by Tim Flower
‘You know as well as I do that the vast majority of drivers are men. It’s because men are better with mechanical things.’
‘Is that so,’ Nell scoffed, throwing open the kitchen cupboard by the hatch to replace the cereal. ‘Then how come you can’t fix the hinge on this door.’
The screws needed tightening; that was all. It just hadn’t made it to the top of my “to do” list. ‘It’s not that I can’t: I haven’t had time.’ To prove the point, I strode into the kitchen and effected the repair there and then, using my smoker’s penknife as a screwdriver.
In the process, I discovered - concealed by the cereal boxes - the Family Allowance book Nell had said she’d lost and a small bottle of pills with her name on it.
‘Weren’t you looking for that?’ I said, tossing the book in her direction. Then I held up the bottle. ‘What are these?’
After giving me a “Not in Front of the Children” look, she called out, ‘Alison, go and brush your teeth and get ready for school.’
A little voice replied, ‘I feel ill. I want to stay at home.’
Nell bustled back into the dining area. ‘Don’t be silly. Do your teeth and put your shoes on,’ she said and ushered Alison down from the table and up the stairs.
When Nell returned, I repeated the question. ‘What are the pills for?’
‘Dr Finlay prescribed them.’
‘I might have guessed.’ Sadly, Dr Finlay wasn’t like the charming, dedicated one in the BBC’s Dr Finlay’s Casebook; he was a young, modish physician who had recently joined the practice run by our family doctor. ‘Why didn’t you see Dr Weekes?’
‘He was out doing his rounds.’
I perched on one of our white vinyl and chrome bar stools, unscrewed the lid of the amber glass bottle and tipped a few of the pills into my hand. They were small, round and yellow. ‘What are they for?’
‘They’re Valium. They’re to calm my nerves.’
Since it wasn’t a medical emergency, Nell could easily have waited to see our doctor. I was sure she had seen Finlay because she didn’t want to risk me finding out that she was mixing her daytime Marsala with what the Rolling Stones had, on their new album, called a “Mother’s Little Helper”.
‘There’s nothing wrong with your nerves’ I said, as if I was Perry Mason cross-examining a key witness. ‘Why would there be? You can stay at home all day: you don’t have to work. You’ve a nice house with all mod cons and new carpets, curtains, and a three-piece suite. And I give you what most men would call very generous housekeeping, with a monthly clothes allowance on top. What is there to get in a state about?’
‘You’ve no idea, have you?’
‘What?’
Nell started filling her washing-up bowl with water and squeezed an excessive amount of Fairy Liquid into it. ‘I need more than things, Harry.’
‘Such as?’
‘Adult company. I never see anyone who isn’t talking about childcare or housework.’
‘What do you mean? I’m here, aren’t I?’
‘I don’t mean you,’ she said, standing my newly washed cereal bowl in the yellow plastic drainer. ‘Anyway, you’re not here during the day. And you’re often out in the evening too.’
‘No I’m not. Not often.’
‘Look, if you’re going to stand there, you could at least make yourself useful.’ She motioned towards a Dixon of Dock Green tea towel, which she had bought from a peddler at the door.
I sulkily took the towel and started slowly drying my cereal bowl.
She went on the offensive. ‘What about last night?’
‘What about it?’
‘You were late back - and it wasn’t even the end of the week.’
‘I was working.’
‘With that Rita woman?’
Whilst I had been hoping she had forgotten Rita’s message, I had prepared for questions on the subject. ‘Yes, as it happens. Why?’
‘She phoned again, yesterday, to say that Mr Forsyth — ’ Nell interrupted herself. ‘Did you say that’s her photographer boyfriend?’
I nodded cautiously.
‘She said, he couldn’t make the game yesterday, so she was going instead.’
‘Yes, I know. She came to meet me where I was due to meet him.’
‘The Mirror are so short of photographers, are they, they send a copytaker in his place? What does she use to take her pictures, a box brownie?’
I hadn’t expected Nell to come at it from quite that angle; but the story I had devised covered it, nonetheless.
‘The Fox, as we call him, was going as a spectator: he wasn’t working,’ I said as nonchalantly as I could, picking up a draining plate with my tea towel. ‘He had got hold of two free tickets - probably because there were so many unsold - and offered one to me, in case I wasn’t working either.’
‘But you said you were working last night.’
‘Yes, I was. But I didn’t know that when we arranged to meet.’
Worryingly, my story - which I was only telling in the interests of official secrecy - didn’t appear to satisfy her. ‘You don’t usually wear your wedding suit to the football, do you?’
In case I hadn’t managed to creep in the previous night unnoticed, I had devised a truthful explanation for my unusual attire. ‘The Fox’s tickets were in the Royal Box. So we had to dress posh.’
‘The Royal Box?’ She sounded utterly incredulous. ‘You said “Mr Forsyth” was a Glaswegian sports photographer, not flipping Lord Snowdon!’
At that moment, fortunately, we were interrupted by Alison reappearing, dragging her satchel, her trailing shoelaces threatening to trip her up at every step. ‘Mummy, don’t shout at Daddy.’
I didn’t know whether to feel ashamed that our infant daughter had been compelled to intervene in our squabble or relieved that it was her mother, not me, she was criticising.
‘I wasn’t shouting. Mummy was just surprised, darling.’
I avoided further questioning by hanging up the tea towel, putting on my wedding suit jacket and saying to Nell, ‘I’ve got to go. I’m running late for work.’ Conscious of my attire, I added, ‘I’m interviewing at Chelsea again. This time it’s the Chairman, Joe Mears.’ Since I had at least seen Mears the night before, I felt this somehow made the lie less reprehensible.
Nell glared at me and said, sourly, ‘Lucky you.’
This puzzled me. ‘Because I’m interviewing Joe Mears?’
‘No, Harry.’ she said, disdainfully. ‘You have work to run late for.’
By the time I had extricated myself from the breakfast squabble with Nell, I was running ten minutes late. If the scheduled 08.08 tube from Mill Hill East hadn’t decided to stay in its shed, I would have, nonetheless, been at Number 10 by nine o’clock. As it was, I had to take a later train; and despite running down Whitehall (and, I’m ashamed to say, not so much as pausing at the Cenotaph) it was almost ten past nine by the time I burst into Rita and Brenda’s office, sweating like Jimmy Greaves’ marker.
‘Rita, should I go straight in?’ I said breathlessly, pointing in the vague direction of Forsyth’s office.
‘No, don’t do that. When I went to see him at nine, he nearly bit my head off.’
‘But I’m ten minutes late for my meeting. Did he ask where I was?’
‘Harry, don’t worry. It isn’t in his diary for nine o’clock. He just wanted you here first thing so, as soon as he has a moment, you can tell him about the referee panel. When I was in there, he was brooding over today’s newspapers and made it quite clear he didn’t want to see anyone.’
Initially, I didn’t know whether to be relieved that I wasn’t late or annoyed that Forsyth didn’t respect anyone’s time but his own. In the end, I settled for relief and - at Rita’s suggestion - getting a reviving cup of tea from Mrs S.
When I returned, I found Forsyth hovering by Rita’s desk, looking like a stunted centre-forward who had just missed a penalty. I abandoned all hope of being praised for the partisa
n atmosphere at Wembley and sidled, with my tea, over to Brenda’s side of the office and tried to make myself inconspicuous.
He snapped at Rita, ‘Where’s the PM? I need to see him - before the Cabinet Meeting.’
Brenda was copy typing and overheard the question. ‘The PM is in the flat, Mr Forsyth. He has Mrs Williams with him.’
Forsyth grunted. ‘Where’s my Economic Policy file?’
Rita scurried over to a regiment of grey metal, filing cabinets and, with her back to me, pulled open the drawer of the second one marked “DR-ED” and efficiently located the required buff manila folder. With her lush, dark hair tied back in a simple bow and her figure defined by a thin, powder blue sweater tucked into a perfectly fitted, navy blue skirt, she looked for all the world like Audrey Hepburn.
Forsyth soon shattered the illusion. ‘Quickly, bring it here, Miss Davies.’
Rita handed it to him. Demonstrating far more self-control than I could have managed in the circumstances, she asked, ‘Would you like anything else, Mr Forsyth?’
‘Yes, a ban on economic scare stories and a Labour landslide in next week’s local elections.’
Rita hesitated, clearly unsure what she should say. Fortunately, Forsyth saw Mrs Williams appear in the doorway, rendering a response unnecessary.
‘Marcia, I need to see Harold,’ Forsyth bellowed. ‘Are you done with him?’
Mrs Williams gave him a patronising smirk and strode purposefully over to Brenda’s desk. I instinctively shuffled in the opposite direction.
With her back to Forsyth, Mrs Williams replied, ‘The PM is going into Cabinet now, Ludo. It’ll have to wait.’
‘No. If I don’t see him now, he’ll be hijacked. So it can’t wait.’
‘Hijacked? By whom?’
‘That’s for me to tell Harold.’
Mrs Williams turned to face him and stared. Although her blonde perm and high heels made her only marginally taller than Forsyth, she had a way of looking down at him that gave her an air of command.
‘Don’t be such a cunt, Ludo,’ she said calmly. ‘I’ve already warned him that Crossman and others will be whingeing that they weren’t told earlier about S.E.T.’
‘Actually, Marcia, it’s rather more important than that,’ Forsyth sneered.
Mrs Williams was sceptical. ‘Is it really.’
‘A caucus has formed around Crossman, who believe we are doomed to devalue sterling.’
‘Then they’re bonkers.’
‘That’s as maybe. But they are convinced S.E.T. will not restore confidence in the pound and only serves to push up prices, and therefore wage demands. So they want the Government’s economic strategy fully debated in Cabinet at the first opportunity. Harold must be warned about this, before today’s meeting.’
‘What must I be warned of, Ludo?’ said the PM, standing in the office doorway, holding the butt of a fat cigar.
‘I suggest we have a word in my office, Prime Minister,’ Forsyth said, for once adopting a respectful tone. ‘Before you go downstairs.’
The PM gave him a modest nod, before noticing me standing between Forsyth and Mrs Williams, like a referee in a boxing ring.
With a characteristic lean of the head, he said, in his familiar Yorkshire mumble, ‘Not smoking your pipe, Harry?’
I couldn’t say that Forsyth had, effectively, banned my pipe. So I fibbed, ‘No, I seem to have left it somewhere, Prime Minister.’
‘Oh dear.’ He extinguished the remains of his cigar in the ashtray that Forsyth insisted Rita kept on her desk. ‘Although, I’m a fine one to talk.’ He approached me and, through barely parted lips, whispered, ‘The important thing is not to let the cameras see you without it,’ and chuckled. ‘You’re doing a good job, Harry. Keep it up.’
Within five minutes, I heard the lift descend and assumed it was taking the PM down to the Cabinet Room. Sure enough, moments later, Forsyth reappeared and tossed his Economic Policy file onto Rita’s desk. ‘Don’t hide it away. The way things are going, I’ll need it again.’
I wondered whether Forsyth had forgotten he had demanded my presence that morning. So I enquired, ‘Would now be a good time to discuss the refereeing panel?’
He didn’t respond. Instead, he ordered Rita to get him his Jules Britannia file, which he proceeded to flick through impatiently.
‘Miss Davies, what did you do with that FIFA document?’
Rita gave me a look which I interpreted as, “If I hadn’t just lost my boyfriend - and, therefore, any immediate prospect of being able to manage without a job - I would locate the document and tell him what he could do with it”. Then she politely took the file from Forsyth, picked out a thin bundle of papers secured in the corner with a treasury tag and, turning over the first page, calmly replied, ‘It’s just here, behind this FIFA cover sheet.’
He tore the document off the tag and thrust it into my hands. ‘I don’t want to discuss the panel, Miller. I just want to know whether I should be happy with it.’
I frantically examined the typed sheet, which was marked, “Internal Memorandum (not for distribution)” and stamped, “Strictly Confidential”. Beneath a short list of FIFA addressees, it carried the title, “WORLD CUP, ENGLAND 1966: Draft Referee Panel”. There followed what appeared to be a list of FIFA-qualified referees, with their nationality in parentheses after their name.
‘Well, what do you think?’ he said testily.
My first thought was, how the hell did Forsyth get hold of it?
Having only glanced at the names and not formed any view on the merits of the proposed panel, I wanted to say I would let him know once I had given it detailed consideration. However, I knew he wouldn’t tolerate this; so I played for time.
‘Okay. Let’s see. How many northern European officials are there? One, two... three.’
‘Let me help you, Miller,’ he said, interrupting me. ‘Almost half of the panel are northern European and only twelve percent are southern European.’
Calling on my grammar school education, I swiftly calculated that this accounted for less than two-thirds of the panel. What about the rest? Scanning down the list, I judged that they were almost entirely from South American countries. This is what I would have expected. Five of the sixteen teams contesting the finals were from that region. Besides, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay were major footballing nations.
‘The other third or so seem to be largely South American, don’t they?’ I said, wondering if Forsyth had overlooked that part of the world. It was soon clear that he had.
‘Ignore them,’ he said. ‘It’s the southern European ones that concern us. There are only three of those.’
I realised then that the explanation of differing refereeing styles I had given Forsyth at Hampden Park hadn’t been sufficiently comprehensive. ‘The thing is, South American referees tend to adopt the same style as the southern European ones. So they are relevant too.’
Forsyth’s face darkened. ‘I might have guessed. Bloody Latins.’
‘But we still have a good chance of northern Europeans officiating at the matches involving England and Brazil.’
‘Why do we want them refereeing Brazil’s matches? Surely, we want to keep them all for the England games.’
I instantly regretted complicating the issue by mentioning Brazil; but there was no way back. ‘Any team that’s going to beat Brazil will have to tackle hard and be physically stronger: it’s the only way of containing the likes of Pele. Northern European referees will be less inclined to penalise that kind of robust play.’
For once Forsyth looked more thoughtful than antagonistic. ‘I see. If Brazil’s group opponents prevail, we won’t have to meet the current Champions in the knockout stages. So we would like non-Latin officials for Brazil’s games as well. Is that what you’re telling me?’
‘Ideally we’d want English referees for Brazil’s games. They will be ineligible for England’s games, so it wouldn’t reduce our own chances of getting a northern European referee
. Unfortunately, however, there is no way of arranging that.’
‘Is there not?’ Forsyth sounded unconvinced.
‘Once they have finalised the panel, who officiates at which match is decided by lot. So it will come down to luck of the draw.’
Forsyth grinned at me and snatched the FIFA document from my hand. ‘Then we need to ensure, Miller, that luck is on our side.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Monday, 23rd May 1966
In the two-and-a-half weeks that followed my initial comments to Forsyth on the draft refereeing panel, I received no further instructions from Number 10. However, the domestic football season having ended the previous Thursday, the paper had arranged for me to travel to Opatija, in Yugoslavia, to cover what proved to be England’s final two matches in a miserable Junior World Cup campaign.
Since they had booked me on the early morning flight to Belgrade, the previous day I had returned home from work early to pack. I had found Nell in the lounge, still in her long, quilted housecoat, sitting beside an astray full of Consulate stubs and a stack of my unironed shirts and underwear, drinking Marsala and reading a book entitled The Bell Jar. Inevitably, its author was a woman I had never heard of and - judging by the jacket image (of a sad-looking girl sat, naturally, in a bell jar) - another female polemic who would fill my wife’s head with subversive nonsense. At least Nell had the decency to look embarrassed.
With the prospect of having to get up at four o’clock the following morning, to spend three days watching kids’ football and eating foreign food, I couldn’t face an argument. I just wanted to pack, eat my tea and go to bed.
So I pretended I hadn’t noticed that Nell had hit the Marsala before she had finished her housework or even dressed properly. I grunted a ‘Hello love’, went straight upstairs to our bedroom and turned on the wireless.
“This is the BBC Light Programme. Here is the news, read by Roy Williamson. The British government has declared a state of emergency a week after the nation’s seamen went on strike. The new emergency powers will allow the government to cap food prices, enable the Royal Navy to take control of and clear the ports, and will facilitate the free movement of goods by lifting driving restrictions on vehicles. Ports and docks around the country are becoming increasingly congested as ships are brought to a standstill by protesting members of the National Union of Seamen. The NUS is demanding their 56-hour week is reduced to 40 hours.”
