by Alison Bond
‘Fuck me,’ cried Anya, as he drove deeper into her. ‘That’s perfect.’
He couldn’t have agreed more.
Later, when he found out that Gabe Muswell had signed with Samantha Sharp, he knew that it was meant to be. It was destiny.
7
A woman who was not his wife was caressing his face. It felt great.
‘Try to relax, Gabe,’ she said.
He was relaxed. But if this cute blonde make-up artist stroked his face for much longer he might get too aroused. Which could be embarrassing. He imagined her hands straying from his face, stroking more interesting places.
‘Your skin’s pretty dry,’ she said. ‘Don’t you moisturize?’
‘Never,’ he said. Okay, so once or twice he had swiped a bit of Christine’s stuff, but only in an emergency, like when his nose peeled after a day in the sun, that sort of thing. Gabe was a man, not a pretty boy.
‘I think you’re the first professional football player I’ve met who doesn’t.’
He didn’t bother to correct her. So he wasn’t quite a professional, so what? This week he felt more like a football star than ever before and he hadn’t touched a ball since Saturday. Whatever happened he would never tell anyone that as far as he was concerned all three goals were lucky. The three luckiest goals of his life. All in the same match. Against Tottenham.
Somebody up there liked him.
Samantha Sharp had been at his house as soon as he got home. A fantastic-looking woman who clearly had a fantastic brain to match. He was surprised that Christine wasn’t apoplectic with jealousy. But the two women seemed to be the best of friends and Gabe was happy to let them take over his life. Particularly when that life meant getting rich by talking about yourself to newspapers, being driven around London to various daytime television chat shows, and now, to top it all, appearing on a comedy quiz show he had watched on television every Sunday night since it started.
He looked in the mirror.
The same old face stared back at him. Baggy around the eyelids, his shock of dirty blond hair scattered with grey, his face drawn with the thin lines of slight disappointment. The knowing glint in his jade-green eyes was probably his best feature. His wife once told him he looked like a man with an ace up his sleeve, and he had never felt more like she was right all along. This was his ace. This moment was the glint in his eye.
‘Isn’t it ridiculous that I’m getting paid for all this?’ he’d said the night before. ‘I’m having such a good time.’
‘Yeah, well, you’ll be glad of the money when there’s a new flavour of the month,’ said Christine, ‘so don’t go offering to do anything for free.’
‘Don’t worry. I wouldn’t go that far.’
She was out in the audience. This week had been like a second honeymoon for them. She was in love with him all over again, and it was that, as much as the public recognition and the money, that made him feel like such a star.
Last night she had made love to him with the kind of enthusiasm he hadn’t seen since their twenties. Under her clothes she wore something black and see-through and utterly impractical that stayed on all night. She twisted and turned her body towards him wherever he wanted, groaning with desire, letting her hands roam over his body and her own so that he could see her playing with herself in the shadows, could see the curve of her waist under his hand as she lifted her hips to his, and he could feel her breath as she whispered, begging him with sweet little sighs to do it harder, to do it slower, to do it just like that.
‘I adore you, Gabe,’ she’d said afterwards.
And in that moment he adored her too.
‘Gabe?’ The show’s exuberant comic host poked his head round the door of the make-up room. ‘I’m Seamus.’
As if he didn’t know.
He was still getting star struck despite spending much of his week with some very familiar faces, and he stuttered his hellos to the popular television presenter, wishing that he sounded cooler than he did.
‘Wanted to say hiya before we start. Thanks for coming on, we’re all very excited to have you here, aren’t we, Kelly?’
‘Sure are,’ said the make-up artist.
‘So I’ll see you out there. Try not to be nervous.’
‘See you out there,’ echoed Gabe as the host left followed by a hassled-looking assistant with a clipboard and a stopwatch.
‘Do I look really nervous or something?’ he asked the cute blonde make-up artist.
‘A bit, yeah. But don’t worry about it.’
‘And I thought your name was Kerry not Kelly?’ he said as she whisked thick powder over his face.
She shrugged. ‘It is.’
*
It was hot in the studio under the lights. Gabe was embarrassed that Kerry had to come over during a break and pat more powder on his face, but then he saw her doing it to Seamus too and he didn’t feel so bad.
He was on a team of three with an England rugby international and a glamour model called Cassandra who kept resting her chin in her hands so that her lovely boobs looked even more lovely on television.
‘Funny, ain’t he?’ she said during the break, nodding towards Seamus.
‘Yeah,’ said Gabe. ‘I’ve always thought so.’
‘I’ve never seen this show before,’ said Cassandra. ‘I think I’m a last-minute replacement. Someone must have dropped out. I’m not doing very well.’
She hadn’t answered a single question, but he suspected that Cassandra wasn’t on the show to act clever. She was the butt of most of the host’s jokes, which she took in good spirit, her sexy little giggle softening the otherwise all-male show. Their team was losing dismally.
‘You’re doing great,’ he said.
‘You think? Thanks. You too.’
‘Nah,’ said Gabe, ‘I think I’m being too quiet.’
Cassandra shook her head vehemently so that her platinum hair extensions flicked across her face. ‘No way,’ she said. ‘You look all broody and handsome. The strong, silent type.’ She reached out under the desk at which they were sitting and put her hand in his lap. ‘I like that. Very manly.’
His eyes widened and he looked out past the lights at the studio audience, wondering if he could see his wife, knowing that she could see him. There she was, and though her lips were set in a thin line she cracked a smile when she saw him looking and gave him a wave.
In his lap Cassandra’s hand started to roam.
‘What you doing after?’ she said.
‘Do you know who I am?’ he asked.
‘You’re a footballer, ain’t ya? I like footballers.’
‘I don’t think you mean footballers like me,’ he said, knowing that Cassandra’s hand wouldn’t be quite so inquisitive if she knew that he earned less in a year at the supermarket than the kind of footballers she was talking about earned in a week. Still, the attention was good for his ego.
‘Back in fifteen seconds, people,’ someone shouted.
Cassandra removed her hand and used it to hoick her boobs into a more obvious cleavage.
‘If I get nervous,’ she whispered, ‘will you hold my hand?’
‘And five … four … three …’
Gabe wondered when this greatest week of his life would ever end.
Afterwards there were drinks in the bar. The moment that Christine appeared Cassandra went off to try her luck with the rugby player instead. Gabe watched her go. What might this week have been like if he had been single?
‘You look really sexy on television,’ said Christine.
‘Thanks, babe,’ he said, dropping a kiss onto her forehead. They had their struggles yet they were still married after eleven years. She might complain, but she was still there. It was only right that she should be enjoying this flush of fame with him. Gabe had been splashed over the centre pages of the Sun on Monday in his exclusive interview. She’d run out before it was even light to get a copy, to get a dozen copies, and together they’d had breakfast in bed and laughed at t
he pictures.
The photographer had posed him with his shirt off, his boots swung casually over his shoulder.
Christine said he looked like a conquering hero.
Gabe thought he looked like a prat.
His wife could be delightful when she wanted to be.
There was also the not insignificant fact that what he was paid for that single interview would pay a big chunk off their mortgage.
The boy done good.
He had sensed for a long time that he was a growing disappointment to her, that their marriage, though never less than he’d promised, was less than she’d hoped. To see her now, gazing at him with proprietary pride, made him feel like a champion.
‘Gabe! Brilliant! Great show, one of the best. And who’s this?’
‘Seamus, this is my wife, Christine. Christine, Seamus McDonnell.’
‘Nice to –’ started Christine, but Seamus talked over her.
‘You should let me fix you up with my agent, Gabe. You’ve got a real down-to-earth quality, works great on camera.’
‘I have an agent,’ said Gabe.
‘Not this kind of agent you don’t. He could do something with you, get you in the jungle or the Big Brother house, you know?’
‘I’m a footballer,’ said Gabe, ‘not a celebrity.’
‘Right, sure, whatever. So fuck, Saturday, what was that like, man?’ said Seamus. ‘I mean, that’s real boy’s-own adventure stuff, right? Did you think you were going to lose it? I mean, come in your pants right there on the pitch?’
And so for the umpteenth time Gabe told the story of the football match that had changed his life. By now he’d done it so many times that he knew exactly when to pause for maximum drama, which lines would get a laugh, which descriptions would make jaws drop. And he didn’t think he could ever get tired of telling it.
Nobody had to know it was pure luck.
Later, when Seamus was off chasing Cassandra, Gabe noticed that Christine was checking her watch. ‘Going somewhere?’ he said.
‘No,’ she said, smiling.
‘Good, because how often do you and me get to be in a place with a free bar?’
‘More often than we used to,’ she said as Gabe ordered two more bottles of Becks for them both. ‘No, it’s just that Sam called earlier, said she’d try to pop down.’
The lovely Samantha, fragrant and friendly, would be a very welcome addition to his evening.
‘Look,’ said Christine a few minutes later, ‘there she is now,’ and true enough Samantha was at the other side of the room, making her way towards them. She saw them looking and waved, stopping off to talk to the rugby player for a few seconds before finally joining them at the bar.
She was wearing jeans and a tight black vest top that showed off her perfectly toned figure, yet she still managed to look like a businesswoman. Maybe it was the heels.
‘Hi, you two,’ she said. ‘Having fun? I hear it was a great show.’
‘So they keep telling me,’ said Gabe.
The women kissed each other’s cheeks hello, which surprised Gabe. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Christine kiss anyone’s cheek but her mother’s. They didn’t go in for that sort of thing.
‘So what brings you here?’ he asked.
‘I had a very interesting phone call today,’ said Samantha.
‘More publicity?’
‘Not exactly,’ she said. ‘You remember what I told you on Saturday, about how there wasn’t going to be much I could do for your career from a playing point of view?’
‘Because he’s too old,’ said Christine. ‘Sorry, babe, it’s true.’
It was. He knew thirty-five was no time to be starting a footballing career. If only last Saturday had been fifteen years ago. Perhaps he could have had the world.
‘How would you feel about playing football professionally?’
‘What?’
‘In Europe,’ added Samantha.
‘Europe!’ Christine’s eyes fired with imagination as she pictured herself in various plazas and piazzas on the continent sipping espresso or shopping. They could live in town and get a summer place by the beach. They could start trying for a family again and bring up little suntanned, bilingual children who thrived on olive oil and oranges. She could get a convertible. She could get a maid.
‘Which club?’ asked Gabe. ‘Where in Europe?’
‘Krakow,’ said Samantha.
Both Gabe and Christine looked blank.
‘It’s in Poland.’
‘Poland?’ Christine’s dreams of sangria evaporated. Poland was cabbage and potatoes and snow, wasn’t it? And vodka.
‘I didn’t even know they played football in Poland,’ said Gabe, scratching his chin, which was thick with late-night stubble.
‘They do,’ said Samantha. ‘And, by the sound of it, they’d rather like you to play football there too.’
8
Her assistant took the call. Outside of the United Kingdom Samantha dealt largely with the monster Italian clubs, the French and the Spanish giants. Central Europe was hardly on her radar. Beyond the vaguest trace of name recognition, Samantha knew nothing about Aleksandr Lubin.
But all that was about to change.
If she had known this was to be her last day in the office she would have taken the time to drink in the view she had worked so hard for, but instead she hardly noticed it as she squeezed this bizarre enquiry about her newest client into her busy day.
The message from Lubin was one of many that her assistant Leanne greeted her with after lunch. ‘It’s been non-stop,’ she said.
‘Tell me,’ said Samantha.
‘Are the Welstead boys getting external press agents or are we it?’ asked Leanne.
‘Who wants to know?’
‘We’ve had calls from the red tops, the Independent, the Guardian, Arena, Wallpaper, GQ, Vanity Fair, all the lads’ mags, BBC, Channel 4 and Sky News, plus a bunch of internet sites.’
‘We’re it,’ said Samantha, shrugging off her coat with one hand and taking the bunch of messages from Leanne with the other. ‘Get the requests in writing and talk the boys through a strategy.’
‘Already on it,’ said Leanne. ‘What a morning. Plus, I’ve got a blinding hangover. It was the launch of that new club in Mayfair last night. You know, the one where Daisy-Daisy used to be? The one with the roof garden?’
Samantha didn’t know. She hadn’t been to the club when it was Daisy-Daisy and she was very unlikely to go now that it was called something else.
Same shit, different drinks.
‘I got carried away on the Black Label tequila and didn’t get home until 4 a.m.,’ continued Leanne, grinning. ‘There was so much blow flying around it was like a blizzard hit the bathrooms. Every man I spoke to was grinding his teeth in my face while boring me senseless. Is coke ever going to go out of fashion? Nobody just gets good and drunk in this town. Nobody except me.’ She tipped her head to one side, a sign that she was giving something serious thought. ‘Do you think it’s a West Country thing?’
It would never occur to Leanne that these were not the sort of stories one should be sharing with one’s boss. Not that it mattered. As long as her assistant was punctual and efficient then what she did with her free time was up to her. It just so happened that what she chose to do was exploit her position at Legends and get on the guest list for as many events as she could squeeze into her riotous social life. The bouncing blonde from Devon was popular with players and hangers-on alike and knew every doorman west of the City by name.
Leanne wanted to marry a footballer. She probably would too, as soon as she could settle for just one. She was having so much fun as a social butterfly it was inconceivable that she should metamorphose just yet.
It was enough to make Samantha wish she was twenty-two again, except that when she was twenty-two she was clawing her way into the company by working every single waking hour.
What happened with Liam had turned her off partying
for good.
She was leafing through the messages and stopped when she got to the Russian’s. ‘What’s this?’ she said.
‘Oh that,’ said Leanne. ‘Yeah, that’s a whole other thing.’
And she filled her in.
There was something ridiculous about the approach. Who ever heard of a thirty-five-year-old part-timer being offered a professional contract? And that the enquiry should come from a foreign club? It was absurd. But the owner, this young guy Aleksandr Lubin, he sounded serious.
‘He can’t approach me directly,’ said Samantha. ‘He’s a professional; he should know that. He has to channel enquiries through the club.’
‘He knows,’ said Leanne. ‘This is a general meeting.’ She made air quotes with her fingers. ‘Not specifically about Gabe.’
‘Except that it’s all about Gabe?’
‘Yeah.’
She sighed.
It wasn’t unusual to bend the rules, but she never enjoyed it. Still, so long as she didn’t take any money, sign anything or even shake hands with this Russian billionaire’s son, she should be clear of any wrong-doing.
There was so much scandal surrounding football agents and illegal transfers these days you could never be too careful, even with what would surely be a relatively cheap deal like Gabe’s.
‘He said he’s sending his jet this afternoon,’ said her assistant, clearly impressed.
‘His jet?’
‘What should I tell him?’
‘Tell him I’ll meet him tonight,’ she said. ‘Then find out everything you can about him. He’s obviously loaded – find out how come.’
‘You want me to do you a highlights package?’ asked Leanne, referring to the kind of file she often put together for new players or managers.
Samantha nodded. If she was about to enter negotiations with an unknown entity she’d better become an expert, and fast.
She instant-messaged Jackson to tell him of the last-minute trip.
He called her immediately. ‘When will we have a chance to talk?’
‘Come with me,’ she said impulsively. ‘There’ll be room on the jet. Why don’t you come? My meeting won’t take long. We can get a hotel.’
