by Danny Rhodes
Every fucking Saturday.
He sat on the far bank, separated by the river, in the same place he’d wound up in in his nightmares. He could hear the crowd, the gentle ripple of applause as the players entered the pitch. But it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t the fucking same.
And it wasn’t enough.
He mulled about for a bit, weighing things up, more uncertain than before, the fluttering in his stomach becoming cramps that threatened to turn him inside out on the banks of the Trent, reveal all that was him. He imagined his inverted cadaver slipping silently into the black river, disappearing forever.
He searched for some resolve, wrestled with what had been and what was gone, forced himself to cross the bridge again, made his way to the gates, heart beating nineteen to the dozen, feeling sick, feeling drained, knowing he had to go through with it for the sake of BJ and Jen White, for Jeff and for Kelly.
And for Stimmo. He had to do it for Stimmo.
The click of the Trent end turnstile was the same but well oiled. He had to apply no pressure at all to get it turning. He climbed the steps to the upper tier, emerged above the pitch. A steward glanced at his ticket, pointed him in the direction of his seat. He disturbed people by pushing his way along the row, twelve seats from the gangway as the steward instructed, slid on to his plastic perch.
A mixed bunch around him, blokes in pairs, blokes with their dads, blokes with their women, blokes on their own, no groups of lads, the game played out to a polite murmur, punctuated by moans and groans, by the occasional wave of sound, the occasional ripple from the away end. But he could hear the players calling out to each other, could hardly believe his ears.
Was this it? Was this what it had become?
It went on that way, songs forming and dying.
Ghosts of songs.
When the home team scored, when the ball hit the net, when the player turned his back and pointed with his thumbs to the name on his shirt, when that happened he realised how much he’d come to loathe it all. The people around him were on their feet, the stewards already urging them to sit down again.
Music sounded out through the tannoy.
Fucking music.
‘No,’ he shouted, to nobody. ‘No.’
He forced himself clear of the row, ran down the steps, pushed past the steward who tried to slow him down and shot away from the place.
He thought of Goodison in 85, FA Semi-Final, United and Liverpool slugging it out, the packed terraces, fans perched astride walls and fences, limpets clinging to extremities. Fifty-one thousand Scousers and Mancs riding every tackle, breathing every breath.
Euphoria at every goal.
Something deep within the soul.
Fans and players.
Players and fans.
He thought of Ashton Gate and White Hart Lane and the Baseball Ground, the frenzy of a goal. He thought of Highfield Road, that fucking cage, his ribs close to breaking under the strain of his jubilant peers.
He thought of Hillsborough 81, 87, 88, the unheeded warning signs.
He thought of that day in April 89, blue skies, the football special fringing pastel peaks, boarding the bus outside Sheffield station, great swarms of red and white on the pavements, the green splash of Hillsborough Park, the old brick turnstiles, the steep steps leading up in zigzag pattern to the back of the Kop and the darkness beneath the roof, the pitch in sunlight, Leppings Lane in sunlight, his life in sunlight.
Endless contradictions.
Blind alleys and dead fucking ends.
Black clouds rolling in.
He turned his back on it all, made his sullen way towards the station, back to the old town, reeling, wishing for the hotel room and the bed in the room with no windows, wishing for that but knowing he had to go to BJ’s instead, curl up awkwardly on a sofa, wake to cramp and the smell of damp and share this fucking tragedy with someone who already knew the game was up.
He needed to go back down south, back to the life he’d built from the ruins of the one that had collapsed around him. If it was still there. If it still existed.
Because.
Because.
Because.
Just because.
Just another Friday evening after another week of flirting with the girls on the High Street, the girls that want to know when he’ll be out next, when he’s going to buy them a drink, make good on his promises.
Jen at home, waiting for him to make his next step. But he’s unable to take a step in her direction. He can’t do it. What he wants is to be out with the others, free of the shackles. What he wants is another all-nighter to come around, to take another pill and float away on its magical ride, swap this life for another. He can’t fucking help himself. Everything builds and begs for release.
And it’s seven already. Her mam and dad will be poring over the takeaway menu in anticipation. Friday night’s curry night. He has the responsibility of depositing it in front of their faces.
Because Jen and him are not over, not really, because he doesn’t have the courage to cut the rope. He doesn’t have the fucking balls.
Such a cunt.
Such an ungrateful cunt.
So here he is, still in the flat, neither ready to head over with the food or to go out on the fucking town with the boys. He picks up the phone, puts it down, picks up the phone, puts it down, wanders the flat, a caged fucking animal. It won’t be long before he wears footprints into the fucking carpet.
His flatmate surfaces, spruced up, no longer a fucking walking zombie.
‘I thought you were off to see Jen…’ says his flatmate.
‘Yeah, so did I,’ says Finchy.
‘What’s the score, then?’
He looks his flatmate up and down. He smiles a wry one.
‘You’ve got her from over the way on a promise, haven’t you? You’ve called a sickie.’
‘What of it?’
‘Then I’ve got to fucking go out.’
‘It would help,’ says his flatmate. ‘It would definitely fucking help.’
‘I’m sure it fucking would,’ he says.
It’s no good. He has to sort things with Jen, find some common ground. He picks up the phone, dials the number. She answers on the second ring, voice shaking, uncertain of herself, uncertain of him. He feels a terrible weight fall upon him.
He’s fucking damaging her, wringing her out.
‘You should be here by now,’ she says, trying to act casual, trying to act like there isn’t some great unspoken shadow hanging over them.
‘Yeah, I know,’ he says.
‘What’s up, then?’
He sighs, hoping his silence will do his work for him, hoping not to have to say anything.
‘You are coming?’
Further silence, genuine this time, the words stuck in his throat.
‘I can’t,’ he says.
A different type of silence.
‘You said you’d come over tonight.’
‘Andy’s got a date.’
‘So?’
‘So we can’t come back here.’
Pathetic. Scraping the barrel. Not even a reason.
‘You can stay here,’ she says. ‘I thought that was the plan.’
He doesn’t say anything.
‘Are you seeing someone else?’ she asks.
‘Eh?’
‘Are you?’
‘Fucking hell—’
‘Well?’
‘No,’ he says.
He can hear her mam and dad in the background now.
Where’s the food? I’m bloody starved.
Hasn’t he left yet? Tell me he’s on his way.
‘I can’t stay at yours,’ he says. ‘I’ve work tomorrow. I thought you were coming back here.’
On and on and fucking on. Weaker and fucking weaker. Running out of options. Running out of room.
‘I don’t believe this,’ she says.
‘I’m going out for a bit instead,’ he says. ‘With the others. Then I’m
coming home to sleep. I need sleep.’
Silence on the other end. The sound of further voices. The sound of the TV. The sound of shouting. The phone slamming about.
Jen’s distant voice.
‘Pills! I hate those things. I fucking hate them.’
Trailing away.
Her mam’s voice on the line instead. Seething. Tanked up.
‘Hey. What are you playing at?’
‘Nothing,’ he says. Weakly. Tragically.
‘Do you want to be with my daughter or not?’
Jen’s voice in the background. Screaming. Grappling for the phone. Terrified of the question. Terrified of the answer.
‘Mam…’
‘If you do, get your arse over here. If you don’t, then fucking well leave her alone.’
‘I can’t,’ he says. ‘I do. I don’t…’
He doesn’t know what the fuck he’s saying. He doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing.
The phone goes dead. He stands holding it limply in his hands. His flatmate scoots past him, reeking of aftershave.
‘Thirty minutes,’ says his flatmate. ‘Thirty minutes and then you’re gone.’
His flatmate heads down the steep stairs and out of the front door.
Finchy makes his way upstairs instead, shuts his bedroom door and slumps on the duvet, the life knocked out of him. He’s a shambles. It’s a shambles. And suddenly he doesn’t want to go any fucking where, not to Jen’s, not to town, not even into the hall. He doesn’t have the energy or the interest. He locks his door, switches off the light, buries himself in darkness.
He spends the evening listening to his flatmate and the woman from over the road, listening to them pant and groan, listening to the bed creak under the shifting weight of their oblivious fucking.
The phone rings three times before midnight. He ignores it each time. He doesn’t have the guts to speak to Jen and he doesn’t have the patience to speak to any fucker else.
He doesn’t speak to Jen for two fucking weeks.
He doesn’t call.
She doesn’t call.
He thinks about calling.
He thinks it’s best to leave it.
He thinks about calling.
He thinks it’s best to leave it.
He imagines her with another.
He imagines himself with another.
He imagines her with another.
He imagines himself with another.
These are the things that circulate in his head.
Around and around and around in his head.
Back at BJ’s. Back with the one soul who could link it all together.
The past and the present.
The present and the past.
‘I could have told you you’d hate it. Don’t you watch the TV?’
‘It wasn’t top flight though, was it?’
‘No, mate, but this thing’s bleeding down through the ladder. Ten years from now it’ll be in park football and then we’re all fucked.’
BJ rummaging in the fridge for a bite. BJ humming to himself.
‘And if you know your history, it’s enough to make your heart go…’
‘Fucking hell,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to go.’
‘What for?’ asked Finchy
‘You’re eating me out of house and home.’
‘I’ve had one fucking biscuit and a beer,’ said Finchy.
BJ stood up. He laughed. They both laughed. There was fuck all to laugh about, fuck all funny about any of it.
Finchy picked up a Forest programme from 84. UEFA Cup. Sturm Graz at home.
‘I went to this game,’ he said. ‘My dad took me.’
‘Quarter-Final,’ said BJ. ‘1–0. Paul Hart header.’
Finchy grinned, a grainy image in his head, his dad not yet turned forty, the two of them high in the upper tier of the Executive Stand.
‘One of the first games I went to,’ he said. ‘I remember looking around for the TV replay when we scored.’
‘Daft bastard,’ said BJ. Then he said, ‘You remember Anderlecht?’
Finchy nodded.
‘Cheating cunts,’ said BJ.
‘The ref was killed in a car crash.’
‘The dirty cheating bastard ruined one of my fucking childhood dreams. I can still feel the hurt, my dad saying “It’s only football”.’
‘He fucked up with some real estate.’
‘So fucking what?’
‘I’m just saying. He was ripe for suggestion.’
‘You know the best thing about all that?’ asked BJ. ‘The Anderlecht president getting blackmailed by the gangster who arranged it all. I love that. Mess around in things like football, you deserve a good fucking from all sides.’
BJ chuckling to himself.
‘Fuck me,’ said Finchy. ‘You’ve got it worse than I realised.’
‘Not really,’ said BJ. ‘Cloughie said it himself. The game was corrupt in those days. That’s why all the old school took a little bit. The game fucked them so they fucked the game.’
Finchy stared across the poky room, at BJ, spread out on the opposite sofa in his boxers, all belly and balls, empty lager tins on the mantelpiece, crisps on the carpet.
‘I should call Kelly,’ he said. And then he hesitated. ‘What do you think?’
‘Me? You’re asking me?’ BJ laughed. ‘Don’t look to me, mate. I’m a complete fuck-up. I got sent down due to a woman.’
Finchy looked at the tin of lager on the table, thinking for the hundredth time Why the fuck am I here?
‘Caught my missus with some Polish prick. Or thought I did, daft tosser that I am. Went to Forest, cheated the ban. Lads convinced me to go for a pint when we got back to town. Found her in this pub. All tarted up. He was a cunt. Started giving it some. So I battered the fucker. Turns out he was a workmate. Innocent stuff. Looked pretty fucking cosy to me though.’
For a moment he stared off into a distant place only he could see. Finchy leafed through the programme, busying himself the only way he could.
‘I got eighteen months,’ BJ said at last. ‘She threw me out. Now look at me. A one-bedroom pisshole on Radley Street. Fucking dump. Thirty-five years of age. Shit job. No prospects. What a wanker. She doesn’t talk to me any more. Tell you something, mate. Fifteen years and fuck all has changed. The same blokes. The same casuals. The same pubs. The same shit.’
He reached down and swilled the beer cans at his feet in turn, until he found what he was looking for. He lifted a can to his lips and took a swig. He grimaced. Finchy grimaced.
‘Thank fuck for football,’ said BJ. ‘It’s a fucking lifesaver. Don’t know where I’d be without it, where the fuck I’d be headed. Saturdays. I live for Saturdays. You should see me in the summer. I’m a fucking coiled spring.’
He rolled off the sofa, sat up on his haunches.
‘Solved that, though. I go on fucking tour. It used to be England. Now I tour with the Reds.’
He trailed off, the way BJ always had, trailed off into the blackness that devoured him. What Finchy wanted to do was grab the cunt and give him a great fucking hug, for being what he was, for not fucking changing when so much had changed.
What he wanted to do was cry his fucking eyes out.
‘Thanks, mate,’ he said.
‘What for?’
‘Being honest … and the other stuff.’
BJ shrugged, shot him a wink.
‘Like I said the other day, mate, what are friends for? But you’re coming tomorrow, right? One last crack before you go?’
‘Aye, mate,’ he said. ‘After tonight, I think I need a dose of reality.’
‘For old time’s sake,’ said BJ. He raised his tin of lager.
‘Aye,’ said Finchy.
Clashing fucking lager cans.
‘And those gone by the wayside,’ said BJ.
‘Aye.’
‘One and then the next and then the next, like fucking dominoes. I’ve started to wonder when it’s going to be
my turn.’
‘It’s not age though, is it? It can’t be our fucking age.’
‘Stimmo did what he had to do,’ said BJ. ‘He took control. The fucker made up his mind not to fester. He’d had enough of all that. Not like old Nev. Nev capitulated in a different way. I know which one I’d go for, given a fucking choice. Mind you, Nev knew where the crack was. He knew what all this shit was about. He lived three lives in the time cunts like us manage one. It’s just his kid I feel for. She deserved to know her dad better. One fucking day I’ll tell her all about him, if I’m still about, if I haven’t fucked off on his coat-tails.’
Finchy raised his glass.
‘He was a top bloke,’ said BJ. ‘Quiet sometimes. Off in his own world. Nothing fucking wrong with that. I just wish I’d done more to help him at the end.’
Finchy nodded, thinking we’re all off in our own worlds, every single one of us.
‘Jen White doesn’t feel that way about Stimmo,’ he said.
‘Aye,’ said BJ. ‘Well, she has a right to her opinion, I suppose. But I’d rather go out like Stimmo, in my own way, than let things take me.’
Another bout of silence. It filled the room.
‘Do you think about it?’ asked Finchy, at last.
‘What?’
‘Being next.’
‘Aye, mate, all the fucking time.’
‘Me too,’ he said. ‘Every day.’
‘The curse of the survivor,’ said BJ.
‘Do you think so? We were hardly survivors though, were we? We were in the opposite end. No different to witnessing a car crash.’
‘That whole day was a car crash, mate.’
‘So now we’re burdened. Forever.’
‘Not forever. Just until we cop it, then who gives a fuck?’
‘I thought I’d moved beyond it,’ said Finchy. ‘I thought I’d found it a place to rest.’
BJ shook his head.
‘No,’ he said. ‘That’s just fucking kidding yourself. That’s no good to anyone. You have to face it down. Or try to.’
‘Hopper?’
‘You think he’s buried it?’