While this action-packed game is going on around me, Begonia displays only slightly more inclination to join in than Woody did. Part of the problem is that the last thing I want to do is
encourage this animal to do anything hasty, like trot.
It strikes me that the most difficult thing about polo is that your brain has to engage in not one but
two
exceedingly difficult endeavours. The first is riding a horse; the second is
trying to score goals. You might as well attempt to iron a linen shirt during a snowboarding session.
‘Come on, Emma, get stuck in – get this ball off Matt,’ Nick shouts encouragingly as he spots me hovering behind the others, who are clearly having a thoroughly enjoyable
time.
Matt turns round and flashes me a grin. ‘Fancy it?’
‘Right,’ I huff, determined to pull myself together.
I squeeze my feet against Begonia’s ribs, hoping to get her moving. Not too fast, obviously, but some sort of forward motion would be a clear benefit. She shakes her mane but barely stirs.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d guess she was rolling her eyes and doing a mock yawn.
I take another deep breath. ‘Come on, Begonia,’ I say, digging my feet in harder.
Begonia doesn’t need to be asked twice. Begonia, in fact, acts as though she has a rocket up her backside, shooting across the yard until I’m next to Matt, gripping on for dear
life.
‘That’s right, Emma! Push him out of the way!’ shouts Nick.
‘What? With my horse?’ I whimper, as the ball disappears under our feet.
‘
Yes!
’
I edge to Matt’s side as he inches away from the ball, our mallets knotting between us. Matt’s horse pushes into Begonia and he wins control of the ball, only metres from the
goal.
‘Get it back! Go on, Emma!’ Nick yells.
With my heart pounding, I head back as Matt is positioning himself in front of the goal.
‘
Push him, Emma!
’ Nick shouts.
I pull Begonia’s reins and tap her sides with my feet, this time hoping to add a little more oomph. My wish is granted. However, instead of just edging Matt out of the way and winning
control of the ball, Begonia moves so fast that I realise I haven’t only pushed the horse out of the way – I’ve pushed its rider too.
I watch in horror as Matt is unsaddled and topples off like he’s the top prize on a coconut shy.
‘
Jesus!
’ Matt yells, as he slams into the ground and Nick and Cally ride over.
‘Oh God! I’m so sorry!’ I splutter.
‘Hey, don’t worry,’ Matt says, wincing in pain as he stands and brushes himself down.
‘Is anything broken?’ I offer.
He flashes me a look. ‘Yes, my pride has suffered several fractures and could be in plaster until February.’
By the time the session is over, I’m exhausted and sweaty – and wishing that the odds on us winning the lottery were anything like Matt predicted. Rubbish as I was,
it was undeniably great. And that rush of adrenalin – the one I usually hate – has left me nothing but exhilarated. For a woman who freaks at the sight of a spider in the bath, as Rob
pointed out, this is quite a step forward.
We spend the final twenty minutes watching in wonder as Giles trounces the team he was pitted against. He scores four goals and is a phenomenon – athletic, almost – which is
something so at odds with the view I have of him most days (i.e. reaching for the biscuit packet) it’s like looking at a different person.
‘I’m pleased with some of the photos I took,’ Matt tells me as we trudge to the car. ‘The light was perfect today. There are some lovely ones of you in your first
practice go.’
‘Tell me you made me look like I knew what I was doing,’ I groan.
‘I’ll show you while we wait for the others.’ He throws his bag into the boot of the car, before climbing into the driver’s seat.
I slide in next to him, feeling less than enthusiastic. I am the least photogenic person I know. The mere presence of a camera seems to make me gurn spontaneously so that, when someone says
they’ve taken a ‘natural shot’, it generally means I look like Goofy having his glands emptied.
‘You’ll have to delete that one,’ I begin. ‘Oh, and that. And . . . oh that’s awful!’
He snatches away the camera. ‘Emma, you look
lovely
. I thought they were great.’
I roll my eyes. ‘I don’t doubt that from a purely artistic point of view you’ve captured wonderful aspects of light and shade. Matt, you could probably win awards with these.
Nevertheless, any artistic talent is entirely negated by one crucial, overriding fact.’
‘Which is?’
‘My bum looks big.’
Before he has a chance to respond, the back doors spring open and Giles and Cally tumble in.
‘
Oooh
, stop it! My sides are hurting,’ Cally hoots, as she slams the door. ‘Oh, Giles – you are
terrible
.’
I glance at Giles, but his eyes are fixed on Cally. He’s smiling, providing a full view of several incisors I never knew existed.
The pair of them spend the rest of the journey giggling like sixth formers on the back of a bus while Matt and I drop into their conversation only intermittently. When we approach south
Liverpool, he offers to drop them both at home.
‘That’d be fantastic, if you don’t mind,’ Cally says. ‘Although, Mum’s just texted to say she doesn’t mind baby-sitting if I want to go for a drink
tonight. I need to get back to see Zachary first and put him to bed but . . . anyone fancy joining me later?’
‘Sorry, but I’ve got to get back for the kids. Their mum will be dropping them off soon,’ Matt replies. ‘Plus, I’ve got a few work trips in the next few weeks, then
I’m off to Iceland in November, so I want to spend as much time as possible with them when I can.’
‘Em?’ she asks.
‘Rob’s making Sunday dinner for me.’
Cally hesitates, glancing at Giles.
‘I’ll join you for one.’ And from the look on his face, this doesn’t represent much of a hardship.
By the time I’ve showered, pulled on jeans and a T-shirt and made it over to Rob’s, it’s gone six thirty. He’s made a delicious roast dinner for me, as
if his credentials as the world’s most perfect boyfriend could be any greater.
His roast potatoes are crispy and light, his chicken is as succulent as can be. It’s all home-cooked and comforting and exactly as I’d fancied. We
make love
afterwards; at
least, Rob makes love. I’m so stiff after my session on Woody I manage only the most basic of positions, the sort that tend to prelude a smear test.
He tries to persuade me to stay, but I always crave my own bed on a Sunday – Monday mornings are challenging enough even when I have all my personal possessions about me. Still, it’s
late before I get home and the crunch of gravel on my drive breaks the twilight silence in Grassendale Park.
The living-room light is still on in Matt’s house, and I imagine him on the sofa, editing photos on his laptop after putting the kids to bed.
I go into the kitchen to flick on the kettle and make a chocolate drink, before taking out the list and crossing off another item. Then I approach the window to close the blinds. At that exact
moment, I look up and see Matt drawing his curtains. He stops and catches my eye. We both laugh at the coincidence.
Then we stop laughing.
As I gaze through his window across the night air, his expression softens, but he doesn’t move and neither do I.
He looks away first, glancing down at the windowsill. He bites his lip, looks up again and waves. I wave back.
Then we both turn away and are gone.
I get to work early the next day so I can send some emails to check the availability of bars on my birthday. The inconvenience of being born in the peak Christmas party season
means this necessitates getting in there in good time.
My heart is set on one venue – Leaf, a tea shop that serves food, drinks of the alcoholic and non-alcoholic variety and, if you fancy it (although I rarely do on a Saturday night),
hundreds of varieties of tea. As well as hosting art and vintage markets, music and club nights, it’s available for private hire – which my dad, God love him, is insisting on paying for
me.
I also have to prepare for a meeting Giles and I are having with the animation studio. Usually, the creative director would be joining us, but in the absence of one – and with Perry still
doing whatever he’s doing in Austria – it’s just us.
Giles hates meetings even more than he hates everything else in life that isn’t real ale, heavy metal and technology, but even that doesn’t account for how fine he’s cutting it
today.
He’s normally the first in to work and the last to leave, an obsessive perfectionist who would never contemplate submitting a script that wasn’t honed and polished until you could
see your face in it. Only, today, it’s 9.28 before he stumbles through the door.
‘Hello, Sir Lancelot – did all that time on a horse yesterday tire you out too much to get up on time?’
He plonks himself behind his desk with
Night of the Living Dead
eyes. ‘Hmm?’
‘You’re later than usual, that’s all.’
He shakes his head. ‘Am I? Shit!’
He fires up his computer and starts flinging bits of stationery and biscuit wrappers around the desk like Miss Piggy looking for her false eyelashes.
I hand him a printout of the script. ‘Here.’
‘Oh? Oh. Thanks!’
He’s odd at the meeting too. I can’t put my finger on why, except that he doesn’t use a single word that begins with an f, he doesn’t grunt, and he doesn’t slag off
Perry – which is astonishing in the light of his latest email from Austria assuring us he’ll be home next week with ‘a raft of sensational concepts’.
It’s more than positivity, though. Giles is also vacant. Ponderous. His mind is clearly elsewhere. Which raises one question.
‘Did you and Cally stay out late last night? I haven’t managed to catch up with her this morning,’ I say casually, not mentioning the fact that I’ve exchanged several
texts with my best friend but failed to pin her down on what happened.
Giles shifts in his seat. ‘Um . . . depends what you’d call late.’
I try to think of a subtle way to quiz him without his head caving in. Before I can open my mouth, a text beeps on his phone and he dives to read it, juggling it like he’s picked something
off a barbecue with his bare hands.
His expression changes as he scans it, and that weird thing happens again – he smiles. It’s an excited, wistful,
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
-type smile.
I try not to scrutinise him too obviously as he types in a response, then deletes it and looks out of the window. Then he types in another response, deletes it, drums his fingers against the
desk and looks out of the window again. It takes four goes before he’s happy enough to press Send, and for the next twenty minutes you’d think he was awaiting the results of a
life-or-death blood test.
This goes on for most of the day, interspersed with a series of unsubtle questions culminating in: ‘Does Cally like tennis? She keeps asking me if I’m any good.’
I don’t tell him that the particular sporting event she has in mind will probably involve removing his Metallica T-shirt.
I finally manage a conversation with Cally when I pop round the corner to the Quarter for takeaway coffees.
‘What happened between you and Giles?’ I ask, expecting to hear the ubiquitous speech about how sex is the last thing on her mind since she had Zachary and she can’t understand
how she was ever that into it and she finds it impossible to believe she’ll ever feel an urge to indulge in anything remotely sexy again.
‘I’ve been at it
all night
!’ she announces triumphantly, as I almost drop both coffees on my shoes.
‘You’ve been
what
? Not with
Giles
?’
‘Excuse the horse pun after yesterday, but I am well and truly back in the saddle. Emma,’ she sighs, ‘I’ve come home.’
‘Yes . . . but with
Giles
?’
She hesitates. ‘You don’t have a problem with that, do you? Oh, it’s never going to be anything serious; it’s just . . . he was there . . . I was there . . . we had a
laugh . . . one thing led to another and – well, before I knew it, I was getting my second ride of the day,’ she hoots.
‘Of course I don’t have a problem . . . I mean, despite appearances, Giles can be incredibly lovely. He’s one of the good guys and . . . well, I know none of this is obvious,
but he is a real sweetheart deep down.’
‘I’d honestly forgotten how much I loved it,’ she continues. ‘It was like the taste of a first cigarette after abstaining for three years – only this isn’t
bad for me!’
‘But what do you think about Giles?’ I ask.
‘Hmm? Oh . . . yes, he’s nice. What was really surprising was how quickly I got back into the swing of things. You might have thought that after so long once would be enough, but oh
no! There was no stopping me.’
‘As long as you had fun.’
‘I did,’ she replies.
‘So are you going to see him again?’
‘Yeah, why not? I mean, we’ve texted again today and . . . do you know, it’s weird but the issue hadn’t even crossed my mind.’
I’m heading back into the office, attempting to hold the cardboard tray so that I can negotiate the front door, when my phone rings. I plant the tray on the wall and pull
my mobile out of my bag – and my heart does a loop the loop when I see a Manchester number.
‘Is that Emma?’ I’d recognise the husky tones anywhere.
‘Yes. Is that—’
‘Lulu McMasters. It’s about the job I interviewed you for.’
Handing in my notice will be weird. I don’t feel anything like as elated as I should be about leaving. Okay, Perry is a nightmare and the fundamental issue of my belief
that I’m in the wrong job will never go away. Yet, as I type my leaving note, I feel tearful, and this is somebody who didn’t even cry at
ET
.
I began writing something straightforward and to the point, like you’re meant to do. But it felt so cold, so unsatisfactory, to sum up my years here in three paragraphs. I felt the need to
explain, to reminisce, to let Perry know what a massive part of my life this place has been, how much I’ve laughed, made friends and grown – creatively and otherwise.