Fixing Sixty Six

by Tim Flower

  The line had crackled at the crucial moment. I bellowed into the phone, ‘What’s happened?’ as if raising my voice would make hearing Rita easier.

  ‘Mr Mears has collapsed.’

  ‘Collapsed!’

  The manager must have overheard me, for he interrupted his writing in the hotel’s register and gave me a concerned look.

  ‘Is he going to be all right?’ I shouted. For what seemed like minutes, but could have been only seconds, she didn’t reply. ‘Can you still hear me, Rita?’

  ‘The Fox phoned the hospital about an hour ago,’ she said gravely. ‘They told him Mr Mears had had a heart attack…’ The transmission cracked: I couldn’t tell whether she or the line had faltered.

  ‘What, just walking in the park? How come?’

  ‘Listen Harry,’ Rita said sternly. ‘Mr Mears is dead.’

  ‘What! Oh my god.’ I knew that Mears had suffered minor heart attacks before: in ‘55, at the banquet to celebrate Chelsea becoming Division One champions, and when he was having to deal with the World Cup theft. But I never thought his life was in danger. ‘I was on the point of leaving my hotel to meet him. We’re on the same flight to Copenhagen. We were going to drive to the airport together.’

  ‘I know. It’s awful, isn’t it.’ Rita sounded quite emotional.

  For whatever reason, the shock of learning about Mears’ sudden death made me brutally pragmatic. I called over to the manager, ‘Excuse me? Instead of a taxi to the Grand, could you please get one to pick me up here at noon and take me to the airport.’

  ‘Harry, wait,’ Rita said plaintively.

  ‘Sorry, Rita: I was talking to the manager. Who should I contact now when I get to Copenhagen?’

  ‘You aren’t going to Copenhagen, Harry.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Not now.’

  ‘Where am I going then?’

  ‘London. I’ve got you on the next BEA flight, at five twenty-five. The Fox wants to see you at eleven o’clock tomorrow.’

  ‘What for? Who will deal with the press for the rest of the tour?’

  Rita didn’t respond. I noticed the hissing on the line had stopped. ‘Rita? Rita, are you still there?’ She wasn’t.

  I slammed down the receiver.

  ‘I can do something more for you, Mr Miller?’ the manager asked.

  I was tempted to say, ‘Yeah, find out what the hell’s going on.’ But, of course, I didn’t.

  Having asked him to store my luggage and arrange my taxi for three o’clock, I slumped back down on one of the sagging settees and thirsted for something that wasn’t fishy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Friday, 1st July 1966

  Although I got back home that evening without incident, I ended up spending another night alone and not in my own bed.

  A taxi had dropped me outside our front door just as dusk fell. Usually by then, Nell would have switched on the coach lamp outside to illuminate the porch. On this occasion, however, not only was the lamp dark, but so were all the windows.

  In the twilight, I noticed a half-crumpled sheet of paper in the porch that looked like it had been torn from a shorthand pad. On it was written, in Nell’s hand, “Wednesday, 29th: No milk until Monday” and our house number.

  On the mat inside the front door, I found some post and two days of newspapers. I checked in the garage: the car wasn’t there. I assumed Nell had gone to stay with her parents in Bedford and forgotten to cancel the papers.

  Her absence annoyed me. I was tired and hungry, and I wanted to tell someone about Mears. Not the full story, of course: but how he died, just like that, within twelve hours of my drinking with him.

  I was also irritated that Nell had taken the car. Like many women drivers, she had the habit of resting her left foot on the corresponding pedal, as if presenting it for a pedicure. As a result, our three-year-old Triumph Herald had already needed a new clutch.

  Thankfully, there was a third of a bottle of milk in the fridge that hadn’t yet turned, so I could have my first cup of tea in almost five days.

  After a second brew and catching up on the tennis at Wimbledon in the Mirror, I felt strong enough to telephone Nell’s parents.

  They lived above the Italian grocers they ran and shared a party line with Mrs Bolton, who had the haberdashers next door. Since she was known to be the town gossip, I didn’t rate my chances of reaching Nell when calls were at their cheapest. Sure enough, despite trying on two or three occasions over the course of an hour, the line was always busy.

  So I abandoned my attempt to confirm her whereabouts and complain about returning to an empty house. Instead, I opened two pints of Double Diamond and heated myself up a Fray Bentos Steak & Kidney pudding, some tinned potatoes and mushy peas, to have in front of the telly. It wasn’t home cooking; but it also wasn’t fish. It was bliss.

  Whilst waiting for the Wimbledon highlights, I watched Twenty-Four Hours on BBC1. I learnt that the Seamen’s strike had been called off, but only after Harold Wilson had accused eight or nine named members of their union’s executive of being communists. Labour backbenchers and trade unionists had, apparently, heavily criticised Harold’s conduct. This didn’t surprise me: I knew Da would condemn, what he would call, the “union bashing” and “sabotaging” of the strike. Although I was too weary to follow the programme in detail, the experts seemed to say that the Government’s incomes policy wasn’t producing the goods and that Harold’s stock as Prime Minister was at an all-time low. I imagined what Forsyth would be thinking if - as I thought highly likely - he was watching the programme too and feared he would be in a bad mood for our meeting the next day.

  At ten forty-five, I switched over to Match of the Day from Wimbledon and laid down on the settee to watch it. This was a mistake. For whilst the BBC billed the contest as the best of the day, it wasn’t sufficiently exciting to prevent me - a few games into the first set - falling into a tour, food and beer induced stupor.

  I didn’t wake until gone eight o’clock the following morning. After a bath to cure my staleness and stiffness, and a breakfast of tea and cornflakes using the rest of the milk, I made a fresh attempt to call Nell.

  As I had hoped, the peak charging rate had deterred Mrs Bolton from disseminating her disinformation that morning.

  A female voice answered my call, ‘Buongiorno.’

  ‘Rosa, it’s Harry.’ I had been hoping Giuseppe, Nell’s father, would answer. His English was better, and he was less talkative.

  ‘Chi? Sally?’

  ‘No, Harry: Nell’s - Daniela’s husband.’

  ‘‘Arry, how-a-you?’ Rosa bellowed, but gave me no opportunity to respond. ‘Daniela, she say you over-the-sea. It is okay. I ‘ear you, ‘Arry.’

  ‘Actually, I’m — ’

  ‘I know. I telefon-are-rey Esta in Turino, all the weeks.’ Esta was Nell’s Aunt, who returned to Turin after the war. It must cost Giuseppe a fortune, I thought. ‘I ear you, no problema. You ‘ear me okay, ‘Arry?’ Rosa spoke so loudly, Mrs Bolton wouldn’t have had to lift the receiver to hear her.

  There was no point trying to explain to Rosa that, in fact, I was back in Finchley, only fifty miles away. ‘I can hear you fine, Rosa. Can I speak to Nell?’

  ‘You wanna Daniela?’ She sounded surprised, as if she assumed I had phoned to talk to her.

  ‘Yes please, Rosa. Is she there?’

  ‘She in Cambridge, ‘Arry.’

  ‘Cambridge?’

  ‘She go to college - to see many friend.’

  In the past, Nell had occasionally been invited to reunions and other events at her old college, but she had always declined. ‘When? When did she go?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘No tomorrow. Scusami. Yeah-ster-day. She sleep with good friend.’

  I assumed not in the euphemistic sense. ‘When is she due back?’

  ‘Daniela? She back today - later.’

  ‘This afternoon? Or n
ot until this evening?’

  ‘Si,’ Rosa replied unhelpfully. ‘Al-is-on isa ‘ere. You wanna speak?’

  If I had been speaking to Nell, I would have queried Alison not being at school. But, being Latin, Rosa and Giuseppe had the attitude that time together as an extended family was more important than school and that obeying the authorities was largely optional. So I kept quiet and, deciding it would be infinitely easier communicating with Alison than Rosa, said, ‘Yes please, Rosa. Is she there?’

  She shouted, ‘ALISON! COME ‘ERE MY PATATINA. PAPA WANNA SPEAK YOU.’ There was no doubting from whom both my wife and daughter had inherited their strong lungs.

  I explained to Alison that Daddy had gone in an aeroplane to Europe - where Mummy was born - to do his work; that Daddy had told Mummy that he would be back next week; but Daddy finished his work early and so he came home yesterday.

  Alison initially responded with a simple, ‘Okay’, in a tone indicating she was neither surprised nor particularly interested. But then she added, in a suspicious voice, ‘Did you tell Mummy a fib?’

  ‘No, darling. Of course not. Daddy didn’t know until yesterday that he would be back this week.’

  After a pause, Alison said, ‘Okay,’ in a way that suggested she wasn’t entirely convinced by my explanation but, as it was me, was prepared to accept it.

  ‘So, when you see Mummy later, can you tell her Daddy’s back, so you can come home this evening?’

  ‘But Mummy said, if I was a good girl, Nanna would take us swimming tomorrow and on the boats on Sunday,’ she pleaded.

  I hadn’t appreciated that Nell’s trip to Cambridge had entailed bribing our daughter.

  Alison sought Rosa’s support, who I could hear chuckling in the background. ‘I have been a good girl, haven’t I Nanna?’

  ‘I speak,’ I overheard Rosa reply, and she came back on the line.

  After some negotiation, made lengthier by the language impediment, Rosa agreed to take Alison and Nell, both to the swimming baths and on the river the following day, so they could return home in time for tea. In exchange, I promised Alison - via her agent - that we would visit Nanna and Grandad one Sunday soon and would spend the whole day boating. It meant fending for myself that evening; but better that than Nell being away for the whole weekend.

  Having said laborious goodbyes to both Rosa and Alison, I replaced the, by now, clammy receiver in its cradle and checked my watch. There was less than ninety minutes until I was due to meet Forsyth. Fortunately, since I had no idea what the purpose of the meeting was or even why I had been recalled from the tour, there was no preparation to be done. All I had to do was don my wedding suit and get myself down to Number 10.

  Outside, it was a perfect summer’s day: dry, sunny and shirt-sleeve warm. When I reached Rita and Brenda’s office, their door was open, as were their windows overlooking the courtyard at the back, and the room for once had a bright, relaxed, cheerful air.

  Brenda was at her desk, with her earphones in, punctuating her typing with petite nibbles of a garibaldi biscuit. Despite the change in weather, she was attired much the same as she had been when I first met her in February.

  Rita, on the other hand, was dressed for summer, in a lemon-yellow blouse and a short green fitted skirt. Standing, doing her filing, against a bleak background of grey metal, she looked like a daffodil on a warship.

  ‘Welcome back, Harry,’ she said, sounding genuinely happy to see me. Then, alluding to the sad circumstances of my return, she enquired with a sympathetic smile, ‘Are you okay?’

  I thought how warm and understanding she was, before feeling ashamed that, preoccupied with Nell’s absence and what Forsyth might have in store for me, I had given little thought to poor Joe Mears. ‘Yes, thanks. It was just a bit of a shock.’

  ‘Of course.’

  I was keen to share my news about the Pole. ‘And it came hard on the heels of another one.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘The evening before he… you know…’

  ‘Passed away.’

  ‘Yeah, he told me the Pole — ’

  ‘The man Scotland Yard suspected of being the World Cup thief?’

  ‘Yes, and I saw leaving the rear of Central Hall, was the one who’d delivered the FA’s package for me to the air terminal.’

  ‘What?’ Rita sounded utterly incredulous. ‘The Pole was working for the FA?’

  ‘That was my reaction. Why would the FA steal a trophy it already possessed and then blackmail their own chairman with it?’

  Rita looked thoughtful. Then, Sherlock Holmes like, she said, ‘What if the Pole isn’t the thief: he was at Central Hall legitimately on behalf of the FA? He could have been checking up on the security arrangements, for example. It would explain why Scotland Yard are no longer looking for him.’

  ‘Yes, it would. Maybe that’s what Joe was going to tell me on the flight to Copenhagen.’ But, as I said it, I thought, if that was the case, why didn’t he just tell me that in the restaurant?

  Rita gave a sad frown and her eyes glistened. ‘Oh Harry. Mr Mears was such a nice man.’

  Not liking to see her upset, I moved the conversation on. ‘Where’s my meeting with the Fox? In his room up here or the one with the hard seats downstairs?’ I said brightly.

  ‘Neither,’ she said, shrugging off her sadness and grinning modestly. ‘He wants you to meet him in the Centre Court at Wimbledon.’

  I laughed.

  ‘No really. The PM and Mrs Wilson were given seats in the Royal Box for today’s Men’s Singles Final. But the PM can’t go now: he’s meeting with Mr Brown and Mr Callaghan about the pound.’

  ‘The pound? What about it?’

  She looked unsure. ‘According to the Fox, the strike has undermined confidence and everyone’s selling it. Which is not what we want - I don’t think.’ She paused. Then, with a shrug of her shoulders, whispered, ‘To be honest, I don’t really understand it. But I’m sure you do.’

  I nodded sagely - and dishonestly.

  Rita turned away, picked a document from the filing pile, and searched an open cabinet drawer for its home. ‘My mum says that’s what men are for.’ She plucked out a fat manila folder and posted the papers into it. ‘To take care of the money side of things.’ After turning back and fixing me with her large green eyes, she added modestly, ‘Not just that, of course.’ The ends of her pale, painted lips slowly curled into a coy smile and she gave a tiny giggle.

  A happily married man would have read this as innocent playfulness. But I didn’t feel happily married. Indeed, having had no contact with Nell for almost a week, returning home from abroad to find an empty house and knowing that I would be alone again that night, I didn’t feel married at all. Consequently, I read it as flirtatious. But before I could respond, Rita thrust the folder back in its place, slammed the filing drawer shut and said, ‘Anyway, the Fox has gone as the PM’s representative.’

  The flirty moment had passed. ‘The Fox has already left, has he?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. He had people to see first. He wants you to meet him there at one forty-five.’

  I realised that the genial atmosphere in the office was due to, not only the warm, sunny weather but also Forsyth’s absence.

  ‘Wow! I’ve never seen a match on the Centre Court - let alone sat in the Royal Box. Will I be alright dressed like this?’ I was merely soliciting reassurance. Since I was wearing my Sunday best, short of hiring a top hat and tailcoat, I couldn’t dress any smarter.

  So when Rita replied, ‘Not quite,’ I panicked.

  ‘Why, what’s wrong with this?’ I spread my arms like a scarecrow and checked to see I hadn’t spilt tea down my tie.

  Assuming the manner of a schoolmistress who had spotted a uniform irregularity, Rita beckoned me with her finger and said, ‘Come over here a minute.’

  I complied and stood in front of her, just beyond arm’s reach.

  She closed the space between us. I got a gentle hit of floral perfume a
nd for the first time noticed that her cute nose twisted very slightly to her left. ‘Nice tie. But it’s trying to hide.’ She took hold of the knot between her thumb and forefinger, like she was picking a soft fruit, and eased it gently sideways. Then she adjusted the ends of the tie, so one was neatly behind the other and they were vertical, caressed them once with her palm against my chest and stepped back and said, ‘There we are: now you’re ready for royalty.’

  Again, this felt flirty. I wanted to respond in kind; but it didn’t seem right: not in front of Brenda - even though she had her earphones in. So, instead, I blamed my dishevelment on travelling in a hot train and, spotting something that looked interesting on top of Rita’s filing pile, promptly changed the subject.

  ‘Is that the result of the draw for the World Cup referees?’

  She glanced at the document and nodded. ‘Haven’t you seen it?’

  ‘I’ve seen a draft of the refereeing panel, but not the result of the draw.’

  ‘Have a look.’ She handed me two sheets of foolscap, stapled together through a cardboard corner embossed with the initials “FIFA”. The front sheet said simply, “WORLD CUP, ENGLAND 1966: REFEREE APPOINTMENTS”. At the top of the second page, in two columns, were listed the FIFA-qualified referees who comprised the panel, with their nationality in parentheses. Below was the result of the draw, allocating a referee to each of the twenty-four group matches.

  I ran my eye down, first the list of twenty-five referees selected for the panel, then looked to see which match each one had been drawn to officiate. It wasn’t what I was expecting.

  ‘The panel is very different from the draft,’ I said, still getting to grips with its make-up.

  ‘In what way?’ Rita seemed genuinely interested.

  ‘The likes of Brazil and Argentina won’t be happy. On the draft panel there were eight officials from South America. Now there are only four - and that’s counting Peru. I didn’t even know they played football in Peru.’

  ‘Why won’t they be happy?’

  I was too engrossed in the detail to respond. ‘Fifteen… no, wait, sixteen of the panel are Northern European.’ Thanks to my grammar school education, I was able to swiftly calculate, ‘That’s over sixty percent. Of those, three are English and another… one, two, three are from the home nations.’