Players

by Karen Swan

  ‘So where is your husband tonight? I never seem to see him with you.’

  She tossed her hair casually. ‘Hugh? Oh, he’s over there.’ Tor indicated her husband, lost in conversation with Mark and completely oblivious to her disappearance. ‘We tend to be quite, erm, autonomous, at these kinds of things,’ she smiled.

  ‘Right. I thought maybe he was a figment of your imagination,’ he said. ‘You know, an imaginary friend? It’s beyond me why he would be so consistently careless as to keep losing you.’ His tone was jokey but his eyes were inquiring.

  ‘He hasn’t lost me,’ Tor retorted. She resisted adding ‘yet’. She was keen to change the subject. ‘By the way, why on earth didn’t you say you were coming here when I saw you earlier?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, to be honest, I wasn’t going to come. I wouldn’t say Hunter and I are . . . close.’

  ‘Oh,’ Tor paused. ‘But you know the party’s in his honour, right?’

  James laughed lightly. ‘I know, it’s ridiculous. I guess part of me wanted to see it with my own eyes. When I read in the papers that Cress had signed him, it seemed – unreal,’ he added. ‘Anyway, Coralie knew I was at school with him and when she overheard you mention it earlier, she said she wanted to go, so . . .’ He held his arms up and shrugged. ‘Anything for a quiet life, I guess.’

  He smiled. ‘Plus, it was a welcome opportunity to see you again. You look absolutely stunning. Have you ever been to Cannes?’

  She giggled at their in-joke. He had a knack of making her feel as beautiful as a bird of paradise basking in a rainbow. That famous bedside manner wasn’t just kept for the hospital bed. She could well imagine how it got his women into bed as well.

  Feeling his eyes lift off her and alight on something else across the room, Tor followed his gaze. She saw Harry flirtatiously tracing the criss-cross straps of Coralie’s dress. Coralie was standing with her back to him, laughing coquettishly over her shoulder. It looked like he was writing a message on her bare back with his finger – a game she remembered from childhood.

  Tor looked back at James. His jaw had clenched and she briefly wondered whether they would brawl. Coralie was very definitely the kind of woman men fought over. He caught her looking at him, and gave a short, embarrassed smile.

  He knocked back his martini and with an imperious flick of his finger, ordered another for them both. She quickly drained hers to keep up.

  ‘I really shouldn’t be surprised,’ he said to her, nodding towards the errant couple.

  ‘Oh,’ Tor said, not sure whether he was referring to Harry or Coralie. ‘How did you and Coralie meet? I’m guessing it wasn’t through work.’ She laughed, awkwardly, at his dating dilemma of meeting and treating hundreds of women, all of whom were pregnant by other men.

  ‘No, quite.’ He didn’t seem to find that funny. He gave a small cough and finally looked back at her. ‘Actually, it was at Bonhams. I was bidding for an oil and she was going for it as well. In the end it was just the two of us, raising our paddles in a frenzy; breaking all European records.’

  ‘Gosh, really?’

  ‘No, not really.’ He smiled, eyes twinkling merrily again.

  ‘Oh.’ She felt abashed. She was always so gullible. ‘Who won it?’

  ‘I did, but not before she’d added another ten thousand to the price.’

  ‘Wow.’ It all sounded terribly glamorous to Tor, who couldn’t imagine spending a limitless amount of money on a painting. She was just relieved not to have her card refused at the supermarket each week.

  ‘As it was, I ended up giving it to her anyway. It seemed the best way to get her to have dinner with me.’

  ‘Gosh,’ Tor said again, simultaneously impressed and depressed that Coralie incited such extravagant passion. When she’d first met Hugh in a bar on the Fulham Road, she’d been flattered just because he’d ordered her gin and tonic with ice and lime (not lemon) and had specified Bombay Sapphire. ‘So, is it serious then?’

  James’s eyes flitted back over to Coralie, who was now making little cat-like arches as Harry stroked her back. He paused, wondering whether she was purring too. ‘No, I wouldn’t say so,’ he said finally. ‘Put it this way, I haven’t introduced her to my son.’

  ‘I didn’t know you had children.’

  ‘Just the one, Max. He’s nearly twelve now. Lives with his mother and stepfather on the east coast but I get to see him every two to three weeks. And I go up for the holidays.’

  He shrugged. Tor looked at him closely. He seemed different tonight. For all his professional sang-froid and solicitous charm, she could sense a feral restlessness prowling within him. There was an edge she hadn’t seen before.

  The party was in full swing now. People were dancing, drinking direct from the champagne bottles, and all the restrained politeness of earlier had being replaced by a louche flirtatious mood. This was Harry Hunter’s party after all. The man wasn’t known for his reserve.

  It was well after midnight and Tor tried to remember how much she’d had to drink.

  She felt James pause, and then lean in to her. He dropped his head and didn’t look at her. ‘What did you mean earlier, in the shop, about Hugh leaving you? It’s been bugging me all day.’

  ‘All day?’ she said playfully.

  ‘All day.’ He looked back at her intently. Her smile faded. Oh God, he was gorgeous. She swallowed hard.

  ‘Last night, I accused Hugh of having an affair.’ There, she’d said it. She waited for the sky to fall in.

  Instead, James said: ‘Do you really think he is?’

  Tor looked at him for a long moment, as if she could find the answer in his eyes. ‘I really don’t know. I said afterwards I didn’t but . . . I mean, it’s hard to believe he’d be so reckless . . .’ She paused, lost in thought. ‘And he was so horrified, and so, so shocked when I said it. Furious, actually.’

  ‘So why did you say it?’

  ‘Well, he’s been working such daft hours for the last few months, I’ve scarcely seen him.’

  James shrugged. ‘I know what that’s like. It doesn’t mean he’s having an affair though.’

  ‘No, but one of the mothers insinuated he was playing away, and it all just seemed to make sense. There’s a feeling I can’t shake. Call it female intuition.’

  ‘Do you know who he’s supposedly having the affair with?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. She’s very busty and divorced and rich. Every man’s dream woman,’ she laughed, trying to lighten the mood.

  ‘Not this one’s.’

  ‘Oh?’ She looked at him and was nearly beaten back by the heat in his eyes. ‘Oh.’ She swallowed hard.

  ‘What if he is having the affair? Will you leave him? Forgive him?’ She felt his leg press lightly against hers. ‘Have one too?’

  She tried to remember the question but she couldn’t concentrate with him looking at her like that. It was too loaded. She was chicken. She was married.

  She looked down at her lap, and fiddled with her fingers.

  James didn’t say anything. He leant forward and took her hands in his, squeezing them gently. She relaxed again. He was just being friend–– Oh. He put her hands on her thighs and covered them with his. Discreetly, lightly, his fingers began tracing the hem of her dress which, she realized with panic, had ridden up alarmingly high. He looked down and she knew he could see her silk knickers.

  Instinctively she tried to tug the dress down but he increased the pressure on her hands, stopping her. He wanted to look. She bit her bottom lip.

  She couldn’t believe this was happening in a room filled with two hundred people. And yet she thanked God that every last one of them was there. They were swallowed up in the crowd. Anonymous and lost.

  He leant into her and lightly, so lightly, brushed her cheek with his lips. She inclined her head towards him. He blew gently in her ear, kissed her temple. She dropped her head on his shoulder, not wanting him to stop.

  ‘God, I’ve wanted you since that d
inner,’ he murmured. ‘Did you know you kept flashing your breasts in that dress? You were driving me crazy.’ He bit her gently on the earlobe. Tor, weak with longing, tried to remember how to breathe. ‘And today – how did you manage to look so damned provocative in that dress and those sweet little socks?’

  Tor groaned with embarrassment but he laughed gently.

  ‘You’re going to hate me for saying it –’ he held her hands more firmly – ‘but I really hope he is having that affair.’

  Tor jerked back, tried to move away, but he was too strong.

  ‘No.’ He was insistent. ‘I won’t apologize for it. I want you, Tor. And I don’t see that I’m going to get you any other way . . .’

  She absorbed his words, battling lust with logic.

  ‘What are we doing?’ Tor whispered.

  ‘The inevitable,’ James replied.

  Slowly, she raised her head to look at him, and as she did so, he kissed her full and hard on the lips. For a moment, she kissed him back and wanted with every fibre in her body for this to be a scene from her own life. But it wasn’t. He was somebody else’s, and so was she.

  She pulled back and scanned the room to check they were still lost.

  They weren’t.

  Hugh had found her.

  Chapter Nine

  Am I the kind of woman they’ll fight over? she thought, as Hugh stared at her through the crowd. She couldn’t bear to see the shock in his face, the hurt in his eyes. What had she done? He was the father of her children, for God’s sake. How had they come to this?

  She willed him to come over and claim her as his and no one else’s. But without throwing so much as a punch or an insult, Hugh turned on his heel and left the room.

  She watched his retreating back in disbelief. He hadn’t even tried. He just couldn’t be bothered.

  ‘Hugh!’

  She jumped up to chase after him but James grabbed her arm.

  ‘Tor, don’t!’ he said. ‘Let him calm down. He needs some space.’

  ‘Get your hands off me!’ she cried angrily, wrenching her arm away. ‘What do you know about what he needs? What do you know about us at all? You don’t know anything about us. You’re no one. You’re just . . . just . . . just the delivery man.’

  James laughed reflexively, as though he’d been winded. He was used to nothing less than reverential deference about his professional skills. He delivered babies – royal babies at that – not airmail.

  Tor just glowered at him, her previous passion transposed to fury in a flash. ‘Keep away from me,’ she hissed.

  She ran out of the room, frantic to catch Hugh. There was a lift waiting and she pressed the Ground Floor button dementedly, but it didn’t make the doors close any quicker.

  By the time she got downstairs, she was in tears and her mascara had begun running down her cheeks. She ran towards the doors, calling for him.

  ‘Hugh! Wait! Hugh, please! Let me explain!’

  Through the glass doors she could see him striding down Kensington High Street, but as she stepped on to the pavement, she was instantly blinded by a thousand bulbs flashing as the assembled paparazzi clamoured to take her picture in the hope she might be Harry’s latest totty.

  ‘This way, love!’

  ‘Oi! Over ’ere!’

  ‘Give us a smile, darlin’!’

  She shielded her eyes from the white glare, but by the time it subsided and she could see again, he had gone.

  ‘’Ere, you all right, love? Whassamadder?’

  ‘Husband left without you?’

  Tor sobbed. They were right. Her husband had left her.

  She looked wretched, standing in the chill night air in a too-short dress, her face streaked with black tracks as though children had drawn on her. Her shoulders were heaving. She didn’t know what to do. Someone passed her a slightly used tissue; another pap hailed a passing black cab.

  ‘Where d’you need to go, love?’

  She looked blankly at him.

  ‘Where’s home, love? Where d’you want the cab to take you?’

  ‘Battersea,’ she said in a small voice. ‘Between the Commons.’

  She clambered in and the taxi chuntered away, leaving the photographers looking after her and shaking their heads. ‘These girls,’ one tutted. ‘Can’t handle their drink.’

  Then one of them noticed Harry Hunter sneaking out through the side door and climbing into his waiting Merc with a stunning girl in a peacock dress. And just like that, she was forgotten.

  When she got home, Hugh had already paid the babysitter and was upstairs packing.

  ‘You know the funny thing,’ he said coolly, as he smoothed his favourite blue end-on-end shirt and tucked it into the holdall. ‘I actually thought we could carry on. I thought I’d found the perfect solution.’ He opened the drawer on his bedside table and picked out a clutch of condoms. He threw them in, along with his box of cufflinks.

  Condoms? Tor couldn’t speak. She just watched him dumbly.

  ‘I thought we could still manage to be a real family, even though we didn’t have a real marriage any more.’

  He saw the confusion crossing her face.

  ‘I mean, it’s been obvious for ages sex isn’t important to you. Well, not any more anyway.’ He paused, trying to remember where he’d put his black belt. ‘But I’d assumed it was a hormonal thing.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘How conceited was that? To think that it wasn’t anything to do with me.’

  ‘Hugh, I ––’

  ‘But tonight, I saw it’s everything to do with me.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, you’re wrong.’

  ‘No! I’m not,’ he shouted. Tor was stunned. She couldn’t recall him ever having shouted at her. ‘I saw you; I saw the look on your face,’ he said coldly. ‘You have never looked at me like that. You have never looked like you wanted to fuck me in the middle of a bar.’

  He stood still for a moment, trying to regain control, then carried on packing, putting his black brogues into their dust bags.

  ‘The fact is you don’t want me any more.’

  ‘That’s not true!’ she implored. ‘How can you say that? You’re everything to me.’

  He walked over to her and put his hands heavily on her shoulders. She slumped a little beneath their weight. ‘You. Don’t. Want. Me,’ he reiterated slowly, as though she was stupid. ‘And I don’t want you either.’

  He may as well have slapped her. Her breath snagged. Tears stung her eyes again. His voice was so resolute, so final. He wasn’t even trying to work this out.

  ‘Let’s be brutally honest, shall we? Don’t you think the time has come to speak plainly for once? Because let’s face it, the sex was never that good. I mean, take tonight. That was duty for you. I bet you brushed your teeth afterwards.’

  Tor felt her face burn. He turned away from her and walked towards the bay window, unrolling his shirt sleeves. He looked out absently. ‘You have been busy tonight. Two men in one night,’ he tutted. ‘What would the neighbours say about that, hmmm?’

  ‘Hugh!’

  He ignored her.

  ‘The Yummy Mummy who wrecked her own perfect family. And with Lord White of all people. That won’t do his reputation any good. He’s supposed to bring families together. Not rip them apart.’ Despite his utter determination not to show his hurt, Hugh couldn’t keep it out of his voice.

  Tor heard it and looked up at him. It gave her hope. She moved over to him and held on to his arm.

  ‘He hasn’t ripped anything, Hugh. It was just a momentary thing. He’s got nothing to do with this.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ he spat. ‘I think he has everything to do with it. He’s our wake-up call.’

  ‘No. No.’ She shook her head. ‘We were just drunk. I was feeling . . .’

  ‘Horny?’

  ‘No! Insecure. And it got out of hand, that’s all. It was a single moment. He’s nothing to do with us.’

  ‘You’re right, you’re right.’ He looked down
at her, witheringly. ‘Because there is no Us. When are you going to get it, Tor? There hasn’t been an Us for a very long time.’ He went to the drawers and grabbed some socks. ‘There wasn’t an Us long before Julia came on the scene.’

  Tor looked at him. Julia?

  ‘So I was right then,’ she whispered.

  ‘Of course,’ he spat. ‘Aren’t you always?’

  Hugh watched Tor process the revelation. He could see her incredulity – not at the confession that he’d had an affair, but (as he’d always known) that it was Julia who was her rival.

  ‘Despite what you may think, you have a lot to thank her for,’ Hugh said, as he punched some more room into the bag. ‘She’s made the last few months with you tolerable. If it weren’t for her, I’d have gone months ago.’

  ‘When?’ she whispered.

  ‘What’s that?’ he mocked, cupping a hand to his ear. ‘Speak up.’

  ‘When did it begin?’

  ‘Eight months ago. I was playing tennis with Guy Latham at the Harbour Club and met her at the bar afterwards. She’s quite a persistent woman.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Tor hated herself for asking. She knew he was desperate to tell her, to unburden himself of the secret, to torture her with the details.

  ‘She was hell-bent on getting me, that’s for sure. It was quite flattering really, but still I threw her off for a while. I was trying to do the Right Thing. You do remember what that is, right?’ He paused. ‘But then she threw that party for me.’

  Tor frowned in confusion. ‘Party? What party?’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you? I’m sure I told you about it.’ His tone had become conversational, as though they were chatting about what to buy the children for Christmas. ‘She said she wanted to introduce me to some influential contacts. And it worked.’ He nodded, eyebrows raised. ‘There were some council bods there – that’s how I got invited to tender for the contract.’ He crossed the room and pulled out a stack of various grey and navy cashmere jumpers.