The Stars' Tennis Balls - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

In 1980, Ned (Edward) Maddstone, is a seventeen-year old schoolboy who appears to be the sort of person for whom everything goes right. He is head boy, talented at sports, and following in the footsteps of his father towards Oxford University and a career in politics. Things begin to go wrong for the main character when his schoolfriend Ashley Barson-Garland discovers that Maddstone has secretly read part of his diary and therefore knows his dark secret, namely that he is ashamed of his working class roots. The clever Barson-Garland plots to besmirch Maddstone's good fortune with an arrest for possession of marijuana with the help of Rufus Cade, who is jealous of Maddstone's good looks and popularity, and Gordon Fendeman, Portia's American cousin, who is also in love with her.

Unfortunately, when Maddstone is arrested, an envelope in his pocket, entrusted to him by his dying sailing instructor, turns out to be a coded message from the Irish Republican Army. He is whisked away from the police station by a smooth Secret Services operative called Oliver Delft, who listens calmly to Maddstone's explanation of events until he reveals the address to which he was asked to deliver the envelope, which is of Delft's mother and would reveal his hidden ancestral relationship to a Fenian traitor. So, Delft callously decides that Maddstone must disappear. Maddstone is beaten up, pumped full of drugs, and taken away to a remote lunatic asylum on an island off the coast of Sweden. For many years, it is impressed on him by Dr. Mallo that his memories of his life as Ned Maddstone are false and merely the product of a diseased mind. Then, just when he is starting to believe this mind-programming, he is finally allowed to fraternise with the other inmates. He begins regularly playing chess with a man known simply as Babe, a highly educated and perfectly sane man who was also imprisoned by the British government, but has learned to cope with his situation by acting mad for the benefit of his captors.

The two men become close friends and generally give each other hope. Babe agrees to educate Maddstone, helping him to master the game of chess and teaching him to speak multiple languages among other things. Eventually, Maddstone realises he is indeed the son of Sir Charles Maddstone and, with Babe's help, laterally determines who betrayed him and how, although he is still baffled as to why he was imprisoned on the island. When Ned mentions the name of Oliver Delft, however, Babe is able to recall a list of IRA sympathisers that he once briefly saw thanks to his photographic memory, leading Ned to learn the true nature of the conspiracy. After some time, Babe dies, having first devised a way in which Maddstone might escape to the mainland by hiding in his intended coffin. Once free, he sells some prescription drugs stolen from the asylum and, as directed by Babe, travels to Switzerland, to visit a bank and gains access to an account in which Babe had deposited large sums of stolen money (which has also accrued many years' worth of interest).

Thus, by the year 2000, Maddstone has become fabulously wealthy (to the tune of £324 million). Assuming the identity of Simon Cotter, he swiftly becomes famous as a mysterious Internet entrepreneur, making huge profits by investing in high-risk ventures. He then returns to England and wreaks his revenge by cleverly driving Rufus Cade, Ashley Barson-Garland, Gordon Fendeman and Oliver Delft to their deaths. When his task is complete, he hopes to renew his relationship with Portia, but this is not to be. On discovering his identity, Portia is horrified by the change in Maddstone's personality and flees with her son Albert after the death of her husband, Gordon.

The novel ends with Cotter/Maddstone tearing up the old love letters he once sent to Portia as he returns to what he now realises is his only real 'home', the hospital on the island that he now owns.