March 2016
THE STUDIO LIGHTS were unbearably hot, but Nick didn’t appear to notice them. He sat upright, his long legs crossed at the ankle, his gaze distant.
He hadn’t heard from Anna since his very public declaration, but it had sent the media into a frenzy: there was nothing they loved more than an enigmatic hero and unrequited love. Besides, Nick was flavour of the month after the way he’d helped the England rugby team to a comprehensive mauling of the team from Ireland.
“Well, Nick, it’s been quite an eventful couple of years for you.”
The interviewer gave a soft, diffident chuckle that the audience echoed.
She’d been excited about this, interviewing the famously private Nick Renshaw, golden boy of English rugby, but he was making her work for it, giving polite, one-word answers.
In truth, ‘eventful’ didn’t even begin to cover the beautiful, terrible chaos of the last twenty-two months of his life.
He leaned back in his chair, increasing the distance between them as he continued to stare at the interviewer while she waited expectantly for his answer.
The silence lengthened and she licked her lips, glancing at the producer as the studio lights drew beads of sweat on her heavily powdered forehead.
“How would you describe the last two years, Nick?”
The Team England publicist was staring at him wide-eyed from behind the cameraman, willing him to say something, praying that Nick didn’t freeze on national TV.
His fingers drummed quietly on the arm of his chair as if he was choosing his words carefully. He wasn’t.
“Yes, Jasmine, you could say it’s been eventful.”
The words rolled out in Nick’s distinctive Yorkshire accent—taciturn, economical, the flat vowels making him sound bored.
The interviewer’s eyes tightened and she clutched her clipboard harder.
“There have been highs and lows . . .” she said encouragingly, giving him another lead-in. “Perhaps you could tell me how those have been, from your perspective?”
She wasn’t wrong, but her questions weren’t tapping into the well of emotion that she sensed underlay his weary answers. She knew it was there; she sensed it.
Physically, he’d never looked stronger, his athlete’s body draped in a designer suit and crisp white shirt, his raven-dark hair combed away from a sculpted face, penetrating hazel-green eyes now shuttered, and a newly grown, thick, black beard hiding the softness of his lips.
But it was there, barely perceptible, an undefinable something. To the interviewer’s experienced gaze, he looked . . . defeated.
Nick closed his eyes momentarily. Yes, there had been incredible highs, flying so far he thought he’d never come back to earth. But he did. He crashed and burned, shattering spectacularly.
Broken in body and spirit, he’d clawed his way back, step by painful step. And she had been there. For every time when it seemed too hard and he wanted to give up, Anna had kept him going. For every time the shadows threatened to choke him, she’d driven them back, her brightness blazing.
And when she’d needed him most, he’d watched her fall.
“Playing for your country, that must have been an incredible feeling,” the interviewer urged, becoming more agitated as Nick choked on the words crowding at the back of his throat. “How does it feel to stand in front of 82,000 people all chanting your name?”
He glanced up at her, frowning slightly, as if offended by her question. It revealed her basic misunderstanding of why he played rugby at an international level or any level for that matter. It wasn’t for adulation. When he played, he focussed on the game, on the white lines painted on the field. He rarely looked up at the people in the first tier, let alone higher. So how the hell could he answer her? Not that it was a bad question—everyone said it was the greatest moment of his life. He didn’t agree, but that’s what they said.
How had Jonny Wilkinson felt when he scored the winning drop goal in the last ninety seconds of extra time during the Final of the 2003 Rugby World Cup?
She may as well have asked how Neil Armstrong felt when he took his first step on the moon? Or how Michael Collins felt when he didn’t and was left behind in Apollo 11? Unless you’ve walked in those men’s shoes, you can’t know.
But how did he feel? How had he felt? Stunned, overwhelmed, invincible? Lost, broken, destroyed?
He shrugged his shoulders and gave her a wide, meaningless smile.
“You had to be there.”
“I was!” she said enthusiastically. “I was there cheering my head off in front of the TV along with everyone else in the country. I’m sure people will remember that day, where they were at that actual moment, for the rest of their lives! And after everything that you’ve been through, after being told you’d never play again, it must have been an extraordinary moment.”
“Yes, extraordinary,” he said quietly, lost in the memories.
He’d played for Anna that day. He’d played for her every day since.
“I’m told that you recently got a tattoo,” the journalist said, trying a different tack to get him talking, to unlock the story and save the interview from being a car crash. “ . . . A phoenix. I think I can guess the relevance of that: not just for the Finchley Phoenixes, but rebirth and renewal, recovery from injury, rising from the ashes?”
A photo of his new ink was shown on the screen behind him, the camera scrolling pornographically across smooth tanned skin, swooping over muscles and polished flesh, dipping erotically low. Several of the women in the studio audience whooped and cheered, wolf-whistles piercing through his fog of despair, making him smile despite himself.
The interviewer felt a blast of euphoria. Of course! The fans! They’d always been Nick’s weak spot. He was always kind to them.
As his fame had grown, his natural boy-next-door friendliness had morphed into a wariness of strangers, and he’d learned that self-deprecating way of the superstar to smile and slide away without causing offence.
“Your fans are important to you,” said the interviewer. “Have they been part of your recovery?”
His eyes flickered and something inside him gave way—emotions dammed for too long.
“Yeah, definitely. They’ve supported me through some of the lowest moments in my life,” he agreed, leaning toward her for the first time. “And the phoenix is to symbolize starting over. But not just in my career, in my life, too. I didn’t think I’d make it back on a team again, let alone play for England. It wasn’t just the injury, it was fear.”
And he tapped his chest.
“Inside, I didn’t believe in myself. But then I met an amazing sports psychologist who helped me get back on track.”
“You’re referring to Anna Scott,” said the journalist, her eyes glinting with the excitement of a potential exclusive.
The Team England publicist was shaking her head, making a slashing movement with her hand, warning him not to talk about Anna. He saw her, no question, but the devil in him decided to ignore her insistent advice and give the interviewer what she wanted. And it might be the only way he could get Anna to hear him.
For a moment, pain flared behind his eyes.
“Yes, I’m talking about Anna Scott. She pulled me out of a very dark place, helped me start playing again, and playing well—winning. Without her, I’d never have made it.”
The interviewer leaned toward him, her tone warm, confidential, just two old friends having a chat, but her body quivered with excitement.
He knew it. He knew all about reading body language, knew what she wanted. And maybe, just maybe it was the last roll of the dice.
“And you started a relationship with Ms. Scott?”
The audience were silent, a collective holding of breath. Wondering if he’d take another step toward the cliff edge.
“I think you know that already, Jasmine,” he said, arching one eyebrow at her. “The newspapers and gossip sites wouldn’t leave her alone. She was torn apart by the Press. And I couldn’t do anything to help her. Journalists crucified her.”
The interviewer squirmed uncomfortably, then squared her shoulders.
“Were you in a relationship with her from the beginning?”
His eyes darkened, whether with anger or passion, no one but Nick could tell.
“All relationships have a beginning, but to answer your question, no. Despite the allegations, that’s not how it was.”
“How was it exactly?”
How was it? Perfect. Perfectly wrong.
“She healed me, we became . . . friends—good friends—and then . . . she left.”
He spoke as if at confessional, quietly, humbly, almost as if he’d forgotten the interviewer was there.
She stared at him, a shocked but avid expression on her face, and she leaned even closer, her red nails wrapped around the clipboard, her script abandoned.
“And then what?”
Nick blinked slowly, his eyes coming back into focus as he buried his feelings deeper.
“And then I got picked for the England team.”
Not the answer she wanted.
The interviewer twitched a shoulder in irritation.
“What happened to Dr. Scott? What happened to Anna?”
“Nothing happened.”
Her forehead creased with frustration.
“But . . . but that can’t be the end of the story!”
He leaned back and gave her a small smile.
“’Fraid so. That’s it. That’s the end.”
“I don’t believe that!”
Nick didn’t want to believe it either.