by Alison Bond
*
She sent off her press release to everyone that had called her and tried not to think of the one person that hadn’t. She thought maybe Liam would have heard the news and contacted her, if only to get the inside track on a headline sports story, as a fan if nothing else. Wishing that he might call to congratulate her was maybe too much to hope for. She hadn’t heard from him since the day he’d left. He had gone to his friend’s and, apart from a quick call to say that he was safe and not to worry, they hadn’t spoken.
Would she ever have it all good together? Work and family? Or was that asking too much?
The phone rang yet again. ‘Sam? It’s Joe.’
‘Man of the hour,’ she said. ‘Congratulations, everything okay?’
‘What do you think?’ he said, and she could almost hear the face-splitting grin across the telephone line.
Joe was about to be a superstar.
28
She drove down to West Sussex that night, checking into a roadside hotel and heading round to Joe’s with her arms full of newspapers at seven o’clock the following morning.
He looked as if he hadn’t slept at all, but he seemed well on it, rumpled and boyish, and when she looked at him she saw advertising and endorsements, torso of the week in Heat magazine, and perhaps if he played well even a calendar for next year. Lots of easy profit in a calendar.
‘Does anyone know where you are?’ she said.
‘Only friends and family.’
‘Good. No press calls?’
‘No,’ he said, his eyes dancing with excitement. ‘I’ve stayed inside like you said. Please can I have a look at the papers?’
She passed them over and there he was. A lot of them had used the same library picture, a shot of him in midfield, his left foot poised on the edge of a volley, taken sometime during the UEFA Cup match. You could just make out his face, but it didn’t look that much like him.
Her mobile rang. ‘Yes? … That’s right … No interviews at this time … It would have to be at his convenience … I see … I can put that to him.’
Joe listened to the one-sided conversation while he read about himself in the newspapers. ‘Was that about me?’ he asked when Samantha had finished.
‘Every call is about you,’ she said.
‘Cool.’
Over breakfast of perfectly fried eggs on toast prepared by his nan (and what a dream picture of quaint domesticity she was), Samantha outlined the need for a press strategy. ‘We need to feed them,’ she said, ‘otherwise they’ll get hungry and become restless. After we’ve taken care of that we can start thinking seriously about next season. You’ll have options, I guarantee it.’
‘I’m signed to White Stars for two more years,’ he said.
She waved away his concerns. ‘Let me worry about that.’ The transfer window would be too soon. She would sell him in the summer. She would make White Stars millions. She would make Joe rich.
‘Sam? I wanted to say …’ He paused and rubbed his nose.
‘What’s wrong?’ Blood rushed to her head and stopped her heart. Was he about to leave her too? It wasn’t possible. Nothing could be allowed to spoil this; there was too much at stake. She was on the brink of success again, despite everything.
‘Nothing,’ he said, ‘I just wanted to say … well, thanks, that’s all. None of this would be happening if it wasn’t for you.’
Instant relief flooded her, comforting her like a chiffon breeze on a sweltering day.
She turned his attention back to the coming weeks. ‘You’re going back to Poland day after tomorrow?’ He nodded. ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘and you’ve one more match before you’re released for international duty. Don’t get injured.’
‘I’ll try not to,’ he said.
‘Then you’ve Christmas, then the UEFA Cup third-round match with White Stars, then a weekend training with the squad, then …’
‘Showtime,’ he said. That grin again. That grin could make him a fortune one day.
‘You might not play,’ said Samantha. ‘You realize that, don’t you? You’ll undoubtedly start on the bench, and then whether or not you play will really depend on how the match is going.’
‘I know,’ he said.
He was a dream to work with. She hoped that success and stardom wouldn’t change him. She looked at his open face, awash with excitement and savoured the moment in case it did.
There was the crunch of car tyres on the gravel driveway, the sound of a car door slamming and then a loud voice shouting Joe’s name.
‘Where is he then? Where’s my boy?’
‘Dad!’ said Joe, and jumped up from the table, his face lit up like a ten-year-old on his birthday morning.
He ran helter-skelter outside and Samantha followed in time to see him getting a huge bear hug from a man who had Joe’s eyes, and his cheeky smile. She was warmed by the picture of family love although she could only guess what it felt like and how much it meant to Joe to be the subject of the all-singing, all-dancing moment in which his absent father was currently engaged.
She was about to slip back inside so as not to intrude on the raucous father–son bonding session when she saw that Joe’s dad, Simon, was not the only visitor. In the driver’s seat of the car, a rather flash Audi come to think of it, was a man she knew.
She recognized him, but she couldn’t think what he was doing here and so for a frozen second her brain refused to compute.
It was Richard Tavistock.
Behind him Simon and Joe were singing more football songs and punching the air.
‘Hello, Sam,’ said Richard, as if he had seen her only yesterday and on good terms, rather than watching with a sneer as she packed up her desk on the day she resigned from Legends.
‘Richard,’ she said, confused.
Joe stopped dancing, breathless. ‘Dad?’ he said. ‘Who’s your friend?’
‘I’m Richard,’ he said. ‘And we’re all friends here, isn’t that right, Samantha?’
It was impossible to get a moment alone with Richard, especially since he didn’t seem to want one. And she refused to tackle him about business in front of her client. He allowed himself to be charmed by Joe’s nan, accepting her birdlike offers of tea and cake. Simon introduced him as an expert and Joe was too dazzled by his dad’s all-consuming pride to pay much attention to anything other than recounting the story of how he’d felt when he heard the news, and listening to his dad wax lyrical about what a little star he was going to be.
‘You’ll be a millionaire before me at this rate, kiddo,’ he said.
‘Maybe,’ said Joe.
Undoubtedly, thought Samantha.
‘How’s Layla?’ said Simon. ‘Gorgeous girl that one. Perfect for you.’
‘She’s all right,’ said Joe. ‘She’s at college today. She’ll be back later.’
‘That’s Arundel Technical College, isn’t it? She’s still doing that textiles course?’
‘She wants to work in fashion.’
Simon and Richard exchanged a look that went unnoticed by Joe, but that Sam saw immediately. ‘That’s great,’ said Simon. ‘Good stuff. You two still … you know?’ He made a movement with his fist. Samantha winced at the lewd gesture.
‘Yeah, well, not exactly,’ said Joe.
‘Just wait. She’ll be all over you now, mate,’ said Simon. He stuffed a slice of cake into his mouth, sprinkling crumbs all over the white tablecloth and talking with his mouth full. ‘Just you wait. She’ll let you do anything you like.’ He laughed, stamping his foot on the floor like a show pony.
‘Whatever,’ said Joe. ‘Maybe.’
Samantha hadn’t seen Joe act like this before, trying to be cool. She wasn’t sure if she liked this version of him. He was trying to contain his usually easy smile as if smiling made him weak somehow. Instead he kept pulling this mean and moody look, which didn’t suit him at all. Not at all.
She hated Richard being here. What the hell was going on with that? If only he would resp
ond to one of her many sideways glances and allow her the courtesy of a two-minute conversation in the hallway, but when he did catch her eye he smiled blandly and sipped his milky tea. This day that had started so perfectly was gradually getting away from her. She didn’t like to have this conversation in front of Joe, but she couldn’t wait any longer.
‘So, Richard,’ she started, ‘what brings you out here?’
‘I was invited,’ he said, nodding at Simon.
‘You two know each other?’
‘Like I said, we’re all friends here.’
Joe’s mobile rang – the jaunty Match of the Day theme tune was his ringtone, which made Simon laugh.
‘You’re a nutter, you know that?’ he said, punching his son on the shoulder.
Joe checked the caller ID. ‘It’s Layla,’ he said.
‘You see?’ said Simon. ‘What did I tell you?’
Joe picked up the phone and his smile was replaced by a frown for the first time that morning. ‘Slow down,’ he said. ‘Where are you?’ Then, ‘Stay there.’
‘What’s wrong?’ said Samantha.
‘She’s at college,’ he said. ‘And about thirty reporters are waiting for her outside.’ He looked at Samantha with bewildered blue eyes. ‘Because of me.’
It was decided that Simon should take Richard’s Audi and go to collect Samantha from a little-used entrance at the back of Arundel Technical College and hope to give the reporters the slip. Richard had offered, but Samantha had swiftly objected, saying that it was probably better if it was somebody that Layla knew. She had offered to go herself, but Richard had pointed out (rather too quickly she thought) that thanks to her scandal she was a known tabloid entity and if she was spotted it might add fuel to the fire. Joe wanted to go, of course, but everyone was against that idea.
‘There might be a riot,’ said Simon.
‘That’s stupid,’ said Joe.
‘But true,’ said Samantha.
‘I’ll go get her.’
‘All right,’ said Joe, ‘but, Dad, she sounded pretty freaked out. You’ll be able to find her and everything, right?’
‘Leave it to me,’ he said. ‘But I don’t know what she’s complaining about really. I thought all women loved attention?’
Richard was the only one to laugh.
After his dad left and his nan had taken herself off to the shops for more milk Joe said, almost to himself, ‘I just can’t figure out how they found her, or why really. It doesn’t make sense.’
‘She’ll be okay, Joe,’ said Samantha.
‘But how come there’s reporters following Layla at college but nobody here to see me?’
‘Jealous?’ asked Richard, joking, not knowing Joe well enough to sense that this was not the time to joke.
‘Of course not.’
‘The wives and girlfriends make the front half of the paper,’ said Richard. ‘Players only make the back. Don’t ask me why.’
‘But she’s not my wife, or my girlfriend.’
‘That’s not what your dad says,’ said Richard.
Samantha looked up sharply. It was obvious to her then that the press knew where to find Layla because Simon or Richard or both of them had told the press exactly where she’d be. Joe missed it. He was explaining why he might have exaggerated his relationship with Layla to his father.
‘Dad wants me to be just like him,’ he said. ‘He wouldn’t be very impressed with the truth.’
‘And what do you think he is exactly?’ asked Samantha softly.
‘He’s dead popular,’ said Joe. ‘With blokes as well as girls. Everyone gets on with him. He’s a quick thinker, he’s a good comedian, he’s … Dad. Why?’
Because that wasn’t the way she saw his dad at all. She saw a man who had seen his child grow up in fits and starts, who stashed him down here with his grandmother instead of getting his life sorted so that he might be able to accommodate his own son on his own turf before he was grown and gone for ever. When Joe was in town Simon was a forty-year-old man who still lived with his mother. She saw a man like too many footballing fathers she had seen before him, more interested in their son the soccer star than their son the boy. What’s more, she saw a man who had sold out his son’s friend to reporters and who, for reasons that scared her, had hooked up with Richard Tavistock, who treated players as cash cows and moved them around from club to club to turn a profit without enough thought to their long-term careers. There were good footballing fathers, great ones, like the Welstead boys’ father, and then there were fathers like Simon.
‘Sam’s already thinking about your biography,’ said Richard. ‘Six figures from Hodder, right, Sam?’
‘Something like that.’ She couldn’t be bothered to argue, not in front of Joe, but she hadn’t made a single call about a book deal. Unlike Richard, Samantha preferred her clients to be footballers first, everything else could come later. Much later. She was interested in knowing Joe’s story because she was interested in knowing Joe, as fully as she could. Richard wouldn’t understand. ‘How’re Monty and Ferris?’ she asked impulsively.
Richard grimaced. ‘Opinionated,’ he said. ‘There’s a soft drink, a big one, and they won’t take the endorsement because they think the product is bad for kids.’
‘Imagine that,’ she said.
He didn’t notice the sarcasm. ‘Seventeen and nineteen and they think they know best,’ he said.
She’d had enough. ‘Joe? You mind giving Richard and me a moment to talk?’
‘Will you be talking about me?’
She nodded.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in my room.’
As soon as she heard the tread of his feet on the stairs she turned to Richard. He sat with an expression on his face that said he didn’t give a shit, in his tacky designer polo shirt and too-blue jeans, his weekend get-up, probably a variation on the exact same weekend outfit he’d been wearing since his mother first dressed him in it. She hadn’t liked him when they’d worked together at Legends and she liked him even less now that he was intruding on her turf.
‘What are you doing here?’ she said. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, Joe has an agent.’
‘I’m friends with his dad.’
‘Bullshit. Since when?’
‘Since his son scored two goals in the UEFA Cup. He called me, Sam. He wanted my advice. What would you have done?’
‘So you’re just going to poach him from under my nose? It won’t happen. I won’t let it.’
‘You might not have a choice.’
‘You’re wasting your time,’ she said.
Richard leant back in his chair, his arms up behind his head, a power play she had seen him throw before and one she loathed. She was almost certain that he’d been taught passive-aggressive body language at some weekend management seminar. ‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ he said. ‘For one thing Simon has serious concerns about your track record. Your – shall we say? – past indiscretions.’
‘And for another?’
‘The kid deserves an agent that can deal in this country. He deserves the Premiership; it’s what he wants, it’s certainly what his father wants.’
‘So?’
‘You can’t make deals in this country, Sam, not for three more domestic seasons.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘Your contract with Legends had some pretty stringent termination clauses. Didn’t you check them the day you resigned?’
‘The no-compete clause doesn’t apply; I was forced to resign,’ she said. ‘That’s tantamount to being fired.’
‘Yeah? Potato, po-tar-toe, my friend,’ said Richard. ‘By the time you get through arguing that one in a court of law the kid’s best days will be past him. Is that fair? Really? Think of the kid. And of course there’s the unresolved matter of the mystery off-shore funds you acquired.’
‘I didn’t acquire them,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘They were just there.’
‘Nobody believes th
at, Sam. What did you think? That you’d set up in the hinterlands of international football and come back – all within the same year? – and everyone would forget that you’re corrupt? Simon understands that his son needs a clean agent. He deserves it, a good man like me, not a woman with a scandal hanging round her like a cheap necklace. Now, I’m sorry, but pretty soon the kid will understand that too.’
‘The kid has a name,’ she said. ‘Josef Wandrowszcki. And I’ll bet you can’t even spell it.’
‘Your career’s over,’ said Richard with a smug smile that made her want to reach for a kitchen knife and do something awful. ‘Why can’t you be a good girl and accept that?’
Because she had never been a good girl, and she was hardly likely to start just because somebody like Richard was telling her to be. She wasn’t over, she was only just beginning, and as soon as possible she would be paying a visit to Richard’s boss, to Jackson Ramsay, to make sure that nothing would stand in her way.
Layla and Simon came home trailed by a pack of reporters. Simon parked the Audi badly across the end of the driveway and hurried up to the house and through the front door in a frenzy of exploding flashbulbs, his arm wrapped round Layla. He was shouting, ‘No comment, no comment,’ but laughing.
‘I couldn’t lose them,’ he said, and she wondered exactly how hard he had tried.
Layla was half scared, but half excited too, and she cuddled up to Joe for reassurance.
‘They think I’m your girlfriend!’ she said.
If wishing made it so …
‘You’re all right though?’
She nodded. ‘This must be how Posh feels all the time,’ she said, her face shining. ‘Imagine. Joe, you’re famous.’ She raised her eyebrows and giggled adorably.
‘I think you should go out there, Joe,’ said Samantha.
‘What?’ he spluttered. ‘Why?’
‘They won’t leave until you do.’
‘But what do I say?’
‘Just be yourself. Tell them how happy and honoured you are, and that you’re looking forward to scoring on your debut.’
