In Pieces

by Nick Hopton

  Breakfast was a quiet affair apart from a few of the lads trying to crack jokes to dispel the tension hanging over the cornflakes. Jimmy mooched about the chintzy hotel waiting for the bus to take them to Wembley. He was still in awe of many of his teammates and suspected that some resented his arrival and place in the first team.

  Occasionally, he came across huddles of two or three of his fellow players slumped in deep armchairs, chatting with forced humour. He smiled and nodded but didn’t join any of them, not wanting to intrude on the friendships forged during several long Premiership campaigns. He was acutely conscious that he’d only been at the club for four months, and in the first team for half that time.

  Jimmy wished Si was there. They could have had a laugh together. He only had that kind of friendship with Si.

  After what seemed an eternity they all assembled in the lobby. Decked out in the navy blue suits which they’d been measured for only a fortnight before, they trooped out to the coach. There was something uncanny about so many young stars in sharply cut suits rather than football kit. Of course, it could have been worse; at least the tailoring was classical and done in Savile Row. Heaven knows who made the extraordinary three-piece fashion suits which Cup Final teams in the seventies used to wear. But despite this sartorial compensation, Jimmy was not alone among his teammates in feeling uncomfortable in a suit and tie; he’d have preferred jeans and a tee shirt.

  It was a short drive to the stadium. Jimmy sat next to Ryan Giggs, who seemed as calm as ever. They chatted sporadically about last year’s final in which United had been beaten by another Merseyside team, Everton. It had been a terrible experience, coming as it did straight after failing in the last match to win the Championship; the antithesis of this year.

  ‘But today’ll be different,’ Giggs prophesied, as deadpan as ever.

  Jimmy prayed that he was right. Last year he remembered watching the Final with Si in The Feathers. As he recalled, both of them had been quite pleased to see the underdogs beat United. That now seemed a lifetime away.

  ‘You nervous?’

  ‘Yeah. Terrified.’

  ‘Don’t be. Believe me, once you get out there it’ll be fine… Like any other match.’

  ‘I suppose so. Only there’s a lot hanging on this, isn’t there? More than your average match.’

  ‘You mean the Double Double?’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess so. But let’s just get on with the job and enjoy it, eh?’

  Jimmy nodded gratefully, encouraged by his teammate’s unfazed attitude. Impressive, especially since he was still several years younger than Jimmy. ‘Yeah, right,’ he grinned.

  Then they were driving through the singing, smiling crowd and soon afterwards inside the stadium. Some of the players went out to inspect the pitch. Jimmy felt so nervous that he didn’t want to move from the refuge of the dressing room. He sat on the blue bench quietly by himself watching the others come and go, talking loudly to cover raw nerves. The white walls stared back at him and he felt oppressed.

  Only Eric Cantona seemed completely detached from the pressure of the occasion. He sat still in the corner, meditating. Jimmy noticed that he glanced occasionally at a crumpled paperback by someone called Jacques Derrida which he was holding between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. Jimmy hoped he was plotting a masterstroke to unbalance Liverpool and push the advantage United’s way. But it did seem a bit late in the day to be reading football strategy books, even if they were in French. Well, who was he to raise such doubts, thought Jimmy humbly. Since arriving at Old Trafford, he’d had been so awe-struck in the great player’s presence that he’d only exchanged a few pleasantries. The Frenchman seemed aloof, above it all somehow.

  Jimmy took off his jacket and hung it on one of the hooks above the bench. Then he checked that Albert and Alec the kit managers had laid out his strip and that his boots were ready. As ever, the backroom boys had performed their duties impeccably. Jimmy contrasted the United set up with his experience at Millwall. The two clubs were worlds apart. For instance, at United there were always at least four shirts available for each player, two long sleeved and two short sleeved. But at Millwall there had been times when he’d even had to take his kit home for washing and to clean his own boots.

  Jimmy looked up when an official poked his head round the door. Seeing an unreceptive dressing room, he quickly withdrew it. Then Jimmy realised Cantona was watching him.

  ‘You are nervous?’ Cantona closed his book carefully.

  ‘Yeah, I think so,’ blushed Jimmy.

  Cantona nodded unsmiling. ‘You must not be. It will be good today. You will see.’ A mischievous twinkle played in the corner of the older man’s eyes.

  Jimmy forgot his nerves and believed his captain.

  ~

  Si and Mary were sitting among the players’ guests, high in the stand. The sun had descended in the sky and long shadows fell across the emerald pitch. His teeth and those of some United spectators around him were chattering. He could see the tension etched deep into the brow of a teenage girl draped in United’s colours sitting on his left—one of the players’ girlfriends.

  Jimmy’s generosity in inviting them as his guests had made an impression. Si had been really touched by the gesture.

  ‘Hey mate, that’s really kind…’

  ‘Don’t be thick. Stop being grateful. You’re my best mate, what else d’you expect?’ Jimmy had tried to make light of it. Si unable to say anything else, had given Jimmy a hug.

  ‘Cut it out. What’ll people think, eh?’ Jimmy pushed him gently away. But the moment had been a good one, an instant of emotional honesty which would outlive at least one of them.

  Si pulled himself together for fear that Mary would notice and not understand. Why were women allowed to parade close friendships, but men had to preserve a gruff emotional mask? Si watched Mary carefully ploughing through the official programme, studying it as if it were company accounts.

  ~

  United were trying desperately to break through Liverpool’s defences. After over an hour of play there were still no goals and both sides were playing badly. At times it seemed more like a comedy of errors than an historic match between the two most famous football teams in Britain. The only consolation, thought Si, was that United were playing less badly than Liverpool. But both sides were suffering from acute nerves.

  Jimmy had been virtually non-existent so far, apart from one shot way over the bar. Even Giggs, for all his pre-match confidence, was having an off day.

  ‘This is terrible,’ complained the teenage girl on his left, biting her nails.

  ‘Yeah,’ agreed Si, noticing that she’d now run out of fingers and was onto her thumb. If it carried on like this without a goal they’d all die of stress. He reckoned the tension had already knocked ten years off his life.

  ‘They’re bound to score soon,’ said Mary. She was transfixed, totally absorbed in the spectacle, having learned from the glossy programme what all the fuss was about.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Si without confidence. It was going to be settled by a single goal either way. The danger was that an error by United would allow Liverpool to go ahead, and that would be that. No, please God, no. Let United win and let Jimmy score the goal, he prayed silently.

  ~

  Jimmy was having a nightmare. He’d known it would be bad, but this was ten times, even a hundred times, worse than anything he’d imagined. Every time the ball came near him he couldn’t move his legs fast enough to catch it. He felt as if lead weights were in his boots holding him back.

  Five minutes to go and it looked as if extra time and even a replay were inevitable. What a terrible match. He wondered if he’d blown his chances at United as he watched Gary Pallister stop a half-hearted Liverpool attack.

  Jimmy was only amazed that he hadn’t been substituted yet. The Boss had pulled off poor old Andy Cole, but Jimmy was still on the pitch. He knew that, like Cole, he was principally there to sco
re goals. And so far he had not. As the seconds ticked away, he began to feel his United career drawing to a close. He’d had his opportunity to score after twenty minutes, but he’d snatched at the shot and ballooned it over the crossbar. The Liverpool fans had jeered him and, although he knew he shouldn’t allow it to get to him, he’d been rattled by the volume and animosity of their taunts.

  Pallister still had the ball and tapped it to Roy Keane. The voluble Irishman had been magnificent in holding United’s midfield together—a rare point of stability in a jittery performance by the League Champions. Keane, looking assured, ran forward with the ball to the halfway line before taking a one-two from Cantona. Now inside the Liverpool half, he looked right and, seeing Jimmy in space, pushed it forward to him. ‘Jimmy, yours,’ he shouted, more a command than anything else.

  Jimmy thought for a moment that he wouldn’t be able to control the ball; it was coming too fast. But he caught it on the outside of his boot and it spun off in front of him along the manicured turf.

  The sun came out as Jimmy pursued the ball, deaf to the rising crescendo of expectation from the United supporters. He moved towards the penalty area and looked up to see if the shot was on. As he did so, a Liverpool defender hurtled into him and slid the ball away from him.

  Damn, thought Jimmy, as he tumbled face down onto the ground. He’d squandered a good opportunity.

  Pulling himself to his feet, he realised that the ball had gone behind for a corner and United still had the advantage. He jumped up and went to stand on the near edge of the five-yard box.

  David Beckham positioned the ball and ran up to take the corner. ‘Becks… Here,’ cried Jimmy. He broke forward in an attempt to lose his marker, keeping his eye on the ball as it curved towards him. It was high and spinning outwards, away from the goal.

  Summoning his remaining strength, Jimmy leapt as high as he could into the air. He just connected to flick the ball with his head towards the goalmouth. The Liverpool keeper launched himself and punched clear Jimmy’s attempt. As Jimmy fell to the ground, he found the Liverpool keeper tumbling over him.

  What happened next made footballing history. As Jimmy rolled around trying to disentangle himself from the Liverpool keeper, the ball flew out to the edge of the penalty area. It looked as if Liverpool had survived the attack and a goalless draw was unavoidable.

  Then from nowhere Eric Cantona swooped like an angel of destiny, a one-man legion of honour. He appeared at the edge of the penalty box and bent himself at almost ninety degrees to the vertical; somehow he managed to hook his right foot around the rebounding ball. Cantona took it on the volley and the ball miraculously sped back towards goal. Amid the chaos, over Jimmy’s body and the prone goalkeeper, between three defenders frozen and impotent, unable to block the shot, the ball rocketed, only that it all seemed to happen in slow motion, and the ball almost appeared to weave its way between the players.

  Then the white sphere hit the back of the net and the world turned red, the red of United, and Jimmy, screaming ‘Yeaaah…’ at the top of his voice, ran into the net and kicked the ball hard just to make sure it was where he thought it was. He turned back with his colleagues and ran to salute the goalscorer, who was dancing a Gallic celebration. Cantona had kept his promise. It was a good day, a great, historic day, the best day of Jimmy’s life. He and United had won the Double Double.

  As Jimmy ran to congratulate his captain, he passed James, the Liverpool keeper, despondently pulling the ball out of the net. He patted him on the shoulder. The keeper had done all he could to defend his goal, but it hadn’t been enough. The two opposing players exchanged a look. Even if Jimmy had wanted to say something he couldn’t have—the noise of the delirious United celebrations filled the stadium, obliterating all other sound.

  Jimmy ran past the disconsolate goalkeeper and, giving vent to a massive but inaudible victory yell, ran on to embrace the goalscorer.

  Summer

  With the first intimations of summer, the city rose to the challenge. Rosy-cheeked children rushed to the parks and sucked ices. Dapper businesswomen swung Chanel jackets across bony shoulders and strode purposefully from the underground to their air-conditioned offices.

  The newspapers trumpeted that the summer promised to be one of the hottest on record. Despite the heat, the city sped up and glistening, racing-green MGs driven by Ray Ban posers in Polo shirts and chinos raced bicycle messengers in tight satin shorts down dozy Belgravia streets. Rollerbladers clad in improbable armour skated dangerously along the pavements of Battersea and Fulham, trying to avoid wrinkles in the bubbling tarmac and drooling dogs, which skulked in the shade and dreamed of brisk winter walks.

  ~

  ‘Darling, that’s great,’ raved Si’s mother. ‘We’ll see you at about eight thirty, then.’

  Si listened to her blow the customary kiss down the phone before closing his mobile—a recent imposition intended to allow Dougy to talk to him at all times. Si resented it as deeply as a dog its leash. He was thoughtful as he walked back through the park to The Courier building. A trip home to the county of Easfolk needed psychological preparation.

  Si had realised in his late teens that nobody was responsible for his family. This was fortunate, and since then relations with his family, in particular his parents, had changed for the better. Previously his father’s idiosyncrasies—pipe-smoking, dahlia-growing kind of idiosyncrasies—had been a source of deep embarrassment. He had felt this to such an extent that taking friends home was always a trial, and even now he had never taken a girlfriend to meet his parents.

  Si’s mother was less an embarrassment than a mystery. One week, she devoured books about eastern religions; the next, she attended evangelical revival churches. She was passionate in what she termed her ‘search for the Truth’.

  Once she had tried to draw a parallel between Si’s journalistic ambitions and her own spiritual path. ‘Darling, don’t you see, we’re both striving for the same thing. It’s like George Trevelyan says, we are reborn anew and each soul is on a higher plane, reaching out desperately to get to the Truth at the centre of the universe.’

  Si hadn’t protested, although he knew that his mother’s understanding of modern journalism was clearly limited. The search for truth only acted as an excuse for the real business of selling newspapers. When business success and revelations of truth for the greater good coincided, fine… But that was the exception rather than the rule.

  Once Si realised that, despite an accident of birth, he was not expected to take responsibility and could not be judged because of his parents, then he began to appreciate their better qualities.

  He noticed how his father controlled his temper even in the face of extreme provocation, for example when Si accidentally ‘weeded’ some expensive prize flowers when trying to help in the garden. His father just pointed out the error, leant on his spade and, contemplating the mangled remains of his cherished plants, stoked his pipe and smiled benignly at his errant son. No words, just a few puffs before the pipe automatically extinguished itself again. Si appreciated that.

  He also realised that his mother could be a valuable asset. Although he found her mystical ramblings incomprehensible and bizarre, friends he had brought home, including Jimmy, were fascinated by her.

  ‘She’s great,’ enthused Jimmy, ‘really fantastic. I wish my mother was like that.’

  And Si felt a sort of pride watching his mother, blonde hair pulled back in an Alice band, talking non-stop for half an hour without interruption from Jimmy. Even more bizarre was the fact that Jimmy had never shown any religious or intellectual leanings before or since. But he hung on every syllable as she explained the Tao.

  Si passed through the security check and flashed his pass at the guard. The latter wore a black uniform and looked like Officer Dibble from Top Cat. Would he really be capable of deterring any would-be terrorist from storming the building? It seemed unlikely. But who would want to attack The Courier’s offices anyway? Even in the cease-fi
re, perhaps the IRA? The newspaper had been consistently critical of Sinn Fein’s duplicity in the bomb-shattered times before this peaceful interlude. Not that anyone would have much to gain from such a crass action. But then terrorists seemed not to understand that they stood to gain nothing from blowing up civilians. Odd, really, that they bothered at all, reflected Si. Anyway, there hadn’t been any bombings in London for the best part of a year now, and the cease-fire seemed to be holding.

  He stepped into the lift and, pressing the sixth floor button on the panel, wondered what it would be like to be blown to smithereens. Would he be able to appreciate the sensation or would he be already nothing, non-existent, by the time the blast ripped his body apart?

  The thought was intriguing and he pondered it for the rest of the day. As he put on the kettle he imagined he was triggering a bomb… As he pressed 0 on his phone and when he opened a door, he held his breath to see if the action would lead to an explosion.

  Si was still wondering about it when he knocked off that evening. Somehow he’d managed to scrape together enough material to fill the page. Insipid stuff, he knew it. But any passion for his job had more or less gone, and increasingly he wondered if he retained enough ambition to get him through the day. The shadows were lengthening and Si was increasingly aware that his position was becoming untenable. He couldn’t hide from himself forever; life was too short.

  Bill, true to recent form, had produced two good pieces which had carried the Diary past the Editor’s censure. Dougy had wanted to know how Si had found out about the past of the Head Chef at Zeno’s (a new ultra-fashionable Notting Hill restaurant). Apparently the cook had started out as a factotum for a notorious Lebanese arms dealer. Preparing food had just been one of several duties; the others were less savoury. Anyway, Dougy decided, after a few seconds of indecision, that he liked it.

  Si couldn’t be bothered to lie, and admitted that the story had all been Bill’s efforts. He didn’t feel self-destructive enough to admit that he hadn’t even proofread the piece carefully before putting it to the Editor.