by Voss, Louise
‘And so you thought you’d make me suffer for it, all these years later, and in the process break Anthea’s heart? You say that’s not vindictive …? Huh.’
He made an ‘I rest my case’ gesture, palms open, which so infuriated me that I felt like punching him in the ear.
‘I haven’t said a word to Anthea. If she knows, she’s found out some other way.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
I shrugged. ‘Fine. Then don’t believe me. But it’s true, and I’d appreciate it if you stopped accusing me of things I haven’t done.’
He sighed. The windscreen was beginning to steam up, so I turned on the engine and put my window down by a few inches, letting in some welcome cold air. ‘How did you find out about Natasha, anyway?’ he asked sulkily.
‘I found a photo of you two in a box of stuff I’d left at Corinna’s. It wasn’t positive proof, but there was something about the way you were looking at her, and the message she wrote on the back. It was clear that she was more than just one of your players.’
‘You must have told Anthea…’
He was so infuriating. ‘Ivan, is that really how little you think of me? Why would I want to do something like that?’
‘Any number of reasons,’ he said, the old defensiveness creeping back into his voice. ‘Because you hate me. Because you wanted revenge on Rachel’s behalf, because she thinks I split her and Mark up…’ That one was a bit far-fetched, I thought. ‘Because you decided it was only fair to warn Anthea I was a two-timing “creep”, as you would doubtless put it.’
‘Well, there is that,’ I said. ‘But I didn’t tell her. Maybe somebody else did. Maybe, like me, she found something: a photo or a letter or something. People who cheat on their partners usually get found out. I’m amazed it’s taken me this long to find out about you and her.’
‘I didn’t two-time Anthea,’ he said wearily. ‘Not really. Tasha just keeps me on a string. Tells me she loves me and wants to be with me forever, and then dumps me. It’s been going on for years. Then I met Anthea, and started to get over Tasha. But she came back, a little while ago. I met her for a drink in Zurich, and again in London – she came over for a time. But I had too much going on, what with being on bail and all – it was right after I got arrested – and she was still really holding back. I just couldn’t be sure she really wanted me the way I want her. Hell, for all I know, she was only after free coaching. Maybe she never really loved me at all… Anyway, I told her that it was too late. I just couldn’t face going through all that again, however much I love her.’
I waited to feel the swelling of outrage and disbelief in my chest, but none came. Deep down, I knew he was still telling the truth. He was a self-pitying bugger, though.
A woman tapped on Ivan’s window and we both jumped. For a moment I thought it was someone else from his murky past, but when he put down the window, we saw she was pointing at the parking ticket balanced on the dashboard.
‘Terribly sorry,’ she was saying, ‘I was just wondering if you were going, and if so, could I have that? I’ve got no change and there’s a traffic warden on the prowl.’
She was in her fifties, jolly and posh. She probably knew Gordana, I thought. Probably pitied her for the deliciously juicy scandal of a son being accused of paedophilia. Prior to now, everyone thought of Gordana as a pillar of the community; a brave soul who’d overcome hardship and poverty. We’d all heard the stories: how she got pregnant and all her hopes and dreams were crushed, then Ted came along. What did they all think now?
Ivan handed my ticket to the woman, who beamed and nodded and backed off. Typical.
‘Ivan! I haven’t finished with that – I’m supposed to be meeting Karl for lunch.’
‘I’ll buy you another one. I just wanted to get rid of her.’
When the woman had gone, we sat in silence again as I digested what he’d told me.
‘So, do the police know about your debts?’
He nodded wearily. ‘It’s all come out because they’ve been investigating my finances, so now I’m going to be declared bankrupt too. I know I’ve been an idiot. It’s just that the club means so much to me. And being a success means so much to Mama, I just couldn’t admit that I was struggling with it; that I couldn’t pay her back.’
‘She’d have let you off. She’d never have insisted you paid her back.’
‘I know. But I so wanted to prove myself to her.’
I shook my head. Poor, sad Ivan. I felt so sorry for him; and with my pity came a kind of release; an end to bitterness and resentment I’d harboured towards him for so many years.
‘Let me help you,’ I said impulsively. ‘Gordana and Rachel have got too much on their plates at the moment. Ted needs to be there for Gordana. Anthea’s gone. I’m not as involved. I want to help. You need a friend.’
He sniffed and looked out of the window. But he didn’t instantly refuse.
‘Just tell me one thing, Ivan. I swear that what you say will stay inside this car; I won’t tell a soul. But I have to know: did you download and pay for any of that porn?’
He shook his head instantly, turning to face me with burning eyes. ‘I really didn’t, Susie, I promise you, on Mama’s life. I’d swear on fifty bibles. Someone else must have done it.’
‘On your computer?’
‘I think so. I don’t know much about these things but I don’t think it could’ve been done from any other computer.’ He leaned his head against the side window. ‘I’m not remotely interested in children in that way. In fact, I hate the way they get exploited like that…’
‘Natasha was only fifteen when you met her. A child.’
‘I know. But she looked twenty-one. Not that it’s any excuse, but she didn’t look or act like a child; and I certainly didn’t coerce her into anything. I wasn’t actually even coaching her in Hungary, not at first, until after we’d met up. Then she got herself transferred to my Junior squad, and that’s how I found out how young she was. I was horrified, but I was involved by then. I know I’m a bit of a Lothario, Suze, but since then I swear I’ve never looked twice at a girl without checking her age first, and if she’s under eighteen, I’ve run a mile.’
Tears ran down his cheeks again, and he swatted them away with the backs of his hands, sniffing like a child. ‘If I get convicted, I’ll definitely lose the club. But if I’m declared bankrupt, I’ll lose it anyway. Mama will never get her money back. Rachel will suffer…Oh God, I can’t bear it. I know some of it’s my own fault, but not all of it. And all I’ve been trying to do is avoid Rachel getting hurt. Give her the best chance she can have of success. Now I’ve ruined everything.’
He scratched the stubble beneath his chin. I noticed that the car was filling up with a strange kind of sweaty fug: the scent of Ivan’s despair. I wound down the window even further, almost gasping in the fresh, damp air. Imminent rain hung in the atmosphere; the thick dark grey clouds were so low they seemed to press down on the buildings and pavements.
The first drops of rain began to fall on the car roof, gathering speed and momentum. Within a minute, it was hammering all around us, sending people scurrying to their cars or into shop doorways. Funny how Ivan and I were back in a rainstorm, I thought, although the last thing he was likely to do was to bend me over a balcony and impregnate me. Thank goodness.
I wound the window back up as rain was splashing into the car and on to the side of my face and my shoulder.
‘While you’re being honest with me, for once, I want to ask you something. About that LTA party back in ’ninety-five?’
Ivan looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. ‘What party?’
‘The one I was invited to as well. That you ended up going to on your own, because you claimed that you were being stalked by a psycho ex-girlfriend called Tracy, who then mysteriously vanished out of your life as fast as she’d appeared?’
He looked shame-faced. ‘Oh. Yeah. Her.’
‘There was no Tracy, was there? That was a c
over, so you could meet up with Natasha, wasn’t it?’
‘Sorry,’ he said lamely, fiddling with a packet of chewing gum I’d left in the pouchy leather surround of the clutch.
I tutted with irritation. ‘Ivan, you are the worst liar in the world. I knew you were lying, even back then! I knew there was no Tracy. You just wouldn’t admit it. Have a piece of gum – your breath smells like a brewery.’
‘Actually, there was a Tracy, an ex of mine. She wrote to me around that time and asked to see me again. I just, um, exaggerated it.’ He put a lozenge of chewing gum in his mouth and a fresher, mintier scent replaced the stale alcohol halitosis.
‘The only good thing about you being a dishonest cheating pig of a man is that at least you’re bad at it. That’s how I know you’re telling the truth about the downloads. I can see right through you, you know.’
‘You never used to be able to.’
‘Well, call it perspective, or experience, but I can now. You’re a total bloody idiot, Ivan.’
‘I know,’ he said humbly, and for the first time in almost ten years, I thought I might be starting to be fond of him again.
Two young girls in tennis whites ran past, obviously heading back to the shelter of the club. Ivan shrank down in his seat, but even through the rain, one of them spotted him and nudged the other, who stared unsubtly back at him over her shoulder. He pretended he hadn’t seen them. Rachel said there’d been rumours of reporters and detectives down at the club in the first weeks after his arrest, so the whole place was probably agog with speculation and censure.
‘I’ll take you home. You can sleep it off,’ I said. ‘Let me think about all this, see if there’s anything we can do.’
‘What about your date?’ said Ivan gruffly as I got my phone out of my handbag.
‘I’ll stop by the restaurant after I drop you off and see if they’re still there. But it doesn’t matter. I’m not really in the mood anyway.’
I started up the engine and pulled out into the slow traffic. The storm had already blown over, as suddenly as it started, but rain still flooded the streets, and queues had built up both ways.
‘Susie,’ Ivan said, chewing his gum with his mouth open in the way which had always irritated the hell out of me, but which he did when he felt awkward about something.
‘Yes?’
‘Thanks. I mean, thanks for believing me. I know I can be a shit, and I’ve done some wrong things in my time – some of them to you – but I’m not that much of a shit.’
I didn’t look at him as we stopped at some red traffic lights near his house.
‘Listen, Ivan, we’ve had our differences. But I don’t like seeing you in this state. Are you getting any help? Counselling, I mean?’
I waited for him to snort derisively, but instead he gave a meek nod. ‘Yeah. Been going since I was arrested.’
‘Oh, right …well, that’s good.’ I was astonished.
Ivan had always been the type who’d rather pluck out his own eyes with toothpicks than voluntarily seek help from a professional.
‘If there’s anything I can do, just let me know, OK? ‘
‘OK.’
Good grief, I thought, after I’d dropped him off. How the mighty – or not so mighty – fall. I watched him shambling up his unkempt front garden path, a crushed, drooping figure, such a contrast to the once proud, fit athlete who could hit a ball as if each smash were a personal triumph. I felt so sad for him.
But at least I now knew for sure that he wasn’t connected with the child porn. There had to be some other explanation. And, really, it didn’t matter about Natasha, not any more. I would never admit it to Ivan, but he was right; it was in the past. It was Anthea’s problem now, not mine.
Chapter 48
Rachel
We get to the jetty, and I’m quite surprised to see a big launch bobbing up and down in the murky water, and a coach load of Japanese tourists embarking along a precarious-looking gangplank. But when I limp over to inspect the timetable, I discover that the scheduled boat services only run between April and September.
‘We can’t get on this one,’ I call to Karl. ‘It must be a private party.’ I look around to see if there are any nearby benches where we can sit and eat our lunch; but Karl is not so easily deterred. He marches up to the Japanese tour guide – identifiable by the large, furled umbrella he points straight up towards the sky – and I watch with amusement as he bows politely. I don’t hear what he says, but the next minute, he turns to me and gives a big thumbs-up.
‘Have you just scrounged us a lift on someone else’s boat?’ I ask, laughing in disbelief, hopping towards the gangplank.
‘You don’t ask; you don’t get,’ he says philosophically, steering me carefully up. I nod thanks to the tour guide, and he nods back again.
‘Are you sure this boat is going to Hampton Court? I don’t want to end up at Westminster Pier. It’ll cost a fortune in a cab to get home again.’
‘I checked,’ he confirms, settling me on a wooden bench which runs around the open back of the boat.
‘Now, madam, please relax and enjoy the scenery. It seems there is a bar inside so perhaps it will be best if we drink our wine – what’s the word in English?- discreetly.’
Karl has thought of everything. He’s bought red wine in a screwtop bottle, serviettes, plastic cups, little trays of salad with plastic forks attached to the lid, fresh bread, crisps (‘I love your English crisps!’ he says, with enthusiasm), fruit, chocolate …I didn’t realize I was so hungry until he starts getting it all out of the M&S bags.
He unscrews the wine and pours me some, handing it over with a flourish. I rest my crutches on the floor of the boat and touch cups with him. It’s cold out here, but not unpleasant with my big jacket done up and my fingerless gloves on.
‘Cheers!’ he beams. ‘This is very exciting for me, I must say.’
I toast him back, smiling at him in admiration. I’d never in a million years have the nerve to barge (no pun intended) on to someone else’s boat trip, but Karl makes it appear perfectly natural. He strikes me as someone who probably gets his own way most of the time, just through charm and chutzpah. And it really doesn’t seem to be a problem – the Japanese tour group is inside the main area of the boat, listening to a commentary. Nobody is paying us any attention.
The boat revs up its engines and begins to chug away downstream as Karl and I make inroads into our impromptu picnic.
‘This is delicious,’ I remark, tucking into my pasta salad.
The riverside developments slide past, block after block of architecturally complicated apartment complexes in shades of sand and rust, terracotta and cream. They have wavy balconies, big windows, private jetties.
‘I’d love to live in one of those flats,’ I say, pointing at one with the end of my fork. ‘They look so nice, don’t they?’
Karl inclines his head slowly, in contemplation.
‘Ja-a,’ he says doubtfully. ‘It is nice, but I think for me I prefer countryside. A house with fields around, and not too many other houses. Perhaps a horse to ride also.’
I think of my Fantasy Family. We’d live in a house like that. I always wanted a pony. Karl is so approachable that I almost tell him about this invented family of mine. Thankfully, I manage not to; partly because it might make him think it’s an inherent criticism of Mum, and partly because it makes me sound like a right sad sack.
‘Yes, wouldn’t that be great? I’m thinking about moving soon myself, actually. Can’t afford a flat like these, but hopefully I’ll be able to get a little one-bedroom place somewhere nearby. Even a studio. I don’t want to live with Dad anymore.’
I swallow a mouthful of wine, alongside a big gob of guilt that I’ll be leaving Dad too, so soon after Anthea, and when he’s at his lowest.
‘He seems …I don’t wish to sound rude …a little intense,’ Karl ventures, popping open a big bag of sea salt and vinegar crisps and extracting a large handful, which he holds out to
me on his palm, as if offering sugar lumps to the pony we both wanted. ‘Is he always like that?’
I accept some crisps, transferring them from his palm to mine. Crumbs of salt and crisp stick to my woolly gloves, and their sharpness hits the back of my tongue. They taste so good with the wine. I can feel my shoulders beginning to relax, and my knee has stopped aching, even after the walk down to the jetty.
‘No. I’ve never seen him this bad.’ I hesitate, wondering if Mum’s told him about Dad’s charges. ‘He’s under a lot of stress at the moment. His girlfriend’s just left him – I think that’s why he was so mad at Mum. He thought she had something to do with it, but of course she didn’t. She’s so over Dad, by the way,’ I add hastily, not wanting Karl to think that Mum is still hung up on Dad in case it puts Karl off her.
I look at Karl again, through fresh eyes, as a potential stepfather, but I can’t quite see it somehow. He’s got to be a lot younger than Mum. And besides, the way he is gazing at me is far from fatherly …For a brief moment I realize with embarrassment that we are looking into each other’s eyes, and I snap my head away, concentrating on the riverbanks slipping by. Something occurs to me, and I gasp with horror at my thoughtlessness. ‘Oh no – wasn’t Mum meant to come and join us? She thinks we’re in that restaurant near the tennis club …She can’t join us on a boat!’ I feel mean and selfish, railroading her date like this. How awful. I’ve practically kidnapped her potential boyfriend.
Or rather, he’s practically kidnapped me…but Mum might not see it that way.
Karl is, as ever, unfazed. ‘Don’t worry. She said she will ring you when she is ready. This will not be a long boat ride, the guide told me. Susie has a car, doesn’t she? She could meet us at Hampton Court.’
I feel better again. He’s right: it’s hardly as if we’ve set off down the Limpopo on a six-month expedition.
Karl fills up my glass again, and I’m surprised that I got through the first one so quickly. The wine is warming me, mellowing my insides and making my fingers tingle. I don’t usually drink red wine, but this is delicious.