Chapter 31
Thirty-One
When Lady M suggests I have some time off after Sotogrande, I take her up on the offer.
The season has come to a close, people are going their separate ways, and they can spare me.
It’s good for me to get away from Maycourt for a bit – any time I hear footsteps around the yard, I’m terrified and hopeful it might be him, even though he flew straight from Spain to France. Everything here reminds me of him.
He’s called. I didn’t answer the first couple of times and then when I did pick up, the relief in his voice made me want to cry, so I kept it as short as possible so I could stay composed, telling him we needed time and space.
I felt like I’d said all I needed to say in Soto.
I want Mateo to win in Argentina and achieve true happiness.
But not at the cost of mine. What hurts the most is that I believe we could have had both.
If only he’d been able to remove his blinkers to see that, too.
I haven’t been neglecting my duties at the yard – whether you’re having a good day or a bad day, the ponies need their breakfast and exercise, no way around that – but it’s been hard to put my heart into the job.
I’ve been on autopilot, struggling through every motion, every task with a debilitating ache.
As the season has come to an end, it’s a good time to have a break and I feel like I may need it.
‘Ash, I know you have a lot to think about,’ Lady M says, leaning on the fence with me as we watch Serafina and Byron graze in the field on a cloudy afternoon, her dogs clustered around her feet.
‘We never discussed further than the polo season. I asked you to help us get the best out of Serafina and you did just that.’
‘Mateo did most of it,’ I mumble earnestly.
‘You gave us the first steps with her that we needed to earn her trust. Please don’t brush that away as nothing. It’s not and I’m grateful to you.’
‘Likewise.’ I turn to offer her a small smile.
‘If you do decide that you’d like to work in a polo yard for the long-term, perhaps you and I could have a serious conversation.
I know Jules would like to have you as a permanent fixture around here, as would I, but I’m also aware that you had a life in London before us and you never planned for this to be forever.
Take some time to think about it. Let me know. ’
She pushes herself off the fence, her dogs scrabbling to their feet and whining with excitement, wondering where they’re off to next.
‘Thank you,’ I say.
‘And if I may be so bold as to offer some personal advice,’ she places a hand on my arm, ‘it sounds obvious, but sometimes, it’s not: make that decision based on what you want from life.
Don’t let the actions of anyone else have sway over it.
’ She pats her fingers on my sleeve, lowering her voice to a hushed tone as she leans in conspiratorially.
‘He won’t be around here much the next few weeks, so you don’t need to worry about seeing him. ’
I don’t say anything, but I nod appreciatively.
She sighs, dropping her hand from my arm. ‘Some people don’t know the best thing to happen to them until they let it slip away.’
‘Oh, don’t worry, I know how much Maycourt means to me.’
Her lips twitch into a smile, her eyes gleaming at me. ‘I wasn’t talking about you.’ She tightens her grip on her dogs leads. ‘Right, come on you lot, let’s get home.’
I watch her stroll away, the lurchers trotting to heel nicely at her feet, while Garfunkel pulls on the lead to get back to his plush sofa as fast as possible.
He had a groom recently and seems to have extra swagger with his impossibly fluffy corgi butt.
I can’t help but smile as I watch them go, a pack of misfits who fit together perfectly, and then I go back to watching the ponies, wondering if I should accept I fit in here, too.
*
Staying at Mum’s house in North London is a bit like staying at a really cool modern hotel.
Everything is clean, sleek and minimalist, with pops of bright colour every now and then.
The sofas are white with bright-orange and turquoise cushions.
The walls of the kitchen are white except for one bright statement wall that’s been painted with bold, vibrant abstract art by an artist friend of hers.
The house is lit mostly by long hanging clusters of pendant bulbs ensconced in glass domes, and in each room, there are few but big colourful ornaments or sculptures that bring the room to life, like the graffiti elephant in the corner of the sitting room.
It’s not so easy to slob in a house this orderly, which seems impressively clean until you realise that that’s largely down to Mum rarely being in it.
I didn’t let her take time off work, not that I think she could have anyway.
But she did make the offer and I was adamant that she only assign one block of time a year to looking after her heartbroken daughter and I’ve already collected my allotted chunk.
That was meant to make her laugh, but instead, she gave me a wry look and said, ‘We both know that last time wasn’t heartbreak. This time, I think it is.’
She was right, but I still wouldn’t let her take time off work.
The first couple of days I was here, I made the most of the opportunity of being alone to wallow in being pathetic.
I miss him. I don’t want to be without him.
I can’t bear the idea of him ever being with anyone else.
I hate the world. Life is so unfair. Why is this so fucking painful?
Why does losing him make everything seem worthless and pointless?
I never should have let myself fall for him.
I’ll never trust another man ever again.
Every couple I see out there in the world is a lie. Love is a lie. I miss him.
Then, one day, I make myself presentable by washing my hair, putting on nice clothes and make-up and I leave the house to meet Sam for a coffee.
‘I don’t understand how this happened,’ she says as I twist my coffee mug round on its saucer absent-mindedly.
‘Me neither.’
‘He’s an idiot.’
‘I’m an idiot, too. I fought it at the beginning because I think I knew this was always going to happen. There were so many warnings.’
‘But he fell for you, Ash,’ she says gently, placing her hand over mine either as a gesture of comfort or to stop me turning the coffee mug round and round because it’s getting annoying.
‘Anyone could see that. The way he was around you, so in awe, so adoring. He was so proud of you, and proud that you had chosen him. It was like he couldn’t believe his luck that you’d landed in his life. ’
‘We both know how convincing guys can be at this sort of thing.’
She shakes her head solemnly. ‘No, that wasn’t fake charm or some kind of game he was caught up in. It was real, I know it.’ Her brow furrows. ‘I hope he comes to his senses before he loses you for good.’
‘I made the decision to walk away,’ I remind her.
She looks at me pensively for a moment. ‘What does Jasper think of all this?’
‘He says that Mateo is no longer welcome at The Old Greyhound. I told him that was unnecessary and also would be a stupid business move if Mateo is signed to the team again next summer. The team like to be together. They’d just find an alternative local.’
‘I think it’s nice of him to take a stand. Let Mateo reap the consequences of his stupidity!’ She picks up her large coffee and takes a sip. ‘What are you thinking about the job offer from Lady M? Are you going to take it?’
‘I’m not sure.’
She nods before offering me a warm smile. ‘I know you feel shitty right now, but I’m glad you’re back in the city. I’ve missed you. It hasn’t been the same without you.’
‘Bet you’ve got more work done.’
‘I have been absurdly productive since you left.’
I grin before asking her to please distract me with some ludicrous fashion stories that might challenge the ludicrous polo stories I’ve got used to and she does not disappoint.
After the boost of seeing her, I start to venture out the house more over the next couple of days, forcing myself to enjoy London while I’m here and go to art galleries and beautiful parks and important landmarks and basically do all the stuff that I never actually did when I lived here.
So far, I’ve been able to get on with things without strangers confronting me over being the woman who tried to lure Chris Courtney away from his wife, and I’m no longer on social media so I’ve been able to avoid any trolls online, too.
At least Chris’s attempt for garnering sympathy has generally backfired.
That excerpt didn’t quite have the reaction he or his team expected.
He got a lot of heat from the general public and the media for twisting the narrative to play the victim when he’s a grown man with his own agency.
There was a huge backlash over his attempts to paint me, a junior assistant, as evil, while he, the famous, influential athlete, was, by his reckoning, an innocent bystander who got caught up in my scheming.
‘It has sparked a lot of debates about abuse of power,’ Mum told me one evening as she pored over notes for her breakfast show the next day.
The cherry on the cake was a Melbourne-based barista named Hazel leaking intimate voice notes he allegedly sent her during the Australian Open last year. She’s claiming they had an affair and he asked her to keep it secret while he and his wife were ‘in a rocky patch’.
Turns out I wasn’t the only one, or even the first.
For now, the release of his memoirs is still going ahead and I’m sure it will sell. People will believe the story they want to. Either way, I’m letting it go and focusing on what’s ahead for me.