by Alison Bond
‘That rather depends on the manager’s tactics,’ said the doctor pedantically, ‘but if you mean will you be fit to play, then, yes, within a few days I see no reason why you shouldn’t be fully recovered.’
After the doctor left Joe grabbed Layla and danced her around his bedroom.
‘Be careful,’ she warned, still wary of his knee no matter what the doctor had said.
‘It’s okay,’ said Joe. ‘You healed me.’ He hesitated for only a second before he kissed her. Forty-eight hours since their first kiss and he still couldn’t get used to being allowed to do it whenever he liked.
When they stepped off the easyJet flight at Luton airport the resident airport paparazzi sprang into action. It was the first photograph of the two of them together. Their fellow passengers craned their necks to see who was attracting all the attention, and even though most of them weren’t sure who he was, a few took photographs with their mobile phones anyway.
‘How did they know what flight we were on?’ said Joe, but he didn’t really mind. It was good to feel a bit like a star.
Those that did recognize him shouted out his name. ‘Hey, it’s that Joe Wonder!’ ‘All right, Joe?’ ‘Nice one, mate!’
Joe’s remarkable recovery had made the nation optimistic about the football match the following week and the frenzied build-up was already starting. England expected a result.
A young girl approached them with a notepad and pen. His first autograph request, how exciting. He was frantically considering whether to sign Joe Wonder or Josef Wandrowszcki or what, when the little girl pushed the notebook at Layla and asked for her autograph instead.
She signed while Joe stood to the side, agape.
‘What can I say?’ laughed Layla. ‘It’s all about the WAGs these days.’
A voice penetrated a wonderful dream that Layla was his girlfriend and that he had been picked for the England team. Wait a minute, I’m not dreaming … Life was sweet.
‘Joe dear? Wake up.’
His nan was standing over him. Something was wrong. For one thing it was the first time she had ever woken him up without a cup of tea in her hand. For another it was too early, still half dark outside and freezing cold.
‘I’m sure it’s nothing,’ she said. ‘There’s a few people outside who want to talk to you, that’s all.’
‘What?’
‘Outside,’ she repeated. ‘But I’m sure it’s probably nothing.’
He staggered from his bed and rubbed the crusty bits from his eyelids. Who would be outside at this hour? He walked to the window.
‘Be careful,’ she warned as he pulled back the curtain and stared in amazement at the street below.
There were reporters and photographers for as far as he could see.
Their cars were blocking the narrow street; they had stepladders and folding chairs; there was a catering van, a small one that sold coffee, doing a brisk trade. They were surrounding his house, and Layla’s house next door too.
He dropped the curtain as if it was hot.
The doorbell chimed.
‘Don’t answer it,’ said Joe, trying to sound in control. ‘What time is it?’
‘Just before seven.’
‘Call Samantha,’ he said. ‘She’ll know what to do.’
Satisfied with that plan his nan left the room and Joe dressed, calling Layla’s mobile as he did so, but it was switched off. He wanted her to check the internet, see if something had happened, because there was no connection here at his nan’s. Maybe, and he hated to even think such a thing, but maybe he had been dropped from the squad? Did that ever happen? What if some player who was unavailable was now available again? What if the doctor had made a mistake and his knee was actually fucked? He experienced a psychosomatic twinge in his perfectly healthy knee.
His mobile phone rang and he leapt on it in an instant. ‘Layla?’
‘Nah, mate, it’s your dad. In a spot of bother with the missus are you?’
‘Something’s going on, Dad, there’s, like, a hundred reporters outside. Nan’s a bit scared.’ He wasn’t about to admit that at this point he was a bit scared too.
‘Haven’t you seen the papers today?’
‘No.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Simon, chuckling. ‘Whatever happens remember this. I’m proud of you, son. You got that?’
‘Is it bad? What’s happened?’
‘I’ll be there in ten or fifteen minutes. I’ve got the paper. Try and keep your dick in your pants until then.’
What was that supposed to mean?
JOE WONDER SCORES FOR ENGLAND!
Hooker Tells All of Night with England Teen – world exclusive
England new boy Josef Wandrowszcki could be about to receive the red card from sexy girlfriend Layla Petherick after news of his Eastern European exploits were leaked by the prostitute at the centre of the latest sex scandal to rock the sport. Lithuanian grandmother and mother of four Agatha Lobieski, 46, revealed to reporters that 17-year-old super striker Joe paid the equivalent of one thousand pounds for a night of passion in a Polish brothel. ‘Joe is a sweet boy,’ said Agatha from an undisclosed location last night. ‘And he will always be welcome here.’
‘You should call Richard,’ suggested Simon when he arrived.
‘Why?’
‘I’m just not sure that Sam Sharp’s the best person for you. Where is she now, eh? In your hour of need? She should be out there reading a statement or something. She’s probably dodging your call because she knows she fucked up.’
‘No, Dad, she didn’t fuck up – I did.’
But he had a point. Where was she?
‘Call Richard, he’ll make the most of this.’
‘Make the most of it?’ said Joe. ‘I don’t want to make the most of it; I want the opposite.’
‘I don’t just mean the money.’
‘What money? What are you talking about?’
‘The money you’ll get for telling your side of things. Richard’s great at that.’
‘How do you know all this?’
Was his dad taking money for tip-offs? Was that normal?
‘Was she worth the money, son? This Agatha bird? She looks filthy in her photograph. Filthy in a good way, I mean. Bet she was a freak in the sack, am I right?’
‘Shut up, Dad, just shut up a minute, okay?’
Simon shrank back, scolded.
He kept trying Layla’s mobile phone, but there was still no answer.
He had to speak to her, he had to explain. He couldn’t begin to contemplate that the relationship he had waited ten years to begin might be over in a matter of days. He ran into the back garden in his bare feet, ignoring the cold earth, and he pounded on the wall between their houses. ‘Layla? Are you there?’
Nothing.
‘Layla, do you hear me?’
Still nothing.
‘Layla, please.’
He knew she could hear him. He knew she was sitting in the kitchen pretending not to be there, but listening to him. He wasn’t sure quite how he knew, but he knew all the same. He could picture her sitting there in one of her Juicy Couture rip-offs, clutching a cup of coffee with two sugars that she would let go stone cold before she drank it, an unfinished bowl of cereal somewhere near by. He knew that her hair would be in a ponytail because it was Wednesday and her hair always needed washing by Wednesday so that’s how she wore it. The television would be on, but with the sound turned down, and she would have a pair of men’s hiking socks on her feet instead of slippers. And the only thing that would be different was that instead of wearing that gorgeous sunny smile that he had been in love with for all this time she would be sad. She would have seen the photographers, she would have checked the internet and she would feel stupid and embarrassed.
You don’t spend ten years crazy about someone without learning a little something about their habits.
‘I think you can hear me,’ he said, leaning up against her back door and talking as if she was on the othe
r side.
‘It’s not true you know. Of course it isn’t true. You know me, Lay, can you really see me paying for sex? Especially when’ – deep breath – ‘when I haven’t even had sex. Ever.’
If he was going to be honest he might as well be honest about everything.
‘It was Gabe’s idea. You know – Gabe Muswell? And we thought we were going to a lap-dancing club, but the taxi driver took us to this place and, well, Gabe liked this one girl and he went off with her and the blokes were looking at me and making me feel pressured and this woman, this Agatha, not that I knew her name even, said we could just go and talk, to make it look like … you know, to make it look like what it looks like now. Cos I know what it looks like now, Layla, I know. I was stupid, but I didn’t want Gabe to think …’
He stopped.
But there was only silence.
‘Nothing happened. You have to trust me. If Gabe wants to sleep with hookers that’s none of my business, I don’t care. And if the papers want to say I did too then that’s a bit harder to take, but so what? There’s only one person I care about, and that’s you. You’re the only one I want to believe me. Because if you don’t I don’t know what I’ll do. And I know it must be really embarrassing and you feel stupid and everything, and if I could change things I would, but I can’t. So you’ll just have to trust me. Please trust me. Because I love you, Layla. That’s the truth. I love you something fierce.’
He pressed his lips firmly together because he felt like he was going to choke on tears. He was certain, absolutely certain, that she was there and listening to every word, but he had nothing left to say.
Then she opened the door he was leaning against and he fell inside.
She’d been crying, he could tell. But she was laughing now, at him scrabbling on the floor. And he thought that maybe everything was going to be okay.
‘You all right?’ she said as he clambered to his feet.
‘Are you?’
She nodded. ‘That Gabe Muswell is an idiot.’
‘Yeah, I know. Do you believe me?’
‘I do,’ she said. She shuffled her thick hiking socks against the cold kitchen floor. ‘And I love you too.’
The reporter crouching in the alleyway between the two houses clicked off his tape recorder and ran back to his car. The next day’s headlines would be all about Gabe.
‘What does Samantha say you should do?’ asked Layla, after they had done a bit of kissing and making up.
‘She hasn’t called me back,’ said Joe. ‘Don’t you think that’s a bit weird?’
They waited all day for Samantha to call.
But she did not.
35
There were four telephone lines in the small Krakow office and they were all crying out for attention.
‘So would you say that the recent revelations about Gabe Muswell have effectively terminated his White Stars contract?’
‘Listen, prick,’ said Leanne. ‘What part of “no comment” don’t you understand?’
She slammed down the phone and turned her back on the flashing lines. She needed five minutes. This was the worst day ever.
She intended to kill Samantha when she got hold of her. Well, not literally kill her, but she would at least scare her silly by pretending she was going to quit. What did she think she was doing? Running off to London with her toy boy was bad enough, but not answering her phones?
There was Joe. Poor little Joe Wonder dropped into the shit by a hooker. Didn’t he know that every hooker had a price? He was telling anyone who would listen that he hadn’t done anything, and personally Leanne was inclined to believe him, but she’d instructed him not to talk to the press until they’d had a chance to issue a statement on his behalf.
She’d expected Sam back yesterday. So now what?
Then there was Gabe. Silly old Gabe, sold out by the hooker’s underage hooker mate. A few months ago Gabe was a national hero – now he was a national joke. It was a mess.
A mess Samantha wasn’t here to clear up.
But these unfortunate scandals paled against the half a dozen or so signed contracts sitting on her boss’s desk, each in its own pristine foolscap folder, the crisp paper stinking like cold hard cash. Those contracts Sam had slaved over needed to be sealed and delivered within the next thirty-six hours or the window would close.
Wherever she was Samantha was cutting it awfully fine.
To top it all off Leanne had a blinding hangover and was going to have to cancel dinner with an extremely sexy Wisła defender if things in the office didn’t slow. And it didn’t look as if they were about to.
She could handle the press. She’d been doing that for Sam’s clients for years and, sordid though these latest revelations were, it wouldn’t be the first time that a footballer had found himself on the end of some nasty truths or untruths. No comment got you a day, then a brisk statement if the story had legs enough for two, then a dignified silence would see you through the rest of the week.
But club managers were starting to call. They wanted to speak to Samantha, they wanted to know that she had instructed her players to sign their contracts, that they hadn’t been outbid at the eleventh hour, that the window, when it closed, would close the way they wanted it to.
And she had no idea what to tell them.
She turned back to the flashing phone lines. Break over.
‘Samantha Sharp?’ she said. The business had no other name but that.
‘Sam, is that you?’
‘Hi, Joe, no, sorry, it’s Leanne, she’s out of the office. You’re her first call when she gets in, okay?’
‘I suppose,’ he said. She heard muffled whispers and then Joe’s father came on the line.
‘Hello, sweetheart,’ he said, making sure he got off to a bad start. ‘Where the hell has she got to then, your boss? My Joe is in a right state and these fellas have been outside my mum’s for two days and they aren’t looking like they might leave any time soon. Now, look, I spoke to Richard Tavistock, you know him?’
‘Richard Tavis-cock?’ she said, using her old nickname for him just because she knew Joe’s father wasn’t really listening to her anyway. ‘Sure, I know Richard.’
‘Richard’s a friend of mine,’ said Simon.
I wonder why? He’s not your friend, dickhead, he just wants to get in bed with your son. Metaphorically, of course, though she wouldn’t put it past Richard to put out if that’s what it took.
‘Richard says we need to release a statement right now, nip this in the bud and let the vultures move on to this Muswell bloke.’
More muffled whispers.
‘Joe tells me Muswell is a client of yours too? Is this a conflict-of-interest thing? I’m telling you, we’re this close to taking our business across the street if you know what I mean. We’ve been very loyal to Sam, but …’
Loyal? They’d known her a matter of months. Even Leanne with her propensity for hard and fast had had relationships that lasted longer than that. Josef Wandrowszcki owed his place in the England squad to Sam Sharp. She had created Joe Wonder and Leanne was not about to let him go over a malicious bit of tabloid gossip.
Especially not to a cock like Richard.
‘Sam’s emailing me a draft statement in the next few minutes,’ said Leanne. ‘I want Joe to okay it and then I’ll carpet bomb the media by the end of the day.’
‘That’s a start, I suppose,’ said Simon reluctantly. ‘But we’re going to want to talk to her.’
‘She’s holding on the other line right now, as it happens,’ said Leanne. ‘Give me three secs and I’ll patch you through.’
She crossed her fingers and hoped that she’d be able to pull off this little subterfuge.
One, two, three.
‘Simon? Hi, it’s Sam.’ Leanne had been imitating her boss for years, and on asking herself ‘what would Samantha do?’ it was Samantha’s very words that came to mind. Do me, Sam had said, maybe I should put you on the phone more often.
She smoothed out her West Country accent. ‘I’m emailing a statement right now,’ she said, with exactly the right tone of cool confidence. ‘My assistant will text it to Joe and we’ll go from there. Don’t overreact, okay? It makes Joe look bad.’
‘I don’t want to do that,’ said Simon.
‘Of course you don’t,’ said Leanne, replicating Sam’s brisk, bland efficiency, that Midlands accent long ago drubbed out until all that was left of her humble past was the chip on her shoulder.
‘Where are you anyway?’ he said.
‘Bloody fog grounded my plane,’ she said. ‘But I’m working something out. I’ll be back soon.’
Simon went away satisfied.
She banged out a two-line denial to release to the press on Joe’s behalf, cleared it with Joe and sent it out.
When she eventually deigned to return, Samantha would congratulate her on showing initiative, right? She’d better.
Meanwhile, once she’d ‘done’ Sam once it was easy to do it again.
One contract at a time.
Leanne oversaw the busiest time of the year single-handedly. With what little spare time she had she thought about how big a pay rise she should ask for.
Much to her surprise she found she rather liked being rushed off her feet. It made the day go quicker for one thing and it gave her a sense of achievement, the likes of which she normally only got after a good first kiss with a top-flight player.
The following day a man called the office asking to speak to Samantha.
‘And who might I say is calling?’ said Leanne in a sing-song voice.
‘I’m Liam.’
‘Can I take your second name, Liam?’
‘Liam Sharp. Her brother.’
‘She’s …’ Her brother? I thought Sam didn’t have any family? ‘She’s not available right now,’ she said.
‘Do you have a number where I can reach her?’ he said. ‘I’ve tried her mobile, but it’s switched off. It’s very important.’
Odd. Why would Sam lie about her family? Wasn’t it more likely that this Liam bloke was lying to her now? It wouldn’t be the first time that somebody had tried to sneak past Leanne, Sam’s only line of defence, and get close to the real power. And yet … with every hour that went by Leanne grew more worried than she was pissed off.
