For most of the twenty-nine years they had been married, Liz got Noel to drive her to and from work and fit in his own job between lifts. She’d stopped driving after another episode with her back. In the evenings he did chores and made them tea before the nine o’clock news. On Friday nights they had drinks at the local tennis club, where some of Liz’s colleagues were members. Then on Saturday mornings he brought the recyclables to a bring centre before doing the weekly shopping. With Liz tired after the week’s demands, he shopped alone.

Once a year they holidayed at a Spanish seaside town. With an intimate handshake and rising moustache the hotel owner would greet them. For ten days they would move between market, restaurant and beach, for Liz each location too hot and hotter than the last.

When Liz dozed under their large umbrella at the beach Noel had his chance to swim or immerse himself in the sports biography he’d hoped to finish on holidays. Yet her face, with yesteryear’s sweetness and the contours of its aftermath, would transfix him. When her eyes opened, head tilted the other way, he knew the thoughts encircling her. Yet she’d turn towards him and for a moment her dazed face suggested peace.

‘Hello sleepy,’ he’d say and caress her leg.

‘I’m burnt,’ she’d say despite the parasol and a recent smothering in sun cream.

Unfinished book in hand, Noel loved the feel of cold air as they descended the plane’s stairway at Dublin Airport. 

Seasons clambered on. The cogs of trial and error kept turning.

*

One Friday night at the tennis club, Noel found himself standing at the bar beside a colleague.

‘Paul, isn’t it?’

‘Ah, hiya Noel. I haven’t seen you here before. Are you a member?’

‘No, just a committed weekend drinker here, that’s all.’  

The young man with tousled sandy hair threw back his head and laughed. He looked barely twenty-five.

‘Do you play tennis, yeah?’ said Noel.

‘No, snooker. My mates and I are members. The annual Caffrey Cup is on at the moment,’ he said and told him about the three tables in the basement.  

‘Who was that?’ said Liz with arched eyebrows when Noel returned.

‘A guy from work. He plays snooker here,’ said Noel. When he tried to re-join the conversation her hand repelled his contributions. He leaned back and reminisced. He and his best friend at school had played snooker for a summer, spent carefree days in a smokey snooker hall surrounded by the indifferent gazes of older boys and boozy men. By school’s return he’d been able to smack an occasional red into a far pocket.

When his uncle died Noel inherited his one-piece cue and returned to the game in early adulthood. He married. Pastimes became luxuries then aspirations. The sound of reds rattling pockets returned to him.

Two Fridays later, Noel noticed Paul enter the bar with two men holding cue cases. They took a plate of balls and a token off the barman and disappeared beyond a door Noel had never noticed. Later, he slipped off to the toilets and wandered. When he found the frosted glass windowed door to the snooker room, the sound of ball clicking ball beyond, he turned back. Liz would be wondering. Later that night, puffing on a clandestine cigar, Noel gazed at the brooding evergreens at the back of his still, suburban garden and remembered old pursuits. He could feel the curtains of life slowly being drawn. 

The following Monday, he decided to email his colleague.  

Hi Paul,

How are things? I was thinking of taking up snooker. I played a bit in a previous life. Would you be free some Saturday morning perhaps to give an old man a refresher course?

Noel

He scratched his chin frantically as he re-checked the email had sent.  

Paul replied within an hour. Sure, I’d be honoured! I’m away this weekend but how about the following Saturday? Say 11.00?

Noel said yes, smiled as he imagined himself tiptoed and stretching across the table to strike the cue ball. The rule was that one foot had to be touching the ground.  

On the afternoon before they were due to play, Paul emailed Noel and asked if they could push their meeting time back to 11.30. Noel panicked. Saturday’s errands always meant leaving the house at ten and returning by noon. He’d decided against telling Liz about the game. Nervously he acquiesced.

The next morning he feigned a longer sleep. ‘Noel, it’s quarter to ten,’ said Liz from the foot of the stairs. She’d already nudged him several times. He rolled over and lay there a while longer. At ten-thirty, he left, assured he could fit in a game before he would be expected home.

The two men shook hands awkwardly when they met. The bleary-eyed barman gave them a table light token then Paul led Noel down a dark stairway. Everything felt different. Rooms nocturnally defined by crowds and artificial light now felt confounded by daylight and glare from the same lights.  

‘You break,’ said the younger man buoyantly, rubbing his stubbled face.

Noel half giggled, incredulous at himself. He struck the cue ball powerfully and watched the triangle of red explode and polka dot the green cloth. ‘God, I didn’t think I’d hit it that hard,’ he said and both men laughed. Noel soon noticed how well Paul could pocket long shots and bring the cue ball back to safety. Yet his score didn’t tally with his talent. Noel was grateful.

The pace of striking the white ball returned to him quickly. After potting a black he caressed a red so delicately that it glided perfectly towards the blue. ‘God!’ he shouted chuckling when he missed it, threw his eyes upwards, as tantalised as he had been in youth.

During the second frame he fouled several times and defeat became inevitable. ‘The frame’s beyond me,’ he said and offered his hand, growing anxious about the time.

‘Where were you?! I thought you were dead,’ said Liz when he returned whistling, her carrot laden hands dropping to her sides. When he mowed the lawn that afternoon she loitered, searching it for stones she never found.

Noel smiled as he looked out his office window and sipped coffee on Monday morning. He emailed Paul and suggested another game. Saturday at 11?  

Sure, sounds good.  

A routine took hold. Noel would shop hurriedly then meet Paul at eleven o’clock. After a frame he would buy two coffees, the steam from the cups visible in the shaded room, illuminated only by the green, conical lamps and the narrow window facing the tennis courts. Paul showed Noel top spin, the screw shot and the stun shot. Soon Noel, head down, cue bridged properly, was striking white so sweetly that after meeting the red it would roll away precisely towards the intended colour. The long pots he’d performed in youth returned. At midday, he would concede the second frame if it hadn’t ended.

‘Why are you always late back from shopping these days?’ Liz demanded to know one Saturday.

‘I stop for coffee afterwards and have a read of the paper. Is that okay?’ he said, laughing as he realised he needed to explain himself.

‘Sure you can have coffee at home,’ she said. Her eyes revealed all her fear of a world from which she wanted to insulate them both. ‘Was there anything interesting in it today?’

‘Ah just the usual,’ he said, looking and walking away.

She began to fuss more. The breakfasts he prepared were no longer done right. One night she barked at him for chomping. Afterwards, brooding, he pulled out a dishwasher tray with a clatter.

‘How many did you break?’ she said, still sitting at the kitchen table.

‘Ten,’ he said nonchalantly.

‘Oh I thought it was eleven.’

Noel laughed. Also unable to control herself, she joined in. In that shared moment all the trenches in her face disappeared. The sound was the music that had once brought them together.

The seasons waltzed by and the two men kept playing: through summer, to the distant sounds of bird whistling and children playing on the courts; through autumn Saturdays when crisp sunshine spilt in through the narrow window; through winter, sheltered from the howling winds and rain, comfort in the gentle thud of colours colliding on the cloth; through spring Saturdays, laden with sun-filled promises of eternity.

One morning, Noel clipped a stray red off the triangle of reds into a corner pocket. The white rebounded off the cushion and landed near black. With a cannon into the reds he sank the ultimate colour. He potted a second red.

‘O-ho! The big break here!’ said Paul laughing, and rubbed his hands.

A steady screw shot propelled another black in and the cue ball glided towards a third red.

‘I’m gonna sit down! This is looking like the big 147 and Ferrari for highest break!’ said Paul and the two men laughed. Noel sensed Paul’s mutual excitement but straightened himself, struck the cue ball powerfully and watched the red rattle the pocket.

‘Seventeen,’ said Paul, his tone now matching his friend’s focus, but Noel had lost positioning. Only blue, at an acute angle, was possible. He slid the cue back and forth as he prepared to strike the white, considered the shot’s significance. He struck it tenderly, watched it meet blue from a sharp angle. After kissing the pocket’s side it dragged itself in.

‘Yes!’ roared Noel. It was the first time he’d made a break of twenty or higher. After missing the next red Noel turned with a grin to Paul. They shook hands, his friend’s eyes beaming.

‘Have you thought about joining the club?’ the younger man said as they walked to their cars. ‘You’re coming on no end.’

‘Maybe someday,’ said Noel, fantasising about the camaraderie and competitions.

*

The following Saturday morning, the mirror showed Noel a younger face. Liz sat silently as he cooked breakfast. She looked prayerful, a thumb resting between her closed eyes.

As Noel ate the last mouthfuls of toast his mobile rang to life. He saw that Liz could see a name flash up on the screen. Best to answer in the next room, he calculated, but in panic at missing it he answered at the door. ‘Hello?’

‘How’s it going?’ said Paul.

‘Not bad,’ said Noel, trying to reveal little.

‘I’ve gotta drop my dad off at the airport; my mum’s got held up. Can you play this afternoon?’

Noel winced. Liz was hovering near him now. ‘I can’t actually, I’m tied up.’  

‘No worries. We’ll resume hostilities next week, yeah?’

‘Absolutely, that should be fine.’

‘Who was that?’ Liz asked afterwards.

‘A colleague from work. He’s organised a snooker competition for charity and wanted to see if I could play this afternoon.’

‘Snooker? And when were you going to tell me about this?’

‘I was going to tell you,’ he said, wondering as he did if he ever could have. ‘Anyway, I said I can’t do this afternoon.’

‘And what was all that about “that should be fine”?’

‘There’s another game next Saturday.’

‘Well, you can tell him now that you won’t be playing. You’ll be bringing me into town.’

‘And the groceries?’

‘You can do them during the week,’ she said and told him about the shops she wanted to visit.

He raised a hand to parry away the details, sat back down. ‘Okay, okay.’

‘Go on, ring him back!’ she said, louder, and stood over him.

Burning with a shame he hadn’t felt since childhood, he picked up the phone. ‘I’ll text him. Okay? If you think it’s that urgent you can ring him yourself.’

*

Shopping that morning, Noel walked so sluggishly he felt like he was moving under water. When he brought the groceries into the house, he discerned a suffocating silence. 

‘Did your new friend reply?’ said Liz.

He nodded. Later that evening she broke the long silence to demand a cup of tea. It took three attempts to get it right.

Several days after their trip into town, Liz announced that she wanted to visit relatives the following Saturday. ‘You can do the shopping on Wednesday night again,’ she said, her eyes and words unwavering towards him.

Noel phoned Paul the next morning. ‘I’m gonna have to suspend our snooker for a while. My back trouble is back.’

‘Will you be out for long?’ said his friend, his voice swooning.

‘I’m not sure. I thought a week’s rest might have sorted it out but not so.’ He gave detailed symptoms he knew from Liz’s past.

On Wednesday, Noel returned from the shopping to find Liz clutching her back. ‘Oh Noel, I’ve done something to it again! I’ve the most terrible pain! Take me to the doctor,’ she said with familiar, haunted eyes. Part of him wanted to laugh at the irony but all he could do was look at her, think of how she bounced between fear and these forces she channelled towards him.

On the drive to the GP, Liz’s cousin, the mood between them lifted. She talked ceaselessly about the madness of a man at work who cycled whilst listening to music.  

‘“Deep heat and exercise”,’ Liz said, quoting the doctor after she emerged. She looked annoyed. ‘She suggested swimming but I don’t know.’

‘You should. The local pool is good apparently,’ said Noel. When they got home he checked its schedule.

‘I’ll try it at the weekend,’ she said.

Before bed that night, puffing a cigar under a clear, silent sky, he wondered what Paul really thought. He tiptoed upstairs in case Liz was sleep. At the bedroom door, he found her nimbly bending over to gather socks.

*

Wednesdays confirmed themselves as shopping evenings. There was the solitary stroll around the aisles, the finger fumbling to open clear plastic bags for fruit and vegetables and the methodical packing. He deposited the recyclables on the way home.

Liz swam on Saturday mornings for twenty minutes. Noel waited in the gallery and watched. He considered admitting everything to her to revive his weekend ritual. But he knew too well the path of old pursuits. As though he had understood, the young man never suggested Saturdays when they met.

Watching her swim one day, he noticed how youthful Liz’s body looked. She breast stroked then lolled about on her own in the fun section. At a bewildered child in a mother’s arms she beamed. Noel pondered it all. She’d loved the sea when they’d first married then lost interest after her first miscarriage.

He dwelt on the second pregnancy. The night before an appointment with the gynaecologist, Noel stayed up to watch the World Snooker Championship final. Denis Taylor had the nation shouting at their televisions past midnight.

‘Time for bed, darling,’ she’d said, her voice singing with hopefulness.

‘You trying telling Denis that!’

Her soft laugh cascaded downstairs. ‘I’ll be waiting.’

As he watched the final frames he speculated that if their child was a boy he might excel in sport, like the man with the funny glasses.

When they were told of the missed miscarriage the next day Liz wailed in his arms. To that most probing of questions, Noel’s answer would be that that day had been the worst of his life. It had replayed itself every day, magnified with every demand and the need to bury his own grief and attempted revivals.  

‘Here, I got you a present,’ he said, handing her an envelope when she joined him afterwards in the car. 

‘What’s this?’ 

‘I got you a year’s membership. It does your back good.’ He started the engine. ‘You deserve it.’