Chapter Fourteen #4
‘And she wanted you to. So you could buy the house.’
He nodded. ‘The funny thing was, though, we’d disagreed over stuff like that before and we’d always got over it.
But when she had to pull out of the sale, I could tell I’d disappointed her.
Every time I called to try and patch things up, she’d pretend to be too busy to talk.
She said she thought it was best if she resigned as my manager and I got a professional person on board, that she felt she was only holding me back. ’
‘Was she?’
He hesitated. ‘Maybe. But I would have kept her on as my manager forever if I could. Without her, I wouldn’t be here, would I?
I felt like I owed everything to her. She used all of her earnings from the bar job to pay for my racquets, my lessons, the rent on our shitty little flat, food – she always made sure I ate well.
I couldn’t understand how things had got so bad between us that she was prepared to walk away. ’
‘When was the last time you saw her?’
‘Last Christmas. She dropped a gift round for me. It’s about the only time I see her these days, that and my birthday. We occasionally text, but it’s just small talk. She doesn’t want anything to do with my tennis anymore, she’s made that very clear.’
I wondered, then, about his temper. Whether that had been the point at which it spiralled out of control when he was on court.
‘How did it affect you, not having your mum come to matches?’ I asked him.
‘I was angry a lot of the time. In a way, I felt as though the game had ruined my relationship with her, and therefore if I played badly, or the match didn’t go my way, I felt this uncontrollable resentment that I’d given everything up for tennis and I wasn’t even winning at it.
Plus, my mum had always been the person I’d talked to about my feelings – the only person.
After she’d gone from my life, there was nobody.
I was totally on my own, and when I was out on court, under all that pressure, it would sometimes just explode out of me because I didn’t know what else to do with it. ’
Without thinking, I reached out to touch his arm. ‘That’s really sad, I’m sorry, Marcus. You must wish things could go back to how they used to be.’
He looked at my hand on his arm and he just let it rest there for a few seconds before I realised my fingers were covered in dough, which was now smeared all over his (no doubt) very expensive shirt.
‘Shit, sorry!’ I said, whipping my fingers away, wiping them frantically on my apron.
‘It’s fine, Ava,’ he said, his voice barely more than a whisper.
My breath caught in my throat. If either of us had thought to ask someone to take a photo, it would have made a brilliant shot – Marcus and I, covered in flour, staring at each other with thoughts running through my head that I really couldn’t explain.
And then Collette bashed a wooden spoon against a stainless-steel bowl to get our attention and I swung my eyes away from him, although I could still feel the heat of his on me.
While we waited for our bread to cook, we all relocated to the tables at the front of the shop, where Colette topped up our wine and brought out plates of olives and cheese and butter for us to enjoy once our baguettes were ready to eat.
Judging by the delicious smells emanating from the ovens, we’d all done a pretty good job, and Colette seemed pleased with our creations.
‘So,’ said Marcus, taking a large mouthful of his wine. ‘Time to talk about you. That would be much more fun.’
‘Fun for who?’
‘Me, obviously. I’ve just told you all my family secrets and now it all feels a bit . . . unbalanced. Like you know loads about me but I know next to nothing about you.’
‘Isn’t that the whole point of me writing a profile on you?’ I reasoned.
‘Oh, I think we’re a bit past that, don’t you?’ he said.
I swallowed hard, fiddling with my glass.
‘Fine. What do you want to know?’ I mumbled. ‘By the way, how come you’re drinking the night before a match?’
He shrugged. ‘It’s just one glass.’
‘Am I a bad influence on you, Marcus?’
‘No. Now, tell me about your ex,’ he said.
‘What about him?’
‘Well . . . how long were you together? Was it serious?’
Charlie’s face came into my mind’s eye for the first time that day.
I noted this was a definite improvement – it meant I could go hours without thinking about him, whereas at first I’d been lucky to go ten minutes.
And I hadn’t had time to miss him as much because I was either going off to meet Marcus or I was trying to write the best article of my life or I was thinking about Marcus or I was thinking about the article.
I’d seen Zoe a few times and was back out there in the world like a normal, functioning human being, and even the housework was on track, although there wasn’t the same need for me to keep the flat spotless so that Charlie didn’t compare me unfavourably to his mother.
I could never live up to his mum’s high standards of cooking or cleaning, it seemed, and honestly, I had no aspirations to.
‘We were together for four years. Lived together for two of those,’ I said. ‘And then one day he just came home from work and said he was leaving.’
‘Why would he do that?’ asked Marcus, seemingly almost as confused as I’d been at the time.
‘Apparently, he’d been unhappy for months. It’s difficult for me to explain because I honestly don’t know what happened, but I’m starting to suspect that he left me for his new girlfriend.’
‘Have you asked him?’ said Marcus.
‘There wasn’t a chance to. He just packed up his stuff and left. I think I was a bit in shock, because I just let him.’
‘Jesus,’ said Marcus. ‘What did you do then? Are you close with your parents? Who was the first person you called?’
This was going to sound strange, particularly when I’d been pushing him to open up, telling him that was the way to release some of the tension he felt on court, how talking was good.
‘I didn’t tell anyone. For ages, like a week.’
‘What?’
‘I know.’
‘Why?’ he asked, incredulous.
‘Because when something goes wrong, I deal with it on my own.’
‘Since when?’
‘Since my sister was born. She was premature and nearly died. I was three at the time and was sent to live with my grandparents until she was home because my parents were too stressed out and worried to deal with me as well as Cassie. She’s fine now.
A bit fragile. She relies on my parents a lot, and as a result I have to be strong and capable so that they don’t have to worry about me too. ’
‘So who does worry about you?’ he asked.
For some reason, I felt a little bit choked up. See? It was much better when I buried all my feelings and forgot that any of this was happening.
‘Charlie used to, but now that he’s gone, it’s really just my friend Zoe,’ I said.
Slowly, I became aware of his perfectly muscular knee, right there next to mine, even though this table was pretty spacious and I was sure he could have avoided touching me if he’d wanted to. And even more alarmingly, I had no desire whatsoever to move.
‘Perhaps we’re more similar than we thought, Ava,’ said Marcus.
‘Why, do you feel lonely too?’ I asked, realising I’d just revealed something else about myself that I hadn’t meant to.
‘All the time. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not particularly popular on the circuit, probably because I don’t actually want to make friends.
For me, the only way I can win is to be ruthless out there on the court.
If I start to care about the people I’m playing, I won’t have the edge I need to beat them. ’
‘You’re afraid you’ll feel more emotional about your game?’ I asked.
‘Sort of. Although feeling anything at all isn’t exactly my strong point,’ he admitted.
He picked up his glass.
‘Cheers,’ he said.
I followed suit, tapping my glass against his, our knuckles knocking together. ‘What are we celebrating?’
‘I was going to say a fun evening, but I’m not sure that’s quite the right word.’
‘To a revealing evening,’ I summarised, knocking my glass against his again.
‘We should take a selfie,’ said Marcus suddenly. ‘Dean’s going to kill us, we haven’t taken a single photo.’
‘Hmm, good point,’ I said, ripping off my apron and touching my hair self-consciously.
‘Plus the more photos there are of us out there, the more chance there is of your ex seeing them,’ said Marcus, with a mischievous look in his eye.
I laughed. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Deadly. Put it all over your socials. Didn’t he do that weeks ago with some new girl he was seeing? And if you think about it, maybe it’s time we started doing this fake dating thing properly. Loved-up people put loved-up images of themselves on Instagram, or so I hear.’
‘I guess you wouldn’t know,’ I said.
‘That, Ava, is a conversation for another time. Right now, it’s cosy photos time.’
I put my glass down, sitting back in my seat to observe him, amused. ‘You’re really getting into this, aren’t you?’
‘It may be more fun than I thought it would be,’ said Marcus. ‘And although I don’t know the guy, I’d honestly take great pleasure in imagining your ex’s face as he flicks through his feed and sees a photo of the two of us having the night of our lives in Paris.’
‘The night of our lives, you say?’ I said, my voice low and teasing.
‘Well, it’s not over yet,’ he quipped, his voice equally soft.
I felt an intense fizzing sensation in places I definitely shouldn’t have been having such a visceral reaction. Every part of me felt alive, engaged, turned on. Was he flirting with me? Or was it my imagination playing tricks on me because it no longer knew what was real and what wasn’t?
I busied myself getting my phone out of my bag. ‘Come on, then,’ I said, shifting in my seat and manoeuvring the phone so that we were both in shot.
‘Ready?’ I said.
Marcus slid his arm around my shoulders. I felt myself go rigid under his touch and he must have felt it too, because I could sense him looking at me out of the corner of his eye.