Fan

by Danny Rhodes

8 a.m. One third complete. At his parents’ place. A cup of tea on the table, the biscuit tin full to the brim after the weekly shop. He grabs a handful of digestives, gulps the tea down. He could kill half an hour here, bury himself in the sports pages, lose the will to venture back out. But not today. He’s back on it before the pulverised biscuits reach his intestines.

  ‘You’re going then?’

  His mam, as concerned now as when he was ten years old and heading off fishing with the lads. ’10.10 to King’s Cross.’

  Spitting biscuit crumbs.

  ‘Is it open?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘King’s Cross.’

  ‘I should fucking well hope so.’

  She looks at him.

  ‘But the fire…’

  ‘It’s a big place.’

  ‘There’s no bus?’

  ‘No, there’s no bus.’

  He’s still her boy, always will be. She wants to stop him. But she can’t. She’s done it before, a long time before, Villa away to be precise, but he was younger then, still beholden. He’d no money of his own. Now he has money. And if she still has the right, she no longer has the will. Villa away. It still fucking irks him. Villa 0 Forest 5. He fucking missed it, sat at home listening to the score rack up on the radio. The house was a fucking warzone that day. A fucking warzone.

  The home straight. Council semis all lined up in rows, some facing the street, some facing other semis across bare patches of earth that were once seeded with grass. A maze of alleyways dissects the lot, severing them apart. Some face on to the metal fence that marks the boundary of the high school. The steel fence with the spiked top is a new addition, a replacement for the wire fencing that lost its battle with the kids of the estate years ago. Now there are no rabbit runs through the undergrowth. No way in, no way out. He’s a product of the local grammar himself, a nameless entity. Here he is delivering his letters in his postie uniform. None of the other fuckers in his year at school are doing anything like it. They’re wrapped up warm in their beds, enjoying a day off from the sixth form, another day on their long and prosperous journey through academia. But they don’t have football on a Saturday. They don’t have that.

  The last letter, the last letter box.

  9.20 a.m.

  Fucking A.

  Fifty minutes to change, drop off his bike and the mailbag and launch himself up to the station where the others will be waiting. Fifty minutes to become the man. He pushes open the bag and fishes around inside it. His hand comes to rest on a packet no bigger than his fist. He turns it over, reads the address. A top-floor flat. He looks at the sender’s address. Fucking Persil. A free fucking sample?

  Fuck!

  No, fuck it.

  He buries it in the fold of the bag. It can wait until Monday. If Harcross checks his bag on the way in he’ll plead the innocent, pretend he hasn’t seen it. It’s hardly fucking urgent, a fucking free sample of Persil for a single mum in a top-floor flat. She’ll hardly be pacing the fucking hallway in anticipation.

  He stops at the mailbox, takes the key from the cloth bag and pulls open the door, empties the contents on top of the fucking Persil packet, cycles home, changes into his Pepe Jeans and Pringle polo shirt.

  Casual.

  Always casual.

  He takes his Forest scarf too, for later, picks up his railcard, shoots out the door again. Then it’s back on the bike, back to the PO, legs a blur. He passes Jeff on the way, Jeff all Best Company denim, all bristle and aftershave.

  ‘See you at the station, you fat bastard!’

  ‘Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!’

  He swings the bike into the yard, slams it into the cycle rack. 9.45 a.m. Plenty of time.

  ‘Funny how you can make it back on Saturdays.’

  Harcross on the ramp in crisp winter sunlight.

  ‘It was a light day. Just the one bag.’

  Harcross smiles. He knows the fucking score.

  Finchy pushes through the plastic doors into the office, chucks his bag on the facing table and turns it over. Mail spills out. Longs and shorts. Firsts and seconds. Packets on the belt. Persil packet well hidden, heart pounding all the same, in his nature to please, to be a good lad despite himself. He turns to look at the door. Harcross is miles away, staring at the signing-in sheets. Other blokes are ambling back in, blokes that didn’t start early, blokes who aren’t sweating, blokes that never seem to rush. Either they have it easy or he’s fucking useless. He chucks his bag into his locker and makes for the door. 9.52. Eighteen minutes. Plenty of time if…

  Webster’s waiting for him.

  ‘Nicely does it,’ says Webster. ‘Don’t sweat, son. One day you can kiss twenty-one walk’s backside and take your pick of something more leisurely.’

  Finchy nods, tries to manoeuvre his way past.

  ‘Not so many single mums mind. Any luck yet?’

  He shakes his head.

  ‘Fuck me,’ says Webster. ‘You’re a slow cunt at everything.’

  Two other blokes are on the ramp, chugging at cigarettes, laughing when Webster laughs, bleating when Webster bleats. Fucking sheep.

  He looks at his watch. 9.54 a.m. He doesn’t have time for this bollocks.

  ‘Fucking Wimbledon away,’ says Webster. ‘It’s a pity you haven’t got anything better to do.’

  Is there anything better? At 3 p.m. on a Saturday? Anything better than an away day with the boys? A better place to be when the ball hits the back of the fucking opposition net? It’s better than sex. They’ve all long since settled on that.

  The highest of highs.

  And Webster’s being a cunt, pure and simple. Finchy can see the look in his eye, the poison.

  ‘I’ll be off then,’ says Finchy, dismissing the bastard. He jumps from the ramp, marches over the yard and out of the red gates, not looking back, not giving Webster another chance.

  ‘2–0 to the Crazy Gang,’ shouts Webster. ‘Fashanu double.’

  He shoots the cunt the finger, races across the street between the cars, up the alley that cuts through the terraces, to the station, arrives there with three minutes to spare. And they’re all there waiting, BJ, T-Gally, Jeff, Hopper, Stimmo, each with eight hours in the sack behind them and a full fucking brekky in their bellies, each spruced up for a Saturday in the smoke.

  Cunts.

  Sunday

  You traced your fingers over these walls.

  You ran through these fields.

  You played in these parks.

  You grazed your knees on these streets.

  You laughed on these corners.

  You wept on these benches.

  You drank in these pubs.

  You pissed in these alleyways.

  A morning choked with rain and peeling bells. He went to breakfast then sat about the hotel, read the Sundays, only half interested, thinking about BJ, seeking out a report on a violent showdown between rival fans at the Lincoln v Rochdale game. But there was nothing. It was Division Two for fuck’s sake. Nobody in the nationals gave a shit.

  By eleven he was lost in himself, aware only that he wasn’t checking out or heading back south, not yet. He requested another night instead.

  ‘You can have all week if you want,’ said the girl at the desk.

  ‘I might need it.’

  ‘I’ll book you in until Friday,’ she said. ‘If you want to check out at any time just let us know. A sort of daily arrangement.’

  ‘You’d do that?’

  ‘It’s a forty-room hotel and we’ve got twenty rooms empty,’ she said. ‘I think we can be flexible.’

  He went back to his room, changed and headed into the old town, letting his legs carry him, spent an hour drifting around the market streets, the narrow lanes, before traipsing up the hill in the direction of the estate. It didn’t take him long to wind up at the hulking new sports complex, the third-generation football pitch, the deserted car park, the soulless athletics stadium where Town played their games. He peered over the fence at th
e pitch, marooned as it was beyond an expanse of running track and run-off, shallow, partially covered terraces, a characterless concrete stand. It was meant to be better than the old place. It was cleaner, safer, up to scratch, but better? Was it fuck. A grand athletic stadium maybe, but it was no place for a football match. And this is what they’d discovered, the diehards from Tamworth and Guiseley, Matlock and Whitley Bay, a bland, windswept nothingness. A place to visit, tick off and instantly forget.

  Somewhere in the distance, the sounds of men shouting, the dull thud of a football. He climbed a grass embankment, stumbled upon the remaining grass pitch, sandwiched between so much concrete and tarmac, a tragic encounter, the pitch cut and bruised by wet autumn, tufts of longer grass in midfield, twenty-two blokes huffing and puffing, a couple of hardy spectators, a boy on his bicycle, an old guy with a dog, one team decked out in odd shorts and socks, manager-less (the bare eleven), rudderless, all at sea. They conceded two goals while he stood there. He watched them asking helpless questions of each other.

  The ball bobbled and deviated its way across the surface. The nets had seen better days. The goal area was a sea of mud, the goalposts a multicoloured array of torn-off tape, the remnants of a thousand Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings. The referee stood in the centre of the pitch watching it all take place around him, good for twenty quid plus expenses, good for nothing except keeping things in order, his face the picture of boredom. Beyond him, the changing rooms, daubed in graffiti, the windows covered in metal sheeting, some of the brickwork chipped away, a couple of beer bottles by the door, a third smashed into pieces. One of the corner flags was bent at the middle, lopsided, falling over. When a player tried to pull it loose to take a corner, the ref ordered him to put it back. There was a scrape of dog shit near the touchline where Finchy was standing, turds scattered by his feet, out of play, out of mind.

  Beyond the bedlam, beyond the mounds of earth, the metal fencing that separated the sports complex from everything else. He could see the empty 3G pitch more clearly from here, pristine in its unemployment, silent, dew on the fibres, a million tiny water drops. Another cheer erupted from the side that were leading. The losing keeper bellowed his disgust, hammered the ball back towards half-way. One of his teammates threatened to throw the towel in, headed for the touchline, telling his keeper to fuck off. The ref stepped in, pointed to his pocket, pointed at the sad excuse for a changing facility. The bloke thought better of it. He pulled his socks up, surrendering authority to the man in black, went steaming into the next tackle that came his way, missed ball and man, ended up on his arse in the smear of dog shit, his actions punctuated by cries from both sides, cries of ‘well in’ and ‘calm down’. The leading team were popping the ball about now, loving their morning, the losers a tragic, shambolic metaphor for the state of the game and England’s sad exit from Euro 2004.

  As he was leaving he heard the old bloke talking to the manager of the decent lot. He was pointing at the shit on the player’s back and at the 3G pitch through the fence.

  ‘You’re fucking joking,’ he said. ‘At £100 a pop? We get the grass for half that.’

  ‘Aye, and the shit to go with it,’ said the old bloke.

  They both laughed. The bloke with the shit up his back had stopped somewhere near the centre spot. The ref headed his way and blew his whistle. Twenty-one blokes turned to look at the guy with shit up his back but no fucker went over to help him remove it.

  Finchy stuffed his hands in his pockets, remembering this place at 3 p.m. on a Saturday when he was a boy, a wide open space, no sports centre, no athletic stadium, no fucking indoor bowling club, just six pitches laid out in a grid and six matches, the spaces between each pitch lined with people, him and the lads playing football behind one of the goals, using the back of the net, winding up whichever keeper was occupying the goal, racing on to the pitch at half-time for five minutes of goalmouth action, looking at the players like they were fucking heroes. He could smell the embrocation oil, the well-spent sweat, the leather of his boots. All of this to the sound of a transistor radio that barked the scores from north and south, east and west, listening out for the Forest score, listening out for Liverpool, hearing that Paisley’s boys were behind, laughing about it, shuffling home for tea at 4.30 p.m., arriving in time to watch the vidiprinter on Grandstand, watching the scores come in, Liverpool winning now, Liverpool always fucking winning.

  He wandered down the alley between the sports centre and the school, an alley formed by two twelve-foot-high metal security fences, each metal strut topped with a fuck-off spike. They might have been two prisons placed side by side, but they weren’t fucking prisons. They were anything but prisons.

  He didn’t intend to linger outside the house he’d grown up in for any great lapse of time but he did. It took a kid on a bicycle shooting past him and telling him to ‘fuck off’ to drag him out of himself, drag him to the line of shops where he wrestled with visions of the old and the new. The hairdressers, once the launderette, where his mam earned a few quid each week. The co-op, swallower of the newsagents where he’d earned his pocket money as a paperboy. The squalid council flats above. The little car park.

  He traipsed to the top of the street, on through the bollards into the jitty, made his way to the courts, feeling as conspicuous now as he’d felt when he’d first ventured beyond the threshold his parents administered when he was a child.

  He could hear his mam’s words.

  ‘Go anywhere you like but don’t go there.’

  It stuck tight for a while and then it loosened. Like everything. Of course it fucking did.

  Fuck all had changed. There were still houses displaying the damage of a warzone where no war had been fought. There were still gateposts without gates, fence posts without fencing, windows without glass, kids without clothes, lawns without grass. More satellite dishes, more cars crammed into too few spaces, more dialects, more languages, too many to mention. So that had changed.

  That and nothing else.

  The deadland was harder to locate, much of it eaten up by concrete and metal. There were modern units, clean edges, neat lines.

  And fences. There were fences.

  Fences where there had been no fences.

  Patches of the deadland. In the small unoccupied spaces the sprawl had missed. Remnants. And they responded when he stumbled upon them, spoke out to him in a quiet whisper, told him not to forget or forsake them

  Not to let them be squeezed to nothing.

  There was no fucking danger of that. To dispose of them was to dispose of himself.

  In 1980 they were going to build.

  Eight years old, trampling through the deadland, the place where the estate petered out and the great beyond began.

  The place where everything reached a standstill.

  Chewed-up fields.

  The deadland in the height of summer. Rabbit runs through the scrub. Haphazard mounds of earth.

  They were going to build.

  An unintentional landscape. The ‘mud hills’, the industrial tyres, the canisters and the timber, the discarded carpets, the pallets, the tarpaulin-covered dens, the stink, the dirt, the fucking ferocious freedom of it all.

  The money dried up.

  A dumping ground.

  Pushing through the undergrowth. Dragging bits of wood. Dragging bits of carpet. Hammer and nails. Porno mags. Ciggies.

  No, you can’t have any spends.

  Crawling deep into the growth. In groups. In gangs. Days in the deadland. Dawn to dusk. The dry heat of summer. The old town baking in the dry heat of summer.

  It doesn’t grow on effing trees.

  The deadland.

  Brown in the heat.

  Worn through.

  A deferred landscape.

  Interrupted. Forgotten. Abandoned.

  The whole fucking town and all of its people.

  The money dried up.

  He worked his way through the maze of alleys and cut-throughs towards
the canal, worked his way down to the canal bank that was clotted with algae, all detritus and stink.

  He felt his heart break.

  Kids in the deadland. Traipsing through the dead growth to the canal. Scrambling and scrabbling at the bank, flirting with the dark water.

  Children of the deadland.

  ‘An honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay,’ said Maggie.

  But there were no fucking jobs.

  He dropped in on his parents. The least he could do. The two of them pleased to see their eldest but the undercurrent always there. He was thirty-three years old. He’d been with Kelly a while now. There was still no sign of a wedding. There was still no sign of…

  He refused them access, joined them for Sunday lunch pleasantries instead, for beef and Yorkshire pudding, for apple pie and custard, then he slipped away, promising a proper visit at Christmas, him and Kelly, for a few days, so things weren’t such a rush, so his mam could get the house ready, so they could all sit down and have a good chat about everything.

  His dad accompanied him to the garden gate.

  ‘I heard about your old mate,’ said his dad. ‘So did your mother, though she didn’t want me to mention it.’

  ‘That’s why I came up,’ he said. ‘It was meant to be a flying visit.’

  He closed the gate behind him, stood there, his dad on one side, him on the other, the autumn wind buffeting the trees, his fingers on the cold iron, his dad’s fingers on the cold iron, drops of water shivering on the cold iron.

  ‘It’s about time you sorted yourself out,’ said his dad. Not a question. Never a question. ‘You’re thirty-three years old.’

  He nodded.

  ‘I am,’ he said. ‘I am.’

  When he was done with it all, when he was spent, he made his way back towards the hotel, breathing in the malt from the maltings, breathing in another clutch of memories, cutting through the tunnel under the railway, piss alley, into the town centre and on to the park where the river ambled, over the white bridge and towards the hotel, stopping off at The Lion to catch the Sunday game, eyes roving from face to face, seeking out familiarity, finding none, considering how it was possible to become so detached from a place that had raised and nurtured him at its bosom for so many years and yet so attached that he felt he could take just one unremarkable step backwards, wind up where he’d started and not even know the fucking difference.