Cin City

Quebec

My first episode happened to nine-year-old me. No one noticed. I was in my room and couldn't move; couldn't think. It passed. I hid others too. My first caught episode happened at school. Mrs. McCarthy carried me to sickbay. I remember the world wanted to crush me, wanted to weigh on me like I couldn't breathe; couldn't force the world out of me. It may have been hours or minutes before my father arrived. There were no doctors; our town was so small. I had no idea.

My dad told me what we'd do. He told me we would wait half an hour, that I was allowed home early from school. We would drive the normal way home, down Valetta Road, I'd sit up front. Once we got home I'd get changed out of my school clothes, we'd play tennis, then he'd have to cook dinner. Pasta; because mum was working late. Some homework and cards, a shower, pyjamas and bed. In the morning everything would be back to normal. I liked that word: normal. Because I remembered being normal. "I'll be half an hour," is what he had told me. "Everything will be fine."

He left me to sit alone; unmoving. We did exactly as he said. By the time we got home, I had gone from what I had been to what I normally was. A kid of energy. It was fine, as fine as it was ever going to get. Next day things were back to normal and continued to be until they weren't. I met doctors all the way in Christchurch because I was more than a Methven problem, more than an Ashburton problem. Half an hour became my magic period of time, the special fraction of a day that I needed to get right. And if half an hour was good enough for me then it was bloody well good enough for Luci Wijn.

Piet and her had mostly talked in English, and Luci's not brilliant English made being privy to one side of that call all the more painful. Piet would get here when he could, hopefully, tomorrow, no promises though. He had a coaching clinic that he couldn't get away from. "It is O.K. You have to follow the work." She tried to sound convincing like she was trying to convince me – or herself. It didn't stick.

We had expected he wouldn't get in until after we had played. And after our match, we'd gone straight to our hotel without delay, so that we would be here when Piet arrived. And Luci had played well, she had played like the sort of player who would be moving up; the top fifty for her. In the wake of that call, she was a lost kid from Anderlecht whose home was near the bottom of page two. A kid ranked in the eighties and going nowhere but down.

"How often does he get delayed like this?"

"It happens," said Luci. "It is his work."

I had seen Luci play well. I had seen her in command. And when she commanded a court she bent it to her will. The same way that someone like Federer only had to imagine an action for the action to happen. But Luci like this? Sad Luci? Lost Luci? Was this the first set at Lexington Luci? When I stood over her, when I stood next to her bed, she was tiny. Even tinier when she looked up at me.

"Give me your hand." I honestly doubted if she could get off her bed by herself. "We need to get out of here."

"Where do we go?" I pulled her to her feet as if she was a rag doll. It took effort. She was bigger than me, not bigger in a bad way, just bigger. And taller too. She'd easily have five kilograms on me, maybe seven – not that that was difficult. There were twelve-year-old juniors with five kilograms on me.

"There must be somewhere? Some old churchy thing or something? Aren't there walls somewhere?"

"Actually there are walls," said Luci. More alert, more ready to do something with the remains of the day. "A Citadel, an old town too. My mother has an e-mail of it for me."

"Has your mother been to Quebec?"

"No." Luci had surprise in her voice as if I should have known the answer. "She has only seldom been out from Belgium. She internet searches for me."