Under a Siena Sun (Escape to Tuscany #1) - T.A. Williams Page 0,79

Rosy, my wife, would have realised that. At first she came with me to tournaments, but she soon got tired of traipsing around the world from one hotel room to another and she started to get bored. She came back to Tuscany and spent a lot of the time in the apartment we rented here in Punta Ala or in Rome with friends, or back in the States. We saw less and less of each other and we didn’t even talk on the phone that much. Things might still have worked themselves out if it hadn’t been for my injury. One moment I was a set and a break up against Rafa Nadal at Roland Garros and the next I was lying in agony on the court looking at my knee bent completely out of shape with my lower leg sticking out sideways.’

Lucy nodded mutely and caught hold of his hands in hers. She knew full well the pain that torn cruciate ligaments could cause. She gave his fingers a little squeeze, but he didn’t seem to notice as he picked up his tale again.

‘In my defence, I hope you can understand just how much of a crushing blow this was. From the very start the doctors who treated me told me it looked almost certain that my career was over. Can you imagine what it feels like to spend your whole life totally focused on one thing, to the exclusion of all else, and for that to be torn away from you in a matter of seconds? Just think – I first started playing tennis when I was five and I was winning junior tournaments by the time I was ten. All the way through school and college, tennis was the single most important thing in my life – not my parents, not my studies, not even girls; just tennis and the desire to become world champion. It was all-consuming, the only thing I knew. Being told it had come to an end came as a hammer blow to me.’

Lucy nodded mutely.

‘As the significance of this gradually sank in, I’m afraid to say I totally lost it. I freaked out and spiralled down into a morose, uncommunicative state where I didn’t want to see anybody or talk to anybody. And that included Rosy. I hauled her back to the US with me while I went to see specialist after specialist, trying all manner of miracle cures, but with no success, and all the time I was getting more and more depressed. By this time the villa was finished so we moved in and that was the final blow for her. She didn’t speak much Italian and she found herself alone in the wilds of the country with a monosyllabic hulk. The hope was that moving to the villa would snap me out of it, but it didn’t. Rosy stuck it out for a few months and then, after a series of flaming rows, she left me and came here to the apartment at Punta Ala.’

‘So no naked romps with cheerleaders?’ She was trying her best to cheer him.

‘No naked romps with anybody – at least not for me – but I feel very responsible for the break-up. It wasn’t fair of me to expect her to put up with a man who probably didn’t utter more than two or three words each day. I certainly don’t blame her for leaving.’

‘And at which point did she start asking you for a divorce?’

‘Maybe eighteen months ago. She was living down here at Punta Ala and she told me she’d met some guy with a yacht. She said she’d fallen in love with him and she wanted out. I was so low, I didn’t want to lose her as well, so I kept saying no, hoping she’d come to her senses.’

‘So, technically, the unfaithful partner wasn’t you at all, it was your wife. So why not set the record straight?’

‘Back then I couldn’t care less what anybody thought. I didn’t read the papers, I didn’t watch the news, and I certainly didn’t get involved with social media. Besides, what was I going to say? She left me because I was a wreck. Nobody could blame her.’

Lucy shook her head. ‘I’m not convinced. What about the whole “in sickness and in health” thing? Didn’t that matter to her?’

For the first time she saw a glimmer of a smile on his lips, albeit ironic. ‘You see it that way because you’re such a caring