Fixing Sixty Six
Page 41
For a moment, we were frozen in an embrace. I caught her scent and felt her warmth. Large, apologetic eyes looked up at me. Her cute face, inches from mine, flushed pink and her peach lips broke into an alluring grin. I felt on the verge of doing something rash: something I had dreamt of, but never thought could ever happen. Then…
The telephone rang.
‘Sorry, Harry,’ Rita said, gently releasing her grip on me. ‘One of your books up there caught my eye and I — ’
‘No need to apologise,’ I said hurriedly, while trying to sound matter-of-fact. I shuffled towards the phone at the foot of the stairs. ‘Excuse me, I’d better answer this: it might be my mum.’
As I picked up the receiver, Rita called out, ‘Is there anything I can do in the kitchen?’
‘Oh yes, the chicken sauce: can you check it isn’t boiling over?’
‘Chicken sauce? I’m impressed. I’ve never had a man cook a proper dinner for me.’
‘Finchley double three nine one?’
A curt voice said, ‘Who’s that - in the background?’ The voice belonged to Nell.
‘Oh, no one. It’s the TV: I’m about to watch the England match. Just a minute.’ I made sure Nell could hear me close the wrought-iron-and-glass windowed door to the lounge. ‘That’s better. Did you get my message this morning?’
‘Papa told me you’d called,’ she said, like I had demanded money with menaces. ‘Nothing else. What was the message?’
I tried to be conciliatory. ‘That was it. To call me. Which you’ve done. Thank you.’
‘What do you want, Harry?’
‘I just want to tell you about Rita’s note — ’
‘Harry, please don’t insult my intelligence by making up any more cock-and-bull stories — ’
‘It isn’t a story: it’s the truth.’ This wasn’t strictly correct. Telling her the truth would have involved breaching the Official Secrets Act and risking imprisonment. I wasn’t about to do that. ‘When Rita wrote “Waiting for you in the toilet”, she was referring to a bloke at work - not herself.’ This bit was true. ‘She had set him up for a practical joke Monte and I were going to play on him.’ This bit wasn’t, but it was immaterial.
‘Really.’ Nell didn’t sound convinced. ‘What was Rita doing phoning you on Sunday, at home? Another little joke was it?’
‘No, I told you: it was about work.’ True. ‘She was arranging to take down my copy - for the exclusive I told you about.’ A white lie.
‘And what of hers did you arrange to take down?’
Just as I was about to mount my high horse, the door beside me was wrenched open, revealing an ashen-faced Rita, clutching our yellow plastic washing-up bowl.
‘Where’s your toilet!’ she shrieked.
For a moment, I couldn’t decide whether to direct her upstairs to the bathroom or downstairs to the cloakroom. ‘Hang on, Nell. I won’t be a sec.’
Having smothered the phone’s mouthpiece, I opted for the bathroom. ‘Top of the stairs, first left.’
But it was too late. Rita vomited violently into the bowl.
‘Sorry, Nell. It’s an emergency. Someone’s just been sick.’
‘By “someone”, do you mean Rita?’ Nell said “Rita”, as if she was also expelling something disgusting.
Looking tearful and distressed, Rita hurried upstairs.
‘I’ll have to ring you back, Nell.’
‘Don’t bother. You’re making me feel sick too.’ Then the line went dead.
Rita having assured me, through the bathroom door, she was okay, I waited for her downstairs. I took the chow mein off the heat and thought about cooking the crispy noodles. But after what I had just experienced - both live and telephonically - I no longer felt like eating and suspected Rita felt the same. So, I poured myself a beer, lit my pipe and pondered how I had managed to nauseate two girls simultaneously.
A short while later, Rita returned to the lounge, looking green around the gills. Handing me back our washing-up bowl (which, mercifully, she had emptied and cleaned), she said, ‘I am so sorry, Harry: I’ve ruined your evening.’
‘Don’t be silly. The night is still young, as they say. Are you okay now?’
‘Yes, thank you,’ she said, sounding both weak and relieved.
‘Was it something you ate?’
‘No, something I smelt.’
I realised it could only be the chow mein. ‘Oh no! Don’t you like foreign food?’
Rita’s face and neck flushed, instantly making her look healthier. ‘It’s not your food: I think it’s morning sickness.’
‘You’re going to have a baby?!’ I blurted it out, as if she had just declared the second immaculate conception.
‘Dr Phillips thinks so. I’m going to the maternity hospital next week to have it confirmed.’ She gave an embarrassed grin. ‘Although, I’m not sure that’s necessary now.’
Far from it, I thought. How could she be pregnant? Less than three months ago, she wouldn’t countenance sex before marriage. And, since Barry, she hadn’t even talked of having a boyfriend, let alone getting wed. But I realised I couldn’t say, “How’s that possible?” The best I could come up with was a belated, ‘Wow! Does your mum know?’
‘Not yet. I want to be sure first.’ By the way she said it, you’d have thought she was talking about new curtain fabric she’d seen, rather than having a bastard child.
‘Very wise,’ I said, trying to sound equally down-to-earth.
‘But I’ve told Barry.’
‘You’ve told Barry!’ It was becoming more astonishing by the second.
‘Of course. As soon as I got back from the doctor.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He said I couldn’t be because he’d… you know…’ She made a face that invited me to fill in the gap.
He’d what? Not impregnated her? I hadn’t a clue what she meant.
My face must have betrayed as much, for she leant towards me and no more than mouthed, ‘Withdrawn.’
Surely, I thought, calling your girlfriend “frigid” for refusing you sex doesn’t constitute withdrawal. I snatched at the only other explanation that came to mind. ‘Are you two back together?’
‘Oh, didn’t I tell you?’
I shook my head.
‘Soon after I got upset at Wembley,’ she said, looking a little sheepish, ‘Barry and I made up. He proposed; I said, “yes”; and we’re getting married in the autumn.’
Thinking I hadn’t noticed her wearing an engagement ring, I glanced at her right hand.
‘Oh, I haven’t got a ring yet,’ she said, fidgeting with the finger that would have worn it. ‘Barry proposed with his Auntie Gwen’s ring. But he’s promised me an engagement and wedding ring set - you know, like Mel Ferrer gave Audrey Hepburn, only not as fancy - just as soon as he’s saved up enough. We’re going to Hatton Garden to look at them on Saturday.’
I must have looked ambivalent.
‘You don’t disapprove, do you? We’re definitely getting married: so Baby Jones won’t be… you know…’
‘Illegitimate?’
‘Born out of wedlock.’
‘No, of course I don’t disapprove,’ I said, whilst thinking her views on sex before marriage must have moved on apace and - recalling her telling me she would be disowned if she had got pregnant when single - hoping her mother’s had too.
Hearing David Coleman on the television handing over to Kenneth Wolstenholme, I said, ‘We had better take our seats, Rita: I think the match is about to start.’
‘You watch it, Harry,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to. To be honest, I’m still feeling queasy. I should get home and into bed, I think. I’m sorry.’
‘Why don’t you put your feet up here. You could lie on the settee and watch it. I think I’ve even got some Lucozade somewhere you could have.’
‘That’s very kind of you, Harry, but I’d like to get home. If you could call a taxi for me though, that would be wonderful.’
P
resumably because most of the drivers were England football fans, it took quite a while to find a taxi. So, by the time I had seen Rita off and could start watching the match myself, England were one-nil up - thanks to Bobby Charlton - and the second half had already started.
I noticed that, whilst England had fielded the same wingless eleven as before (I assumed Jimmy Greaves’ gashed leg hadn’t healed in time), João Morais - Portugal’s Nobby Stiles and Pele’s assassin - wasn’t playing for their opponents. Since I knew, from interviewing Eusébio, that he was fit to play, I was amazed that the much less accomplished Alberto Festa had taken his place. I couldn’t help wondering whether Sir Stanley Rous had intervened to prevent Bobby Charlton suffering the same fate as Pele.
The first significant action I saw was Portugal’s Simões racing down the wing and Nobby Stiles using his hand to prevent Eusébio (the tournament’s leading goal scorer) receiving the ball near England’s goal. Eusébio claimed a penalty: the referee ignored him.
Kenneth Wolstenholme identified the referee as the German speaking Frenchman, Pierre Schwinte. I wasn’t surprised that he had been chosen to referee England’s semi-final. Schwinte was renowned for his lenient attitude to robust tackling. He was refereeing the day France’s greatest ever goalscorer was so violently fouled, his leg was fractured in two places. It effectively ended his career. Yet Schwinte didn’t even book the offender.
Although I had missed Bobby Charlton’s first goal, I did see his second, eleven minutes before the end. A week ago, I would have greeted it with a punch of the air and a roar of delight. England were, for the first time in our history, on the verge of reaching the World Cup final. Yet, I didn’t feel a thing. Even when his brother, Jackie, prevented a certain goal with his hand (so obviously that even Schwinte couldn’t ignore it) and Eusebio converted the resulting penalty to reduce England’s lead to just one goal, I experienced none of the tension or suspense I would normally when my team was minutes away from a major win. I felt uninvolved, unbiased and unmoved.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Thursday, 28th July 1966
Over the next two days I went from feeling dispassionate about England’s semi-final triumph and disappointed with how the evening with Rita had turned out, to being decidedly down in the dumps.
I spent most of the time job-hunting, which involved working through my index box of contacts and making lukewarm calls. Since moving to Fleet Street, two editors had said to me something along the lines of, “If you ever decide to leave the Mirror, will you promise to give me first refusal?” I had duly agreed and, true to my word, had approached them in turn. They both thanked me for giving them an opportunity to take me on and promptly, albeit politely, declined.
The day of the play-off between the losing semi-finalists (itself a depressing event: no one was really interested in whether a team came third or fourth, including, it seemed, the players who were obliged to participate) was the fourth without Nell. By then, I had consumed most of what was edible in the house; the milkman had left a note, instead of milk, saying he hadn’t been paid; and I was running seriously low on clean underwear.
Also, that morning, hard on the heels of Neville Holtham - Sports Editor of the Sunday People - telling me that seeking a job at a Mirror Group newspapers was “pissing in the wind”, I read that Harold Wilson had been defending an Opposition motion of no confidence in the competence of his Government “to manage the economic affairs of the nation”. At a time of economic crisis, what was I doing, I chuntered to myself, telling my boss to stick his job?
I hadn’t felt worse since 1954, when I was conscripted into the army and Liverpool were relegated after fifty years in Division One.
I was in the kitchen, putting off calling the next name in my box of contacts, by making a cup of tea with Carnation milk, when I heard the front door close and someone climbing the stairs.
‘Nell, is that you?’
There was no response. I was about to investigate, when the door to downstairs opened and Nell breezed in.
Beneath her unbuttoned Baracuta mac, she wore a black, clingy top and fitted, dog-tooth skirt (not a mini, but short enough to keep your interest), neither of which I had seen before, and dark, silky stockings rooted in patent, high-heeled shoes. She had applied subtle makeup and just had her hair done. I couldn’t remember the last time she looked that good.
She dispensed with the niceties and opened with, ‘Why aren’t you at work?’
‘I’ve been in and come back,’ I lied. (I wasn’t about to start trying to rebuild our relationship by admitting I was unemployed.) ‘I’m covering the third place play-off at Wembley this evening.’
She was plainly only half listening and made the face of someone having their first encounter with a blocked sewer. ‘What happened, Harry? Has something died in here?’
‘Only a Vesta chow mein,’ I said jovially. Tuesday’s TV dinner for two was still in its saucepan: I’d been unable to face eating it or wasting it.
She cast her eyes over the dirty dishes and empty bottles littering the lounge. ‘It’s like a pigsty in here.’ Then she spotted the TV. ‘And what’s that!’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’
She returned her attention to the state of the room. ‘I know you’re a man and so your role is to go off to work and bring back the bacon: but surely doing the washing-up and maintaining a basic level of domestic hygiene isn’t too much to expect?’
‘It’s not that. I didn’t know you were coming home today,’ I said, grabbing a tray and, with the energy of a publican at closing time, starting to collect the empties. ‘Otherwise, I would have cleaned up this morning.’ I tried to sound considerate and conciliatory. I hoped that, once she had done her nagging duty, I could convince her I hadn’t been having an affair with Rita and that we would make up.
In an attempt to get the conversation on a more positive track, I said, ‘I like your outfit - very natty. Have you been at one of your referee dos?’
‘If you mean FIFA’s referee briefings: yes. It was the last one sadly.’
‘What about the Final? There’ll be one on Saturday, surely.’
‘No, the officials for both the play-off and the Final were briefed this morning,’ she said handing me an empty whisky glass and the remains of the shoulder of Haig I had bought on the Tuesday. ‘Which reminds me: I met your Mr Radford.’
‘Really!’ I squawked, as if she’d said Marylin Monroe.
‘It’s not that surprising, Harry. He is FIFA’s Referee Support Officer. Although, I have to say, he behaved more like an England Support Officer.’
‘Why do you say that?’ I asked in a more measured tone, whilst no less excited by her news.
‘He approached me for help briefing the officials for the Final. One of them is Tofiq Bahramov from the USSR. He’s the tall one with silver hair and a bushy moustache who ran the line in England’s opening match.’
‘Yes, I know.’ I remembered seeing him that day and joking in the press box that he’d borrowed his moustache from Joseph Stalin.
‘He speaks Turkish and Russian, but very little English. Radford wanted me to translate his briefing into Russian.’
Nell assumed the task of clearing up the rest of the debris from my days at home alone. I followed behind, intrigued to hear more.
‘He expressed concern to all three that they may have heard rumours about West German players failing drugs tests.’
‘What! The Germans are taking drugs? It’s the first I’ve heard of it.’
‘Neither the officials nor anyone else I spoke to had heard about it either. And, having brought these so-called rumours to their attention, Radford said, “you shouldn’t allow these, as yet, unsubstantiated allegations of cheating to affect your judgement on the field”.’
‘“As yet” unsubstantiated: is that what he said?’
‘Word for word. Having to translate it into Russian, I was listening very carefully.’
‘Wow, that’s incredible.’
‘If he really didn’t want the rumours to influence them, why didn’t he first establish whether they had heard them?’ I asked, although I already knew the answer.
‘I wonder,’ she said, making it plain she too knew full well. ‘And that wasn’t all. Radford took Bahramov and me to one side and began going on about the eyes of the world being on Wembley - four hundred million people watching the Final - and FIFA wanting to avoid any repeat of the quarter-final controversies. He told us he’d been instructed to ensure that nothing in any of the official’s personal circumstances could give rise to an allegation of bias, however far-fetched.’
‘On what basis could anyone accuse Bahramov of bias? Okay, he’s Russian, and West Germany were rather brutal in beating Russia in the “Battle of Goodison Park”. But, surely, no one can seriously allege that what happened in that semi-final could influence his decision-making in the Final.’
‘You’re right, Nell said. ‘It’s ridiculous.’
For a moment, I basked in the glow of our like-mindedness.
But then she continued, ‘Although, actually, West Germany defeated the Soviet Union - not Russia - in that match, and he isn’t Russian, he’s from Azerbaijan.’
‘Is he really?’
Having never heard of “Azerbaijan”, I was tempted to add, “Is that where Ali Baba comes from?”. But not wishing to betray my ignorance, I resisted.
‘Yes: he told me he was born in Baku.’
‘I see,’ I said nodding sagely. ‘Did you tell Radford that?’
‘He already knew. He also knew about Bahramov’s involvement in the Battle of Stalingrad.’
‘Stalingrad?’ I hadn’t heard of this match. ‘Don’t you mean Santiago?’
From Nell’s expression, I immediately knew I had said something wrong. ‘No, Harry.’ Whilst filling the washing-up bowl with hot soapy water, and with exaggerated patience, she proceeded to explain.