The Captain and the Cricketer

by Catherine Curzon

  “Cap’n George!” Ed clapped his hand across the back of their local celebrity. It made a good hollow noise, like an old tree. “Marvelous shit. Love it.”

  “Ed.” George smiled, because George was George and there were cameras in the vicinity. For some reason he had that crippled, useless foal with him, its mane plaited as though it was as much a nancy as its owner. “Have you met the England boys yet? They’re down at the nets with the kids. Your little Sapphire was there with her nanny.”

  “Was she?” Who knows what that child gets up to? “Better go and press the flesh with the England lads, eh? You all ready for the off? Thrash old Fitzwanker’s arse, eh?”

  George laughed, showing teeth that were infuriatingly white even without the help of veneers. Not as white as Ed’s, of course, but they probably didn’t take as much upkeep either.

  “Don’t go far, Ed, I’ve got a special surprise for you,” George told him brightly. He always was a gullible bastard, Ed reflected, just as dumb now as he had been when he’d pranced around the school disco in eyeshadow and a dog’s collar. “I promised I’d make you a star, and I intend to keep my word.”

  “You better, Brookesy!” Ed wagged his finger at George. He started to laugh, realizing he had stumbled over a rich seam of humor. “Talking of thrashing Fitzwanker’s arse—that’s something you do quite often, so I’ve heard! Ha ha! Eh? His arse! It’s funny because you’re a pair of gaylords!”

  George grinned, clearly seeing the joke, which surprised Ed, who had long been of the opinion that his sort didn’t have much of a sense of humor. Alternative comedy, maybe, but not actually funny stuff, not honest-to-God straight-up laughs like Ed enjoyed after a round of golf with the boys from the exchange. George turned away and addressed a young woman with a clipboard and a headset, who seemed to be the go-to for anyone who needed anything.

  “Can we grab people and get them around the podium?” he asked. “Ed’s waiting for his big moment, aren’t you, Eddie-boy?”

  “Too bloody right I am!” Ed rubbed his hands together. The dry skin did rasp a bit, but it was better than having a moist handshake.

  There were more cameras here than at the dance. Ed made sure to grin at each one, then held his head up, teeth bared in his best version of a smile. With a ‘Thanks’ from George the clipboard girl hurried away, then Ed had his undivided attention once more.

  “By the way, Ed, one last go.” George laid his hand on Ed’s shoulder. “Are you going to let Fitz keep his house?”

  “You pulling my plonker, mate? No, I’m fucking not. Your bumchum can sod off.”

  “I suppose it’d take billions to fight you in the courts. Wish I knew a billionaire.” He shrugged and shook his head. “Ah well, Fitz’s problem. Grab Steph, Ed, and I’ll get set to kick things off at the mic.”

  Ed looked across to the crowd of locals. There she was, the Ice Queen, face like a slapped arse, perched on a plastic chair.

  “Darling!” Ed hurried toward his wife and yanked her up to her feet.

  “You’ve been eating pickled eggs again, haven’t you? Your breath smells—like you’ve been farting out of your mouth.”

  “Do shut up!” Ed locked his teeth into a grin, flashing it to camera and crowd alike. “This way, hot stuff! Television beckons!”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “Nimrod—bad dog! Drop the ball!”

  The red ball, shiny with Nimrod’s plentiful saliva, dropped from the dog’s jaws to the ground. Henry picked it up and laughed over his shoulder to the Parvan kids and the England squad.

  “Sorry—he’s very keen. This way to the—”

  As they rounded the corner of the pavilion, Henry could see George, immaculate in his cricket whites, holding a microphone. He was saying something to a woman with a clipboard.

  George was effortlessly handsome, debonair and lovely, and Henry had utterly blown it. Without thinking, Henry brushed his hand against his chest where George’s medals had imprinted on his skin when they had—

  “Don’t dribble on my shoe, Nimrod.”

  It seemed as though everyone in the village was here, and a good many hundreds besides. In fact, so many people had tried to enter the village to witness Standy-Bee’s cricketing extravaganza that the police had been drafted in to ensure that numbers didn’t get out of hand. The plan had been presented to the parish council as a fait accompli, all taken care of by the unflappable Tabitha Shakespeare. So far, Henry reflected, she had certainly ensured that this illustrious event ran as smoothly as even the most simple jam sale.

  George was still talking to the young woman, his hand resting on Jez’s mane as though the foal were a lapdog, and soon, Henry knew, both the hero and his horse would be gone. But Henry wouldn’t go back to how he had been before George’s return. No more hiding away from everyone. He would be honest about who he was. He had lost too much already, too much time and too much love.

  “All right, Mr. Fitzwalter?”

  “Barney! How are you?” Henry ruffled the boy’s hair in avuncular fashion.

  “Great. It’s nice Captain George has come back, isn’t he? He’s fab!”

  Henry nodded, smiling gently. “Yes, he certainly is.”

  There was no chance that the new Longley Parva Single Wicket trophy might be stolen, placed as it was in full view of the cameras and spectators atop a podium so grand it might have been found at the Olympic Games. This new cup was a long way from the modest vase that disappeared fifteen years ago, a great construction of gleaming silver on which was engraved three wickets, a bat leaning against them. It would look wonderful in the manor, but not as wonderful as that photo of George and Henry that he kept beside the bed.

  “Can everyone gather in!” The clipboard woman waved her arms as she called the instruction. “We’ve got a speech and a guest, we need everyone to pull in, look happy, enthused, glad to be here!”

  Looking around, Henry decided that little prompting was needed. Every face he could see was lit with excitement and happiness. He came forward, gripping Nimrod’s collar, his bat under his arm. Barney followed, stroking Nimrod’s wide head.

  A guest? It’s not David Gower, is it?

  George climbed up onto the podium and Jez clambered nimbly up beside him. The pair seemed effortlessly at ease in front of the cameras and phones were raised aloft, snapping picture after picture.

  From the corner of his eye, Henry spotted Ed and Steph, smug as ever in pole position at the front of the crowd. They were half-turned toward the hordes who had come, not to see Longley Parva’s richest, meanest couple, but television’s Captain George and the England cricket team. As the crowd cheered for George, Ed and Steph smiled and nodded as if the applause was for them. Typical.

  George waited for the applause to reach a natural lull, then rested his hand on Jez’s mane again and said, “Thank you to all of you for coming to Longley Parva today for the return of the hotly contested Longley Parva Single Wicket!”

  A deafening cheer went up from the Parvans, mobile phones and hands waving in the air as the camera panned and swooped, catching the lively villagers. Someone in the crowd shouted, “Take your top off!”, which George greeted with a raised eyebrow, the gesture enough to win him another cheer. Steph glanced round, and despite her smile, Henry saw no joy in her eyes, only cold uninterest.

  “I’ve traveled the world,” George went on, “and now I’m home. Thanks for welcoming me back.”

  Another roar of approval went up, more shouts and whistles directed at the stage by the livelier attendees.

  “To Tabs, to the England boys and to every single one of you, Jez and I owe a massive debt. We’re batting for glory, for the roof of the Longley Parva Village Hall and for the magnificent new Single Wicket Trophy. Mr. Fitzwalter, the record is currently yours—can you hold onto it?”

  Henry stared about in surprise. Everyone, and all the cameras, had turned to him. Realizing his mouth was hanging open, he quickly pressed his lips together and, folding his arms, r
eplied with a firm, confident nod.

  Even if he wasn’t feeling quite as confident as he may have looked.

  “This won’t be in the documentary,” George told the crowd. “But you all know that my private life and that of the man I love became public property overnight last week and almost every single one of you rallied round. To say thanks for that and for all this village has done for its resident shirtless historian, if there’s any shortfall on the roof fund, I’ll make it up out of my own pocket.”

  While everyone cheered, Henry only stared in silence. Had George really just said what he thought he’d heard? ‘The man I love’?

  Captain George Standish-Brookes had just come out.

  And everyone was cheering.

  “And I need to say something to that man!” George had to raise his voice to be heard above the crowd. “Thank you for showing me what it actually means to be a hero. Whoever spends their life with you will be the luckiest chap alive!”

  Forgetting that the entire village was there, Henry hurried up to the podium, Nimrod at his heels.

  “My darling George! Won’t you spend your life with me?” Henry almost tripped in his haste as he rushed up the steps. “You taught me how to be brave—and I adore you, Standy-Bee!”

  George caught Henry’s hand and pulled him into his arms. They clung to each other as though caught in a tide and George pressed his mouth to Henry’s ear and whispered, “Marry me, Fitz?”

  “Yes—bloody hell, yes!”

  Henry ran his fingers through George’s hair and, trying not to laugh as a swelling ‘oooh!’ rose from the crowd, drew his lips to George’s in the most tender of kisses. There could be no doubt what George thought now as the kiss went on and on until someone, probably the woman with the clipboard, began spiritedly clearing her throat.

  There was a schedule to follow, after all.

  Ed, jabbing at his watch, had grabbed one of the camera operators by the arm.

  “Look, I’m an important guy, can’t hang about here all day while those two whatsits play tonsil-tennis!”

  “Cool down, mate,” the cameraman told him. “It’s a weekend!”

  “Important people like me don’t do weekends, we don’t do holidays and we don’t do lunch hours!” Ed’s face was purpling to an alarming shade. “I’m an important man and my time costs serious turkey. So just get my close-up ready, Sonny Jim, or I’ll have you sacked!”

  “Ed, let’s have you and Steph together!” George called happily into the microphone, his arm tight around Henry’s waist. He beckoned them with a flamboyant wave. “Come on where we can see you, chum!”

  “Come on, Stephy-Steph! That’s it.” Ed gripped Steph’s shoulders. She grimaced at the crowd, her head at an uncomfortable angle as Ed pulled her toward him. “Up on the podium with the gayboys, is that there where you want us, George?”

  Henry glared at him. “For someone who’s so fond of grabbing testicles—”

  A squeak of feedback from the microphone told Henry that his aside to George had been broadcast to the entire audience. And the audience roared with laughter. Once again, I mess it up… Henry realized they weren’t laughing at him, but with him. How many other unfortunate men had been grabbed at the crotch by Ed Belcher? Quite a few, judging by the pained expressions on several faces in the crowd. Even the vicar’s.

  “Hello, Steph.” George sounded so happy, but was there a sly edge to his smile. “You’re certainly looking the part!”

  Steph pouted from under the brim of her wide sunhat. Her cold eyes settled on Henry, her teeth clenched. She flared her nostrils as she snapped her head away.

  “Shall we get on?” George addressed Henry then turned to the crowd. “Who’s ready for a bit of history?”

  A cheer went up, and a jocular wag shouted, “Toot-toot!” The crowd laughed then settled, waiting for their resident television historian to speak.

  “Six hundred years ago, the Fitzwalter family built Longley Parva Manor, and from that day to this, there has been a Fitz here in the village. A raven in the tower, if you will.” He looked to Henry, his expression nothing short of adoring. “But some members of the family were a little flighty and two hundred years ago the hall was wagered in a game of cricket between Bad Billy Fitzwalter and Octavius Belcher. The umpire was a certain Reverend Standish, and, though he managed to mislay the score sheet, the general drunken consensus was that the victory belonged to Billy.”

  George looked to Ed with that same smile and went on. “But Octavius Belcher left some convenient papers, as such chaps are wont to do, in which he alleged dark deeds. The vicar must be in the pay of the squire, said he, and that meant the hall was his. Now, our Ed found them and rather than say, what an interesting bit of family history, instead he told Fitz here, via a lawyer, that he was going to lose his home.”

  Henry lowered his gaze from the crowd. He felt the tightening in his stomach that visited him whenever an official-looking letter arrived through the post. There had been many of late.

  Bloody Ed bloody Belcher.

  “Booo!”

  “Hissss!”

  The crowd came alive, as if they were once again in the village hall for the Longley Parva Christmas panto.

  “Now, now, George!” Ed fiddled with his sunglasses, the swagger ebbing from his tone. “You make me sound like the baddie of the piece! Ha ha! I’m just a man who’s been denied his birthright—you tell the Parvans that!”

  “Because all Ed wants is to live in Longley Parva Manor, isn’t that right?” George blinked innocently. “Or might your scheme have been rather more…ambitious than that?”

  “I want the bloody manor! It should be mine!” Ed clenched his fist, his words spittle-flecked. “What—what scheme? What a lot of rot!”

  Someone in the crowd managed an extremely loud belch and Ed swung round to look at them. “Which one of you clod-hopping yokels did that?”

  A cameraman hurried across the grass toward him, capturing Ed in close-up, the stockbroker’s face turning a deeper hue of purple.

  “But Ed’s plan was bigger than that.” George slipped his arm matily through Ed’s, holding him in place. “Ed was going to bully Fitz’s house out from under him by tying him up in legal tape until he had no choice. You, ladies and gentlemen, are looking at the man who was going to sell Longley Parva so a billionaire could turn our village into a golf course!”

  Ed’s eyes bulged liked the pickled eggs he was so fond of, his mouth hanging open as he tried to stutter a denial. But he was caught staring into the face of a crowd that was beginning to advance on him, arms aloft, cricket bats swinging, dog leads whirling. They coined a chant and it grew louder as they came ever nearer.

  “No ifs, no buts, we’ll kick him in the nuts!”

  Over and over and over again, building and swelling, menace and hate climbing.

  A small, blonde-haired child came running from the crowd. A pretty little girl in an expensive blue dress, clapping her hands and laughing. And joining in with the chant.

  Ed’s own child, Sapphire.

  “This is a cricket match, not a lynch mob.” George held up his hands. “Ed, Steph, Mr. Randy Cheese is in the pavilion and he’s keen to make the Belchers very famous. Don’t keep him waiting. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. and Mrs. Ed and Steph Belcher. A round of applause for our happy couple, and let’s get on with some cricket!”

  The crowd were happy with this outcome, clapping and cheering with glee once more. Mrs. Dalrymple heaved Sapphire up onto her hip and carried her off to watch the game. Ed and Steph, however, looked like a couple on their way to face the executioner. How George had uncovered the scheme and convinced one of the world’s richest men to sit in a cricket pavilion would remain a mystery for now, but Henry knew that this could only mean one thing—Captain George had kept his promise. He had saved Longley Parva Manor, just as he’d sworn he would.

  Before George could hop down from the podium, Henry caught him in his arms.

  “My hero, Standy-
Bee! Thank you, darling—I don’t know how I can ever repay you, other than by kissing you a thousand times. Would that suffice?”

  “I’ve put you in to bat last,” George whispered. “Just you versus the whole England team fielding, Fitz. Make it a walkover?”

  Henry laughed. “You’re not making this easy, are you? Right—let’s play cricket!”

  The England cricket team took up fielding positions, each with a member of the youth team shadowing them. One by one the Parvans went up to bat or bowl, and the England team did their best not to catch anyone out on their first go, no matter how easy a catch they were.

  There were some impressive reaches into the nineties for runs, but Henry’s record of one-thirty stood unbeaten. Then lunch was called.

  Henry and George trotted to the pavilion, arms loosely about each other’s waists. The spectators cheered more loudly for them than they did the visiting cricketers.

  A figure had appeared on the veranda, vaguely familiar to Henry, though he couldn’t say why. He wondered if it was a pharmaceutical salesman who’d visited his surgery.

  But once they drew nearer, Henry realized who it was.

  “You Fitzwalter?” Randy Cheese took an enormous cigar from between his teeth and gestured toward Henry. “You’re the laird of the manor?”

  Henry blinked at the man he’d only ever seen on television, and occasionally in newspapers, stepping down from private jets. And now he was on the veranda of Longley Parva’s cricket club.

  “Strictly speaking, the lord of the manor, but—you’re Mr. Cheese, of course.” Henry extended his hand to shake. Randy Cheese seized it in a bear’s paw and pumped hard, staring fiercely at Henry.

  “This is a man who can make things happen,” he told Henry, gesturing toward George. “Belcher’s a double-crossing bastard but I’m a man of honor, so let’s make this a deal between men. I’m still looking to put Cheese Acres Golf and Resort right here in Soo-sex and I’m offering you fifty million dollars to secure your house, Mr. Fitzwalter. What do you say?”