Right. Work mode. The only reason I was keen to see him tonight was so that we could move the interview process on – I was pleased with the opener I’d already written and the information I’d gathered in Monte Carlo, but we weren’t even halfway through our journey together and there was so much more about him to discover. If he was prepared to let me in, that was. I was hoping that he’d be in a good mood this evening – he’d beaten Bauer in straight sets and hadn’t lost the plot once.
Giving my room a once-over – instinctively, I supposed, as it wasn’t as though anyone else was going to see it – I grabbed my bag and jacket and left the room. My heart was beating a little faster than usual, and I had the sort of buzz of anticipation I hadn’t felt for months, since way before Charlie had left. I was a little nervous and unsure of myself and even though I’d tried to bury it somewhere deep in my brain, I kept remembering kissing Marcus – or him kissing me – twice this morning. It wasn’t exactly normal to get off with one’s interviewees, was it? It was hardly surprising I felt on edge.
He was waiting for me in the lobby, sitting on the jewel-coloured sofas, all long limbs and a vaguely amused expression, wearing black jeans and a checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up and his bronzed, just-the-right-side-of-sinewy arms on display, his wrists a shade paler than the backs of his hands. The receptionist, clearly not a tennis fan, was tapping away on his keyboard, looking up only to greet me.
‘Bonsoir, madame.’
‘Bonsoir.’
I stopped, smiling at Marcus. He looked relaxed in a way I didn’t feel, with one arm draped along the back of the sofa, his knees softly falling apart.
‘Don’t get too comfortable,’ I said.
‘Do I have to move?’ he asked, his eyes glinting at me in the subdued light of the lobby, which had a sensual French boudoir feel about it thanks to the velvet drapes and the scented candles flickering away on each circular metal coffee table.
‘Unless you want us to be at the mercy of Dean’s wrath then yes, you do,’ I teased.
Anyone would just want to slump on a sofa after playing nearly two hours of hardcore tennis that morning, wouldn’t they? I was fully empathetic, but not empathetic enough that I didn’t want him to come to the class with me. Maybe I’d be able to catch him off guard and get a gem of a quote out of him while he was kneading dough.
Gastronome was about a ten-minute walk from my hotel, housed beneath the arched arcades of Le Marais, and directly opposite Place des Vosges, which I thought might be my favourite square in Paris, although there were too many beautiful ones to choose from.
Marcus held the door to the cooking school open for me and I was immediately hit by warm air and delicious aromas as I stepped inside. Two long tables had been decorated with tiny little jugs full of bright-pink flowers – it reminded me of a French living room, complete with glass cabinets and piles of enticing recipe books.
‘Here goes nothing,’ said Marcus wryly.
‘Are you a good cook?’ I asked him, assuming not. I could be wrong, but where would he find the time?
‘When I’m at home I have food prepared for me and delivered to my door. Does that tell you everything you need to know?’
I laughed.
‘You?’ he asked.
‘Not great either. But I do love bread, so I’m totally in for tonight. Mainly the tasting afterwards.’
‘Welcome!’ said a lively French woman wearing a black tunic and trousers and a jaunty matching chef’s hat. ‘My name is Colette and I am one of the owners here at Gastronome. We are very happy to have you here with us! Please, come through to the kitchen and we will begin the class.’
We followed her to the back of the shop where six other people – mostly women – were already waiting behind a large stainless-steel table. Eight places had been laid, each with a chopping board and two ceramic mixing bowls. In the centre of the table was a shelf containing everything you might need to cook up a gastronomic delight – rolling pins, various utensils, baking trays, rolls of baking parchment. I was also pleased to see Colette was handing out glasses of wine and some of the other participants were already quaffing away. So far, so good; this was my kind of class.
During the requisite round table introductions it became clear that nobody here was a tennis fan, either, because although they all oohed and aahed when Marcus explained why we were in Paris, clearly nobody had heard of him. He had also casually referred to me as his girlfriend, which had thrown me for a second there. Although the whole point of this evening was to take as many photos as possible to send to Dean so that he could tout them to the press, it still blew my mind that Marcus seemed to lie so effortlessly. It should have turned me off, because maybe it meant he lied easily about other things, too, but I really didn’t think that was the case. I thought he was just the kind of person to do everything well – he’d agreed to do this thing with us, and therefore he was going to give it his all, do it to the best of his ability. I might be doing the same thing if I wasn’t also on guard – in my current fragile state, I was likely to misread signals and start imagining there was an actual spark between us rather than a connection orchestrated purely for the cameras. It would be nice to feel wanted bysomeone again, but I had to keep reminding myself that that person would never be someone like Marcus Taylor.
Once Colette had demonstrated how to make the dough for our baguettes and assisted us as we weighed out the correct quantities of flour and yeast, tipping them into our bowls, we slowly added in the water. The atmosphere was nice and relaxed, and I had to remember my goal – to write a profile piece on Marcus so good that Amanda Eddington would want to hire me again for another job. And for that to happen, I was going to have to start working out what made Marcus tick and piecing together the research I’d done.
I glanced across at him, smiling to myself as I watched him nervously adding water to the dough.
‘My mum would have a fit if she could see me now. When I was a kid, she’d always try to get me to cook with her and I’d always point-blank refuse, preferring to run around outside or practise my tennis shots or whatever,’ said Marcus.
‘Was your dad around, too, when you were growing up?’ I asked, thinking my question linked in nicely. He was the one who’d mentioned his family, it wasn’t like I’d just plucked my question out of thin air.
‘Not really,’ said Marcus, focusing on his dough and surprisingly not looking as though he was about to shut me down. ‘My parents split up when I was about two. He wasn’t around much after that.’
Parents split up aged two. Didn’t see much of Dad.This felt like an important piece of the puzzle. Did his dad have a temper, too, I wondered? Or was his dad the reason Marcus was so hard on himself – did he need to prove to his dad that he was doing just fine without him?
‘What about now?’ I asked. ‘Are the two of you in contact? He must be really proud of what you’ve achieved?’
‘He came to a match once, a few years back,’ said Marcus. ‘I was playing at Eastbourne. Apparently, he lives down that way now, Brighton or somewhere, and he just showed up, asked for me at the security desk. Told everyone he was my dad. They didn’t let him in,obviously, but someone came to check, so I had to go out and see him so as not to cause a scene.’
‘How long had it been since you’d spoken?’
