Well, we could do with some help. Lloyd’s just been bowled.”

Solly had recognised that it was going to be hard to reach the 190 they needed to win in under three hours and here they were at 140 for five with everyone fully aware that victory could already have been theirs if it had not been for his dropped catch. Although the team had been sympathetic, Solly remained convinced that they must blame him. Lloyd walked towards them as the hour stuck five and Solly thought he looked furious.  

“It could have happened to anyone,” the Headmaster said. “Now go out and show them what you’re made of, Shirley.” 

News of the match had travelled around the school and, as the day drew to a close, the crowd had grown. There were pupils coming across the playing fields from the Barry buildings, straggling groups of two and three, carrying their books and summer revision. Wodehouse, the author and alumnus, was amongst the crowd, although Solly only recognised him because he had been pointed out to him before.

“Don’t forget we finish at 6.30,”  Evans called from the steps.

Solly propped his foot on the stone step and bent to check the pads folded around his too-slender calves. In the pre-play tension, he had tied the wicker casings too tightly and it was hard to change the fixings because his fingers were swollen by the thick lacing of his gloves. He had to concentrate in order to keep his breathing even. Gilligan came over.

“We still need 50 runs so if you feel unsure let Gilkes do the facing. Then Evans can go in. He’s a bowler really but he can be relied on.”   

Solly dipped his head still further so that the Captain couldn’t see that he was feeling the pressure. He had wanted to beat this particular school too because he had never recovered from their rejection on his arrival from Kingston: for him, this match was personal. 

“Watch the spin on the ball as it comes off the pitch, which is rock hard. The bowler’s using it brilliantly to his advantage. He’s a mean spinner.”

His legs still felt hampered by the pads as he headed out. The world contracted to the 22 yards of the wicket and he looked down to the bowler’s end, experiencing as always a fear that was greedy and all encompassing. He fought an overwhelming desire to piss, knowing that it was too late to duck into the urinals again. There was an ant-bite itch of fear beneath his skin but the adrenalin also made his brain clear and sharp. He watched the bowler twist the ball around in his fingers, he held himself still and his opponent got ready to start his run up. Solly’s sharp-sightedness meant he could focus on the boy’s face which helped a little, his freckles were more pronounced after the morning’s batting, and he was an even better bowler than he had been a batsman. They both knew that the first ball was what mattered. Solly waited as the bowler took his first powerful step, gaining speed quickly for the distance was short and every footfall must be perfect. He lifted his right arm as he ran in a swing which brought it high over his shoulder and back almost horizontal as he released the ball. Solly straightened his bat underneath his body and prepared for the impact. To his relief, the ball was a bit wide and he moved into it so fluently that it resounded off the bat with an echo from the Barry Buildings, and he scored an easy four. Surprised hand clapping resulted.

“Christ, he’s hit a four!”

“You could almost call that batting, Shirley.” 

“Well they do play cricket in Jamaica.”

“So he could be good at this?”

The boys laughed but they were too far away for Solly to really mind them. He was focussed on the pitch, an ochre dust-bowl as worn out as the school’s carpets.  He anticipated the bowler’s action and took the spin with a clean cut across the ball. He was aware when his team sat up in surprise. They had been reclining in groups on the top of the steps of the Pavilion. Although Solly couldn’t see it, his friend Nunes, was with them. Again the crack of wood on willow and the sharp arc of the ball down the length of the ground.

“Bloody hell. The boy can play”

Solly had not spent long hours in the nets through the damp months of April and May to flunk it now. His memory muscle held every inch of sagging green mesh around the practice stumps, every glanced ball, every instruction. He knew that his batting was good and he continued to score well, aware that this was his chance to get his own back.  The rival team had their top men ranged around the pitch - bowler, First slip, Leg Gully, Deep Midwicket and time and again they had to field the ball across the boundary. Solly had his feet now. Their Captain moved someone out to Cow Corner as Solly’s score reached 25. His heart soared with the evening temperature. It was still 60 degrees in the shade. By now everyone was turning out to watch - boarders, Masters, families, Pavilion staff. 

On the top of the steps, Nunes shifted his sitting position. The afternoon had turned on a coin and this match had become critical. Nunes noticed that the young men had stopped lounging and were concentrating on the play. As Solly’s score neared 35, the opposition put on their best bowler, the red-haired boy, for a second time. They had to get Solly out. The fielding tightened and still Solly continued to bat maturely. Nunes found himself willing each beautifully delivered spin onto the bat. Ten runs later, he stood up to get a better view and was pleased when the Master’s niece joined him in the shade. She had a dancer’s taut physique and clapped so vigorously when Solly hit a six across the boundary, that he turned his head and smiled. 

The bowling remained intense. Salt from Solly’s sweat stung and dripped from his eyebrows. He wiped his forehead with his left arm, swathed conveniently in the long-sleeved cotton, because it was crucial that nothing fogged his sight, but he no longer needed to summon his courage. He felt omnipotent. A slow ball curved unexpectedly and he hesitated, he heard the crowd’s communal in-take of breath, just in time. He could feel the opposition wanting him to fail. He re-positioned his bat and had time to make contact beautifully. He shook his head, knowing he needed to stay focussed and he could not afford to make a slip now. Solly understood when to hold back his energy for a weaker bowler and when to play his best. He realised exactly when it was time for the final push, when they needed only 4 to win. Clouds of midges had begun to dance above his head and, as another over finished, the opposition brought their number one bowler on as their last hope. Solly toyed with him, playing cautiously, teasing him as he bowled him the penultimate ball. The sun had fallen lower in the sky so that the rays were slanting treacherously and there was a danger of the dazzle reflecting from his glasses as he faced the Barry Buildings, their red brick rosy in the setting sun.  The air was so still, Solly believed he could hear the school clock ticking. He looked for a moment across the acres of green sward towards the gothic extravagance of the school. The crowd audibly held its breath as he twisted his cap to better shade his eyes.  His glasses steamed up and he tried vainly to clean them with the cumbersome gloved hands.  Then the bowler was ready and the ball moved towards him with finesse but Solly had learned his opponent’s every trick. He swung into it and struck, gracefully and calmly, so that it sailed an impressive distance up over the fielders’ heads and seemed to hang in the indigo evening before gravity pulled it back to earth. The crowd erupted with shouts of pleasure and the match was won.

Afterwards, the opposition filed miserably back into the subterranean changing rooms for cold showers. They looked hang-dog, their shoulders sunken, their necks bent like the stems of over-blown tulips. Solly saw his adversary, the rival Master, rusty in his black suit, shaking the hands of his Captain as he shared conciliation. He remembered then the humiliation when the man had refused him a place, although his exam marks were good and his GramMa’s deposit had been accepted. He recalled his words, “We have no place for you. I have met with our Governors. Your skin is too dark for us to accept you at our school.”

Solly looked down at his long-fingered hands, the only part of his skin exposed to him. He had always loved the malt-rich, bread dough colour of his skin, the sheen of it like oil on a pool of rainwater, light for a Jamaican but indelibly defining. It was this skin which contained him, his doubts and his fears but also his speed and his intelligence, it was the thing he shared with his father, it was what marked him apart and made him separate even from his brother. Now he caught up with his new friends, who were waiting to slap him on the back. Gilligan was leading them into the Pavilion and they marched past the defeated players and straight out the other side of the room-thick building back into the open. Gilligan had the key to the swimming pool. The school was proud of its outdoor facilities. Hidden behind the music rooms, the pool was open air and would be freezing even on this perfect summer evening. The boys struck up the school song as they crossed the junior playing field, Gilkes pitching it in a deep baritone. The players were stripping off as they ran, whooping and yelling, even Nunes was soon naked, stumbling as his trousers caught around his feet. Gilligan dived from the board, a perfect arc of pale skin boy, entering the water without a splash. His twin followed him. Lloyd belly-flopped like a rock, white-bottom flashing, displacing the water in sheets like Archimedes.  

“It’s like the Limpopo I imagine but not as warm,” he yelled as he surfaced.  

The rest of the team followed, splashing like flamingos. They shouted and slopped cold water at each other, shrieking at its ice fingers, sending shining sprays onto Solly’s cricket whites as he hung back, still fully clothed, on the edge. He hesitated a moment too long and was lost. Solly came from a place where the tone of one’s skin was always closely observed. He started to make excuses in his head, the pool was too small, too rectangular, the water was too cold, the silver grey colour was churning as if filled with piraña. He heard the coo-coo, coo-coo of the peacocks the Master kept in his garden, the sound of English summer and the tapping of a woodpecker. The village woods in the distance seemed cool and inviting. It was another chance to be bold and again all he wanted to do was to run away. 

“You have to do it.”

From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a net petticoat on the roof of the music rooms, a laced boot. He couldn’t really hear the housemaster’s niece but he could see her, spying on them. She put a finger to her lips and smiled at him. 

“You mustn’t think about it.” It was Nunes, who always had his back. “You have to just do it.”

The boys had been in the water a long time. Solly appreciated that it was only a last hurdle, this nakedness. He was being a coward. He unbuttoned his cuffs and peeled the long sleeves over his wrists, pulling the shirt up over his head. The boys didn’t see him at first, he surfaced from his dive, his naked brown otherness otter-smooth as his head popped out of the water, but when they did, they reacted fast. He was horrified as they grasped his arms and and legs and raised him in the air. His mouth formed a scream and he faced genuine terror before it dawned on him that they had him held in a sportsman’s triumph. 

“To the hero of the hour.”

“The man of the match.”

“To the dawdler who took his time.”

“What happened in that last innings?”

“Don’t dilly dally next time.”

“If you are going to make a half-century, get on with it!”  

In their exuberance, they hurled Solly upwards and he floated airborne, as fully exposed as his last ball as he too hung for a moment before he plummeted beneath the wrinkled surface of the pool. Below was a moment of sweet, silent solitude. All was peaceful isolation and Solly skimmed along the tiled bottom of the pool, thinking of nothing. He turned sinuously and pushed himself off the wall, powering back along a full length until his lungs were empty and he burst buoyant back to the boys.  

“Bloody hell, Shirley, are you a porpoise as well as a monkey.”

“We thought you would die.”

He was skin-soft and laughing too.  He felt an irrepressible sensation inside his bloodstream that was like something he had forgotten, a caffeine-fizz of joy. He looked up and saw the American girl was still there and, although he knew he should pretend not to see her, he waved and he felt gut-happy, deep inside.