Soaring

by Jassy Mackenzie

  “Go on. Tell me.”

  “I’ve bought photos before now, that could have compromised you. Two sets, one a year ago, the other further back. I purchased the full rights to them, but I never published them.”

  “Wh-what do you mean?” I swallowed. “A year ago, and further back? What photos could have been so damaging back then?”

  “They weren’t of you,” Patrick told me, his voice hard, and it took me a few astonished moments to work out the truth.

  “They were of my husband? Of Dave?” My voice was high with shock. So Dave hadn’t always been careful…on two occasions, my womanizing husband had been captured on camera.

  Patrick nodded.

  “Who was he with?”

  “Do you really want to know? If you do, I’ll tell you.”

  His question made me feel cold. I thought for a while, and then said, “No, I don’t. I don’t want to know. Please don’t tell me.”

  “All right.”

  “Why did you buy them but not publish them?”

  He gave a hard smile that never reached his eyes. “I guess, when it came down to it, I couldn’t bring myself to be that much of a bastard. He deserved it…but you didn’t.”

  I was quiet for a long while after hearing that. I didn’t know what to say. I felt furious that Dave had been indiscreet. And I felt ashamed. Patrick must believe me to be weak, having stayed with a man who cheated on me, but I could never explain the full truth. My parents remained firmly out of the media spotlight. Nobody outside of my immediate family knew about my mother’s injury, which she had begged me to keep private. It was hard enough coming to terms with never being able to walk again without the world knowing, she’d said.

  And, of course, nobody knew about my parents’ financial situation.

  “Thank you for not publishing them,” I said in a soft voice.

  Patrick shrugged, frowning. I got the feeling that holding onto those photos was a decision he regretted. It made me nervous to think they existed. He could change his mind—or they could fall into the wrong hands.

  “I guess I didn’t want to be the bad guy. Not where you were concerned. I wasn’t even sure at the time if you knew what he was up to. But you did know.”

  “Yes,” I admitted.

  “Why did you stay married to a guy who screws you around like that? Why didn’t you leave? Over the years, I’ve seen the photos. I’ve watched you on TV. I’ve seen how you’ve changed—becoming blonder, thinner, more unhappy looking.” I could hear the frustration in his voice.

  I shrugged. “Dave and I are good friends. And I’m very focused on my career. I guess…staying with him was more convenient.”

  “I can see that, with him being your manager. But there are other managers out there. Better ones.”

  What could I say? I was close to telling him the truth—so close—but I held back. I couldn’t. Telling Patrick my own secrets was one thing, but confessing my parents’ situation would be another.

  “The reason I’m asking you this,” Patrick continued, “is that I want to keep on seeing you, Claire.” His fingers twined through mine and despite the stress of my dilemma, I felt a shiver of desire at this intimate contact. His words took longer to register.

  He wanted to keep on seeing me?

  The prospect of having an actual relationship with Patrick was everything I’d longed for and fantasized about. But how could it happen? My sponsorship would be jeopardized by a messy divorce, and I knew there was no way it would end up being anything but messy. And my contract was all I had. It was my lifeline, and my family’s salvation.

  Three more years, and I would no longer be bound by it. I would be financially independent, able to do what I wanted to do, and date whomever I desired. But how could I ask Patrick to wait for three years? I couldn’t. It would be totally unfair.

  What to tell him? My mouth felt numb. Then he spoke again.

  “I need to know that you’re single,” he said. “That your divorce is finalized. That’s important to me.”

  “It’s not finalized,” I told him, my voice sounding very small, and I saw him frown in concern.

  “You don’t know what your words mean to me, Patrick,” I continued. “What you want…I want it too, more than I can tell you. But I can’t leave my husband now. I know our marriage is a sham, but he’s just stopped the divorce proceedings and I’m not going to push for it. Not for the next while…another three years, maybe. While I focus on my career.”

  Did he even believe me? To myself, my words sounded empty and totally unconvincing. Anyone who’d been following my rankings could see that my performance had peaked in my early twenties; my best results were behind me.

  And I felt ill when I thought about what I had turned down. This connection—emotional, physical, sexual—was more powerful than any I’d experienced before. I’d waited ten years to meet Patrick again, and now, just as he offered what I wanted most in the world, I was going to lose him.

  “Are you telling me everything?” he asked. His voice sounded sharply suspicious.

  Unable to meet his eyes, I nodded.

  His hands released mine. Looking up, I saw his face was unreadable.

  “I guess we all have to make choices,” he said.

  I nodded.

  “I can’t transgress the boundaries of a marriage, Claire—not anymore than I’ve already done,” he said. “Not even if that marriage is a sham.”

  My breath was shaky. I bit the inside of my lip, hoping it would help me control my tears, because I couldn’t cry in front of him.

  “I understand that,” I said.

  “I hope you and Dave can make it work properly, second time ‘round,” he told me. “You’re an amazing, passionate woman. You deserve to have some love in your life.”

  I blinked fast and stared down at the table, looking at the warm grain of the wood, the knots in it, the faint marks and scars it carried from a lifetime of use by a family.

  When I looked up again, Patrick was gone.

  Chapter 17

  I buried my head in my hands. Now Patrick had left, I could let my tears flow, but despite the emotions raging through me, they did not want to come. Instead of grief, I felt a terrible sense of foreboding, as if, by not telling him the truth, I had made a dreadful, life-altering mistake.

  What to do? I got up, walked to the kitchen door and looked out, wondering if I could catch a glimpse of him on the road. I wanted to call him back, but the Mercedes was gone. I looked at the space where it had been, the marks of the tires in the damp soil, and felt something approaching panic.

  I had made an unforgivable error, and yet, I’d had no choice.

  The weather reflected the darkness of my mood. Clouds covered the sky, grim and forbidding, and the wind had grown stronger, bending the trees and sending golden leaves scudding over the grass. The wind caught the door, blowing it wide open, so that I had to fight to get it closed.

  “Don’t be stupid,” I told myself, trying to toughen up as I turned back to the comfort of the kitchen. “You knew him for how long? Two days?”

  But it hadn’t been just two days. Patrick Maguire had been with me for ten years. The thoughts of him, the memories, the fantasies of what might happen if we were to meet again one day. Now, I could no longer dream or hope. He was firmly, forever, in the past. I would have to rewrite my life without him.

  I put the kettle on to give me something to do. The sound of the element heating up filled the silent room. Glancing at my iPad to distract myself from my despairing thoughts, I saw another email had come through.

  “Just been told the sponsor meeting’s postponed,” Dave had written. “Daniel and Toby are in London until Thursday, so it’ll be then. See you Monday.”

  “Monday?” I blurted out. Dave had told me to be back on Monday because of the sponsor meeting. I wasn’t going to hurry back for no reason, if the meeting date had been changed.

  Suddenly a light switched on in my mind. Daniel and Toby, the
president of College Sport, were in London. I reread the email and realized how I could use this information. London was just a short plane ride away. I could meet with them, without Dave there. I could ask to renegotiate the terms of my contract. I could request that the sponsorship income be split fairly between me and Dave as two separate entities. Even though I did the vast majority of the work, Dave was still my manager. This way, we would both benefit, but we would not be locked into it as one. I would be free to make my own decisions in my personal life.

  Hope brightened up an otherwise bleak future.

  I dialed Daniel’s cell, and within a minute, was saying good morning to him.

  “Morning, Claire,” he replied. He sounded surprised, and not in a good way.

  I got straight to the point.

  “I hear you’re in London.”

  “Yeah, it was a last-minute decision. We’ve been offered a great deal on a location for a new superstore in Mayfair, so we’re checking it out. Our meeting’s on Thursday now. Didn’t Dave tell you?”

  “He did. That’s why I’m calling you.”

  “How do you mean?” Surprise had been replaced by suspicion.

  “I’m going to be in London tomorrow,” I said. “I’d like to come and see you. I want to discuss something with you, personally. Confidentially.”

  There was a short silence. Then:

  “Okay. I’ve got a gap in my schedule at eleven-thirty. I’m staying in one of the Park suites at the Dorchester. You can meet us there.”

  “Thank you,” I said, but he’d already disconnected. Still, he’d agreed to see me. I was sure he’d listen to what I had to say.

  And then I could call Patrick and apologize, and explain that I was going ahead with the divorce. That the only commitment I had was my sponsorship, but that he and I were free to see each other.

  My thoughts were interrupted by the kitchen door opening, letting in a gust of wind.

  “Blown into my own house,” Noreen complained, turning and, like I had done, struggling to close it again. She had a scarf over her hair, but even so, it had been tugged into disarray. Despite that, she looked the happiest that I’d seen her.

  “Good news,” she told me. “I’ve just had a firm offer on the other land, and accepted it. Signed and sealed. It’s a cash deal, so no worries about it falling through. The buyer is going to run an organic farm, and open a gourmet restaurant and up-market lodge. He’s got a similar setup in a neighboring county, and he says he can’t keep up with demand. With the castle opening soon, and town becoming so busy, he says this area is the next big tourist destination.”

  “Oh, that’s such great news,” I said, forgetting my own sorrows as I thought of what this would mean to Noreen.

  “It is such perfect timing because Connor’s assignment in the Middle East is ending next week. He won’t have to stay on there. He’ll be able to come home.”

  Joy shone in her face. I was delighted for her.

  “Well, I’d better get on and exercise the horses,” she said. “I must fitten them up now. I’m sure he’ll be keen to do some hunting when he’s home. Do you want a ride, Claire?”

  “I’d love one,” I said.

  Half an hour later, I was dressed in jodhpurs, boots and a hard hat. These various items belonged to Noreen and her daughter, but they fit me surprisingly well. The jodhpurs were slightly short in the leg, but Noreen provided me with a pair of knee-length leather gaiters which fastened snugly round my calves.

  I helped Noreen brush the horses; the pleasant ache in my arms familiar to me from many happy hours at summer camp long ago, doing the same. Then Noreen saddled them up. An upturned plastic bucket served as a mounting block, and then I was atop Titan, staring down at his muscular gray neck while Noreen adjusted my stirrup leathers and girth before swinging into her own saddle.

  We set off, walking the horses through the stable yard and along the cobbled path that led down to the gate. I felt very high up. Titan was far taller than the horses I had ridden at camp, but he felt steady and solid under me, walking quietly alongside Murphy, who was jogging excitedly, snatching at his bridle and shying dramatically at the blowing trees.

  “You sit beautifully,” Noreen complimented me, and I felt a glow of pride.

  “We’ll ride quietly on the road today, but if you’re up for it, we can have a canter across the big field to end off. Let’s see how it goes.”

  As we made our way down to the gate, I shortened my reins enough so I could feel a gentle contact on Titan’s mouth. He arched his neck in response, gracefully yielding to me, and I felt him softly mouthing the bit. I tried my best to remember what my teachers had told me, so long ago. Keep heels down. Head high. Shoulders, hips, and heels in balance. So much to remember, and all with the added challenge of having an animal moving underneath me.

  “That’s great,” Noreen said approvingly. “Good seat and good hands. You should do some dressage.”

  We walked out along the quiet road, and I realized how much better the view was from horseback, high enough to see over the bushy hedges and allowing me a full panorama of this exquisite countryside. How enjoyable it would be to go riding more often, to have some lessons back home and learn how to do dressage.

  But even if money allowed, the demands of my training program would not. And I could imagine Dave apoplectic with rage at the idea of me riding a horse. What if I was injured? Where would Team Harvey be then?

  We walked the horses for about twenty minutes and then had a short trot. After a momentary loss of balance, I remembered how to post to the trot. Titan’s muscles flexed underneath me, his forward movement was contained through my feel on the supple leather reins. He felt safe and strong, like a Rolls Royce.

  “Well, you certainly look capable enough for a canter if you’d like to have one,” Noreen said, when we’d slowed to a walk again. “That gate over there leads into the big field. Titan will know the way to the top gate up the hill, and I’ll hold Murphy well back so they don’t end up racing.”

  “All right,” I said, excited and a little nervous at the thought of asking this enormous horse for more speed. I hoped I wouldn’t let him down—or myself. As I turned Titan toward the gate, he pricked his ears, gathered himself together, and I felt his muscles bunch under me.

  I moved my hands forward and he launched onto the grass in a bound. I’d expected to be unseated, but his stride was long and smooth; it covered the distance in surges that felt like waves. This sensation of controlled speed was incredible. The wind whipped my face, my eyes were watering from the cold air, and I found myself laughing in delight at the exhilaration of letting him go.

  Near the top of the hill he slowed, collecting to a bouncy stride before dropping back to a walk, snorting out his pleasure at having been allowed to have some fun. Hoof beats behind me signaled that Noreen was catching up. Once she’d reined Murphy in, we walked them on a long rein round the field, heading back to the barn.

  My heart was as light as a feather. The worries that had weighed me down seemed to have been blown away. This ride had given me confidence. It had made me feel that anything was possible, that a new and different future might lie ahead.

  “Well done,” Noreen praised me. “I’d hire you as a work rider any day, if I were a hunt stable owner.”

  “It was amazing,” I told her. “Thank you for this. I wish I could do it again.”

  “You heading back?”

  “Tomorrow. I don’t want to leave, but I need to go to London and try to sort my life out. Look on the bright side, though, at least you won’t have any more intruders lurking around your farm.”

  “You think he was a photographer?” Noreen asked, frowning.

  “I’m sure of it.”

  She shook her head, looking annoyed. “On my land, and all. Should have called the police. Would have, if he’d hung around for longer. At least you know that it wasn’t Geraldine from the Women’s Institute who gave you away.”

  “Oh, why?”
I asked. She’d been first on my list of suspects.

  “She got it totally wrong. She told me yesterday she’d figured out who you were—that you were an actress. She’s convinced she’s seen you in an advert on the telly.”

  That was perplexing. I’d been sure it had been Geraldine who’d recognized me. At any rate, from tomorrow, I wouldn’t have to worry about it and more importantly, nor would Noreen.

  Back at the farmhouse, I booked my tickets to London. I started to feel nervous about the meeting the next day. I’d only ever met with these two men in Dave’s company. What would I say to them? Would they be sympathetic? I hoped so, because I knew I wasn’t much of a negotiator when things turned bad. For somebody who was prepared to fight until first blood with a sword in her hand, my phobia of aggressive confrontations didn’t make sense at all.

  I booked my flight back to the States for later that afternoon. There was no reason to spend more time in London on my own. It would be better to go and see my parents, who’d recently moved into a cheaper place and now lived in a run-down neighborhood in south Camden. It was a two-hour drive, and a world away, from the leafy, up-market suburb of Montclair. I hadn’t seen them for far too long. I needed to touch base with them, to spend some time in their home and find out how they were doing.

  I called my dad to tell him about my plans. After checking my watch and working out the time zones, I realized he’d be in the middle of my mother’s morning routine, and would probably leave the call to ring through to voicemail. But to my surprise, he answered, sounding stressed.

  “Hey, Dad. It’s me. Is everything OK?”

  “Yes, honey. Everything’s fine. Good to hear your voice.”

  “I didn’t expect you to pick up the call.”

  “I’ve been applying for a few part time jobs, so I keep my phone near me all the time now in case I’m asked to go and work. Don’t want to lose the chance, and have them contact the next guy on the list.”

  “But…how are you finding the time to work, as well as care for Mom?”