by Jessica Ashe
“This might not have been a good idea,” I remarked, as Michelle finished off half a pint of beer in one go before half slamming, half dropping the beer down onto the table.
“Your turn,” she replied, before turning her head away from me and discretely letting out a silent belch.
“Maybe we should slow down.”
“I’m keeping up just fine,” Michelle said.
To be fair, she was doing just that. I had drastically underestimated her ability to drink copious amounts of beer. I guess as a bartender she’d squeezed in plenty of practice after hours.
Michelle had asked me to tell her some drinking games, but to be honest, I didn’t really know many. Rugby teams had a reputation as being hotbeds of laddish drinking, but in reality that culture stopped at about seventeen, or at least when you turned professional. My team would still haze new youth team players with outrageous dares, but once you’d gotten through that there wasn’t much of a drinking culture. There was too much money in the sport now for excess drinking.
I didn’t want to seem boring, so I made it up as I went along. Michelle’s last drink had been a punishment for not having had sex outside. Now it was my turn to either admit to having had a threesome or drink half a pint.
“Let’s take a break for a bit,” I said. “You don’t want Maisie to see you drunk later, or worse, hung-over tomorrow morning. She’ll give you no end of crap for it.”
“I’m not drunk,” she said, and just like that Michelle instantly appeared sober. When I looked closely into her eyes, I could tell she was a little tipsy, but then so was I. She’d likely been exaggerating how drunk she was getting just to seem like she was being more fun. Michelle had real problems loosening up.
“You spilt beer down your top,” I said, motioning to a beer stain stretching from her left breast down to her belly button. “Why don’t you take that shirt off? You have a top on underneath and you must be roasting in that thing.”
“No,” she replied instantly, and held onto the shirt as if I were about to take it off her. For someone who had a great body, she sure seemed reluctant to let me see it.
Our legs were already touching under the table, but I’d done everything in my power not to put my hand on her thigh or even move my leg in case she might see that as me coming on to her. I didn’t know how she would respond, but given the way she kept looking at me, there was a good chance she wouldn’t turn me down if I made a move. So why didn’t I?
I couldn’t think of anything or anyone I wanted more in the world right now than her, and yet here I was sat next to her and talking to her as if we were just friends or, heaven forbid, brother and sister.
“What does it feel like?” she asked.
“What does what feel like?”
“Playing in front of all those people. Being cheered on by thousands of fans.”
“They’re not always cheering me on. You saw evidence of that yourself.”
“Those people are idiots. You’ve changed since then. That’s obvious.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “I’ve changed a lot. Not just on the pitch. Michelle, I’m sorry for the way I treated you back then. I don’t know what came over me.”
“Don’t apologize. We all make mistakes. I certainly made a huge one and Maisie is still paying the price.”
“Michelle, you need to stop punishing yourself for what happened.” Punish me. I deserve it. “In case you haven’t noticed, Maisie doesn’t blame you for what happened.”
“She should. I couldn’t protect her. She’s my little sister and I couldn’t protect her.”
I quickly put my arm around her as she leaned into my shoulder and started sobbing. We got a few looks from people around us, but they took the hint and looked away again just as quickly.
“It wasn’t your job to protect her that night,” I explained, speaking softly into her ear. “It was mine.” I wanted to tell her the whole story. I wanted to make my confession and to hell with the consequences, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t as brave as Michelle. She would hate me if she knew, and I couldn’t live with that.
“She’s my little sister,” Michelle said again.
I could tell she was trying to stop the tears from falling, but they kept flowing. I wondered when she’d last let someone see her cry. She taught self-defence to women, volunteered at a domestic violence centre, and worked at a bar. Michelle had been there for hundreds of people when their lives had led them to cry in front of a stranger, but she’d probably never done the same.
“What happened to Maisie that night was horrible,” I said slowly. “When I was seven, only a year old than Maisie at the time of the attack, I broke my nose in three places.”
I didn’t really know where I was going with this, but silence seemed like the enemy at this stage and I wanted to keep Michelle’s mind occupied.
“How?” she asked.
“How do you think? Playing rugby. I thought it was a good idea to play with the under tens, but they were a lot bigger than me and I didn’t last ten minutes. Anyway, my nose looked hideous for a few weeks and I had to wear one of those face mask things. If you ask my mum, she’ll probably show you photos, but you can take my word for it when I say I looked ridiculous.”
“But that healed,” Michelle said, still crying, but less so now. “Maisie’s burn marks are permanent. She’s always going to have those scars.”
“I didn’t want to go to school while I had the mask,” I continued, ignoring Michelle’s comments for the time being. “Kids were laughing at me and the girls I fancied wouldn’t go near me. Girls used to let me catch them when we played kiss chase, but you should have seen how fast they suddenly ran when chased by the masked monster. The point is, I hated how I looked and I couldn’t deal with it.”
“That’s not the same,” Michelle said.
“No, it’s not. Maisie has it much worse than I ever had it for the reasons you pointed out. And yet she’s never been embarrassed for her wounds to be seen in public. She never hides it and when people make fun of her she ignores them. Despite all she’s been through, that girl is incredibly strong, confident, brave, and, most of all, full of life and energy. Her smile lights up the room despite her burns. That’s because of you, Michelle. Maisie is the person she is today because of you.”
At some point during my little speech, Michelle had stopped crying and had lifted her head from my shoulder. I looked round and saw her staring into my eyes, just inches from me. Her eyes were slightly puffy from the tears, but I’d still never seen anyone look so beautiful.
“When did you became so sensitive?” she asked. Her face was so close I could feel her breath on my face as she spoke.
“When my insensitivity lost me the greatest thing that ever happened to me.”
“The World Cup?”
“No, not the—” I stopped when I saw the corners of her lips turn up in a smile. “Very funny,” I said with a gentle laugh. “I see you’re feeling better now.”
She nodded. “Thank you.”
Michelle didn’t turn away, and neither did I. I’d never felt so frozen in front of a woman before. Her legs pressed against mine, and I narrowed the gap between our bodies. Our faces were just two or three inches apart now. This had to be it. If I didn’t kiss her now, then we might spend the entire summer wondering what might have been.
I moved towards her and our lips touched just as my phone started vibrating in my pocket, wedged between both our legs. We both let out a nervous laugh, and I desperately tried to pull my phone out of my pocket. I went to hit the reject call button, when I noticed it was Shaun calling. He very rarely called me, and never did when he was with friends.
“It’s Shaun,” I explained to Michelle. “I should probably answer this.”
“Everything okay?” I asked, as I answered the phone. If he had just run out of cash to pay for the take-out, I was going to be pretty pissed off.
Shaun explained what had happened, leaving me the job of passing the news on to Miche
lle. I’d made her feel better by crediting her with how well Maisie had turned out. This news might prove a bit of a blow.
“We should leave,” I said.
“Oh,” Michelle said, looking disappointed. “Okay then.”
“Sorry, I want to stay, but we need to go. It’s Maisie. She’s been arrested.”
April 2007
I’d been picked for the England team. I’d only been playing club level rugby for six months. This was a dream come true and my teammates were delighted for me. Unfortunately, their idea of celebrating my call up involved stealing all my clothes while I was in the shower and leaving me completely naked and locked in the changing room.
There were windows, but they were far too small for someone of my stature to squeeze through, even if I did want to brave the outdoors in the nude. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d streaked, and I certainly wasn’t embarrassed about my manhood, but that didn’t mean I wanted it splashed across the sports pages.
I hated being the rookie. I could put it down to jealousy, but there were three other players already on the England team, and they’d achieved a lot more in their careers than I likely ever would.
In the end, I decided to wait it out. I was trapped in a locked room without access to my phone; I didn’t exactly have a lot of choice. After twenty minutes of pacing up and down the changing room in the nude, I heard someone try to open the door and then swear when they realized it was locked. A few seconds later the person turned the key and walked inside.
It could be the cleaning lady, who probably wouldn’t appreciate seeing me naked—or maybe she would, but I didn’t want to get sued—so I decided to hide in one of the showers. Someone walked around the changing room as if checking and then continued talking into his phone. I knew the voice; it was Gary, the only guy on the team whom I could completely trust to help me out. That was a stroke of luck.
Just as I was about to leave the showers and ask for help locating my clothes, I overheard part of Gary’s conversation that stopped me in my tracks. It was just two sentences, but they couldn’t have been mistaken for anything innocent.
“I can’t throw another game, I just can’t. If I make the team lose in the last minute one more time I’ll be kicked off the team, and then you won’t be able to use me anyway.”
Gambling. Gary was throwing games for money. I knew it happened in sport, but of all the people in the world, Gary would have been the last person I would have suspected of such a thing. Hell, I thought I would have done it before him. Gary was as straight-laced as they came.
Gary’s words echoed in my ears as my eyes struggled to focus on the wall in front of me.
Gary had taken me under his wing the second I walked through the door. I’d assumed he was going to play a prank on me; Gary had a reputation as someone tough on newcomers and I was scared of him at first. A few weeks later, I finally relaxed and asked him why he helped me settle in.
“Just returning the favour,” he’d said. “You helped out my son in the shop by the training ground. You remember? He was accused of stealing some food—no doubt because the shopkeeper was a racist fuck—and you stood up for him.”
I remembered. The kid had looked like a deer caught in the headlights. The shopkeeper accused him of stealing even though he’d only been about eight years old. I politely informed the shopkeeper that the item in question wasn’t even sold in the store and he backed down.
Gary’s son had run out to the car and told his dad what happened, and then Gary had been introduced to me later that day at training. That one act by me brought Gary into my life, and I couldn’t have coped without him.
He’d lowered my ego down a notch for one thing, and had helped me improve my mental approach to training, which was something the coaches didn’t usually bother with. How could that man now be helping the team lose for money?
Everything seemed to look further away and a dizziness crept upon me as I realized the seriousness of what I had heard. I must have lost my balance, because my hand reached out and grabbed hold of one of the showers for support. Gary stopped talking. He’d heard me.
“Who’s there?” he called out.
The changing room wasn’t big enough to hide in, so I walked out slowly—still naked—and stared at Gary. He looked terrified. There were a few seconds of confusion as he no doubt wondered why I was standing there naked and then he said “your clothes are just outside the door.”
I nodded and went outside to collect my clothes before coming back in and closing the door behind me.
“What’s going on, Gary?” I asked as I got dressed.
“You heard?”
I nodded. “You’re throwing games. Why?”
Gary sat down on one of the benches and sighed, before burying his head in his hands. I knew he wouldn’t lie to me, even about something as serious as this, but he couldn’t find the words to say either.
“You need money?” I asked. Gary earned more than me, but he also had a kid to support on his own. The mother had walked out just after giving birth the the child. Perhaps he had a gambling problem, and this had been his way of fixing it.
Gary shook his head and then did something I never thought I’d see him do; he cried. Now it was my turn to be speechless. What was an eighteen-year-old kid supposed to do when a guy like Gary is crying in front of him? I settled for sitting down next to him and waiting for him to talk when he was ready.
“They threatened us,” Gary said at last. He managed to turn off the tears quickly, but the stress in his voice gave away his pain more than tears ever could. “Me and my son.”
“Who did?” I asked. I was close with his son now, so the threat to them both hit close to home. His son was a nice lad, who worked hard in school and had a bright future.
“Just these guys,” Gary replied. “They run some kind of betting ring.”
“You need to go to the police. They can protect your family until these people are caught.”
Gary shook his head. “I’m too far in now. They have… pictures. Of me with women. Nothing bad, just sex. But not something I want my son to see. They threatened to make them public, so I did them a favour.”
“You threw a game?”
Gary shook his head. “Nothing so drastic. All I had to do was make sure the ball went into touch within the first few minutes.” He laughed quickly and then went serious again. “Can you believe the things people bet on? It seemed so minor.”
“Then they started asking for more?”
Gary nodded. “They made it clear that my family is at risk if I don’t do what they want. Some of the things I’ve done...” He started crying again and I thought back to some of the games we’d played recently where Gary had slipped up. He hadn’t played badly; apart from the mistakes he’d been strong. No one blamed him, but there had been mistakes and those mistakes had cost us points.
“We’re going to figure this out.” I said. “You don’t have to handle this by yourself any more.”
Gary turned to look at me with a puzzled expression on his face. “You’re not mad?”
“Oh, I’m mad. But not at you. Those people who threatened your family are going to pay for this.”
“Please don’t tell the guys,” Gary said. “I’ll fake an injury and find a way not to play for a few weeks.”
I nodded and Gary disappeared to go and wash his face. He’d left his phone on the bench and it vibrated with an incoming text message. I glanced at the screen and had a fairly good idea that the sender was someone Gary didn’t like. The water was still running, so I grabbed the phone and opened the message from “The Fucker.”
Enough of your bollocks. Come to the store on London Road. Back entrance. Be there in fifteen minutes, or the boss will get mad.
I deleted the message and put the phone back down on the bench.
“Gary,” I yelled out. “Sorry mate, but I have to go. Just remembered I have a sponsorship meeting.”
“Oh, okay.” I could hear the disappointmen
t in his voice. He needed me to be there for him right now, but it was better I tackle the problem at the source.
“Let’s talk tomorrow. You’re going to get through this.”
I was the worst friend ever.
A bit of educated guesswork was more than enough to lead me to the right place. London Road was a popular street name, but there was only one close enough to get to in fifteen minutes. The street had a convenience store and a few other small shops. They were all closed, except for a hardware store that had a light on in the back.
I parked up on the street and snuck round the back. At this point, I realized I had no bloody clue what I was going to do. I had no weapon, nor anything I could use as a weapon. Usually, my body frame was enough to scare people off, but that might not do the trick here.
The back door was open, and I walked inside to find a guy even bigger than me standing by the entrance and two men sat down at a table. I’d been expecting to see stacks of cash everywhere, but the place was rather underwhelming.
The big guy blocked my way, but was quickly called off by the man sat at the table who recognized me.
“Oliver Cornish. What leads you into our neck of the woods?”
The man was about forty and balding, with a slight paunch around the gut. He’d once been in shape though. The man boobs looked like they used to have been pecs, but he’d stopped taking care of himself.
“I’m here to talk to you about Gary,” I said.
“Hmm, well, you’d better take a seat then.”
“I’ll stand,” I replied. I was always more intimidating when I stood because I towered over everyone. “I won’t be long.”
“Suit yourself.”
“He’s done what you asked, and now you need to leave him and his family alone.”
“Do I now? And what, pray tell, do you plan to do about it?”
The man looked rough around the edges, but he didn’t speak that way. This man had been well-educated and probably once played rugby himself judging by his build. He wouldn’t be easy to intimidate or threaten.
“This isn’t a big operation you’re running here, is it?” I asked, looking around the store that they no doubt used as a front.
