“KILL ’EM!” I yell, and Joe’s running back down the pitch to start playing again.
He’s scored three goals already tonight. It’s like he’s on a mission.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” I ask Warrick, sitting back down.
“Got a lot on my mind,” he answers, “I’ll apologise to him at the end.”
“Don’t apologise! Just get it off your chest. What is it?”
He sucks in breath. “Oh… just… funding.”
“Yeah, I noticed a lack of that lately. The community centre is falling to pieces.”
Warrick and Jules seem to have a lot of money. When I stay over at theirs with Joe, I notice things. Like Joe’s mattress for instance. It’s at least 13 inches thick. Harry and Charlie have the best of everything. Their rooms are kitted out with train sets and all kinds of toys most kids can only dream of. I caught a look inside Jules’ bedroom once and it’s immaculate. The bed is HUGE. She has furniture out of this world. And a walk-in closet with all these rails and racks. In all the rooms in fact, they have mood lighting. The kitchen has everything integrated. They pay a gardener and a cleaner. And she’s a part-time teacher and he’s… he’s a community centre manager?
So I’m not sure what’s going on.
“It’s not falling to pieces, it’s just that we have a few issues.”
“The building’s only four years old. You had it built. So where’s the money gone?”
“It’s not about money,” he says, as we watch Joe setting up another goal as if he’s setting the table for dinner and it’s a piece of cake. “I mean, it is, and it isn’t. It’s mainly about… well…”
This time we watch Joe enjoy the goal with his team mates but I still rise from my seat and clap.
“The council are being funny again?” I question.
“Nope.”
“Then, what?”
“Let me worry about it, Hetty.”
“Fine. But you know if Jules gets a whiff of you veering off into your daydreams, she’ll be like a dog with a yard of pig in her mouth.”
He chuckles. “Yeah I know.”
IT’S a bit rough and ready at Ferriby but at least there’s beer waiting for us after the game. I’m finishing my second one when Joe walks towards us, grinning.
He kisses me, asking, “Enjoy the game?”
“Oh yeah.” I put my hand proudly around his waist.
“Dad? What about you?”
Warrick’s still with his thoughts it seems, excusing himself, “You know I think you’re amazing. Just seem to have a lot on my mind tonight.”
Joe gives a slight nod. I see that from across the other side of the bar, his team mates are all looking over at us.
“None of ’em believe you’re my girl,” he says with a wink.
“Why?”
“Cause you’re fit?” Joe snickers as he says it.
“Well you kissed me then and I didn’t spit in your face so maybe now they’ll believe it.”
He laughs while eyeing his dad, who still seems a little out of it.
Joe’s wearing his man of the match medal and looks super pleased with himself as people walk by, casually congratulating him. At one point, he’s taken off by some of the players for photographs.
“Seriously,” I elbow Warrick, “why hasn’t some team snatched him off Ferriby yet?”
Warrick’s lips turn down. “Hull invested in him big time. He was in the Under 11s, then the Youth Team. I pushed and pushed because I knew he had talent. Even I saw it. I knew it. It was hard sending him off here, there and everywhere but I believed. Then, they were all set to sign him, let me tell you. He kept saying to me he wanted to go to uni though, but I kept telling him to keep going… play until he wasn’t allowed to anymore. The summer before he started uni, they offered him a short-term contract which is usual… but he turned it down.”
“You don’t think he’s doing this for me, do you? To impress me.”
Warrick shakes his head. “No, I don’t. He was never very enthusiastic about university once he got there. I think he felt like he was being held back.”
“By what?”
“I don’t know, Hetty. Maybe it was a simple case of the penny dropped. His mother dying seemed to convince him that psychology was his route, but in practice, I reckon he missed football too much.”
“He’s such a special, beautiful man,” I blurt, even as burly men knock our elbows all around us in the packed bar area.
“And it’s our job to make sure he stays this way,” Warrick says, and when I turn my eyes to his, I see such sincerity there, I nod along because there’s nothing else for me to do. He’s right.
Joe returns to us with a wide-eyed look about him, adrenalin racing through his veins even though he’s not on the pitch anymore.
“Hull scout was in tonight,” he says, barely able to speak, “wants me to try-out next week.”
“That’s amazing!” I scream, throwing my arms around his shoulders. I give him a big kiss and his friends can only stare from afar in wonder.
Warrick walks forward, grabs his son’s shoulders in that powerful way of his, knocking his forehead against Joe’s. Eye to eye, Warrick almost growls, “Never doubted you, son.”
They’re slapping backs and then we’re leaving the site of North Ferriby, because Joe’s eager to get home and tell his mum, then get a training schedule in place for himself in the run-up.
Oh, and apparently there will be healthy eating for a while, too.
Maybe for him…
BACK at my place much later, we’re in bed but I can hardly keep up with his train of thought as he tells me about proteins and metabolic whatever and all that bollocks.
“Joseph, I don’t give a flying fuck, my darling. As long as you’re happy and know what you’re doing, go do it, and do it to the best of your ability. You’ll shine whatever, because you’re a star.”
“I’m sorry but I can’t calm down!” he yells, flopping onto his side of the bed.
“I noticed!”
“Listen,” he starts, taking my hand, “it might be best if for a few nights a week, I sleep at home, just to get an extra bit of rest. When I’m next to you, I wake up constantly horny. It’s making an animal of me.”
I throw myself on top of him, nibbling his lip. “Ah god, my animal, aren’t you?”
“I’m serious.”
“When it comes to my animal, I’m serious too.”
I chew his earlobe and he groans, “I’ve been running around a pitch all night!”
“I’ll do all the work, then. You just have to lie back and think of England. Or scotch eggs. Or whatever works for you.”
“Scotch eggs?”
“Ah see, I haven’t been indulging my penchant lately because I’m newly in a relationship with this hunky footballer and I don’t want to put him off with constant egg farts.”
“You’re shitting me, Het.”
“I AM NOT! Scotch eggs are the only things I will not trade for gold.”
He looks up at me with shining eyes, biting his lip a little as I sit astride his body.
“Are you telling me that while I’m making love to you most nights, all you’re thinking of is scotch fucking eggs?”
I suppress a giggle. “Basically? Yeah. That herby crust and a big ball of fart power in the centre. Drives me mad thinking of it.”
“You loon!” he shouts.
“You know it.”
I lie on him and we settle for a moment, looking into each other’s eyes.
“It’s fine if you sleep home, I have some investigating to do anyway.”
“Investigating?”
“Didn’t you notice your dad tonight? He was away with the fairies big time.”
He frowns, but in a comical way. “I noticed. What do you think’s going on?”
“Something at the centre, I’m certain. Just not sure what it is that has his knickers in a twist, though.”
“Then let the games begin,” he
says, “and may the odds be ever in your favour.”
“You are such a geek.”
“But a hot geek?”
“Very hot indeed.”
He rolls on top of me but as we’re kissing, I can’t help smiling into the kiss.
“Scotch eggs, baby?”
“Dozens, right now. Floating through my mind.”
We both bark laughter until he grabs my hand and squeezes it.
“Love you, Henrietta.”
“Love you, stud.”
IT’S only nine when I arrive for work the next day. Joe was awake early for the gym and I got up with him so I thought I may as well come in.
I bump into Warrick in one of the corridors. He looks dishevelled and has wild, mad eyes.
“You’re not due in for ages, Hetty…”
“Joe woke me up so I thought I may as well come in. Why, don’t you want me here?”
A twitch in his facial muscles tells me, yes, he doesn’t want me here… not yet anyway. I’m never normally in before ten.
“You know it’s not that.”
“Then what is it? Power out again?”
He looks so cagey, it’s bizarre.
“Not quite. Listen, if you hear anything out of the ordinary, just ignore it. Sequester yourself in your office and ignore it. Or better yet, take a tenner…” He’s got his hand in his pocket before I can say a word. “Grab us both some bacon sarnies and that coffee you get me that I like, you know? One with the sprinkles.”
“A mocha?”
“Yup.”
“Okay…”
He dashes off into his office, slamming the door.
I’m standing with the tenner in my hand in the middle of the corridor, all alone. I have no idea what that was all about. No idea.
Dumping my work bags in my office, I take myself and my tenner out onto Newland Avenue again and walk towards my favourite coffee shop first, before getting the butties from somewhere else.
As I’m standing waiting for the coffee to be ground and pulverised into two, hot drinks, I wonder…
The crèche at the community centre doesn’t open until 9.30 everyday. The soft playgroup is always an understated affair. Then we have some book clubs, dance clubs, karate clubs, mixed martial arts clubs – most of which rent our rooms in the evening. So Warrick does seem to keep the daytime schedules pretty low-key, I’ve always thought so too.
So what is he trying to hide?
I have no idea.
Even as I’ve got the butties and drinks in my hands as I’m heading back, I still can’t make a guess at what he could possibly be up to.
Heading through the doors I find him milling around the corridor, as if he’s been prowling in anticipation of my return.
“Your office now, Jones,” I demand, in my best policewoman’s voice.
He quietly opens the door and we both sit at the larger table he has in his office, meant for meetings, but which he mostly uses for keeping his two boys entertained when they’re here.
I bite into my bacon sandwich to take the edge off, watching as he sips his drink, enjoying it in a way I’ve never quite understood.
“You had better tell me what you’re hiding because if you don’t tell me, I’ll eventually find out. You know I have ways…”
From his reaction, I know that he knows I mean business. I am his son’s girlfriend after all, so he has a lot to thank me for really. I’ve got Joe back on track. Me, yes me, the girl who used to lob eggs at shop windows for kicks (a long time ago…).
“I can’t afford the bills,” he says, between ripping at his sarnie.
“That’s ludicrous.”
“What? Don’t you believe me?” He seems genuinely shocked I don’t.
“No I bloody don’t. You and Jules have the best of everything at home.”
“Yeah… at home,” he stresses, “and if I started spending a load of our personal cash on this place, she would notice and start asking me questions.”
I only know snippets of information about how this community centre came about but I know that Warrick near enough orchestrated the whole bloody project. “But you own this place? Isn’t it your own private business?”
He shakes his head. “It wasn’t as simple as that.”
“Tell me, then.”
“Okay… We came into some money through a distant relative of Jules’. We declared it and everything, it’s all legal, okay? Jules insisted we split a chunk of it three ways, between Joe, Charlie and Harry and it’s all in trust. I was fine with that because we had a load of other money from the sale of her dad’s farm. I thought we’d have a bit of breathing space, you know? But after she souped up the house and bought two new cars, started paying a gardener and a cleaner, there was no extra cash. You see when I found this site, the building and regulation costs were more than I ever considered. Not to mention everything else. So I took out some loans which we’re paying off through the business, those are fine. But I don’t have the extra cash for utilities, for…”
“What are you doing, Warrick?” I demand in a terse tone.
“I’m helping people,” he explains.
“Does this have anything to do with the hall you claim is still unfit for use?”
“Might have.” His mouth twists, betraying his guilt.
“I see… So, if you started dipping into the family cash pot she’d notice and question you and then she’d tell you that you’re off your sodding trolley.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I’m telling you, you’re off your sodding trolley mate.”
He sniggers. “Pretty much.”
We scrunch up our paper bags that the sarnies were in and leave the room. Carrying our drinks he takes me to the hall in question and unlocks the door, letting me inside.
It’s like any other common or garden hall. Laminate flooring and beige walls, all your usual stuff. So what’s going on? It looks perfectly viable for holding big events inside, the like of which could bring a lot of money into the community centre. Events like children’s discos, birthday parties, anniversary parties, wedding receptions even… it’s a decent space.
“You’re letting people sleep in here,” I guess, when I see a station set up with tins of food, a microwave, a kettle, a small fridge on the floor. No wonder I’m often catching him cleaning out the centre’s showers early of a morning. I’ve been telling him the showers are never used and that he has an OCD problem.
“How much do you need?” I ask him.
“What? No!”
“Shut up. You save my hide, I save yours. How much?”
“Couple of grand.”
“IN UTILITIES!!!” I clutch my blue hair in absolute puzzled amazement.
“I can’t keep begging them. One day I’m gonna have to cough up.”
I fold my arms. “I can loan you some money but you know what I’m going to say.”
He folds his, too. “What?”
“You need to utilise this space in ways it’ll make the centre money. And you need to start this asap. If you get the police or the council or the social so much as sniffing an inkling of something going on here, you’ll be in the deepest shit of your life.”
He shrugs. “And that’s not including Jules’ wrath. Great. Thanks for cheering me up.”
“I should be angrier at you but I know you’re only trying to help people…”
“Aww, shucks…”
“Warrick, I’m being serious. There are reports on the news all the time of people taking in a homeless person and everybody being found dead the next morning… or all their stuff stolen… or feculence spread everywhere.”
“I’m presuming feculence to mean shit.”
“Stop that,” I demand, pointing a finger at him, “you don’t seem to understand the severity of this. Yes, you think you’re helping people and to a certain extent, I can understand that. But if this does hit the fan, this place will be finished, and you with it – and all your work here will have been for nothing.”
“Yeah well… these people got themselves into the situation, it’s not your job to get them out.”
He clucks his tongue, looking angrily at me. “Then whose job is it, tell me.”
“The good lord’s or maybe… the people as a whole, not just one man. Not just you. You cannot save everyone. God knows it’s a miracle you saved me.”
He frowns, deeply. “I saved you?”
“Ah fucking hell, get with the programme, Jones.”
I turn out of the room dramatically, scoffing as I go.
IT’S when I’m walking home that I’m thinking about what Warrick’s risking, just to give people some shelter. I have no doubt he built that community centre as a cover for what he really wanted to do. Maybe he has the homeless convinced he’s not judging them and isn’t going to force them to rejoin the real world – and that’s why they stay in the community centre and not in a refuge where they’d be encouraged to be rehabilitated.
Warrick assured me as I left tonight that there hasn’t been any trouble from the people he’s housing and also, he let me know that they can’t get into the main area of the community centre because he locks the doors to the hall at night, and is there to open them in the morning round back, letting out his guests. I asked, What about a fire? What about a medical emergency? He told me most of the homeless have mobile phones and would contact him if something happened.
Phones…? I sometimes forget the times we live in.
As I’m passing the bus shelter which is across the street from the one charity shop I always avoid now (poor Floor tried to wave one day, but I ran for it), I spot what is undeniably a homeless young girl sat there. Who knows her story. I’ve spotted her a few times. Nobody would really notice her but because I’m up and down here several times a day, I notice a lot.
I stop as though I’m checking the bus timetable. Really, I’m wondering if I should ask her if she spends the night in the community centre. Maybe I could learn more then… maybe I could save Warrick from this stupid, madcap indulgence of his.
Maybe I should offer her some change, though?
Maybe not. I don’t know.
I always usually walk right by the Big Issue guy outside Sainsbury’s. I just cannot be doing with it all. I know I’m not alone.
Hetty: An Angel Avenue Spin-Off Page 14