Last of the Great Romantics

by Claudia Carroll

  As they took their prime seats, it did strike Daisy that she and Jasper stood out a bit. In a heaving sea of fans, kitted out in either the Irish tricolour or the red and white of England, the players' box was like a tiny oasis of corporate types: men in expensive suits and fabulously dressed, glamorous women, all dripping in flashy jewellery and looking like they should be off to an awards do and not sitting pretty on the sidelines of a soccer match.

  Looking excitedly around her, the only people Daisy recognized were two very high-profile Oldcastle wives, Falcon Donohue and Shakira Walker, who were sitting side by side and looking bored out of their heads.

  Falcon Donohue, she knew from her appearance on the celebrity reality show, We Are Famous, Try and Shame Us, not to mention the fact that she and her waist-length hair extensions appeared on magazine covers at least every other week. Shakira Walker, on the other hand, Daisy recognized from the girl band that she fronted, Nuclear Pussy, who had just had a number one hit with a gloriously alliterative song entitled 'You Done the Dirt and Now You're Dumping Me?' There was a big, busty blond woman beside them, applying lip gloss in a small compact mirror. She looked a bit familiar, but somehow Daisy couldn't quite place her . . .

  'Bit weird, isn't it?' Simon said, misreading her thoughts. 'Never fails to churn my stomach, to be honest with you. All those minor celebs and fat gits in fat suits are mostly directors and sponsors with bugger all interest in football; they're just here on corporate junkets. Meanwhile, the real fans are queuing up outside shelling out hard-earned cash for overpriced tickets from the bloody touts.'

  A pang of guilt struck Daisy. Being brutally honest with herself, she had to admit that she wasn't exactly a diehard footie fan herself. In fact, not only was this the first actual game she'd been to, the only ones she'd ever watched on TV had been the few World Cup appearances Ireland had qualified for. And even then she would moan at Portia and Lucasta that the matches invariably clashed with EastEnders. Looking around the packed stadium though, she felt a huge swell of pride, a patriotism that had never bothered her before, at the sea of green all around her, all Olé, olé, oléing fit to burst your eardrums. Just being there, being part of it was an adrenalin rush like she'd never experienced. It was easy to see how fans became addicted so easily.

  'So what do you think of your first game so far then?' asked Simon, seeing the way her eyes sparked with pride and excitement. 'I can spot a football virgin a mile away.'

  She looked him straight in the eye. 'Unbelievable,' was all she could say, 'just unbelievable. It's the nearest thing I'll ever come to being in the Roman Colosseum. The only thing that could make this more exciting is if Russell Crowe himself walked out with his sword and sandals.'

  The teams had just begun to line out to a deafening roar from all around the stadium and the English chant went up.

  'Oh, the famous Irish team went to see the Pope in Rome [to the tune of 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic'],

  The famous Irish team went to see the Pope in Rome,

  The famous Irish team went to see the Pope in Rome,

  And this is what he said:

  FUCK OFF!

  Glory, glory, glory, England,

  Glory, glory, glory, England,

  Glory, glory, glory, England,

  And the Brits go marching on.'

  The Irish fans were about to come back with a similarly derogatory chant when the national anthems began, starting with 'God Save the Queen'. Everyone stood up respectfully, which gave Daisy a good chance to eye up the teams. The first person her eye fell on was Alessandro Dumas, who also played for Oldcasde but was kitted out in the England strip today. The only reason Daisy recognized him was because he spearheaded a shampoo commercial with a really crappy slogan which was on TV only about eighty times a week. 'Stallion pour hommes', he would croon to camera with a waterfall cascading behind him. 'Only stallion can tame your hush' He looked lean and mean, shaven-headed and surly, ready for anything.

  'Isn't that sweet?' she whispered to Simon, unaware that it was the height of bad manners to talk during the anthems. 'Look! He hasn't got a clue of the words.'

  Simon didn't answer, just kept belting out the bit about 'sending her victorious', while Jasper glared over at her.

  She didn't bother resting her gaze on him for too long though, she was far too busy squinting down the line to pick out Mark. Yes! There he was, tanned, toned and even more rugged and sexy-looking than she remembered, wearing the number nine shirt with his untamed curly brown locks of hair blowing all over the place: Heathcliff in an England shirt and a pair of shorts.

  As soon as it was over, yet another raucous cheer swelled the stadium and then it was Ireland's turn. Tears of pride ran down Jasper's cheeks as he burst his lungs singing 'Amhrán na bhFiann', which he kept wiping away with his shovel-sized hands, forgetting that his face was painted, so that he ended up covered in big green and orange swipes. He might have looked like a Halloween horror mask gone wrong, but the expression in his eyes was beatific.

  The anthems over, the referee moved out to the middle of the pitch and they were off.' Who's the wanker in the black?' both sides chanted in unison, as the whistle blew and the game got under way. Straight away, England were up and at it, with Mark ruthlessly taking possession and kicking a long ball over to Ryan Walker who made it past Ireland's defences and had got almost as far as the penalty spot when Alan Heap, Ireland's youngest striker and something of a teen sensation, headed it back up the pitch and away from any danger of England scoring. In no time, the English chant went up:

  'He's fat, he's round, his arse is on the ground, He's Aaaaaaaaaaaa-lan Heap.'

  'That's vicious!' Daisy exclaimed, hardly able to believe her ears. 'Suppose Alan Heap heard?'

  Simon roared laughing at her. 'That's nothing. Wait till you get a load of some of the chants they hurl at their own players.'

  Shane Donohue had possession now for Ireland, leading to a raucous chorus of:

  'You're nothing but a tosser,

  You're nothing but a thug,

  You can't see the ball

  And your wife eats slugs.'

  'And that was probably before she even went into the jungle,' said Simon. Daisy turned around to see if this reference to her performance in We Are Famous, Try and Shame Us had upset Falcon, but she was just staring blankly ahead of her, unmoved and bored-looking.

  'Wait till the fans start having a go at Shakira Walker. Let's just say I've never heard so many words rhyme with 'Nuclear Pussy'.

  As the first half wore on, England's strategy seemed to be to form a five-man midfield when defending, taking their high-energy game to the flanks and literally giving the Irish no room to manoeuvre. Even with Daisy's inexperienced eye, she could tell that Alan Heap was easily Ireland's most dangerous player, yet every time he tried to make a break or create an opportunity, he seemed boxed in, giving the impression that England could suddenly strike.

  Which they did.

  It was all over in a blur, but in a fraction of the time it took Daisy to drop her jaw in astonishment, Shane Donohue had kicked upfield, passed to Mark who in turn kicked it to Alessandro who scored. Half the stadium stood rooted to their seats in muted horror while the other half raised the roof. 'Are you Malta in disguise?' the English fans chanted, nearly losing their reason as the scoreboard officially confirmed England 1: Ireland 0.

  'I don't believe this, how did that gobshite of a goalie let it in?' Jasper was apoplectic with rage.

  'I thought this was a friendly?' Daisy asked innocently.

  'Between England and Ireland?' Simon laughed. 'Is there such a thing?'

  Half-time and Ireland had failed to equalize as Daisy and Jasper followed Simon into the Players' Lounge, to find Lucasta plonked at a table, happily moving on to her third g. and t.

  The English fans' chant still rang in their ears as they joined her: 'Can we play you every week?'

  'It's a really good match, if ya ask me,' Shakira could be heard saying as she
made her way to the bar. 'It's tragedy, it's entertainment, what more do the Irish want?'

  'What, apart from a win, you mean?' chirruped Falcon, running a French manicured talon down the cocktail menu. 'Too early for a cosmo, do ya think, girls?'

  'Are you mental?' replied the busty big-haired blonde who'd been sitting with them. 'It's never too early for a cosmo.'

  That's where I know that girl from, Daisy thought. She's Buffy Tompkinson, the glamour model, as she styled herself . . . wasn't she a girlfriend of Alessandro Dumas?

  The table Lucasta had bagged was as geographically far from them as it was possible to be and Simon, for one, didn't seem a bit sorry.

  'The bitches of Eastwick, we call them back at Oldcastle,' he muttered to Daisy. 'Do you think they ever take poor, wee Cinderella out?'

  She giggled.

  'Seriously, though,' he went on, 'you want to watch out. Buffy, Alessandro's girlfriend, is lethal after a few drinks.'

  'Did you have to mention that gobshite's name to me?' moaned Jasper, inconsolable. To say that he was devastated by the half-time score was an understatement on a par with saying that George Dubya Bush was an eensy bit of a dimwit. 'I don't know how he got past Alan Heap, for starters. And for Dumas to score, of all people! Normally, that eejit couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo.'

  'Over here, sweeties!' Lucasta cooed. 'I'm awfully sorry I missed the first half, but I really had to G.T.F.O.O.H.'

  'G.T.F.O.O.H.?' asked Simon.

  'Mummy's code for get the fuck out of here,' Daisy explained.

  'So I just thought I'd have one little pint while I was waiting for you,' she went on.

  'Pint of what?' asked Daisy.

  'Of gin, darling.'

  'You look like you could use a shoulder to drink on, what'll you have, big guy?' Simon asked Jasper sympathetically.

  'Guinness, thanks. Here, let me give you a few quid.'

  'Welcome to the wonderful world of corporate hospitality. It's a free bar.'

  'Free drink? That's the worst kind.' Jasper honestly looked as though he was going to open a vein.

  'And for you?' Simon smiled down at Daisy.

  She was about to ask for a mineral water, given that she was driving Andrew's jeep, but just then she caught sight of the most fabulous-looking cosmopolitans being served to the bitches of Eastwick. What the hell, she figured, one couldn't hurt, could it? 'I'll have what they're having, thanks,' she said.

  'And a little gin and tonic for me, thanks, angel,' chirruped Lucasta.

  He winked. 'I love a woman that appreciates a free bar.'

  'Oh, I never believe in going to the bar when there's a man in the company,' said Lucasta, settling into a party mood. 'All that bloody feminism malarkey ever meant for women was that they had to buy their own drinks and that men stopped offering them seats on trains. Thank Christ all that passed me by, that's all I can say. Saves me a fortune too.'

  Simon raised his eyebrows a bit, as anyone would who wasn't used to her ladyship.

  'You know, I say to Daisy, if some poor unfortunate hunchback with one eye and a comb-over is gobshite enough to ask you out on a date, you order a steak dinner and let baldy pay for the works. Men appreciate you all the more when they have to earn you, as it were. Before that awful Germaine Greer one came along, women weren't equal to men, they were superior and . . . By the way,' she interrupted herself, squinting at Simon as though she were seeing him for the very first time.

  Then it came. The killer question.

  'Are you single?'

  'Let me give you a hand with those drinks,' said Daisy, squirming a bit, especially when she saw Simon turn bright red. OK, so he wasn't exactly her favourite person, but, she figured, would you wish Lucasta's sledgehammer matchmaking tactics on your worst enemy?

  'So your mother was filling me in about your cousin Jasper on the drive here,' he said as they waited patiently at the bar. 'About his . . . background.'

  'Yeah? It's an astonishing story, isn't it?'

  'Unbelievable,' he laughed, looking very grateful to have been rescued. 'The long-lost cousin, returning to stake his claim to the ancestral home. Like something out of Dickens.'

  'Or The O.C.'

  A few minutes later, they rejoined Lucasta and Jasper, plonking a trayful of drinks in the middle of the table.

  'If I ever get my hands on Dave Gemell, I swear to you I won't be responsible,' Jasper was moaning.

  'Who?'

  'That useless, schizophrenic sad excuse for a goalie that we have.'

  'Oh.'

  Now the crowd's chant was starting to make sense to Daisy.

  'Two Dave Gemells,

  There's only two Dave Gemells . . .'

  'So what's happening to the teams now?' Daisy asked innocently.

  'With a bit of luck, they're getting the living lard kicked out of them by the manager. I've seen better performances from the prison warders annual under-elevens five-a-side.'

  All Daisy wanted to do was enjoy her day out but Jasper's morbid depression was really beginning to drag her down.

  'Could you believe it when Kerr took O'Sullivan off twenty minutes in?' Jasper went on whining. 'And sent on that useless sack of crap, Peter Daglish? I swear, the housekeeper at Davenport Hall would have made a better midfielder, so she would.'

  Simon caught the bewildered look on Daisy's face and explained.

  'This is where the team manager demonstrates his sense of humour by taking off a player that's doing great and replacing him with someone untried, at an international level. Wee bit like taking Michelangelo off the Sistine Chapel job and replacing him with a humble painter and decorator. Daft.'

  Daisy laughed, although she was still not sure if it was his joke she was giggling at or the accent which automatically made everything sound funny. In what felt like no time, a raucous cheer from the pitch let them know that the teams were back on, so she gulped back her cosmopolitan, fervently hoping that Ireland's performance would improve in the second half, if only to make Jasper less of a moany hole to be around.

  'You all go,' Lucasta commanded waving to the fast-emptying bar, 'I'll stay here, just to keep our seats.'

  'It's all really moving, innit?' she overheard Falcon say to Shakira as they filed past them on their way back out.

  'Yeah, but the most moving thing was when my Alessandro scored!' said Buffy and the three of them dissolved into tipsy cackles.

  They walked past Daisy, ignoring her, leaving an untouched cosmopolitan behind. Shame to waste it, she thought, checking to see that no one was watching before she knocked it back.

  'If I had the wings of a sparrow [ to the tune of 'My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean']

  If I had the arse of a cow,

  I'd fly over Old Trafford tomorrow

  And shit on the bastards below.

  Shit on, shit on, oh shit on the bastards below, below . . .'

  Daisy knew about as much about football as a fruit fly knows about pure maths but even she could tell that the Irish side had pulled their socks up considerably since half-time – or the interval as she kept calling it. Their game was far more offensive; they managed to keep play firmly around the English net; they kept their cool and then the gods smiled down on them. Mark Lloyd tripped up Ireland's key midfielder, Tony Duffy, and the ref awarded Ireland a penalty. For a split second, Ireland were back in the game and it fell to the eighteen-year-old Alan Heap to step up and take it. The English fans sang:

  'Que será, será,

  Whatever will be,

  will be; You can't score a penalty,

  Que será, será,'

  But the teenager looked like an ice man as he bravely lined up to take the shot. Suddenly after all the noise and screaming and vicious chanting, the stadium went eerily quiet.

  'I've heard young Alan wears his granny's miraculous medal whenever he's playing,' said Simon.

  'I swear, I'll shove it down his throat if he misses this,' said Jasper.

  It was as though everything
was happening in slow motion as young Alan raced to kick the ball and sent it soaring . . . Twenty thousand pairs of eyes in the stadium followed its progress, half of them willing it in, half of them willing some act of God to let it go wide . . . Every spectator held their breath and then . . . the miracle . . . The ball hit off the post, the goalie dived for it but . . . it was too late . . . It passed over the line and Ireland scored. The cheer was the loudest yet as every tricolour in the stadium went ballistic and the chant went up:

  'You're not singing,

  You're not singing,

  You're not singing any more!'

  To which the English fans came back with:

  'Who ate all the pies? [to the tune of

  'Knees Up, Mother Brown']

  Who ate all the pies?

  You fat bastard,

  You fat bastard,

  Heap ate all the pies'

  This unsubtle dig at his puppy fat or even the cries of 'Get your tits out for the lads' did nothing to dampen Alan Heap's spirits. He danced cartwheels around the pitch and his team mates leapt on him in a human pile that left Daisy wondering if he'd broken any bones. 'You'd think we'd just won a war!' she exclaimed but Jasper was too busy sobbing like a big girl's Laura Ashley blouse even to put a coherent sentence together.

  'I'll never forget this moment,' he gulped, 'not as long as I live. This is even better than Ray Houghton's equalizer in Stuttgart in eighty-eight.'

  'Mightn't be the best penalty I've ever seen,' said Simon, equally impressed if a tad less emotional, 'but it's certainly one of the bravest.'

  In spite of England's best efforts to get ahead, the final whistle was upon them in no time, with the scoreboard showing a very honourable 'England 1: Ireland 1'.

  'You had joy, you had fun [to the tune of 'Seasons in the Sun'],

  You had Ireland on the run,

  But your joy didn't last Cos we ran too fucking fast.'

  The Irish fans were as jubilant and ecstatic as if they'd just won the World Cup, an attitude summed up in Jasper's tearful comment as they made their way back to the Players' Lounge.