‘Diligent.’
I raise my eyebrows.
‘Diligent?That’syour overriding memory of me?’ I don’t know whether to be amused or appalled by this description.
‘Oh, I didn’t say it was the main one,’ he grins. A shiver fizzes through my core and I wonder if I’ve imagined the vaguely flirtatious note in his voice. Either way, I turn away and will him to go back to his phone.
‘Are you practising for anything in particular?’ he asks.
I clear my throat before I answer. ‘The next Women’s B team match.’
‘You’re in the team?’
‘You could try and hide the note of surprise in your voice.’
‘Not surprised at all. Just impressed.’
‘Don’t be. We lost our first match and because I’m a glutton for punishment, I’ve signed up for another one this Thursday. Which we really need to win. The Women’s B team have been struggling lately, to put it mildly.’
‘I did hear that. You’d better carry on practising then.’
I step forward and pick up a ball. I send it over and decide to make conversation to detract from my technique.
‘So how long has your son lived in Australia?’ I ask.
‘He started his PhD in September, so only a few months.’
‘You must miss him?’
‘Like you wouldn’t believe,’ he says with a rueful smile. ‘I’m going out to see him soon hopefully. It’s not as easy as when he was at college in the UK. You’re talking twenty-five hours of flying.’
I wince, then try to work out the maths behind all this. ‘So . . . how old is he?’
‘Twenty-three. I was quite young when we had him,’ he says, articulating what I was already thinking. ‘That was . . . one of life’s many twists and turns, put it that way.’
Sam tells me he’d been seeing Toby’s mum for less than a year when she became pregnant. They married in his final year of medical training.
‘I didn’t want him growing up without a dad around. I’d been through that myself,’ he says. ‘After that, we were together for eighteen years.’
‘Something must have worked then.’
‘Some things did,’ he agrees, though it’s an oddly unconvincing affirmation. ‘But it was apparent to both of us for a long time that Toby was the thing keeping us together. I like to think we did a good job of being parents, at least as far as anyone can ever be sure of that. And the split was amicable. She remarried last year and I’m genuinely very happy for her. She’s a good person.’
‘So there’s been nobody since? For you I mean?’ I feel the tips of my ears heating up as I ask, but still can’t stop myself.
‘Nobody serious. Which is fine. Even if . . . I like to think there’s someone out there for me, I must admit.’
His smile softens on me, releasing a shot of adrenalin. I realise I can’t remember when I last hit a ball so I pick one up and stand at the baseline.
‘Anyway, tell me about your daughter,’ he says.
I fire off a serve, which goes miles out, and turn back to him.
‘Oh, Frankie’s one of a kind,’ I say.
‘In what way?’
‘Well, she’s confident, funny, beautiful, unique. But she’s also caused me a few sleepless nights over the years and now she’s interrailing round Europe, which is causing a few more.’
