by Voss, Louise
He thrust a grubby scrap of paper at me. ‘C’n I have your autograph? I saw you play at Surbiton last year. You beat that big French bird, didn’t you, in the second round? Great match, that was. She was ranked much higher than you, too, wasn’t she?’
I was impressed and flattered. It had, actually, been a great win for me. I’d got knocked out in the quarter-finals by a Japanese girl ranked thirty-eight in the world, but my win against the French player had upped my own ranking by quite a few places. And Mark had been watching the match, beaming all over his face when I hit a good passing shot or put away an overhead.
It all seemed like a lifetime ago.
I signed his paper for him, although the bus’s movement made it come out rather wobbly. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘There you go. Although it’s probably not worth that much, not now my ranking will have dropped to the low hundreds.’ I was trying to be funny, but realized that it just sounded self-pitying.
The boy looked as sympathetic as a teenager was able – i.e. not very. ‘So is that you out of tennis for good, then, or what?’ he asked bluntly, apparently noticing my crutches for the first time. He was blushing again because his friends had stopped their conversations when they saw him chatting to an older woman, and were beginning to heckle and whistle.
‘No,’ I said. ‘At least, I don’t think so. But it’ll be a while yet till I can play again.’
‘Oh. Right.’
I could tell he was itching to get away now, so I decided against asking him about his own tennis prowess. Mercifully, the bus jolted to a halt and he gathered up his things to leave. ‘Ta, then,’ he said, turning and bumping his way back down the aisle to the door, banging into all the other passengers with his various bags. When he got off the bus, he shot me a sideways glance from under his fringe, and the faintest traces of a smile, while his mates shoved him scorn-fully and pointed through the window at me. He’ll be quite good looking in about five years’ time, I thought, smiling back at him.
By the time I have hopped on my crutches the short distance from the bus stop to Dad’s house, my good leg is tired from the exertion, and my injured leg aches badly. I told myself that I could handle distances, but it is a bit of a shock that a short walk – hop – feels so debilitating.
The house looks empty and forlorn, the windows need cleaning, and the two wheely bins are abandoned haphazardly in the front garden rather than being stored neatly out of sight down the side of the house. I’m surprised: Anthea, whilst not being a great one for your actual cleaning, is a stickler for neatness and order. Dad’s car isn’t there, but Anthea’s turquoise Fiat Punto is.
I realize with a slight shock that I haven’t seen Anthea at all since before Mum and I went to Italy – and I hadn’t even noticed. She sent me a get-well card, but hasn’t bothered even to ring me at Gordana and Pops’s. It kind of confirms to me that she would much prefer that I wasn’t such a fixture in her life. Well, I won’t be for much longer, not if I can get a place of my own.
I let myself in with my key. ‘Hello?’
There are three bulging suitcases standing in the hall, arranged like the Three Bears in order of size, all neatly trussed with Anthea’s initialled luggage straps.
Something looks different about the place, and I have to concentrate to think what it is, before working out that things are missing: the striped hall rug and the framed floral prints which had been on the walls.
‘Anybody home?’
Mystified, I go through into the back room. The French windows opening out on to the garden have been flung wide, and an assortment of objects is piled in the middle of the lawn. At the edge of the pile I can see the bread machine, the Hoover, a large stack of glossy magazines, a bicycle, the clothes-drying rack and the Swiss ball she gave me.
Anthea appears through the back gate, which is also wide open, followed by a fat man in a stained T-shirt. ‘Put that in next,’ she commands over her shoulder, pointing at the bicycle. Behind her back, the fat man rolls his eyes and gurns at the back of her head. I can’t help smiling.
‘Hi,’ I say, coming into the garden. ‘Having a clear-out?’
Anthea jumps with fright, and her expression is one of utter shock. She looks like she’s seen a ghost. ‘Rachel!’
It’s more than shock, though. Guilt and rage are clearly written on her face, too. What on earth is going on?
She comes towards me and embraces me, stiff-armed. When I look at her closely, I see that her face is a mask; her makeup is applied in twice the usual quantities, and with the sort of precision which implies great attempts at disguising emotions. Her eyeballs are shot through with red spidery blood vessels, and face powder has settled in the deepening wrinkles on her cheeks.
‘I wish you weren’t here to witness this, Rachel, but I’m afraid I’m leaving your father.’
I gape at her. ‘What? Why?’
She struggles to remain composed, and just about succeeds. The fat man comes back up the garden empty-handed, picks up the clothes rack and a bubble-wrapped mirror, and waddles towards the gate again, bumping the edge of the mirror against the side of the garage as he passes it. His bum crack clearly shows between the top of his saggy jeans and the bottom of his T-shirt.
‘You’ll have to ask Ivan that.’
‘Where is he?’
She shrugs. ‘He said he’d be out all day. Something about seeing his solicitor, I believe. Actually, no, I never know what to believe. He could be anywhere. Excuse me, Bob,’ she calls. ‘Please be more careful with that mirror. You’ll have to pay for it if it’s broken.’
She turns back to me. ‘Anyway, I intend to be gone by the time he gets home.’
‘Does he know you’re going?’
‘No. And that’s how I want it. I don’t want any scenes.’
‘Anthea, are you sure about this? You two have been together for ages. I know Dad’s not easy, and he’s got a lot on his mind at the moment, but—’
She holds up an imperious hand. ‘Please, Rachel. Just don’t. There are things that you aren’t aware of, but it’s not up to me to tell you what.’
‘Can’t we sit down and talk about it over a cup of tea?’
‘No. I’m afraid I have to get on. I only have the van and that man booked for one afternoon, and all this stuff has to get to the storage facility by six o’clock.’
‘But where are you going?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that either, except that I will be out of the country for a few weeks. Rest assured I will inform your father of anything he needs to know.’
She’s changed, I think to myself. I recall the woman who stayed up all night frantically trying to pedal her tension away on the exercise bike when Dad had been arrested. This is different. She seems harder; stronger.
I wonder how Dad will react, and my heart goes out to him: this, on top of everything else. But then I remember the way he had split Mark and me up. The way he never invited Anthea to tennis club functions. The way he’s so mean to Gordana, and so rude about Mum. He’s brought it all on himself, the silly old sod.
I still feel sorry for him, though.
‘How is Gordana?’ Anthea asks abruptly. ‘I’d like to have come to see her, but you know, I think it’s better for ill people not to be pestered by visitors all the time when they’re trying to focus on getting better.’
Isn’t that up to the ill person to decide? I think to myself, knowing how much Gordana loves a good chat and some company. She would so loathe the thought that people were keeping away from her because she was unwell.
‘She’s doing well, thanks,’ I say. ‘I’ll tell her you asked after her. The chemo’s not affecting her too badly; not yet, anyhow. Her tennis club friends pop in quite a lot, and that keeps her spirits up.’
Oops, I think, that was a little bit too pointed. But Anthea doesn’t seem to have noticed.
‘Good,’ she says. ‘I was terribly upset to hear that she had …that she was …um, you know.’
‘That s
he has cancer,’ I say bluntly. I hate it when people pussyfoot around, not mentioning the ‘C’ word as if to speak it out loud is somehow inappropriate or embarrassing.
‘Yes. Well, I must get on.’ Anthea licks her middle finger absently and smoothes down her thin eyebrows, as though eyebrow-grooming is an essential element of
‘getting on’. Then she steps back inside the house and, uninvited, I follow her.
‘I’ll, er, leave you to it, then,’ I say. ‘I’m just going to get some clothes from my room…’
I don’t know what else to do. I silently beg her not to make me promise not to tell Dad, and thankfully she doesn’t. I suppose she thought he’d be home in a couple of hours anyway, and by the few objects remaining on the lawn, I assume she and Fat Boy are almost ready to go.
I can’t say I feel sad about the prospect of Anthea no longer being in my life. But it’s another change, in a year which has so far held so many scary changes for all of us, and I’m worried about how Dad will take it.
‘Well…’ I’m not quite sure what to say, and I feel almost shy. ‘For what it’s worth, Anthea, I’m really sorry. I hope you’ll be OK. Keep in touch, won’t you?’
For the first time, her eyes fill with tears, and she half stretches out a hand towards me, before dropping it back down by her side again. She has got so thin that her rings are twisting around on her fingers. But then the sorrow on her face swells into a rage so potent that it appears to stream through her body. It must be my imagination, but it seems even to fill out her fingers, momentarily fixing the rings. She is puffy with anger.
‘I expect I will be OK, Rachel, eventually. But your father has really hurt me, and I’m afraid it is going to take me some time to get over that.’
‘Sorry,’ I repeat awkwardly. ‘But he says he didn’t do it …innocent until proven guilty, and all that. I thought you were standing by him?’
She takes the bunch of dusty blue fabric flowers out of the vase on the dining table, and begins to wrap them in a couple of sheets of newspaper that she picks off the floor. I’ll be glad to see the back of those stupid flowers.
‘I’m not referring to the charges against him, Rachel,’ she says, and I can’t suppress a wave of antipathy which sweeps over me at her frosty tone. ‘I have discovered something else. Something more personal …’
She hesitates. ‘Well, I don’t see why you shouldn’t know. Your father was cheating on me. Probably the entire time we were together. As far as I’m concerned, he deserves everything he gets. He’s a —’ She checks herself. ‘Did you not notice, Rachel? I mean, he was seeing her whenever you two went away for tournaments. I would hope you’d have had enough respect for me to have told me, if you had known.’
I am flabbergasted; angry and shocked, but somehow not surprised. I draw myself up to my full height – not easy, on crutches. I feel like putting my hands on my hips, but I can’t. Bloody crutches.
‘Anthea,’ I say. ‘Firstly, no, I had no idea. Secondly, if I had, I wouldn’t have told you anyway. It’s nothing to do with respect for you; it’s none of my business! Dad’s no saint, but of course I’d be loyal to him if it came down to a conflict of interests.’
‘Of course you would,’ she says stiffly. ‘Silly me.’
I don’t want to ask, but I just can’t help myself. ‘Who is she?’
Anthea looks as if she doesn’t want to tell me, and then obviously realizes it will cause more trouble for Ivan if she does. ‘Natasha Horvath.’
‘Natasha,’ I say flatly, remembering the hard-fought victory of our match in Zurich. It all clicked into place then: Natasha’s aggression – perhaps it had all ended badly between her and Dad. The way Dad looked at her – he clearly still had feelings for her, even if the affair was over. The card she’d sent me, probably just to annoy Dad (I felt a moment’s appreciation for her then, for knowing exactly how to wind him up. She obviously wasn’t a pushover). I bet Dad would never have given me that card if it hadn’t fallen out of his pocket.
‘One of your little friends, is she?’ Anthea asks sarcastically.
I tut with irritation. ‘No, Anthea, I don’t have any “little” friends, and if I did, she wouldn’t be one of them. I only played her once. She looked vaguely familiar but I couldn’t say I’d ever met her before.’
Anger is simmering between us now, building up and up like steam in a pressure cooker. I have a vision of it suddenly beginning to hiss out into the room, so loudly that neither of us can hear our ‘s’s when we speak.
I look down at the bundle of newspaper-wrapped silk flowers, and a word jumps out at me: “Porn”. That horrible word again. Wait a second. I look more closely. “Ivan Anderson”. It’s a report of Dad’s arrest, from a different newspaper to the one Pops brought home; a tabloid, but the same story. Why has she kept it?
‘Why have you still got this?’ I ask, pointing at it.
Without at all meaning it, I add sarcastically, ‘Wasn’t you who leaked the story to the press, was it?’
Her reaction gives her away immediately. She blushes puce and is visibly rattled. The rage drains out of her and shame flickers over her made-up features.
‘You did!’ I say incredulously. ‘How could you do that? As if things weren’t bad enough already, you compound his misery and ruin his reputation by letting everyone know about it? You Judas! How much did they pay you? You’re despicable!’
‘I don’t have to listen to this,’ she snaps, her composure back again. ‘Like you said, Rachel, it’s none of your business. It was wrong of me, I know, but like I said, I was very upset with your father. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I don’t think we have anything left to say to one another at all.’
‘I’d like my Swiss ball back, if you don’t mind,’ I say, glaring at her.
‘Your…? Oh yes. I beg your pardon, Rachel, I forgot that it was yours. I wasn’t trying to steal it.’
‘No, no, of course you weren’t,’ I say, over-politely, wishing she’d tried to appropriate the hair straightening device instead of the Swiss ball – I’d have let that go without comment. I don’t think I’ve ever felt such dislike for someone. Why had she leaked the story ages ago, and then only left him now, if she’d known about Natasha Horvath for that length of time?
‘I’m going to use the loo, if you don’t mind, then I’ll get some stuff out of my bedroom, and then I’ll be off.’ And I hope I never see you again, you horrible woman.
‘I’ll get the ball first,’ I add, hobbling out into the garden, before Fat Bob packs it into the van.
I stoop slowly and pick up the Swiss ball off the grass, holding it awkwardly under my arm, before turning back into the house. It’s difficult to manoeuvre with the crutches. Leaving the ball by the suitcases in the hall, I climb slowly up to the bathroom, lock the door and immediately text Dad: ‘COME HOME NOW, ANTHEA LEAVING YOU!!’ I resist the urge to add, ‘SHE’S THE ONE WHO TOLD THE PRESS, THE EVIL COW.’
I sit on the closed toilet lid, idly taking in the brown sticky rings of different sizes left on the shelf by the bath where Anthea’s numerous pots of unguents and jars of cosmetics had stood in regimented rows. Neat and tidy, but never cleaned underneath. This under-the-surface grubbiness was another reason I enjoy living with Gordana and Pops: their house is always spotless. This place seems doubly filthy now, the air tainted with what Dad might have been up to on his computer, or with Natasha Horvath. I was finding it very difficult to imagine the two of them together.
You just never know what’s around the corner, do you? You think you’ve got it all mapped out – I mean, I knew I wouldn’t be playing professionally forever, but I really thought I had a few more years in me, and now …well, I just don’t know. Mum thought she and Billy would grow old together. Gordana thought she had plenty of time yet – and hopefully she still does – and Dad thought he’d be building his little empire, not watching it crumble and vanish like a washed-away sandcastle. The best-laid plans, and all that. Presumably Anthea thought she a
nd Dad had a future, too. It’s distressing, to see how relationships unravel. And then there’s Mark and I…
I get up and hop from the bathroom to my bedroom.
My leg is really hurting now. I swear stress makes it worse.
I retrieve an assortment of creased clothes from my drawers, pack them into the empty backpack I brought with me for the purpose, and get out of there as quickly as I can. After all that, I leave the Swiss ball by the front door. I’d like to deflate it and take it with me, but I don’t know where the pump is to re-inflate it at the other end, and I don’t want to stick around to search for it. I don’t want to be here when Dad gets home – it’s between him and Anthea. I can’t help him with this, or with anything else.
As I close the front door behind me and hoist the backpack on to my shoulders, Anthea is nowhere to be seen. At least I’ve escaped without having to endure a final one of those horrendously awkward hugs, which are the only ones she knows how to do – all elbows and bony shoulder blades, and too much space between our heads. I wonder where she’s going. I don’t really care.
It doesn’t really hit me, not until much later on. My dad is a cheating two-timer. But instead of thinking ‘poor Anthea’, I find myself thinking ‘poor Dad’.
Chapter 44
Gordana
I must confess I am in a poor state of mind today. I do not want to complain, or worry anybody, but it’s so hard to be positive when I feel so sick. It is not a nice feeling. I’m not sure if it’s the chemo, or the cancer, but I feel terrible. It is a little bit like the feeling I had when Ted and I went to Malaga last year, and we went out on a three-hour cruise to do the dolphin-watching. Five minutes after leaving the harbour I began to feel nauseous. Ten minutes later I was vomiting discreetly into sick bag. Fifteen minutes later I couldn’t even be discreet about it anymore; I was chucking up over the rail of the boat, while everyone was on the other side oohing and aahing at the grey shiny dolphins curving through the water.