MORE THAN a GAME

by Sylvester Young

  Nestor’s mother was shouting something to him about taking baby Peter to the doctor as the V6 engine of his Ford Capri fired into life. He’d already told her to take the pickney to an orphanage and to tell them that Diane had abandoned him. There were more important things on his mind; he shouted to his mother that he and Desmond had business to attend to. She compressed her lips sadly as she watched Nestor drive away. She figured, well, hoped, that he did not really mean what he’d said about the orphanage.

  Although most people thought Nestor Riley and Desmond Palmer had grown up together, they had only been friends since they had both started secondary school. They had got on from the first time they’d met; they wanted the same things, had almost identical callous attitudes to life and had shared similar childhood experiences. Nestor had been eleven when his father had left for Jamaica and Desmond had been only eight when his mother had walked out. But while Nestor’s mother Claudette struggled to bring up all her children herself, Desmond had proven too much of a handful for his father Mervyn, who soon packed him off to his Uncle Pernell and Aunt Beatrice in Manchester, Jamaica. In the four years he’d lived there, Desmond had picked up a Jamaican accent and a contemptuous attitude to the law – mostly because his strict uncle was a policeman.

  In Desmond’s lounge, Nestor saw something that disturbed him. ‘Wha’ ppen,’ Desmond said to Nestor. soon come,’ he added as Jas dropped to his knees to polishing Des’s shoes. Nestor looked on and wondered demeaning act he would have Jasvinder do next. He’d similar behaviour in a Young Offenders’ Unit, where built youths like Jas were bullied by bigger, more aggressive types. He became uncomfortable just about what it had been really like while he was serving his time (rather than the stories he’d told about how cushy it was.) Desmond felt pleased that Nestor had arrived in time to see him exercise such control over Jas. He figured it must have crossed Nestor’s mind that he too should kidnap someone to tend to his requirements. But then again, there was no need: Nestor did have his mother and this made Desmond jealous – until it occurred to him that she could not service cars like Jasvinder. Desmond had a fleet of BMWs that were the envy – or so he reckoned – of all the guys in the neighbourhood. But they needed a lot of looking after and kidnapping an apprentice mechanic seemed the cheapest option. Jas was allowed one phone call to his family to say that he had left home and was all right before Desmond threatened him with what would happen if he tried to escape. That was four months ago; once he had serviced and valeted all the cars, Des began to set him more domestic tasks.

  Nestor waited until Jas left the room and then asked Desmond if Steve Patel had told him what their next job was to be. ‘Lickle ole lady in Blakenhall,’ he replied. ‘She lived on her own?’

  ‘Nah,’ said Des, unable to disguise his disappointment. ‘She got plenty people there to look after ’er valuables, to rasclart. Let’s go pick up the van.’

  Walking to the Ford Capri, Nestor remembered their meeting with Courtney. ‘Him can wait,’ said Desmond, ‘we have to find out if Steve will settle for less. Seen?’

  ‘Seen,’ Nestor said. ‘But, man, if he won’t take less, can we really raise that kind-a cash in three weeks?’ Really, he was asking Desmond if this was too big a deal for them to get involved with.

  ‘Like me seh,’ replied Des, ‘this is too good a ting to refuse, this is the deal that will give us serious money. We raise wha’ shekels we can an’ if we don’t raise enough then we ’ave to offer shares in the deal, right?’ The thought of becoming very rich very soon quickened Nestor’s pulse and made all but one nagging doubt disappear. Slowly, he said, ‘Right.’ Then, after a pause, he went on: ‘Right, if we can’t raise we’ll have to offer some shares but that makes it risky, don’t it?’

  ‘Cha,’ snorted Des, ‘only risky for everyone else but us, right. Remember why we get away with so many skanks, once you convince people there’s somethin’ fe nutten, or nex’ to nutten, them can’t give you them money fast enough.’ With visions of the riches they could make finally over-coming his reservations, Nestor laughed and said, ‘Yeah, man, risky for everybody but we … Let’s go collec’ that ole lady.’

  4

  During the previous Saturday night’s celebrations of Sabina Park Rangers’ semifinal victory, Mark Beckford had slipped away almost unnoticed, except by Horace, who had asked where he was going. Mark told his coach that he was heading home to his wife and Horace smiled as though he understood. Mark and Rachel had only been married for five months and she was an upright Christian girl who would not have appreciated the noisy company, or the flashy decor of the Star and Moon nightclub. ‘A’right, you can do your celebratin’ at home wi Rachel, no true?’ Horace replied, politely ignoring the rumours about Mark and Marcia Yuell.

  When Mark arrived home, Rachel was asleep and he felt more like weeping than celebrating. He sat in a comfortable armchair in their lounge and surveyed all that he and Rachel had bought and wondered where, exactly, his life had gone so wrong. The pleasant house in which they lived and all the material goods inside it should have made him content, but to Mark they were simply a testament to the influence his parents still held over him. They had given the couple a deposit for the house and, as near as damn it, chosen the location. He had just turned twenty-three and already felt overburdened with a marriage and a mortgage – and yet he would have shouldered those responsibilities without complaint until the moment his boyhood ambition finally crumbled into dust a few minutes after the match.

  The man in the overcoat and flat cap called him over at the end of the game. His name was Bert Tomlinson and as well as filing match reports for local newspapers he had acted as a scout for Aston Villa for over thirty years. Mark had spoken to him quite a few times over the years, firstly when he was captain of the Wolverhampton school team. Back then Bert had always had a word for him after a match, but once a damaged ligament had put Mark out of the game for most of a season Bert didn’t seem so keen to talk.

  After the semifinal, Bert had said, ‘That was one of the best goals I have ever seen, at any level. That strike ranks along with Bobby Charlton’s for England against Portugal in the ’66 World Cup. Honestly, Mark, that’s how highly I rate it.’

  Not knowing how good Bobby Charlton’s goal had been, Mark smiled and bashfully murmured his thanks as his pulse quickened in anticipation of an invitation that never came. Scouts were full of guile and never gave away too much at first. They trawled the nation’s football pitches in all weathers not only looking for talent for the clubs they represented, but also doing their damnedest to find out if a scout from any other club was about to sign up a player they might have missed. Before the days of academies that bring very young kids into professional football clubs and before the game developed a heightened awareness of paedophiles, men like Bert could hang around school pitches and parks without getting arrested for it. After his initial congratulations, Bert began to ask Mark about his brother Ian, his age, if he was still at school and living with his parents and lastly (and most importantly) if any professional club had ever talked with him. Ian was what was known as a late developer, once overlooked but now looking full of promise just days after his seventeenth birthday. It was if Bert had driven a knife into Mark’s heart, though he did his best not to show it. At twenty-three, he was being told he was past his peak and would never make it as a professional, but that there was still time for Ian – and the envy cut deeply into him. When Mark rejoined the rest of the team he said nothing to his brother and nothing to contradict those who speculated that Bert had offered him a trial with the champions of England. It was the shame, as well as his dejection, which had led him to head home from the nightclub early. All through his childhood and adolescence Mark Beckford’s dreams and ambitions had centred on football. He had played for the Wolverhampton schools’ team from the age of eleven and even before that he had been marked out as a player of great potential. However, his mother and father were wary that the sport would distract their eldest ch
ild from his academic studies. They had gone to the great, almost crippling expense of sending Mark to a private school, where they also later sent his sister Marianne, but their youngest child, Ian, was sent to a state school. In fact, Ian was treated completely differently from his brother and sister. And it wasn’t just his parents’ attitude to his education: by the time he was fourteen he was allowed to make his own mind up about going to church and yet Marianne and Mark still felt obliged to attend even though they were adults.

  By the time his parents finally gave Mark’s footballing aspirations their approval it was almost too late. At eighteen he had got two very average A-levels and an office job at the British Steel plant in Bilston before he went to the YMCA to sign up for Sabina Park Rangers. It was during the heatwave of 1976 that he had first trained with Horace McIntosh’s team and it proved to be a life-changing event. Up until then, most of the black people Mark associated with were those he met at church, as there were hardly any other black kids at the school he had gone to. While growing up he had heard about what the ragamuffin brethren got up to, mostly when the minister was preaching about the wages of sin, but this was the first time he had ever had any prolonged contact with them. In the changing rooms they laughed and talked about women and matters that were not strictly legal in a way he found liberating – and just a bit frightening.

  On the way home after Mark’s first club outing to the Nottingham tournament, Cecil Grant, who was driving the minibus, had said they would head for a blues party. Mark had thought he was joking when Cecil suggested continuing the celebrations; after all, the sun was up and he figured most people would have gone home to bed. But sure enough, in the blacked-out sitting room of a large Edwardian house, bodies had still been gyrating to the bass thudding from the biggest speaker boxes he had ever seen. The minister had said the devil had all the best tunes. Man, this music stirred something deep within him, he’d never heard anything like it: his mother would not even let Desmond Decker play in their house as she reckoned he did indecent things with his lips as he sang about the Israelites. And as his eyes had adjusted to the darkness and smoke he had seen girls dancing as though they were making babies, or at least practising. One of them had looked over the shoulder of the guy she was dancing with. Although he hadn’t been able to see her face, he’d known by her eyes that she must be beautiful. Those eyes belonged to Marcia Yuell. Mark had looked away then; feeling self-conscious about the way he was dressed (in his Sunday-best three-piece suit) and guilty that even a moment’s attraction was a betrayal of Rachel. Not that they were anything like a serious item back then, but both sets of parents had set their minds on the two of them getting together at some point. Rachel was small, very pretty and very, very quiet; in her most sinful fantasies she would not have even imagined behaving like the girls who went to blues parties.

  It had turned three before Mark went to bed. Rachel came downstairs to find him staring blankly at the fireplace. She asked why he had not come upstairs and if anything was wrong. He looked at her, in her dressing gown that would have been more suited to her frumpy mother, and almost told her what was wrong: he was not seventeen; Aston Villa was not interested in him; and she was not Marcia. Boy oh boy, if only he could have those years to live all over again. But he could not say it, especially as she crouched down beside him and reminded him in a gentle voice that he had to get up for church in five hours’ time. He allowed her to guide him by the hand up to their bedroom and made sure she was asleep before he let the tears trickle from the corner of his eyes.

  Because of his age, Ian had not been allowed to accompany the team to the Star and Moon nightclub, but he did not head for home; after all, unlike Mark, he wouldn’t be at the Sunday morning service. Instead, he headed for Ruth’s, as she had told him that her husband Harold would be away for the weekend, yet again. Ruth Martell was white, with curly golden hair and sharp blue eyes; and she was ancient in Ian’s eyes, at least thirty-seven. She lived in a well-to-do part of Wolverhampton called the Wergs Road. Millionaires, or as good as, lived in the big houses on the northern fringes of town. It was Ian’s newspaper round that had brought them together when he was fifteen. She had opened her door one frosty morning and invited him in for a hot drink. While he sat on a high stool in the large kitchen sipping coffee, Mrs Martell went upstairs, only to appear again wearing not much more than a smile. ‘Do you think I’m beautiful?’ she asked, in a voice that had turned deep and husky.

  Ian slid from the stool and clumsily placed a hand on one of her bare breasts. ‘Easy, tiger,’ she said as she began to lead him upstairs. He was doing his best to get undressed as coolly as he could but only managed to pull a tight knot into his laces. ‘Take your time,’ she called from her bed, ‘just imagine me as Mrs Robinson,’ she said, in reference to the film The Graduate in which an older woman seduces a young guy played by Dustin Hoffman. Ian immediately began reversing the undressing process and tucked his shirt back into his waistband. The only Mrs Robinson he knew was Audley’s mother and the woman was six feet tall and six feet wide and bore more than a passing resemblance to the former heavyweight champion Joe Frazier. ‘I’ve gotta go,’ he said. ‘I’ll come back when I’ve done my round.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Mrs Martell, ‘we’ll have more time that way.’ Once he had shaken the dreadful vision of Audley Robinson’s naked mother from his mind, and delivered all of his newspapers, Ian summoned his courage and returned to Mrs Martell’s house. His hand was shaking as he rang her doorbell, while he remembered what his spar Kingsley had explained about ‘doin a ting’. Ian wasn’t very experienced; truth was he had no experience at all. A lot of people thought he had no problem with girls, just because he was captain of the school football team, but in reality it seemed all the girls were more interested in guys who were into music rather than football. Ian felt more comfortable dribbling a ball past four or five tough defenders who were aiming to break his legs than trying to chat up a girl. He had listened to the guys boasting in the schoolyard about what they had done with this or that girl and was always glad when they finally started picking sides for a game. Wherever Ian was on the ‘gal’ front, he was always first choice when it came to football. As he waited on Ruth’s doorstep before that first time, he told himself not to be scared because if things turned out like he hoped he too could join in the chat before the game. Most of all, he would look forward to telling Kingsley, as he was the one who seemed to know the most about girls. Ian would tell him all that had happened to check that the ‘ting’ had been ‘ongled’ correctly. As it turned out, the reporting took a great deal longer than that first event, but Kingsley looked well impressed, in fact he seemed downright jealous and, spurred on by the rest of the guys, Ian returned to Mrs Martell’s again and again. However, at some point, he could not remember when or why, his feelings about her changed. He was no longer excited about seeing her and didn’t like all the stuff she talked about – and no, he told her, he hadn’t seen that film Mandingo with the black boxer Ken Norton playing a slave and the white Susan George as his mistress. ‘What’s this with you an’ films?’ he asked her.

  There was something in the boy’s voice that put alarm into the woman’s eyes. Not long after that she began to talk about the time when Ian would find a girlfriend and would no longer call. She started to give him money and gifts. For his sixteenth birthday she bought him a bike and then, persuaded by the guys at school – and after some coaxing from Kingsley – before the year was out he was asking her for a car. The request did not seem to faze her in the slightest and for his seventeenth she bought him a secondhand, but fairly modern, Ford Escort. It was only a 1100cc; she said she didn’t want him driving too fast. To make up for the lack of power she had a set of fancy alloy wheels fitted to it and ‘go-faster’ stripes put onto its sides. The arrival of the bike had been hard enough, so how the hell was he going to explain the sudden appearance of a car to his parents? He asked Vince Buckshot Pinnock if he could park it in his backstreet repair shop
and spent the next fortnight raising the subject of buying a car with his mother, telling her he had secretly saved money from his newspaper round. She had been both surprised and pleased that he had saved so much money and said that she would ask his father to look out for a suitable car for him. ‘Vince Pinnock has one at his place,’ he blurted. ‘He plays for the team, Mom, there ain’t no way he’s gonna sell me a bad car. He says this one is jus right for me.’ His mother pursed her lips and said she would mention it to his father. A few days later, Clovis Beckford, after growling a bit, accompanied Ian down to Buckshot’s place. As he inspected the car and made several disapproving noises about the wheels and stripes, Buckshot gave Ian several sharp glances. Normally, he wouldn’t have put up with anything like the comments Clovis was making, even if he were about to make money out of the deal (which he most certainly wasn’t.) But he tightened his lips and silently nodded as Clovis warned him of the repercussions if the car turned out to be a dud. ‘You ’ave a deal,’ Clovis finally said, offering Buckshot his hand.

  Without any enthusiasm, Buckshot took it and told Ian he would sort out any remaining matters such as the logbook when he saw him at training later that evening. On the way back home, Ian asked his father why he had given Buckshot such a hard time.

  Clovis explained to his son that Buckshot was a ‘half-breed’ because his mother, while born in Jamaica, was a ‘coolie’; that is to say of Indian descent. ‘It’s in the blood,’ his father said, ‘Coolies expec you to haggle, otherwise them don’t get no pleasure outta the deal.’