I
Karl arrived on the dot of eight.
"You're prompt."
"Don't like to be late."
"And don't like to be kept waiting."
"No."
"Nor me. A man of the clock."
We smiled agreement.
He was washed and brushed up. Long-sleeved black crewneck sweatshirt, well-fitting jeans, Merrell Urbino shoes, short, jet-black hair gelled into spikes a hedgehog would have been proud of.
He asked for a beer. I didn't have any, as I hate the stuff. So he settled for a glass of red wine. We sat as before in the kitchen. I was glad to see he relaxed at once.
He read my draft letter while I looked through Fiorella's questions, a list of more than fifty on two pages. And a set of six index cards on which Karl had organised the questions into topics, one topic to a card: Likes and Dislikes, Beliefs, Aims and Plans, Fiorella and Me, Love and Sex, Interests and Activities.
I asked him what he thought of the letter.
He gave me an assessing look.
"I'm a writer," I said. "I'm used to people telling me they don't like what I've written. Speak your mind."
He shrugged. "It's all right as a letter."
"But?"
"It's not. Not me, if you know what I mean."
"Not the way you'd have expressed it."
He nodded.
"OK. Let's have a go at it later. What about these questions? The answers would fill a book."
"That's what I said."
"And she said?"
"Write a chapter at a time."
"She has high expectations."
"About everything."
"And you like this about her?"
"Yes."
"Like her. Or love her?"
He blushed and frowned at his hands bunched round the glass on the table.
Too soon for such a question.
"Look," I said quickly. "Why don't you tell me how you met?"
He sat back, heaved a sigh like a boy being made to do his homework but knowing there was no way out of it, and pushed himself to begin.
"I was on a job with my boss. Putting a new bathroom in a granny flat at Fiorella's house. We were finishing the second fit. Most times we'd been there the granny was around. Both Fiorella's parents have full-time jobs so they're out all day, and Fiorella was at school. But it was her half-term holiday. The granny wanted to go out. Fiorella was told to see we were OK. She wasn't that bothered and kept out of the way."
"But you'd seen her before and liked what you'd seen?"
"Didn't take much notice. She was just a schoolgirl. And she hadn't taken any notice of me. I thought she was a bit stuck-up."
"And this was what? Three months ago?"
"Three months and a week today."
"So what happened next?"
"My boss got an emergency call from one of our regulars. An old lady who lives on her own. He rushed off to deal with her and left me to get on. Which only meant clearing up because we'd nearly finished. He told me to wait till he came back to check everything was OK."
"Let me guess. You cleared up, called for Fiorella to tell her you were finished and Eros struck."
I was glad he felt confident enough to laugh.
"Except it was chess."
"Chess?"
"Chess."
"How does chess come into it?"
"She said would I like to wait in the kitchen and have a cup of coffee. I felt a bit embarrassed. I'd seen a chess set when she took me through the living room to the kitchen. I play chess. So for something to say I asked her if she played. She said she did and would I like a game? Do you play?"
"Sorry, no."
"You should. It's a good game."
"I'm not a games player. To my mind, there are enough chances to fail in life without inventing more. But I've always liked the look of the pieces."
"Me too. That's what attracted me at first."
"When was that?"
"My … At school, when I was eleven. And another reason I like it"—a wide smile—"you don't have to write anything. And you don't talk while you're playing because you have to concentrate, which was useful that first time with Fiorella."
"Who won?"
"We hadn't finished when my boss came back. It was pretty even between us."
"And you agreed to meet again to finish?"
"Yes."
"Who suggested that?"
"Fiorella."
"So she made the first move."
He smiled. "White always makes the first move."
"She's blonde?"
"Sort of. Strawberry blonde."
"You met again. Where?"
"Her house."
"When?"
"Next day."
"Who won?"
"She did."
"You were nervous?"
"Well, she is good."
"What else?"
"What else did we do? Nothing. Talked chess. Played through a famous game just for fun. She has quite a lot of books on chess. Then she suggested some matches, three games a match starting at the weekend."
"So it was chess brought you together and kept you together. What's the score now?"
"Three to two in her favour. And two draws."
"But you must have done other things as well?"
"She watched me play rugby a couple of times. Last two games of the season."
"Who do you play for?"
"Nothing special. Highwood."
"But they're pretty good, aren't they? Always on the local news."
"Not too bad. You follow the game?"
"Sorry! I'm no more a rugby man than a chess man."
"Fiorella's not interested, either. But she likes tennis, so we've started playing that."
"Doing any better than at chess?"
"Two to one in my favour."
"I see one of her questions is why you like rugby so much."
"Tried to explain, but she can't understand it."
"Maybe that's a question we could start with? You know what you want to say. It shouldn't be too difficult."
"If you like."
"OK, let's do it. I'll take some notes while we talk. Then I'll write what you tell me. You can comment and we'll revise to suit you. And when you're happy with it, I'll print it out and you can give it to Fiorella. How about that?"
II
My summary of Karl's answers to my questions about why he likes rugby so much:
I like rugby because it's physical. So are football and hockey. But they aren't physical the same way as rugby. Rugby is a contact sport. I like that. Boxing is as well. But the aim is to hurt your opponent. Rugby can be pretty tough, you might say it's violent at times, but you aren't trying to hurt anybody.
It's skilled. You have to use all your skills of the body and the mind. Like chess, you have to think ahead three or four moves. It's a game of strategy and tactics. It's violence used with moral intelligence, if that makes any sense.
It's also fast. It exhausts you. Rugby releases the tensions and pent-up energy that have built up during the week at work. I like leaving a match feeling I've got rid of all the energy that has been locked up inside me. I have to be careful at work, because if I make a mistake it can be a disaster. But in rugby I can let myself go, drive hard, really go for it, and it doesn't matter if I get it wrong, it's only a game. Not that I like getting it wrong. That's not what I'm saying. I'm only saying that I can let myself go while I'm playing.
You can only win at rugby if everyone plays their part and works with the others. People who are only out for themselves, trying to score on their own and be the star, are looked down on. It's a terrific feeling when a move goes totally right, like a combination of passes, or a tackle, or a kick that are spot on. It's as if I'm part of a perfectly functioning machine. It's like music in motion. Almost like dancing. Not that I can dance!
Rugby is a dirty game. I like getting covered in mud and then cleaning it off afterwards. There's something very primitive about it. In fact, now I come to think of it, there's something very primitive about rugby as a game.
It's so obvious that I won't bother to mention that rugby is good exercise. And it helps to keep me fit.
III
"How's that?"
"OK. It's what I said but tidied up and put into smoother English. Some of the words don't sound like me. And the bit about moral intelligence. I didn't say that."
"Yes, you did, only not in those words, exactly."
"No. They're your words."
"But they say what you mean, don't they?"
"Yes."
"And you can use them yourself now?"
"I suppose."
"So now they're yours as well as mine."
"Are they?"
"You said Fiorella is a strawberry blonde?"
"What's that got to do with it?"
"Did you make it up? Strawberry blonde. Are they your words?"
"No. My mother said that's what she is."
"But you said them to me as if they were yours. You didn't say they are your mother's, did you?"
"No. But …"
"And you joked that white always makes the first move. Did you make that up?"
"No! It's a chess rule."
"Which you were taught when you were learning chess. What I'm trying to say is that we've learned everything we say from something or someone else. You've heard of Oscar Wilde?"
"Didn't he write a story called 'The Selfish Giant' or something?"
"He did."
"My dad read it to me when I was little."
"A playwright. Very witty. One day he heard someone make an especially clever joke, and Wilde said to a friend, 'I wish I'd said that.' To which his friend replied, 'You will, Oscar, you will.'"
He laughed. "But I still say 'moral intelligence' isn't the way I talk."
"Well, it is now, Karl, it is now."
"OK, OK! I give in!"
We laughed, and fell suddenly silent, as if somehow it wasn't so funny after all. And I could see from his eyes he'd had enough of me for the day. I'd had enough of me too.
I waved the printout at him.
"You're giving it to Fiorella?"
"Might as well."
"And not give her the first one about answering the questions?"
"No. It's not right and doesn't matter now I've got this one."
"Want to go on with this or not?"
"Yes."
"Any idea when?"
He pondered for a while, eyes on his feet, which I was beginning to know was a habit with him when he was thinking.
"I'm tied up all next week," he said as he folded the printout and put it into the back pocket of his jeans. "Fiorella is away this weekend on a school trip. I thought I'd go trout fishing. There's a stretch of the Wye that's good for trout. I thought I'd try it on Sunday. Trouble is, it'll take most of the day just to get there."
"The Wye isn't that far, surely? An hour's drive, an hour and a half."
"Too far to cycle and have much time there. And with public transport on a Sunday, train and bus, then a bit of a walk, not to mention getting back …"
He wasn't hinting, just making a statement of fact.
Now it was my turn to ponder. I knew that if we were to go on meeting, it shouldn't always be at my place. Too restricting and a bit too formal. He was a guest, on his best behaviour. Besides I needed a change, wanted to get out, have some company, and not with old friends who knew me so well the conversation would be predictable and on a topic I wanted to avoid, but with someone who didn't know me and was refreshing.
But how to make a suggestion without having to explain this?
I decided to take a chance and hoped it wouldn't backfire.
By then Karl was ready to go.
"Look," I said. "I had an attack of sciatica recently."
"My boss had that last year. Off work for a few weeks. Very painful, he said."
"Very. I'm on the mend, but it still hurts to drive. I'm OK as a passenger. But driving any distance isn't on. You're a learner driver, I think you said, and must need to practise, so why don't we take my car, you driving?"
"Do you fish?"
"No."
"Won't you be bored? When I'm fishing, I forget the time."
"I'll read. Take a walk. And I like just sitting and looking at the view."
"I don't know."
"You'd be doing me a favour."
"Ah … I get it. One good turn."
"Quid pro quo."
"OK. If you're certain."
"I'm certain."
"What if the weather's bad? I'll still fish."
"So the weather's bad."
"You can't drive to the river. You have to walk down some pretty steep tracks through the woods."
"Walking is good for sciatica."
He gave me one of his assessing looks.
I said, "Range Rover Sports SE."
That clinched it.
"Cool! But only if I pay for the petrol."
"Agreed. Think you can handle the Rover?"
"No problem. I'm good at the practical. It's the theory I fail."
"OK," I said. "I'll bring the food. A deal?"
"See you Sunday."
"Would eight o'clock be too early?"
"Earlier if you like. I'm always on the go by seven."
"Seven thirty?"
"I'll be ready."
