Te Aute Crossroad S2 : E3

Series 2 Episode 3: Tennis?

A scene from a sci-fi movie. The crew all in their pods: dark sky/deep sleep mode. The stars gliding silently by.

The faintest chime. Instantly awake.

What is it, Hal? you whisper.

Klingons, sir.

Klingons?

Yes, sir. On the starboard bow.

A drum beat. Or maybe your heart. You fumble for your Eveready light sabre and your robe of total invisibility. There is a faint sound out there…

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The arrangement with the previous owner was that we would take possession, but he would lease the ‘farm’ for the foreseeable future. We figured we had enough to occupy ourselves with the house and garden—oh, plus magicking up some income—without taking on that responsibility as well.

We’d moved in on the 1st of September. In fifteen weeks, it would be my 50th birthday. Why don’t we plan a joint birthday/housewarming? We could do that Maggie Beer bruschetta recipe…

And so that became our goal. Let’s at least get ready for that.

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Tentatively stepping out the door from the bedroom to the garden.

Pitch dark. High alert. There is definitely something out there…

Assassins.

Light sabre on.

Oh, hello.

There’s a horse on the tennis court.

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Junk.

Everywhere, there was junk. Decades of accumulation, neglect and making-do.

Our daughter, Belinda, came, and stripped and sanded the purple paint from the kitchen cabinets. My sister, Rosemary, and her family, also. Moral support and whatever we can do to help.

There was a horse on the tennis court because we’d tidied up a pile of junk in that corner of the garden—the area behind the garage—a garage that was once home to a Rolls Royce, but was now tumbling down. A pile of junk (bits of timber and scraps of netting) that we now realised was a makeshift fence. Take it away and Hello, I’m Mister Ed¹.

Our guests playing tennis was part of our vision for the housewarming. But there were now hoof prints all over the ‘court’ and you couldn’t bounce a ball. Our local landscaping supplies lady drove her truck all the way to Tauranga and back for us: to collect some fine silt. With strings, we divided the area into identical squares and spread, raked, and rolled. Scattered lawn seed. And then put the sprinkler on, only to realise that—so poor was the water pressure—it would take days to water the entire court.

You make a grown man cry.

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Apropos… of Amor Towles:

[Timothy] bent over ten issues of Forbes magazine, which were literally (well not literally literally, but figuratively literally) brimming with exciting words and concepts.²

1. Mister Ed was an American TV sitcom in the 1960s, featuring a talking horse. Hello, I'm Mr. Ed. A horse is a horse, of course, of course/And no one can talk to a horse of course/That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Mr. Ed.

2. From The Ballad of Timothy Touchett in Table for Two, by Amor Towles