Element of doubt, p.16
Element of Doubt, page 16
As he stood chatting with Linwood outside the registry office, a woman cried ‘Oh, doesn’t she look wonderful!’
Filby turned to see his second bride-to-be coming towards him in the claret dress with the big sleeves, the plunge neckline and slashed skirt. It looked like the selfsame dress his first bride had worn.
It couldn’t be. This, as worn by the lecturer in medieval French, was beautiful.
The Game
Greg and me have been together all our lives. I do mean all. Greg’s mother took care of me, along with Greg, while my mother went out to work. We were a month old when she was wheeling us in a twin baby-buggy. People took us for twins. We looked alike, bald as coots, pudgy. But we didn’t look alike for long. Greg grew faster than me, filled out, people said ‘Look how that child’s filling out’. He was the up and coming one.
His skin was brown as a nut, I’ve always been pale. When we were at school he used to call me Milko. But if anyone else did, he’d show them his fist – eight years old and he already had hairs on it.
In those days we played a mucky game with other kids on a patch of ground that had been allotments. We trampled down the old marrow-heaps, but potato haulms tripped us up in midfield. We had no rules, kicked one another when we couldn’t get the ball. Our goal was a tank of dirty water, when we got anyone to it, we’d duck him. It was just something we did to let off steam.
Then Greg’s uncle took Greg and me to Old Trafford to see Manchester United play Manchester City. We were twelve years old and that match decided our future. It was an eye-opener. Greg’s eyes opened so wide they stuck out like eggs. I guess mine did too.
I’d never dreamed there could be art in football. By art I don’t mean paintings and sculpture and stuff like that. I mean skill, dexterity, talent, cunning. Professionalism is what I mean.
I’d never even seen a pitch like that one. From where we were, way back on the terraces, it was as green and smooth as a billiard-table. I’d never seen so many people in one place. I would have said there weren’t that many people in the world. When they shouted all together, out of one throat, even the sea couldn’t have made a bigger noise.
As for the game, we saw some of the finest players at the top of their form. I remember a man knocking the ball up in the air with one foot and slamming it into goal with the other before it could return to the ground. Then there was a score by a player running, weaving through defenders with the ball balanced on the top of his head – that’s how it seemed, anyway. Stuck on, it looked.
That first encounter with pure football was magic. Greg and me were open-eyed and mouthed. We jumped and yelled with the crowd, though half the time we didn’t know why. We were out of our skins with excitement. When I think about that game I can only describe it as a series of lightning chess moves. We didn’t know anything about chess either, but we began to see that played properly – ideally – football was an exacting science.
‘Did you enjoy it?’ Greg’s uncle said as we left the ground.
‘Yeah,’ said Greg. He wouldn’t say more. When we were alone and I was rabbiting on about how marvellous it had been, he sang ‘Yeah, yeah’, and ran round and round me, weaving. We knew what we were going to do. We were going to play football.
We joined the school team, trained willingly – fiercely, you could say. We put in many more hours than the half-hearted school régime demanded. We were sprinting, running long-distance, doing P.T., jogging and juggling the ball every free minute we could get. Like me, Greg had been fascinated by that player who ran with the ball on his head. He was determined to do the same, he never doubted that he’d be a great striker.
Me, I was going to be the greatest all-rounder, the midfield marvel, heading, shooting, dribbling, dodging, attacking, defending – I’d be the best. I knew I had it in me, I’d just been waiting to be shown, and Old Trafford had shown me.
Crazy as we were about the game, we couldn’t fail to make progress. We played for school, then, when we were going on fifteen, we got the first invite to play for a local club. They were a mundane lot, twice our age most of them, hitching little games at week-ends when their wives let them off the lead. They probably thought our young blood would liven things up. We thought it was the start of our brilliant career, we put on as much side as if we’d been picked for the World Cup.
We learned a lot playing for that little club. Greg learned so fast he was soon running rings round them. And round me. It was taking me time to adjust to playing against full-grown men. When I saw half a dozen hefties making for me, I tended to get confused and kick the ball out of play.
Of course it wasn’t long before Greg’s performance was spotted by a scout from the big local club (fourth division, they were), and he went, leaving me with the dads. He didn’t want to, it was the first time we’d been split, but football had become our life, the purpose of our life. ‘I can’t not go,’ he said, ‘you can see that.’ I could, I’d have done the same. ‘Put your back into it,’ he said, ‘and come after me.’
I did. I worked at my game, that was no hardship, I scarcely thought about anything else. And I improved, became quite the little star-turn among the dads. I was pretty nifty at getting the ball away from opponents. If I didn’t score myself I always delivered to someone who could. So the day came when I was given a trial for Greg’s club and was offered signing-on forms. We were together again.
Not for long. Greg’s star was in the ascendant. He signed up with a second division team and it was then I realised that I had never been, and never could be, in the same league as him. We both had this passion for football. His was the conquering hero’s, mine was hopeless yearning. I had to face the fact that I’d cut myself out for something I couldn’t achieve. It was the bitterest moment of my life.
He continued to spend his spare time with me, couldn’t see it was rubbing me on the raw when he talked about his training and the fixtures that were coming up. When I said wouldn’t you rather be with your new mates, what new mates, he said.
We didn’t grow apart, we stayed sort of clogged. To me it was the game that counted, and I had lost it. I stopped playing with the club because I’d had only a few first-team outings, spent my time mostly in the reserves. I just told them I was finished. They didn’t try to argue me out of it. It’s cruel when you say you’re through and no one denies it.
‘Get yourself together, you can come back,’ was all Greg said, cheerfully.
I couldn’t keep away from his matches. I had the dubious pleasure of watching him run round an immaculate pitch, taking the cheers and whistles, embracing his teammates when he scored, fisting the air or putting his thumbs up to his exultant fans. He didn’t know what it did to me.
Once only I saw him fluff a shot, a flagrantly easy one, right at the end of a game. It was all that was required to get the points for his team. He hesitated, swayed, and lost the ball to his marker. The opposition got it away.
‘I saw you miss that chance,’ I said to him afterwards. ‘What happened?’
‘Nothing,’ he said.
‘What came over you?’
He grimaced. ‘Nothing came over me.’
When his team was down to play a big away match against a first division team, and would be staying overnight, he asked me to go with him. ‘You can put up at the same hotel. My shout,’ he said, ‘we’ll get away for the evening.’
‘Won’t you be expected to spend it with the team?’
He grinned. ‘They won’t miss me, they’ll be out on the town. It’s a temperance hotel.’
I said I didn’t want to go. He put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Don’t let me down, Milko.’
It was surprising, coming from him. Surprised, I agreed to go.
The town was grey stone and Sainsbury modern. The hotel looked ecclesiastic, stained glass in the windows and an arched oak door. I arrived in the early evening. Greg had gone on ahead with his team. I went up to the room he had booked for me. There were pictures on the wall: one of The Guardsman Who Dropped It, a nice touch of humour, and a big serious technicolour of Adam and Eve being turfed out of Eden.
That was all I had time to see before Greg came. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said. He seemed strung-up, irritable. I asked was he worried about the next day’s game. ‘What else?’ he said, glaring. He has a short fuse, so I left it there.
While we were having a meal and a couple of pints at a Berni, he told me he was being hunted by Manchester United. It was a twist of the knife. I said ‘What have you got to worry about, for God’s sake? I’d give my soul to be in your shoes!’
‘You would?’
‘You know I would,’ I said bitterly.
There was nothing much doing in the town except for a disco which we weren’t in the mood for. We could hear a fair going on somewhere, the hurdy-gurdy of the roundabouts and cracks from the rifle-range. We found it on a common outside the town. We shied at coconuts, went on the Dodgems, played skittles, ate candy-floss, and that about exhausted the potential.
Then Greg said he wanted to consult the fortune-teller. He said he was thinking of getting wed and he’d like to know what his chances were. ‘Who’s the girl?’ I said. ‘Myra,’ he said, ‘Myra McCabe.’
The fortune-teller was Madam Sosostris. She called herself a famous clairvoyante. I said, ‘She’ll tell you a lot of bull.’
She was in a caravan stuck over with magic symbols, eyes and wishbones and black cats. A printed card on the door said it was going to cost two quid for a half hour’s consultation.
She operated with a pack of cards. I was glad there was no crystal ball, I’d have felt like kicking it. She had a hook nose, bangle earrings and a headscarf tied pirate-fashion. She was smoking a cigarillo.
All the old stuff was trotted out. She turned up cards and pretended to get something from them. She was feeling her way, looking for clues. We’d come into money, not a big Pools win, she said, but enough to make us happy. And a highly important change was in store. Greg wanted to know what sort of change. Of circumstance, she said. Greg said would it be for the better. She nodded: we could take that either way. Then she said, ‘You’re sportsmen,’ and it struck me that she wasn’t separating us, she was treating us as one person. I thought she can only charge for one consultation. ‘There’s someone waiting,’ she said, ‘someone is anxiously waiting for an answer.’ Greg leaned forward, asked, ‘What will the answer be?’ Ash fell from the cigarillo, she stirred it with her finger. ‘When the blow falls on one of you,’ she said, ‘the other must endure it.’
I said, ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
She closed her eyes. ‘You’re examples of a split personality, born apart of different mothers. You belong together in one body, one soul.’ When she opened her eyes we were caught like rabbits in her stare. ‘I should think that’s what it means, wouldn’t you?’ she said.
Greg was so angry I thought he’d hit her. I hustled him out before he could. ‘Split personality my foot!’ I said.
He said, ‘If the blow falls on one of us, the other must endure it?’
‘Psychobabble,’ I told him.
Next day, watching the opposing team take the field, I didn’t give much for his chances. They were a squad of brick-built men who made Greg look like a reed. I thought he was in for a pasting. I wasn’t sorry, I wasn’t glad. I didn’t care one way or the other.
It turned out to be a game, or rather part of a game I shall never forget. Greg scored after three minutes’ play, nicking the ball from under the boot of an opponent and sending a lovely low shot into goal. The others got an equaliser almost at once. Then there was a spell of mobbing and milling in mid-field, attackers and defenders playing pat-ball and no one getting control. The crowd started a slow cap. One of the opposing mid-fielders broke through and delivered the ball perfectly to their striker. The striker aimed an almighty kick which sent the ball over the bar. From the goal kick Greg roared across, caught the ball on his instep, shifted it on to his toe, ran forward and from thirty-five yards put it straight into the goal. He’d started his victory run to embrace his teammates when he dropped like a stone. He lay on the grass, arms and legs wide, as if he’d been staked out. We waited for him to get up. He didn’t.
I watched them carry him off. By the time I got to the changing room they were working on him, trying to bring him round. It was no use. They said he must have been dead when he hit the ground.
It was his heart which had let him down. I found out that he’d known it was dodgy, had been warned not to play any more. But his heart was in football, if he couldn’t play he didn’t want to live. He’d gone to the fortune-teller to ask about his chance of life, not marriage.
I went back to work afterwards, trained all day and every day, except for the day I took off to marry Myra. She spent the honeymoon timing my sprints. ‘Hold the watch still, Baby,’ I said, ‘don’t wave it about.’ ‘Greg used to call me Baby,’ she said. ‘I wish you wouldn’t.’
It was a marvel, people said, the way my game improved. I moved back up from amateur stuff into the football league. I’m in a first division team now, twenty-five out of their forty goals last season were mine. I’m their star striker. I’ve mastered all Greg’s tactics. Manchester United are said to be after me and I’m considering the move.
People say you must miss Greg, you were always so close. It’s not like that. I’ve got myself together, like he said, and he’s there with me when I score. We do the victory hug together. My team mates tell each other watch out if you’re the first to be grabbed, he’ll crack your ribs.
I’ve got a strong heart, a heart for the game. I’ll be playing forever. There’s every chance of me getting into the World Cup team next year. Me and Greg.
You Have to Laugh
The Harrisons’ bungalow was called ‘Bideawhile’. Charlie had no intention of biding there any longer than it took him to finish the job he was doing. It was a depressing atmosphere. Harrison, a tiny man, made up for his size with his mouth, started shouting as soon as he set foot in the house. He was some sort of travelling salesman and worked irregular hours. Charlie had to listen to a lot of griping from him. He was constantly bawling Mrs. Harrison out about something she had or hadn’t done.
She was no great shakes as a housewife, she left things about, the first day he went, Charlie walked into a washing-up bowl full of potato-peelings behind the bedroom door. She cooked little messes which she offered Charlie and he had to refuse.
His idea came while he was stripping the bedroom wall. It was a boring job, something like three layers of paper to get off. You’d think it was forever, the way they’d put those papers on. That was what gave him the idea.
On the wall he had stripped to bare plaster he wrote: ‘Here lies my beloved wife, Rosie. R.I.P.’ He often got ideas for a bit of fun. This promised to be one of his best.
When Harrison came home and had finished exercising his vocal chords on his wife, he mounted the stairs to see how Charlie was getting on. ‘Taking your time, aren’t you?’
‘There’s a lot of old stuff to come off,’ Charlie said. ‘Some of this paper goes back a long way.’
‘If I didn’t have to go to work to earn a living I’d have this finished in a day.’
‘That so?’ Charlie was careful to sound credulous.
‘What’s this?’ Harrison stared at the wall. ‘This writing?’
‘I was going to ask you,’ said Charlie. ‘ “Here lies my beloved wife, Rosie. R.I.P.” – funny isn’t it?’
‘Funny?’ Harrison rounded on him, his brows gathering, colour running up to his hairline. ‘What the hell do you mean by it?’
‘Me? You don’t think I wrote it, do you?’
‘It’s freshly done!’
‘Oh sure, that’s how it looks. The paste has kept it fresh, sealed it in.’ Charlie thought, if he believes that, he’ll believe anything.
‘If you didn’t do it, who did?’
‘Rosie’s husband?’ suggested Charlie, all innocence.
Harrison turned the meaty shade of uncooked liver. His eyes stood out like organ stops: those words came into Charlie’s head, though he was not clear what organ stops looked like.
Harrison went on to the landing and bawled ‘Esther!’
‘It’s nothing to do with her,’ Charlie said.
She came up the stairs in a fluster, a corkscrew blonde who would be curvaceous if she gave her mind to it. But she was taken up with trying to keep Harrison’s mind off her.
‘What the hell’s this?’ Harrison shoved her in front of the wall. ‘Look at this, will you!’
She looked, bending close to read the writing, she touched it with a finger-tip. ‘Oh God!’
‘This your doing?’
‘Of course it isn’t,’ said Charlie. ‘I’ve just uncovered it from under layers of old paper. You ask me, it’s been there years.’
‘I’m asking you!’ Harrison, squaring up to Charlie, failed to reach Charlie’s top shirt-button. ‘Who did this?’
‘It’s someone’s idea of a joke. People love playing jokes. You wouldn’t believe the sort of things they do. Someone put tomato ketchup in my brilliant white emulsion once. It went such a funny colour, I had to laugh.’
‘Another joke like this,’ said Harrison with a fox-terrier snarl, ‘and you’ll laugh the other side of your face.’
‘On the other hand,’ Charlie said gravely, ‘it might not be a joke.’
‘What are you getting at?’
‘She might be here, this Rosie. If you ask me, this is a cavity wall.’ Mrs. Harrison gasped. Charlie winked at her over Harrison’s head.
‘I’m asking you to get on with the job I’m paying you to do!’ Harrison brandished a fist which wasn’t much bigger than a ping-pong ball, and hustled Mrs. H. out of the room. Charlie had to smile.
