Touch

by Robert Innes

  “So, you’re Scott Jennings? Of Harmschapel FC fame?”

  “Of course he is,” Gardiner said, gripping Scott’s hand tightly. “This is our star striker!”

  Scott nodded, an expression of cheerfulness appearing on his face now he had nobody to fight with and he was being admired. “I am indeed. Nice to meet you, mate.”

  Blake rolled his eyes and turned to Harrison.

  “Oh, come on, Blake,” Harrison murmured as Gardiner distracted Scott with a shower of compliments. “He might be about to put Harmschapel on the map for something other than farming. You can hardly blame people being excited.”

  “Football!” exclaimed Jai distastefully. “These players, they are millionaires! All for kicking a ball about. They get made knights by the queen, loved by the world when I am in here at five o’clock every morning getting my shop ready for people – now which is more useful to the world, I ask you?”

  Blake shrugged then turned back to Harrison again.

  “Is Scott not from around here? I’ve not seen him about the village.”

  “No, he’s from Lionsdale,” Harrison replied. “It’s a village about a twenty-minute bus ride away.”

  Blake cleared his throat loudly and Gardiner, who had been in the middle of regaling Scott on his knowledge of Harmschapel strikers through the years stopped talking and looked at Blake with an irritated expression.

  “So, who was your mate?” Blake asked him, indicating the door that Peter had disappeared from.

  Scott snorted. “He ain’t no mate. That’s Peter Simpkins. He’s angry because our manager has taken him off the field for the final. He’s a weaker player than me, Clackton are going to be bringing their A-game, and our manager said she wanted everyone to be on top form, so he’s going on the bench. It’s not my fault.” He shrugged arrogantly and shared an irritated shake of the head with Gardiner. Blake narrowed his eyes, instantly realising that he did not like the young man in front of him. He seemed full of himself and completely aware of his own talent, something that was not helped by people like Gardiner treating him like some sort of film star. Blake could only imagine that Peter would have been on the end of a lot of smirking, similar to the one Scott had on his face now.

  Before Blake could ask him anything else, a voice rang out behind them.

  “Here you are! Think I could pull you away from signing autographs for a sec?”

  They all turned to see a tall, jet-black haired man in a black vest and shorts standing in the doorway to the shop. He had a similar muscly frame to Scott, though Blake sensed that he possessed a little more humility that Harmschapel’s striker.

  “Yeah, alright,” Scott said. He walked towards the new arrival and they bumped fists before slapping their hands together in a laddish high five. He turned back to Blake. “This is -”

  “Paul Wainthropp!” Gardiner interrupted.

  Blake glanced at Harrison cluelessly.

  “He’s our goalkeeper,” he whispered.

  “What a performance the other day,” Gardiner said fondly. Blake had never seen him look so happy. Usually Gardiner treated nearly everyone with an attitude closer to disdain. “He dived across the goal and hit back every shot that was thrown at him. Credit to the village, the pair of you.”

  Paul, looking slightly less partial to flattery than Scott, merely nodded at Gardiner and turned back to Scott. “We need to go.”

  “Yeah, alright, I’m coming,” Scott replied. “What’s the hurry?”

  Paul picked up a large bottle of water from the chiller and placed it on the counter. “It’s tonight.”

  Blake frowned as Scott’s cocksure expression faltered before he plastered a grin across his face and waved at Gardiner. “Nice meeting you mate.”

  “And you, mate,” Gardiner said cheerfully, waving at Scott and Paul as they disappeared out of the shop and down the street.

  Blake folded his arms and looked at Gardiner in bemusement. “You’d think they were world famous.”

  “Scott Jennings may well be before too many years have gone by,” Harrison replied lightly. “You should see him play. He’s really impressive. Never seems to tire.”

  “Hmph!” Jai snorted. “Didn’t even buy anything. He comes in here starting fights, scaring away my customers and doesn’t even buy anything!”

  He stormed off towards the back of the shop muttering darkly to himself.

  Blake waited until he heard the shop’s office door slam behind Jai before he spoke. “What was all that about with Paul? ‘It’s tonight.’ What did that mean?”

  “The practice, obviously,” Gardiner replied. “Tonight’s the night they have to iron out any creases they might have in their team. Sounds like they’ve started well with putting Simpkins on the bench.”

  Blake was unconvinced. There had been something about the way Scott’s face had changed when Paul had said it. Blake had not been able to work out whether Scott had looked excited or scared, perhaps a mixture of both, but Scott did not seem to be the sort of person who scared easily.

  3

  Harmschapel was usually a quiet place around the early evening as businesses closed for the day and the residents all returned to their quiet home lives. Tonight, however, the sound of football chants seemed to constantly fill the air from some direction or another.

  The repetitive lyrics of “Jennings is here to save the day” did nothing to improve Peter Simpkins’ mood as he stormed through the village. His blood was still boiling from his confrontation with Scott and his final jibe about a sub not being needed at the practice on the day before the final had really cut Peter deep. Football was important to Peter. It was the one thing that had made his life easier over the years and to have that ripped away and cheapened by the likes of Scott Jennings made Peter sick to his stomach.

  As he rounded a corner, he charged head on into someone walking in the opposite direction. The resulting collision sent the unfortunate person straight to the ground. When Peter looked down to shout that whoever it was should have been looking where he was going, his words caught in his throat.

  “Ow!” A young woman with luscious light brown hair looked up at him indignantly.

  “Oh, God, Sarah, I’m so sorry, are you alright?” Peter said hastily, as he rushed forwards to pick her up.

  Sarah Rowling groaned as Peter helped her to her feet. “I’m fine, I think.” She massaged the elbow that she had landed on and wiped away the dirt from the ground. “What are you in such a rush for?”

  “I’m not really in a rush,” Peter replied, cursing his stomach for the somersaults it was performing.

  “Are you kidding?” Sarah replied, her eyes widening. “You came flying around that corner.”

  “Sorry. I was just…my mind was elsewhere.”

  Sarah narrowed her eyes as she wiped away the last bit of gravel that she had picked up on her arm. “Hmm. You going to practice tonight?”

  “Of course,” Peter said, desperately hoping that Sarah had not heard about his demotion to the bench. “Are you?”

  “Yeah, I might do,” Sarah replied, flicking her hair over her shoulders. Peter could not help but admire how lovely she was looking. She was wearing a pair of stylish blue denim dungarees that complimented her yellow top very well, as if she had painstakingly picked the outfit to match, though Peter knew that Sarah was just one of life’s naturally stylish people.

  “Scott said tonight might not be a very long one, so I might come down with him.”

  A huge surge of jealously ran through Peter’s body. “Yeah, well. He would know.”

  Sarah frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing. Look, I better get going. I need to do some things at home before practice. See you later, maybe? And sorry again about knocking you over.”

  Sarah gave him a small smile. “Don’t worry about it. See you later.”

  Peter watched as Sarah disappeared around the corner and sighed. How was it possible for one girl to be so stunning? It was just somethi
ng she managed to naturally carry off, and the best thing about her was that she seemed to be completely and utterly unaware of it.

  He heard Scott’s voice and peered around the corner of the street. There he was, with his arm around his girlfriend as if she was some sort of prize that he had won. Peter could also see his best friend, Paul Wainthropp, who normally was stuck to Scott like glue, suddenly looked very out of place.

  As Scott and Sarah shared a passionate kiss, another chorus of “Jennings is here to save the day” rang out around them. Peter grinded his teeth together as the man he hated continued walking across the road with the air of somebody who had the perfect life, a beautiful girlfriend and an apparently adoring public. Sighing miserably, Peter pulled his eyes away from the happy couple and set off down the road again with a heavy heart.

  Peter decided to get to practice early that evening in order to speak to the manager, Hattie, about his move to the sub bench. Despite the fact he secretly found Hattie Atkins quite terrifying, especially when she was provoked, he was desperate to wipe the smug grin off Scott’s face and he could think of no better way of doing it than getting his striker position back for the final.

  He walked around the stadium to the back entrance where Hattie could usually be found smoking by the wheelie bin. Tonight, she was not there though the distinct pile of brown cigarette ends by the bin told Peter that Hattie was in her office, which was located near the fire exit.

  He walked into the building and down the corridor towards Hattie’s office. The cold stark corridors of the stadium echoed as Peter walked along. On the wall were large pictures of various teams over the years. Peter knew the name of every single player. As he walked along the final corridor to Hattie’s office he smiled slightly at the pictures of his heroes from years past. Most of the lads on the team had their footballing idols, the majority of which were huge names who had gone on to play for England or at the very least teams far higher up in leagues that Harmschapel could only dream about. Peter had always admired the more local team players as they always gave him a sense of optimism that it was possible to be the best you could be. When he came to the last picture before Hattie’s office door, his heart sank horribly again. The picture was of the current team. Scott’s grinning face leered back at him. Peter glared at Scott’s face as he knocked on Hattie’s door.

  “Come in!” came the sharp reply.

  Peter walked into the office. There was Hattie, sit ting behind her desk. She was a formidable looking woman. To the untrained eye, she appeared overweight and bulky, in fact her huge frame seemed to be too much for the chair she was sitting on to cope with, but Hattie Jenkins had a long sporting career behind her, especially in football. She had played in the women’s league all over the country, illustrated by the plethora of photographs on the wall of her in various teams over the years and the large replica of a cup she had won for the county over twenty years ago seated pride of place on the side of the desk.

  Hattie glanced up from her paperwork. “Ah, Simpkins. Come in.”

  “Hi, Hattie,” Peter said, closing the door behind him. “I was wondering if I could have a quick word.”

  “I thought you might,” Hattie replied, barely looking up from her work. “I was expecting you.”

  Peter took a deep breath. “It’s about me being moved to the sub bench. I’ve got to be honest, Hattie, I just don’t think it’s fair. I’ve been on the team for longer than Scott and he’s being a real arsehole about it.”

  Hattie finally looked up at Peter to give him her full attention. “I think if you want to discuss being unfair, you should think about just how unfair it was to be holding your team back because you had too much male pride going through you to go to the doctors and get your ankle sorted.”

  “But my ankle’s fine now,” Peter protested. “I went to the doctor’s, I’ve got some painkillers, I’m fine.”

  “You’re still slower than I need you to be on the pitch,” Hattie replied firmly. “You’re a striker. I need my strikers to be fast, agile and able to sprint if necessary. Right now, Scott is at a higher level at that than you. So, you’re on the sub bench. It’s as simple as that.”

  “I’m telling you, I can do it,” Peter insisted, sensing that he was rapidly losing his argument. “Don’t take this away from me Hattie, please, I’m begging you!”

  Hattie threw her pen down and leaned back in her chair, which creaked loudly beneath her. “You know the worst thing in any football team? A player that is only playing for himself. What you’re saying to me isn’t “I believe I can help the team more by being on the field,” you’re saying, “But Hattie, I want to be the big name in the final.’ Trust me, that’s the wrong attitude.”

  “No, I’m just…”

  Before he could argue anymore, Hattie stood up and marched towards the office door and sharply opened it.

  “I suggest you go and get yourself ready for practice. The match isn’t till five tomorrow, so I plan to push you boys tonight. We’ve got a final to win.”

  Peter knew the conversation was over. He walked out of the office and the door immediately slammed behind him.

  Still reeling from Hattie’s admonishment, Peter stormed into the changing rooms. By now, the rest of the team had arrived and were all chatting amongst themselves as they changed into their kits. Peter savagely opened his locker, retrieved his kit and slammed it shut loud enough for the noise to quieten down the rest of the room.

  Scott, who was standing on the other end of the room in just a pair of shorts smirked at him. “Look out, lads. Petey boy’s having a tantrum. Been to see Hattie, have you? She told you where to get off?”

  “Jennings, I’m warning you,” Pete said as he jammed his feet into his football boots. “One more word.”

  “Funny, you’d think the sub would want to learn from the lads who have actually been allowed to go on the pitch and do the team proud, wouldn’t you?” Scott sneered.

  Peter stood up and, for the second time that day, found himself charging at Scott, ready for a fight. A hand suddenly came between them and landed sharply on Peter’s chest.

  “Enough.”

  Peter turned to see one of Harmschapel’s defence, Ashley Pharaoh, standing before him. He was the oldest member of the team and garnered a certain amount of respect from them all, even though he did nothing to ask for it. Ashley was also the tallest player, so towered above Scott and especially Peter. His green eyes flashed as his head turned between the two of them.

  “The final is tomorrow. We’ve never got this far, you both know that. I’m not going to let you two put any of that in jeopardy just because you fancy like knocking a couple of rounds out of each other. You want to do that, save it for after the match when we don’t need you.”

  There was a murmuring of agreement from the rest of the team around them. For a moment, Scott looked like he was about to try and argue with Ashley but seemed to think better of it. He threw one last smirk at Peter and then continued getting changed.

  As the chatter in the room began again, Ashley put his arm around Peter’s shoulder and led him away.

  “Look, I get it, okay?” he said quietly. “He’s an arrogant idiot and he’s rubbing it in because he’s on the pitch tomorrow and you might not be. I’ve been there, and it sucks. But you can’t let him get to you. Be the bigger man, alright?”

  Peter sighed and nodded.

  “Good lad,” Ashley replied, clapping him on the shoulder. “You never know what might happen tomorrow. He could fall over and break his leg and you might run on and be the man of the match. Tonight, treat this practice as if you’re doing what he is tomorrow.”

  Peter could not help but smile up at Ashley. “Thanks, man. I appreciate it.” He was already feeling slightly better.

  At that moment, Hattie appeared in the doorway.

  “Lads,” she barked.

  Silence quickly fell.

  “I’m not going to beat around the bush. I’m going to work each and every one
of you to your knees tonight. This time tomorrow we will either be winners or losers and if it’s the latter, I want to know it wasn’t because you lot weren’t the best that you could possibly be. Now, get on the pitch.”

  The eleven strong team filed out of the changing room. Peter watched as Hattie gave Scott a tight smile and clapped him on the back. Peter sighed and then followed the rest of the team towards the pitch.

  Hattie had not been exaggerating. By the time practice finished, after two hours of heavy press ups, jogs around the pitch, an intense round of penalties where Scott had annoyingly scored all of his while Peter had missed two of his own, and some of the most in-depth practices of positioning and tackling Hattie had ever put them through, Peter’s muscles were aching as he stood in the changing room’s showers. He was taking as long as he could in the showers, not only so that he could stop the aching in his body but also because he wanted all the other players, most of all Scott, to be out of his way so he could be by himself. His mood was lower than ever, and he could not help but think that Hattie had put him through a vicious practice for an event that he was never going to actually take part in.

  When he sensed that the changing room was quiet, he turned the shower off and stepped out with his towel wrapped tightly around his waist. As he grabbed his clothes out of his locker, he sighed heavily and sat down on the nearest bench to dry himself off.

  He was just pulling his trousers up when he became aware of some low murmuring coming from around the corner and realised that he was not alone in the room. Hoping he could sneak out before he had to talk to anybody, Peter pulled his t-shirt over his head and grabbed his rucksack. Then, he heard something that made him stop in his tracks. The murmured voice had started to rise in volume.

  “I don’t care how you feel about it, the fact is it’s happening.”