Fixing Sixty Six

by Tim Flower

  ‘They are permitted to practice on the pitch for no more than twenty minutes. But I am told that Latins have been seen sneaking in the tunnel entrance when it is open and the stadium staff are engaged elsewhere, and gaining extra time to acclimatise.’

  ‘Which Latins: the Uruguayans or the Mexicans?’

  ‘God knows. When they’re sneaking in, Miller, they don’t fly their national flag.’

  ‘No. Of course.’

  I wanted to ask how he knew the trespassers were in England’s World Cup Group, and not football fanatics from “Little Italy”, but I didn’t dare. Instead I asked, with a good deal of apprehension, ‘How can I help with that?’

  ‘I want you to follow our group opponents, see what they are doing and where they are going.’

  ‘What all sixty-six of them?’ And that was just the players.

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Miller. I’m talking about what each of them get up to as a squad. And I want you to prioritise them according to the threat they pose to England’s progress in the tournament. Now, I understand Uruguay have got the strongest side. Am I right?’

  ‘Yes, definitely. They have already won the World Cup twice. And they have recent experience of the Wembley pitch.’

  ‘Have they indeed?’ he said, as if he thought I’d spotted the nefarious Latins treading the sacred turf earlier in the week.

  ‘Well, it isn’t that recent actually: we played a friendly against them at the stadium, about two years ago.’

  Mexico had also played at Wembley before; but that had been five years previously, and they had lost eight-nil. The French were our second-best opponents; but, despite being our closest neighbours, it had been almost ten years since they had so much as stroked a ball over Wembley’s luxuriant turf.

  Forsyth seemed reassured. ‘In any event, I want you to keep a close eye on them. You know what those South Americans are like. And let me know at once if they - or, indeed, either of the other two squads - are getting up to anything that might prejudice England’s chances.’

  Short of inviting Greavsie over for a kick-about and then deliberately breaking his leg, I couldn’t imagine what they could get up to that would seriously damage our chances. But I didn’t say anything.

  ‘You have the perfect cover: you are reporting for your paper on the Group One teams’ preparations for the start of the tournament. I have spoken to Cudlipp. If you write some little pieces about how, for example, Uruguay are gearing up for the opening match against England, he will ensure they are printed with your byline. Okay, Miller?’

  Although irritated by his patronising tone, I assuaged this with the thought that at least I was going back to being a newspaper journalist. ‘Yes, that’s fine, Mr Forsyth.’

  I heard a roar from Centre Court, followed by enthusiastic clapping. I guessed either Santana or Ralston had broken serve in the crucial third set, but had no idea which. Forsyth seemed entirely oblivious of what was happening next door.

  ‘When the tournament gets underway, Cudlipp has also agreed to you covering - as I promised - all the Group One games at Wembley and White City.’

  ‘White City? I didn’t know that any games were being played there.’ This was the stadium that was built for the 1908 Olympics. For many years afterwards, it was hardly used. More recently it had hosted greyhound racing and speedway, and the occasional athletics meeting; but it had never been used for a football international.

  ‘Yes, well, I’m told that the Uruguay v France fixture on 15th July clashes with a greyhound race at Wembley scheduled for the same evening. So Uruguay’s match has had to be moved.’

  ‘They have given a dog race priority over a World Cup finals match?’

  ‘Wembley’s owner insisted upon it, apparently. There was nothing FIFA could do,’ Forsyth said in a resigned, yet almost cheerful fashion.

  ‘I see.’ I didn’t at all. ‘Anyway, I’d be delighted to cover the Group One matches, wherever they take place.’

  ‘Splendid. You know the kind of coverage we need: positive, passionate, patriotic.’ Forsyth stretched his moustached mouth into a self-satisfied smirk.

  After draining his second cup of tea, he got to his feet and said, ‘Now, I think we should get on, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure there’s been a break of serve. Ralston could be about to get a set back or Santana could be approaching Championship point.’

  ‘I’m not interested in that. I’ve got that Williams woman to see to.’ Then, anticipating my thought of returning to the Royal Box without him, he added, ‘Don’t worry about that dago next door. You should be finding out what the footballing ones are getting up to.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY SIXTEEN: Wednesday, 29th June

  ‘Haven't you heard? We voted you out. Fuck-off.’

  This was the greeting I got from a middle-aged white man in a middle-aged white van, when I stopped for petrol en route to Harry’s house. Clearly, he had read the EU Referendum result as a win for anti-immigration populism.

  After he drove away leaving behind a stench of exhaust fumes and extremism, I registered that this political fraud, deserving of the name “Brexitgate”, had been committed on the fiftieth anniversary of “Williegate”. For the best part of three months I had been hearing from Harry how, in 1966, the power elite had used nationalistic and xenophobic disinformation to manipulate and deceive the populace for their own political ends. Now, half a century later, I was experiencing for myself how nothing had changed.

  Mum had died, mercifully, ten days ago, and I was meeting Harry for the first time since then. So immersing myself in his story was not only going to be a welcome distraction from political and parental demises but also much needed. Nonetheless, since it had started to rain, I wasn’t looking forward to interviewing him in his fug-filled living room.

  When I arrived at his house and he invited me in, I was relieved to discover, however, that he had finally taken my advice to get some care and support at home from the Council. His living room had been spruced up. The surfaces had been dusted, and the carpets looked newly hoovered. Instead of stale tobacco smoke, there was a pleasant smell of upmarket essential oils.

  Although looking a little frailer and grumpier than when we met last, Harry himself was also better turned out. His favourite cardigan had been cleaned and his grey flannel trousers had sharp creases down the front. For the time being at least, Harry’s life appeared to be back in order and mine wasn’t to be further shortened by passive smoking.

  He had put up both leaves of the table that doubled as his desk and on it sat a brand-new telephone. It didn’t have a number pad, just four photo-dial buttons, only one of which carried an image. This was of an attractive woman in her fifties, with dark eyes and short black hair. I presumed she was Harry’s care worker. At either end of the table were a pair of Bentwood chairs I hadn’t seen before; his tired, raffia chair had disappeared.

  As usual, I tried jollying him out of his grump. ‘New furniture, Harry?’

  As usual, it failed. ‘I couldn’t see what was wrong with my old chair.’

  ‘Well, this way we can both sit in style,’ I said, exaggerating somewhat.

  Harry sat down cautiously at the end of the table where a small pile of his shorthand notebooks were stacked and a copy of the i newspaper was open at the sports pages.

  ‘You no longer read the Mirror then?’ I said, as he folded the paper away.

  He shook his head dismissively. ‘I don’t know why I read any of them,’ he said with a sigh.

  ‘The i is okay, isn’t it? At least it is a proper newspaper - not a propaganda rag.’

  ‘It’s still full of shit.’

  ‘About Europe, you mean?’

  ‘No, the Euros. The European Championships.’ The minute awareness I had about the football tournament then taking place in France, had been erased by my Mum’s death. Harry sensed I was struggling. ‘England have been knocked out by Iceland,’ he said, as if he couldn’t quite b
elieve it himself.

  ‘Do Iceland have a good team then?’

  He glared at me and snarled, ‘No, we’ve got a crap one!’ as he screwed the folded newspaper into a baton. ‘Worse than that, we don’t recognise it. We still delude ourselves that we can be world beaters.’ His face had gone a furious red. I hadn’t seen him that angry before. ‘We’ve never been world beaters’ he exclaimed and thumped the table with the baton. ‘And we never will be.’

  I worried he might have a heart attack. ‘We were in 1966, of course. But we haven’t been since, you mean?’ I said, trying to placate him.

  ‘No. Including ‘66.’

  I couldn’t help frowning in puzzlement.

  He tossed his newspaper baton into a nearby waste basket and barked, ‘Let’s get on. You’ll see.’

  ‘We will, Harry. Certainly,’ I said encouraging him to take his seat at the table.

  He silently obliged, and I sat down opposite him.

  ‘We’ve reached the start of the World Cup tournament itself: the climax of your story. I can’t wait to hear it,’ I said calmly but cheerfully. ‘But, since my three months of exclusivity are almost up, I should first tell you where I’ve got to with selling it.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ he said, with resignation. He took out his pipe, which he had already filled, and lit it.

  ‘Would you mind if I opened the back door?’ I said tentatively. ‘Or will you be too cold?’

  He peered at the front window. ‘It’s stopped raining. You can tell me in the… whatsitsname, if you want to,’ he said, pointing over his shoulder at the garden.

  ‘That would be even better. Thank you.’

  As he shuffled towards the back door, I followed carrying his pile of notebooks.

  I remained confident that I would find a buyer for Harry’s story, despite my failure to do so up to that point. The moving human narrative playing out alongside a powerful political one, gave it a broad appeal; and, although a historical scandal, it had a strong contemporary resonance. But I needed more time. And I was conscious that neither he nor I knew how much of that he had left to give.

  On our way out into what was more of a backyard than a garden, he grabbed a threadbare towel, with which he proceeded to wipe the worst of the rain off the rusting garden furniture. Then we sat, and he smoked his pipe and listened silently whilst I told him to whom I had offered his story and explained that I hadn’t, as yet, had any takers.

  ‘But don’t worry. You won’t have to find another “blunt nib”. Yours is a very saleable story. I have no doubt I’ll find a buyer for it. I just may struggle to do so in the next seven days.’

  Harry didn’t react. He continued to do his impression of a contemplative Tony Benn with pipe.

  ‘I appreciate that you… we haven’t got unlimited time. But I was wondering if you could give me just until the end of next month?’

  He searched the pockets of, first his cardigan, then his trousers without saying or producing anything. After shaking his head in frustration, he tamped down his pipe’s contents with his thumb, whilst drawing repeatedly on the stem, generating strong plumes of smoke that eddied round the yard.

  With apparent relief, he then produced from his right cardigan pocket, what looked like a piece of folded, cream writing paper. He opened it up, glanced at what was on it and announced, in a slow deliberate fashion, ‘I have an alternative proposal. One that will make it much easier for you to sell my story.’

  ‘I’m all ears,’ I said, trying to sound relaxed, whilst actually experiencing a rise of apprehension.

  ‘You see, I no longer need to go into Green Valley. My Alison has come back. She’s going to take care of me.’

  ‘Harry, that’s wonderful!’ Since he hadn’t spoken about either Nell or Alison in the present tense, and I had seen no sign of them, I had assumed they were no longer part of his life. ‘You say Alison has come back. Has she been abroad?’

  ‘She and Nell, they… you know, they… left the country.’

  ‘They emigrated?’

  ‘Yes, to Italy - over forty years ago now.’

  ‘And have they been there ever since?’

  ‘Nell has, as far as I’m aware. She married an Italian civil servant,’ he said, patting the pockets of his cardigan. ‘Now where did I put my… errm… my… my whatsitsname.’ He searched his trouser pockets. ‘I can remember his name: Marco Tardelli, the same as the player who did that famous goal celebration, you know, in the 1982 World Cup Final… ’

  I smiled and nodded, although I had no idea what he was referring to.

  He pulled out his smoker’s tool. ‘Why can I remember Marco Tardelli, but not what this is called!’ he said, holding up the tool like a magician completing a trick. He looked and sounded thoroughly frustrated.

  I had noticed he was having more short-term memory issues. However, given his age, the cancer, the treatment he’d had and the stress and anxiety that goes with all that, I wasn’t surprised.

  ‘You’ve found it. That’s what matters,’ I said, trying to soothe him. ‘How about Alison?’

  ‘She married an Italian too. Last year she discovered he had been having an affair with a younger model. Typical.’

  Given Harry’s mood, I decided to ignore his casual racism. ‘That’s sad.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said with resignation and gave the bowl of his pipe a sharp poke with his newly found tool. ‘She works as an interpreter - like her mother did. It takes her all over Europe. That can’t have helped: marriage wise, I mean. Anyway, the BBC at MediaCity offered her a contract. They never had kids, and she’s got no other ties to Milan. So she’s moved back here.’ He drew repeatedly on his pipe, bringing it back to life and briefly enveloping himself in smoke.

  ‘Where? Here in Waterloo?’

  ‘No, she’s found a flat in Huyton - where Harold Wilson was MP. It’s about halfway between here and MediaCity.’

  It occurred to me that the photo on the telephone was almost certainly Alison. ‘It must be great having her around now, able to help you when you need it.’

  ‘It’s early days, but we seem to rub along okay,’ he said, somewhat grudgingly.

  ‘So, Harry, what’s your alternative proposal?’

  He glanced down at the cream sheet of paper, which I assumed was an aide-memoir. ‘It’s simple. I give you the story. Before the end of next month, you give me ten thousand pounds.’

  I was sceptical about the figure. ‘Do you mean ten thousand pounds? That’s eighty percent less than we previously agreed.’

  ‘That’s all I need to kit this place out for an old cripple and cover the cost of… what-do-you-call-it… when they bring you things to eat…’

  ‘Meals on wheels.’

  ‘Yes, pay for some meals on wheels, that kind of thing. You’ll be able to sell it for ten grand, won’t you? No problem.’

  Fortunately, I was saved from having to respond immediately by the bell of Harry’s landline.

  Although he must have heard its strident tones, initially he didn’t respond.

  ‘I think that’s your phone,’ I prompted.

  ‘It’s not mine. It must be yours?’

  I put my head around the back door and listened. ‘No Harry, it’s your landline.’

  He looked confused.

  I went inside and answered it for him.

  After a brief exchange with the caller, I said to Harry, who had followed me inside, ‘It’s the Liverpool Echo. They want you to do another “Mersey World Cup Memory” for them. Does that make sense?’ Sixty-six years after he started his journalistic career with the paper, it seemed Harry was working again for the Echo.

  He cast his eyes skyward, sighed and, snatching the handset from me, said, ‘What I have to go through these days, just to live.’

  To give Harry some privacy, I picked up my handbag and went back outside.

  Moments later, it started to drizzle with rain. With Harry still deep in conversation, I decided I would investigate the small, negl
ected potting shed that occupied most of the bottom end of the yard.

  Its half-glazed door was ajar, and I took shelter inside. Like I suspect many garden sheds, it had been neglected. There was a bench littered with dusty, cobwebbed pots, trays and other gardening paraphernalia and, propped against the timbered back wall, were an assortment of rusty implements. Unusually for a potting shed, it also housed a distressed white vinyl and chrome bar stool, of the type Harry told me had been in his Finchley kitchen. I wiped the seat of the stool with a tissue and sat down to consider Harry’s alternative proposal.

  In the event, I could have done it standing up because, once I had focused my mind on it, I rapidly arrived at a conclusion. Harry reducing his monetary demand to ten thousand pounds had made selling his story considerably easier. It brought it within the budgets of broadcasters and independent television producers, for example. And even if I couldn’t sell it by the end of next month, I had over ten thousand pounds in an ISA, which I had salvaged from my divorce. So there were no longer any financial impediments to my buying Harry’s story. And, having worked on it with him for some twelve weeks, I was well and truly hooked - despite his often irritating behaviour. So it was a no-brainer.

  I dismounted the stool and, feeling thirsty, searched in my Mary Poppins handbag slouching on the floor for my bottle of water. I noticed that on a shelf beneath the potting bench there was a large storage box. As the lid had been removed and was standing on the floor beside it, I could immediately see that its contents weren’t horticultural. In fact, on the top was the World Cup Willie flight bag Harry had used to carry his notebooks to our meetings at the hotel. I couldn’t resist investigating what was underneath.

  As well as several stacks of full shorthand notebooks, I found a neatly folded, navy blue and white trimmed sweatshirt. At first I thought it might be an England team one. However, when I opened it out, I could see it had “CCCP” in large white letters across the chest. Why did Harry have a Soviet Union sweatshirt, I wondered? Beneath that was a very faded, pink manila folder marked “1965/6”. Whilst mainly full of yellowed newspaper cuttings, it also contained a black and white “England” rosette with a picture of the Jules Rimet Trophy in its centre, and an old Kodak photo wallet.