Page 40 of Match Point

‘You’d be surprised.’

I bite my lip, tapping my fingernails on the outside of my glass. ‘I’m so annoyed with myself. I wish I hadn’t let him get to me today.’

‘He knows exactly what to say to hurt you,’ Kieran murmurs, his eyes dropping to his hands and glazing over. ‘It takes time to put up a shield to that, especially when it’s someone who knows you so well.’

With his head bowed, sadness radiates from him and I catch a glimpse of something vulnerable and bruised beneath his shield. It reminds me a little bit of how he looked when he came home drunk and he sat in that exact spot, staring at the cherry blossom art, lost in his thoughts.

‘You sound as if you know how that feels,’ I say cautiously, taking a gamble.

He stiffens, glancing up at me. I offer him a small smile, willing him to speak.

‘My father likes to put me in my place,’ he says eventually, holding my gaze. ‘Constant, cutting comments that chip away so lightly you don’t even notice the gaping hole they’re creating. It’s a clever form of bullying. Removing all your power to build up theirs. It can fly under the radar for quite a while.’

I swallow, my heart in my throat. ‘I’m sorry, Kieran. That’s awful.’

‘It’s all right,’ he tells me. ‘With the help of a very expensive therapist, I’ve learnt to deal with it and see it for what it is. He takes his anger out on me, I take my anger out on the court. Both of us are in pain.’

‘Is that… because of Aidan?’ I ask softly. ‘If you don’t want to talk about it, then—’

‘No, it’s fine,’ he says earnestly, rubbing the nape of his neck with his free hand. ‘Yeah, to put it simply, a lot of our anger stems from losing Aidan.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘It was a long time ago.’ His brow creases before he glances up at me. ‘You know much about him?’

‘Aidan? Um… no, not really. I know he was a tennis player, too.’

‘Much better than me,’ he says wryly. ‘That was always the way since we were kids. He was the one destined for glory. Dad told me that before he died, and he continued to tell me afterwards. It felt wrong to carry on playing after we lost him, but it gave me purpose to get up every day.’ He knits his eyebrows together thoughtfully. ‘In the end, tennis saved me.’

I smile warmly at him and I think it catches him off-guard. He frowns uneasily, as though he’s suddenly realised what he’s talking about. He knocks back the final dregs in his glass.

‘Top-up?’ he asks, getting up.

‘Sure.’

He goes to the kitchen to get the bottle while I shuffle down the sofa to put his glass on one of the coasters. When he returns, he notices, filling my drink and making a point of finding a new coaster on which to place the bottle.

He nods to the three-wick candle set in the middle of the table. ‘Do you ever light that thing? Or is it here for show?’

‘Iris bought it for me when Jonah moved out and I’m yet to light it.’

He gives me a strange look. ‘What is it that you’re waiting for?’

‘It’s just so nice, I kept thinking I’d save it for a special occasion.’

‘I used to do that with wine. I’d refuse to drink the expensive stuff and then I realised that I was denying myself the good stuff that was left forgotten on the rack. It seemed… stupid.’

‘You’re right. It is stupid. I don’t know what I’m waiting for.’

He arches a brow. ‘You want to light the candle?’

‘Yes,’ I state firmly. ‘I want to light the bloody candle.’

He breaks into an unexpected grin, his dimples appearing and making my stomach flip. ‘Great. I like a good candle. Where can I find a lighter?’

‘There should be one in the kitchen drawers, in the cutlery one I think.’

He disappears again and I smile to myself, nestling back into the cushions. It strikes me that it’s strange to be spending the evening talking to Kieran O’Sullivan over a glass of wine and a three-wick candle, but it’s even stranger how it doesn’t feel strange at all.

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