Fan

by Danny Rhodes

  Out of there. The car heaters blowing a gale. His dad in the door. The warm glow of home. A father’s wave to a son.

  And so three daft bastards head to Millwall, keeping their heads down, keeping their mouths shut. Bellies churning. The myth working its way in. Even BJ quiet. King’s Cross, New Cross. The curious cage leading down into the Lion’s Den.

  ‘You’re gonna get your fucking heads kicked in…’

  Heartbeats running ten to the dozen, eye to eye contact with the baying fuckers on the other side of the fence.

  Into the corner, into the shadows of the away end, watching Forest take the piss for eighty minutes. A Steve Hodge double. 2–0 and cruising. The Den a fucking mortuary. Twenty thousand mute lions with nothing to roar about.

  Giving it some from the away end.

  Safety in numbers.

  ‘Can you hear the Millwall sing, I can’t hear a fucking thing…’

  Until the home fuckers score.

  And twenty thousand lions find their tongues.

  The Den lifting out of itself.

  Miiiiiiiilllllllllwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaallllllll.

  Miiiiiiiilllllllllwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaallllllll.

  Forest quaking.

  The Den shaking. Rocking and fucking rolling.

  Millwall on the charge. Forest in retreat. Lions and lambs. Hodge for Forest. Cascarino and Ruddock for Millwall. Two fucking two. Grateful for a point.

  Back into the walkway. Millwall fucking loving it. Out into the streets. On to the High Street. Into the station.

  Three daft bastards not making a squeak.

  All the way home.

  It’s tipping it down when he gets up for work on the Monday. Harcross is full of it. He greets Finchy with a great fuck-off smile, Finchy drenched from the ride in.

  ‘Thought your boys had us there.’

  ‘Missed too many chances.’

  ‘What about our humble home?’

  ‘Shithole.’

  Harcross raises his eyebrows.

  ‘Awesome,’ says Finchy. ‘One of the best.’

  ‘No trouble?’

  ‘Nope. Southern softies.’

  ‘I’ll bet you were shitting yourself all day.’

  The depot oddly quiet, full of men but quiet.

  ‘Who died?’

  ‘You’d best go look at your frame.’

  ‘Awww shit.’

  His frame piled with mail, electric on top of poll tax, letters on top of fucking letters.

  ‘There’s three days’ worth of shite here.’

  Spence’s frame rammed too, but Spence somehow in control.

  A metronome.

  ‘More haste less speed…’

  Hushed voices of men with too much to do and not enough time to do it, the sound of the rain pummelling against the roof of the depot, the sound of too little sleep hammering inside Finchy’s head. Another day, another pound of flesh.

  ‘Listen to that shit. It had better stop,’ he says.

  ‘It’s not going to,’ says Spence.

  ‘Since when were you made weather prophet?’

  ‘Since I watched it on the news this morning.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘You’d best get your waterproofs on.’

  His fucking waterproofs, stuffed in the bottom of his locker. Creased to buggery and smelling of damp and fuck knows what else. He pulls the sad fucking things out and hangs them from the peg, then he heads back to the frame. Pig sick.

  6 a.m.

  7 a.m.

  8 a.m.

  He’s normally at his mam’s by now, stuffing his gob with biscuits, reading the morning paper. Instead he’s stood in the doorway of the depot in his manky waterproofs, watching the rain sile down. Three tight bags of mail. Bundle on fucking bundle. Two bags already off to the pick-up, the third strapped to the bike. He stands there for a good five minutes, willing the rain to lay off, but it’s set, incessant, tipping from the grey sky on to a grey town.

  Grey in every fucking way possible.

  He takes a deep breath, steadies himself and launches himself into hell, manoeuvring the bike through morning traffic, the hiss of tyres on wet tarmac, a dizzying maze of headlights and brake lights, gutter puddles three inches deep, potholes bubbling like geysers, heading out of the town centre and uphill to the walk. It’s 8.30 a.m. He hasn’t started. Five hundred and ninety-eight bastard houses. Not one single fucker to go without. The street full of miserable kids trudging to school. He watches them through the rain dripping off his hood. They don’t smile. They don’t take the piss. They don’t respond in any way.

  They just trudge.

  9 a.m.

  10 a.m.

  11 a.m.

  He delivers to the school, the steamed-up windows, feels a pang of longing. The reception’s warm, inviting. The smell of the place triggers something inside of him. He wants to curl up there in the foyer, nestle himself against a radiator and sleep. The receptionist offers him a cup of tea but he declines. Instead he drops off the bundle of letters, turns around and steps back out into the abyss.

  12 p.m.

  1 p.m.

  2 p.m. Fingers numb from cold. The walking dead.

  3 p.m.

  3.30 p.m. The same fucking kids, trudging home.

  He flops through the sorting office door at 4 p.m., a soaking wet rag, a drowned fucking rat. Men on the afternoon shift eye their watches, grin at each other, take the piss. Sarcastic bastards.

  Harcross emerges from the office.

  ‘What are you still doing here?’ asks Finchy.

  ‘Waiting for you cunts.’

  ‘Plural?’

  ‘You’re not the last. We’re sending out a search party.’

  ‘Great. Take a fucking boat.’

  ‘You know you’re back at five?’

  ‘I was going to talk to you about that.’

  ‘Don’t come in…’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No. Go home, get dry, get some food. You can come in at 5.30.’

  Harcross. Generous to the core.

  He turns and walks back out into the rain, wondering if feeling will ever return to his fingers, his toes, his wrinkled fucking cock.

  The season rolls onward.

  Forest lose on live television at home to Arsenal but they beat Liverpool at the City Ground and Newcastle at St James’ Park. You’re late arriving at Selhurst Park for Charlton away and you miss the only goal but it doesn’t matter because Forest win there, too. By mid-December Forest have only lost two games in the League. They’ve beaten Coventry and Leicester in the League Cup to reach the League Cup Quarter-Finals. There’s a buzz around the City Ground, a buzz each and every match day, a consensus that this is the best Forest side since the turn of the decade, a sense that big things are around the corner.

  You are part of it.

  You are part of every living, breathing moment.

  And it is part of you.

  7th January 1989

  FA Cup Round 3

  Nottingham Forest 3 v 0 Ipswich

  City Ground

  Here you go again. The Tractor Boys half decent. A potential threat. But the Reds are on a mission and the job is done to perfection.

  The Tractor Boys are mown down.

  A week later Forest trounce QPR 5–2 in the League Cup to reach the League Cup Semi-Finals.

  It is the most exciting time of your life.

  28th January 1989

  FA Cup Round 4

  Nottingham Forest 2 v 0 Leeds

  City Ground

  The fucking club gives up the lower tier to Leeds. Leeds fill it and a home game feels like an away game.

  Eight thousand Leeds caged at Nottingham station. Escorted up Queen’s Road. Led like cattle along London Road, through the Cattle Market and over the Lady Bay Bridge. Eight thousand Leeds arrive at 2.45 p.m. on match day. There’s mayhem outside the turnstiles. They want to watch the fucking game.

  Leeds and the police.

  The police
and Leeds.

  Their magnificent support spreads along the whole of one touchline, urging the yellow-shirted fuckers on.

  The whole of the lower tier.

  All of it.

  Leeds building steam in Division Two. Howard Wilkinson at the helm.

  Leeds who will win the Division Two title a year later.

  Leeds who will win the Division One title three years later.

  Leeds on an upward curve.

  But not today.

  Forest too fast. Forest too slick. Forest 2–0 up at HT.

  Nice one.

  Drinks on Valentine’s day in the village pub. Something in the air. The pub packed with family. Jen’s sister and her bloke asking for quiet. Jen’s sister and her bloke announcing their engagement. The room in rapture. The spotlight falling on Jen. The spotlight falling on him.

  On John fucking Finch.

  A rabbit in headlights.

  After the party he drives Jen back to his flat.

  They drive in silence.

  He stares at the road ahead.

  He stares at his white knuckles.

  ‘Lisa wants us to go out with her and Kevin one night,’ she says at last.

  ‘Right,’ he says.

  ‘And they’re off to Yarmouth for a break,’ she says. ‘We could go with them.’

  ‘In the summer,’ he says. ‘We could do that in the summer.’

  ‘She was thinking Easter. Bank holiday or something.’

  He shakes his head.

  ‘Derby away on the Saturday, United at home on the Monday,’ he says.

  She doesn’t say anything else.

  She turns and looks out of the passenger window.

  And that’s the end of the matter as far as John Finch is concerned.

  19th February 1989

  FA Cup Round 5

  Watford 0 v 3 Nottingham Forest

  Vicarage Road

  Sunday. On the telly. Through the allotments and up the walkway to Vicarage Road. Uninspiring but Forest out in numbers. A sense of momentum now, something building, gathering pace and weight and purpose.

  Blow-up dolls and blow-up cocks and balls. A party on the shallow terrace that serves up a shit view of the game.

  Forest exterminate the hornets, swat them dead, crush them underfoot.

  It’s too fucking easy.

  An FA Cup Quarter-Final beckons once again.

  Thursday

  In the morning he took his bag to reception, asked the girl to change his room. The shift manager appeared.

  ‘We don’t want any trouble,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not giving you any trouble,’ said Finchy. ‘What trouble am I giving you?’

  ‘Those men,’ said the shift manager.

  ‘I don’t know who they are,’ he said. ‘I don’t know who they are or what they want. I just want a different room, one with a window that opens, on the ground floor if you’ve got one.’

  They gave him what he wanted. He half expected the police to come knocking, half expected to have to deal with that on top of everything else, but the shift manager obviously thought better of it. It was one thing getting the police involved, it was another making yourself a target. Anyway, no police came knocking on his door.

  Kick up old stones.

  Scuff your Sambas.

  See what’s underneath.

  He staggered into town, seeking fresh air, keeping his wits about him, sidled into the marketplace, wondering if the sandwich van would still be there. And it was, a small bit of the past clinging to the present. He joined the queue, eager now for a taste of the old days in the form of a bacon and egg bap.

  ‘Look who it isn’t,’ said a voice.

  He wheeled about, expecting the big fucker, expecting a fist in the mush. But it wasn’t the big fucker. It was a face he instantly recognised, a face he’d often thought about over the years, his old neighbour from the sorting frames.

  Spence. Once of twenty walk. A piece of piss.

  Spence. Cocky, self-assured, difficult bastard.

  Finchy smiled all the same. He couldn’t help himself. After all these years…

  ‘I heard you were about town,’ said Spence.

  ‘Who told you?’

  Spence shook his head.

  ‘You should know I never reveal my sources.’

  He winked.

  ‘Back for a funeral but a non-attender. Staying at the North Hotel but not always in attendance there either. Likely to emerge from a terrace on Broughton Street in dawn’s early light … causing much astir…’

  ‘How the fuck…?’

  ‘That’s my delivery, you daft bastard. I saw you coming out of the place.’

  ‘And the other stuff?’

  ‘Common knowledge, mate, for a local postie with an ear to the ground.’

  ‘Fucking hell,’ said Finchy. ‘Some things never change.’

  ‘Nope,’ said Spence.

  ‘It’s hardly headline news though, is it?’

  Spence shook his head.

  ‘It might be if those Eastern Europeans get hold of you.’

  ‘Aye, well,’ he said. ‘They’ve got their facts wrong.’

  ‘You should be used to that sort of thing, though,’ said Spence. ‘Remember that young lad’s ex?’

  Finchy reached the front of the queue, ordered his breakfast sarnie.

  ‘Not sure, mate,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, you do,’ said Spence. ‘Lad was only with us five minutes and you were on his missus.’

  ‘He dumped her,’ said Finchy. ‘She was fair play. Besides, that was fifteen years ago.’

  ‘And here you are again.’

  It was ever thus. He couldn’t read the bloke, couldn’t tell if he was joshing or serious. And that was Spence. Spence all over. An expert at feeding a bloke a line and reeling him in. Finchy almost took the bait but this was Spence for fuck’s sake, seeking a rise as always.

  Even now.

  ‘You’re still at it then.’

  Finchy looked Spence in the eyes, searched for a weakness, received only the same cocksure grin.

  ‘Yep,’ he said. ‘Still at it after all these years.’

  ‘Still bowling?’

  ‘Still bowling.’

  ‘Still enjoying a beer at the Nag’s?’

  ‘Every now and then,’ said Spence. ‘Perhaps we’ll see you in there before you head back?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said. He took a step backward.

  ‘You’re not rushing off?’

  ‘Going to meet an old friend,’ said Finchy.

  ‘You’re not going to eat your sarnie?’

  ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘I’m eating my sarnie.’

  Finchy bit into the sarnie, felt the gritty texture of the bacon and the warmth of the egg yolk as it ran down his throat.

  ‘Well then, don’t be shy,’ said Spence. ‘Spill the beans.’

  ‘Fuck off, mate,’ Finchy said. ‘Whatever I tell you I might as well sing from the rooftops.’

  Spence shook his head.

  ‘That hurts,’ he said. ‘That really hurts.’

  And once upon a time he’d have fallen for that, back in the day. But he was older now, a little bit wiser, more used to giving it to the lads and lasses at school than receiving it.

  The queue shifted forward. Spence ordered his sarnie, sucked the air in through his teeth.

  ‘After all these years,’ he said.

  ‘Here we are all over again.’

  ‘Not the same though, is it?’ said Spence. He looked around him.

  Finchy shrugged.

  ‘The place has changed,’ said Spence. ‘It’s lost something.’

  ‘I’m not sure it had much to lose,’ said Finchy.

  ‘You don’t mean that,’ said Spence. ‘You think you do but you don’t.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Finchy. ‘I don’t mean it. I had some great times here. I wasn’t unhappy, only at the end. What about the PO? Are the same blokes still working at the offic
e?’

  ‘When did you go? 90? Aye, a few. Some moved on to pastures new. Some went the other way. We lost a couple to drink, one to the big C. You should drop in on the place, say “hello”, have a chinwag about those murders.’

  Cunt.

  Finchy held out a hand and Spence took it. They stood there locked together in the marketplace, the same location, the same people, a different time.

  ‘Pop into the Crown,’ said Spence. ‘See who you remember and who you don’t.’

  ‘I will,’ said Finchy. ‘I will.’

  Finchy turned to go, made it all of ten yards.

  ‘They never did catch the bastard,’ shouted Spence. ‘Fucking strange that, don’t you think?’

  Finchy almost turned around, almost succumbed, but he held himself in check, walked away from the van and over the road between the traffic. He was a hundred yards further on when he saw the steps of the old pub in front of him.

  Her pub.

  It’s after midnight on a Friday, the glasses washed and back on their shelves, the chairs on the tables, the bar wiped down, everything but the floor, a job for the morning staff. She has two bar jobs that keep a roof over her head. She has a boyfriend. She’s getting somewhere. At last.

  She shouts ‘goodbye’ and shoots her boss the finger for some sarcastic reply, then she’s on her way.

  She steps out into the night.

  She’s all legs. Her skirt barely covers her arse. And she wears heels. Always heels. They click on the pavement as she walks.

  She marches under the railway bridge, down the Western Road, long legs striding, heels clicking, handbag clutched at her side. She has two choices now, to take the shorter route past the scout hut and industrial estate, cut across the little park with the kiddie’s swings. It’s overgrown up there, full of shadows. Or she can follow the Western Road, a route that takes her out of her way but one where there’s traffic, well-lit pavements, signs of life. She’s not thinking about these things though, not really. She’s not afraid or thinking about being afraid. She’s just walking home after a long evening. She’s ready to crash out, rise in the morning, pick up her daughter, take her to the Saturday market, to McDonald’s for a bite. It’s a normal weekend in every sense.