Although most people who were listening liked the idea they were giants, the rapturous applause was more for the fact that Joseph Swaby had finally finished. Medals to the losing and winning finalists were quickly dispensed before the award to the tournament’s ‘outstanding player’ was handed out. Sammy Sterling went through a brief list of players, including Mark Beckford, who had scored the most goals. ‘But,’ said Sammy, ‘wha’ we were lookin for was de most improved player, a player to use Brotha Joseph’s words, who is makin the best of im talents … An’ dat haward goes to Ian Beckford of Sabina Park Rangers!”
Ian went up to collect his trophy and Mark did his best to look happy for his younger brother. But as he applauded, Horace looked him straight in the eye and immediately saw the pain brought about by a dream that was coming true for someone else.
More cheers went up as three young men entered the hall hauling enormous speaker boxes, and in doing so ended the formal part of the evening and signalled the beginning of the much anticipated night-time activities. Horace McIntosh (with the rest of his generation) had headed for home by the time the dance had started really swinging in the early hours. But the number of revellers had swollen and not decreased as more locals turned up. Nestor Riley and Desmond Palmer patrolled the edges of the darkened hall. There was no need for verbal communication between the two of them; not that it was possible anyway with the thunderous bassline of the music that was threatening their eardrums. They had mastered the art of gestures; sometimes all that was needed was a simple look – and they knew who they were looking for. The year before they had met two sisters who were so accommodating that they were even enticed to make the journey to Nottingham several more times, until the girls’ father threatened to show them what his machete could do.
But in the months since they had last met Marlene and Maureen, the two girls had become part of the sound system. The problem was the two MCs – Sir Dread and Judge-I – who viewed the sisters as their property, as much as their records and other sound system paraphernalia. Desmond soon spotted Marlene – then again he could hardly have missed her as she had drawn most of the male gazes by the way she gyrated in time to the thudding beat. He stepped in between her and a guy who was just about to get acquainted and she smiled at him as if to ask what had taken him so long. Once he had captured his prize he looked around for Nestor and saw that he’d already found Maureen, who had him propped up against a wall. They exchanged smug smiles, unaware of the malevolent stares shooting their way. There were threats that were overheard by the other Wolverhampton guys who now reckoned that they had overstayed their welcome. They gestured to each other and headed for the exit; the only ones who did not see them leave were Nestor and Desmond. Marlene and Maureen were giving it large, so large in fact that Desmond was glad he had brought along one of his bigger cars with the reclining seats. The music halted abruptly, but it took a few moments for the two dancing couples to realise something strange was going on.
‘Somebody turn on de lights,’ barked Sir Dread, ‘so we can see ’ow many is still ’ere. ’Cause if any unno out deh see one of dem Wolverhampton men me want you to chop dem clart … Yes, run dem men who come ’ere an’ disrespec we … Kill dem blo …’
By the time the lights came on, Nestor and Desmond were already heading out of the door: an instinct for self-preservation had them running as soon as they heard the ‘W’ in Wolverhampton. They ran across the pitch for Desmond’s BMW only to see that their teammates were well ahead of them (for once) and were already throwing themselves into their cars. As they sprinted full pelt Desmond pulled his keys from his pocket but they slipped from his fingers. He stopped to find them and caught his first glance of their pursuers. They were closing in fast and he had to make the split-second decision to leave the keys in the grass and run for his life. Nestor was standing at his car with Courtney Wright. Courtney had been left behind by Donovan Brown who had driven away in his Ford Capri with its passenger door still open. ‘Run!’ screamed Desmond as he ran towards them, ‘Me seh run!’
Nestor and Courtney started running, although they didn’t know where they were heading. Desmond quickly caught up with them and then passed them before jumping over a garden fence. They followed and jumped another seven fences before a big dog stopped them jumping number nine. No one had followed and they took the opportunity to try and force some air into their burning lungs. In between gasps, Desmond said they should wait a while before heading back to the car: the guys chasing them had a dance to return to after all. After twenty minutes they decided to go back to the car and this time the fences were a lot harder to climb. Desmond had been right; the lure of the dance meant the guys who had chased them had not hung around. But before returning to the hall they had smashed every piece of glass and dented every panel of his cherished BMW. The angry tears in Desmond’s eyes prevented him from finding the keys that had been trampled underfoot. It was Courtney who found them, just as it started to rain.
It would prove to be a slow, cold and wet journey back to Wolverhampton.
10
Marcia Yuell liked Mark Beckford; liked but not loved him. Her mother Ida had once warned her to only love the things she didn’t have to depend on to love her back. Marcia knew that her mother had been talking from experience because she had seen her give love to men and not receive anything but misery in return. For a while, Ida and Marcia tried devoting themselves to the Lord at the church the Beckfords attended. Both of them were looking for guidance, but Marcia’s churchgoing had begun after she had seen Mark that first time at the blues party. She’d asked around and heard he was a footballer destined for greater things. Rudolph Naylor had offered both Marcia and her mother private Bible instruction but by then their zeal was already on the wane; the way their lives were turning out was so bitterly disappointing, it seemed the Good Lord wasn’t returning the sort of love they had hoped for. All the talk about bounteous gifts rang hollow when all their money had been spent by Wednesday and the Giro cheque did not arrive until Friday. Maybe it was because she saw so little of it while growing up that, like her mother, Marcia gave her love to money, or at least the things money could buy. It was the way of the world: a ‘good’ house was an expensive house, and the same went for a ‘good’ car or a ‘nice’ piece of jewellery – the sort of things Mark was never going to be able to provide her with, especially as he had his nice little wife to keep in their nice little house. She as good as told him that; well, not the bit about only liking and not loving him, and she hadn’t told him about loving money either; but she had said the rest, more or less.
He’d rung her from Nottingham and said he could travel back and spend the night with her but she had told him it wouldn’t be possible as she had a girlfriend staying over. She could hear his disappointment and then the rapid bleeps that were telling him to put more coins in the box as he called out he would have some exciting news next week and something about Rachel, something about leaving. Were they leaving town together? Was she was leaving him? Marcia was tiring of the game she had played with Mark and wasn’t bothered about what he had to tell her.
She went to the bathroom of her seventh-storey flat and as she looked into the mirror she thought about how funny it was that feelings could change so dramatically. There was a time when she wanted Mark so badly, back when there was talk of him becoming rich and famous like Cyrille Regis. It was a nice dream while it lasted but once Mark’s parents saw that she had a child they did everything they could to make sure their precious son married Rachel. It made her glad that he never became a professional and that Rachel would not be benefiting from Mark’s career as a footballer. Marcia had only continued to see him after he got married to prove that he really wanted her and not prim-and-proper Rachel.
Marcia smoothed a crease in her dress and went to the bedroom to make sure Tania was still asleep. She stroked the little girl’s hair and whispered that she would be back before she woke. Out of everyone she had ever known, Tania was perhaps the
one person she truly loved: sometimes the thought of it scared her. There was always the nagging doubt that Tania would not continue to return the love as she grew older and found out what her mom was really like.
Marcia was about to go out clubbing with some friends at the Rialto in Birmingham after earning some good money the night before. She had been on her way home from a netball match when Mervyn Palmer slowed his new car and asked her if she wanted to come for a drive. She knew of the old lech’s reputation and his cow-cock soup that was the stuff of local legend. Marcia had also seen his photo on the front page of the Express and Star and figured that this fool and his money might be easily parted. They drove around the West Park before heading out along the Tettenhall Road to a more gentrified area where there were houses even Mervyn could not afford. He laid it on thick about how he had so much money after his pools win and no one to spend it on. After he returned to the loneliness theme for a fifth time Marcia grew impatient and told him that he did not have to be lonely, but they would have to book into a hotel. He immediately began to sweat and crashed the gears a few times as his foot slipped from the clutch. ‘Blouse an’ skirt,’ he kept muttering while laughing to himself in a high-pitched whine. Mervyn could not believe his luck until Marcia added she would want two hundred pounds to cover childcare expenses. ‘Mi ras!’ he exclaimed, ‘dem hexpensive baby-sitters in Blakenhall.’ But as they headed back in the direction of town they arranged where and when they would meet up.
She wasn’t going to do anything immoral; Marcia was just going to provide company for a lonely old man. It wasn’t like what the two white girls from Manchester, who lived on the floor below her, got up to. However inclement the weather, they went out on street corners, putting themselves at risk to feed a drug habit. Marcia thought she would act like an escort. Escorts were women like her friend Lorna who earned up to two hundred pounds a night (plus tips) and they didn’t even have to kiss, never mind do it.
Once they’d had dinner, Marcia and Mervyn retired to their hotel room. He was almost falling asleep as Marcia finally emerged from the bathroom after contemplating how far she would go to alleviate Mervyn’s feelings of loneliness. She was wearing a pair of pyjamas and a stocking-foot on her head as a means of communicating where the boundaries lay. The boundaries got a bit blurred once she got into bed and Mervyn made an attempt at a kiss that was abruptly curtailed by his loose dentures (which he then placed on a bedside table). After a little indecent fumbling in the dark and Mervyn cussing, he collapsed into a heavy sleep. Within minutes, his snoring reached such a level that Marcia spent most of the night with her head under a pillow regretting that she had not insisted on the money before they went to bed. When Mervyn woke in the morning, seemingly refreshed, he made another attempt at seduction – which again was unsuccessful – and provoked Marcia into demanding that he also pay for her taxi home.
It was only when she was out with her friends in the nightclub did she hear about the double-your-money scheme Mervyn’s son Desmond was running with Nestor Riley. She wished she had asked Mervyn for more when she heard that the minimum was a thousand pounds. Still, all was not lost, she could see Mervyn again; it would be money for old rope.
Bert Tomlinson, the Aston Villa scout, thumbed his index cards looking for Mark Beckford’s old telephone number. He knew Mark had married and moved on but he did not want to speak to him, just his parents and his talented younger brother Ian. It was a matter of regret for him that Mark had never broken through to the professional Ranks, but it was his injury as a youngster that had blighted his chances with several of the clubs who, up until then, had been very interested in him. And then there was the fact he was black. For although with every passing season there were more black professional players, a big proportion of scouts were still stuck with the mind-set that most black players did not have what it took to play at the highest level in the English game. ‘It’s all about that British fighting spirit that they can’t ever have,’ one of them had explained to Bert. But as the myths and fallacies were gradually broken down, other, more commercial reasons were given for not taking on black players. Attendance figures had slumped by over two-and-a-half million during the 1980-81 season as unemployment grew and fans were increasingly unable to afford to go to matches. ‘Let’s say they are as good as white boys,’ a fellow scout had said to Bert, ‘but two or three in a team is the max. A little bit of colour is tolerable but do you really think that thirty-odd thousand people are going to turn up every week to watch twenty-two nig-nogs playing? They might for a couple of games just to make some monkey noises but after a while clubs would go bankrupt because the crowds just wouldn’t relate to what they’re watching.’
But Bert had seen the future of English football and it was going to black and brown as well as white. And it was also going to be foreign. There would be two Argentineans playing in the FA Cup final in little more than a week and Frans Thijssen, a Dutchman playing for Ipswich Town, had just won the Football Writers’ Player of the Year. As crazy as it sounded, there might be a time, though surely not in the twentieth century, when there would be even ‘arrogant’ French and ‘temperamental’ Italian players appearing in the English League, although the idea that there would also be European managers was way beyond even Bert’s imagination.
Research was the secret of Bert Tomlinson’s success. He already knew that the Beckfords were a religious lot and had found out that Ian had another year at school before he took his A-levels. He was confident that if Ian was taken on as an apprentice he could continue with his education, even if there was an attitude in some parts of the Football League that too much education had a negative impact on the ability to play good football. Aston Villa were a bit more enlightened in that regard and had a reputation for taking good care of apprentices, and Bert reckoned he could persuade Mr and Mrs Beckford to allow their youngest child to attend the upcoming trials.
Two days after he had made the call, he was sitting in an armchair in the rarely used front room of the Beckford household, amongst one of the largest collections of glass ornaments he had ever seen. Bert started off with a hint at his own religious beliefs. He looked to Clovis and Mona Beckford seated on the sofa and said, ‘Your son has obviously been blessed with many talents.’
Ian, who was in the other armchair, was positively beaming. Ruth Martell had often said that he was blessed all right. Bert said to him, ‘I suppose Mark told you how impressed I was with your display over Fowler’s Park.’
‘Nah, he didn’t,’ said Ian, suddenly angry.
‘Ah well, I suppose he was still on too much of a high after that great goal he scored to take in everything I was saying. But as well as congratulating him I did say that you had a great game.’
‘An’ I helped make the goal.’
‘That was the cherry on top.’
‘What, exactly, are you offerin’ Ian, Mr Tomlinson?’ asked Clovis Beckford.
‘A trial with the new First Division champions, Mr Beckford. If he gets through, and I’m pretty sure he will, he’ll be offered a year’s apprenticeship with the top club.’ ‘Him ’ave A-levels an’ maybe university to look forward to, why should he give up all that?’
Bert smiled, pleased that he had done his research. ‘I know that, Mr Beckford, and the club’s Youth Development Office has given me an assurance that Ian will be able to continue with his studies. His contract will be for a year so if either party is unhappy with his time at the club he can continue with his academic studies at university if he so wishes. What we’re offering, providing he gets through the trials, of course, is a widening of his opportunities – not narrowing them in any way. He’ll also have a wage, not great, but more than he’s getting at school and if any of you can think of something negative I haven’t thought of, then please tell me.’
Clovis looked to his wife, who in turn looked to Ian, who just shrugged his shoulders. ‘All I ask,’ said Bert, ‘is that Ian comes and sees what Aston Villa has to offer, even if another
club makes an approach.’
‘You have my word,’ said Clovis Beckford, ‘Ian will go to Villa first, no matter who else arks him to go to their club.’
Bert shook hands with Clovis and then Ian and his mother, who was quite taken aback by the gesture as she had felt invisible and unable to make any contribution; it was man’s talk about a man’s game and she was only there in case anybody wanted tea. Bert thought that the meeting could not have gone any better until he enquired if Clovis had passed on any football ability through his genes. There was a subtle change in Clovis’ face; a tension around the mouth and Mona stiffened and looked embarrassed.
‘Mus be on Mona’s side,’ said Clovis, ‘I’m a cricket man.’
11
Something had changed about the town Horace McIntosh had left on Saturday morning; not the whole town but the parts in which a lot of Jamaicans lived. By the time he opened his barber shop on Monday morning rumours about the double-your-money scheme were spreading but not everyone who had heard about it was impressed. As Horace knew all too well, there is a dour streak that is part of the Jamaican makeup that made some of them instinctively put a dampener on the rumours. There had been a collective sucking of teeth and many became argumentative, as though the person who had mentioned the scheme had asked them to part with their money. But there were people who believed the scheme was a genuine chance to make money, perhaps even get them out of the debt and the misery in which all too many found themselves. Their belief was more of a pot-of-gold-at-the-end-of-the-rainbow sort rather than anything based on reality. It was turning out that the fewer the people who knew the hard facts about the scheme the more certain others became that this was their opportunity to make money. While some swore that they had heard it on a pirate radio station that a music mogul, as a means of black empowerment, had started the scheme, others said it was coffee and not coffins that was being imported. However, everyone was certain that the minimum figure required was one thousand pounds. The bitter letdown felt by those who had no hope of raising that sort of money spawned other rumours that the whole business was a fraud. Those rumours did not get much of a hearing – there were just too many of the other sort circulating around the town. As for the identities of those behind the plan, the mere mention of ‘some millionaire’ reinforced the conviction of those who were ready to part with their money that they were onto a winner. While for others, the mere mention of the names Nestor Riley and Desmond Palmer was enough to confirm that this whole business was a skank which would end in tears.
MORE THAN a GAME Page 8
