Cricket in the time of corona
Schoolboy Miles Stopher was tortured by indecision. Should he lay down his cricket bat, accept financial ruin and leave his confession under the car’s windscreen wiper? Or return to the crease like the prepubescent bad boy he aspired to be? The girls would swoon, surely. “Forget it, he shouldn’t have parked there. Not when Stopher’s at the crease! Bowl me another!” he declared, to no swooning whatsoever. There was a large dent on the car’s bright red bonnet, a testament to his batting prowess. Perhaps the owner would be impressed, proud even, to have contributed to such a monumental piece of play?
The boarding houses of The King’s School in Ely were former monastic buildings, whose atmosphere had no doubt changed greatly since their more noble inhabitants had departed. Thick with the smell of hormone-infused farts and cheap deodorant, the houses were a battlefield fed by teenage angst and stubbornness. A Lord of the Flies if not for one woman, Matron, who brought order to their universe, unearthly in her power.
Returning to the boarding house, I beguiled Matron with my fable of sporting excellence. Knowing me all too well, Matron applauded this rare feeling of superiority and quietly reassured me that the car’s owner would no doubt be compensated, with the umpire leaving a note of his own upon close-of-play. Such was her widely perceived omniscience, that this was sufficient to lay to rest any reservations I might have had on the day’s endeavours.
But it was her benevolence that I admired most. Matron was the adoptive mother to all those under her care. There was no job too small or too big: she cleaned shirts of spilt milk, matched missing socks distributed across the labyrinthian halls, and allowed me to ride her vintage, duck-egg-blue bicycle to the boathouse, where I accidentally knocked it into the river. (Something I still claim was not my doing. It was recovered soon after.) The boys cherished Matron as much as they did their own mothers. Many tears were shed by all parties upon her retirement, and many a fond reminiscence had in the years since, by all she cared for.
Fifteen (or so) years on, in the time of corona, I am lying underneath my car at Homerton, replacing my suspension struts, when a curious porter appears. I explain that it is my car, and have not taken it upon myself to modify anyone else’s vehicle, for the time being. It is Alistair, the Deputy Head Porter. We get to talking about how much of a pain in the arse cars can be and which models have proven the most troublesome under our tenure. I recall a rust-riddled Ford Ka that carried me from a submarine refitting in Devonport, Plymouth to its base in Faslane, Scotland and back, in the snow, earning over two thirds of its value back in claimed mileage. Alistair recalls a number of the vehicles he has owned over the years, including an enjoyable red car which had an unfortunate encounter with a cricket ball.
The conflicting feelings of guilt and pride flooded me once more like hot soup. This was not simply another opportunity to recall my heroic sporting prowess, this was what I had waited for all these years. Finally, once and for all, I would know of the pride an owner feels at possessing a vehicular monument to the cricketing gods. As I held back the tears, yearning to confess my own crime of cricket-induced vehicular assassination, Alistair frustratingly continued:
“Yes, I parked it where I usually parked it, a fair distance away from the pitch. Came back to it and there was a walloping great big dent the exact size of a cricket ball slap bang in the bonnet.”
“And how did that make you feel? Exhilarated I expect.”
No, Alistair was not exhilarated, and I am left devastated. My life is a lie. And what’s worse, on that fateful day when his car met with that red orb of despair around 15 (or so) years ago, Alistair was parked outside my school, in the same spot, and on the same day of the week, as I had hit that same model of red car, 15 (or so) years ago. Good job I didn’t tell him.
I’m sure over time I will come to terms with what has happened and maybe, once lockdown is over, redeem myself once again on the cricket pitch. Or, perhaps I might change Alistair’s mind, and he will see his previous fortune. I pondered the likelihood of such a potent shot being bestowed once more upon my score sheet, as I went to collect some mail from the lodge the next morning. As I did so, the porter on duty turned to me and said “I hear from Alistair that you went to King’s Ely? I was the Matron there for a long time in one of the boarding houses. When were you there?”
“Oh God, you didn’t own a vintage blue bicycle did you?”
