by David Storey
Crouched round the tables the others in the Saloon were cautious with their own conversation in case they missed any of George’s. All of his remarks were passed from mouth to mouth to the far end of the room where a coal fire made a faint, economical glow. The fans, in spite of the heat in there, kept themselves ready to leave should George or any of us give the signal—they were muffled in overcoats and scarves, and I could almost hear them sweating.
Eventually George did look at his watch which he carried below the flap of his sleeve—a recent innovation—and compared it with the clock over the bar which always stood at ten past ten. He excused himself and went to the lavatory. The dog followed him, its lead disappearing into his raincoat pocket. As soon as he’d gone, a bit like a mannequin through an alert audience, Maurice turned on a fresh smile. ‘Where’re you going tonight, Art?’ he said.
I told him I didn’t know, and he shoved his hand through his short black hair. ‘There’s a party. Why don’t you come and celebrate?’
‘Celebrate what?’
He opened his coat and straightened his best suit. ‘We’ll flatten ’em, cock,’ he said. ‘I’ve fifteen quid on—so we better.’
‘That’s a bit risky, Morry,’ young Arnie said seriously after a while. ‘Don’t let sir know.’ He thumbed at the Gents. We laughed thinly at his seriousness.
‘I don’t know why I wuk down the pit,’ Frank said.
George reappeared fastening his buttons absentmindedly, and made Frank’s comment suddenly sound bare. He had changed his morning flat cap for his afternoon Homburg.
‘I wonder if he made the dog. …’ Young Arnie began, when George said:
‘Time we were moving, lads,’ and most of the men in the Saloon stood up. He examined his new watch again. ‘Five minutes to two.’
We caught a bus up to Primstone. The car was getting too knocked up to take the hill to the ground, and I didn’t bother with it much. I found I was using the bus more and more.
We didn’t talk on the way up. The first of the crowd was beginning to thicken either pavement as they trudged up the hill in the thin afternoon drizzle, and the first of the traffic jams was forming.
The grey heavy buildings, stone unlike the brick of the valley bottom, dragged by in procession: the small, varnished wood front of the undertakers’ that always made me sure I was going to be killed if I noticed it on the way to a match. I stared at it today as if to dare it. A thick-set, moustached man gazed out from behind the notice in the window at the thickening crowd. The weariness of the climb in the stream of traffic was infectious. I began to yawn a lot.
Maurice was signing autographs by the players’ entrance when we caught him up, and we went in single file down the corridor under the main stand. The Visitor’s dressing-room was still empty, but everyone seemed to have arrived in the Home changing-room.
They stood about in overcoats, stamping feet, talking quickly, dryly, and passing between the bench and the lavatory. Dai and the masseur were checking equipment in the middle of the room. A groundsman, hunch-backed and immune to the surroundings, was already in the concrete bath scrubbing it out with a stiff sweeping brush, shrouded in a cloud of steam.
I found a place on the bench and absently watched Frank argue with Dai. Maurice was beginning to unlace his shoes—apart from Frank he was the only one certain of playing.
But when I had a look at young Arnie again he was taking his coat off too, then his shirt. George must have told him privately he was playing, on the way up. George was beginning to like people who paid him a lot of attention. The boy shoved his hand into the large tin on the floor and brought out a thick string of vaseline. He began to rub the grease into his shoulders, impatiently, then round his ears, already misshapen and inflamed. He had a lot of talk had Arnie—he talked all the time he rubbed the grease in, his abnormally developed muscles quilted with a restrained confidence. Unmarked, they impressed on me a sense of my own maturity. I stood up.
Maurice was naked. He jumped up and down with his customary pre-match excitement, amongst the coated, impatient players. His body, heavily and indifferently scarred, was some consolation. I watched him as if I’d never really noticed him before. His muscles were hard and knotted, fierce little physical intensities. His bowed and prodigiously thickened thighs tucked in to the tight knot of his knees, red and scabbed and about to be bandaged by the masseur.
Three characters came in from the dark passage outside. Well shrouded from the weather, they blinked in the yellow lamplight, and two of them stared benevolently at the players. They’d just been deciding who was to run out there in the rain, the mud, and the cold. The piece of paper that George held drew everybody’s attention.
As my name was read out after young Arnie’s the kid looked across, his eyes focusing with unmistakable challenge and ambition. I turned away. Why be burnt up about it? Wait a couple of years and see how you feel then. A lot of noise and shouting followed the announcement, and the reserves stood back in the shadows and considered ways of hiding their apparent disappointment by helping. I pulled off my overcoat as George said, ‘Thirty-five minutes, lads. Take your time. The other team have just arrived.’ He looked about him as if it wasn’t odd how he emphasized time so much nowadays. ‘I’ll bring in their names as soon as I get the list.’ He sent one of the committeemen on this errand, then his Homburg bobbed among the busy heads as he elbowed his way over to the masseur’s table. He inspected the blue and purple blemishes on Maurice’s back. ‘Looks like wallpaper, Maurice,’ he told him, and leaned down and whispered confidentially in his ear. It was another recent habit of his I resented.
I sat on the bench, took off my shoes, and tucked my socks inside. I tried to think of something to occupy my mind, but as usual nothing came except a vague notion of getting the car fixed sometime. I rubbed some grease over the ankle I’d injured as a schoolboy. I strapped it up thinking it better that Dai didn’t see how it’d blown up in the last week or two, then pulled on the blue and red striped stockings and fastened them with tape. I leaned back against the wall and tried to relax before undressing. The water came through my shirt, cool. Young Arnie was almost ready, jumping in a corner, shadow-boxing. He’d only his jersey to put on. I watched, fascinated, the flesh of the kid’s heavy shoulders, the lithe muscles sliding across his back. It seemed a greater flexibility than anyone else’s, fluid, without hesitation. Had I been like that? I found it better not to look at Arnie for too long. In the opposite corner the two ’backs who’d been with us in the Woolpacks were being strapped up by Dai and one of the reserves. The taller one stood naked, feet astride, chest expanded like a stuffed pigeon, as Dai rolled on several layers of crape and adhesive round his body, covering his ribs and back. By the table, Frank—his belly hanging over his shorts—was rubbing vaseline into his shoulders and neck, and talking to Maurice. George had gone to talk to young Arnie who listened earnestly, diplomatically, to the advice. Toby the second, traced by a lead, was hidden under the bench. The hunch-back scrubbing out the bath began to sing a hymn.
I undressed, fastened my shorts, and joined Frank at the table. ‘How’s it going?’ he said with his usual aimlessness, and rubbed his expanded belly with affectionate illustration. ‘I’m having to watch this. So’s old George. He’s bin eyein’ me up and down ever sin’ I took my vest off.’ His coal-dusted eyes blinked, tired. ‘Do us me back, cock.’ He swung round and I lathered the grease on to the pallid skin, stained by a profusion of blue scars. It was a task I’d reckoned on doing every game since my first.
The familiar smells filled the low room—dry dust and sweat, carbolic, a tang of leather and polish. Above throbbed the steady beat of assembly. I pulled on the number twelve jersey, and as my head came out I caught sight of young Arnie talking to Frank. There were almost twenty years between them. Frank had started playing at Primstone when Arnie was born. And I knew what occupied Frank most—the fear of letting go of foot
ball, of the popularity, the money, and the friendship maybe, and subsiding into the obscurity of his fellow miners, a has-been. This abrupt diminishing of life, just at the point when according to the rules it should be getting larger, was a fear he’d come to recognize too late. It was Frank’s first sign of softness. It was something I didn’t care over-much to think about.
Feet stamped loudly overhead. A gust of wind and damp air swirled into the heated atmosphere of the room. The committeeman returned with the list of the visiting team’s changes, and banged the door authoritatively behind him.
‘Still raining?’ Frank called. The players collected to see the names. The man’s pale face, consumptive, reflected the yellow glow as he lifted his head to the inquiry.
‘Aye old lad. It won’t ease up now, tha can bet.’
Frank sat back on the bench, his thick hands stretched over his knees, talking to himself. Young Arnie had taken the ball and was throwing it to a player and getting it back in the special way he asked for it. In ten years, I started thinking, he’ll be like me. Then it’s all over.
‘Watch the passing, Arthur,’ George Wade whispered the secret. ‘It’s greasy. They’ve clever wings out today, both of them—Taylor and Wilki’son, so you’ll have to cover fast. Fast!’
‘I know, George.’
He must have been hurt. He unbent, and without having looked at me, beyond the edge of my grease-filled ear, he crossed to Frank for a few unnecessary words there.
A knock on the door and the linesman came in. ‘Five minutes to go,’ he said, and began to inspect the boots and padding. I took my teeth out and put them in my top pocket. ‘How’s it go, Arthur?’ he said, and went on without waiting to find out.
The two ’backs in the corner, their shoulders raised to their ears with pads, chatted in nervous subdued voices, wiping their fingers free from grease, trotting on the spot, chewing George’s free gum. They stopped to have their carefully protected bodies examined, then combed their hair in the faded ale mirror. I felt the first aggressive sensation sweep over me as the dexadrin I’d taken at home began to be absorbed.
I joined Maurice at the resin board. He cracked an ammonia phial and we took it in turns to stuff it up our noses. The electric bell rang over the door. Dai began to reel off his last-minute advice.
One or two were a bit frightened—a player had been killed the previous week from a kick on the head. Dai sounded hard, a bit tired. Then he gave the ball to Frank and opened the door. ‘Have a good game, lads,’ George said paternally, his hands clenched over his stomach. ‘No fists remember. But if you hit them—hit them bleeding hard!’ It was his weekly concession to swearing. He nodded his head and smiled kindly at one or two.
I followed Frank into the tunnel. A body like his made for some security. A few officials touched his back, then my back, as we turned into the tunnel and broke into a trot. A tremendous roar coincided with the daylight, and grew as we streamed on to the field. The loudspeakers blared the ‘Entrance of the Gladiators’.
In spite of the drizzle and the cold, the terraces were black with people. We stood clean and neat in a circle in the middle of the field, passing the ball, conspicuous against the greenery in red and blue arrowed jerseys and white shorts.
A plume of steam, brilliant against the greyness of the sky, detached itself from the lip of the cooling tower and drifted slowly over the field. A man in a white jersey with red horizontal configurations broke from the tunnel mouth. A second roar—rattles, bells, trumpet blasts—a stream of red and white flooded the darker greenery of the lower field. I looked for numbers two and five and at the size of their forwards. They were young.
Frank was standing with the ref and the other captain—bow-legged, small, not unlike Maurice. They shook hands, tossed a coin, and Frank indicated we’d play the way we were already facing.
A fresh burst from the crowd encouraged the line-up. Maurice ran up like he’d done a thousand times before and kicked off. The six forwards ran down the field. I carried on a straight course, knowing I could give the impression of strong attack without having to do anything—the player gathering the ball would run obliquely to the centre of the field and pass to one of the half-backs.
This he did, giving a fast convenient pass to the little captain who’d scarcely collected the ball than he was nearly killed by a short-arm from Maurice coming up in anticipation. The man lay still, covered in mud, his short legs splayed over the grass. The ref went over with a warning glance at Maurice to see how dead the man was. ‘That’s the way, Maurice,’ Frank said.
We made a scrum over the spot, the short piston limbs interlocking, then straining. A movement began across the field and young Arnie ran in with an ankle tap and the player crumbled. The ball rolled free and the boy scooped it up alertly with one hand and side-stepping started to run down the field. He found Frank with a long pass coming up laboriously in support. The great bulk of Frank, his lessened speed, drew the opposing forwards magnetically. They leapt wildly at his slow procession through them. Before he fell under their simultaneous attacks he flicked the ball expertly into the gap he’d deliberately created. Maurice, waiting in receipt, didn’t hear the oppressive noise that came from Frank as he hit the ground; he took the ball one-handed and with short precise steps cut his way through to the fullback, and was almost on the line when the winger, coming across with a greater and more famous speed, knocked him over like a stalk.
The two teams shot into position in the thick din of excitement. Frank stood behind Maurice and took the ball as it came between the scrum-half’s legs. I started running up from behind, Frank held the ball, then slipped it to me as I passed in full stride. I hit the wall of waiting men like a rock. For a second they yielded, drew together, and held. A dull pain shot from the top of my skull. I struggled into a position I knew would ease the impact and give me more chance with any excited fist. I heard through compressed ears the screams and groans of the crowd, almost the individual voices of agony, before I was flung down.
I rose with the same motion and played the ball. Young Arnie had it. I’d never realized how popular he was with the crowd. When, with an apparently casual blow, he was banged down, I was vaguely satisfied at his indiscretion. I took the ball as he played it and sent it to the centres. It passed straight to the super-protected wingman. He gathered cleanly and bustled up the field only to be shoved into touch. The crowd disapproved.
We folded down to the scrum, panting with the first breathlessness, steam rising from the straining ’backs. I saw the damp shape roll between my legs and Maurice snatched it up impatiently. With an extravagant dummy he shot by the still dazed captain and was caught by the winger. He kicked out, lashed out, contorted, and threw himself over the line.
The crowd screamed and surged like penned animals, like a suddenly disturbed pool. Whistles, bells, and trumpets crashed and soared on the animal roar. I ran to him, banged his back, and we walked back in pleased groups.
The full-back failed at goal. A slight breeze moved across the ground, spraying the drizzle. A spurt of vivid steam swirled over the pitch and drifted in slow ascent, I stared down at the bare patch of earth at my feet, soft and muddy. I bent down and touched it reassuringly, and as the flurry of rain changed direction looked up at the similarly worn patch at the centre. The ball wasn’t there. A tiger was running across the spot just after kicking. I narrowed my eyes, and in the thick air, against the dark prominence of the cooling towers, saw the slim oval shape.
‘Yours, Art!’ Maurice shouted behind me. The wet leather smacked into my crooked arms and I twisted instinctively into the grip of the surrounding men. I fell comfortably and was pressed to the ground. I stopped to watch the ball move from hand to hand across the field.
‘Come on, Arthur lad,’ somebody shouted either behind me or from the crowd. I followed the ball mechanically, attached to it by an invisible string. Perhaps I didn’t need a car now. It wa
s getting too old, too knocked about, and I’d never afford another.
I took the ball and burst down the middle of the field. I avoided two men and passed. The movement petered out.
I took some trouble to stay on the blind side during the play-the-ball. I rested nervously, scarcely tired, slightly puzzled. My ankles ached: I’d bound them too tightly. The drug I’d taken seemed to have been absorbed. My chest was constricted. The dampness went through to the bone, numbing. Black, unknown faces, streaked with skin or blood, slow black limbs, moving continually past, interlocking, swaying, beating, followed by the steam, seeping from the skin, polluted by the mud, vaporizing in the cold air.
I ran in close to a play-the-ball and took the pass. I broke into the oblique long-paced run popular with the crowd.
I chose the right wing, a stretch of field more familiar and where the winger was of a slighter build. He waited for me cautiously, feet astride, nervously crouched, encouraging me to run between him and the touch. I checked my stride and began to run on the outside of my feet, and moved straight towards him. He moved sideways again, still urging me to pass him between the touchline. I hated his mean scheming. I ran at him and shoved out my left fist. I saw his flash of fear, the two arms pushed out protectively, the silly stagger backwards, the two wounds torn in the turf by his sliding heels. I sensed the shape of the full-back running diagonally to intercept. I brought my knees up higher and concentrated on the line.
There was Arnie’s boyish supporting shout. I’d only to give it to him for a score. I shoved my hand at the full-back’s head as he came in, and felt the slackening of his arms. I threw myself forward, and hit somebody hard. I fell over sideways into touch.