Elizabeth George - Playing for the Ashes

AUTHORS NOTE

I n England the term the Ashes signi fie s victory in test cricket (cricket played at the national level) against Australia.

This expression arises from the following bit of cricket history:

When the Australian national team defeated the English national team in a test series in August of 1882, it was the fir st time England had been defeated on her own soil. In reaction to the loss, the Sporting Times ran a mock obituary in which the paper declared that English cricket had died at the Oval on 29th August 1882. The obituary was followed by a note informing readers that the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia.

After that fatal match, the English team left for Australia for another series of matches.

Captained by Ivo Bligh, the team was said to be on a pilgrimage to recover the Ashes .

After the second defeat of the Australian team, some women from Melbourne took one of the bails (the pieces of wood that lie across three vertical stumps and with them comprise the wicket that the batsman is defending against the bowler), burned the bail, and presented the ashes to Bligh. These ashes now reside at Lords Cricket Ground in London, the Mecca of English cricket.

While no trophy exchanges hands at the end of a series between England and Australia, whenever they meet for the fiv e matches that constitute what is called a test series, they play for the Ashes.

Playing for the Ashes

OLIVIA

C hris has taken the dogs for a run along the canal. I can still see them because they havent yet come to the Warwick Avenue bridge. Beans is loping along on the right, flirting with falling into the water. Toast is on the left. About every ten strides, Toast forgets he only has three legs and he starts to go down onto his shoulder.

Chris said he wouldnt be gone for long, because he knows how Im feeling about writing this. But he likes the exercise and once he gets going, the sun and the breeze will make him forget. Hell end up running all the way to the zoo. Ill try not to be cheesed off about this. I need Chris more than ever right now, so Ill tell myself that he always means well and Ill try to believe it.

When I worked at the zoo, sometimes the three of them would come to fetch me in mid-afternoon, and wed have a coffee in the refreshment pavilion, outside if the weather was fine, sitting on a bench where we could see the facade of Cumberland Terrace. Wed study the curve of those statues lined up on the pediment, and wed make up stories about who they were. Sir Boffing Bigtoff, Chris would call one for a start, him that got his arse blown off at the battle of Waterloo. Dame Tartsie Twit, Id call another, her that posed as a witless wonder but was actually a female Pimpernel. Or Makus Sictus for someone in a toga, him that lost his courage and his breakfast with the Ides of March. And then wed snicker at our idiocy, and wed watch the dogs play at stalking the birds and the tourists.

Ill wager you cant see me doing that, can you, weaving dim tales with my chin on my knees and a cup of coffee, along with Chris Faraday, on the bench beside me. And not even wearing black like I do these days, but instead khaki trousers and an olive shirt, the uniform we always had on at the zoo.

I thought I knew who I was back then. I had myself sorted out. Appearances go for nothing, Id decided a good ten years past, and if people cant deal with my chopped-up hair, if people have problems with my ink-pot roots, if a nose ring gives them the willies and ear-studs lined up like medieval weapons make their stomachs do fli p-flops, then to hell with them. They cant look beyond the surface, can they? They dont want to see me as I really am.

So who am I, really? What am I? I could have told you eight days ago because I knew then. I had a philosophy conveniently bastardized from Chriss beliefs. Id mixed it with what Id picked up from my mates during the two years I spent at university, and Id blended it well with what I learned from five years of crawling out of sticky-sheeted beds with my head exploding and my mouth like sawdust and no memory at all of the night that had passed or the name of the bloke who was snoring next to me. I knew the woman whod walked through all that. She was angry. She was hard. She was unforgiving.

Im still those things, and with good cause. But Im something more. I cant identify it.

But I feel it every time I pick up a newspaper, read the stories, and know the trial is looming ahead.

At first I told myself I was sick to death of being accosted by headlines. I was tired of reading about the sodding murder. I was weary with seeing all the relevant faces peering out at me from the Daily Mail and the Evening Standard . I thought I could escape the whole rotten mess by reading only The Times instead, because the one thing I knew I could rely upon was The Times dedication to the facts and its general refusal to wallow in gossip. But even The Times has picked up on the story, and I find I cant avoid it any longer. Who gives a shit doesnt cut it right now as a means of distraction. Because I do give a shit, and I know it. Chris knows it as well, which is the real reason hes taken the dogs and given me this time alone. He said, You know, I think well have a longer run this morning, Livie, and he changed to his tracksuit. He hugged me in that asexual way of hisa side hug offering practically no body contactand off he went. Im on the deck of the barge with a yellow lined pad on my knees, a packet of Marlboros in my pocket, and a tin fil led with pencils beside my foot. The pencils each have been sharpened to a pinpoint. Chris saw to that before he left.

I look across the pool to Brownings Island where the willows dip branches towards the tiny pier. The trees are finally in full leaf which means its nearly summer. Summer was always a time of forgetting, when the sun baked problems away. So I tell myself that if I hold on for just a few more weeks and wait for summer, all this will be past. I wont have to think about it. I wont have to take action. I tell myself its not my problem. But thats not quite the truth, and I know it.

When I cant shirk looking at the newspapers any longer, I start with the pictures. I look the most at his. I see the way he holds his head, and I know that he thinks hes taken himself to a place where no one can hurt him.

I understand. I thought Id fin ally arrived at that place myself at one time. But the truth is that once you start to believe in someone, once you allow yourself to be touched by anothers essential goodnessand it does exist, you know, this basic goodness that some people are blessed withthen its all over. Not only have the walls been breached, but the armours been pierced. And you bleed like a piece of ripe fruit, skin slit by a knife and fle sh exposed for consumption. He doesnt know this yet. He will, eventually.

So Im writing, I suppose, because of him. And because at the core of this dreary shamble of lives and loves, I know Im the one whos responsible for everything.

The story begins with my father, actually, and the fact that Im the one who caused his death. This wasnt my first crime, as you will see, but its the one my mother couldnt forgive. And because she couldnt forgive me for killing him, our lives got sticky. And people got hurt.

This is tricky business, writing about Mother. Its probably going to seem like mud-slinging, a perfect opportunity to get mine back. But heres one characteristic about Mother that you need to know up front if youre going to read this: She likes to keep secrets. So while, given the chance, she would doubtlessly explain with some delicacy that she and I fell out round ten years ago over my unfortunate involvement with a middle-aged musician called Richie Brewster, shed never mention everything. She wouldnt want you to know that I was a married blokes other woman for a time, that he put me up the duff and then did a runner, that I took him back and let him give me herpes, that I ended up on the job in Earls Court, doing it in cars for fifteen quid a go when I needed to score some coke real bad and couldnt be bothered wasting time taking blokes to a room. Mother wouldnt ever tell you that. Shed hold back the facts and convince herself she was protecting me. But all the time the real story is that Mothers always hidden facts to protect herself.