by Andy Conway
“We’ll beat Germany in the final. Four-two.”
Lashford coughed on his champagne, doubled over, laughing.
“Oh, brother. You do have some crazy predictions.”
“And who got tonight’s score right?”
“Arr, you were right about that.”
“And yesterday’s. Five-nil to West Germany I believe.” Danny grinned smugly.
Lashford gave him a curious look, sizing him up. “Well, if you’ve got a tip for Spain-Switzerland on Friday, I might put a bet on.”
“Two-one to Spain.”
Again the look. How was he so sure?
“Put your house on it.”
Danny sipped at his champagne, feeling the coolest he’d ever felt in his life. Sharp suit, crisp shirt, slim tie. He felt a million dollars, and fully intended to make that much before the month was out.
“I might put a few bob on it,” said Lashford.
“So how come you’re called Piplatch and your wife is called Hines?”
“No, that’s Olive’s maiden name. Her mum’s called Hines. Piplatch is our name.”
Danny tried to piece it together. If Olive was Rachel’s grandmother, how come Rachel was called Hines, not Pip-latch? Maybe they weren’t related at all.
“Sorry. It’s just when I answered the ad, it said Mrs Hines. I thought...”
Lashford rolled his eyes. “The house belonged to Winnie. It’s been in their family for years, but...”
Danny didn’t pry, just nodded, but Lashford was eager to tell him.
“Between you and me... their family’s old money.” He prodded his own nose to indicate how stuck up they were. “And it’s all gone now.”
“And you’re new money?”
Lashford laughed. “You and me both.”
He tapped his champagne flute against Danny’s and they drained them.
“Right, let’s get the lovely Carol back over here.”
Lashford chuckled lasciviously and Danny knew somehow that his marriage to Olive was probably not going to last very long.
— 12 —
RACHEL WONDERED IF Martyn was thinking she must be a total freak. From his point of view, she was the barmaid from the pub who was showing an unhealthy interest in his sleeping mother. He couldn’t know that she wanted to see her Nan again. But if he thought she was a freak then why was he taking her out?
He chattered about how he’d got the sports car before Christmas and had it reconditioned and how rare it was for one as good as this to come on the market; you had to pretty much wait for the owners to die before you could get one.
She listened politely as he drove out of Birmingham with the top up, heading south, an evening shower sploshing on the window and a shadow between them.
“Will your mum be all right, on her own?” she said.
He seemed surprised she’d brought it up. “Of course she will,” he said. He smiled, but his lips were tight. “She’s old, not disabled.”
She folded her arms. How could he have let her get like that? By going out every night to the pub and leaving her alone with only the radio for company. Without a daughter to look after, Martyn had just done his own thing, lived the bachelor life, used his money to build his mother a flat, keep her at a distance, neglect her, and she’d withered.
All those years, it had been Rachel who’d kept the family together, not Martyn.
He pulled into the car park of a country pub. There were fields all around and the monsoon had eased off. They sat outside under an awning that dripped and formed puddles around their table and he ordered a white wine spritzer for her and a pint of some obscure real ale for himself.
“Look,” he said. “I know you might think it’s uncool, and maybe even a bit, well, gay... the middle aged man living at home with his mother... but I look after her. She has no one. She lost everything a long time ago: her big house, her husband. I’ve watched her slowly sink into that state, and I hate seeing it, but I can’t put her in a home and forget about her. She looked after me; brought me up with no help from anyone. So I look after her now.”
He supped his pint and she stared aghast at how much he’d misinterpreted her, and at how much she’d got wrong herself.
She reached across the picnic table and squeezed his hairy wrist.
“I don’t think any of that. I think it’s brilliant that you look after her. I just felt a bit sad for her, to see her like that.”
“Well don’t,” he snapped. “You don’t know her.”
She looked at the table, withdrew her hand. “No,” she said. “I suppose not. I wasn’t judging you. I would have been happy to stay there and keep her company. With you.”
She shrugged. It was a mess. She could never say the right thing because she didn’t belong here.
He was smiling when she looked back up at him. “You’re a strange girl,” he said. “Girls your age don’t normally say things like that.”
She felt a rare surge of sunlight through a gap in the rainclouds hit her face and reminded herself that this whole evening was about stealing some moments with him.
“So tell me about yourself,” she said. “Tell me about your life.”
He laughed. “Yep. You’re definitely different to most girls your age.”
They laughed and drank and talked, and he told her about growing up in Moseley in a big, grand old house, until his dad had walked out on them, totally out of the blue, abandoning his wife and child to shack up with some bit of skirt across town he’d got pregnant. His mum had toughed it out, taking back her maiden name, trying to keep the big old house and raise her son with the help of his grandmother. They’d run the place as a guest house, but eventually the lodgers had all become housing benefit cases and it had become more and more difficult to run the place. So they’d sold it right at the height of the housing boom, just before it crashed, made a lot of money, which had enabled him to buy a smaller place and build her the granny flat.
Rachel nodded politely and tried not to correct him when the story veered from the one she knew so well: the version where he’d married a girl called Lorna Foster and they’d created a daughter called Rachel.
The sun fell and they drove back to Moseley and it was all so much better between them and she felt a pang of happiness for the first time in months, for the first time since she’d touched a gravestone and fallen through time into loneliness.
He pulled into the car park at the rear of her flat and smiled at her and she felt a sudden desire to show him where she lived; show him the grandeur of her place and that she’d made a good life for herself even though he couldn’t possibly feel pride for her as he didn’t even know she was his daughter.
“Come on up and see where I live,” she said. “It’s a lovely flat.”
He shrugged and got out with her and they walked around to the front and through the gate between two shops, down the dark ginnel, up the stairs to the first floor flat overlooking the village crossroads.
He was impressed and walked over to the latticed windows to look out.
She saw the pile of photographs splayed on the table. Her stack of family photos: old ones of Mary Lewis posing in front of the old house; Winnie Hines during the war; Olive, her Nan; Martyn as a young boy at a street party in 1966, the day he met Lorna Foster; Martyn and Lorna with their baby, Rachel...
She swiped them out of the way and turned her back to him, hiding them behind the Dansette, covering her actions by putting on the next of Charlie’s old records. Something called Deluge by Wayne Shorter. Uptempo jazz filled the room. She turned it low.
Martyn was watching her curiously.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said.
She shrugged and walked to the kitchen to make coffee, wondering why her hands were shaking. When she came back, he was sitting on the sofa. She handed him his coffee and sat across from him. He was still grinning.
“What?”
“You’re quite a retro girl, aren’t you?” he said.
She looked around at her place – Charlie’s old furniture, his music playing – and saw it how he must see it. Irritation flared inside her. He was laughing at her; thought he knew her. She wanted him to go, but wanted him to stay so much, and scolded herself in her head: stop being so insane! She was not a thief, she told herself; only desperate and lonely and missing her old life.
They talked about trivial stuff: the pub, her work there, what she did with her life. She was evasive and he sensed it and began to shift uncomfortably. He put his mug aside and got up.
“Well, I’d better go.”
She nodded, cursing herself for being such a weirdo, and rose with him and headed for the door. She walked him to the top of the stairs that led down to the back door.
He turned and went to peck her on the cheek and their lips collided. He stuck on. Kissed her.
They were kissing.
Then he pulled away and looked shocked.
“Whoah,” he said. “That was weird.”
She put her hand to her mouth. This was horrible. This was just about the worst thing that could happen. They had been on a date. Of course they had. What else would he have thought!
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He shook his head, shuddered and wiped his mouth. “No. I’m sorry,” he said. “You look... just like...”
“What?”
His eyes widened with horror. “I’ve got to go.”
He turned and clumped down the stairs. The door slammed and she was alone again.
She walked back to the living room and sat on the sofa where he had sat and cried, her tears dropping onto her skirt.
— 13 —
“MORE CHAMPAGNE!” SHOUTED Lashford. “Come on! We’re celebrating!”
The Players’ Lounge was much more lively this time, perhaps due to this being the final World Cup game at Villa Park, perhaps because word was spreading through the room about Danny’s win.
Council dignitaries had begun to cluster around them, eager to hear the story.
“You won’t believe what he’s won! Never heard the like!”
Danny felt uneasy and tried to stay tight-lipped – he sensed it would not be good if word of his betting got out, if only because the money he’d won on predicting the results of the Group 2 games was only the start of it.
“Twenty-eight to one!” shouted Lashford. “And he got every one of them bang on the nose! Go on, tell em!”
Danny shook his head and smiled politely. “Well, I was just lucky really.”
But he felt a wave of giddiness rising inside him and couldn’t hold it back. It might have been the champagne, it might have been the fact that a lot of beautiful women had started to look at him with sudden interest, or the fact that he knew he could collect the sum total of £1,750 in the morning.
He had just won more than the average man’s annual salary through placing a simple £10 bet with seven different bookies. Most of them had been eager to take his money too, no doubt feeling he was just another mug putting on a no-hope accumulator.
“He’s won how much?”
“You’re kidding me!”
“One thousand, seven hundred and fifty quid!”
“Off ten pound?”
“No, seventy pounds. Ten pound with each bookie.”
“Bloody hell!”
Carol came over with a magnum of champagne as instructed by Lashford and he popped it. A huge cheer went up and dozens of glasses were held out.
“Hey, he’s earned more than every footballer out there tonight!”
The bubbles fizzed on his tongue and up his nose and he choked them back. Someone slapped him on the back, hands were pawing at him. Carol gave him a big kiss on the cheek before Lashford pulled her to his side and kept his arm around her waist.
“How did you do it, son?”
“Just lucky guesses,” he said.
But Lashford was giving him that shrewd look. He knew it was no lucky guesswork; he knew that Danny had information.
He’d told him too much, been too confident, blabbed his stupid mouth off. “I made a few different combinations,” he said. “This one came off.”
He should have done that, he realized. It would throw the bookies off the scent. Because he knew that right now there were a handful of them not only worried about paying his winnings in the morning, but also wondering why they’d taken his ludicrous prediction of England’s entire run to the final, including the teams they would meet on the way. The bet was 950/1 but they’d all capped it at 500/1. It was no comfort to them because every single one of them was now going through the figures and realizing that he’d correctly predicted the outcomes of every game in Groups 1 and 2 and now had a clear run at England’s route to the final. If it came off they’d be paying him £350,000.
The mayor was there, puffing on a fat cigar, and shaking his head. “They’ll take it all back off you, son.”
The celebration quietened at this. The mayor’s opinion had respect in the room but Danny could tell they would all rather be necking champagne and singing.
“I’ve never seen a poor bookie, but I’ve seen a great many poor punters.”
There were nods and shouts of agreement around the room.
“Tell em who you’ve got to win the World Cup, Danny,” said Lashford.
Danny couldn’t see from his face if Lashford wanted him to put the mayor in his place or if he was feeding him to the lions.
“Nah, it’s really not that...”
“Go on, son!”
“Tell us!”
“Who d’ya think’s gonna win it?”
“He’s only bet on England!” Lashford shouted.
A cheer went up, as if he’d somehow made it happen for them all.
The mayor laughed and shook his head. “Like I said, it’s a mug’s game. But if I were a betting man, I’d be putting my money on those North Koreans.”
Danny laughed. “I’ll take your money. How much?”
“Like I said, I’m no betting man.”
“No wonder with tips like that.”
Laughter fizzed around the room and the mayor shook his head and smiled benignly like an indulgent uncle.
Lashford leaned in close above the noise of celebration, his arm still around Carol. “So go on, Danny, let us in on it. How are we gonna win it?”
Danny laughed and shrugged again, still bristling from the mayor’s condescension. “We’re not,” he said. “Haven’t you heard?”
“Go on, Danny, spill the beans.”
“The Hungarians are gonna win it,” he said.
Carol giggled, and Danny was so caught up in her laughter and a desire to kiss her that he didn’t see Lashford’s eyes narrow and his grin tighten.
— 14 —
RACHEL LIFTED HER HEAD from the toilet bowl and slumped against the wall, the cold tiles pleasantly cool against her cheek. She took in a few deep breaths and knew she was safe: she had thrown up the lot.
She pushed herself up and tottered through the corridor and back to the lounge. Broken glass on the floor and a stain on the wall where she’d thrown one of Charlie’s brandy bottles, after drinking most of it. She took the dustpan and brush from under the sink and swept up the debris. She was far too sensible.
She sat on the sofa with the dustpan in her hand and stared at the gleaming shards of glass for an age. It would be so easy. Just pick one up and slash her wrists. She shuddered and rushed to the kitchen, wrapped it in newspaper and dumped it in the bin.
She could never be around her father. She had tried to pretend, but it was hopeless.
Walking back to the lounge, she paused at the photo on the wall between the two latticed windows. The photo of her with Charlie, a picnic in the country somewhere that hadn’t happened yet; that had happened fifty years ago.
She knew it was going to happen. She knew she was going to go back to him, maybe more than once. So what was she waiting for? Why didn’t she just go there?
She was paralysed, and h
ad been for months, gripped by a fear of stepping off the edge of the abyss into the unknown.
She picked out the next of Charlie’s albums, another by Wayne Shorter. It had a blue cover with photos of a Chinese woman and a black man who must have been Wayne Shorter. It was called Speak No Evil and there was a lipstick kiss above the title that reminded her of Charlie for some reason: yes, because he had kissed her, the moment before she had passed through the touchstone back to this life. Was that why she was so scared of going back to him?
She pulled the inner sleeve out and didn’t see the slip of paper that fluttered to the floor.
She took the black vinyl disc out of the inner sleeve and placed it on the Dansette turntable, set it playing and put the arm onto the record. A fluttering of frantic horns filled the air. Too fast. She lifted the arm to the next track, squinting to see the lighter groove between the tracks. They were all a little too fast for her mood, even on the flipside, until she came to track five, Infant Eyes. It was slow and sad and matched her melancholy.
She slumped back into the sofa and put her legs up. Another torrent lashing at the lattice windows. She liked to think it was matching her mood but it had been pretty much constant throughout the summer. Maybe it was matching her mood. She would probably fall asleep and wake sometime in the middle of the night with the stylus whispering in the run-off groove.
She lay and listened to the sweet saxophone tearing her soul apart.
When it shuddered to a close, she pushed herself up, not wanting to hear the next track in case it spoiled the mood.
She kicked the slip of paper across the floor and it skittered against the art deco sideboard. Curious, she picked it up and opened it. Neat handwriting, elegant, the whiff of age from the page.
Dear Rachel,
I know you have always told me to refrain from revealing anything you have yet to do – things that, to me, you have already done – but I thought I would leave this somewhat to chance, and hope you will understand.
If you are listening to this album, I know that you are feeling intensely lonely, as I felt when I listened to it for the first time in 1966. And perhaps that synchronicity of emotion might be enough somehow. Enough to make you realize how much I miss you and how much I long for you to visit me again.