Young Writers Society

My draw was a nightmare for Montpellier. Out of my five rounds four of them were to be against top-twenty players, though the latter two of these depended on me getting past the quarter-finals. For this I would most likely be up against the World Number Ten, so I didn’t fancy my chances.

Ironically, I would have gotten to play against Camillo if I made it to the final, assuming he did too. But his team still hadn’t got back to Ron about a practice session, so I figured I wouldn’t be seeing him much unless that happened.

This is fine.

I kept telling myself this and not listening. He’d been so much fun to practice with, singing songs to himself as he got ready to receive, telling me stories about his family at the changes of ends. His parents sounded extraordinary, going by his long, energetic tale of his escape from the civil war in Syria.

They’d sold loads of their furniture and bits and pieces around the house, as well as doing odd jobs all over town to cobble together enough money to pay some people smugglers to get them to Italy. Then, on the way there, their boat had capsized about a mile from the shore, and his parents had dragged him and his little sister – who were both toddlers – through the water, as well as their grandfather.

I still wasn’t sure why he was telling me any of this, but he kept looking straight at me with an intensity that felt vaguely like desperation. His eyes kept widening, as if they were trying to forcibly shove an understanding of something towards me.

But I didn’t understand at all. How could I? I grew up in the French countryside, then moved to a French city, then straight onto the juniors circuit. I’ve no idea what it would be like to have my life in danger. How was I meant to empathise with that?

What I really didn’t understand though, was why if he cared so much about this, he wouldn’t want to continue the conversation at another practice session.

This mess of thoughts was buzzing through my mind as I stumbled towards the showers after winning my first match of the tournament. I leaned on the door with my shoulder and practically fell through the narrow opening. I’d have had to actively push to get it any wider, and my arms did not have the strength for that. I’d just gone three sets, with each set over fifty minutes. I just wanted to get in the shower and do my best to turn my brain off – which of course had resumed the thoughts about Camillo as soon as I stepped off the court.

I was trying to fit my bag into a locker that was far too small for it when I heard the door swing open behind me and two people walk through, chatting about their matches.

“Léo?”

I hung my head. Maybe it was like Beetlejuice. I thought his name too many times now here he was, presumably with one of his friends whom he’d been practicing with all day.

“Hi, Camillo,” I said as I turned round. I was in a weird crouching position since the locker was low to the ground, and my knees cracked indignantly as I stood up.

“Hey!” Camillo smiled. “Max, I’m assuming you’ve met Léo at some point?”

I smiled as best I could at Max Maderic, the guy I’d filled in for back in Melbourne. But also, why was Camillo smiling so wide? Why was he smiling when my anxiety was doing backflips in my stomach? This made no sense.

Maderic shrugged. “Not outside matchplay. Nice to meet you properly, Léo.”

He wasn’t really smiling and seemed his eyes kept flicking towards the clock.

I nodded. “You too. You guys heading off to practice?”

“Yup, we’ve got a court booked for three hours so we’re thinking we might play a whole match,” Camillo said. “Or alternatively… want to join us?”

“Uh… I’m a bit tired. Off to the ice bath for me,” I said.

Now I really was stumped. If he’d wanted to practice, why hadn’t he returned Ron’s call? Did he just not want me to feel bad about the fact that he didn’t want to practice with me, presumably because I wasn’t enough of a challenge?

Camillo laughed. “Ah, of course. Well done, by the way. Vanori might be thirty-three but he doesn’t budge easy.”

I smiled and snorted. “No he does not. Good lord he does not. God, I feel so wrecked.”

“Same,” Camillo said, looking somewhere over my shoulder. I started to turn round to see what he was looking at then noticed that the smile was gone from his face. His thoughts were elsewhere again, like at our practice session. I wanted to know what he was thinking so bad. His mind seemed enormous, with intelligent, heartfelt thoughts hidden in every corner. I nearly agreed to joining them, despite the fact that I probably couldn’t have lifted a racquet and my entire body smelled like the inside of my shoe.

“You okay, Cam?” Maderic asked eventually.

Camillo’s eyes snapped back to mine, then his head jerked round to face Maderic.

“Yeah, sorry. I’m a bit spaced out. Different kind of wrecked, you see. I … uh … Zoe broke up with me yesterday,” he said.

“Aw man, that sucks!” Maderic exclaimed. “You alright?”

I felt something stab my gut as Maderic put his lanky arm round Camillo. Somewhere between jealousy, helplessness and confusion – a big melting pot of those three.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Camillo sighed. “We’ve been drifting apart for a while. I’m not sure she was ever actually that into me… Honestly our entire relationship may have just been a rebound for her. She really needed it though – her last boyfriend was a total jackass.”

Maderic was nodding along with a serious look in his pale grey eyes as Camillo spoke, so with a jolt I realised that he understood all this perfectly, and that Camillo was explaining this for my benefit.

“Uh, makes sense, I guess,” I said. “Well, uh, I’ll let you guys get ready for your practice session and I hope that takes your mind off it.”

As soon as I said this I wished I hadn’t because I hadn’t even begun to undress yet, so I was going to have to either sit there doing so while ignoring them, or go off to one of the cubicles and look like I was too embarrassed to get ready in front of them. Why didn’t my brain ever think about words before it said them?

Camillo, the absolute saint, seemed to pretend not to hear and kept talking to me about an argument from my match between the chair umpire and my opponent. Vanori had sworn in his own language and the umpire had given him a penalty for audible obscenity, but Vanori thought that was unfair because it hadn’t been in French but had been in a language the umpire just happened to know. This gave an unfair advantage to the Finnish, apparently – because nobody knows Finnish?

“You know, I’ve never met a single Finnish tennis player,” Camillo said as I peeled my shirt off. It sat in a little ball in my hand and I almost choked on the smell. How Camillo was polite enough not to recoil I have no idea.

“Yeah,” I agreed, as I wrapped a towel around my bottom half and dragged my shorts and underwear out from under it. “Weird that.”

I stuffed all the clothes into the side pocket of my bag, which Ron lovingly termed The Shame Drawer. Then I excused myself for real and went off to take my shower, all the while puzzling over Camillo’s mixed signals.