by Danny Rhodes
He lets her in the flat. They climb the stairs.
‘I’ll stick the kettle on,’ she says. ‘And I’ll run you a bath.’
He undresses in the bathroom, sinks into the hot water. She brings him a mug of tea and undresses herself.
‘Why not?’ she says.
She climbs in and sits opposite him, all soft flesh and soap suds. He lifts the mug of tea to his lips.
‘You’re amazing,’ he says. ‘I should be looking after you.’
She smiles.
‘I do my best,’ she says.
They spend the day in the flat. They could go out but they stay in, comfortable in each other’s company.
It’s like that.
It’s effortless.
John Finch and Jen White.
An inseparable item.
His mates taking the piss and him not caring.
His mates on the piss and him not bothering.
Days becoming weeks becoming months.
A beautiful thing.
Another street, another doorbell, the old part of the old town. Terraced houses laid row upon row around the shell of the factory that wasn’t, the factory that died a slow death through his early years, dumping men like his father, skilled men.
Nervous as fuck outside this two-up, two-down, nervous of how she might respond to finding him on her doorstep.
All these years later.
She came to the threshold in jogging bottoms and a sweatshirt, smoking, the air behind the door thick with the stuff. He coughed. Before he could speak she was on to him.
‘I fucking knew you’d turn up,’ she said. ‘Not at the service. I knew you wouldn’t have the guts for that.’
‘I was going to come,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t…’
Weak in spite of himself.
‘Couldn’t what?’
He bit down on his bottom lip.
‘Do you think I could? Do you think any of us could? But we fucking well did…’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘I don’t give a fuck,’ she said.
He didn’t move. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t leave either. The smoke found the open doorway, escaped into the evening.
Stalemate.
‘You’d best come in then,’ she said.
Tuesday evening. Coronation Street. Cigarette smoke. Alcohol. A living room distorted by loss, at odds with itself.
‘Drink?’
She pointed to a half-bottle of vodka on the fireplace. He shook his head. He realised she was older.
‘I’m not a drinker,’ she said. ‘Someone left it here after the wake…’
Lost for words.
‘What brings you back this way?’
Was she fucking kidding?
‘I’m visiting a few people,’ he said. ‘After what happened I thought I should.’
‘You should have been here Friday.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. Again.
Just the TV. The sound off. Water shifting in the pipes.
‘I didn’t know about you two,’ he said.
‘Fucking hell,’ she said. ‘Is that what this is about?’
‘I’m just saying.’
‘If you spoke to your mate you might have found out. Or if you spoke to me…’
‘I lost touch,’ he said. Then he added, ‘With everyone.’
‘You cut us off,’ she said. ‘You forgot about us.’
‘I didn’t forget. I remember everything…’
Everything.
He looked at her. She was staring at the TV. She’d put on weight, become a woman. Of course she had. It was fifteen fucking years.
And she looked tired. She looked strung out.
Who fucking wouldn’t?
‘He never said anything,’ she said. ‘I didn’t have a fucking clue.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ he said.
‘Five years. Two in this house. Sharing this sofa every night. Getting ready for work. Coming home. Going out. Shopping. Holidays. Visiting parents. Breakfast. Dinner. Tea. Bed…’
‘Jen…’
‘… and I didn’t have a clue. Nobody told me. Nobody fucking told me.’
‘Jen…’
‘Fucking Forest shirt. He was never interested in football. He always let me have my telly on. He never went to games. He never played…’
‘It might not have been that.’
‘What?’
Anger welling behind her eyes.
‘I’m just saying.’
‘Don’t fucking say. Don’t you dare.’
She took a swig of vodka, grimaced, took another.
‘I don’t even like this shit,’ she said.
‘Do you want me to put the kettle on?’
‘There’s no milk,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing to go with it. Only this.’
She raised the bottle.
‘I could get some…’
‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you? A chance to fuck off again…’
‘I’ll come back.’
‘I might not want you to come back. I might not want you here. But you’re fucking here, aren’t you?’
He got up. She shook her head.
‘Don’t you dare fucking go,’ she said. ‘Not until I say so.’
He sat back down again. In the almost silence he could hear Coronation Street ending, not in this house, in the house next door, the misery-laden soundtrack to a life. For a moment he was eight years old again, away to bed, his dad on nights, his mam settling down with the TV, the sound creeping up the stairs, him trapped in darkness, the clock in the living room chiming. And winter. Always fucking winter.
‘You’d think someone would have said something. Watch for that. Keep an eye out. You know. His mum. His dad. His mates. Nobody said a fucking thing. So how was I supposed to know? When the police came, when they started asking questions, I felt like a fucking idiot. A fucking Forest shirt? I thought they’d got the wrong bloke. I told them to go and check again. I even thought it might be you…’
She laughed.
‘No such fucking luck…’
She coughed into her glass, took another drag of the cigarette.
‘He kept it in a suitcase, in the garage. He got up, left me in bed, brought me a cup of tea, went into the garage, put that fucking shirt on and off he went. I heard his van like I always do, thought, that’s him gone for the day, time to get myself up. Except he didn’t go to work. He went to that fucking hut instead. The selfish fucking bastard.’
She threw the glass across the room, started bawling.
He got to his feet, went to hold her. It was all he could think to do with himself.
‘Don’t you touch me,’ she snarled. ‘Don’t you fucking touch me.’
But he held her anyway, gripped her tight, hooking his arms around her, shushing her, rocking on his heels, rocking them both until she stopped struggling, stopped fighting, until she was only whimpering in his arms and he held her like that for an age more, refusing to let go, not wanting to let go, feeling fucking useful at last, feeling like a fucking human being for the first time in weeks, since it all kicked off with Kelly about kids and family and the seemingly impossible idea of a future together.
20th February 1988
FA Cup Round 5
Birmingham City 0 v 1 Nottingham Forest
St Andrew’s
Dismal, dull February.
Drab and dire February.
St Andrews. Birmingham B9. Heading down Garrison Lane and across the waste ground to the back of the away terrace.
Ripe for fucking ambush.
The police on their horses.
The police in their white vans.
The police and their truncheons.
Everything kicking off on the waste ground.
A battleground.
Amidst naked trees and naked skies.
The Tilton Road end steep and wide, packed to the rafters. Ten thousand mighty Reds. Bitter atmosphere on a bitter afternoon. No love lo
st. Not here. Not today.
And not much between these two Midland sides, not much separating one from the other, just a classic Forest counter-attack, a loose ball dropping to Gary Crosby, Gary Crosby firing home the only goal at the Railway end.
You delirious on the Tilton Road terrace.
You and BJ and Hopper and Jeff and T-Gally and Gav and JC and Sharpster.
And Stimmo.
All of you delirious.
The reds go marching ON, ON, ON…
Somehow he found himself propped on the sofa, her leant against him, a film on the TV, light-hearted, irrelevant, easy. He felt her drop into sleep, relax into regular breaths. He sat watching the screen, sipping vodka because there was nothing else, trying not to think, trying to remain in the moment and not slip backward through fifteen years to nights like this one on the yellow sofa in his upstairs flat, her over for the night, the borrowed furniture, the mismatched lampshades, empty cupboards. His first forays into independent living. He told himself he wasn’t guilty of anything, told himself that over and over. He’d come to pay his respects. That was all.
To pay his respects. He could hardly fucking believe it.
When the film ended he sat for half an hour, not wanting to move, not wanting to wake her, using the remote to flick through an endless stream of channels, unable to connect with anything. And so he sat for another hour, eyes half shut, drifting where the vodka took him, until she stirred, sat up, grounded herself.
He looked at the clock. It was almost 2 a.m.
‘I’d best go,’ he said.
She got to her feet, disappeared upstairs, left him sitting there, awkward, wanting to leave now, wanting to leave in the right way, satisfied he’d achieved what he came for, offered some empathy. He heard the toilet flush, her footfall on the stairs. She returned to the living room, came right out and said it.
‘You can stay here.’
He didn’t move. She laughed at his awkwardness.
‘Listen,’ she said. ‘That’s the first time I’ve slept since this nightmare started. I need someone here.’
‘Your family?’
She shook her head, laughed.
‘If you want…’ he said, ‘… I can sleep here, no trouble.’
He patted the sofa.
She shook her head again.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Sleep next to me.’
He realised his head was spinning. He glanced at the empty vodka bottle.
‘Please,’ she said.
‘What if somebody finds out,’ he said, pathetically.
‘I don’t fucking care,’ she said. ‘I don’t give a shit what anyone thinks. They can think whatever they like.’
She turned her back to him and walked out of the room. He heard her climbing the stairs.
‘Do what you want,’ she said.
He got to his feet, stood there in the living room, staring about himself, thinking of Stimmo at Leicester, steaming in with BJ and the others, Stimmo on Bob’s bus, Everton away, laid out on the back seat covered in his own puke, Stimmo a dead weight in a dark shed by the railway tracks, the quiet creak of the rope against the beam, a passing train sending him rocking into a crack of daylight. And he thought of Stimmo on the steep terrace at Hillsborough, those three words falling from his mouth, the very moment he changed to somebody with whom none of them were able to correlate.
‘He’s fucking dead.’
And now Stimmo was dead.
He thought about Kelly. He pictured the spotless kitchen, the meticulous living room, the narrow staircase, the dark landing, the bedroom door. He tried to picture beyond it but came up against his barrier.
Time and time and time again.
He looked at the front door, his exit point, heard the wind buffeting the wood, considered the blustery street beyond. He imagined himself trudging back to the hotel, collar up, his footsteps echoing through the old town’s narrow lanes, out on to the High Street, up the hill to that bed in the room with the windows that wouldn’t fucking open. He was pissed for fuck’s sake. He wasn’t sure he’d make it. And what if those two nasty fuckers were about, eager to give him another seeing to?
What then?
All excuses of course. Because he couldn’t do it to her, not again, couldn’t leave her so coldly, so fucking selfishly.
Not tonight.
The bedroom window was open. Did she remember? Did she open it for his sake? She was already beneath the covers. He took off his jeans, slipped in beside her, lay there for a minute staring at the ceiling, wondering if she’d changed the fucking sheets since…
… and then she moved closer to him, pressed herself against him. He pulled her in until she was wrapped up in his warmth, closed his eyes.
Scared shitless.
But she fell asleep in seconds, left him marooned in darkness and staring at the gap in the curtains, listening to the rain drumming against the roof tiles. He tried to let himself go, to feel the same as she did perhaps, as though the world beyond the window had retreated a notch, just for a little while, just for a few hours, that it didn’t matter if it was 1989 or 2004, that fifteen years had compressed to form a seamless stretch of a moment they could inhabit as their own.
But if there was such a place he couldn’t reach her there. He lay awake in a black vault instead, watching grainy scenes repeat themselves on the ceiling above him, shameful acts of heartless selfishness in black and white, splashes of colour for the odd times he made her smile.
And he does make her smile. Through a winter and a spring. Nights at hers with her mam and dad, her sister, her brother.
Nights in his flat, just the two of them.
Sometimes, afterwards, she falls asleep with her head on his chest. He lays awake and strokes her hair, breathes in the scent of her perfume, feels the warmth of her body against his own. He has yearned for this, a connection like this, a wholeness like this one.
For a time he feels himself wanting for nothing else.
He can’t imagine a scenario in which they won’t be together forever.
That’s how young he is.
That’s how much living he’s yet to experience.
Wednesday
He was awake when dawn broke, as still as death itself, staring at the crack in the curtains, willing the new morning to come, terrified of hearing a knock at the door, the click of a key in a lock, imagining any number of visitors; her mum; her sister; her brother. One of Stimmo’s lot.
But nobody came.
She was still sleeping, pressed against him. He felt sick in the stomach, imagining her waking from futile dreams to find him there and not Stimmo.
He shouldn’t have stayed. He should have looked after number one.
Ever the selfish bastard.
When the sun came bleeding through the curtains he put some space between the two of them, eased his skin free of her skin, manoeuvred his body to the edge of the bed. She stirred and he closed his eyes, pretending to sleep, to be comfortable where he was. She rose from the bed with her back to him. Through narrowed eyes he watched her naked silhouette against the curtain. He closed his eyes as she turned to face him, felt her watching him. He lay there wanting to believe that when he opened his eyes again he’d be back in Room 11 at the hotel, that all of this was a desperate fucking dream of his own.
He heard her leave the room, heard her pull the door shut quietly behind her, heard the rush of a tap in the bathroom. He tried to sit up in Stimmo’s bed, feeling the room spin, his stomach burn, the vodka returning to punish him. He placed his bare feet on the carpet, prepared himself, shifted his weight on to his legs. The rush of blood caused him to stumble forward into the chair his clothes were draped across. He reached out an arm, steadied himself against the wall. Then he fought to dress himself. It was all he could do to keep his balance as he stepped from one leg to the other, to stop his head from swimming, to prevent his stomach from going into spasm. He managed everything except his socks.
Footsteps on the stai
rs. She came into the room in her dressing gown carrying two mugs of black tea, passed one to him, sat on the edge of the bed, staring at that same crack in the curtains, at the same slice of sky beyond. He watched her, uncertain what to do with himself.
‘Thanks,’ she said at last.
He didn’t say anything. He was lost for fucking words.
The two of them, sipping at steaming black tea in silence, her on the edge of the bed, him sat upright, his back propped against the wall.
‘You left so quickly,’ she said.
‘Jen…’
‘Shut up. Just let me get all of this out,’ she said. She brushed at her knee with the palm of her hand. ‘It took me a long time to get over you leaving the way you did.’
‘It was eight months,’ he said. ‘February to October. All drawn out. I didn’t just…’
She turned to look at him.
‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Please, don’t. We were still sleeping with each other in August.’
‘You wouldn’t leave things…’
‘I was barely eighteen.’
‘Your sister…’
‘My sister?’
‘She came to the flat.’
‘My sister.’
‘I had all that coming at me, wedding plans, bridesmaids’ dresses, your mam and dad…’
She shook her head.
‘It was the engagement party,’ he said. ‘That’s what started it. They were all asking about us.’
‘You daft prick. Do you think I wanted what she wanted?’
He stared at his socks on the chair.
She stood up, went to the window and pulled the curtain open, stood there looking down on the street. ‘I just want you to listen,’ she said. ‘I don’t want you to say anything, just fucking listen. Then you can do what the fuck you want.’
She turned to look at him. He nodded silently in her direction.
‘When you left I threw myself at someone else,’ she said. ‘I ended up moving in with him.’
She looked down at herself, seemed to consider her appearance for the first time then dismiss the thought with a knowing laugh. Or something like that. He was no fucking expert.
‘I lived with that bloke for three years,’ she said. ‘And I spent a lot of that time thinking about you, even though you were miles away living another fucking life, even though you were a bastard to me in all sorts of ways. I’d get up and stare out of the window at the same fucking streets morning after morning and I’d think to myself you know something, he was right to do it, right to fuck off, but then I’d hear another voice telling me he could have taken you with him, he could have saved the both of you and that was enough to make me hate you for an hour or so, just long enough to get another day kicked off, then the whole sorry scenario would repeat itself…’