A Natural

by Ross Raisin

  —

  Cars sped in the gaps through the trees. Just inside the touchline of the pitch the squad was stretching on, a fresh molehill had emerged. A couple of pitches further out, Liam was pacing up and down, examining the ground inside a square he had marked out using the same colorful grubby cones that the team used for drills. Tom moved onto his front, concealing his groin. He pulled his feet against the backs of his legs, one at a time, pressing with secret discomfort against the mat, trying to make it go away.

  He took his time in the dressing room and the canteen. He sat and ate next to Beverley, who had not trained and was on a pair of crutches because of the pain it caused him every time he took a step. He had not slept, he told Tom. The pain had become so bad during the night that he had got out of bed to go and sit on his sofa, where he had watched a whole series of Only Fools and Horses. Tom left when everybody else did and drove to the stadium. People were moving about inside the windows of the club shop but when he entered the bowels of the main stand the place was almost deserted. There was the faint echo of voices somewhere down the tunnels. An ancient aroma of muscle rub. A dusty light breaking through the gloom where the players’ tunnel went out onto the pitch. He walked on to the dressing room, changed again, and once inside the empty gym pushed himself until his muscles failed.

  Afterwards he returned to the training ground. He did not, though, turn his car onto the lane but pulled up on the side of the main road behind a van with a view of the opening in the hedge.

  When the bonnet of Liam’s car nosed through the foliage, Tom lowered himself in his seat. For several seconds he looked up at the sky, where motionless banked clouds sat above the treetops. When he inched back up, the car was away down the road. He waited for one, then another vehicle to pass before he pulled out.

  He was able to follow without difficulty. Liam drove at an even, steady pace, as if still on the tractor. At one point the van in front of Tom turned off towards the town center, leaving only one car between them. He slowed, increasing the gap, and was brought to a halt by a set of traffic lights that Liam had already passed through. As he waited, the squalid reality of what he was doing caught up with him, and for a split second he considered turning back, but then the lights changed and the momentum of traffic moved him on. Minutes later he was looping past the identical new houses of Liam’s cul-de-sac. He parked and watched from a careful distance as Liam unlocked his front door and went inside. After an hour and a half of no visible movement through the dark windows of the house and in need of the toilet, Tom left.

  The following afternoon Liam took a detour from his route home. Tom, the blood vessels of his fingers beating on the gear stick, tracked him down unknown streets until they came to a retail park, in which Liam got out of his car and disappeared inside a B&Q. A wave of self-consciousness made Tom want hurriedly to leave. A large flustered woman, though, was in his rearview mirror, advancing on the car next to him, a toddler in the seat of her trolley full of lime-green cushions and spray cleaners. The woman was shouting at the boy. With the child still in the seat she opened her boot and began unloading into it. Tom felt the shunt of the trolley straying into the back of his car. He was almost tempted to pump his horn and scare them—to reverse sharply into the trolley and send the toddler spinning across the car park. They were still there, shouting at each other, when Liam came out of the store. He was carrying two large white tubs by their handles, forearms straining, his shoulders hunched and twisting. Tom waited interminably for the woman to wrestle her child into his car seat and reverse out, the trolley left where it was behind Tom’s car, by which time Liam was long gone.

  —

  He had intended to sleep in on his day off, but once he was awake could not just lie there, so he got up, put on a tracksuit and set off for the stadium gym.

  A few other players were in: Daish and Fleming, both returning from injury, who came over to talk to him while he warmed up, and Gundi, huge and immersed in headphones, who remained in front of the free weights mirror the whole time Tom was there. It was still early when he finished and changed, not yet midday. He came out into the car park and sat inside his car. Before his mind could begin to churn, he forced himself to go to the cinema.

  The auditorium was empty except for a couple of fidgety teenage girls and a bald man in a leather jacket who fell asleep during the trailers. The film was loud, stupid, and once he made up his mind halfway through that he would go straight home afterwards he was able to give himself over to it completely, aching pleasurably in his seat with what was left of his protein shake and his box of chicken nuggets.

  He had done it before, following someone like this. Propelled then by the need to despise himself after the two incidents with Craig. The memory of them, so painstakingly purged for two years, returning again.

  The first time, in the gloom of the common that they had known together for years as a place of three-and-in and penalties and pilfered cigarettes, was so unexpected that they had gawked at each other for some time in bemusement, then Craig had bent in to kiss him again and Tom had felt dizzyingly alive and had known, as they touched, that there was something deeply wrong with him. The second, final, time—a couple of weeks later in Craig’s bedroom while his parents were out at the pub—he could only recall fragments of, intensely: the taste of vodka, the Tim Cahill poster on the wall, the useless pot of Craig’s mum’s anti-wrinkle lotion.

  They had avoided each other after that. Tom had kept to himself, shut away from his family, getting drunk on the alcohol that the older academy boys were only too happy to buy for him at a profit. One night he put a brick through the windscreen of a Ford Focus on a street near the common. And for a fortnight or more he had followed Craig, waiting in the cafe opposite Craig’s sixth-form college until he came through the revolving glass doors, burning each time that he was with somebody, boy or girl. Thinking about the afternoon that his mum came up to his room asking for “a chat about something” still made Tom weak with fear. She had sat next to him on his bed and said that she and his dad were worried because they knew he was drinking, and he had felt such relief wash through him that he had put his arms around her and promised he was going to put an end to it. He felt like such an idiot, he had told her; he would focus on his football and nothing else from that moment on.

  —

  He was about to drive off from the cul-de-sac when a car parked outside Liam’s house. A tall young man got out and went through the gate, producing a key and going inside. Even though Tom knew it must have been one of Liam’s housemates he stayed on for a whole hour longer, his eyes fixed on the windows.

  It became normal very quickly, following somebody. The risk of being caught, and his reasons for doing it, were already pushed to the back of his mind. By the end of the week he was practiced enough to maintain a five- or six-car distance, the occasional glimpse of the Nissan’s green bodywork enough for him to keep track of it. There was not, however, much variation to Liam’s routine. He did not seem to have much of a life outside work. He set off early to whichever of the two grounds he was scheduled for, left nine hours later, sometimes went to DIY centers, and came home. Tom wondered as he sat in his car—conscious of the woman with her dog who had passed him earlier going in the other direction—what he did in there, on his own before his housemates came home. There were already several people in the cul-de-sac that Tom recognized. An Asian woman with a pram. A man who intermittently moved past a window in his dressing gown. The painter and decorator who owned the van in front of which Tom had today pulled up.

  Liam was coming out of his front door. Tom, caught off guard, scooted below the dashboard. When he dared peep up Liam was getting into his car. He had changed into jeans and a sweatshirt. He drove off, and once he was at the junction of the main road Tom turned on his engine. Before long they were back at the retail park. Tom deliberated over whether or not to stay. He watched Liam walk away across the car park, moving past B&Q to go into a furniture store. Tom kept his
sight on the entrance, waiting for his return, but seconds later Liam was visible through the glass wall of the upper level. He was walking past cafe tables, and Tom saw he was heading towards a woman, who was standing up to greet him. When the two figures hugged each other he saw with a jolt that it was Easter’s wife.

  A small child was eating at the far side of the table. Liam bent forward to say something to him, touching his hair, then returned his attention to the mother. They spoke barely without pause. Easter’s wife turned sometimes to deal with the child but then instantly she was back, looking at Liam, both of them fully concentrated on what the other was saying. For a long time Tom did not take his eyes off them. The child finished his food, and Easter’s wife got up to lift him out of his high chair and place him on the floor. He immediately made towards the window. The apparition of a miniature Easter appeared, pounding his tiny fists on the glass, and the image came back to Tom of Easter on the evening of their first room-share, trying to get the hotel window open.

  His mother was coming for him. She crouched down to pull him back from the window, and the boy wheeled about to fling his arms around her. They looked out together at the car park. Tom did not even think to hide. His own gaze was directed past the pair at Liam, the static side of his head looking down at his cup.

  When she turned away Tom started his car. He drove out of the retail park, away down the darkening streets. He took a wrong turn and became briefly lost before finding the main road into town. He stopped at an off-license and bought a bottle of vodka. Back inside the car he opened it and took a long drink, then put it underneath the passenger seat and drove on.

  The small shaved lawns of the cul-de-sac were bathed in the orange glow of streetlamps. In one of the upstairs windows of Liam’s house a light was on. Tom implored himself to leave, trying to drag himself out of the loud muddle of his thoughts, taking another pull from the vodka bottle.

  Liam returned alone. When the Nissan’s sidelights went off Tom took a final hit of vodka and got out. Liam stopped on the pavement as soon as he saw him. He waited for Tom to walk up.

  “Tom,” he said quietly.

  Tom did not respond or look at him.

  “You can’t come in, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “This isn’t like last time?”

  “No.”

  Liam was studying him. He looked over to his house. “You didn’t get in touch. I thought…I don’t know what I thought. Didn’t think I’d find you here again.”

  “We could meet up somewhere.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “We can’t be seen though.”

  “No, I know.”

  Tom stared at the road.

  “You’ve got something in mind?” Liam asked.

  “I’ve not thought about it.”

  “Look, you’ve got my number.”

  “I lost it.”

  “Right. If you want, maybe I could contact you.”

  “No, I’ll do it.”

  Tom took out his phone. Liam glanced again at his house then gave his number.

  Only when Tom was in his car and had taken another mouthful of vodka did he save it, under a made-up name, the only one that would come into his head: Gary.

  15

  The French windows of the clubhouse had been opened and the scent of curried chicken was wafting enticingly over the field. From the tacky plastic warmth of the stretching mats Tom watched the burly little assistant groundsman moving in and out of the ground-staff shed, his quick hands and busy energy so different to Liam, who was back at the stadium, no sign or sound of him present now to cloud the simple clear air.

  The fitness coach called them over for a doggies drill and Tom sprang to his feet. By the time they broke for liquids the roots of his hair were crawling pleasingly with sweat. A bag of balls was released and a forgotten tingle of expectancy moved inside him.

  They took turns at dribbling around a line of cones. The number two timed each effort. Tom’s focus was total. He guided the ball nimbly around the cones, his brain, his feet, his toes inseparable. After two attempts each he had recorded the two fastest times. Wilko walked over and, in full view of the whole squad, pointed at Tom. “That, people, is what Premier League quality looks like,” he said, giving Tom a wet pat on the kidneys that Tom could feel long into the keep-ball routine that followed.

  —

  Finch-Evans was struggling. Town were on top at home against Morecambe, leading 1–0 and pushing for a second, but the winger’s every contribution was a mistake—a cross shanked into the crowd, a pass to Fleming without looking up that squandered possession—and by the closing stages of the half it was obvious that he was lost. The Morecambe left back stationed himself high up the pitch to attack Town’s right and in injury time set up a chance for the tattooed number nine which was volleyed with enough power, just wide of the post, to take down an advertising hoarding.

  Wilko did not substitute him at halftime. He wanted him to be a man, he said. To go back out and turn his performance around. Finch-Evans acknowledged these words with a slight dip of his head. Wilko then turned to the rest of the squad and clapped his hands. “Bloody superb. These are promotion material, and you’re matching them, better than them, man for man, almost. A second goal kills them off, lifts us above the drop. Get out there and more of the same.”

  Finch-Evans lasted another eighteen minutes. A rumble of satisfaction went around the ground when his number was held up. He sloped across the pitch, only looking up from the grass to acknowledge Tom with an expression of humiliated relief on his face as they exchanged on the touchline.

  The crowd cheered Tom’s introduction. He received the ball just after play restarted and passed it forward, simply, to the feet of Gundi. A neat touch a few minutes later worked him a few seconds of space; he put his head up and spotted the overlapping run of Fleming—into whose path he played an easy measured ball. Each choice was suddenly clear. Uncomplicated. As if it had never been any different. Every part of him functioned at once. Even when he misjudged one cross, the conviction of the effort gave it the impression of being intended: the ball floated over Bobby at the near post straight onto the impending forehead of Gundi and hurtled past the goalkeeper. Tom squawked with delight. Some of the players rushed to converge on Gundi, others to Tom. He could hear from amid the breathless thicket of them a thin chorus of “One Tom Pearman…” and he resisted the urge to look out into the crowd, to search the faces across the pitch, where the staff and scholars were gathered to one side of the disabled supporters’ stall.

  Some of the players wanted to go out afterwards. The win had moved the team clear of the relegation zone and they were in a mood to celebrate. Beverley tried to persuade Tom to go with them.

  “Come on, man. You never come out.”

  “True. I’m pretty fucked, though.”

  “You played half an hour, mate.”

  “I know. My body’s not used to it.”

  Beverley laughed. They clasped hands and Beverley pulled him close. “Next time, OK?”

  —

  Tom turned up the volume on his television. He took four deep breaths. The phone was cold against his ear.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello.”

  “Tom. How are you?” There was a faint electrical buzz on the line. Liam’s voice sounded different over the phone. “Tom? You OK to talk?”

  “It’s fine. I’m in my bedroom,” he added, as if he was a little boy gone upstairs to play after dinner.

  “Good result today. You did well when you came on.”

  “I didn’t expect to get that many minutes.”

  “They sang your name.”

  “I know.”

  Beneath the floorboards he could hear the Scottish boys going into Bobby’s room.

  “So. Are we going to meet up?” Liam said.

  “It can’t be anywhere in town.”

  “Obviously.”

  “No one can recognize us.”

&n
bsp; “Wigs?” Tom met this with silence. “OK,” Liam continued, “we could go to some small place somewhere. You know Darm? It’s this village a bit of a drive away with a couple of all right pubs.”

  Tom had heard of Darm. A few of the players carpooled from around there. “Is there anywhere a bit further?”

  Liam laughed. “You’re not that famous, mate.”

  There was the muffled sound of voices underneath Tom. He turned up his television still louder.

  “There’s a Beefeater,” Liam said, “north up the dual carriageway, about fifteen miles away. That’s about the most nothing place I can think of. What do you think?”

  —

  The commuter traffic moved slowly out of town. Tom turned on the radio, and loud dance music startled him. He had been too preoccupied on the way home from training to put it on, so it was still tuned to the station that Bobby and Steven insisted on every morning. He switched it off, alone again with the smell of his deodorant, the blatancy of his sharply combed hair in the mirror. He turned the radio back on, quieter, changing the station.

  Liam’s car was the only one outside the pub, parked beside a line of wheelie bins against a wall. Tom drove past to the far end of the car park, where a couple of other vehicles were positioned by the entrance to a hotel.

  Liam was sitting in a corner, partially obscured by a partition. Tom walked over, glad at the choice of table, then at the handshake when Liam stood to greet him.

  “What are you drinking?” Liam asked.

  There was a pint on the table, almost half drunk.

  “Lager’s fine.”

  Liam went to the bar. He exchanged a few words with the barman, more than just the drinks order. He was wearing the same jeans and sweatshirt, Tom thought, that he had worn to meet Easter’s wife at the furniture store. Tom looked around the bright room, at the fake beams and the pale brick pillars festooned with meal promotion placards that glimmered under the copper lampshades. A recollection of his first date came to him. In a burger restaurant with Jenni Spoffarth, the small quiet girl he had seen throughout most of his final year at school—happily, for the most part, at least when he had been able to ignore the hidden roiling desperation that ate at him on the occasions he had touched her slight, rosy body, and which had overcome him eventually one blustery wet afternoon in an underpass on his way home after breaking up with her.