by Ross Raisin
Liam did not go home to his own flat. He stayed the night, but in bed they were quiet and remote, not touching or saying good night. By the morning Tom’s anger was already turning into anxious self-doubt—that Liam would draw away from him, that everything was going to change and it would be his fault. But Liam’s mood had also altered. “I went too far,” he said. “I’m sorry. Let’s forget it.”
Tom moved up against him, overwhelming relief pouring through him at the words, at the simplicity of the apology.
23
The shading stripes were mown in and the naked field marked out. Liam framed the playing areas with string and rolled brilliant white lines onto the surface—the touchlines, halfway line, center circle and penalty areas materializing bit by bit, clean and perfect as icing. With a brush he painted the center spot, the penalty spots. When he had repainted the goalposts he knelt to trim the grass around each of their bases with a pair of kitchen scissors, then collected up the trimmings with his hands and put them into his pocket, like a keepsake.
Tom could tell, during the quiet times that they lay in bed or watched television, that Liam was thinking constantly about the pitch, and in these moments Tom’s attention too would turn to the new season. He made targets for himself: assists, goals, appearances. He visualized himself playing, in a system with Grant on the left sweeping inside and looking for Tom to make a run.
When the starting eleven for the final friendly was put up on the wall of the dressing room, however, he was not in it.
From his position in the dugout he could see the outline of Liam, up in the control center, staring out at the grass. At Tom’s level, in the sunshine, the pitch shone like a body of water. Two Wolves players were warming up close to him, passing a ball between them. The path of it, after each exchange, appeared as a visible line over the sward.
Just before kickoff Wilko promised Tom a run-out, but when, on sixty-five minutes, Richards was taken off and Grant switched to the left, it was Willis who was brought on, and the formation adjusted to a 4-3-3 that Tom had no place in. He watched, showing no sign of his delight when the two Wolves wingers capitalized on the change, continually attacking the green exposed flanks of the Town defense. Tom was put on for the final three minutes. He was given no positional instructions and touched the ball once. On returning to the dressing room he did not bother to shower and changed straight into his clothes in order to leave as soon as the manager’s talk was over.
—
The last training session before the season opener was brisk. Focused and fun, according to the number two. He made them play a game that he had devised at a previous club in which two five-a-side matches were played simultaneously, across each other, with a shared center circle and four sets of goalposts. The exercise quickly became chaotic, then hostile, and was only partly improved when the number two remembered that the game required the use of two balls, not one. When it was over, Wilko—who had spent the morning on the sidelines, observing, talking on his phone, calling individuals over for short private conversations—asked Tom to come and see him once he had changed and eaten.
“You’ve bulked up,” he said when they were sitting down together in his little windowless office. “That’s good. You won’t get bullied as much now.”
“It was part of my fitness program.”
“Good. Tom, I’ve got a proposal for you. You’re in good shape. You look sharp in training. I don’t want you to lose condition. I’d like you to go out on loan.”
Tom shifted his eyes to the wall. His lungs stopped, as though he had just been punched in the chest.
“I need you to have game time, and there’s a couple of Conference teams, good outfits, who have been on the phone.”
“My agent—”
“I’ve spoken to your agent. He’s up for this. You should speak to him, obviously.”
There was a flip chart behind the manager’s head: CHELTENHAM. HOTEL FRI NIGHT. NOBODY TO LEAVE DINNER TABLES UNTIL (AJ, MM, JD) GIVE OK—£30. NO MOBILES AFTER 11 PM—£30. DRESSING ROOM TO BE LEFT TIDY NOT DISGRACE—£40.
“Tom? First thoughts?”
“What if I want to stay and compete for my place?”
Wilko nodded. “I’ll be up-front, Tom. You’re not in my plans.” He gave Tom a sympathetic smile.
Tom thrust his knee into the angle of the table leg, desperate not to cry. “I’ve just signed a new deal.” His voice broke on the final word.
Wilko was nodding again. “Things change very quickly in football. I didn’t know Michael Grant would become available. I didn’t know that the player I’ve signed this morning would become available. It’s no disrespect to you, Tom, to say that these are higher-level players.”
“What’s my level then? Non-league?” he said and at once shrank back from the whinging faggoty sound of his own voice.
“I don’t loan to rival teams. Never have. And these are good sides, Tommy. Both of them get the ball down. I’ll make sure to guarantee you a starting place. One month with an option for extension or permanent transfer, and a callback clause in case I get an injury. Sleep on it. I don’t need you to come in for the match tomorrow.”
Tom closed the door and stood in the dim passageway. From the far end of it the sound of studs was building as the scholars came in from the pitches. It echoed towards him like a downpour. He stayed where he was until the corridor returned to near silence and there was only the far-off noise of cutlery being tipped into a tray. An occasional shout from the dressing room. For an instant he wanted to kick or punch something. A wall. The noticeboard. The line of urine samples on the floor beneath it. But he could hear Wilko moving around inside his office so he walked quickly away, down the passageway, out of the building.
He sat in his car for some time. On the training field the assistant groundsman was replacing divots. Tom took out his phone and texted Beverley. Seconds later, his phone rang.
“What are you going to do?” Beverley asked.
“Don’t know.”
“What did he say if you turn it down?”
“Frozen out. Not in his plans.”
There was the thrum of people and faint scrambled music at Beverley’s end. “I’d go. Don’t see you’ve got a choice. It’s shit, yeah—you’re living in a hotel, you don’t know anybody, you don’t know what’s going to happen after—but what else are you going to do? If a manager’s decided he doesn’t want you then that’s you bombed out. I know it, believe me.” He waited for Tom to respond and when he did not, said, “It’s not fair, Tom, but that’s football. Where are you? Do you want me to come and meet you?”
“No, it’s all right, thank you.”
Later, at home, he heated up a pasta ready meal and sat down in front of a television film that he had never heard of. He got a text from Liam, late—“Still here, final touches…be glad when it’s ten to five tomorrow!”—which he did not reply to. He finished his meal, watched the film for a while before giving up on it, washed up and went to bed.
In the morning he worked out then moved restlessly from one room to another. There was nothing to do. Nowhere to put himself. The sly indulgent thought of Liam finding out from somebody else, and of other people gradually learning what had been done to him, gave him little respite. The other players would be focused on the match anyway, on their own futures. The fans would be excited about Grant’s debut and the arrival, made public that morning, of the latest signing: Dominic Curtis, another right-winger, who before a knee injury had been a Welsh international. The supporters would see the logic in moving Tom out. As for his family, he could not bring himself to speak to them.
Town won 2–0. Tom listened to the commentary on the local radio station. There was no mention of his omission from the squad. Curtis had not been registered in time for the game so Grant played on the right. The commentators could not go on enough about the improvement he had brought to the team. He was involved in both of the goals. Tom could hear the crowd celebrating them, distantly through his ope
n window, seconds after the muffled eruption on the radio.
Liam called after the match, when his divot team had finished repairing the pitch. He had not known that Tom wasn’t in the squad, he said. He did not understand why Tom had not told him. He wanted to come over.
They sat at the table with the cans of lager that Liam had brought round. Tom told him about the meeting with Wilko. About the loan. Liam listened, saying nothing while Tom spoke. Tom studied his face for a reaction but could not see one.
“I’m sorry,” Liam said when Tom had finished. He put his hand out on the table but Tom did not move to touch it. There was a sharp wounding enjoyment in these small rejections that made no sense. He did not even know why he was doing it.
Liam took a drink from his can. “I think you’ve got to.”
“Go on loan?”
“Yes.”
“Both those clubs are more than a hundred miles away.”
“What choice is there? Your deal’s only a year. Sit it out and you’ll end up nowhere. Least this way, if you do well, there’s more of a chance that you’ll get back in. Injuries, cups, all that.”
“You want me to go?”
“Fucking of course I don’t want you to go. I’m just trying to be realistic, Tom.”
“Right. Not you has to move away, is it, though? You can just carry on like normal.”
“Except you won’t be here. So it won’t be normal.”
“Nothing’s normal anymore,” Tom said quietly.
“What does that mean?”
Tom paused. If everything had been normal, the thought flashed through his mind, then he would have been concentrating on nothing but football for the last year and none of this would be happening.
“I mean I’ve forgotten what normal is,” he said. “All I know is it’s not this.”
—
The next day was dry and hot. They drove some distance along the coast and set up on a windless busy beach. They ate ice creams. They swam in the sea. They walked up the slope behind the beach and lay in an embrace on the hot shifting sand of a dune at the edge of a golf course. Liam ran his hand over Tom’s neck, his back, and Tom felt his senses heighten at the pressure of his touch, the roughness of Liam’s fingertips against his skin. He felt childish, petty, for pushing him away and held tightly to him, needing, on this glorious sunny day, away from the club, the town, to let Liam know that he was there, that he did not want to be apart from him.
They met Leah for a drink. The same pub. Same time. Probably, had it not been raining, it would have been the same outside table and seating arrangement. During the first round of drinks the three of them struggled for something to talk about—the weather, Leah’s upcoming trip to Milan—that would last for longer than a minute or two. When Leah went to the toilet Tom and Liam reached instinctively towards each other. On her return their hands were still held together on the bench. They pulled apart but not before she noticed—with, Tom was sure, a fleeting look of distaste. She did not say anything, yet the shared knowledge that they had parted because of her hovered unspoken about the table.
In the toilets she had apparently come up with several questions for Tom. She asked about his house, if he had finished doing it up yet. About the mood among the squad and the win on Saturday. To Tom’s surprise she asked if the manager had said anything to him about the signing of Grant and Curtis. “It’s a result for the chairman,” she said, “getting those two to drop to League Two. They’ll be on as much as Gundi, I’d bet.”
Tom did not know how much Gundi was on. He wondered if it was possible that she did.
“You can only keep doing what you’re doing, you know,” she said.
“You sound like him.”
“Well, he’s right.”
A man walked past the table on his way to the toilets, starting to pull at his belt before he reached the door.
Tom stood up. “Another drink?”
Just before they left the pub, Leah turned to Tom and said, “Can I ask you a favor?”
Tom tried to look unperturbed. “Yeah, sure.”
“There’s a few things at the club I wonder if you could pick up for me, for Chris—his kit and stuff.”
“No problem. He wants his kit?”
“That and whatever else there is for him. Just so he’s got it all. No one from the club has been in touch with him about it. He’d come in himself but I thought I’d save him the journey.”
“I could drop it off for you.”
“That’s OK, I can come down to the training ground.”
They exchanged numbers. She said that she would be in touch in the morning and thanked him. When she said goodbye to Liam a look passed between the two of them that made Tom think they had plotted this in advance.
They arranged to meet after training on Friday. She came into the clubhouse with her son, who, close to, now looked so much like Easter that Tom was instantly forced into the thought of him: of Easter at home on the sofa with his leg up on a table, dressed in full kit. The child was in a pram. Tom did not know how to greet him. He did not know how to greet either of them.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.” She did not move forward to kiss him.
He directed her towards the pair of beaten-up plastic chairs against one wall of the reception area. On one of them was the sports bag that contained Easter’s things, a tag attached to a handle with 19, his new squad number, written on it. The child began agitating to get out of the pram. When Leah lifted him out and set him down he ran straight to the entrance door, left open for the breeze, and tried to push it shut. She went to tell him to stop as a group of players appeared from the passageway. All of them glanced down at her, crouched speaking firmly to the boy, as they made their way out. Most must have known her, Tom thought, and he could sense that she was aware of them, preoccupied as she was with the writhing child. Boyn came next into the reception area, and Leah turned her face towards him. For a second they looked at each other without speaking, until she turned again to the boy and Boyn came over to Tom. He put his lips almost to Tom’s ear. “Easter’s missus,” he whispered. “You dirty little boy, Tommy.” He gave Tom a squeeze on the arm and a small smile, and walked out of the building without looking down again at Leah and her child.
Tom picked up the bag. “I’ll walk out with you.”
He knew, as they headed towards the car park, that they were being watched.
“How’s his leg doing?” he asked, moving closer to her.
“The cast is off now. He’s started his rehab.”
“That’s good. He must be pleased.”
“You’d think,” she said and walked on without saying any more. Tom considered, not for the first time, that there was something closed off about her, this woman that Liam trusted so much, something discomfiting.
They arrived at her car. She took the child out of his pram and loaded him into his seat. Tom thought he should fold down the pram for her and put it into the boot but was not confident about all the buttons and levers. He stood and watched her do it. He put the bag into the backseat, next to the child. She closed the boot and they stood together beside the car.
“Thank you,” she said.
“No bother.” He stepped forward to put an arm awkwardly around her. He breathed in the smell of her perfume, holding her slender stiffening body until she drew away and got into the car.
—
Leah started the engine, observing him walk back to the clubhouse. The ease with which he carried his secret, going back inside to mix with the others, suddenly incensed her. This other player—Beverley, the one Liam said that he had told—was he comfortable, she wondered, with being made party to it? Did it not bother him, what they were doing, that they were getting away with it and expecting him to just carry on as before—socializing, rooming, showering with Tom? Everything continuing as usual, just as Liam expected from her. If Chris or any of the others found out, she had a good idea what their reaction would be. Alek Boyn, who had b
lanked her just now but obviously thought pretty damn highly of Tom. Thought that he was normal, one of the boys.
She drove away down the lane. On one of the pitches ahead of her half a dozen scholars were taking it in turns to punt balls from the halfway line towards a set of unguarded goalposts. She slowed to watch them. When one of the boys struck the crossbar she understood from the group’s response that this was the point of the game. Through her open window she heard the shouting as the boys piled on top of the successful player. There were no other vehicles on the lane. She brought the car to a standstill, the view from the clubhouse blocked by a hedge. The giddy romp of their bodies sprawling over the grass. They were only a few years younger than her, these boys. If they were to see her there, she asked herself, would they know that? One of them, the one who had hit the crossbar, was clambering out from the heap. He darted across the field. Seconds later all the others were in pursuit. As they closed on him he jinked one way, then the other, until finally they were upon him, one big boy jumping onto his back and bringing him down, prompting another happy pile-on.
“Mummy, Mummy!” Tyler yelled, startling her. She turned around to shush him and set off for home.
She parked on the driveway. Upstairs, the blind of the office was down. She tried to think whether it had been like that when she left the house. She could not remember. She could not be sure, she realized, that it was not always in that position now. More than ever, they kept to their own areas of the house. When she cleaned and on the rare occasions she still brought him up snacks and cups of coffee, she had begun to feel like an intruder, and because he was always in the house she had taken to cleaning his rooms less and less often. They were getting dirty. There was a smell. She had noticed that Tyler too sensed the privacy of those spaces. He no longer shouted through the doors or beat on them to be let in, and he had a couple of times referred to the spare room as “Daddy bedroom,” a phrase that she was fearful he might repeat at his nursery or in front of her mum.
