He takes a deep breath. We all take a deep breath. And then …
He stops.
We’re all, like, looking at each other.
He looks at Bucky and he goes, ‘I can’t do it.’
Bucky’s like, ‘What?’
He’s there, ‘I just … can’t.’
The pressure has got to him. That much is obvious.
On the sideline, I can hear the old man going, ‘What in the name of Hades is going on?’
My head is hopping at this stage. I feel like if I lay down on the pitch now, I would be asleep within seconds.
The referee tells Bucky we need to hurry up or we won’t get to take the kick at all. Bucky goes, ‘Just give us a second,’ and he tries to persuade Senny to take the kick. He picks up the ball and hands it to him. ‘Just feel it in your hands,’ he goes. ‘Then visualize it going over.’
Senny’s like, ‘I can’t. I just … can’t.’
And I go, ‘Gimme the ball.’
Bucky looks at me. He’s like, ‘What?’
So I say it again. ‘Gimme the focking ball.’
Which is exactly what he ends up doing – or, in actual fact, I pull it out of his hands.
I can hear the old man going, ‘Good Lord! Ross O’Carroll-Kelly is going to take the kick!’
There’s, like, literally gasps all around the ground.
I place the ball in the cup, then I stand up and I look at the posts. Christian tips over to me. He’s there, ‘Are you okay?’
I laugh. I’m there, ‘Fine – only one problem.’
‘What’s that?’ he goes.
I’m like, ‘I can see three posts.’
‘That’s okay,’ he goes. ‘Aim for the one in the middle.’
Silence descends on the ground. I take a deep breath. I measure out my steps – four backward, then three to the left. Then I run my hand through my hair. I look at the middle post and I let myself become aware of the wind on my face, trying to work out how strong it is and how it’s going to affect the flight of the ball. I take another breath – a deeper one this time. Then I run at the ball and I send it into the air with my boot.
I know it instantly. I know it from the second I strike the ball. That’s experience.
I blink my eyes once, twice, three times, to try to focus on the ball, to see where it’s going. But then I don’t need to see it? Like I said, I already know.
And then I hear the roars of the crowd, my old man’s loudest of all, going, ‘He’s done it! He’s only bloody well gone and done it!’
I fall flat on my face, through tiredness, pain, emotion, whatever.
Suddenly, I’m pulled to my feet again by Byrom, who has run onto the field because it’s all over, and he’s going, ‘Yoy luttle beautoy! Yoy luttle fuckun beautoy! Oy knoy yoy’d doy ut! Oy knoy yoy’d fuckun doy ut!’
The other players lift me up onto their shoulders and they carry me around the pitch. I’ve got, like, tears rolling down my face and I’m so happy it feels like I might never stop crying.
The old man is blubbering like I don’t know what. At the top of his voice, he’s also going, ‘Let this be a lesson to everyone who witnessed it! Age is not an impediment to anything! Today might well be the oldest you’ve ever been, but it’s also the youngest you will ever be again!’
I’m going, ‘Shut the fock up, will you?’ but at the same time I’m hugging him. ‘You’re making an actual show of me.’
He laughs, then he holds me at orm’s length and goes, ‘I’m so bloody proud of you. Are you okay, by the way?’
I’m like, ‘Yeah, no, I’m fine – just wrecked.’
‘One of your eyes looks a little, well, droopy.’
‘I just need to sleep, that’s all. But first I’m going to celebrate.’
His face suddenly lights up then and I realize that he’s looking over my shoulder.
He goes, ‘It looks like someone is here to share in your moment of triumph, Ross!’
I turn around and I see Sorcha, pushing the stroller towards me. I’m like, ‘You came!’
The boys are all in full voice, especially Brian, who’s going, ‘Fock you, you focking fock!’
I’m there, ‘Sorcha, tell me they saw it – the moment the ball went over the bor?’
Except she doesn’t respond. She seems upset about something and I notice that she’s, like, deathly pale.
She goes, ‘Chorles, your phone is switched off.’
He’s like, ‘Well, of course it’s switched off! I’m at a rugby match!’
Leo shouts, ‘You bastarding prick!’
I’m there, ‘Sorcha, why are you upset? What the fock’s going on?’
And she goes, ‘Your mum just rang, Ross. From Blackrock Gorda Station. She’s been arrested and chorged with Ari’s murder.’
Acknowledgements
My thanks as ever to Rachel Pierce, my superb editor. Thank you to my wonderful agent, Faith O’Grady. Thanks to Alan Clarke for your extraordinary artwork. Enormous thanks to Michael McLoughlin, Patricia Deevy, Cliona Lewis, Patricia McVeigh, Brian Walker and everyone at Penguin Ireland. Special thanks to George Hook, Johnny Walsh, Stephen Walsh, Paul McCarthy and Alex McCarthy for allowing me to pick your brains. Thanks to my father, David, and my brothers, Mark, Vincent and Richard. But most of all, thanks to Mary, my wife, with all my love.
THE BEGINNING
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PENGUIN IRELAND
UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia
India | New Zealand |South Africa
Penguin Ireland is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
First published 2016
Copyright © Paul Howard, 2016
Illustrations copyright © Alan Clarke, 2016
The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted
Cover illustrations by Alan Clarke
Penguin Ireland thanks O’Brien Press for its agreement to Penguin Ireland using the same design approach and typography, and the same artist, as O’Brien Press used in the first four Ross O’Carroll-Kelly titles
ISBN: 978-1-844-88346-2
Game of Throw-ins Page 39
