by Joseph Kiel
The conversations continued to stutter along until they arrived at Westfield Common. Backing onto an estate of council houses, the common was a popular place for people to walk their dogs or for youngsters to smoke cigarettes and drink cider, there being plenty of evidence for all of these activities. The field was also the training ground for the local football team, Dark Harbour United, and so the goal posts were left up all year, making it the ideal place to practice penalties.
As they began kicking the ball around, Larry soon forgot about his earlier concerns of finishing his essay. Eddie didn’t seem so much of a troubled wrist-slitter either. Larry was often privy to his lighter moments, particularly when they let their cool and carefree spirits run free.
He knew nobody got on with Eddie, and for that he felt sorry for him, that people never really took a chance on him. At college he’d always seemed like a rabid dog growling in his own corner and nobody would dare go near him. Nobody except Larry, that was.
Holding the football in his hands, Larry paused for a moment, wondering if perhaps he’d made the wrong decision in coming here; in the distance the grey clouds had started to collect and the first rumblings of thunder crackled in his ears. The air had become incredibly still as though an angry universe had been watching the unforeseen events and now had to stop everything and re-plot the course of destiny, all because Larry hadn’t stayed in and done his college assignment.
‘I think it’s going to rain,’ Larry said.
‘Well, let’s finish the penalties,’ Eddie replied as he stood in the goal mouth. ‘Who’s taking this one?’
‘This time it’s Beckham,’ Larry said after some consideration.
Meriadoc looked on eagerly, very much enjoying being the ball boy.
After placing the ball carefully on the spot, Larry ran at it and tried to cleverly ‘bend it’ into the top corner, but there was not enough power behind it. Eddie, acting as the German goalkeeper, easily saved it. Meriadoc chased after the ball as it rebounded away.
‘And Germany keep their lead! Beckham runs to the edge of the field and hurls his guts up in disappointment,’ Larry commentated.
They swapped positions.
‘Who’s taking this one?’ Larry asked.
‘Klinsman.’
‘He took the last one.’
‘I can’t think of any more Kraut players.’
‘Told you you should have been Holland.’
‘Fuck that.’
‘Okay… Ballack, Schweinsteiger, Beckenbauer…’
‘Kahn!’ Eddie eventually decided.
‘He was the goalkeeper.’
‘So?’
Kahn breathed in deeply as he prepared to take the spot kick. Going for placement, Kahn aimed the ball for the bottom right hand corner. Although a well-taken penalty, the plucky Larry, or David Seaman as he now was, somehow managed to get a hand to it and kept the ball out.
‘And Oliver can’t yet again!’ Larry said.
‘You bitch,’ Eddie said. The ball rolled back towards him and he kicked it away in mock frustration. ‘And Meriadoc issues the German goalkeeper with a yellow card after witnessing the wrath of Kahn.’
‘Such a comedian.’
They swapped around again. The Wembley crowd was starting to get more and more excited, hoping that England would now be able to equalise.
‘Okay, this time it’s Southgate.’
‘Jees, Larry. Do you not want to win this or something?’
In this universe, however, Southgate was not going to miss. Larry was absolutely determined about that one. In Stuart Pearce style, Southgate hammered the ball as hard as he could past the left post. Southgate’s celebrations almost matched Pearce’s in their exuberance as a delighted Larry raised both arms in the air.
‘England make it two all,’ Eddie continued with his commentary, ‘but Germany still have a penalty in hand as Ballack steps up to take their fourth one.’
‘Seaman will save this one. The crowd can sense it,’ Larry chipped in as the assistant commentator.
He was wrong. Ballack blasted the ball and Seaman dove in the wrong direction. It didn’t matter though because the ball sailed harmlessly over the goal by about five feet. The crowd was now ecstatic, sensing victory for England.
Eddie put his hands on his hips in disbelief. ‘Well that was Ballack’s. Damn, I thought the Germans never missed.’
‘Now who’s trying to lose?’ Larry taunted him.
‘Not over yet. Not until the fat frau sings.’
Larry picked up the ball as he now transformed into his next player.
‘Right,’ Larry said in a Liverpudlian accent, ‘let’s put some scouse into this shoot out.’
‘Either that’s Gerrard taking the next one or it’s Cilla Black.’
Once Kahn had returned to the goal mouth, Gerrard looked at the ball with that twinkle of determination in his eye. He struck the ball beautifully and whilst Kahn had guessed the right way and got a touch to it, the ball still managed to squeeze past him into the goal.
This sent the crowd over the edge as Gerrard ran around pulling on his shirt.
‘England take the lead! A German miss and England win the World Cup!’
‘Time for Hamann to take one. And you know how he likes to score at Wembley,’ Eddie said in the face of England’s impending victory.
Once Hamann had placed the ball on the spot, he took a few careful steps backwards. Silence descended on the stadium as Seaman stared at the ball with all of his concentration.
Hamann began his run. When he reached the ball though, he suddenly stopped. Instead of kicking it, he back-heeled the ball behind himself and it bounced harmlessly across the field. Eddie punched his arms into the air and looked skywards as he roared in celebration, ‘England! En-ger-land!’
An ecstatic Larry ran out of his goal and embraced Eddie in the wild celebrations of England winning the World Cup. To Meriadoc they must have looked like two dancing idiots, but the dog wanted in on the fun as well and began circling them with his tongue flapping around.
The imaginary sounds of a roaring Wembley crowd gradually faded from their ears, their excitement soon switching off as they realised there was nothing to be excited about. A chocolate bar wrapper danced its way across the penalty area, the stiffening breeze swirling up in the dull reality of a shabby playing field. Back to their mundane lives. Two struggling students, not superstar footballers.
‘You can go and fetch the ball though,’ Eddie said, his dryness returning to his voice. It was at that very moment that Meriadoc started barking.
They looked across the common. Near where the football had come to a stop was a man in a red tracksuit top running in their direction. He was quite skinny and his top was zipped right up to his chin. The way he was pumping his arms and legs reminded Larry of one of those nature documentaries where the gazelle was running away from the cheetah; the guy was frantic.
Larry and Eddie exchanged glances while Meriadoc continued with his barking. That was the strangest thing about it. In all the weeks that he’d been looking after him, Eddie had never heard him bark until now.
‘What’s…?’ Larry muttered.
The man stopped about ten feet away, bending his body over to try to catch his breath, or maybe it was so he could throw up. He didn’t register the two students, or the inquisitive dog who’d now stopped barking and was at the stranger’s feet sniffing him. The man was breathing so quickly, beads of sweat running down the sides of his pallid cheeks, lost in a frenzied panic. His hair was damp and greasy, his face scrawny and weasel-shaped.
‘You all right, mate?’ Larry asked him.
The man fell to one knee in exhaustion. He looked up at Larry but he was panting too hard to get any words out, except for a high pitched, half syllable. He looked back across the common. Confused, Larry followed his gaze. He couldn’t see anything.
The man clambered to his feet, a slight bit of composure returning. He trotted towards the housing estate, constantly jittering
his head round to see if his predator was in pursuit again.
‘What the fuck was all that about?’ Eddie asked.
‘Look!’ Larry replied.
Running straight towards them there now came two more men, the angry hunters from which the slippery weasel had escaped. One was built like Vinnie Jones, the other was dressed completely in black with a long coat that flapped behind him like a cape.
Eddie noticed that Meriadoc was whining now. It seemed the dog had a better idea as to what was going on than he did. The two men stopped running for a moment. They could see the Vinnie Jones one pointing towards the houses, the man in black nodding, Vinnie sprinting over there. The man in black then noticed Larry and Eddie and came over to them.
‘Did you see that guy? See where he went?’
‘Uh huh,’ Eddie replied.
‘Yeah, that way, where your friend went,’ Larry added as he pointed towards the estate.
Meriadoc’s whining was so loud that it was almost muffling their words. The dog kept shifting about on his paws as though it was dinner time and he hadn’t been fed in days. The man in black turned round to look at him.
‘Not missing a dog are you by any chance?’ Eddie asked the man.
‘I don’t seem to remember ever owning a dog,’ he replied as he approached Meriadoc, strangely more interested in him now than anything else.
‘Sure? He likes you.’
As the man crouched down in front of him, Meriadoc calmed down and stopped his wailing. The two of them just stared at each other silently, as if the man had some psychic ability to talk with animals and could exchange secret thoughts with it. Eddie felt the wind gusting around him, the storm getting closer.
Eventually the man stood up, his head bowed as he continued to look down on the dog. He looked like a mourner weeping beside a grave.
‘Where did you find this dog?’
‘He was in town one night. Followed me home. Can’t get rid of him. You can have him if you want.’
The man walked up to Eddie who now became the subject of his heavy glare. It felt like his sharp eyes were peering into a kaleidoscope, and Eddie was the shattered, random crystals that the man was trying to twist into a meaningful pattern. It wasn’t too long before Eddie angled his head down so that the brim of his cap blocked the connection.
‘We’re looking after him though,’ Larry said. ‘We even got a name for him.’
The man now turned to Larry and fixed his eyes on him for a moment. Larry was safely hidden behind his sunglasses though.
‘What’s he called?’
‘Meriadoc.’
‘Yeah?’ the man said as he turned to look at the dog once more. ‘Nice name.’
‘See!’ Larry cried, nudging Eddie.
‘Well, I need to…’ the man said as he distractedly gazed at Meriadoc.
‘What do you want with that guy?’ Eddie asked.
‘He’s a thief. Did you see him? Looks like he’s dying of cancer, doesn’t he? But no, he’s a worthless junkie, that’s what he is.’
‘I don’t think you’re the police though, are you?’ Eddie asked.
‘No.’
‘Oh my God. You’re those Halo of Fires people,’ Larry said.
‘You’ve heard about Halo of Fires?’ the man, Vladimir, replied.
Larry brought out his wallet and quickly searched for the business card that he’d taken from Michael. Vladimir approached him and looked it over.
‘That’s an old one. Yeah. That’s us.’
‘So who hired you for this job?’ Larry inquired.
Vladimir didn’t hear the question. ‘What’s your names?’ he asked as he turned to Eddie.
‘My name’s Eddie. That’s my friend Larry.’
‘Are you guys students?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Yeah I guessed you weren’t professional footballers.’
‘Hey, you want us to help you find that guy? Maybe Meriadoc can follow his scent,’ Larry said.
Eddie shook his head. ‘Don’t be a fucking idiot.’
The dog trotted over to them.
‘He might! Find that man, Meriadoc. Go on, find him,’ Larry called.
Whether Meriadoc understood what Larry wanted him to do, or whether Vladimir had used his telepathic ability to communicate to him, Meriadoc appeared to have got the message, and as he put his snout to the ground he retraced the weasel man’s steps towards the houses.
‘Strange mutt,’ Eddie said as he shook his head.
Vladimir jogged after Meriadoc. After shrugging his shoulders, Larry did the same. Eddie had no choice to follow on as well. Just so he could keep an eye on the damned dog if nothing else.
Westfield estate was mainly comprised of boarded up houses no longer fit for human residence. The area was a rancid wasteland of humanity, a place that used to exist only in the city but had now spread into the towns like a venereal disease. Gangs in hoodies would congregate at night with their knives and in the day heroin was cooked up on the bottom of rusty lager cans.
Meriadoc paused outside one of the houses and Vladimir tried the front door. It was open. The blackened room inside was lit only by a small candle in the middle of the room, dotted around which were spoons and needles. Some skank in fake designer clothing, the sort of girl found on the Jeremy Kyle show, was curled up in a ball on the grime-caked carpet. A young man was opposite her, propped up against the wall as though he’d been swallowed up by a sterile society and spat out again.
As Larry and Eddie entered the house they saw Vladimir crouching in front of the pallid young girl, in some sort of curious, yet regretful, fascination. He put his hand to her face and in her self-induced oblivion, the girl looked up at him and smiled thinly.
Vladimir stood and shook his head, wiping his hand against his trousers as he tried to put yet another distraction out of his mind. They couldn’t see the weasel anywhere, but then Meriadoc began sniffing at the bottom of one of the doors. Eddie went over to investigate, and when he pushed the door open he saw the man in the red tracksuit standing in the middle of the room, what was once a kitchen.
‘Here he is,’ Eddie said.
As soon as he saw Vladimir appear in the doorway, the weasel man freaked out, squealing like a cornered rat, furiously tugging the handle to the back door. It was locked.
‘Stay back,’ Vladimir commanded. He brought out his mobile phone, pressed a couple of buttons and said: ‘Jake, number twenty-two. Go get the car.’
‘No. No!’ the weasel whimpered.
But then, after rattling the door so much, it suddenly gave way and opened. The weasel ran out into the back garden and Meriadoc chased after him, followed by the others.
Out in the overgrown garden, the man turned as he realised a dog was on his trail. He paused and kicked Meriadoc in the head, and the dog whimpered and cowered away.
At that point, Eddie charged at the man, grabbed him by the throat and punched him hard round the face. The weasel recoiled then swiped at Eddie too, catching him cleanly on the chin. Eddie stumbled backwards, surprised by the weight of the scrawny man’s punch.
But then Larry approached. The weasel threw a punch, but Larry caught his fist and in a fluid motion he twisted the guy’s arm round and threw him onto the grass.
Dazed, Eddie was surprised for a moment at Larry’s masterful move, but when he saw the weasel on the ground, he quickly darted over to him and kicked him hard in the guts.
‘You fucking bastard!’
He booted him again and again, but somehow the weasel still managed to get to his feet. Just as he was about to give Eddie another punch, he paused and looked on in horror, his face about to wring with tears.
Jake smashed his fist into the weasel’s face like a meteor hitting the ground. The guy fell to the ground completely unconscious.
‘Thanks,’ Jake said to Larry and Eddie before picking the guy up like a sack of rubbish to be taken to the tip. He carried him along the side of the house to where he’d parked hi
s car.
‘Dog okay?’ Vladimir asked them.
‘I think so,’ Eddie said as he crouched down to the sheepish Meriadoc.
The rain was starting to fall now. Vladimir smiled faintly at them, nodded, then made his way round to the front of the house. Larry and Eddie didn’t know what to do so they just followed him. They saw Jake closing the boot down on a black Mercedes.
‘Okay, let’s get out of here,’ Jake said to his colleague.
They turned to get in the car but Vladimir was hesitant. He looked back at Larry and Eddie standing there in the pattering rain. And there was that poor dog.
‘Do you guys need a lift?’ Vladimir asked them.
‘Sure. If that’s okay,’ Larry replied.
Vladimir opened the door for them. ‘Get in.’
Driving away from the cesspit estate, they soon hit the evening rush hour and became snarled up in traffic. As he clutched onto Meriadoc, Eddie looked out of the side window, trying to see the drowned world outside as the rainwater streamed down the steamed up glass. It was like he’d suddenly been given a new angle on his hometown as he watched the cars trundling by on the other side of the road, miserable looking metal beasts crawling through the tempest like soldiers on a march to combat. Everyone was battling through their lives, trying to make their way back home for the weekend.
But Eddie wasn’t in a rush. Even though he was sitting in a car with two vigilantes, Eddie felt strangely comfortable. He’d heard of their organisation before, one of the many things the kids at the caravan parks used to talk about on his holidays. Not that Eddie had necessarily believed these kids, however intriguing their stories were. But meeting these Halo of Fires members was like he’d met a fat man with a white beard and discovered that Father Christmas did actually exist.
Eddie turned to Larry and said: ‘Didn’t know you were a ninja.’
‘I used to take judo lessons.’
‘Oh.’
‘How’s the chin?’
‘Sure I’ll live.’
‘Where do you guys live?’ Jake interrupted.
Everyone felt a little silly for not having mentioned the subject yet.
‘Oh yeah. Uh, it’s Toledo Road,’ Larry projected over the sound of the rain that thumped against the roof of the car like machinegun fire.