Topspin (4 page)

“We’ll finish yer off the next time.” Ed’s voice easily carried to the other courts. “You can’t always count on being saved by the whistle, yer know.”

“In your bloody dreams,” Jack muttered. He was the club’s foremost player and knew he and Angela ought to have beaten the Bradys without raising a sweat. The problem was, he disliked Ed so much that playing against him fueled his competitive spirit for all the wrong reasons. Trying too hard to beat the irritating little sod definitely put him off his game. His hangover didn’t help matters, either. But he’d never come this close to losing to him before and knew he’d never hear the end of it. He leaned across the net and made a big deal out of kissing Stella, just to annoy Ed.

“Come on, court four, we’re all waiting for you.” Trina’s voice resonated with impatience.

“Mustn’t keep ’er waiting.” Ed scampered off the court, grinning like the village idiot. “She’ll wanna have our result. I’ll give it to ’er, shall I, then, Jack?”

Angela hastily grabbed hold of Jack’s hand, which he’d clenched without his being aware of it. “Let him have his moment of glory, Jack. He’s never got that close to beating us before.”

“No, and God knows how he managed it this time.” He shrugged moodily. “And now he’s bloody taunting us with it.”

“You let him get to you, that’s your problem.”

Jack expelled a long breath, wishing now that he’d given way to temptation and stayed in bed for the rest of the morning with Irena. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” He picked up his bag and headed for the spot where everyone was gathered round Trina’s results board.

“You’re too uptight, Jack. Why don’t you call round the salon this afternoon? It’s quiet at the moment so I’d have time to give you a long, slow massage.” She licked her plump lips slowly with the tip of an exceptionally pink tongue. Had she just bitten it to make it look so…well, pink and ready for action? Could a tongue be ready for action? He shook his head, irritated by the habit he’d developed for letting his thoughts wander off on weird tangents. “It’s just what you need to help you relax.”

“I might just do that.”

But Jack had no intention of going anywhere near Angela’s massage table. Relax an inch, and she’d pounce with that bloody tongue of hers. He liked Angela; she was good looking and sexy, in an obvious sort of way. And she looked after herself, kept in shape, and was a handy tennis player. No one looking at her would think that she was the mother of fourteen-year-old twins. Twins about whose father she never spoke.

Everyone in this bloody place seemed to have a secret. Either that or they were running away from something. A cornucopia of intrigue and malcontent hid beneath a thin veneer of sociability and a much heavier layer of rarefied snobbery.

Despite the fact that Jack gave Angela no encouragement, she seemed determined to get her claws into him. Romance definitely wasn’t on his agenda. She was reputed to be an excellent masseuse, and a good rub-down in the salon where she worked in Newport was just what he could do with right now. But it would be cruel to excite expectations in her he wasn’t about to fulfill. If it was only an occasional fuck she wanted, he’d be happy to oblige.

Unfortunately it wouldn’t end there. Jack knew her type. She’d want more of him than he was willing to give. She’d want A Relationship. Jack shuddered at the very thought of the R-word. He’d tried that once and wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice.

“I’ve got a few other things to do later, so I might not make it,” he said, attempting to let her down gently.

“Come at the end of the afternoon, then. I won’t charge you for the massage, and you can take me out to dinner afterward in return.”

Which would finish up costing him a damned sight more than the price of a rub-down. “That won’t work, love. I’ve got something else on tonight.”

“Oh, but I thought we could—”

“Ed tells me that was a draw.” For once Jack was grateful for Trina’s interruption. “Well done, Ed and Stella! Now then, that’s Jack and Angela finished. Joe and Claire are through as well, but everyone else has one more set to play. We’re obviously behind today, what with one court being out of action.” She glared at the workmen, who were doing repairs to the court in question, as though she held them personally responsible for the inconvenience. “Jack and Angela are in the lead, but not unreachable this time. If Ed and Stella manage to win their next one, then that could put them in a play-off situation.”

“God help us!” Jack muttered, heading for the bar, sorely in need of sustenance.

Angela and Claire disappeared in the direction of the changing rooms, while Jack and Joe found a table in the shade next to the swimming pool.

“It’s too bloody hot!” Jack said, attracting the attention of a waitress and ordering a large beer.

“Water for me,” Joe said. “I’ve got a full afternoon.”

“More hearts to bleed dry?” Jack asked with a grin, referring to his close friend’s thriving cardiology practice.

“Have to keep them beating, by fair means or foul.”

“Talking of foul means, did you see Ed almost beat us in that last one? His line calls are a work of bloody fantasy fiction.”

Joe chuckled. “The whole club knows by now, I should think. But watch him, Jack. He’s not as daft as he looks, and I reckon he’s got it in for you.”

“Yeah, he can’t be too thick, I suppose, or he wouldn’t have snared the lovely Stella. She’s the best bit of totty at this club, apart from your Claire, of course.”

“Too right. Never have been able to work out what my lovely wife sees in me.”

“What, it’s got nothing to do with your telephone number salary, then, or the fact that you indulge her every whim?” Joe shrugged complacently. “Or maybe it’s that air of calm competence of yours that she’s got confused with sophistication? No?” Jack regarded his friend with an air of elaborate circumspection, slowly shaking his head. “What the hell can it be, then? Hang on, I think I’ve got it.” He smacked his palm against his bare thigh as though he’d just figured out the meaning of the universe. “It must be because you’re twenty years older than her and sure to drop off the perch any time now. I mean, everyone knows doctors are the last people to follow their own advice, which would leave her a rich widow while she’s still in her prime.”

“I’m not in my dotage yet, mate. Besides, people in glass houses and all that. Just because half the female population of Cowes seems desperate to experience a dose of the legendary Regent charm, it doesn’t alter the fact that you’re pushing forty-five.” Joe grinned as the waitress placed their drinks and a bowl of nuts on the table in front of them.

“Thanks, sweetheart.” The smile Jack flashed at the pretty waitress had enough heat behind it to make her blush. She wiggled her hips as she walked slowly away, ignoring two women at another table who were trying to attract her attention.

“Mortality is a terrible thing, my friend,” Joe said morosely. “Take it from one who knows. Anyway, what happened to you last night? You look like shit.”

“Thanks, I feel it. A night out with Karl and a few of his Dutch cronies.”

Joe groaned. “Only yourself to blame, then. You ought to know by now, that lot can drink all comers under the table.”

“It is correct what Joe says,” Karl said in heavily accented English, passing their table at that precise moment and looking disgustingly fit. “You British are amateurs. I feel perfectly well today.”

“Told you so!” Joe said.

“How was the lovely Irena, by the way?” Karl asked.

“Co-operative.”

Karl chuckled. “Jammy bastard!”

“Argue it any way you like, that still puts me ten years behind you,” Jack said, returning to his conversation with Joe.

“So you keep telling me, but I’m not fooled by the air of mystery you’ve craftily created to conceal what is undoubtedly a murky and disreputable past.”

“You’ve got me all wrong, Joe.” Jack propped his feet on an empty chair and stretched his arms above his head. “There’s no mystery about me. I’m just a hard-working boy who’s retired early to enjoy his twilight years in this quiet backwater.”

“Then how come even I don’t know how you came by your ill-gotten gains?”

“Nothing to tell. Insurance. Too boring.”

Jack’s gaze drifted across the fairways, dotted with people wearing those awful jumpers golfers seemed to consider indispensable even in the middle of a heat wave. The Solent sparkled in the distance, the perfect backdrop for this quintessentially English scene. The area the club was built on had once been open farmland, interspersed with woods and a network of bridle paths. Much to the golfers’ collective chagrin, the bridle paths still existed and they were unable to prevent equestrians from using them. A rider had fallen the other day and her horse, spooked, charged straight across a green, ripping the pristine surface to shreds. Jack and Joe, who thought the golfers took themselves far too seriously, witnessed the incident and almost split their sides laughing.

“And why is it that you avoid the issue every time I ask you?” Joe’s voice recalled Jack’s attention to the question of his former employment.

“Ah, here they are.” Jack raised his eyes to Claire and Angela as they emerged from the changing room. Angela was still in her tennis outfit, in case of a play-off, but Claire was looking delectable in a yellow linen sun-dress. He gave her a quick once-over and grinned at Joe. “What’s your poison, girls?”

“See,” Joe protested. “You’re doing it again.”

“They’re making a meal out of repairing that court, aren’t they?” Jack said a bit later. “They’ve been at it for hours, and there wasn’t much wrong with it in the first place as far as I could see. Is that the usual mob who do the repairs?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Joe said.

“I don’t recognize that big black guy, the one with the shades and baseball cap. He seems more interested in the rest of the place than he is in doing his work.”

“Probably a bit overawed by all the splendor,” Claire suggested.

Angela, who was talking over her shoulder to Karl, didn’t even look up.

“Tell me why you think our vertically challenged friend is dangerous,” Jack said, losing interest in the court repairs.

“He’s stirring up trouble here at the club,” Claire answered for her husband. “Making snide remarks about Trina—”

“We all do that,” Angela said. “She leaves herself open to it. But someone has to do the organizing, and it’s a thankless task. We’re all quick to complain, but none of us wants to take the job on ourselves.”

“True.” Claire nodded. “It can’t be easy, but she doesn’t help herself because she doesn’t care if she isn’t popular. I don’t think she’s got much else in her life since Peter died and her kids left home. Stella was telling me yesterday at the ladies’ afternoon that she rules the committee with a rod of iron.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Jack said. “Speaking personally, she terrifies the hell out of me, but Angela’s got a point. Someone has to keep us in line.”

“I get the impression, from things Ed’s said to me and from things I’ve overheard,” Joe said, “that he’s planning a take-over.”

“Good God, whatever for?” Jack said. “This is a small tennis club on the Isle of Wight, not bloody Wimbledon.”

“It’s pretty exclusive, though, and you know what a snob he can be.”

“Yeah, I suppose there’s that, but if he’s so keen to run the place he could stand for election at the next AGM.” Jack grinned. “He’d probably have to stand on a box to make himself seen, though.”

“Who knows what goes on in the mind of a midget.” Angela’s comment earned her a sardonic grin from Jack.

“Watch out, they’ve finished playing and they’re heading this way.”

“Oh God, someone please tell me that Ed and Stella didn’t win.” Jack rolled his eyes. “I can’t face a play-off, not against him.”

“No, Jack, don’t worry. Gordon and Jane thrashed them.” Angela patted his arm and left her hand on it until Jack shifted his position, forcing her to drop it.

With the competition over and Jack and Angela once again declared winners, there was a stampede for the bar prior to lunch. Joe pulled Claire into his arms and kissed her.

“Keep an eye on this gorgeous creature for me,” he said to Jack as he prepared to depart for his afternoon clinic. “But only an eye, mind. Those hands of yours don’t need to get involved.”