by K T Bowes
The opposition gathered on the pitch in a huddle and I switched to player mode, joining the tight-knit circle of women and healing in their solidarity. The customary pre-game chant filled me with a sense of wellbeing and the aches and pains faded into background noise.
“Let’s go!” Brian yelled, ramping up the excitement. He tapped me on the shoulder. “Right back, number nine,” he said, patting me on the back as I ran out onto the pitch. “Don’t get hurt; we’ve no reserves. Good to have you here,” he added, his lips quirking as he issued orders to the other girls.
The turf felt good under my boots and I closed my eyes and savoured the scent of earth and severed grass roots. The female referee seemed to glow in her yellow shirt, the sun reflecting off the fabric like a blinding display of glory. My red and black stripes hugged every curve of my torso like a glove and as the whistle blew to start the game, I felt more alive than I had for ages.
My opponent drove hard for the ball, out running me on every challenge until I grew frustrated with my poor fitness. A bitter spirit took root and I legged her up in a nasty tackle, intended to break her run. She crushed me beneath her as she fell, winding me and scraping her studs down the inside of my thigh. “Serves you right!” she snapped, standing and smirking as the referee arrived, a yellow card raised above her head.
“Do that again and it’s an early shower,” she said, her tone clipped. Red hair tumbled either side of her face and I saw she meant business. My ears rang from the powerful whistle blow which communicated her disapproval and I apologised and stood up.
“Calm down, number nine!” Brian yelled from the sideline. “You just cost your club fifty bucks!”
I stood back from the free kick and gave myself a stiff talking to, settling into my game and pushing myself to keep up with my opponent. We battled hard, but I kept it fair on my part, recognising how easily the nasty spirit stepped in to compensate for my inadequacy. I matched her along the sideline as she took the ball up towards our goal, closing her down until she lost the ball over the white line.
Alice indicated I should take it and I chased it, flicking it up into my hands with my foot. I noticed the assessor then, using his ballpoint pen to mark a sheet resting on his clipboard. He stood on the other side of the pitch from the spectators and club members, keeping his distance to observe the performance of the referee with a calm eye.
I hesitated and swallowed, a metre away from him with the ball pinned between my fingers. Teina Fox smirked and offered a lazy wink. “I think they want the ball back,” he said, jerking his head towards a frantic Brian yelling from the other side of the ground.
Swallowing, I threw the ball, messing up the movement and not pulling the ball far enough behind my head before I let it go. The whistle blew and Alice looked at me in confusion. “Sorry,” I mouthed, not daring to glance back towards Teina. My heart pounded in my chest and I couldn’t work out whether embarrassment or lust induced it.
The referee let the game run on, not heavy on her whistle but decisive and clear when she needed to be. I experienced flares of jealousy at the thought of her sitting next to Teina in the cramped referees’ changing room, pouring over her scores and chatting over his detailed observations. I felt an idiot for my behaviour and worked hard to control the varying emotions, deciding somewhere between half time and the final ten minutes that soccer was no longer my game.
Then everything turned to custard. Alice went down in a terrible clatter with the goalie and didn’t get up. The goalkeeper wobbled around for a minute and promised she was ok but Alice stayed on the ground. Brian ran over with ice and a spectator from the opposition declared himself a doctor. Alice woke with a headache and the men helped her, limping from the pitch.
“Ten men!” Leonie yelled, rallying the troops. “We can do this. Let’s keep it a nil all draw, girls.”
We seemed to go down like skittles and the referee called advantage more times than she blew the whistle. Flattened, we got up and ran, hogging the ball and desperate for the taste of victory. I sent Leonie a freakily accurate cross and she drove the ball into the back of the opposition’s net, two minutes before the final whistle. It felt a hollow victory as her opponent studded the back of her leg from knee to ankle and she fell in the penalty box.
I could hear Brian swearing from the other side of the pitch and even the referee’s whistle and awarding of a penalty did little to assuage his temper. “Take it number nine!” he screamed at me and I shook my head and backed away. Last year I might have but not anymore. Someone else commanded the Ursula Saint confidence because it sure as hell wasn’t me. I turned my back so I couldn’t hear his bellowing and Leonie stepped up and took the shot. I knew the ball hit its mark by the cheer which went up along the sidelines. A glance towards Teina saw him writing something on his clipboard but he paused long enough to catch my eye. I’d never wanted to be somewhere else quite so badly as that moment and I hung out for the final whistle, resenting the referee for the extra three minutes she tacked on for injury time.
I shook hands with the referee and the other players and apologised to the girl I’d fouled. “Sorry. You were the better player and it irked me. I deserved the card.”
“Hey, no worries,” she said, shaking my hand. “It’s nice to see you back. We heard you weren’t playing.”
I shrugged, a familiar sick feeling rising into my stomach. “Just standing in. I won’t be playing again.”
She nodded, not really caring as her team mates trooped off and she ran to catch them up. I followed my team towards the changing rooms, dreading Brian’s dissection of the game in the after-match drink in the club house. The girls celebrated their victory and tried to include me, but every minute felt like an age of torture. I snagged the first shower and dressed quickly, listening to their loud chatter and evading their voiced assumption that I would join them in the club house.
“You might get the man of the match award,” one of the defenders commented, towel drying her hair as I tied my shoelaces and stuffed my kit into a bag. “You played well. We’ve missed you.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Nah, I don’t think so. I played like an idiot.” I kept my head down, sensing the unease inside the room heighten to painful levels. Collecting my gear together, I waved my arm to encompass the team without getting eye contact with anyone. “See ya girls, have a great rest of the season.”
Before they could release the giant exhale they collectively held, I left the room and bolted. The yellow shirt of the referee trotted off in the distance, still cladding her sweaty body. I shuddered and felt glad I wouldn’t have to car pool with her. I strode away from the home team’s lair and skirted the muted commiserations from the away team which I heard through the open windows. Steam gushed through the vents as the women showered more thoroughly than the men seemed capable of. Passing the officials’ changing rooms I remembered Teina’s presence on the pitch and my heart gave an involuntary skip. I glanced towards the tree he’d stood next to at the other side of the second best pitch and squinted against the bright sunlight. Blinded for a second, I put my hand up to shield my face and let out a squeak as a strong pair of arms seized me around the waist and yanked me sideways.
I spun into the room, dropping my kit bag and readying my confidence to take an angry pounding from Brian for my poor game. The door gave a sharp click and Teina grinned at me, darting forward and wrapping his arms around me. “Well, Ms Saint, fancy meeting you here,” he whispered, pushing his face into my neck and inhaling shower gel and shampoo. My soaked hair hung limp along my shoulders, creating a damp patch on my dress and sending drips down my back. A line of water soaked into the spaghetti straps and slithered into my bra. Teina traced it with a lazy finger and then lifted my chin so he could look into my eyes.
“Bad game, Ms Saint?” he asked, covering my rude answer with a kiss. When I turned my face to the side he dragged his lips along the tendon in my neck and nibbled the skin with gentle caresses. I felt my resolve weaken and tried t
o dig in and find my sense of dignity.
“Sod off!” I scowled and Teina grinned, that smug, self-righteous expression which infuriated me at the same time as felling me on the spot. I bent to retrieve my kit bag and his eyes flicked to the stud marks on my inner thigh as my dress rode up. I saw a momentary flash of sympathy and then it drifted away, replaced by the hard veneer.
“That’s what you get for pulling a tackle like that,” he said, his face coy and unreadable.
“Thank you so much for your wonderful wisdom.” I injected enough sarcasm into my voice to make it sting and then side stepped him, aiming for the door. Quicker than me, he moved to block my exit.
“Your heart wasn’t it in,” he said and his perception made me wince. “What happened?”
I shrugged. “I don’t want to play anymore. Everything that’s happened with my family and the club has made it too hard. This place, it sickens me.” I looked around at the dingy officials’ room, at the lack of respect the club offered men and women who volunteered so All Saints pitches could be filled with the game they loved and it brought it home to me; the club and I were as done as my father and me.
“Referee,” he said as though it made perfect sense.
I struggled with the bitter laugh which erupted from my chest. “Yeah. That might just finish Jordan Saint off for good. I should consider it.”
Teina cocked his head and knitted his brow, studying me through sultry brown eyes. I stood in the tiny changing room clutching my bag like an island swamped by storm water; going under with painful slowness.
“Come here, Ms Saint,” he whispered, holding his arms out towards me. I stared at the neat white shirt, ironed as though pressed onto the muscular body and wanted to run into his arms and bury my face in his strong chest and breathe him in. I knew what lurked beneath his clothes and I ached to hide in this awful room with no windows and recreate what last weekend brought, but I couldn’t. It wasn’t right.
My resistance caused him pain and I read it in the dark brown eyes, regretting it with all my nerve endings. I shook my head and ran a hand over my eyes, squeezing the bridge of my nose between thumb and forefinger. “My life’s about to tip up,” I said, my voice soft. “It’ll be toxic for anyone around me. You’re best out of it.”
I pushed past him with unchecked roughness and left the room, closing the door behind me with a resounding click. My tennis shoes tripped over bumps in the grass as I ran to the car park by cutting across a scrubby lawn. The right lace came undone and almost legged me up as I bolted and I reached my car more through luck than judgement, cursing the gardener who neglected anything not classed as pitch and taking the shoelace manufacturer’s name in vain as well.
My car fired up first time and I sped from the ground, determined it would be my last time on the property. My father’s fifty percent share in the club meant nothing to me and I worked to swallow down the threatening bile at my betrayal of a revered family legacy. I saw Teina’s dark shape in the doorway of the officials’ room and cut off any emotional connection between us, determined to leave the soccer world and its complications behind me.
I parked under the building and went upstairs in the lift, standing in the corridor outside my apartment with a peculiar sense of foreboding. I made no noise with the keys and pushed the door open with soundless precision, listening for intruders. My heart pounded with the realisation I’d abandoned the laptop next to the bed and not hidden it in the safe, leaving Pete’s guilt in the open for all of New Zealand to gawp at. I held my breath and sent up a silent plea for clemency, not expecting to receive it. Jack’s shoes nestled next to my work sandals by the front door and I entered with mixed feelings of relief and dismay. I crept along the hallway in bare feet and startled him as he sat on my bed. The laptop balanced open on his knee and he tapped keys with a look of frustration.
“Looking for something?” I asked, my tone acerbic. “Is this your game now, Jack? Grabbing promotion by turning over your family.”
“No!” He shook his tousled head and hurt flitted across his eyes. “You lied. I thought you’d dumped this.”
“Yeah. You also thought I’d set my father up as a murderer to get him back for marrying a floozy and that was wrong too.”
“I’m sorry about that.” Jack laid the laptop on the bed cover as though it was fragile and stood, his face pained. “I believe you didn’t know your dad married May-Ling, Ula. I said a stupid thing and I’m sorry.”
“Pete was gay.” I put the sentence out in the air with a casualness that sounded jarring. I might have said Pete liked ice cream or Pete hated cats with more expression. Still, it left Jack gaping like a mullet.
“What? No way!” His handsome features communicated his belief that I’d finally cracked and he needed to call the men in white coats to carry me to the psychiatric ward. I doubted his loyalty would stretch to visits there.
“Yeah.” My face remained calm and I rose onto tip toes; the way I’d walked as a child before soccer boots and stilettos. “Bent as a five bob note.”
Jack shook his head and gestured towards the laptop. “What’s the password, Ula? I need to take this into work and they’ll ask me.”
I laughed, a cruel, sardonic sound, eerie without mirth. “I just told you my husband didn’t love me, didn’t fancy me and used my body twice in a five-year marriage. I say ‘used’ because I can’t claim either of us enjoyed the experience. And all you can say is, ‘What’s his password,’ so you can take his deepest, darkest secrets to the police station and claim your booby prize.”
“Ula, don’t do this,” he said, his eyes widening at the coldness in my eyes. “We need to sort this out and quickly, before they come after you.”
“Go away, Jack,” I said with a sigh, turning on my heel. “You make me sick.”
I left the front door of my apartment open, figuring Jack would leave with the laptop soon, anyway. Ignoring the lift, I sprang down the stairs, tempted to pitch myself over the railing and end my miserable life once and for all. It was a momentary thought, but enough to bring me to my senses as I pushed through the exit from the stairwell and met my reflection in the front door glass with a look of horror. A cold, hard woman stared back at me and I recognised my father in the angular lines and lack of emotion in the eyes. “It finally happened,” I snapped. “You became a Saint! Congratulations!”
Chapter 30
The balmy air outside met me like a wall of heat and took my breath away. My cornflower blue car sat forgotten in the bowels of the apartment building as I began to walk, only my driving licence and car keys in my possession. I wondered who would miss me if I kept walking and never returned, unable to mention any significant names. Aunty Pam’s face swam before me in my inner vision and I pushed it away. She wasn’t her sister. She wasn’t my mother. And it was Karen Lansdown-Saint who I really wanted. I needed her cool hands on my forehead and gentle overtones of sympathy. I hated her too then because she’d left me and stifled a sob with my hand as I smelled the estuary and homed in on it like a beacon calling me.
I stepped off the curb without looking; a tragedy waiting to happen on a weekday, but still risky on a Sunday afternoon. The car screeched to a halt with centimetres to spare and I held my breath and felt my chest lock.
“Ursula!” Teina’s biceps rippled under his shirt as he shook me and a tear squeezed out of my left eye and pitched down my cheek. I watched the concern on his face change to fear. “What’s happened?”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. She just step’ out.” The tiny Asian man driving the big red Ferrari danced around in my peripheral vision like a fly trying to get inside a candy shop. His accent mangled the words and a bubble of hysterical laughter threatened to pop in my gut. “I could have kilt you,” he said, his anger growing. “You need lock up. My car worth more to repair than you!”
Teina turned towards him and stood up straight, maintaining a one-handed grip on my arm. “Hey, buddy. Move along or I’ll give you something to repair.”
“Hass-hole.” The little man scuttled back to his throbbing engine and ground the gears in a hurried getaway. His ruination of a simple cuss word made me splutter and thinking I was about to launch into tears, Teina buried my face in his chest and hustled me towards the car park at the side of my building. He kept one arm behind my back and his large hand spread out across my cheek, covering my ear and mashing my other cheek into his shirt. It occurred to me as we reached his car that the destination might still be the mental hospital.
“I don’t want to go!” I snapped, pushing at Teina with my hands and succeeding only in causing him to face me head on. “You can’t lock me up.”
“What?” His face held confusion mixed with amusement. “Last time I checked, being almost splattered by a Ferrari wasn’t an offence.”
“I’m not mad,” I insisted, realising by implication I’d made myself look exactly that.
Teina planted a kiss on my forehead and squeezed my upper arms in his comforting grip. “Get in the damn car, Ms Saint. I’m sorry it’s nothing flasher than a Ford but you’ll look better inside than on the front as a mascot.”
I sighed as he bundled me into the passenger seat and closed the door, all the fight gone out of me. My muscles ached and the stud welts on my thigh throbbed like a strobe. “Feels like a bloody knife wound,” I groaned, touching the heat around the raised blue bruises and wincing. Teina raised his eyebrow at the undignified flash of thigh and underwear and his lips moved into a quizzical line.
“You know what that feels like?” he asked and I closed my eyes against my own stupidity.
“No. So what? I can imagine, can’t I?” I heaved out a puff of exasperated air and he grinned, unfazed by my bad attitude.