by Ross Raisin
When she came to sit down he told her that he was pleased things were going well with Fergus. “Good to see you’ve found a normal one,” he said.
She smiled and took a sip of her wine.
“So, he nice then?”
“Look, Tom, I know you won’t tell them this, but please don’t tell them this.”
“OK.”
“Fergus is great. I really like him. He’s in my room at uni right now, though. He’s completely normal, seriously. You’d like him. But he’s had…he’s got a few issues. He’s on medication. That’s part of the reason he couldn’t come, actually.”
Tom listened intently, intrigued, guiltily pleased.
“Anyway, that’s all I wanted to say.”
Tom studied her face a minute, not wanting to harass her.
“If you like him,” he said finally, “then I’m sure Mum and Dad will too.”
“Until they find out he’s mentally ill.”
Tom took a long drink of his pint. When he put it back onto the table his hand was shaking. He kept it gripped around the cold base of the glass. “They’d probably prefer him to mine, anyway.”
She was at once alert. “You’re fucking kidding? Go on. Who is she?”
He looked out at the room. He felt out of control. Floating. He made himself focus on the bar straight ahead of him, the greased gleam of the beer pumps, the barmaid setting off the glass washer. He pictured his dad sitting on a bar stool, talking to the landlord.
“It’s a fella, Rach. Not a girl.”
He did not move his gaze from the bar. Two men came up to the counter at the same time; there was hesitation, a joke, one gesturing for the other to be served first. His sister’s arms were around him. She kissed his temple, buried her head in his neck. For a few seconds the sensual memory of Liam made his organs feel as though they were collapsing inside him.
When she lifted her head she was crying. “Oh, Tom, I’m sorry.”
“For my loss?”
She did not laugh. “That you’ve never been able to admit it.”
“It’s not been long. This has all happened recently.”
“Then I’m sorry about that too.”
She was still crying. The barmaid had noticed. The landlord too, Tom thought.
“How long have you been seeing him?”
“About four months.”
“Who is he?” He could see quite plainly the curiosity on her face.
“Liam. He’s called Liam.”
“Nobody knows, I’m guessing.”
“No.”
“You going to tell Mum and Dad?”
He looked away at the door opening, an old couple coming in. He gave a slight shake of his head. “You can’t say anything, Rach. Not to Fergus, not anyone.”
“I’m not daft, Tom.”
When he turned back to her a smile was playing on her lips.
“What?”
“Nothing. Just thinking.”
“About what?”
“This explains the muscles then. I’d thought you were on steroids or something.”
That night he was woken by her at his bedside, touching his shoulder.
“It OK if I come in with you?”
He squinted through the dark at her. “Bit weird.”
“I’m off early in the morning and then I won’t see you for ages.”
He moved over against the wall. “Go on then.”
They lay facing away from each other on the shared pillow, backs pushed together, silent except for their breathing.
Into the darkness Tom said, “What do you reckon Mum and Dad would think if they came in and found you here?”
“At least it’s not a man.”
—
Driving back for his final night at the hotel, speeding underneath the bare sky, he planned how he would tell Liam—about his sister, that he was back in the team, that he was coming home. Near the end of the journey he stopped at a service station—the idea of the hotel menu’s healthy choices box, the gay waiter, enough to make him pull off the motorway.
He sat at a window to eat a chicken burger, surveying the car park, the roofs of lorries racing along the other side of a high screening hedge. The urge to call almost made him pick up his phone, although he knew Liam was at the Daveys’ that afternoon. He finished his meal and went to the toilet. On his way out he came to a halt beside a coin-operated massage chair two little boys were playing on and took out his phone.
He stared into the dark recess of arcade machines on the other side of the gangway, a bald man slowly raising a gun with both hands as Liam’s recorded message came on. Tom hung up and moved away, restless, still hungry, and returned to the counter to buy himself a second burger and chips.
He got back to the hotel early in the evening. He went up to his room and settled down on the bed with a cup of tea and a bar of chocolate to call Liam. The phone was poised in his hand when it started to ring. It was Beverley.
“Tom, how are you? Mate, something’s happened.”
His first thought was that Liam had been in an accident. Machinery. A blade. The shotgun.
“I don’t go on forums anymore because they’re full of twats, but some of the boys do and there’s a thread. Tom, look, man, I’m really sorry—you’ve got to know it’s nothing to do with me. I’ve not told anybody. None of it’s about you, either. I’ve been through most of it and you don’t come up once.”
Tom could not at first work his throat to speak. He sank back against the headboard. He felt unbalanced, the ceiling spinning. Outside the room people were coming past in the corridor. A loud scrape from something being trailed against the wall. A child squealing in imitation of an ambulance siren.
“Does it say who he is?”
“Yeah. It does.”
The door to the next room shut. The thump of it ran through the walls, through the headboard, into his skull.
“There’s a lot of stuff being said in the dressing room, Tommy, I’ve got to warn you.”
Tom ended the call and put the phone on the bedside table. He stared at it for a while, then went to sit at his laptop on the desk beside the restocked hospitality tray and the bottle of champagne from his last man-of-the-match award.
Explosive news
Started by Town Legend,
Replies:
287
7 Sep 2012 ≤ 1 2 3 4 5 6 −› 16 ≥
Views:
4,008
Town Legend posted Fri at 8:40pm
First of all this is a totally serious post and 100% true.
I have recently found out that one of club members of staff, the head groundsman, is gay. Fine, each to their own and all that BUT I have it on very good authority that he has had a gay relationship with a former player at the club. I don’t know who before you ask.
Silver Fox posted Fri at 8:44pm
Utter rubbish.
The 13th Oyster posted Fri at 8:51pm
Least believable post ever. Somebody wanting a bit of attention are we?
Town Legend posted Fri at 8:53pm
Have I ever been wrong about anything I’ve broken on here before?
Riversider posted Fri at 9:03pm
Why wouldn’t it be true? It’s well known there are gay footballers who are afraid to come out, so not unlikely that one of them might have played for Town.
Town End posted Fri at 9:20pm
The main point is if this has happened once then it could happen again if it’s true about the groundsman, and if it does then the unrest it would cause in the dressing room would threaten to destroy any hope of promotion.
Dean Thorneycroft posted Fri at 9:24pm
True. Plus we’d be a laughing stock and a target for every contingent of visiting fans.
Silver Fox posted Fri at 9:25pm
Target? Come off it. “Does your boyfriend know you’re here?” and all that stuff Brighton fans get? Just a bit of a laugh. I’m hardly shaking in my boots.
Riversider posted Fri at 9:30pm<
br />
Worth pointing out it’s against club rules for a member of staff to have a relationship with a player. This shouldn’t be any different if the relationship is gay. Town would look weak if they treated it any different.
Towncrier Ian posted Fri at 9:47pm
So who do we think the player was then?
Lardass posted Fri at 9:55pm
So one of the club staff is gay. He once had a thing with somebody who no longer plays for us. So what? In the real world outside football no one would bat an eyelid, it’s just because football (and this forum) is stuck in the dark ages that it is a talking point. No wonder he kept it hidden.
Tommo posted Fri at 9:58pm
Sounds like he’s not the only one hiding in the closet, Lardass
Towncrier Ian posted Fri at 10:00pm
If it is found to be true and the groundsman is searching out gay players then he should be got out of the club. The impact on the dressing room would be massive. Imagine if a married player turned out to be secretly gay and the fallout that would have.
Shakes86 posted Fri at 10:16pm
Charlie Lewis. Look at the way his form tailed off after promotion and how quick we got shut of him.
Tony Slalom posted Fri at 10:20pm
Can u tell us which players form didnt tail off after promotion?
Onetoomany posted Fri at 10:32pm
Do we know that it was last season? If we look at all the players who have left the club since then, that means
Chris Gale
Charlie Lewis
Reece Elan
Febian Price
Simon Finch-Evans
Michael Yates
James Willis
Of those my money would also be on Charlie Lewis.
Towncrier Ian posted Fri at 10:36pm
Finch-Evans.
Bald and Proud posted Fri at 10:50pm
Are you seriously speculating about who might be gay? How mature.
Onetoomany posted Fri at 10:59pm
Surprised nobody has pointed this out yet, but if it became known that a player was gay then he would immediately lose any transfer value because what manager would want to sign him?
Road to Wembley 2010 posted Fri at 11:07pm
Who is this groundsman anyway? Do we know anything about him?
Jamesy1987 posted Fri at 11:09pm
He’s gay.
TTID posted Fri at 11:17pm
Mary B posted Fri at 11:34pm
He turns out a damn good pitch.
Dr. Feelgood posted Fri at 11:41pm
He’s been head groundsman since the promotion season. Been at the club for years, used to be in the youth team, goalkeeper I think.
Steve Tomkins posted Fri at 11:57pm
So there could be any number of players going right back to the youth team that he’s slept with.
Voice of Reason posted Fri at 12:00am
You’ll have seen him on the pitch before games. He’s a big guy. Wouldn’t have picked him as a fudge packer but totally fits that he was a keeper.
Tom’s hand was shaking as he moved the cursor and clicked again, onto the most recent page.
Gull’s Beak posted Sun at 4:59pm
Chant for Saturday (to tune of Row Row Your Boat): “He mows, mows, mows the stripes, neatly in the grass, But when he’s in the dressing room he takes it up the a***!!”
Towncrier Ian posted Sun at 5:15pm
Genius.
Faz posted Sun at 5:19pm
Love it.
Steve Tomkins posted Sun at 5:46pm
Is it just me, or does anyone else think Jacob Gundi might be gay?
The 13th Oyster posted Sun at 5:55pm
I can think of someone who would like him to be.
Glory Hunter posted Sun at 6:20pm
Gay Gundi? I’d like to see you tell him that to his face. Here’s betting he’d smash yours in.
Gull’s Beak posted Sun at 6:36pm
Or you might get lucky and he might smash something else in. (#Backdoor)
Tom started again at the beginning of the thread and read through every page.
He closed the laptop and walked in a daze across the carpet to lie down on top of the bed. His hands and forearms, his legs, shuddering. There was noise all around, footsteps on the ceiling, more voices in the corridor, a television somewhere that seemed as though it was inside the room. An impulsion to ring his sister almost made him get up for his phone, but he could not move. He remained where he was, eventually pulling one side of the covers over himself.
The two burgers spat and grumbled inside his stomach. He wanted to put on the noise of the television but the remote was over on the desk. Behind his head a child was crying, and a woman shouted. “Now!” he made out, muted through the wall. “Now!” The voices moved along the wall until they were on the other side of a connecting door, even louder. Tom watched the door, rigid with anticipation, expecting it at any moment to open.
—
He woke disoriented, not knowing how long he had blacked out for. He was cold but sweating, the back of his head throbbing against the pillow. Outside the window the car park was dark.
He got off the bed and went into the bathroom. He took off all his clothes and stood naked in front of the mirror. He stayed there, motionless, the ceiling light humming faintly above his head, his strength failing, until it was a muscular effort to stay upright and his legs buckled beneath him.
On the cold shock of the tiles he curled into a ball. He could see the underside of the sink, where it had not been cleaned and the pipes were knotted with dust. There was a pain in his temple where it had struck the floor. He strained his neck to lift his head off the tiles, then there was a new bolt of pain as it came down again, once, twice, then again and again, the steady pounding rhythm resounding about the small smooth space, his brain thickening with absurd relief each time it beat on the floor.
He lay on the tiles. There was a ringing. It stopped, and he was surrounded by silence. Moments later it came again. He labored to get to his feet, but it was too difficult, so he walked on his knees to where his phone was lying on the bedside table and picked it up.
“Tom?”
He knelt on the carpet, propping himself against the bed. He willed himself to speak, closing his eyes against the thundering in his head. “I called earlier,” he said at last.
“I was at my parents’.”
A thin line of blood was trickling down his forearm. There was the sound of running from behind the wall. His hand squeezed around the phone.
“Have you seen it, Tom?” Liam’s voice was unsteady.
“Yes.”
He could see the big white face, searching his.
“Where are you now?” Tom asked.
“Training ground.”
“Working?”
“No.”
Tom pulled himself up to sit on the bed. “Are you in the shed?”
“Yes.” There was a tremor in Liam’s breath. “Been waiting to shut myself in here all day.”
Tom tried to think of something to say but there was nothing. Liam made a small moaning noise that Tom angled away from his ear. “I keep thinking about my dad,” Liam said. “Reading it.”
“He reads the forums?”
“How do I fucking know?”
Tom could hear him moving about. Footsteps echoed inside the shed. There was what sounded like the fridge door shutting.
Neither of them spoke. Tom listened for any noise on the other end of the line. There was only the clobber of blood in his temple. “I’ve been recalled,” he said, and all the words that he had been intending to say rushed through his mind. “I’m driving back tomorrow.”
Liam began to say something, but his voice faltered. Tom waited for him to continue, pushing the phone hard against his ear, but all he could hear, more distantly now, was the thin broken sound of Liam fighting to stay in control of himself.
25
“Listen to this.”
Curtis walked acr
oss the room to where Easter was stretched out on a mat and lay down beside him.
“What am I listening to?”
“Here. Just listen.”
Curtis lifted a straightened leg into the air, then, slowly, bent it at the knee to lower his foot. The knee made a loud creaking sound, which continued until he placed his foot flat onto the mat.
Curtis turned his face to him. “Sounds like a bag of marbles, doesn’t it?”
“Sounds fucked, mate.”
They stayed there on the floor, arms pressed together, staring up at the crusted air-conditioning unit. “Oh yes,” Curtis said, “it’s fucked all right.”
Easter regarded Curtis’s knee. The lumpy leathered lines of old operations above and below it. A secret pleasure entered him at the point where his own leg—repaired, strong—rested against its neighbor.
“You’re starting ball work this week, though, yeah?”
“Yep,” Curtis replied. “Getting back out there. Best thing for it, they keep telling me. Until it bursts again.”
Easter rolled himself up into a sitting position. “Right. I’m due in for the fizz. See you in a bit.” His own rehab complete, he had been joining in with ball work, little by little, for a fortnight with no aggravation. Every day he had sensed a power, a control, returning. It increased with each painless warm-down or word of praise from Wilko, each piece of banter with the others. And now every time he saw the cowering faggot groundsman, emerging, disappearing back into his hiding hole. Whenever there was a sighting or some joke about him, he was ridden with an excitement that was almost uncontainable. It was in these moments that he felt the strength, the muscular, sexual capability of his body most intensely. He looked across the field and wanted to overpower him—somebody, anybody. To take a girl to her bed and hold her down. A couple of times, late at night on leaving the office urged by the thrill of gathering views, two thousand, five thousand, ten thousand in less than a week, he had gone into Leah’s room; watched with hot fascination the sudden startled fear on her face when she woke beneath him.
