by Danny Rhodes
‘Go and do your dying somewhere else,’ said Hopley.
‘I was just—’
‘Fuck off back down south, John, Fuck off and deal with whatever you’ve got to deal with. If you need help, go and get counselling.’
‘Neil?’
A woman’s voice calling from the end of the hall.
Hopper, over his shoulder.
‘Coming love.’
Hopper turning back. Barely a whisper now.
‘See?’
Mouthed words through gritted teeth.
‘You’re a cunt. A cunt for coming here, ploughing that shit out of the fucking ground. It’s buried. Fucking leave it there and fuck off.’
The sound of the train faded into the distance, the sound that punctuated his life through nights as a kiddie, nights as a young man, mornings on the papers, mornings on the post. Summers and winters. Every fucking weather. Hopper didn’t move. He was still stood in the doorway, seeing him on his way.
‘And keep off my fucking lawn.’
Short fucking shrift.
Finchy backed away into the night until Hopper closed the door and the hallway light went out. He crossed the road in the direction of the embankment, pulled himself up over the fencing and dropped down on the other side. He traipsed up the slope, stood there looking at the rails, the darkness bleeding in from both directions. North and south. The old town somewhere in between. He considered stepping on to the rails, laying himself prone across the fucking tracks. If the live rail didn’t take him the next HST would. But hadn’t he read somewhere that fast trains were bad for suicide? Hadn’t he read that a person was more likely to be mauled than killed outright, more likely to wind up a paraplegic, wind up with a head, a torso and nothing fucking else?
He laughed at himself in the darkness, laughed at the black slab of darkness, laughed in its sorry-arsed fucking featureless face.
He was losing his fucking mind.
Up the country, down the country.
Every fucking week.
This is what you live for.
You with your decent job.
You with a place of your own.
A flat furnished with cast-offs but yours all the same.
You with an ad in the paper, a room going spare.
It was quiet when he reached the hotel car park. A single light in the lobby. No one on reception. He was two steps from the revolving doors when two shadows appeared from the darkness.
‘John Finch,’ said one.
Hoods up, scarves tight to noses. No fucking faces.
‘How’ve you been, matey?’
The two of them blocking the doorway. One a big fucker. The eyes of the first vaguely familiar.
But it had been fifteen years.
‘Alright,’ he said. ‘How’s yourselves?’
The two of them dancing from one foot to the other, ants in their fucking pants.
‘What you been up to?’ He knew the voice too. He knew the fucking voice…
Names and faces.
Faces and names.
‘Nothing much.’
Rings on their fingers. Big fuck-off signet rings on the big fat fingers of the big fucker.
‘Try to keep it that way,’ said the smaller one.
‘Who’s fucking asking—’
One to the ribs from the big fucker, doubling him up. One to the side of the head. He felt the signet ring gouge his scalp. Pain exploded as a third punch struck his ear. He dropped to his knees on the steps of the hotel thinking ‘daft cunts’, thinking about searing fucking pain, thinking about nothing. Big hands on his collar then, big hands turning him over on to his back so he was looking up at the moon, a fucking football in the night sky behind them. The big fucker planted a trainer on the side of his face.
Thank fuck for casuals.
The smaller one leant in close, hissing in his ear.
‘Fuck off back down south. Stop giving people grief. You soft southern cunt.’
And then they were gone and he was on the stone steps, on his back, looking up at the sign for the North Hotel. The revolving doors were spinning. He heard a rushing sound, felt the air tremble. It might have been a late-night HST tearing through the old town, the Edinburgh sleeper, or it might have been the blood pumping around his fucking skull. He dabbed a bloodied paw against his head, felt the stickiness there, crawled through the revolving door and into the lobby, pulled himself to his feet and dragged himself up the stairs.
In Room 11, thinking about Brian fucking Rice and a magical day at Highbury, he turned on the shower and undressed, stepped under the hot water. He felt the sharp sting as the jet of water struck the side of his head and watched the water turn pink about his feet. He stood like that in the shower for ten fucking minutes, hardly moving, shivering with shock, considering heading back where he’d come from, to a different kind of life, knowing it wasn’t an option, not yet.
Too much was unfinished. Too much hadn’t even fucking started.
A full year and more before Hillsborough.
New Year’s Eve. Her in a group, timid, sheltering amongst the rest. Him catching her eye, holding on to it.
Asking for a name.
Jen White.
Walking her out of the pub at last orders, walking her to the taxi rank. Standing on the corner of the street in the chill evening air, lads and lasses planting New Year’s kisses on each other, too fucking nervous to make his move even as the taxi driver calls her name.
Asking to see her again.
You find yourself a flatmate.
A friend of a friend.
He works all night and sleeps all day.
You never see each other.
In many ways it’s the perfect arrangement.
9th January 1988
FA Cup Round 3
Halifax Town 0 v 4 Nottingham Forest
The Shay
The Shay in January. Bleak, brutal January. The Bus Garage end. A speedway track. An amphitheatre. Lifeless, bare branched trees. The proverbial banana skin. But not this year. Not fucking this time. Too early to get excited but not too early to dream.
Because there is only the league and the FA Cup to play for.
30th January 1988
FA Cup Round 4
Leyton Orient 1 v 2 Nottingham Forest
Brisbane Road
In the seats at Brisbane Road. Calvin Plummer netting the winner against the run of play.
One-nil down, two-one up.
Jammy bastards, riding their luck.
A sense of something in motion.
On the bus, on Bob’s bus, on the way home, you dare to talk of a Cup run. You dare to imagine such a thing.
Rock City on the Thursday evening. The Wedding Present. Finchy, Gav and Stimmo rammed into T-Gally’s mini. Parking up in the Broadmarsh multi-storey. Pushing through the crowd, pushing right to the fucking barrier to watch Gedge play at one hundred miles an hour. Gedge singing for the broken-hearted, pouring out his soul.
Granadaland.
Brassneck.
A high-speed world of melancholy.
Clever, witty, beautiful bastard.
Blur of wrists on guitar. One hundred minutes of ecstasy thinking, ‘This is it. This is who I am.’
Out into the winter evening, slick with sweat and the sweat of others. Buzzing. Fucking buzzing. Ears ringing. Feeling the cold coming on, no fucking jacket, just a rag of a T-shirt, arguing over the set list and the merits of an encore.
Their breaths trail behind them in the midnight shadows.
And that fucking mini. They clamber back into it, Finchy and Stimmo in the back, Gav in the passenger seat, T-Gally turning the ignition and lifting the gear stick into reverse, the thing coming away in his fucking hand like a Laurel and Hardy sketch. Breaking into fits of laughter. T-Gally climbing out of the car, standing there in the empty multi-storey with the gear stick in his grip, open-mouthed, not wanting to laugh, unable to stop himself, scrawling a note on the back of the Weddoes ticket and sho
ving it on the dashboard, the four of them sprinting for the last train, tearing through the Nottingham streets, work just five hours away, crashing on the train, waking at the old town station, slipping into the flat and into bed, wishing Jen was sleeping over to keep him warm.
On a night like this.
Waking at five with a pounding head, thinking about Gedge singing ‘I’m not always so stupid’, heading out into the morning, already late, hating the bastard job for its lack of consideration. Fingers burning with cold, hating that too, but picturing the moment, the fucking gear stick coming away in T-Gally’s grip, arriving at the depot with a grin tattooed on his face, a fucking story to tell, Harcross at the signing-in book, marking the time.
‘I’ll make it up.’
‘I know you fucking will.’
‘I was at a gig. Wedding Present. Rock City.’
Harcoss nods, knowing his stuff.
‘Rock City. I saw The Specials there…’
Sliding away in the direction of his frame. Harcross calling him back.
‘My mate’s car broke down.’
He starts laughing again. He can’t help himself.
‘The fucking gear stick came clean off in his hand. It’s not funny but…’
Harcross laughs louder still.
‘Not funny? It’s fucking hilarious.’
Harcross shouts down the line of frames after him.
‘Half an hour on the table when you get back in.’
Half a fucking hour.
He turns to the frame to see Spence there, grinning, the frame piled high with shit.
‘Afternoon.’
Head still ringing from the music and the beer, he sits at the frame doing his thing, watching the other men drift out of the office, until there’s just him there, stuffing the bundles of letters into bag number two, trying desperately not to let it get to three of the fuckers.
‘Still here?’
Harcross.
‘Look at it all. And you want me in for half an hour when I get back?’
‘Half an hour keeps your poor time-keeping off your record. Unless you’d rather…’
‘Nope.’
‘And you owe me for tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘Aye.’
‘What about tomorrow?’
‘Southampton?’
‘Too fucking right.’
’10.08 train?’
‘If I’m lucky.’
‘You’re not.’
Harcross points to a pile of sacks in the corner.
‘What are they?’
‘What do you think?’
Harcross runs a finger across his throat.
‘You’re joking.’
Harcross shakes his head and mouths ‘phone bills’.
‘On a Saturday?’
Harcross shrugs.
‘So what do I owe you for?’
‘Letting you take them out Monday.’
‘Serious?’
‘Who wants a bad-news bill like that on a Saturday? You can take them out Monday. That’ll cheer the bastards.’
Harcross.
One of the management but forever one of the boys.
Tuesday
Tuesday. Lunchtime. Big new pub on the fringe of the old town.
The deadland.
Insipid shrubbery. Bedding and borders, parking and playground.
Stained October light. Sombre sky. Sat in a booth nursing a pint, the table littered with meal deal leaflets.
He heard the belly laugh before anything else.
Jeff-er-y.
‘John fucking Finch. How are you, serri?’
More belly laughter. It carried him back to happier times, to sun-kissed terraces, to season-ticket Saturdays in the Lower fucking Tier.
City Ground, Oh mist rolling in from the Trent…
‘Jeff.’
He stood up, shook the hand of a long-lost brother.
The waitress came over.
‘Hello, love,’ said Jeff. ‘A pint of your best, please. We’ll order food in a bit.’
‘Your local?’
‘My pub mate. Or one of my pubs. I work for the brewery. They know what I like because I sold it to them!’
Jeffery. A lifetime in ale.
‘You were in insurance…’
‘Fifteen years ago, mate. Fifteen years ago. It was shit. This is better. What about you?’
‘Teacher.’
An exaggerated ingestion of air.
‘I’d kill them or shag them,’ he said. ‘Either way I’d end up in the nick.’
More belly laughter. No fucker noticing. No fucker caring. Some bird in heels tottering past, carrying her better days with her.
‘Remember that one?’
Finchy looked over his shoulder. He didn’t remember. He couldn’t remember.
‘Sally Watson? Smithy’s ex?’
Smithy. Another name stirring in the silt.
‘He caught her with Wilt.’
A blank canvas.
‘Wilt. Sheep shagger. Fat cunt.’
Finchy shook his head.
‘Imagine your missus done over by a Derby fan. The fucking shame.’
Jeff fell to silent pondering.
‘You haven’t changed,’ said Finchy.
‘None of us change,’ said Jeff. Jeff-er-y. ‘We just get older.’
Finchy thought about Hopper, his blurred shape behind the frosted glass.
‘Anyway, what brings you up this way?’ Jeff asked. ‘I thought you’d defected south.’
‘I came up for the funeral,’ he said.
‘Funny,’ said Jeff. ‘I didn’t see you there.’
‘I didn’t go,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t face it.’
The waitress brought a beer over. Jeff took a mouthful, wiped the froth from his top lip.
‘It was alright,’ he said. ‘Considering what happened. Stupid bastard.’
A lull. A moment. The two of them supping their pints. Two kids laughing in the booth behind them. Hardly a place for mourning the living or the dead.
‘I should have gone,’ said Finchy. ‘I meant to go.’
‘Aye, but you didn’t. Anyway, now it’s done.’
‘Did you see him much?’
‘Only around town. He stopped going to football years ago.’
‘You still go then?’
‘Aye. Sixteen season-ticket years and counting. Impressive stuff, eh?’
Another mouthful of ale.
‘Gasping,’ said Jeff. ‘He was with that ex of yours. Did you know that? What’s her fucking name?’
‘Jen.’
‘Aye. What she saw in him I’ll never know. Mind you, she went out with you. Pair of cunts.’
More laughter. Infectious laughter that got others laughing. Laughter punctuating everything. A soundtrack to a life.
‘Are you married? I’m fucking married. Shouldn’t complain, though. ’Er indoors looks after me. Sticks my tea on the table. Top bird. Got any kids? I’ve a daughter. Light of my days…’
‘Fiancée,’ said Finchy. ‘No kids…’
‘You’d best get on with it then, mate. Before she fucks off with someone who will…’
Finchy thought of Kelly, of their house in the close, the spare bedroom, an empty shell.
‘I saw BJ the other day.’
‘The notorious BJ. Fat cunt. He knows some hard fuckers.’
‘Took me to watch City.’
Mocking laughter.
‘He’s still fucking going there? You know why? They banned him. He goes to City because he can get away with it. He doesn’t go for the football. Not these days. Every fucker knows what he goes for.’
‘His ban’s expired. He says it’s more honest.’
‘That may be. Still shit, though.’
Another lull. The supping of pints. The two of them off somewhere distant, a northern train station perhaps, a face-off with some random fucking crew, BJ piling in, the rest of them keeping their distance.
‘Aye. I went over last week. Paid my respects.’
‘I need to do that,’ he said. He recalled his dream, the endless procession of people on the banks of the Trent. Had he dreamed it? Could he be certain he’d dreamed it?
The waitress came over. In the nick of time…
‘Steak please, love,’ said Jeff. ‘Medium.’
‘Same,’ said Finchy.
The waitress wheeled away.
‘Look at the arse on that,’ said Jeff.
The same roving eyes.
‘I’m still a dirty bastard,’ said Jeff. ‘I haven’t changed. Women, beer and Forest, that’ll do me. Not necessarily in that order mind. Oh and her indoors. And Lilly. Fuck everything else.
More laughter.
Jeff-er-y, a never-ending source of amusement to himself.
There were things Finchy wanted to ask but it wasn’t the right time, not today. It was enough just to be there, to sit opposite this bloke from his ponderous past, to drag the years back, to help each other seek out lost moments, to chew the fat off some long-lost away day neither of them could truly remember yet neither of them could truly forget.
‘Are you going to pay her a visit?’ asked Jeff, when all seemed done with, when all the vaults were opened. They were stood in the car park amidst the rush of distant traffic.
‘Jen?’
‘Who else?’
Finchy shrugged.
‘Do you know where she lives?’
Jeff nodded.
‘Yes, mate,’ he said. ‘I was there on Friday. For the wake. I think you should. I think it’s the least you can do.’
Some day.
One day.
Jen’s birthday.
Rain and wind.
Wind and rain.
The walk is a two bag bastard. The walk is an estate mired in a bleak nothingness. The walk is a sopping-wet card in a pink envelope, crushed red roses.
She’s waiting on the doorstep when he reaches the flat, a drowned flower. His heart swells.
‘How long have you been here?’
She looks at her watch.
‘Forty minutes,’ she says.
‘Do you not have college?’ he asks.
‘I’m not going in,’ she says.