PENNY JORDAN - Rules Of The Game

‘I CAN’T get anything out of Russell Jackson, Jay’s aide,’ Gavin said fretfully when he rejoined her. ‘He seems to be under the impression that the photo session has been delayed. Perhaps Jay hasn’t told him what happened. I sincerely hope not, I dread to think what it will do for our reputation if it gets out that you confused Jay Courtland with a male model.’

‘Is there such a vast difference?’ She sounded more cynical than she intended and Gavin gave her an exasperated glare. ‘Look Van, for some reason you seem to have a down on the poor guy and have done ever since we heard he was coming back, but even you have to admit he’s done pretty well for himself. From living in an orphanage to becoming close to a multi-millionaire in thirty-four years is pretty good going.’

‘That depends on how you assess progress,’ Vanessa told him waspishly, ‘there are more things to life than playing football and making money.’

‘Come on Van, you’re being unreasonably prejudiced. Look at his business record; the money he’s given to charity.’

‘And the publicity he’s got for it,’ Vanessa reminded her brother refusing to be swayed. ‘You’re entitled to your opinion Gavin and I’m entitled to mine.’

‘I wish to God I knew how he is reacting to this morning.’ He glanced at his sister.

‘Well unless he gets in touch with us we’re not likely to find out are we?’

‘We could.’ His glance held hers. ‘If you went to see him and …’

She had known her brother too long not to guess what he was going to say. Her stomach seemed to drop away leaving shock mingling with her anger. ‘And what? Apologise?’

‘Explain,’ Gavin palliated. ‘We owe him that at least … Come on Van,’ he protested when he saw her truculent expression. ‘You must admit that.’

‘Gavin I …’

‘Look it’s our whole future I’m talking about here Van. You know how much it costs to run the house; the rates alone … If I can’t make a go of the studio …’

He frowned and for a moment looked so tired and drawn that her conscience smote her. By his lights Gavin undoubtedly had a case. After all he hadn’t met Jay Courtland and been subject to his virile mockery; his subtly sexual onslaught against her senses. No doubt Gavin was looking at the whole matter in the light of the damage it could do them professionally whilst she … She bit her lip frowning. She didn’t want to submit to the humiliation of apologising to a man who she knew would enjoy receiving her apology, who she suspected had believed she had deliberately … A fresh thought struck her. Could Jay Courtland have thought that she knew his real identity all the time? Dark colour burned her pale skin. If that was the case she had to admit her mistake if only to convince him that it had been genuine.

Almost as though he had picked up on her train of thought Gavin said perplexedly, ‘What I can’t understand is how you could have mistaken Jay for the model in the first place … Surely you’ve seen his photograph often enough recently to recognise him? It’s been plastered all over the local rag and then there’s all the advertising the football team have been doing. It isn’t every day that a World Cup player returns to the fourth division club he first started off with with the express intention of giving them financial aid. In fact there’s many a first division club that would like to be in Clarewell’s position now. Bill Stoakes, the manager, is over the moon.’

‘Is he?’ Vanessa asked acidly. ‘Personally I’m more concerned about all the local lads who are going to find themselves dropped from the team once Jay Courtland starts waving his cheque book around.’

‘What on earth gave you that idea?’ Gavin shot his sister an exasperated look. ‘Why do I get the impression that you’ve got a blind spot where Jay Courtland’s concerned? It can’t be because you harboured a youthful adoration for him—you were never a football fan, so what is it?’

‘Nothing,’ Vanessa lied shortly. How could she explain to her down to earth brother that everything she had read in the national press about Jay Courtland before he announced his return to Clarewell irritated her? He was a rich tycoon, a man who lived and played hard; who made no secret of his orphanage upbringing; or the fact that he had had to fight hard for all that he now owned. She had visualised him as something of a rough diamond; a man who carried his game-playing from the football field to the boardroom and who was worlds removed from the sort of man who would appeal to her. Her tastes ran to men who shared her love of music; the theatre and the other arts; men whose idea of enjoyment was a day spent at the National Gallery as opposed to Wembley Football Stadium; a man who did not make sport and being ‘one of the boys’ his Gods. In short, a man as far removed from Jay Courtland as it was possible to get. If she had to visualise a career for this mythical man it would be as a doctor, or a solicitor, something that demanded exercise of the intellect rather than the body. If she explained any of this to Gavin he would doubtless accuse her of being silly, even perhaps of being faintly snobbish, but there was nothing of this in her feelings, it was simply that men like Jay Courtland were not her type. She did not believe for one moment that his generosity to his home town was purely philanthropic. How could it be when one took into account his reputation?

‘Look Van,’ Gavin began with brotherly impatience. ‘You’ve got it all wrong. Jay intends to keep the team a local one; in fact he’s determined on that; he wants others to have the chance he had; the chance to use their skill on the football field to escape the near poverty he had to endure as a child. That’s why he’s financing the new sports and leisure complex; that’s why he’s re-equipping the local team to such a high standard.’

‘And of course his generosity has nothing to do with Supersport, I suppose?’ Vanessa asked sardonically. ‘Honestly Gavin you must think I’m a real dunce.’

‘I’m not denying that he will want to make Supersport as successful as all his other companies, but you can’t use that to detract from what he is doing for the town. If you discount everything else there are still the jobs that Supersport will bring to the town when he expands it as he intends to do.’

‘By fermenting a good deal of national public interest in his ex-local football team? By kitting out them and all other local would-be athletes for free?’

‘Okay, so there is something in it for him, and he can be a hard man, but he’s got reason to be Van. Abandoned by his mother when he was five years old; never knowing his real father, because his mother never married him and she died before he was old enough to talk to him about him; living in an institution … He got a place at university, he could have gone to Oxford you know, but he couldn’t afford to support himself while he was there, even with his scholarship so—–’

‘He became a footballer instead, swopping graceful spires for the adulation of his fans? You’re breaking my heart …’

‘As you’ll break mine, if I lose the promise of this contract. You will go and see him won’t you Van?’

‘Do I have much option?’ she asked her brother dryly, adding, ‘Yes I’ll go, and if I were you I’d check up on the whereabouts of our real model.’

There was no point in putting off the evil hour unnecessarily. Gavin told her that Jay’s aide had said he could be found at Supersport, but just as she opened the studio door Gavin yelled after her, ‘Van, go home and get changed first. If you go dressed like that they’ll never let you in the place …’

Suppressing an angry grimace Vanessa stepped out into the sunlit street, heading for the battered Volvo estate both she and Gavin shared.