The Road to Lisbon

by Martin Greig

  She obeys, casting the scarf to the bare boards, allowing her beautiful hair to tumble free.

  “Anything else?” she enquires. “Would you like me to loosen . . . this?” she asks, gently fingering her collar, a demure look upon her face.

  “If you . . . please.”

  Slowly she unfastens the first two buttons of her dress. Then the third. A ray of sunlight glows upon her cleavage. I can detect the suggestion of her left nipple. She places her right hand upon her cheek and gazes coyly at me.

  I carefully tear a page from the pad and clip it to the easel, surreptitiously adjusting myself within my trousers so I can stand more comfortably.

  I pick up a sharp-looking pencil and begin that activity that is conscious yet unconscious, unleash that ability that is innate yet honed by practice. Where does it come from, this need to create? What inner well of inspiration do we draw from? Why is it so compelling, why is it so satisfying?

  As I sketch her I comprehend her beauty more and more intimately, like a lover. The way her hair shapes her perfectly proportioned face; the way the extremities of her hair are gilded amber by the sunlight. This amber reaches through the tumbling waves to auburn, then to lodes of pure chestnut. The freckles that randomly decorate her cute flat nose, that nose which, like her large almond-shaped eyes, fit her oval face. Those eyes, light blue and sparkling as the Aegean, framed by darker, arched eyebrows and pronounced lashes. The intelligence and kindness in those eyes, the knowing in her expression. And her mouth, that light-pink rosebud, yet broad when she smiles, to bring it into even more glorious harmony with the overall subtle wideness of her visage. The slight rouge of her cheeks, the sallow skin of her long neck, the profile of which glides and blends into that of her full bosom.

  I think of Debbie, feel a pang of misplaced guilt. Then a spiteful thought flashes through my mind: ‘If only she could see me now. That would show her!’

  We start to converse as I work.

  “What do you do?”

  “Until recently I was working in a locomotive works. Now I’ve got a new job in a wee shipyard. I start when I get back.”

  “What do you do, exactly?”

  “Just labouring, mostly. I had a welder’s apprenticeship in a yard when I left school, but I chucked it.”

  “Why?”

  I shrug my shoulders.

  “Tell me.”

  “I hated it. The place was so bloody depressing. It was where my old man had previously worked, on account of the fact that they would employ Catholics. It ruined his health. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love my da, and everything he did for us; he slaved for us, but . . .”

  “But you don’t want to be him.”

  I make a pained expression with my face in agreement.

  “You don’t need to be. Did you ever consider going to art school?”

  “I had the grades, but I didn’t work enough on my portfolio.”

  “Why not?”

  “I didn’t see the point. Da’s health was deteriorating; he developed this chronic chest complaint and he stopped working. Someone had to bring a wage in. It was my duty. God, how quickly time passes – that was five years ago.”

  “Well haven’t you done your bit now? Have you any siblings?”

  “Four older sisters.”

  “Are they married?”

  “Yes.”

  “And their husbands work?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well maybe it’s their turn to help out.”

  “Oh, they are very attentive, believe me.”

  “Well then, perhaps it is time to think about yourself. Tell me, what is your masterpiece?”

  I muse upon this for a moment then plump for the portrait I did of Jinky, using oils.

  “That would be my study of Jimmy Johnstone.”

  “Who is he?”

  “A footballer.”

  She unconsciously rolls her eyes skywards, just slightly, but enough to make me more intent on continuing.

  “I did it in the post-impressionist style – I don’t know if you’ve heard of the Glasgow Boys? Jinky – that’s what everyone calls him – Jinky is Celtic’s best player, and that’s saying something because we have a smashing team. He’s incredibly skilful and as nimble as a ballet dancer. His talent is a gift from God. I used this photograph I saw of him in a newspaper, it really captured my imagination. In it he is taking the ball past a Rangers defender, his jersey two sizes too big for him, socks at his ankles, the number ‘7’ on his shorts, his expression totally focused on the ball, yet you know that at the same time he is aware of everything going on around him. Painting him was in one way quite easy, not least because of his distinctive appearance: his diminutive stature – especially when compared to the big Rangers half-back, and the vivid colours of his red hair and the emerald hoops on his top. But in another way painting him was very challenging. Because Jinky is an artist himself, although he probably doesn’t realise it. He is a wayward genius and a force of nature; sheer, unconscious expression. In a sense that is the purest and most beautiful form of creativity, that which is utterly spontaneous, in the moment, without form. I had to try and capture that dynamic element to him in a still image, and I think that I succeeded.”

  “Well, it sounds most interesting.”

  “So, you study at Saint Martin’s?”

  “Yes. All of us so.”

  “What’s it like?”

  “It is fantastic. And in London we are so graced for inspiration.”

  To prove it she takes me to a gallery. It was set up by one of that mob of sugar merchants who have the refinery in Greenock. We need to catch the Tube to some place called Pimlico.

  The vastness of the underground stations staggers me. All these hundreds of people, all determined, all focused on where they are going. I feel as if I’m the only one in the throng drifting aimlessly, my destination now unclear. But I’m also the only one with a gorgeous redhead holding my hand. She leads, frequently glancing back to smile at me, guiding me through the crowd. We board.

  “Your football team is Celtic? That is to do with the Celts, right?”

  She has to lean close to me in order to be heard above the racket of the train. I can smell her skin cream and I feel a shiver of excitement as her soft cheek brushes against mine.

  “Yes. Except you pronounce it Seltic, a soft ‘c’. We were founded by Irishmen living in Scotland. Hence Celtic.”

  “I am a Celt too.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah! Can’t you tell from my red hair? I am from Brittany. Although we moved to Paris when I was eight. Then London. My father got a job with the Ambassade de France. I stayed on after . . . my family left.”

  “So that’s why your English is so good.”

  “Thank you. Do you mind my saying . . . the way you speak, it is easier to understand than your friends. Scottish is quite a difficult accent for me.”

  “I suppose I try and speak that little bit clearer when I’m with people from foreign climes.”

  “But I am a Celt, remember. Not so foreign.”

  “Indeed you are. I could tell there was something special about you the first moment I laid eyes on you.”

  “Et tu aussi!”

  “I have, therefore, decided to bestow the title of honorary Celtic supporter upon you, even though you didn’t know how to pronounce the club name two minutes ago!”

  “Merci!”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  We emerge into the sunshine. The bright red pillar boxes and telephone booths contrast with the white-painted Regency facades. The place is tree-lined and peaceful. It’s hard to believe we are near the centre of the biggest city in Europe. I’m enjoying my sense of wonder and I think she can sense it. She smiles at me. Surely it couldn’t be that she fancies me? No, she’s probably just amused by this peculiar species that has wandered into her ken: gorbalae vulgarus.

  Inside the Tate one of the paintings in particular catches my eye, Ophelia, by John Everett
Millais. We got Hamlet at school, and it’s odd, the artist seems to have painted the exact image of Ophelia’s suicide that was inside my head. I kind of lose myself gazing into it. The colours are vivid and gorgeous, the scene tragic yet serene.

  I look at Delphine. She looks at me, smiles.

  “So you like the gallery?”

  “It’s fabulous.”

  “You haven’t seen many paintings, no?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “But you could travel. To London, Paris – to see glorious paintings for yourself if you so wished?”

  “Maybe, but it’s hard to get away, y’know?”

  “But after all you are travelling all the way to Lisbon to see a football match.”

  I sigh dramatically. Stop and look at her. Eye to eye. Try and keep a straight face.

  “I’m going to tell you something, something profound and true, something you may have trouble grasping at first yet I want you to remember it for the rest of your life. Now don’t thank me for it.”

  “Okay, okay. Hurry up – don’t get me all excited.”

  “The thing I am going to tell you is this: the feeling, that feeling you get when you regard a beautiful painting . . . you can get that from fitba – football, too.”

  “No!”

  “Honestly. If it is played properly.” I am closer to her now – glad I brushed my teeth before we came out. “With skill and imagination. It can be beautiful, expressive . . . it engages you. And my team, Celtic, we have a tradition of playing like that. We can be a bit dour, us Scots – ”

  “ – dour?”

  “It means dull, stern. Us Scots can be like that, but at the same time we can be passionate, romantic. We are a strange, schizophrenic race. Especially those of us who have the Irishness in us.”

  As she walks away, towards the Constables in the next room, she throws a smile back at me. She looks rather like Brigitte Bardot, but with red hair.

  “I rather like this strange race of men.”

  I feel a warm glow. Then I think of Debbie and the glow rapidly fades to nothing.

  ~~~

  “Everyone is talking about Inter Milan,” I tell the players. “Everyone is talking about their system. Everyone is talking about how they will suffocate us. Suck the life out of us. Everyone is fuckin’ wrong. Put all that talk out of your minds. Put Inter Milan out of your minds. We will come to them later. Today is about us. Celtic. Today is all about what we are capable of. Today is about what we will do to them. Not what they will do to us.”

  We work on team shapes and movement. The focus on the wide players to create, the full-backs to overlap, the midfielders to commit opponents. Not gentle probing. Not cat and mouse. Not playing into their hands. Instead fast, direct, really getting in behind them. Taking them out of their comfort zones, getting them turned. The players absorb every word and respond instinctively. I walk between them, urging, cajoling, encouraging. I feel like a puppeteer pulling the strings. I look at Sean. Sean smiles.

  We are ready.

  Another team meeting. As I speak, you could hear a pin drop. I look at them. Their faces gripped in concentration. Some even taking notes. Then a hand goes up.

  “Boss, I’m desperate for a pee. I can’t hold it in any longer. Can I be excused?”

  The spell is broken, the players look at me, then at Jimmy. They wait for the eruption. Not this time. I stay calm.

  “Aye Jimmy, you might as well. In fact, I’m surprised you are still awake.”

  He half-smiles, scurries to the door and closes it gently behind him.

  “Wee bastard never listens to me anyway,” I add.

  The players laugh knowingly, and we return to the job in hand . . .

  How to cope with a wayward genius. Lesson No.1.

  Willie Hamilton snores like an asthmatic horse. It is Friday night and the walls of the Stein household are shaking. Willie is in the spare room. Dead to the world. The wife nudges me.

  “You’ll need to go in there and roll him on his side.”

  But Willie needs his sleep. I need Willie fresh for tomorrow. A well-rested and sober Willie Hamilton . . . what a thought. Willie Hamilton. Compulsive gambler. Excessive drinker. Football genius. Two-footed. Quick. Strong. Lethal.

  I have been carefully crafting this Hibs team for six months.

  “Stein’s side can beat anyone on their day,” write the Press men.

  But our ‘day’ always coincides with the presence of Willie Hamilton. We need Willie more than he needs us. All Willie needs are the betting shops and the boozers on Leith Walk. A risk-taker in life. A risk-taker on the football field. One destructive, the other creative. Jekyll and Hyde. Mr Hyde snoring away in our spare room. The only way to keep him sober. I look at the alarm clock. 4.15am. Jean rolls over to face me.

  “Is this really necessary John?”

  It is going to be a long, sleepless night. But tomorrow, at 3pm, it will all be worthwhile.

  I did not expect a fanfare on my return north of the border, that’s for sure. Stein signs for Celtic read the headlines on the sport pages. Four words. No adjectives required. Four words that represented something unthinkable, unforgivable to many. A Burnbank man switching to the other side. The defection of a Rangers man. Four words that would lead to a lifetime of alienation. But four words that also foretold an association which would bring a lifetime of joy and fulfilment. However nothing comes easy. As I said, I did not expect a fanfare.

  I had braced myself for the reaction of one side of the great divide, but the reception from the other did not inspire much confidence either. Celtic were then a club mired in mediocrity, their post-war record dominated by underachievement. In 1951 they won the Scottish Cup, their first major trophy since 1938, and followed it up the same year by lifting the Festival of Britain St Mungo Cup. The following season, they failed to defend the Scottish Cup after losing a replay to Third Lanark. When I arrived in December 1951, their role as closest challengers to Rangers had been taken by Hibs. They sat 12th in a 16-team league and criticism from the supporters was at its height. Celtic were in a sorry state and revolution was in the air. The signing of a 27-year-old centre-half from non-league football was hardly enough to quieten the discontent. I was the cheap option, a spare part plucked from the football scrapheap by chairman Bob Kelly. The supporters were not happy. If I had been in their position, I daresay I would have felt the same. So, the boldest decision of my life was made all the harder by the worst possible timing. But life is about making the best of opportunities. At the end of 1951, one path led to alienation and almost universal disapproval. The other led to the mines. Every time I heard a mutter under the breath from a supporter of either side, I thought of the alternative. Taking the first path placed my destiny in my own hands. The second led to the darkness. The blackness.

  I became a Celtic player on December 4th, 1951. I arrived as a Celtic player on May 20th, 1953. At the start, I had been fourth in line for a centre-half slot. But injuries to Jimmy Mallan and Alec Boden gave me a chance. I seized it with relish and had become a stalwart by May 1953. The Coronation Cup final. Hampden Park. One hundred and seventeen thousand fans. Even the Glasgow weather displayed an impressive sense of occasion with warm spring sunshine bathing the stadium. A tournament we should not have even been in. Another season of underachievement had left the supporters disgruntled but Celtic’s ability to pull in large crowds saw us take our place alongside the top teams in Britain for the one-off competition.

  It had been a poor season for the club so far, yet it marked a significant point in my career. Stepping into that Celtic dressing room had not all been plain sailing. The look on certain faces said it all: ‘Who the fuck are you? Some dud from Llanelli? You don’t deserve to be here. Fuckin’ prove yourself.’

  “I’ll have these bastards eating humble pie soon,” I vowed. For others, it ran deeper. It wasn’t because I was a 27-year-old from non-league football. I could deal with that. In the dressing room after a defeat to Ranger
s at Ibrox, Charlie Tully said: “There’s too many Protestants in this team.” Tully. The genius. The entertainer. The folk hero. Something snapped. Fuck you.

  Next thing I knew I was in Tully’s face.

  “You fuckin’ bastard. Take that back or I’ll kill you!”

  I had him by the throat before I felt his hands on me. Dragging me off him. I hear his gravelly Irish voice coaxing me, “Leave it Jock. You’re bigger than that.”

  Sean. Where would I have been without Sean, looking out for me, supporting me? Something changed in that moment. Respect soared, attitudes mellowed. ‘Don’t cross the line with the Big Man.’ Fuckin’ right.

  At the start of the season, Sean appointed me vice-captain. When Sean broke his arm against Falkirk on December 20th, it was down to me to take the armband. I revelled in it.

  The disappointment of the domestic campaign had turned the Coronation Cup into a resolve to salvage something from the season. I stressed to the boys the need to take it seriously, play every game as if it were a cup final. They responded. Arsenal, the English champions, were dispatched in the first game, then we beat Manchester United to reach the final against Hibs. From the rubble of a dismal season, we had the chance to end it on a high. We also had a new face. Neilly Mochan had joined us just a few weeks earlier from Middlesbrough. A big Celtic fan, Mochan’s presence had further inspired optimism going into the final. Hibs were formidable opponents. Harry Swann’s team had won three titles since the end of the war and played fast, flowing football. Their seven-goal destruction of Manchester United in a friendly game the previous September was a strong indicator of their pedigree. They had it all. But we had momentum. And we had Neilly Mochan. After half an hour, I passed the ball out of defence to Willie Fernie, who slanted it into the path of Mochan, and his right-foot shot from 25 yards nestled in the net. 1-0. Jimmy Walsh added another near the end and the cup was ours. The Celtic supporters celebrated as if they had won the league and I hoisted my first silverware as Celtic captain. As the trophy glinted in the afternoon sun, I gazed out over the legions of fans with their arms aloft. The same fans who had criticised my arrival so recently. Let it go, Jock. Let it all go. I closed my eyes and let their songs wash over me, and I felt the tide of scepticism wash away. May 20th, 1953.