Players

by Karen Swan

  She slid down in her seat and held her order of play in front of her face. Unfortunately for her, it was a tough game. The players were well matched, neither one breaking serve, and they both played from the baseline, engaging in gruelling rallies which delighted the crowd but left Tor in a state of increasing agitation.

  After twenty-five minutes, her arm was throbbing from holding the programme up so high.

  ‘Here, let me have a look.’ Cress snatched the order of play out of her hands. ‘I don’t even know their names.’

  ‘No!’ Tor hissed. But it was too late.

  Cress jolted back as she took in Tor’s strange body language. ‘What’s wrong?’ she demanded.

  Tor was now shielding her face behind her hand instead. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘It doesn’t look like nothing.’

  ‘I’ve just got a bit of a headache coming on.’

  ‘Oh, well, I’m sure we can get something for it at the end of the set,’ Cress reassured.

  ‘Yup, great,’ Tor said.

  ‘First set, Mr Cavendish,’ the umpire intoned.

  As the players sat in their chairs, there was a cascade of movement in the bleachers as people made a dash for the loos and the bar. Tor grabbed her bag and jumped up, shuffling along the aisles as quickly as possible, treading on people’s toes and bashing people with her bag.

  ‘Sorry. I’m so sorry,’ she repeated, without slowing down.

  She turned at the aisle and waited for Cress to catch up.

  ‘Crikey, that was embarrassing, Tor. You just about concussed half the row in front.’

  ‘Oh. Whoops,’ Tor said, clearly unapologetically and searching for the exit.

  Cress looked at her. Tor seemed odd again. ‘Come on, you,’ she said. ‘Let’s go and say hallo to James.’

  ‘No, absolutely not.’

  ‘What do you mean? It’s James. Let’s go.’

  ‘Leave the poor man alone, Cress,’ Tor said, more severely than she’d intended. ‘He’s off-duty. He doesn’t want to have to consort with a couple of former wombs on his day off.’

  Cress looked petulant. ‘I am not a womb.’

  ‘You are to him. He’ll probably only recognize you if you go up to him with your legs in stirrups.’

  ‘Uurgh. I didn’t know you could be so crude, Tor Summershill.’ Cress folded her arms in a grump.

  ‘Am I interrupting?’ a deep voice enquired, hesitatingly, from behind.

  Cress spun round. ‘James. How are you? We were just coming to find you, weren’t we, Tor?’

  Tor closed her eyes in despair. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t make idle chit-chat with this man who was all warm and smooth and polite, when her husband was cold in the ground.

  Cress tried to gloss over her friend’s rudeness.

  ‘What on earth are you doing here? I wouldn’t have thought this was your bag?’ she asked.

  ‘On the contrary. This is one of the highlights of my year. My son plays in the tournament. And I played as a boy. I always take my leave to coincide with it.’ James paused. ‘Hello, Tor.’ She’d forgotten how deep his voice was. She realized it had been months since she’d last had a conversation with a man.

  She turned round slowly.

  ‘Tor,’ he faltered. For the briefest moment they made eye contact, but that was all it took for every microscopic detail of that night to come rushing back. She started to shake.

  He was stunned by how fragile she looked. She was bitterly thin.

  ‘How are . . .’

  She hit him hard across the cheek.

  Everyone in the vicinity fell quiet. Even Cress was too stunned to speak. Tor was shaking violently from head to toe.

  There was a long, long silence as James tried to take in everything that was happening – Tor’s frailty, her trembling, and even, from beneath her huge glasses, the tears streaming down her face.

  But before he could speak, she suddenly disappeared into the staring crowd, keeping low, desperate to be lost, to get away, until finally somehow, she stumbled out on to the pavement. She looked around. She didn’t know where to go. There were people everywhere.

  The wind coming off the sea had picked up, and it whipped her hair around before plastering the front tendrils to her cheeks. She took off her shoes and ran down the beach to the water’s edge, where the crashing surf drowned out her sobs. She doubled over, clutching her arms around her waist, letting the tears come thick and fast. Then thicker and faster still. It had been eight weeks since Hugh’s death and not a tear had fallen. She had calcified and been as dry as a bone. But now that the first tears had fallen, they wouldn’t stop and it was like a runaway train, going faster and faster.

  Cress put a hand on James’s arm, mortified.

  ‘James, are you OK?’

  He nodded vaguely, but he was still looking into the crowd, trying to locate Tor. She was gone. He looked back at Cress, more focused now.

  ‘You mustn’t blame her. She’s behaving really erratically at the moment. The grief is manifesting itself quite . . . uh . . . strangely.’

  ‘Grief?’

  Cress nodded, before her hand flew up to her mouth. ‘Oh my God, you mean you don’t know?’

  James shook his head. ‘Know what?’ He looked back into the crowd but Tor was still conspicuously absent. ‘What’s happened?’ His tone was urgent.

  Cress’s voice got smaller. ‘It’s Hugh.’

  James stiffened. ‘What about him?’

  ‘He died.’

  ‘What? When?’ James had gone deathly white.

  ‘It, er . . . it was the night of the party. You know, in Kensington, for Harry. There was a traffic accident. Hugh was driving, he was over the limit.’

  James stared at her for what seemed like an age, disbelieving, before suddenly breaking away and rubbing his face in his hands. It couldn’t be . . . He started pacing up and down.

  ‘I don’t believe this,’ he whispered, his hands on his hips. He kept looking up and searching the crowd for Tor, but she clearly wasn’t coming back.

  He brought his attention back to Cress.

  ‘So – so what is she doing up here?’ he asked angrily.

  ‘Kate and I sent her up here for the summer. She wasn’t coping staying in the house, so we thought a break would do her good. Plus it was a way to get her some money, without her realizing it, if you see what I mean.’

  James frowned at her. ‘No. I don’t think I do.’

  Cress paused. ‘Hugh didn’t have life insurance. She may have to sell the house.’

  James clapped his forehead with his palm.

  ‘I can’t believe this,’ he said. ‘I just can’t . . .’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Cress whispered, putting her hand on his arm. ‘I didn’t realize you guys were so close.’

  His arms dropped to his sides, and he stood rigid. What did she know? ‘Well, we’re not. Not really. But it’s just a dreadful thing to happen. Awful for anyone. Oh God, the children.’ He shook his head.

  ‘She’s taken it really hard. Please don’t be angry with her for, you know, walloping you. The grief’s making her act completely out of character. I’m sure you understand?’

  James nodded but said nothing. He understood more than she knew. And it wasn’t irrational grief that had made her hit him.

  ‘I’ve got to find her,’ he said suddenly. ‘She shouldn’t be alone.’

  ‘No, she shouldn’t. I’ll see you l––,’ Cress said, starting to move.

  ‘No. I’ll go,’ he interrupted sternly. ‘Leave her with me.’

  And before she could argue, he had disappeared into the crowd. He searched everywhere – the loos, the car park, the bar, even back at the courts. He only tracked her down when he overheard some children talking about the crying lady on the beach.

  James watched her from the sea wall.

  She was sitting by the water’s edge, her knees tucked in to her chest, and her head pressed down, as if she was trying to be buried in
to herself. He could see her shoulders heaving from the road.

  People were coming up to her offering help, but, too distraught even to speak, she waved them away hysterically. He felt an ache in his chest. He wanted so much to scoop her up, but he was rooted to the spot.

  He had never felt so torn. She blamed him – that was clear. He still didn’t know exactly what had happened that night after she’d left him, but he could guess: the showdown. Hugh storming out. He had played a big part in it all. She was right to be angry. To blame him.

  He watched a man walk over to her and try to pull her up by her arm. Adrenalin coursed through his body as he saw her head shaking and her heels digging into the sand.

  He could bear it no longer. Without saying a word, he ran across the beach. The man saw him race up silently, fury in his eyes. He dropped her arm and started walking off backwards, his palms held up in surrender.

  ‘I was only trying to help,’ he offered.

  Without saying a word, James scooped her up like a baby and carried her back from the water’s edge, setting her down in the dry sand. He put his jumper over her shoulders and sat behind her, his knees around her, enfolding her in a six-foot-two wall. He pulled her back by her shoulders so that her head rested on his chest, and slowly he smoothed her hair away from her wet cheeks, just as she had done for her babies.

  She let him, but it wasn’t forgiveness. He knew that. He was just the only other person in the world who knew the whole story. And right now, that made her feel a little bit less alone.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Harry watched Emily’s pert breasts bouncing jauntily as she sat astride him, grinding away with a look of triumphant elation on her face. She had fallen for it, hook, line and sinker.

  He’d given his butler, Jeremy, the night off, keen to convey an image of not having been changed by his stupendous wealth. She had to believe he was still the geography master she’d known and shagged – only with £68m in the bank.

  So he had opened the door with a variant on his signature smile – charismatic, though not as cheeky as usual, with a dose of hesitancy thrown in just for good measure. But when he saw her, the smile sprang to his eyes and they twinkled with genuine delight. Standing in the dimly lit marbled lobby in a canary yellow silk dress, she looked incredible. He might have to go off-plan after all.

  With a swift up-and-down, he clocked her trim waist, toned tummy and high breasts, which were fuller than he remembered. Her cheekbones were pronounced but her face was still full, in the bloom of youth. He particularly liked her rubber flip-flops – they made her ankles look delicate and, more importantly, they weren’t try-hard. He was so bored of seeing vampy red-soled Louboutins next to his bed.

  Her toenails weren’t polished but scrubbed pink, like seashells, and she wore a silver toe ring, like those worn by gappers on the backpacking trail. Her schoolgirl mousy brown hair had been highlighted a shimmering golden blonde – and cascaded down her back in gentle curls. Apart from a slick of lipgloss, she didn’t appear to be wearing any makeup – she didn’t need to.

  Kate had been right. Emily had blossomed. Whatever risqué thrills she had provided at fourteen, she was now an altogether more tantalizing prospect and he liked the look of every one of her provocative and peachy-ripe twenty-one years.

  ‘Emily.’

  ‘Harry.’

  Without kissing her, he ushered her in, watching her face as she took in the magnificent riverside penthouse. It always had the same effect. The entire back wall was glazed, drenching the room with light – and status. The view across to Chelsea was dazzlingly impressive, scanning from Chelsea Harbour in the west, past the majestic Albert Bridge, which looked as though it was bedecked with stars, over to the London Eye in the east.

  The black lacquered floor had been highly glossed to create the illusion of a skin of water covering it, and bright tangerine-coloured Roche Bobois sofas, accessorized with Missoni cushions, were arranged in an arc around a vast fireplace, above which there was a strip in the ceiling for a retractable cinema screen. The walls were covered with black Chinese hand-painted silk panels by De Gournay, and a giant eight-foot buddha’s head sat in the far corner. To be honest Harry had never particularly liked that piece, but it said . . . What was it the interior designer had said? Something about spirit and calm. That was it – calmer.

  The kitchen was white Boffi, as highly glossed as the floor and minimal as a noodle. A pot of coq au vin was simmering in the oven, looking suitably home-made – which it was. Just not by Harry.

  It was all a stark difference to the shabby housemaster’s residence he’d taken her to while he was shagging her in her uniform.

  Emily made her way over to the double white leather Barcelona daybed which sat in front of the huge sliding doors, her eyes resting on some annotated first drafts Harry had casually left there. He felt it struck the right note – dishevelled, hard-working, homely.

  There was no need for her to know this wasn’t his home. Harry didn’t live here. He lived in a grand stuccoed mansion in Kensington. This was simply where he entertained. It gave people exactly what they expected of the great playboy – luxury, decadence and absolutely no intimacy whatsoever. The wardrobes were bare, save for an overnight change of clothes, and there wasn’t any fresh milk in the fridge. All he kept stocked up here were bottles of Krug, condoms, some Dutch porn and spare sets of his favourite Frette bedsheets. There were a few photos dotted here and there, but only showing him with other A-listers – Bono, Julia Roberts, George Bush, Michael Caine. It was all just about the statement.

  Harry handed her a glass of non-vintage champagne (certain she wouldn’t notice the difference) and they walked out on to the terrace.

  ‘I’m so glad you contacted me,’ he began, referring to her letter as though it were a love note and not a demand for a million pounds. ‘I didn’t know how to reach you – well, not without raising suspicion.’

  Emily looked at him, bemused, but said nothing.

  ‘You know, I’ve always wondered about you. Wondered how you were, where you were. Who you were with.’ He laughed lightly and shook his head, his curls rustling. ‘I thought you might have been snapped up already, actually. Girls like you don’t get left on the shelf for long.’

  ‘My being here doesn’t mean I haven’t been,’ she replied tartly.

  ‘Oh, right,’ he said, trying to sound like he cared. ‘Who’s the lucky guy?’

  ‘You wouldn’t know him,’ she said dismissively.

  ‘No. I guess not.’

  They both stared out over the water. A flock of starlings was pitching and swooping around Battersea Bridge in perfect synchronicity, and the sun had dropped behind the gasworks, leaving a raspberry ripple sky in its wake.

  ‘You look incredible.’

  She said nothing. She knew she did.

  ‘Tell me what you’ve been doing.’

  ‘I’ve been working in PR for a few months now.’

  ‘Do you enjoy it?’

  ‘Seems OK,’ she shrugged.

  ‘Which accounts do you work on?’

  ‘They’re luxury brands. Nothing you’d know anything about,’ she said, absolutely deadpan.

  ‘No, you’re right. Not my bag at all.’ He fought back a smile.

  The ice was melting. She was getting warmer. She turned to face him.

  ‘How about you? Work seems to be going well.’ Understatement was clearly her specialty.

  ‘Yes, bumbling along. I’m working on the screenplay for The Snow Leopard. And scribbling down some notes for my next book.’

  ‘There seems to be quite a lot of talk that Scion’s going to be up for some Oscars.’

  ‘Mmm.’ He tried to look embarrassed, but really he was desperately excited by Hollywood’s acceptance of him. The film had grossed $430m worldwide and his recent visit had been an unqualified success. They loved the ‘English thang’ he had going on. Stephen Fry but handsomer; Jude Law but badder.

  ‘So how do
you want to pay me, Harry? Cash or banker’s draft?’

  Harry spluttered on his drink.

  ‘Bloody hell! Hold your horses! I thought we were having a nice time,’ he protested.

  ‘If you say so. But I’m not here for a good time. This is business.’

  ‘Blackmail is not business,’ he replied tersely. ‘It’s crime.’

  ‘Tch. That’s harsh. You should be relieved – no, grateful – that I’m only demanding compensation and not a custodial sentence.’ She looked at him coolly. ‘You broke the law, Harry – or should I say “Mr Hunter”,’ she said, putting on a little girl’s voice.

  ‘Don’t give me that,’ he flashed. ‘You were the one who seduced me. You were the one who came into my class and sat there flashing your knickers.’

  A thin smile hovered around her lips.

  ‘You liked it, though, didn’t you,’ she said. ‘I didn’t see you looking away. And the look on your face that day when I didn’t wear any.’ Her smile was mocking. ‘You couldn’t clear the classroom fast enough.’

  Harry turned away from her. The memory of it had made him hard.

  ‘There’s not a court in the land that would convict me,’ he said, his voice low. ‘I’ll counter that you were provocative. Fourteen going on twenty-one.’

  ‘The courts deal with the letter of the law, Harry – not the spirit.’

  ‘I’ve got the best lawyers money can buy.’

  Emily inclined her head. ‘Let’s hope they’re worth it, then.’

  Back in control in the trouser department, Harry tried another angle.

  ‘Why are you doing this? Who’s putting you up to it? I don’t believe for one second this is your idea. This isn’t you. It’s your boyfriend, isn’t it? You told him about us and he’s pulling a scam to get rich quick.’

  ‘No,’ she said simply. ‘It’s got nothing to do with anyone else. This is about . . .’ She struggled for the word. ‘Justice. What you did was wrong.’

  ‘I know it was. Don’t you think I haven’t beaten myself up about what I did? I have to live with the knowledge that I abused my position to be with you. But I was intoxicated by you – you drove me crazy!’ That much was true. ‘Not that any of that makes it right. I should have been stronger.’