Fan

by Danny Rhodes

  ‘Saved?’

  She looked directly at him, shook her head.

  ‘When that sham ended I had to move back home. It was a disaster. My brother was kicking off big time, everybody this close to murdering each other. I saw you one Christmas around then. You were home for the holidays, out with your old mates. You sailed right past me, didn’t even bat an eyelid…’

  ‘I didn’t see…’

  ‘Shut up,’ she said. ‘I know you didn’t. I remember thinking to myself he didn’t fucking look at you. What the fuck have you done to yourself? I gave up for a while after that, stopped going out, stopped bothering. I tried the ‘concentrate on a career’ thing. That was a joke. I ended up having meaningless flings with blokes at work, did my fucking reputation the world of good. Another fucking story. And then, when I finally got to going out again I met Stimmo and would you credit it, he was another shadow of the fucking past.’

  She smiled an ironic smile.

  ‘I met him in town,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know who he was. He came straight up to me. He said he knew me as your ex and that you were a fucking silly prick for breaking up with me and fucking off.’

  He supped his black tea, tried not to grimace.

  ‘I nearly didn’t bother. But he was a perfect gent,’ she said. ‘I told myself I could do with a bit of that, a bit of fucking appreciation for a change. Nobody treated me like he did. I’ve been on a pedestal for the past five years…’

  He forced a smile. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d been so aware of himself, of his movements, of the expression he was exhibiting, of how someone might read those things.

  ‘I fucking hated that pedestal,’ she said. ‘I saw other men behind his back. I blame you for that.’ She pointed to herself. ‘So this isn’t some broken body wracked with grief for a dead boyfriend. It’s someone who’s riddled with guilt over what they did to a good man. Or what they didn’t fucking do.’

  He saw anger welling in her eyes again, the same anger surfacing and re-surfacing.

  ‘I could lie to you,’ she said. ‘I could tell you I stopped thinking about you, got over you in a flash, but I didn’t. You were always fucking there. Even when I had a man that would do anything for me I had to keep him at arm’s length. I tormented the poor bastard really. I don’t think he ever felt he truly had me. And now this…’

  ‘What he did has nothing to do with you,’ he said

  ‘How the fuck do you know?’

  He made a move to get out of the bed, felt the same sharp pain behind his eyes.

  ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘You aren’t fucking going anywhere.’

  She moved across the room to the doorway, slammed it shut, stood there with her back against it.

  ‘Let me tell you something,’ she said. ‘This has everything to do with me. I’ll live with this for the rest of my life because I should have cared more, made him feel wanted, made him feel loved.’

  ‘Maybe he was happy loving you.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I should have married him. He asked me enough times. Soon, I kept saying. Soon. And in my head I was thinking just one more night with someone else, one more encounter that wasn’t what he was laying on the table, which was solidity and settlement and a future together. And he must have known. He fucking must have. This town’s too small to keep those things quiet. But he never fucking challenged me, never said anything. And then he goes and does this to himself and people tell me it’s all because of a fucking football match.

  He stared at her.

  ‘Even if it is I should have known about that because I should have been open to him telling me. But I wasn’t. I didn’t fucking listen to him and I didn’t know anything about it. I should have made the connection, but he wasn’t like you. He didn’t bother with football.’

  ‘He never said anything?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About football? About Forest?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Do you know something else?’ she said. ‘Do you want to hear something truly fucking horrendous? Do you want to know what sort of person I really am?’

  He didn’t say anything. He didn’t do anything. He just sat there on the bed, marooned in the covers, his back against the wall.

  ‘I’ve had this thing going through my head,’ she said. ‘This thing that keeps telling me I don’t even get the satisfaction of knowing he did what he did because of me. I get questions instead. Questions and more questions, about fucking football and that fucking day you all went to a match and came back changed. Everybody’s been telling me about it. And all I can think about is you. You not calling me to tell me you were okay. Me hearing it on the radio and not even knowing what fucking end you were in. Waiting and waiting by the fucking phone, becoming more and more convinced that something had happened to you, that you were in the midst of it all. Fuck, when I picture that day and what you put me through I can hardly believe I’m stood here speaking to you, that I forgave you for putting me through that anguish. And my mam, and my dad. All of us. But you didn’t give a fuck.’

  She crashed the door with her fist.

  ‘I blame that day,’ she said. ‘I blame that day for everything that happened between us. You were happy before and miserable after. You were satisfied before and restless after. You were one person and then you were someone else. But I didn’t know Stimmo was there too. Nobody told me. He never told me. So I got it twice, didn’t I. Once and then again. You and Stimmo. What are the chances?’

  He sat there in silence. Truly found out. Truly exposed.

  ‘Kenny Dalglish,’ he said at last. ‘Three fucking times.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’

  They fell into silence. The curtain twitched in the breeze. He thought about the street below, encroaching footsteps.

  Eventually she asked him, ‘What’s it like down there?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Down south.’

  ‘The same,’ he said. ‘More expensive. The people aren’t so friendly…’

  ‘But you’re happy you went?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘It was fifteen years ago. I had to…’

  She stared back at him.

  ‘I had to do something,’ he said. ‘Before it was too late.’

  ‘Because your life was so fucking awful?’

  ‘Because I could see the next forty years in front of me, the lifers at the PO, intelligent blokes just going through the motions. I wanted more than what they had…’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And nothing. I’m not sure what they had was so bad, not now, but then … then I was certain…’

  He put his tea down.

  ‘… and frightened,’ he said. ‘Of what people wanted for us.’

  ‘My sister. My perfect fucking sister.’ She spewed laughter at him. ‘So now you’re back…’

  ‘To sort some things,’ he said.

  He could remember her now. Scenes were flooding back, the dam well and truly breached. He could see the uncertain seventeen-year-old, see her in the town pubs in the early days, him all stoked up with jealousy, terrified of losing what he’d discovered, and he could see her naked and unwanted in his bed eighteen months down the line, how she’d come to represent the very thing he needed to escape from, the town and everything in it, everything that had happened. He remembered the things he’d done to her in those desperate months when he didn’t have the fucking decency to turn her away from his door, always inviting her in, throwing down crumbs of hope, making a fucking mess. And here he was all these years later propped up in her bed, wondering once again how the fuck he was going to slide away, knowing it had to start with him getting his socks on and getting out of the bedroom, knowing there was that and then everything else to get through before he returned from whence he came … or crawled back under his fucking stone.

  He saw the woman she grew into before he left, how he’d aged her. And he saw h
er looking at him now, staring across the room at him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Everything,’ he said. ‘All of it.’

  ‘We’re all sorry,’ she said.

  She followed him down the stairs to the front door. He stopped there, waiting to be shown out, not wanting it to look like he was running away again, both of them clear that it was exactly what he was doing, still terrified the door might burst open, that he’d be discovered there in his old mate’s house with his old mate’s girlfriend.

  His old mate’s fucking widow.

  And then he was out of there, back in the light, staring across the old town at the grand old church spire, thinking of the hotel and a cooked breakfast, thinking of Kelly, thinking how long this whole fucking charade might be set to go on for. Kids were making their way to school, the same uniforms, the boys in their black blazers heading one way, burdened with bags, urgent in their steps, the brown-jacketed others heading in the opposite direction, sauntering, hands in pockets, hardly a bag between them.

  And never the twain shall meet…

  Nothing changing in the old town.

  And why the fuck should it have? It was fifteen years, the blink of an eye. Or it was half a lifetime. It was one of those things.

  When he turned to look over his shoulder to see her still stood in the doorway in her dressing gown, her eyes red from crying, he knew he’d see her again before the mess was cleaned up. He couldn’t leave things half-baked with her again.

  He just couldn’t.

  12th March 1988

  FA Cup Quarter-Final

  Arsenal 1 v 2 Nottingham

  Forest Highbury

  Monday lunchtime. The Cup draw on the radio.

  Not Arsenal away. Not Arsenal away. Not fucking Arsenal away.

  ‘Arsenal … will play … Nottingham Forest’.

  Arsenal away.

  You’re straight to a phone, making your plans.

  A week later you take a train to the City Ground. You queue in the car park. You queue with the lads. You queue for hours. You hold the ticket in the palm of your hands. You kiss the ticket.

  You are going to Highbury with eight thousand brothers.

  And here you are, at Highbury in March.

  Incessant rain.

  The Clock end rammed with a solid fucking mass of dreamers. Wilkinson rifles one in from twenty-five yards to ignite incandescent ecstasy and a dream becomes something tangible. The tricky trees are in full flow, soaking up pressure and springing from deep, caressing the football, keeping it on the turf. The beautiful, beautiful game. Clough Snr the master, Clough Jnr the apprentice with the vision of a seer, slipping Brian Rice in on goal. Brian Rice all on his own in the Arsenal half. Brian Rice bearing down on the Clock end, bearing down on the Arsenal goal.

  Not Brian Rice. Not fucking Brian Rice. Any fucker but Brian Rice.

  The Sunday fucking People…

  Going, going, gone! Rice springs the Arsenal offside trap, lifts the ball over Lukic and the Gunners are out of the Cup.

  Three photographs. Your fans erupting in stages behind the goal, grainy faces etched in anticipation, in wonder, in delirium.

  The cult of Brian Rice is born.

  Brian Rice, journeyman, born in Bellshill, Lanarkshire, a Nottingham legend in his time. Robin Hood, eat your fucking heart out. All together to the tune of ‘Yellow Submarine’:

  Number One is Brian Rice, Number Two is Brian Rice, Number Three is Brian Rice…

  Highbury in the rain. Drenched to the bone in the Clock end. Sambas soggy. Gooners not happy. Your coach pelted with bricks and mortar. Your coach attacked by a thousand angry fists.

  Cocooned. Not giving a shit. Face pressed against the window, aggravating the fuckers with wanker signs and middle fucking fingers, not even flinching when the blows come at the glass.

  Because you are there, at Highbury.

  And you are on your way to an FA Cup Semi-Final.

  Knackered. Sick to the stomach.

  Guilty of nothing. Guilty of everything.

  He slept for six hours, cocooned in the room with the windows that wouldn’t open, sunlight streaming in. The room too hot, robbed of air. Unable to breathe. His head pounding, his legs numb, his arms two dead weights.

  Unable to breathe.

  Unable to breathe.

  The sound of screaming woke him, high-pitched, incessant screaming. He opened his eyes, sucked in a lungful of nothing. The phone in his room was ringing. It took him a moment to locate it, the phone on the dresser, out of reach. He dragged his forlorn body across the space, lifted the receiver, confused, uncertain, hardly with it.

  ‘Hello?’

  His voice a dry croak, the taste of vodka still lingering, his stomach lurching.

  Starving.

  ‘Mr Finch. It’s reception. There’s a call for you.’

  ‘A call?’

  ‘Shall I put it through?’

  ‘I suppose so…’ he said.

  A click. A crackle. A voice he didn’t recognise.

  ‘John Finch?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, more alert now, imagining the fucking police or something, thinking of Kelly, a tragic discovery, the fucking madness of that evening.

  But it wasn’t the police.

  ‘Can you hear me? Can you hear me good and clear?’

  Hard-edged. Local. Threatening.

  ‘I can hear you,’ he said.

  ‘Stay away from Jen White, you sick fucking cunt.’

  The line went dead.

  He sat up, his heart beating ten to the fucking dozen, trying to rouse himself, to put voices to faces, not having a clue where to start. He felt the convulsions then, the bile in his throat, struggled to the bathroom, threw up in the toilet. On his knees in the old town, vomit on his lips, vomit in the toilet bowl, the bitter smell of vomit and vodka all around him. He vomited again, planted his forehead on the cold toilet bowl, ten thousand nails in his skull. Ten thousand nails and ten thousand hammers.

  Guilty of nothing.

  Guilty of everything.

  He milled about in the hotel room for the rest of the afternoon, a living corpse, thinking about Jen and Stimmo, about trouble pouring through an open door. He thought about other doors too, closed fucking doors and the secrets they contained. He thought about Duckenfield and Bettison and the SYP. He flicked through the TV channels, stuck the racing on, the two-thirty from Kempton, the rain drilling down, the steamed-up camera lens, the mad bastards cheering their rides home.

  Horses for fucking courses.

  At five he traipsed through the hotel corridors to the bar. It was empty, the shutters down, tables stacked against the wall, the carpet damp from cleaning. He tried the dining room instead where the tables were set for breakfast. There was no fucker in there either. The whole place was deserted, save for the girl on reception, tapping away at a keyboard. He made his way to the desk, waited in dumb silence like a spare prick at a wedding.

  ‘Are you okay, sir?’ She flashed a bored-looking smile in his direction.

  ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Yourself?’

  ‘I’m well,’ she said. ‘What can I do for you?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. Then he said, ‘Is there food tonight?’

  ‘The chef’s not coming in,’ she said.

  She went back to the keyboard, to the PC screen, to a list of numbers and symbols.

  ‘It’s just that I’m hungry,’ he said.

  ‘We have sandwiches,’ she said. ‘Sandwiches, crisps and peanuts. Or there’s the contents of your minibar.’

  The fucking minibar. Home to a solitary Twix and fuck all else.

  ‘I thought I’d be able to get something,’ he said.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Evening meals are reserved for pre-booked coach parties,’ she said. ‘We have no coach parties. If we did I could squeeze you in. There are restaurants in town. It’s a ten-minute wa
lk.’

  He considered what restaurants the old town might have to offer on a Tuesday evening in October. He smiled at the tragedy of it all.

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I used to live here. I lived here for a long time.’

  She smiled back at him.

  ‘But not any more.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not any more.’

  ‘Why did you move away?’ she asked him.

  He shrugged.

  ‘To escape?’ she asked.

  ‘Maybe,’ he said.

  ‘To find somewhere better?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Is it better?’

  ‘Is what better?’

  ‘The place you live now,’ she said.

  ‘In some ways,’ he said.

  ‘I feel the same about my country,’ she said. She wasn’t looking at the PC screen any more. There was some life about her.

  ‘You’re Polish, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘Do you miss home?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘How long have you been away?’

  She held up three fingers.

  ‘Three years,’ she said.

  ‘Will you go back?’

  ‘One day,’ she said. ‘When the great migration ends.’

  He stood beyond the desk, looking down at her in her uniform, thinking she might be pretty, not entirely decided on the fact.

  ‘When I left here there were no foreigners,’ he said.

  ‘That’s why they hate us,’ she said.

  ‘Who hates you?’ he asked.

  ‘The local people,’ she said.

  He laughed aloud at that, couldn’t help himself.