‘To our reluctant collaboration,’ he said.
I smiled at him, I couldn’t help myself. Obviously it wasn’t reciprocated, but I didn’t care. He’d said yes, that was all that mattered. Over his shoulder I saw two very dressed-up, giggly young women taking photos of us – I hastily looked away again, hoping Marcus hadn’t noticed. The last thing we needed was anotherkick-off and I wasn’t sure the girls were prepared for the full force of Marcus Taylor’s disapproval. But he seemed to have a sixth sense for cameras and looked over his shoulder. The girls giggled harder and waved.
When he turned back, fuming, I decided to begin my get-Marcus-on-side campaign in earnest.
‘It must feel quite intrusive sometimes,’ I said. ‘The last thing you want after a long day of training or whatever.’
Marcus took a sip of his champagne. ‘It’s only really the die-hard tennis fans who want pictures and autographs. And it’s worse when I’m at a tournament, obviously.’
‘But this isn’t what you signed up for, is it?’ I said.
He shrugged. ‘Comes with the territory when you play sport at this level. And it’s not like “signing up for it” was a conscious decision. I had the opportunity to change my life and my family’s and I took it. I wouldn’t have been able to choose to do something else, even if I’d wanted to.’
This was already getting interesting. Had he felt forced into playing professional tennis when deep down he’d had other ideas, other passions? And was it his parents who had stopped him from pursuing them, like mine had?
‘When are you going to start following me around, then?’ asked Marcus, clearly delighted at the prospect. I wondered if he could sense that I was in writer mode now and that anything he said was, in theory, out there for me to quote and send to print. Of course I didn’t want to break his trust, but I also needed to keep it real – if Marcus continued to be an arse, I’d have no choice but to document it.
‘As soon as possible?’ I suggested.
So that I can file my piece and get this torturous experience over with?I almost added. I gave him a look, hoping I could convey this sentiment without actually having to say it.
‘Ava, if it works for you, I suggest you observe Marcus’s training session tomorrow morning at nine at the country club. Then you can meet his coach, Patrick Ferretti, and possibly his physio, Nick Breakspear.’
‘Perfect, I said, hurriedly scribbling down the names of his team members. Interesting that he was surrounded entirely by men – I could only imagine the testosterone levels in the dressing room.
‘Can’t wait,’ said Marcus, catching my eye with a look I could only interpret asThere’s nothing I’d rather do less.
Behind him, the girls surreptitiously took another photo and I pretended not to notice.
Chapter Six
The circular, dark-turquoise pool glittered tantalisingly in the periphery of my eyeline as I scanned the drinks menu, silently baulking at the idea of spending eight euros on a single cup of coffee. Perhaps it had been the wrong call to leave the normality of my own hotel and head over to Marcus’s so early, but I’d needed to make some preparatory notes for the day before I saw him and thought I might as well do it here. We’d arranged to meet in the lobby at 8.45 a.m. because Dean had said it would be easier than trying to explain how to get to the country club and find the practice courts. Marcus had seemed less than enthusiastic about this idea, as you could imagine. In any case, I’d walked over in the morning, deciding I needed some exercise and wanting to see a bit more of Monte Carlo. I was glad I had, because I could now confirm that Monaco’s most notable district was even more spectacular than I’d imagined from the pictures I’d seen in magazines or on film. For starters, the pavements, some of which seemed to be made out of actual marble, were the cleanest I’d walked on in my entire life, with zero signs of dirt, litter or any of the other unsavoury things I regularly had to avoid when walking on the streets of a somewhat less pristine London. A metallic purple Maserati had been parked up outside the entrance to a hotel and seconds later a redFerrari had roared past, the driver revving his impressive engine as though he was motoring around the Grand Prix track, which he might literally have been doing because the infamous hairpin bend was less than a mile away. Despite almost every square inch of land having been built on, this part of Monte Carlo felt airy and green thanks to the living walls dotted along the roadside and the flower beds lining the pathways, packed full of fragrant jasmine bushes and exotic birds-of-paradise with their dark-green, paddle-shaped leaves and bright orange flowers. The sun was already out and was gently warming the back of my neck as I walked, so much so that I’d pushed up the sleeves of my white cable-knit sweater (thought I’d give a nod to tenniscore, even if I didn’t fully understand what it actually was). I’d even got my sunglasses out, which, given it was only early April, felt like the height of decadence.
I’d found a seat on one of the slouchy orange sofas in the grounds of the hotel, carefully avoiding the rock-hard stools Dean and Marcus had gravitated towards the night before. In the light of day, and with blue skies already soaring overhead, the beach looked even more enticing with its crystal-clear water and luxurious sunbeds laid out for anyone who wasn’t going to the tennis to relax on. Carved into the cliffside were several wooden bungalow-style rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows, each with its own set of rickety steps down into the water – I wondered if Marcus was staying in one of those, or if his room was housed in the main building of the hotel. I made a mental note to ask whether tennis players always travelled in luxury. Did they pay for accommodation themselves or did the tournament put them up? And was the size of their room in direct proportion to their world ranking?
I ordered myself a cappuccino and began to formulate a list of the things I wanted to ask Marcus and the rest of his team.I’d made a start on researching Patrick Ferretti (what a name!) and knew that he was Swiss, that he’d played tennis professionally until his retirement in 2001 and that he’d coached some of the all-time greats, including a ten-time Grand Slam-winning former world number one. Apparently, he had a rep for telling the players he coached exactly what he thought of them, and could often be seen screaming instructions from the sidelines – which, from what I could gather, he wasn’t really supposed to do. He currently lived just down the coast in Cannes, where he owned his own tennis academy, and he trained Marcus exclusively, travelling with him around the world as he competed in various tournaments for around ten months of each year. He was divorced (hardly surprising if he was away all the time, was it?) and had two teenage children, both of whom were exceptionally good at tennis but who quite sensibly didn’t want their father to train them. He’d been working with Marcus since just before Christmas and I was looking forward to meeting him, hoping he’d give me some valuable insight into the workings of Marcus’s mind when he was out on court.
By the time I looked up from my note-making, the hotel was suddenly about three times busier than it had been half an hour before when I’d first arrived. There seemed to be lots of early-morning meetings going on, with laptops out, phone calls in progress, and very little of the relaxing holiday vibes I would have expected from a beachside hotel. I wondered if these people were all part of one of the tennis teams, meaning this was a working day for them, just like it was – in a way – for me. There wasn’t even a single person in the pool. And I supposed the flurry of activity made sense because apparently the proper tournament started today, with the qualifying rounds (for some of the lower-ranked players who hadn’t been given automatic entry) having started the day before yesterday. There was a buzz of excitement as everyone grabbed coffee and breakfast before heading to the venue,many of them, like me, going with a bit of a tennis theme – perhaps a sweater wrapped casually around their shoulders, or a white linen shift dress paired with a chic designer bag. Outfits that, with a bit of tweaking, could almost have been worn on court at one of the exclusive tennis clubs they were no doubt all members of. The temperature was hotting up and I was going to have to take my jumper off at this rate – hopefully, it would stay that way, as I was planning to watch Marcus’s first match tomorrow and I didn’t want it to be rained off because then everything would get pushed back. I was staying until the end of the week as things stood, hoping that Marcus would make it to the final, or at least the semis. But of course there were no guarantees, and if he was knocked out in round one, I supposed it wouldn’t make sense for me to hang around.
When my phone rang with the trill of a video call, I was so into my prep that I assumed it was my mum gushing about the photo of the beach I’d sent her and answered it immediately, without thinking. It wasn’t my mum, however: it was Charlie. My pulse hammered in what felt like every cell of my body.
‘Hey,’ said Charlie, chewing on his thumbnail. He did that when he was nervous. I’d always found it adorable.
For a few delightful seconds, I thought he was about to tell me how much he’d missed me. Was going to declare his undying love for me after all and admit that he’d gone mad for a minute there and that it was me he wanted, not his freedom, not anyone else, not to experiment, just me. If that was the case, I was going to have to pretend to make him work for it, obviously.
‘Hello, Charlie,’ I said. Even saying his name out loud felt strange now.
Other than my mum with her incessantHeard from Charlie?queries, everyone had stopped mentioning him, possibly hoping that by not talking about him, I’d somehow miraculously move on.I hadn’t, needless to say, and sometimes it felt as though the pain of the break-up was getting worse, not better.
‘It’s good to see you,’ he said.
I drank in the sight of him, happy to see his face in real time rather than only in my imagination. He looked exactly the same – a little tired, maybe – and was wearing one of his extensive collection of fine-wool polo necks. If I was honest, this burgundy one clashed with his hair, but clearly he thought he could pull it off, so who was I to judge?
‘How’s everything?’ I asked, secretly wanting to hear that his life was terrible now. Did that make me an awful person?
‘Fine. Good. Mum sends her love. She said to tell you she’s been thinking of you.’
Not enough to reach out to me, though, clearly.
