Putting the Boot In

by Dan Kavanagh

  No more men. Not for a bit. Watch out for night sweats. Try and find out where your lymph nodes are.

  It wasn’t Duffy’s brightest game for the Reliables that Sunday. He missed a punch on a corner: one-nil. He came out far too late when the back four was caught square: two-nil. He got an elbow in the side at a free-kick and was too winded to see who’d done it. And he ended up being scooted round by a fat midfielder who picked the ball out of the net for him, and proudly announced that it was his first goal in eighteen months: three-nil.

  He didn’t feel too bright in the shower afterwards, either. There had been times when he would glance around the flesh on display and have a quiet smile to himself. Pity they’re all straight, he’d think. Now he half-closed his eyes as the shorts were dropped, and winced as all these pink, healthy, heterosexual bums came waltzing confidently out of the shower. Herpes was the most they’d be worrying about.

  One of the bums belonged to Ken Marriott—Maggot, as he was affectionately known to the team, because of the way he kept getting under opponents’ skins. There was something about Maggot that really riled other outfits. Probably the way he kicked them; they never did seem to get used to that. Maggot was tall and thin and bad-tempered-looking, and didn’t have much hair left: most of it had been worn off on all those strikers he’d butted. But then, if he hadn’t been a touch on the physical side, he probably wouldn’t have kept his place with the Reliables. For Ken suffered from a terrible affliction: he was a thinker. He worked on the sports desk of the West London Chronicle; perhaps that was where he got his ideas. He talked a lot about ‘vision’, and ‘changing the point of attack’, and ‘spreading the ball wide’.

  ‘He’s got great vision, our Maggot,’ said Karl French after one match. Karl French was the fittest, youngest and smartest member of the Reliables, and they were lucky to get him. ‘Great vision. Only trouble is, the ball doesn’t go anywhere fucking near where he wants it to.’

  Maggot was always trying to play subtle chips round the edge of the box, or back-heel the ball at speed, or lay it off one-touch with a caress of the boot. The Reliables forgave him these delusions of grandeur because of his defensive qualities. He could mistime a tackle like no one else in the team; and since he was tall and thin and looked a bit uncoordinated, the ref often let him get away with it.

  ‘I know I’m a bit rugged,’ Marriott had once explained, almost apologetically, after an especially vicious game, ‘but I’ve got this vision as well, you see.’

  ‘Course you’ve got vision, Maggot,’ said French consolingly. ‘Anyone can see that. Great vision. It’s just a question of whether the rest of us can adapt our game to fit in with you.’

  Maggot thought he had made a friend for life.

  As they were leaving the ground, Marriott asked Duffy for a lift back. Despite his vision, he’d so far been unable to persuade any driving-test examiner to allow him on the road unaccompanied.

  ‘Been seeing a bit of Jimmy Lister lately,’ he began, as he untangled his seat belt.

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Now there’s a man with problems.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Not like mine, thought Duffy. Bet Jimmy Lister doesn’t get night sweats. Or if he does, they’re only about something short-term, like losing his job.

  ‘Ever met him?’

  ‘No. Liked him as a player. Bit of a berk as a manager, isn’t he?’

  ‘You try managing Athletic with Melvyn Prosser breathing down your neck.’

  ‘What’s he earn? Fifteen thou? Twenty?’

  ‘Something like, I should think.’

  ‘Well, I’d let Melvyn Prosser breathe down my neck for that money.’

  ‘Pressure, Duffy. That job’s all about pressure.’

  ‘Why does he wear white shoes if he isn’t a berk?’ said Duffy aggressively. He had more things to worry about than Jimmy Lister’s employment prospects. They drove on in silence for a bit.

  ‘How’s business, Duffy?’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘Turning down work?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Want a job?’

  ‘Thought you’d never ask.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘What is it? Nannying the rest of Lister’s mob so they don’t all go on the piss and get themselves into fights?’

  ‘Anyone would think you didn’t want work, from the fuss you make.’

  Duffy grunted. Maybe he should pack it in and take it easy for the last couple of years or so of his life. Perhaps he’d marry Carol on his deathbed at the hospital. Except that he might not even get admitted to the hospital. He’d read about some doctors and nurses refusing to treat AIDS victims. Too dangerous. Not enough known about the way the disease spreads. Filthy queers, anyway. Duffy wouldn’t be surprised if, by the time he got his Kaposi thing, all the guys with AIDS were being packed off to some leper colony in the Welsh mountains. Made to wear little bells round their necks so people could hear them coming. Ding-dong, ding-dong. No, dear, that’s not the ice-cream van, it’s the man with AIDS come to dig in our dustbins. Do go and turn the hose on him again, will you? Or why not just shoot him this time, darling?

  Jimmy Lister was wearing black shoes. He was also wearing a polo-neck sweater and an old pair of jeans. Obviously Miss West London wasn’t going to come and sit on his knee for the benefit of the press this morning. He’d filled out a bit since Duffy had last watched him from the terraces; but you could see the remains of a lean, elegant player of the sort that Maggot deludedly supposed himself to be. Above his ears a few bits of sandy hair were still left. He got up, smiled and shook hands with Duffy, who found himself thinking, Maybe you aren’t a berk after all.

  ‘Ken Marriott told me you … looked after things.’

  ‘I’m not a minder.’

  ‘No. I mean, you looked into things.’

  ‘That’s more like it.’

  ‘Call me Jimmy.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘What shall I call you?’

  ‘What do you want me to look into?’

  Lister glanced across at Duffy. I’m not surprised you don’t get too much work, my lad, if this is how you go about it. Where are the customer relations? What about a little smile? Fat chance of that, he could see. Duffy had a small, tight mouth set in a broad face, and it moved only to speak. His hair looked as if it had once been in a brush-cut, and then had been allowed to fend for itself.

  ‘You follow Athletic much?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Any particular reason?’ Jimmy didn’t mind going in for a bit of customer relations, even if this strange chum of Marriott’s didn’t.

  Duffy thought about this one for a moment; Lister was almost on tenterhooks.

  ‘I don’t think they’re much good, that’s why.’

  ‘Charming.’

  ‘Anyway, QPR’s my team.’

  ‘QPR? With that nancy-boy pitch of theirs?’

  ‘Fifty quid a day, plus exes,’ was all Duffy said to this. He put his thumb to his left earlobe, felt the ridged scar and rubbed it. He had worn a gold stud in that ear until one day someone had done something nasty to it. He was still debating whether or not to have his right ear pierced and start again. The chances of the same thing happening twice were pretty thin; but then the chances of having your earlobe being nearly torn off in the first place by a maniac with a pair of pliers aren’t exactly high, are they?

  ‘You read about Danny—’

  ‘Fifty a day, plus exes.’

  ‘Sure, sure. I’ll have to clear it with the chairman, but I reckon it’ll be OK. You read about Danny Matson?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘What did you think?’

  ‘I didn’t think. I wasn’t being paid to.’

  ‘Look, er, Mr Duffy

  ‘Duffy.’

  ‘Duffy, thank you.’ So he did answer questions eventually. ‘What I thought at first was, he got himself into a f
ight. Maximum he got mugged. Extreme maximum some of those Barnsley fans were still hanging around for some reason and decided to work him over. I mean, they need the points as badly as us.’

  ‘Is he out of the game for long?’

  ‘For good, I’d say. At this level. Bit of Southern League stuff left in him if he’s lucky. He’s only twenty.’

  ‘Poor sod.’ Even so, that still left him with an average life expectancy of another fifty years; he had that to look forward to. ‘But now you don’t think he got mugged?’

  ‘Well, this isn’t the smartest end of town, I know. But if it was a fight, if he was trying to kick out, he wouldn’t kick out backwards, would he?’

  ‘Not unless he was a horse.’

  ‘Quite. I think someone did Danny.’

  ‘What changed your mind?’

  ‘Several things. Partly this.’ Lister reached into his desk and fetched out some long papers, folded in half vertically. ‘It’s a writ. Or rather, it’s three writs.’

  ‘You need a lawyer.’

  ‘Thanks. I’d never have guessed. It’s three writs. All from people living in Layton Road. Suing the club for persistent trespass by our loyal fans, various amounts of damage by the same loyal fans stretching back over a period of years, and applying to the court to get the Layton Road entrance closed on match days.’

  ‘Is that bad?’

  ‘The first two bits aren’t so bad. We don’t mind paying out a bit to keep the locals sweet. Customer relations, it’s called, Duffy.’

  ‘Never heard of it.’

  ‘The Layton Road entrance, as you might not know, being a supporter of the wrong team, is where all our bad boys go in. So that they can shout rude things from the Piggeries end.’

  ‘How bad are your bad boys?’

  ‘About as bad as you can get.’

  ‘It’s not like that at QPR.’

  ‘Really? I suppose all your bad boys just sing nursery rhymes, applaud the referee, and line up for fingernail inspection afterwards?’

  Duffy grinned. ‘That’s about it. Nice family club, QPR. So anyway?’

  ‘So if home and away fans have to go in at the same entrance, there’s bound to be a bit more aggravation, isn’t there?’

  ‘Still, if I lived in Layton Road and had to put up with all your bad boys, I’d have done the same myself before now.’

  ‘Point taken. But why now? It’s not as if it’s the start of the season. There’s only half a dozen home matches left.’

  ‘Hmm. Anything else?’

  ‘You seen one of these before?’

  Lister passed him a crudely printed handbill. It read:

  WANTED!

  ARE YOU YOUNG? ARE YOU STRONG?

  ARE YOU BRITISH?

  ARE YOU FED UP WITH THE WAY THIS COUNTRY HAS GONE SOFT?

  ARE YOU FED UP WITH THE WAY THIS COUNTRY IS PUSHED AROUND?

  DO YOU THINK THE RACES CAN LIVE SIDE BY SIDE?

  DO YOU BELIEVE IN REPATRIATION?

  ORGANIZE!

  STRENGTH WILL WIN!

  JOIN THE RED WHITE AND BLUE MOVEMENT!

  ‘Never had any of this stuff down here before,’ said Lister. ‘At least, that’s what the physio says, and he’s been here for years. Never anything like that.’

  ‘Not very nice,’ said Duffy, after reading it and looking in vain for a printer’s name at the bottom. ‘How long have they been dishing these out?’

  ‘No idea,’ said Lister. ‘Weeks, months? They made the mistake of giving one to some student the other Saturday; he sent it in to us. Said he felt a bit relieved he’d left off his Anti-Nazi League badge for the afternoon.’

  ‘What’s it got to do with football?’

  ‘In theory, nothing. We don’t mind how many whackos we let in through the turnstiles as long as they pay their money. And as long as they behave themselves.’

  ‘These don’t?’

  ‘Not sure. Don’t know how long they’ve been handing these things out.’

  ‘What’s the Red White and Blue Movement?’

  ‘Never heard of it. But I remember something similar down at Millwall a year or two ago. What happens is that these, what do you call them, neo-Nazis or whatever, start using the grounds as recruiting centres. Wanted—Big strong white men to beat up small brown men: that’s about what this says, isn’t it?’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘So the Nazis recruit the thugs, and the thugs all watch the football together, and the thugs go to the Nazi rallies, and bring more thugs along to watch the football. And the thugs drive away the fans. Why should anyone come along here and pay a couple of quid to stand in the rain and see his side lose and then get spat at by some fourteen-year-old skinhead as he’s leaving the ground?’

  ‘It doesn’t happen at QPR,’ said Duffy.

  ‘Well it’s not going to bloody happen here. I don’t train a team to play in front of a crowd of yobboes who might or might not give us a passing glance when they take a breather from stabbing one another and ripping the safety barriers apart.’

  ‘I see the point, er, Jimmy. But it’s a little long-term, isn’t it?’ Lister, he thought, was clearly a worrier.

  ‘I’ll give you the short-term, then. The news hasn’t exactly crept into the papers yet, and it’s your friend and mine Ken Marriott who’s helping keep it out at the moment. But there’ve been quite a lot more fights at the last few home matches. Quite a bit more boot than usual. Now what this means is, more policemen. I don’t know if you know much about how the police work—’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘—but they don’t just turn up to our matches out of the kindness of their hearts and because they want to see a good game of football. For a start, this is private property, and we have to invite them in to get them. Second, we have to have a weekly conference about how much work we think we’re going to give them. And third, we have to pay them. Saturday afternoon is overtime rates, as well.’

  Duffy remembered all too well. Pulled out of his Saturday rest day and bussed up to North London. However much you frisked the thugs, they still managed to find things to throw at you. Once, he was in a line of eight coppers—eight neat helmets standing in a row—when someone on the terraces had heaved half a brick at them. As it whizzed through the air, about a hundred friendly supporters started chanting, ‘Coconut! Coconut!’ He hadn’t thought much to those Saturday afternoons.

  ‘So more thugs means more fights means more police means more money. Closing Layton Road means more fights means more police means more money. And there’s another thing. They’ve started booing big Brendan.’

  ‘Brendan Domingo?’

  ‘Yup. Never happened before. He’s used to being booed at away games, that’s normal. But he’s been in the team for nearly two seasons now, and always been popular at home. Now the Layton Road end has started booing him.’

  ‘Is he out of form?’

  ‘Brendan? He’s playing like a dream. Never better. That spell of a dozen games with Danny really sparked him. Lovely control. Silky skills. He’s our best player now. Whether he’ll stay like that if the Layton Road end keeps it up … It’s very demoralizing, Duffy, being booed by your own supporters. Makes you wonder why you should give a monkey’s.’

  ‘I know.’ Duffy had been booed one Sunday by the entire Reliables supporters’ club; both of them.

  ‘I mean, if were him, I wouldn’t give a monkey’s.’ Lister sighed. He was looking worried again. Duffy decided to sum up.

  ‘You think someone’s out to get you, don’t you? The club, that is.’

  ‘I think I do.’

  ‘So what you want me to do is find out who clobbered Danny Matson, find out why the Layton Road residents are suddenly cutting up rough, stop the neo-Nazis gathering at home matches, stop the thugs booing Brendan Domingo, stop Brendan Domingo losing his form, save you from relegation—and help you keep your job.’

  ‘Sounds as if you’ve got your hands full.’

  ‘I’m
saving up for a dog,’ Duffy threw in light-heartedly, and immediately regretted it. Shit, why did he say that? Why had it slipped out again? He thought Jimmy Lister had a sense of humour. Listen, Duffy, no client has a sense of humour, remember? Even if he laughs a lot.

  ‘Any questions?’

  ‘Well, I’d like to meet the chairman.’

  ‘He’s not in till the day after tomorrow. I suppose he might see you at his headquarters if you asked nicely, though.’

  ‘Thanks. No, that’ll do for the moment.’

  They got up, and Lister showed him towards the door. Duffy noticed that there weren’t any cups or trophies in the office. Nothing silver at all. Perhaps all that stuff was kept in the boardroom. Or perhaps Athletic had never won anything.

  ‘You play in goal, I hear?’

  ‘Uh-huh. You don’t happen to know where your lymph nodes are, do you?’

  ‘No idea. Ask the physio.’

  ‘Right.’

  They shook hands.

  ‘Oh, er, Jimmy?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Why aren’t you wearing the white shoes?’

  ‘I’m not a berk, Duffy.’

  ‘Right.’

  Danny Matson was sitting in a purple armchair with his leg up on a footstool. A copy of the Sun had been placed on the stool so that his plaster cast wouldn’t mess it up. Mrs Ferris kept a clean set of digs; always had, since she’d started taking in boys for Athletic a dozen years ago. The club liked to look after its players. The best way of looking after them, of course, was to see that they got married. A player needed stability, the club always said: all that rushing around and adulation, best thing for him is a nice wife at home, a couple of toddlers, a car to take down the car-wash and a garage to paint in the winter. Stops them losing their heads, stops them taking to the booze and the birds too much (mind you, even the married ones got a bit naughty sometimes: take them off on a pre-season friendly tour to some hot country and you wouldn’t believe the high jinks). But you couldn’t force them to get married; so until that time the club liked to put them in reliable digs with careful, motherly ladies who were always given a pair of free tickets to the home games. They weren’t there to spy on the lads; they were there to look after them; though, of course, if one of the boys was having a bit of trouble that the landlady thought the club ought to know about, then they’d be more than grateful for a quiet hint on the side. Who wouldn’t be?