Just for Fun

by Rosalind James

  Chapter 35

  “You all right?” Nic asked.

  “Yeah.” Emma turned her head briefly to smile at him. She’d taken the morning off work to drive him to the airport for the long journey to London, and the World Cup. Nic had driven Zack to school earlier so they could say their own private goodbye. Now it was just the two of them, this final half hour in the car.

  “I know it’s a hell of a long time,” he said now. “Eight weeks. But I’ll ring you every morning I can, talk to you before you go to bed. Not as good as being there with you, but it’s the best I have to offer.”

  “I’ll take that,” she told him seriously. “And we’ll get to watch you, remember. That’ll help. It’s not like you’re being deployed. We’ll talk to you, and we’ll watch you, and we’ll be here supporting you. The rest of the team too, of course,” she added. “But mostly you.”

  “Soon as I’m back,” he said, “we’ll go on that holiday, take some time together. With Zack too.”

  “Are you telling me,” she asked him gently, “or convincing yourself? I’ll be here, Nic. We both will.”

  For all her brave words, it was hard without him. The phone calls helped, and the emails and photos they exchanged. And watching him throughout the four rounds of pool play, the All Blacks winning all their games as predicted in this eighth World Cup, the expectations stratospheric for the reigning World Champions. But by the time the team had won their quarterfinal match to secure their spot in the semis, Emma’s longing had become a physical ache.

  “You looked so good,” she told him on the phone late Sunday night. “You did so well.”

  “And how d’you know that?” he asked, the smile in his voice coming through clearly.

  “Zack said,” she admitted. “And the commentators too, about how you did. But how you looked? That was all me.”

  He laughed. “Didn’t realize it was all down to how I filled out the jersey. Here I thought I was meant to be playing well.”

  “If I were a selector,” she promised, “it’d be all about the jersey. And I miss you. At the weekends especially, with Zack, we both do. And at night, like now?” She sighed. “I really miss you.”

  “Miss you too. I look at the photos on my phone before I go to sleep. That one of us doing the backbend? That’s my favorite. But I’m wishing I had something better to remember you by, at night.”

  “Want me to send you something?”

  “Yeh. I would. Maybe a photo you wouldn’t want to put in an email? Something like that.”

  “What, take it in front of the mirror?”

  “Yeh, that’d work. That’d be choice.”

  “I’m not going to send you some porn shot,” she cautioned. “No . . . major body parts. That’d just be icky.”

  “Not asking for a porn shot. But if there were a bit of skin there . . . I wouldn’t mind that, would I. I wouldn’t mind seeing that at all.”

  Nic saw the red light blinking on the hotel phone as he and Koti James came into the room after dinner on Thursday. Koti picked up the handset, punched buttons to listen to the message.

  “Parcel at Reception,” he informed Nic. “And sadly, it isn’t for me.”

  A moment earlier, Nic had been looking forward to having a bit of a lie-down, watching a film on his laptop. But now, he grabbed his keycard and headed to the lift. Collected the flat, thin parcel from the reception desk with a word of thanks. He began to open it in the lobby, then checked himself. If it was what he was hoping, he was going to need privacy for this.

  Five minutes later, he was on the phone, a huge, stupid grin on his face. Three rings, then Emma’s cautious voice on the other end. “Nic?”

  “Hi,” he said. “You at work?”

  “Yeah. Let me go out into the passage.” Thirty seconds of silence, and her voice again. “OK. I can talk now.”

  “Got your parcel.” He laughed. “That was bloody brilliant. That’ll do me.”

  “You liked my photo, then?”

  “Loved your photo. Very artistic,” he said approvingly. “Loved the candlelight. Gave me some good ideas, for when I’m home again. But what gave me even better ideas?” He rubbed the silvery lace of the filmy underwear between his fingers. “That other item you put in.”

  “I was hoping it might bring back some memories,” she said, her voice sounding a bit breathless now. “I’m living on those memories, myself. And I need a little refresher.”

  “I’ll give you a refresher,” he assured her. “Give you more than that, in another week or two. That’s a promise.”

  Three days later, their playful conversation was the last thing on Emma’s mind as she sat beside Zack on the couch and anxiously scanned the screen in front of her for Nic’s number 15. Fewer than fifteen minutes remained in the semifinal match that would determine the team to face the Springboks in the final. Churches were reported to be nearly deserted in favor of this game, being played on Saturday night in England and shown live here in New Zealand on Sunday morning. Rugby was New Zealand’s real national religion, the old joke went, and Emma knew from the frenzy of the last World Cup just how true that was.

  Today, the French side was testing that staunch Kiwi faith in their national team. After playing the entire tournament like a disorganized mob who seemed to have got their wins on pure luck, the French had chosen this occasion to put together their strongest performance. The forwards in particular were surging, wrapping up the New Zealand side, not allowing the backs to break the line or play their expansive game. Nic’s play had been solid, but the French lockdown had meant a lack of spectacular moments from him, too.

  The All Blacks, in fact, didn’t seem to be firing on all pistons. It was what Nic had said, Emma suspected as her tension mounted. For all the effort she knew the team had put into mental preparation, they had allowed themselves to relax a bit too much, to look past this game to the final. There had been too many missed tackles, and two rare misses on penalty kicks from Hemi had left six points on the field. The score was tied at 12 all, and the French had the ball. The All Blacks couldn’t lose now, Emma thought in despair. Being knocked out by the French again, after the heartbreaking defeats of World Cups past—that would be too cruel.

  The ring of her mobile startled her. She glanced at it. Lucy. Why on earth would she be ringing now? She had to know that they’d be watching the game. She picked up the phone, keeping her eyes on the screen. “Luce. We’re watching. Is it an emergency?”

  “It’s urgent. Have you seen the Sunday Herald?”

  “What? How can that be urgent? I’ll ring you back when this is over,” Emma said hurriedly as bodies piled into the ruck and the announcers’ voices rose. “I’ve got to go.”

  “What happened?” she asked impatiently, trying to make sense of what was going on.

  “The French knocked on,” Zack said. “We get a scrum.” He was clutching Raffo tightly around the neck with both hands, squeezing in his tension.

  The scrum was clean, and the All Blacks forwards were holding the French back, giving the backs quick ball. Emma checked the time. Ten minutes. She could see the pattern being set up on the open side, four players running together. At last, a flicking pass to Koti James, the big centre. Koti plowing through one defender as if he weren’t there, sidestepping two more. And finally putting on a burst of speed that left the chasing French behind, diving across the try line at the corner, arms outstretched, a grin on his face, as the stadium exploded. And Zack and Emma, together with most of New Zealand, leaping from the couch, jumping and shouting.

  Hemi’s kick was straight between the posts this time despite the difficult angle, and suddenly New Zealand was seven points up, with six minutes left to run on the clock. The French gave it a game effort, but there was no way, Emma saw, that the All Blacks were giving up this game now. They tackled like men possessed, Drew Callahan forced another turnover, and then it was the All Blacks’ ball, and they were plowing forward, meter by meter, until at last, mercifully, the ref
eree blew the whistle. One last kick into touch by Hemi, and the game was over, the All Blacks advancing into the final. And the French going nowhere but home.

  Emma and Zack were hugging again, Zack laughing, Emma crying. She could hear, even from the back of the house, the shouting and cheering filling the morning air as neighbors came outside to celebrate. The relief was as great as the tension had been.

  “If the final’s like that,” Emma sighed at last, sitting back on the couch with a thump and wiping her streaming eyes, “I’m not sure my heart can take it. Maybe I’d better not watch.”

  “Mum,” Zack said with alarm, “you have to watch! It’s Nic!”

  She laughed shakily. “I’m just talking, baby. I’m going to be watching. But I’m afraid it’s going to be just this tight. I was hoping, yesterday, that Wales would win. South Africa . . . that’s going to be an awfully tough match, on top of this one.”

  “They can do it,” Zack assured her. “They can do anything.”

  A knock at the door had Emma hurrying to answer. Lucy stood there, the Sunday paper in her hand.

  “I came as soon as the game was over,” her sister said, no smile on her face. “I need to show you this.”

  Emma laughed. “Aren’t you even happy? They won, Luce! They’re going to the final!”

  “I need to show you this,” Lucy repeated, going into the kitchen and spreading the paper on the table. “Here. I’m going to go talk to Zack, get him distracted with something else.”

  Emma sat down, looked where Lucy had pointed. A photo of an attractive middle-aged woman she didn’t recognize, holding a large framed photo. Of Nic and Claudia, she realized. And then the headline. Nic Wilkinson’s double life. She began to read, her heart sinking further with every word.

  Even close friends were stunned when one of New Zealand’s most prominent and glamorous couples, rugby heartthrob Dominic Wilkinson and his gorgeous bride-to-be, lawyer Claudia Parker, announced recently that their longstanding engagement was off. For the first time, the Herald on Sunday can reveal the reason behind the shock split: Wilkinson’s double life with his longstanding mistress and their six-year-old son.

  Elizabeth Parker, Claudia’s mother, has shared her story with the Herald in an effort to quell rumors that Wilkinson initiated the breakup. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” Mrs. Parker insists. “Nic begged Claudia to stay. But when she knew what he really was, and the secrets he’d been keeping all this time, she really had no choice but to go.”

  Turns out that All Black stalwart Nico, as he’s known to teammates, isn’t just popular with rugby supporters. The handsome fullback is a hit with the ladies as well—and according to Mrs. Parker, he hasn’t been shy about spreading his attentions around, especially when on the road with the Blues and All Blacks.

  The final straw came when his fiancée discovered that Wilkinson had a six-year-old son he’d never acknowledged nor supported—and that he had continued to maintain a relationship with the boy’s mother, 27-year-old Emma Martens. While Wilkinson reportedly spent hundreds of thousands doing up a posh house on the North Shore, his son and the boy’s mother have been living in substandard conditions in a shabby basement flat nearby.

  “Why any woman would be willing to stay involved with somebody under those circumstances, somebody who wasn’t even willing to support the child they had together, I have no idea,” Mrs. Parker says. “Fortunately, Claudia has more self-respect than that. As soon as she learned of the boy’s existence, and Nic’s involvement with his mother, my daughter called a halt.”

  “I can’t help but feel sorry for that boy,” Mrs. Parker notes. “He didn’t ask for the parents he got. Who knows, maybe Nic will step up to his responsibilities, now that everyone knows what he really is. I can only hope that public shame will force him to do what his own conscience couldn’t.”

  The article went on to say that the newspaper wasn’t naming the child in question, due to concerns for his privacy. “Some help,” Emma said when Lucy returned to the kitchen, after giving her time to read the damning article twice more. She could barely speak for fury. “My name’s in there. How hard is that going to be, for people to figure out who the kid is? And how could she say that? I can’t believe Claudia told her that. Surely it can’t be what she believes. Nic said he told her even before we got the blood tests. That’s why they broke up, because of his wanting to pay for Zack, and get involved with him! So how could she say that?”

  “Are you sure it’s not true about the other women, though?” Lucy asked. “He sure took up with you fast, in the beginning. And this latest time too, for that matter.”

  “What evidence does she offer for that?” Emma flashed back. “For his seeing other women? Absolutely none. I took up quickly with him, too. Both times. Does that mean I’m some kind of slut?”

  “No.” Lucy backed off. “No, of course not.”

  “Well, neither is Nic. I don’t believe a word of it. It’s all innuendo, taking a little bit of truth and twisting it so it sounds just as bad as possible. I’d like to kill that woman. How could she do this to him? How’s he supposed to defend himself against this?”

  “Uh . . . she’s done something to you, too,” Lucy pointed out. “You’re named in here, Em.”

  “So?” Emma asked fiercely. “Are my family and friends going to believe this? Did you? Did you read it and think, my, I never knew my sister was such a spineless tramp?”

  “And what about Zack?” Lucy asked quietly.

  “Yeah,” Emma said, sobered now. “That’s the worst, isn’t it? But his friends aren’t big Herald readers,” she said, rallying. “And he isn’t named. And anyway, it isn’t true. Nic is paying the maintenance, and he has acknowledged Zack. We’re not going to let this beat us, or let it beat Nic either.”

  Chapter 36

  Despite what she’d told Lucy, Emma found herself sick with anxiety after her sister left. This wasn’t going to do Nic’s previously sterling reputation the least bit of good, or help his endorsement contracts either. She knew how quickly the New Zealand public could turn on a sportsman, an All Black in particular. Members of the national rugby team weren’t just supposed to be the best at the game. They were meant to behave like champions off the field as well. There was no tolerance for anything less.

  Why did he have to be so far away, and the time so different? He’d just played a brutally difficult match, she reminded herself. He’d be sleeping. She’d have to wait until late evening, morning his time, to talk to him, that was all. She didn’t have anything to ask him anyway. But she’d like to have heard his voice, all the same.

  She decided to clean the flat. She needed to move, and that was as good a way as any. When vacuuming and dusting, scrubbing the tub weren’t enough, she attacked the worn lino on the kitchen floor with a scrub brush and a vengeance, working on her hands and knees until it shone. Her flat was too small for any really satisfactory release of energy, but at least it was clean now.

  After resisting for hours, she finally gave in to temptation and looked at the story online, read the public comments that followed the article. And was immediately sorry she had. Her spirits plummeted further as she saw that fully 86 New Zealanders had already taken the trouble to weigh in on the topic, even in the face of a major World Cup victory. Any hope she’d had that Nic’s performance in today’s semifinal would have lessened the ire towards him was quickly dispelled.

  “Disgusting sense of entitlement.” “Those boys are paid well to be role models. If he can’t even behave with common decency, the All Blacks don’t need him.” “What’s wrong with our national values when this kind of thing is acceptable?” And those were some of the more measured remarks. Screen after screen of them, almost all negative. The least vitriolic merely unconcerned. “He’s a sportsman, not a Boy Scout. Who cares what he does off the field.” Nobody seemed to have any problem at all believing the rumors.

  Next came the concerned call from her parents. They too were quick to
believe the story, she found. To believe anything bad about Nic, despite her earlier explanations, her assurances now that the allegations were false.

  “He’s made four maintenance payments so far,” she reminded them. “And that big back payment too, which was all him. He had no obligation to do that. And here’s what I want to know,” she appealed. “Should I ring the paper and tell them that?”

  “You’ll just draw more attention to it,” her mother counseled. “Why pour fuel on the fire? You can’t be popular right now, being cast as the other woman, breaking up that relationship, and they aren’t going to believe you. The whole thing is going to be bad enough for Zack. Let it die down. Let it go, and it’ll become yesterday’s news.”

  “But it’s not fair,” she protested. “Nic hasn’t done anything wrong. How can I sit here and let people attack him like that?”

  “Life isn’t fair,” her mother said. “You know that. You’re talking like a child.”

  “What does that saying even mean?” Emma demanded. “That it’s not fair, and I should just accept that? Well, I’m not going to. Not this time. Life may not be fair, but I am. I have to go. I’ve got something I need to do.”

  “Nico.” He felt the touch on his shoulder. Reached out an arm to pull Emma close, encountered only a pillow. Emerged slowly from the fog of the dream he’d been having about her, opened his eyes to see Koti standing over him.

  He closed his eyes again with a groan. “You’re pretty, mate, but you’re not who I want to see this morning. Go away.”

  “You need to see this,” his roommate insisted. “Wake up.”

  “What is it?” Nic asked reluctantly, seeing Koti holding his open laptop. “You shouldn’t read your own press, you know. And I’m sure as hell not interested. If you want somebody to tell you that your try was the most magnificent piece of football they’ve ever seen, ring your wife.”