Chapter 10

From Australia I went to Dubai, which was just recovering from the Iran conflict. Many other players were worried about the venue, so I had an easy run to win the singles and another thousand points. My old sponsors had seen my return and had spoken to me about my plans. When I told them that I was in it for some years to come, I was back on the gear supply and was on a decent cash amount as well, seeing that I was in the top five at the moment.

From there, it was a long flight to Mexico and the Merida Open, where I met up with Mel again. She was in the hotel lounge when I arrived, so I put my bag in my room and went down to say hello. She jumped up and gave me a hug.

“Al! Fantastic to see you. I see that you’re taking it seriously this year.”

“I finished my exams last year and bought myself a flat as a base in Kent. I thought that the best idea was to start right from the beginning and see where I get.”

“What say we get together on a practise court tomorrow. Where’s your partner, Geri?”

“At university doing a law degree. I was offered a place but thought I’d earn a bit of money first.”

“Babs has retired. She pulled her back in New York last year, and can’t go on. How would you like to help this old girl out by being my partner while you’re in the US? You can stay with me in California.”

“That would be great! You’re not that old, though.”

“Al, you two being so close to beating us in Wimbledon was a wake-up. We lost a few more that year, and a few last year before Babs hurt herself. I’m thinking of giving it away and having time for myself before I do something rash and need a wheelchair to get around. This year is going to be so much fun!”

We played on the practise court and then got one of the other doubles teams to play us, which allowed us to work out some moves. I was now as good on my feet as she was, but also a bit quicker around the court. We both went down in our semis, and I was part of her entourage in a private jet, flying to Texas for the open at Austin, where we would play our first doubles together.

I was a losing semi-finalist, while she was runner up in our singles, but as a doubles pair, we were unbeatable. A similar trend followed us through Indian Wells, Miami, and Charleston. In the breaks, I stayed with her in her mansion above San Francisco, tasting the high life that a lifetime of being in the upper echelon can bring you.

At one party, I met Todd, a son of a famous singer, who was working in promotions. We got along all right and then I was alone again, flying to Stuttgart, then Madrid, Rome and the Grand Slam at Rolland Garros. After that, I was back in England at the London Open, the Nottingham Open, then back to Eastbourne.

When I arrived at Wimbledon this time, I was number twelve in the world and stayed at the same hotel as Mel with her team. Her physio gave me a working-over and told me that I was lucky that I hadn’t done any damage, seeing that I was travelling without a team. That year, Mel and I took out the doubles and I was eliminated at the semi-final again. Next year, I thought I may have enough experience to make it to a final.

After that, I did Hamburg again and met up with Mel for the next group of tournaments. The DC Open in Washington, Toronto, Cincinnati, Monterrey, and the US Open in New York. I got to the singles final in Toronto and the semi in New York, and we took the doubles in all five places, so earning the nickname as Team Melice.

While in the US, I met Todd again and he took me out for dinner a couple of times. One evening, he took me to a show where his mother was singing. When he told her who I was, she dragged me off to her dressing room and closed the door. She was singing a cover of one of the songs off of Alice Band three. I was given a quick make-over and had to wait in the wings until she got to that song. Then she told the crowd that the original singer was here tonight and pulled me onto the stage to do a duet with her.

After that Todd was at all our US tournaments, coming down to Mexico with us for the Guadalajara Open. We went back to San Francisco, where I gathered up my things and we had a nice farewell at the airport that mussed my lipstick. I flew to Singapore, then Seoul and Beijing for the last three opens of the year.

When I was back in England, my flat didn’t seem right any longer. I had earned enough to buy something better and looked up my account to see what I could afford. I found a four-bedroom detached in Shalford, near Guildford, and nearer to the tennis club than I was now. It was on the market at one and a quarter, so I went to see it, had an inspection and made an offer at one point two. That was agreed and I would be taking possession at the end of October. I saw my friendly bank manager, who was even more friendly when he saw my bottom line.

I put the flat on the market at two-thirty and accepted two-twenty. At the end of October, I picked up the keys to my new home and got a removal van for my furnishings. I took my trophies and photos myself, along with my clothes. I had a full car as I led the van to the destination. Mum had been sad that I was leaving the area again, but she was now busy looking after Enid during the days and had retired.

When I had settled in, I gave Geraldine a text to tell her where I now lived, which was only a few miles from her old home in Godalming. I made myself known at the club, surprised to see a recent photo of me on the wall with a list of my results.

One day, I went to the University of Surrey and spoke to them about doing a Business course sometime. With my good Advanced Levels from Benenden, I could start whenever I wanted to, so I took the paperwork with me.

I settled into my new house, getting a security company to install electrically operated thief-proof blinds on the outside of all the ground floor windows and an extra security bar inside the garage door for when I’m away. I now had enough wardrobe space in the master bedroom to take all my outfits, with a fitted wardrobe in one of the other bedrooms housing my collection of playing outfits. There were racks for the racquets and shoes, with room left for a desk and connections for my laptop and printer.

I had two other bedrooms to furnish, which I did in one day in a splurge at a nearby box store. With the extra beds and other furnishings, I only needed linen and blankets to be able to host visitors. Over Christmas, I had Teresa and Enid staying with me, and we all went shopping on a girls’ day out. It was a genuine joy to be out with my big sister and my teenage niece. It filled a hole in my heart that I never knew was there.

They drove back to the coast after boxing day, and I was packing my case for the next year of playing tennis. Australia had been good to me before, so I was flying to Adelaide again to start the cycle of tournaments. I arrived on New Years Eve, in time to see the local fireworks from my hotel window. I spent the next day running through the city, dodging crowds out for the New Year Sales. I had a nice couple of days before the tournament, exploring the big parks that circle the city. The people were friendly, I was ready, and the final was hard, with me picking up the runner up trophy. On to the Australian Open in Melbourne, where I was again beaten in the final. With my trophies packaged and on the plane to England, I was on my way to Dubai and then Mexico.

There, I was approached by an American mens’ player who asked me if I was playing doubles again. Mel had retired, so I agreed to join him in mixed doubles for the US matches. He had a small team, so I was added to their number for Mexico, Austin, Indian Wells, Miami and Charleston. Together, we won four out of the five mixed doubles, he was a quarter finalist in three singles, while I was a semi-finalist in four.

He was only playing on the American circuit, so went off to play the smaller tournaments, while I headed home for a short break before doing Madrid, Rome and the Grand Slam at Rolland Garros, doing well in the first two and being eliminated in the quarters in Paris.

Back in Britain, I took a few weeks break and concentrated on Eastbourne and Wimbledon. I spent a bit of time at the club, with Tony and June keen to help. They wanted to join me for the rest of the season, so I contacted my manager, who added them to the travel and hotel bookings.

We did Eastbourne and Wimbledon with me only playing singles and I won both. After that, we went to America where I met up with my new doubles partner. Over the period where we played Washington, Montreal, Cincinnati, Monterey and The US Open, we got closer as he seemed to relax more in my presence. After New York, where I had been eliminated in the semi, I told Tony and June that I was staying on for a while and they flew home.

I missed the last four tournaments in September and stayed with my new friend at his ranch in Montana. There, I learned that he only played for fun until we started playing together and was exceedingly shy around women. He had been put up to asking me to play with him by a friend of his from college, who was now part of Todds’ circle in LA. I also found out that Todd was married. It was a good job I hadn’t gone any further with him.

While I was in Montana, I went further with Alder, and I didn’t get home again until November. The following year, I was back in America, playing singles and mixed doubles with Alder, joining him on a virtual ‘see America in six months’ tour, with the bigger tournaments starting with Austin and finishing in New York. We travelled together, we played together, and we slept together, falling in love.

We had a Las Vegas wedding, with Elvis as celebrant. I couldn’t stop smiling at the absurdity of it all. We honeymooned in Hawaii and then I was toured around his relatives, all happy that he had found someone. I say toured, most of them were in North Dakota, one state east of us. The majority lived in Minot, well away from the oil wells that they controlled. Alder hadn’t wanted to be an oilman, more a grower than a digger, so had shifted far enough away to be his own boss with the property off the Old US Ten. He had big areas under irrigation from huge boom sprays with water pumped from the Yellowstone River.

Our nearest town was Park City and was where we could get onto the Interstate 90. Our closest big airfield was Billings-Logan, about twenty-five miles away and a very straightforward drive in his F250 with our luggage in the back. Although he was living away from the family, he was still part of the business and needed to attend the odd meeting. When I met his mother, I realised why he had been shy. There’s a sign at Billings that says, ‘Welcome to Bear Country’, and she was like a Mama Bear with cubs. All his siblings were timid when she was around.

I settled in with my husband. We went to England, his very first trip there, and I took him to my home, which he thought was ‘quaint’. I gathered up all my trophies and pictures, plus all the other things I wanted to keep, and we organised it to be shipped to Montana.

We made sure that the house was clean and tidy and called in an estate agent to put it on the market. With our cases in my BMW, we drove down to Deal to introduce him to my parents, who were understandably shocked that I was now a married woman. I pointed out that I was free, white, and over twenty-one and Teresa backed me up. She told me later that she was now seeing a guy in Dover for a quickie before coming home some nights.

We stayed a couple of days, and then told Teresa that I was going to give Enid my car, as she was now close to being able to drive and would need it for university, giving Teresa a cheque to cover three years tuition.

“She had better make sure that she gets the marks to get accepted, or I’ll be mad!”

When we drove to Heathrow, Teresa was in the back. When we stopped at the terminal, Alder pulled the bags out as I hugged my sister and gave her the keys.

“Don’t go breaking the limit on the way back and remember that we’ll have room for you and Enid if you want to visit, the same as I told Mum.”

She got into the car and drove off as the parking attendant that was coming our way smiled at me and then went off to speed up another family having lots of hugs. I had spoken to my manager and de-listed myself, tidying up any money owed, so had now cleared my business in my country of birth. Nothing held me here and I wasn’t worried about my future.

Montana was a wonderful place, with big skies and every climate known to man. At times it could be hot and arid, other times pouring with rain or snow. Boy! Did it snow! We could have cyclones, but the house was built to withstand whatever was thrown at it. Alder and I got into a married groove. We spent several months playing tennis around the country, with me now under his own managers wing. We had fun, we made a bit of money, as if we needed it.

I was now a wife with my own sizeable bank balance, which seemed miniscule next to my husbands’, but we lived as if we were just ranch-owning farmers. We had a couple of F250 pick-ups, and a RAM for use on the fields and towing the booms. We both had Landcruiser long wheelbase models for shopping and socialising, handy for when it had snowed.

The second year of our marriage saw a change, we only did half of the tennis tournaments as I was pregnant, and our doctor had told me to take it easy once I had passed the first trimester. I had been examined and told that my passage would be too tight to give birth naturally without intervention, so I had agreed to a caesarean.

The problem as I moved towards time, was that I was having twins. Alder was happy, as there were twins in the family and this would secure his standing among his siblings, none of whom had managed a pair.

I started getting labour contractions in late November, about a week before I was due, and there wasn’t a chance that I would make it into Billings in time, due to there being thigh-high snow on the ground and the Ten hadn’t seen a snowplough. They sent a helicopter with paramedics, and I was flown to the helipad on top of the hospital for another emergency operation. This time, it wasn’t one girl that was the result, but two.

Alder was more than happy when he was able to come and see me, a baby on each breast. For me, it was a dream come true and proof positive that my brain had been right, all those years ago. I was ten days in hospital, and when I was taken home, we had a new person in the ranch, a nanny.

I needed the help, never having had girl lessons in high school, where all the information about child rearing was taught. At Benenden, it was all academic subjects and, although the process of making babies was spoken about outside the classrooms, the process of looking after them wasn’t.

Many photos were taken, many going to his family, and a lot going to mine. I sent some to June, care of the club, and to Sandra to show Geraldine. Alder played singles that year, with me and the twins travelling with him with the nanny in tow. Our transport was not the usual commercial flights that we had used before. Alder had chartered a Lear jet for us, which was very comfortable.

We had both lived a life of people who were not materialistic. Now, he was prepared to spend a bit of his riches to give us some convenience. This lasted until the girls were ready for primary school and their ability to travel like normal people.

By that time, we were back to both playing during the summer months as usual, but I wasn’t at the level I used to be. We talked about it and decided that the best education for our Amelia and Audrey would be to start school in a big city, with the best schools to be found in Minneapolis, a couple of states away. One stood out as being the best. The Blake School catered for students from kindergarten to preparation for college. Alden was no dummy, I was pretty bright, so we had hopes that our girls would follow us. Approaching five, they were already speaking in an adult way, and both could read and write, They had pestered us for a piano that they could play, so we had one in the sitting room. Amelia would pick out notes to current songs and we would sing along.

We bought a house on Dupont Avenue in Minneapolis, walking distance to the school. It was quite a grand house in one of the best streets. We furnished it well, with a similar piano, as well as a proper one. The girls were enrolled, and I walked them to school. My small fame was helpful in making us welcome.

Over their twelve years there, they thrived, and I enrolled in a Doctorate of Business Administration at the St. Mary’s University, to finish my education and get an academic qualification. Winning a Grand Slam may open doors but didn’t give you a seat on a board.

I graduated as the twins were approaching middle school. I was asked to join the Women’s Club of Minneapolis, a non-profit charitable organisation. I sang at a few of their fundraising events. I played a bit of tennis when I could, but the spark had been extinguished. Alden would live with us, keeping in touch with his farm manager by email, and go back to Montana at the important times, like seeding and reaping. Delta would get him there in two hours, so it wasn’t as if we were on the other side of the world. We would all go back to the ranch in the long breaks.

We had a pair of Audi Q5’s to get around in, the four-wheel drive perfect for the winters. In my time there, I got to know the city well, and loved the shops, the older buildings, and the friendly people. My girls made many friends, and we made friends with their parents. Being the sort of school that Blake was, many of those parents were leading lights in the city society, which we were also drawn into, so it wasn’t an exile as it had first appeared, quite the opposite. Alden became far more confident with his relationships with others. Of course, the twins enchanted everyone they met.

When they graduated, they had high enough marks to get them into most of the colleges in the country, Amelia was an accomplished pianist and composer on top of her academic success. Audrey was more academic but had mastered the guitar as well. Neither of them followed their mother with any prowess in sports.

They were offered places at a number of good colleges but had made good friends with a couple of Canadian girls. When we looked into it, the University of British Columbia was the closest to Montana, had a very high reputation for musical studies on top of the academic ones. When we visited to have a look and a talk to the administration, it had some of the best boarding accommodation I’d ever seen. The girls loved it, their friends were going there, so we enrolled them for further education in Canada. With Montana being just across the border, it was only about a five-hour flight from Billings on Delta, via Salt Lake City, or six hours via Seattle on Alaskan.

Life seemed too quiet once they had been settled into Vancouver. I was now in my forties and Alden was almost fifty. The ranch house seemed too quiet after our house in Minneapolis, which we had sold for a handsome profit. Alden asked around and had someone who wanted the property to expand their own holdings, so we looked around for somewhere else to live.

We didn’t want to crowd the girls, now making their own lives, and it was crazy that there were a few airlines that flew from San Francisco to Vancouver in only two and a half hours, non-stop. So, we went down to San Fransisco and the sunshine to look for a place, finding a lovely apartment for sale in the Etta building. It was just a dozen blocks from the California Tennis Club, where we were welcomed by the administration after checking our credentials.

So, we spent our days lazing in the sun on our terrace, high above the traffic, keeping fit in the building gym, and filling up a few hours a week playing social tennis. Our girls went on to be leaders in their field. We went to concerts where Amelia played piano in works she had composed. We went to concerts where Audrey played guitar with Alice Band Too and sung popular songs she had written. Both were canny businesswomen and put their income into areas where they would become independently rich, even if we didn’t leave them anything.

Alden and I would travel up to Minot twice a year to sit on the board of the oil company, until we were made an offer that was irresistible. The old guard had died off and the new guard in the family didn’t want to get their hands dirty so were keen to get into tech stocks rather than oil wells.

As we led our quiet life, after all the excitement of our youth, we attended the weddings of our girls, we attended funerals, both in America and England. We welcomed visitors to stay with us, Enid and her family came several times.

Although I had the qualifications, I never needed to use my business acumen in real life. It may have been considered wasted time, but I knew that it was what was expected of a true Benenden girl. I think the Head may have appreciated my tennis success, but she would have been happier to have seen my university doctorate. They say that some things skip a generation. Our girls weren’t into sports, but our granddaughters are very strong tennis players. Which made their grandparents happy. And happiness is what life’s about in the end.

Marianne Gregory © 2026