‘It’s life experience,’ Alison said. ‘And it’s an FA Cup tie, against Arsenal.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘I know who they’re bloody playing,’ he said. ‘Toddy’s talked about nowt else all week.’
‘He’ll be there then?’ She hadn’t met Toddy, but liked the sound of him. He was Peter’s slinger, he loaded the crane with steel for Peter to shift, and they shared their snap and talked about films, which was the sort of topic that would normally earn a man a reputation for being soft, so Peter and Toddy kept themselves to themselves. ‘What’s he look like?’ Alison said. ‘I’ll say hello.’
‘Very funny,’ Peter said.
‘Daniel says there’ll be twenty thousand fans on the Kop.’
Peter grunted. ‘You be careful. They’re a rough lot.’
‘He said not to wear my red coat.’
Peter laughed. ‘You’d be lynched on the Kop.’
‘Can I wear your donkey jacket?’
‘Aye, if you promise not to come home an Owls fan.’
‘Promise,’ she said.
‘It’s a good idea that anyway, Alison, nobody messes with a lass in a donkey jacket. You’ll need it today, chuffing freezing.’
She nodded and then said, ‘You got anything on today?’
He shook his head. ‘I’ll see what state she’s in when she crawls out of bed.’
‘Yeah,’ Alison said. ‘I’ll do next Saturday, Pete.’ This was the second weekend in a row that Peter had been on Catherine duty: assessing her suitability to be left at home alone before making any plans for himself. Meanwhile Superman was showing at the Gaumont. That was what he’d do, if he could get away later.
Alison met Daniel at Pond Street in the city centre, at the number 53 stop, and she was startled at the crush of supporters waiting for the bus. Hard to find him in the crowds, and everyone had blue and white hats on, and blue and white scarves, so they all looked the same. He spotted her first, swamped in her brother’s jacket, the collar turned up like a frame for her lovely face, which was pink with the cold.
‘Here,’ he said, and wrapped his own scarf twice round her throat. ‘Now you’re one of us.’
‘Don’t say that to our Peter,’ she said. ‘I’ve had to promise not to turn. All these people! They’ll never get on the bus.’
‘Just as long as we do, that’s the main thing.’
And they did, Daniel sheltering her with one arm and fending off queue-jumpers with the other until they were standing toe-to-toe on the number 53, hanging on to the overhead rail, and she was grinning at him, loving it, even though the inside of the bus was swampy with wet boots, foetid with sweat and beer. They piled out at Hillsborough and, outside the ground, they moved slowly forwards with the teeming throng under a lowering sky that threatened more snow. He told her this crowd was huge, bigger than usual, biggest of the season, the biggest he’d seen since he was six and his dad brought him to see the Owls play Man United, and Alison laughed at him, at his earnest, ardent enthusiasm. These FA Cup fixtures were special, he told her. Arsenal was top-tier, Division One royalty, did she know that?
‘So, you mean they’re better?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I mean they’re jammy,’ and he wagged a warning finger at her. ‘Behave yourself, you’re in church now.’
It did feel that way as they clicked through the turnstiles and climbed the steps to the top of the towering Spion Kop. Alison was an agnostic among a crowd of true believers in an extraordinary cathedral of sound. She thought she might weep with awe at the noise, then write a poem when she got home, because it was so stirring, all those voices rising in unison to make great waves that swelled and rolled around the terraces as if the noise itself had a mass and momentum of its own. She was stunned by it, but Daniel was completely unmoved and hell-bent on a spot behind the goal, and there was no time to stand still being spellbound. They moved gingerly, trying to keep their footing on their way down the Kop, where the snow had turned to ice, pushing their way from one small space to another until they were close enough to the pitch to see the breath from the players’ mouths, hear the impact of their boots on the ball. Alison was all rapt attention: the effort, the noble struggle, the punishing impact of a fall on the cold, unyielding ground. The snow had been shovelled off the pitch, cleared away to the sides, and it was heaped up in a mucky drift at the bottom of the Kop. It was cruelly cold but the donkey jacket and the crush all around kept Alison warm, and so did the battlefield glory of the occasion – she felt like a spectator at a gladiatorial fight; she felt part of something ancient and tribal, and not entirely safe, as if she might be called upon to pitch in. When Arsenal scored and the Kop started up the call to arms, abusing the jubilant away fans, the jammy Gunners who deserved nothing but a good kicking, Alison joined in, and there was something so inspiring, she thought, about the group endeavour, their perfect timing. Daniel shoved her with his shoulder. ‘Hooligan,’ he said. ‘Bloody yob.’ She laughed at him, and then for a while she just watched him, watching the match, and he was so fixated on Wednesday’s performance, so intent on the ball, that he didn’t even notice. She found this endearing, and mysterious, and she wished she had something of her own, something just as powerful, just as important, that she could share with him, and that he wouldn’t understand.
The afternoon got better and better. They had Bovril at half-time – for the warmth, Daniel said, not the taste, but Alison liked it: only vaguely beefy, very intensely salty; she’d certainly been given worse at home. Then, just before the start of the second half, when the Arsenal goalie Pat Jennings was making his way to the Kop end, he was pelted with a hail of snowballs from the terraces, and everyone could see the big Irishman just wanted to give the Wednesday fans hell and hammer them back with balls of ice. The referee got involved, wanted to stop the match, then Wednesday’s manager Jack Charlton left the dug-out and stood in front of the Kop, and he was snowballed too, but he stood his ground and the missiles petered out, and then less than a minute after the ref blew the whistle for play, Wednesday equalised and the Kop went wild, Daniel went wild, Alison went wild. A burly man on her other side squeezed her tight against his beer gut and together they danced a jig.
It ended one–all, a bit of an anticlimax, a rematch in three days at Highbury in unreachable North London, but they left the ground in high spirits and bought two bags of chips from a van, and set off walking for Nether Edge because there was a crush for the buses, and a posse of pissed-up Wednesday fans were roaming the crowds looking for men in red. It was bitterly cold and thick sleet fell like pins from the leaden sky, but when they landed on Peter’s donkey jacket they glinted and sparkled like gems against the black wool.
Daniel took her to his house; he wanted to show her off, although he didn’t say as much. Kept it casual, offered a cup of tea and said he had something for her, a present. Alison had no wish to go home yet, although she knew she probably should, so they headed for Daniel’s, and everybody was there, Mr and Mrs Lawrence, Claire, even Joe, who didn’t live there any more. It was the first time they’d met her and they were all smiling, fussing over her; it was ‘Hello, love’ and ‘Give me your coat’ and ‘Ooh, your hands are red raw’ and ‘Now then, what did you make o’ that match?’ Claire, who was twenty-two but seemed much younger, stared at Alison with a sort of guileless admiration, then said, ‘I really like your hair,’ and Joe said, ‘Ey, Daniel, struck lucky this time,’ and it was all so chatty and friendly, there was barely time to answer one question before another one got asked. Daniel’s mum said it was Bill and Marion, not Mr and Mrs Lawrence, so Alison called them nothing at all.
Claire offered to paint her nails at the kitchen table, and Alison sat next to her and spread out her fingers while Claire chatted in an effortless stream of inconsequence and applied a rose-coloured gloss with a steady hand. She had a job in cosmetics at Cole Brothers, which was a proper career, she said, not just shop work. She was still wearing the navy skirt and the white and navy polka-dot
blouse she wore behind the counter, and she smelled of cologne, something musky and adult, but honestly, thought Alison, you’d think she was a fourteen-year-old, play-acting, dressing up in her mum’s clothes. She was lovely though, Claire: totally unthreatening. Alison liked the sensation of being the focus of her careful attention, and of only having to listen as she prattled on, although she told her about her own job, Thursday evenings after school, and some Saturdays, stacking shelves in a supermarket. ‘What do you have to wear?’ Claire asked, and Alison said just a horrible nylon overall, green and white checked, and Claire looked devastated for her. Meanwhile Daniel talked to his dad and Joe about the match, Jeff Johnson’s perfectly placed header less than a minute into the second half, Pat Jennings fending off snowballs and Alison chanting menaces at the away fans. Everybody laughed at that; nobody believed him.
Mrs Lawrence put a huge brown teapot on the table and a packet of chocolate digestives. ‘That’s a pretty colour,’ she said, looking at Alison’s nails. ‘Claire, you’re in the way there, love.’
‘Finished,’ Claire said. ‘Waggle your hands, Alison, dry them off.’
Alison did as she was told. Daniel was trying hard to ignore the fact that she was there, or at least trying hard not to keep staring at her and grinning like a fool, but when he did glance over, she was looking right at him, and they both smiled. Mrs Lawrence poured the tea and sat down at the table, asked Alison questions about school and if she liked it, and did she have any brothers or sisters, so Alison talked about Peter, her big brother. He was the same age as Claire, but they’d never met. Different schools, said Mrs Lawrence, just like you and Daniel. Hmmm, thought Alison, different lives too. Alison told her he was at Brown Bayley’s, on the cranes; Daniel’s mum said that was a job she’d choose if they let women do it and she wasn’t stuck with office work; she said she’d love to spend her day looking down on everybody, and then she laughed at her own joke, and pushed the packet of biscuits at Alison, told her to take one because tea was too wet without a digestive.
Mr Lawrence, who was much quieter than his wife and had so far hardly said a word, suddenly asked Alison if she liked pigeons, and the rest of the family shouted him down, but Alison said, ‘Homing pigeons?’ and he said, ‘Aye, I’ve some beauties in my loft, I can show you if you want?’ So Alison said she’d love to see them, and Mr Lawrence took her out the back door into the yard, Daniel following to make sure she was all right, and that his dad didn’t mistake politeness for avid interest.
But the birds were beautiful. Their loft was a converted shed where the pigeons – six of them – sat glossy and plump like little Prince Regents, gazing at Alison from their boxes, with eyes as dark as currants. Mr Lawrence fetched out a bird, cupped closely in two hands. Its feathers were the softest grey, with a glamorous shimmering band of mauve and emerald green at its neck.
‘This one’s a champ,’ he said. ‘Clover.’
‘Clover?’ Alison said.
‘Yep,’ said Daniel, from the door. ‘Great name – for a cow.’
Mr Lawrence ignored him. ‘Aye, Clover. She’s a beauty, a pure Janssen, bred her myself from a cock and a hen I bought in Elsecar. Feller who owned ’em were winning everything, then he dropped dead and his wife had a clearance sale.’ He was talking to the bird as much as to Alison, and the pigeon seemed to be listening closely, watching his face with her steady black eyes. ‘She didn’t know what she were selling, did she? Underpriced every bird.’ He offered her to Alison, but she shook her head; she was wary of that beak, those clawed feet.
‘I might drop her,’ she said. ‘You keep hold.’ She looked round at Daniel, who was leaning on the frame of the open doorway with his arms folded. He didn’t speak, but raised his eyebrows at her, as if to say, ‘Had enough yet?’
Alison turned away. ‘What if she flies out?’ she said, pointing at the open door, the evening sky, and Mr Lawrence laughed.
‘She’ll not leave my side, this ’un, unless she’s racing, then all she does is sprint back, fast as an arrow.’
‘Aren’t you worried, y’know, that she won’t find you?’
‘Never, she’s a champ.’
‘You said that already, Dad,’ Daniel said, from the door.
‘She flew six hundred miles from Lerwick once,’ Mr Lawrence said, ignoring his son. ‘See her coming in, tail fanned, wings back, it’s like nowt else, nowt else. She’s a champ.’
Daniel tutted, and Alison said, ‘Clever girl,’ to the pigeon, then smiled at Daniel’s dad, who looked pleased as punch. ‘Thanks for showing me,’ she said.
‘Nay, lass, any time,’ he said, and Alison and Daniel left him in the loft, where he was settling Clover back in her box, talking to her all the while.
‘Got a fan for life there,’ Daniel said. He stopped her before they reached the house, and turned her around so that she was leaning against the wall, and he kissed her, holding her face between his two hands, and she closed her eyes, felt a liquid heat low down in her belly and thought, Oh God, oh God, oh God. She had no idea what to do with the desire she felt for him: no idea at all. But anyway, they were in the back yard, his dad was in the shed, his mum was in the kitchen, so all that happened was he drew away from her and said, with his mouth still very close to hers, ‘So, I’ve got a present for you, remember?’
She nodded. ‘Go on then, what is it?’
‘A mix tape,’ he said, and she sighed, smiled, shrugged, but he said, ‘No, no, a mix tape with a difference. Tailor-made for a tricky customer such as yourself.’
She laughed. ‘Oh, is that so?’
He led her back into the house and on a shelf in the kitchen there was a cassette in its box. The Best Last Two, it said, For Alison. There was no track list.
‘The best last two?’
‘Yep. You’ll get it when you play it.’
He gave her her coat, and when she put it on he slipped the cassette into one of the pockets and sent her away with a chaste kiss on the cheek. She left the house in a hail of goodbyes, caught the bus and rode back to Attercliffe in a hazy glow of good spirits, wondering how she could capture today in words and wishing her current idol Sylvia Plath had watched Sheffield Wednesday play at home and then written about it in her journal. This reverie took her all the way home, where she stepped into a house so devoid of light and life that she was for a few seconds derailed. She stood, forlorn and still, and listened for the sound of Catherine, or for Peter’s footsteps on the landing, or for Martin, blundering to the kitchen for another can from the fridge. But there was only a ticking, abandoned silence and a fried-egg smell, and a broken glass on the lino by the cooker. She shed her coat, picked up the fragments of glass and binned them, then tried to wash the plates and the frying pan in the sink, but there was no hot water so all she was doing was swilling grease across the surface of the crockery, and there was something so futile, so wholly depressing, about this that she gave up. There was no note from Peter, which was unusual; she hoped he was out doing something nice, something that he’d chosen to do. She dried her hands on a grubby tea towel in the cold kitchen; thought about Daniel’s house, his mum, the fire blazing orange and blue in the grate, a bottomless teapot, Clover the pigeon, Daniel’s kiss. And then she remembered the mix tape, fished it out of her coat pocket, and went upstairs to her room.
8
EDINBURGH,
15 NOVEMBER 2012
The girl doing Journalism Studies at Stirling University – Sky? Star? Something celestial – scribbled frantic notes as Dan spoke, as if his own haphazard career was some kind of blueprint for success. He always said yes to these young people when they asked to talk to him, because, after all, any one of them could be Alex, and they were only trying to make their way in the world. But this girl was taking it all down word-for-word, while totally missing the point. When Dan talked about his own break, the piece he wrote for NME after that gig in Minneapolis in 1983 where Prince showcased his new backing band and Dan chanced upon a ten-minute interview w
ith the young Wendy Melvoin, Sky-or-Star only wrote steadily for a few moments, then looked up and said, ‘Could you spell Melvoin for me?’
She was very young, though. She’d asked for a hot chocolate when he bought her a drink, and said yes to whipped cream. He’d had a double espresso, and really hadn’t expected their chat to last much longer than his coffee, but here they still were. Dan glanced at his watch. He had to be at Waverley Station in twenty minutes, for the London train.
‘So, anything else you’d like to know?’ he said.
For a few moments the girl continued writing her conscientious notes, and then she looked up. She had wild green eye make-up and her hair was dyed a gothic bluebottle black. She wore it in a sort of choppy, spikey mullet, some sort of homage to a past that wasn’t really her own.
‘Erm …’ she said. ‘Just, I suppose, what do you think makes you a great music writer?’
‘Oh, blimey, don’t ask me that, there’s plenty wouldn’t agree with the thesis.’
She flushed at once, and he felt bad. ‘Look, music writers come in all varieties,’ he said. ‘But most of us have an obsessive streak, and that helps.’
‘Obsessive about music?’
‘Well, yeah, I mean, not all music, but definitely at the very least I bet every music writer would have an unreasonable attachment to one band they’ll love for all time, a band they’d defend to the death.’ He was trying to make her smile, but she just said, ‘Right,’ and chewed her pen reflectively, as if she was considering her options. He wondered what she listened to, and decided not to ask. He had a bit more advice for her though, so he said, ‘The thing is, Sky – it is Sky, right?’ She nodded, thank God. ‘The thing is, if you like listening to music, then just get on with it. It’s not a divine calling; it’s a job. I’m just a hack, with a job to do. So as soon as you start writing about music, you’re a music writer – even if it’s a blog that nobody but your mum and your granny reads. Just get cracking, OK? Don’t wait for the music press – what’s left of it – to beat a path to your door, because it won’t. Now, I’ve got a train to catch, so …’
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