Fan

by Danny Rhodes

  He’s on Foxton Avenue when a bolt of lightning strikes a house not four doors from where he’s standing, strikes so close he feels the pulse of electricity in the air all around him. The explosion of thunder is instantaneous. He drops to his haunches, reduces himself instinctively to something lesser than his being. And then he waits under the porch of the house he’s delivering to, waits there while the rain tumbles down and the storm passes over the town and away. He watches it as it recedes, in awe of its power. He looks down at his own two hands, at his palms. He raises them to his cheeks to check he’s still in the land of the living, feels the sensation of his skin on his own skin.

  He looks across at the school, at blue sky encroaching and gathering beyond its rooftops. He imagines a different future for himself.

  Again.

  You go to games and you don’t go to games.

  You see Jen and you don’t see Jen.

  You’re unwelcome at her place but she comes to yours.

  Against her sister’s will.

  Against her mam’s will.

  Somehow you drag yourself through Christmas.

  Somehow.

  7th January 1990

  FA Cup 3rd Round

  Nottingham Forest 0 v 1 Manchester United

  City Ground

  The suits give up the lower tier again, shift the Forest fans into the upper tier.

  Idiots.

  United bring their hordes. United fill the lower tier.

  A home game feels like an away game. Again.

  Ferguson is on the rack. Some say Ferguson is one game from the sack. But United are up for this one, up for revenge for 89. Pallister sticks Crosby on his backside. Martyn outmuscles Örlygsson. Hughes clips one in towards the penalty spot and Robbins heads home the only goal.

  You watch from the upper tier of the Executive Stand, separated from the action by circumstance. It is not the end, not quite, but you can feel it coming, something shaking loose, setting you free. You do not want to be free but it is happening all the same.

  A late Nigel Jemson equaliser is ruled out by the referee for fuck knows what and Forest lose at home to Ferguson’s Manchester United. United will go on to win the FA Cup.

  You will go to Wembley anyway as Forest successfully defend the League Cup but it’s the FA Cup you want. It’s the FA Cup that Clough wants.

  In 1990 it’s what everybody wants.

  But you will never have it.

  And Clough will never have it.

  Snow comes to the old town, smothering it, making a slow job slower. Finchy wakes to a silent, muffled morning, traipses to the office on foot, leaving virgin footprints behind him. A solitary car passes by, creeping through the fall, hardly managing it. When it’s gone, the silence settles once more.

  Like a tomb.

  The older boys on the vans are stood on the ramp discussing routes, which places they might reach, which places are beyond them. Then they head inside and pull out their selections. No such luck for the townies. He frames up and bags up, trudges to the bikes, no good to ride on but a packhorse to push up the hill into the softened bowels of the estate. And then he’s out in it, pressing onwards, the soundtrack to his morning the muffled clacks of gates and letter boxes, the crump of his boots, the song of a solitary robin. Hope Close is dressed in virgin snow. The hedge bottom is a white linen shroud. There’s just him and his ghosts. Every fucker else is inside, not bothering.

  The old town at a standstill.

  He props the bike against the wall outside the flats and keys in the security code, carries his bundle of letters into the echoing stairwell, the discarded rubbish in the windowless foyers where the lazy bastards can’t be bothered to negotiate a flight to the bins. He delivers the giros and the court summonses, the fucking Reader’s Digest videos. When he emerges from the fifth block his bike’s gone. The bag of mail’s gone. There’s just a set of cycle tracks in the snow, snaking away, disappearing into the estate. Ridiculously he sets off in pursuit, manages twenty steps and then stops. He turns back to the flats, stands there marooned amongst them, a pathetic figure.

  Someone calls down at him from a bedroom window, points a finger.

  ‘He went that way, mate.’

  He shrugs his shoulders.

  He wanders to a phone box, sticks his ten pence in the slot, calls the office.

  ‘Someone’s nicked my bike,’ he says.

  Harcross on the other end. Sounding fucked off.

  ‘Where from?’

  ‘Canal Court.’

  ‘What are you doing there already?’

  ‘I wanted to get it out of the way.’

  ‘You daft bastard. You’ll just have to walk the rest.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Walk the rest of the delivery.’

  He gulps in a lungful of air.

  ‘They nicked the mail too.’

  ‘You left your mailbag outside the flats?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘You’re in the shit then, aren’t you?’

  ‘Shall I follow the tracks?’

  ‘Don’t be a twat. Go and deliver your second bag. I’ll head up there and find you. Carson’s going to go fucking mental.’

  ‘They nicked my box keys.’

  Silence on the line. Harcross taking a deep fucking breath of his own.

  ‘Right. Meet me at the box. Carson’s going to have my balls over this. Do the fucking route how it’s designed. Fuck me. I was just sitting down for some brekky. Told myself to fucking ignore the phone. I’ve a good fucking mind to make you wait and freeze your bollocks off.’

  Harcross puts the phone down, leaves him standing in a phone box suffocated by snow. Beyond the glass some kids are packing snowballs. When he steps out they hurl their ammunition at him.

  ‘Special delivery!’

  Then they leg it.

  Little bastards.

  And later that morning, during the grilling that comes from Carson, a warning light flashes in the back of his head, that this is how it will always be.

  ‘Are you listening?’ asks Carson.

  He snaps out of it.

  ‘I’m just thinking,’ he says.

  ‘We’re not paying you to think,’ says Carson. ‘All you have to do is take the mail and stick it through a letter box. It’s not rocket science. It isn’t any type of science.’

  Finchy nods. There’s nothing to do but nod.

  As he’s leaving, Harcross pulls him to one side.

  ‘Do yourself a favour,’ says Harcross. ‘You can’t spend the next forty years living for Saturdays and football.’

  ‘So my dad keeps saying,’ says Finchy.

  ‘You should listen to your dad,’ says Harcross.

  31st March 1990

  All Britain Anti-Poll Tax Federation 6 v 0 Thatcher

  Central London

  The tax burden shifted from the rich to the poor.

  Two hundred and fifty thousand in Kennington Park.

  Two hundred and fifty thousand on the streets.

  Sit-down protests in Whitehall. Mounted police. Scarves and staves. Shields and batons.

  There are pitched battles on the streets of London.

  There are burning vehicles on the streets of London.

  One hundred and thirteen people are injured. Three hundred and forty are arrested.

  You deliver the letters because that’s your job. You deliver the telephone bills and the electric bills, the gas bills and the water bills.

  You deliver the community charge letters too.

  You deliver the community charge letters and then go to the postbox, open it to find half of the fuckers have posted them back where they’ve come from. This goes on for weeks and weeks, to and fro, to and fro. Some people take to ripping the bastard things up and throwing them back at you on their doorstep. It’s like that for a time.

  But you’re not their enemy.

  You’re really not.

  In Cheltenham, at a Conservative Party Council Conference, Tha
tcher is confronted about the poll tax.

  There are questions and more questions.

  There are rumblings of disquiet in the rank and file.

  Thatcher’s days are numbered.

  The knives are out.

  He headed back the way they’d come, back along the river, up on to the High Street and across town, scanning the faces coming his way.

  Ten minutes later he was back at BJ’s, reaching the end. The house was empty, no sign of the daft fucker anywhere.

  Finchy packed his bag, folding and fitting what little he had into the corners and compartments. He made himself a mug of tea and sat on the sofa amidst the piles of programmes, resisting the urge for one last look. It was over, wasn’t it? There was no need to dig any more. There was nothing left to discover. He thought about what Spence had said to him the previous day. He ran the names through his head. Spence had said there were four but he’d named only three and Finchy. He wondered what drove Spence to bring all of that shit up the way he did, what the bloke was trying to prove. He wondered if Spence had something to hide, if Spence could be number four.

  Of course he fucking couldn’t.

  And it didn’t matter.

  It really didn’t matter.

  He thought about Mr Moustache and Mr Notebook all those years ago. He wondered what they’d learned and what they hadn’t been able to prove. He wondered what the fucking truth was.

  It was half an hour until his train, time to get his arse into gear. He took the mug to the sink, rinsed it and placed it on the draining board. He stood in the entrance to the kitchen staring about himself. He pulled out his suit, felt in the inside pocket and took out the little enamel Forest badge. He thought about BJ. He climbed the stairs and entered BJ’s bedroom, opened up the cupboard and worked his way through the rack. He picked out one of BJ’s polo shirts and lifted the hanger out of the wardrobe. Carefully, very, very carefully, he unclasped the badge and pierced the right breast of the polo shirt. He closed the badge. He bent to kiss the badge and then he turned away, walked down the stairs, picked up his bag and shut the door to BJ’s flat behind him.

  4.30 p.m. Friday. Another dusk.

  The doorbell sounds in the flat, an angry, distant echo in the stairwell. Prone on his bed he doesn’t move. He doesn’t do anything. The doorbell rings again. He rolls out of bed, aching, his shoulders tight, his back protesting, He creeps to the window, peers down into the street. The street is dirty with melting snow. The cars are covered in black salt. There’s no blue Sierra across the way. There’s no shifty-looking fucker after a bag of beans. Those days are a distant dream.

  Her then.

  He thinks about not answering the door, about hiding, wishing her away, but his car’s on the kerb, the landing lights are on in the flat, there’s no way she’s going anywhere. He moves to the mirror, checks himself over, rolls on some deodorant.

  Vain, arrogant bastard, even still.

  His flatmate’s out, the door to the bloke’s room wide open, the stink of a thousand fags and tokes permeating the air. He slams the door shut and makes his way down one flight, two, to the foyer and the glass door, sees the disproportioned shape of her beyond. Guilt surges through him, and the other thing, the thing he can’t beat into submission. His fucking nemesis.

  He opens the door to the smell of her perfume. She’s made up, smiling that forced smile. It’s become routine. This is what they are.

  ‘Alright?’ she says.

  ‘Alright.’

  ‘I’ve come to see you … to make sure you’re okay, to see if you need anything.’

  He’s thinking ‘Remember her fucking sister. Remember what you fucking told her. Remember what you promised. Months ago.’

  He thinks this every time.

  But he’s saying, ‘Come in if you want’ without compre-hending how those words have come to arrive at his lips, fall from his mouth, exist in this moment.

  Because he’s still fucking at it.

  He follows her up the stairs. Her in the tightest jeans. Those fucking black boots. He has a face full of her arse which moves just so on this evening, coaxing him.

  The whole thing happens as he wills it not to happen.

  She turns left, into the kitchen, drops her bag on the table and turns to face him. The kitchen smells of her perfume. He offers her tea but doesn’t make it to the sink. He has her pressed against the wall instead, his mouth pressed against her mouth. He feels her stiff nipples against his chest, grips her arse through the denim, kisses her, teeth bashing teeth, has her moaning in the hollow shell of the kitchen. Her shirt’s open, her heavy tits are falling out of her bra, her hands are busy at his flies, her hands are on his cock and balls, his fingers are inside her, deep in her wetness.

  And then he’s lifting her against the wall in the kitchen, fucking her against the wall in the kitchen, fucking her in her boots whilst she bites his neck.

  Pain and pleasure.

  Pleasure and pain.

  His back’s protesting, his cock begging for more. Her jeans around her ankles, he’s fucking her because it’s easier than not fucking her, because he can get away with it, fucking her with his unprotected cock. When he’s getting close he turns her around, bends her over the kitchen table and fucks her that way instead, pulling her on to him until he’s ready to burst. He whips it out and sprays his cum over her arse, feels the need and desire and all of those things drain away in an instant, until he’s simply stood in the kitchen of his flat with a limp cock exposed to the world, his trousers around his ankles, the kitchen smelling of spunk and perfume and fucking, and she’s slipping away to the bathroom, all of that over in an instant and he’s already watching the clock and listening for the clocks and wishing her gone from the place.

  She’s hardly fucking arrived.

  When she returns he’s on the yellow sofa in the living room. She drops down beside him, wanting more than he can give, no longer a potential receptacle, just an ex-girlfriend, someone he’s dumped and then gone on fucking because it’s easier than not fucking her, someone he doesn’t want to have to care about, something he wants to be free of. If only she’ll let him.

  Spineless bastard.

  ‘College was rubbish,’ she says.

  He grunts.

  ‘Lisa’s set a wedding date for the summer.’

  He pulls away from her.

  ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I was just saying.’

  ‘It’s bollocks,’ he says.

  She falls into her own silence. He imagines what she’s thinking, that she’s pushing her luck, that she mustn’t mention the two of them, that if she just keeps her mouth shut he might let her stay for the night. He thinks he might too.

  He has no other plans.

  It’s dark when he wakes. She’s asleep on the sofa beside him, her cheek resting on his shoulder. He moves away from her, trying not to disturb her, watches her for a minute or more, wondering what he’s doing to her and why the fuck he feels he has to fashion an escape route from someone so pretty and so fucking dedicated to him despite the bastard he’s turned out to be. And then he imagines himself five years hence, stuck in this flat with her, stuck in the postie job, stuck in the old town. He imagines wedding bells, her family and all of that shit, imagines the two of them forever one step behind her sister through forty years of married purgatory, through maternity wards and christenings, and any lingering doubts he has crawl away down the steep stairs and out into the night.

  He skulks through the flat to the bathroom, turns on the hot water and runs himself a bath. He strips naked, pulls off his crusty underpants, delicately detaching his foreskin from the fabric. He locks the fucking door and slips down into the water, trying not to think about the fuck from earlier, unable to think about anything else, picturing her arse bent in front of him, his cock in her cunt, her tits dangling, gripping them from underneath and squeezing those stiff nipples. He watches his cock harden again in the fucking bubble bath and laughs to himself, at his own feeble
ness, closes his eyes, imagines the next morning, the M62, the Pennines, Stanley Park, Anfield.

  One he can’t miss.

  Some of the lads had been up there since Hillsborough, to lay flowers, to pay their respects. Not him, not yet. He imagines it will be alright though, just a fucking football match, but surely it will be so much more than a fucking football match this time, so much fucking more. He closes his eyes, tries to think about fucking her again, but it’s no use, his mood’s shattered. All he can think about is three hundred and sixty-four days ago and everything, every single bastard little thing that’s presented itself in the interim, the life he knew before, the life he knows now. He becomes acutely aware of the ticking clock in the bathroom, the ticking clocks in the shop below, the fucking ticking clocks, leading him inexorably onwards towards some final, inevitable destruction.

  He’s still lying there, in tepid water, when he hears the doorbell go, some fucker hammering like crazy on the door, someone screaming up at his window, screaming the fucking street down. He clambers out of the bath, bollock-naked. Jen’s mam and sister, the two of them in the fucking street, the car blocking the fucking road. Engine running, lights on. Her mam screaming like a fucking banshee, screaming his name, her sister hammering on the door like she means to break through it. He gets himself dressed, meets Jen in the hallway, her looking mortified and terrified, not knowing what to do with herself. Her mam still screaming, howling that he’s a ‘prick’ and ‘cunt’. And she’s right. She’s fucking right. He’s ashamed to be living. He feels pathetic standing there with this beautiful thing in front of him, every bit the fucking animal he is. He looks Jen in the eye and he realises that she truly doesn’t see it.

  But she will, one day.

  She fucking will.

  ‘I’m staying here,’ she says.

  He shook his head.

  ‘No, no, no,’ he says. ‘You can’t.’

  ‘They’re an embarrassment,’ she says. ‘I can make my own decisions.’