I ran my hands over my dough. Good, it was feeling smooth on the outside, just like Colette had said it should.
‘No idea. You’d have to ask my mum, if she ever bothers to come and see me play again, that is.’
I chewed on my lip, wondering if that was enough for this evening, or if it was better to keep going while he was on a roll. Who knew if he’d ever open up this much again – perhaps there was something about the kneading of the dough ...
‘I’ve seen pictures,’ I said, before I could change my mind. ‘Of the two of you together in the early days of your career. Your mumlooked so proud of you. What happened? Why doesn’t she come and watch you anymore?’
Marcus wiped his brow with the sleeve of his shirt.
‘Is it hot in here or is it me?’ he said.
‘Tell me,’ I said quietly, not letting him deflect.
He winced, as though he was grappling with something. Was it possible that nobody had ever asked him this question directly? That he’d never had to put what had happened between them into words before?’
‘She was part of my team, my mum. It was much smaller in those days, just my coach at the time, a guy called Mark, and my mum, who was basically my manager.’
‘So she did what Dean does now?’
‘A scaled-down version of that. I didn’t have any sponsorship deals back then, but she arranged my travel for me, the odd interview on local radio, that kind of thing. But then the press started trying to dig up dirt on her, went out of their way to talk to people she’d worked with at the tennis club. Banged on and on about how we’d come from nothing, how she was a barmaid not a manager. If anything went wrong with my game, if I crashed out early in a tournament or whatever, they’d blame my mum. They’d say she had no clue what she was doing, that she didn’t belong in the world of tennis and perhaps neither did I. One tabloid newspaper – it’s closed down now, thank God – printed pictures of her drunk and then exposed her for being arrested for shoplifting when she was sixteen.’
‘Wow,’ I said. ‘That must have been really tough for both of you.’
‘I couldn’t care less what they were saying about me, but it got to my mum. And at the same time, I’d started earning a bit of money, progressing in tournaments. It was the year before I won the Australian Open and I’d done well on the US swing.’
I looked at him, confused.
‘The Miami Open, the US Open, Indian Wells,’ Marcus explained.
‘Ah, that mysterious-sounding place again,’ I said.
‘You’ll have to come with me next time and then you’ll know exactly what it is, won’t you?’
Now it was my turn to freeze, with my fingers plunged right inside the dough.
‘Did I just say that out loud?’ said Marcus, tipping his head, making a joke of it. ‘Never mind, as we were!’
Now wasn’t the time to try to decipher what he’d meant by that comment, even if suddenly my entire body did feel warm and fuzzy and soft, like the beginnings of our baguettes. He’d have meant as friends, if anything. Maybe we would be, after all of this, although it was much more likely that once my article was submitted, I’d never see nor hear from Marcus again.
‘So, yes. Your mum. You’d started to make money and ...?’
‘And she started to spend it. Which was fine – that’s why I gave it to her. I wanted her to be happy, to have access to the kind of life she’d never been able to have. But then she put an offer on an expensive house and asked me to cover the mortgage on it. She said it was for both of us, but if I’d wanted a house out in Richmond, or wherever, I’d have bought one myself, wouldn’t I? Plus, I was travelling so much, owning a property was the last thing on my mind.’
‘So you told her no?’
‘Basically. She was trying to make me play in a tournament I didn’t want to play and I put my foot down. I could tell I was getting burnt out and I wanted my body to be rested and ready for the Australian Open. The prize money for a win was particularly high, but I didn’t want to do it.’
‘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 timeI 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.’
