‘Maybe you should be.’
‘Maybe we should, Miss Tilly, but sometimes you know it’s better not to ask too many questions, especially with someone like Maynard. Look, he rescued the club. He’s bought in some great players. We’re racing up the table.’
His face lit up. ‘Do you know what it’s like to play with the best? All my life I was always the best player in any team I was in. Always. Like I was God, you know? And now there’re ten others on the field just as good as I am and another ten waiting for a place. Some of them can work magic. And you know what? Every match, I have to work out of my skin to be the best. Because I’m playing with these guys, I’m working harder, training harder. Every moment of the match I can’t stop thinking, can’t stop concentrating. It’s like driving at a hundred miles an hour, you can’t let up.
‘There are kids in the team just eighteen, nineteen: they call me the Old Man. Old Man? I show them. They are geniuses on the ball. But you know what? I can still outplay them, still score when they don’t even know where the ball is. They’re just standing there looking, saying, “How did he do that?” And it’s fan-fucking-tastic.
‘I’m playing better than ever because I have to show these kids how it’s done. And that’s all thanks to Sim Maynard and his money. OK, the man’s a slimeball. We don’t have to like him, do we? And I can see why people hate him. I don’t rate him either. In fact, he’s a right pain in the arse. But he loves football, likes to hang out round footballers. He’s the little boy who’s got his real live Subbuteo team. And if that means he’s spending his money on our club instead of building an island off Dubai, well, I’m not going to moan about it, am I? It’s his money. He can spend it how he likes.’ He grinned. ‘Especially if he’s paying my wages. Especially if we’re winning.’ He sat back triumphantly.
With that, our food arrived, and Clayton and I forgot about Maynard. Instead we ate and talked and drank and talked. About football, about Denny Sharpe, about paintings, about our childhoods, about the people Clayton had met, about some of the other footballers and their girlfriends. About one footballer who’d come back from his honeymoon alone.
‘Alone?’
‘Yeah. They’d been together for a few years, had a kid. But she was just on the make, just one of those who was determined to bag a footballer—any footballer, as long as he was earning a hundred thousand a week. She got her teeth into him when she had the kid. Then, once they were married and it was all legal; once she had her bit of paper—well, that was it. Didn’t have to be nice to him any more. It will cost him an absolute mint.’
‘Oh dear,’ I said, in mock sympathy, ‘it must be so difficult for you, having women throw themselves at you.’
He grinned. ‘I struggle with it. But it’s not fair, is it, taking a kid away from its dad? She’s making it difficult for him to get access. Not right, is it? Kids need their dads, don’t they? Especially lads. I mean, who’s going to teach them football, otherwise?’
‘There are other things to being a good father than teaching your son how to kick a ball,’ I laughed.
‘Yeah, I know, but it’s still high up on the list, isn’t it? Still part of it all.’ He looked wistful. He was a grown man, still pining for the dad he’d hardly known and never forgiving him for walking out. ‘I don’t know how a dad can do that.’ He looked fierce and sad at the same time. ‘I could never do that. If I had a lad, I’d never leave him.’
‘I know. I know,’ I said.
Somewhere along the line, in that mellow glow that comes from good wine, good food and good company, I realised—without a hint of panic—that I had missed that last train…But it didn’t matter. There would be one very early in the morning. I could catch that. I’d still make it for my monk.
We were the last to leave the restaurant. The other high-backed booths were empty and the waiters were clearing up, discreetly, but still making it clear they were ready to go home, as Clayton paid the bill and we went out arm in arm into the night.
‘I’ll have to go via your place to fetch my bags,’ I said as we got into the cab.
‘Of course,’ he said.
When we got to his gates, he didn’t ask the cab to wait. Neither did I. I felt emboldened.
‘A nightcap?’ he asked, as I perched on the huge sofa and looked out at the lights of London.
I nodded dreamily. He poured me a glass of grappa. ‘Bottled sunshine,’ he said. I sipped it happily. On top of all the food and wine I’d had that evening, it slid down wonderfully…
Clayton had disappeared. Gone to the loo, I supposed. Never mind. He’d be back in a minute, and then I’d call a taxi and go home, back to my own flat, just for a few hours, because I had to be up early. Very early. I tucked my legs up under me. The sofa was very comfortable. Soft and squashy. I snuggled down into it. I rested my head on one of the arms. I was so tired, so sleepy. I would just close my eyes for a moment, just for a moment, until Clayton came back from the loo…
What? Where? Why? As I blearily opened my eyes, I struggled to work out where I was. Not in a bed, on a sofa. Ouch, that explained the cramp in my leg and the crick in my neck. Yet I had a duvet over me. But all my clothes on. Why was I on a sofa with a duvet over me? And whose sofa was it anyway? Outside the window, I could see the first grey light of dawn breaking across London.
Ohmigod! I sat bolt upright. I was still at Clayton’s flat. I looked at my watch. Seven a.m.! I’d been there all night. Oh no…I had a train to catch. I had to go quickly. But how? I leapt up from the sofa, cramp and crick forgotten, and went off in search of a bathroom. I caught sight of myself in the mirror. Not a pretty sight. I had to find Clayton, or the way out. There were staff, weren’t there? The lady who’d let me in. Maria. Where was she? How did I get out of this place? Help! Where were my bags? I didn’t even know how to open the fancy gates. I couldn’t just sneak out—I’d have to find someone. And quickly.
Why had I been here all night? I’d meant to go back to my own flat. It was the grappa—I shouldn’t have had it. I must have gone to sleep. Dimly, I had a very vague, half-memory of a faint chuckle, of someone putting the duvet over me, of the lights being switched off.
Downstairs, after going through endless rooms, I finally found the kitchen, a huge palace with every gadget ever seen. I would have loved to explore further, but not now. There was no one around. At least I had found my bags, which were just inside the hall. I looked at the front door. Tentatively, I tried to open it.
CLANGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!! CLANNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!
An alarm shattered the silence and made me jump in the air, my heart pounding. Had I done that? I looked at the control panel at the wall and had no idea how to turn it off. It would wake the whole house, the whole street.
CLANGGGGGGGGG! CLANGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh help.
‘Is that you, Tilly?’
I looked up the wonderful winding staircase to see Clayton standing at the top. Actually, he was hopping on one foot while tugging on a pair of grey training shorts. Even half asleep, even in a panic, even still not quite knowing what was going on, I could see that he looked seriously fit.
CLANNNGGGGGGGG! CLANNGGGGGGG!
‘What’s the matter, Tilly? Why’s the alarm gone off ?’ He loped down the stairs in about three strides and clicked the buttons to stop the alarm. The silence was wonderful.
‘Sorry about that, but I’ve got to go,’ I said. ‘Now. I must catch that first train. If I don’t…I’ve got no chance of catching it now. And the photographer will be coming and I won’t be there and it will all have to be be…’ Oh why had I been so stupid as to go back to Clayton’s? And then to go to sleep?
‘I’ll take you,’ said Clayton.
‘No, it’s all right,’ I said automatically and then thought again. ‘Actually, no it isn’t. Yes please. If you don’t mind.’ There was no time to be polite and fanny on.
‘No problem. Got your bags? Well, come on then.’ He raced up the stairs, came back still in his shorts, but w
ith a pair of leather flip-flops on his feet and his car keys, his phone and a fleece in his hand.
He was tugging the fleece over his head and we were dashing out of the door just as Maria was appearing, tiny and bleary-eyed, anxious.
‘It’s OK, Maria. Just a false alarm. Go back to bed.’
She stood there in the doorway, shrugging helplessly as the car beeped open.
‘We’ll never make it!’ I said as I clambered up into the front of the Hummer.
‘Now that sounds like a challenge!’ grinned Clayton, and we roared off, barely giving the automatic gates time to open as we raced through them.
The first junction we came to was blocked by solid traffic. Clayton flung the Hummer into reverse, backed up the road at sixty m.p.h., swung into another road and barrelled it between two rows of parked cars.
And that was just the start…
Never have I experienced a drive like that. Clayton steered in and out of the traffic, bore down on drivers in front, raced through side streets, nipped in and out of bus lanes.
‘You’re all right, Tilly. This car’s too big to argue with.’
‘That’s meant to reassure me?’ I yelped, clutching at the door handle.
At one point—when we were moving back out of a bus lane and Clayton was forcing our way back into a line of traffic so he could overtake the bus, I had my hands over my eyes, scared to look. From one chink between my fingers I could see the side of the bus about a finger’s width away from my window. Instinctively I swerved away from it and fell right against Clayton as he was pushing his way in front of a little Fiesta. He avoided the Fiesta, but then I could see a row of bollards looming up on the driver’s side. I shut my eyes again.
Clayton was laughing.
‘How can you laugh?‘ I squeaked. ‘Look, please stop. It doesn’t matter if I miss the train. I’ll ring them, I’ll cancel. I’ll arrange another day. I’ll…Help!’
He’d slammed the brakes on because of a speed camera. Then immediately revved up again. Now he was hammering along with two wheels on the road and the other two on the central reservation.
‘Clayton! Will you stop! I’m sure there was another camera. There was a flash!’ I looked round to see if I could spot a camera, but we were already gone.
‘You wanted to catch a train. You’re going to catch a train.’
‘You’re enjoying this!’
‘Miss Tilly, I love it! Haven’t driven like this since I was sixteen.’
I wondered if it was too late to start praying…
Suddenly, amazingly, he was slamming the brakes on and jumping out. ‘King’s Cross, madam, you’ve got one minute to catch your train.’
‘I don’t believe it!’ I slumped back into the seat, as shattered as if I’d run the distance. ‘We’ve made it!’
‘Only if you’re quick. Come on!’
The car was straddled across double yellow lines right next to the station entrance. Clayton grabbed my bags out of the boot. As he did so, his phone rang. He took it out of his pocket and flung it onto the dashboard. He still had his keys in the same hand, so when the phone flew, they did too. The button on the fob must have hit the dashboard.
There was one of those soft clicks. You know, the soft click made by a large expensive car that has just automatically locked all its doors—with the driver on the outside and the keys on the inside…
‘Shit!’ said Clayton, staring at the car helplessly.
‘Oh God, what will you do? Have you a spare set? Can you phone home? Oh no, your phone’s in there.’ I felt hopelessly responsible for what had happened.
‘Don’t worry. I’ll sort it,’ said Clayton. ‘Now which platform?’ And he was racing off with me panting behind him. We’d found the platform and were running down it, past the engine just as the guard was shutting the door. Clayton snatched it open again, bundled me in, pushed my bags in after me. The guard glared at us, shut the door again and the train started to pull slowly out. I looked out of the window and could see Clayton standing on the platform, waving, triumphantly.
Under the disapproving glares of the other passengers, I collapsed, panting, onto the nearest seat as the train headed north.
Chapter Seventeen
I fell hopelessly in love with the monks. Brother Ambrose and Brother Patrick were like Little and Large—one huge, one tiny, but both smiling, jolly, welcoming and, at the same time, so wonderfully calm.
It had been a fraught journey. No shower, no wash; I hadn’t even cleaned my teeth. I was glad I wasn’t sitting next to me. Once on the train I’d tried to get myself washed and changed. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried that in the loo of an Intercity express racing north at 123 m.p.h., but I wouldn’t recommend it. But I’d managed as best I could and, after a coffee and a BLT, felt a bit more human.
As for the necklace, I had carefully put that back in its box and wrapped it in one of the thick jumpers I was taking back north. It looked as though that necklace was now mine whether I liked it or not. There was no way that Clayton was going to accept it back.
While I was dancing on one foot trying to put clean knickers on, wearing my trousers round my neck because there was nowhere else to put them, I kept thinking of Clayton and last night. Honestly, the fittest footballer in England and I went to sleep! To sleep? Why had I accepted the grappa? Why hadn’t I gone straight home? Had I hoped to end up in the big bed with the black and white duvet? No. Well, probably no. No, definitely no. Maybe…
But I’d enjoyed the evening. Of that I was sure. And Clayton seemed to enjoy it too. Time had flown. But to go to sleep…
My head was still churning with all that had happened when I got off the train and found PIP. Amazingly, she started first time. But then I had to drive over the moors to find the monastery, with a few wrong turns here and there, constantly looking at my watch. For once, the gods were on my side and I managed to arrive at the monastery almost on time but, as I pulled up in the courtyard, I was hot and bothered, with my mind still all over the place.
But Brother Ambrose and Brother Patrick were delightful. They took me and the photographer—a guy called Clive whom I’d never worked with before—to the apple orchards, which spread down the side of a valley with a view for miles. And as I breathed in the crisp autumn air and gazed over the lines of trees and the distant hills beyond them, I gradually realised that all I could hear was the swish of their robes and the distant baa-ing of sheep. Just the huge stone walls of the abbey and silence. I took a huge breath and sighed as I followed them along the grassy path.
Brother Patrick led us round the edge of the orchard, unlatched a little wooden gate and took us into an old barn, stacked high with wooden trays and baskets, arranged in higgledy-piggledy heaps on the earth floor. It all smelled wonderfully of sweet apple juice, with undertones of wood and soil and a slight, tantalizing whiff of alcohol. Somewhere a wasp buzzed dozily. Most of the apples had been juiced, but there were still a few trays of the late fruit—apples of all shapes and sizes, often with stalk and leaf attached—waiting to go into the simple old-fashioned wooden machine. It all looked like one of those arty illustrations for chichi rustic cookery books that don’t tell you how to cook anything sensible. But this was real, a working operation. Clive’s eyes lit up as he started arranging pictures. This was such a gift for him. Brother Ambrose and Brother Patrick took turns to explain all about the apples—many of them from ancient stock—and about the juicing and the cider press. They made sloe gin too and were waiting for the first frosts before they picked the sloes.
‘And that will be soon, I think,’ said Brother Ambrose. ‘The weather is about to turn. You can smell the cold in the air.’
As they stood there talking to me, explaining so kindly and carefully what they did, their hands tucked into the wide sleeves of their habits, they radiated an air of such calmness and certainty that I just wished they could bottle that along with the cider. I tried to say something along those lines, but Brother Ambrose just laughed
.
‘We are monks, but we have to live in the world too,’ he said. ‘We have to pay our bills, repair our roof. Our cider is an advert for us. Your article, which I’m sure will be wonderful, and the pictures so artistic’—he looked up at Clive, who by now was perched on top of the cider press, trying to get pictures at clever angles—‘will remind people we are here. That monks don’t just exist in history books or cartoons. That while the world goes on in its mad way, we are here in the hills, picking our apples, making our cider and praying for them.’
The two of them beamed at me. ‘And we shall pray for you too,’ said Brother Patrick.
Apart from weddings, I’ve hardly been inside a church for years, but when Brother Patrick said he would pray for me, he made it sound like a gift. Mind you, by then I was feeling very light-headed. But we drank some apple juice together and they gave me and Clive a bottle of cider each to take home. As I revved up PIP and drove out of the monastery grounds and down the winding track back to the main road, I did feel—not exactly blessed—but calmer. Less fraught.
Until I switched on the car radio.
‘…Premiership footballer…crackle, crackle…Silver …hiss… questioned by police…whoosh whoosh… Prevention of Terrorism Act…police spokesman…’
What? I pulled over and tried to tune the radio, but it just crackled even more. The wonderful moors played hell with radio reception, especially when the radio was as ancient as PIP’s. Had the newsreader said Silver? It sounded like it, but I couldn’t be sure. And a terrorist? Never. The wonderful feeling of calm immediately vanished as I stabbed the buttons and tried all channels. But by the time I finally got clear reception, the news bulletins were over, and all I could get was a phone-in on incontinence. I tried my mobile. No reception. Of course. How did people live up here? It was like going back to the Dark Ages. Oh dear. So much for the calming influence of the monks. I sounded like Jake. I glared at the phone, at the radio, at the moors, and headed the rattling van back to Hartstone Edge and The Miners’ Arms.
The Lost Guide to Life and Love Page 17