Ice Dancing Episode 36

II didn’t mean to be nosy, but you just don’t seem like the kind of man who would be alone in the world

t took a real effort to move away from him, but I managed to slide a little way along the couch. He was like some great big shiny magnet. “Joe?” I asked him. “Don’t you have a girlfriend or a wife or something? Back home in Canada?”

It was the wrong question. It made him uncomfortable, but I didn’t care. I needed to know. He folded his arms around himself and didn’t answer me immediately.

“I’m sorry,’ I said. “I didn’t mean to be nosy, but you just don’t seem like the kind of man who would be alone in the world.”

“And why would that be?” He ran his finger around the top of his wine glass and jiggled his knee up and down.

“Well, look at you. You seem like such a…’ I hesitated. “Such a nice guy.”

“Oh yeah, I’m a real nice guy, so somebody must have snapped me up.” “I would have thought so.” “Either that or I must be gay.” “Which would be none of my business.” “No,” he said, after a pause. “No, it wouldn’t.” His eyes were dark and opaque in the firelight. “I’m not gay. But I am divorced, Helen.”

“I see.” Well I thought I did. “I’m sorry.” “Yeah well. So am I. So am I. But it was kind of inevitable. Hockey’s pretty good at wrecking marriages you know.”

“Is it?”

“Well, the shaky ones. The ones that might come unstuck anyway. And ours was damn shaky.” He frowned. “We travel about so much. Carrie used to come with me sometimes, but then we had a baby, a little girl, Alicia.”

“You’ve never mentioned any of this before, Joe.”

“I’m not very proud of it. Well, I’m proud of Alicia, but that’s all.” “How long were you married?” “About five years. We got married and then my career really started to take off. I was playing for a team I respected and making good money into the bargain.” “So what went wrong?”

He didn’t reply at once. He was looking at the floor, not at me.

“Whatever does go wrong? Everything and nothing. We started to fight over just anything. Alicia wasn’t a great sleeper.”

“I know all about that. Neither was Fiona. But it passes.”

“Yeah, well. It didn’t help. There I was and I’d have a road trip or a flight and maybe a match the next day and I was getting no sleep. I’d get mad. And Carrie was getting no sleep either because I would be taking off and leaving her all alone with the baby. Which was hard on her. I know it was. Her family lived miles away. But we got through all that. We got through.”

“How old is your daughter now?” “She’s almost five.” He smiled at the thought of her, his face lighting up. “She was born a couple of years after we were married and we’ve been divorced a year or so.”

“Do you see much of her?”

And why was he over here? How could he leave his little daughter and spend six months in another country? Who would ever want to do that?

“I see her sometimes. She’s great. I love her to bits. But the divorce was kind of messy.”

“Was it?”

“Yeah. And that was all my fault, I reckon. Carrie would have been OK. But I hurt her too much.”

I waited, wondering if he would go on. “You have to understand some things,” he said, after a moment or two. “Like what?”

“Like the way hockey is.”

He leaned his head back against the couch.

“Tell me about it.”

“How long have you got?” He rubbed his hand over his eyes.

“Tell me about some of it then.” “I reckon you’d be shocked.”

“No I wouldn’t.” But I thought I might. “Well…’ He hesitated, glanced at me, and then began again. “Well, there are girls… they get obsessed with a particular player. Like... kind of like groupies I suppose. Puck bunnies.”

“Puck bunnies?” I laughed, but it wasn’t very funny. Not really.

“That’s what people call them. Puck bunnies. Rink bunnies. They follow the teams around and they get these crushes on the players.”

“I can see why.”

“Yeah well. It’s a very physical game.

It’s fast and it’s violent. Sometimes it’s very violent and…”

He was having some difficulty continuing. It was as though he had set himself off on another train of thought, a different one altogether.

“But I do know what you mean,” I said. “Lots of testosterone in motion. It can be very appealing.”

“Maybe.” He hesitated again, perhaps not sure how to continue without sounding conceited.

“So they fancy you,” I prompted him. “Some of them are very young. Too young. And some of the guys take advantage. There’s a lot of stuff goes on. Parties where … well … you know the kind of thing.”

“Not really, but I can imagine.”

He had rubbed his hair till it stood up in spikes. He spoke hesitantly, as though the words were being forced out of him, although I had done nothing more than sit quietly, listening.

“Not just sex but other stuff. A lot of drink. And maybe two or three guys will make it with one girl. It happens.”

“I see.” I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t shaken. This was worse than I had imagined. I mean I knew these things went on. In other sports too. Overpaid, overindulged young men and the even younger girls who hero-worshipped them. Of course I did. I read the papers. Watched the television. But it all seems so far removed from your own experience, doesn’t it?

“Not all the time, and not every player. Just some of them. Some of the guys like to hunt in pairs. That’s the way they get their kicks.”

“How do the girls feel about it?” “Sometimes the girls go along with it, but I don’t suppose they like it much. No, I don’t think they ever like it much. How could they?” His voice had gone hard.

More on Monday.

Ice Dancing by Catherine Czerkawska, Dyrock Publishing, £9.99 and Kindle E-reader from £2.99. For more of her books, including The Posy Ring and A Proper Person To Be Detained, see saraband.net