Heartland (12 page)

Ah, keeping it quiet ull be for the best, maybe, he said, stretching his arms across the back of the little chairs.

Thass great, except somebody walks rahnd with a knife havin nearly killed a kid this afternoon. Woman that sid it said there was loads on em. Andre had a fight with a lad called Jabar back end o last year. I know Jabar's brothers. I assume they did this, like.

Meks it worse sometimes though, doh it? Teks months to come to court, the risk of other stuff happenin, it ull all be in the papers.

Maybe the Woodies have got it right then, eh? Keep yer mouth shut and sort yer own problems out.

Woodhouse was one of the notorious names of Cinderheath, a huge, sprawling family of endless cousins and step-and half-siblings, not just a name now, more like shorthand for a way of life. They'd been around a long time. An older Woodhouse had been a bareknuckle fighter years before. He turned up in articles in the
Bugle
every now and then and there was a picture of him up in the new Wetherspoon's next to the Slasher.

Jim knew this was a touchy subject with Rob. He'd lived with Karen Woodhouse for years. She was a lovely girl, lovely looking. She'd left him in the end. It was after that that Jim had phoned Steve Cummings to see if there was any work down at the school for him. Before that Rob wouldn't come out of the house, his football going nowhere, his mother worrying herself sick.

Still, everyone had their bad times. Before he'd met Pauline, after Jackie had left, Jim had gone to pieces. He'd been younger than Rob. Where did the time go? He'd filled his days with party meetings, football, drinking, whatever overtime he could get. Filled his time, otherwise – otherwise it might've been really bad.

He used to turn up at his mum and dad's for a decent meal a couple of nights a week. The Winter of Discontent they called it now. Those months were the worst. It was how he'd ended up a councillor. He'd started to go to more and more party meetings to keep out of the pub for as long as he could; threw himself into it, playing less football as he reached his thirties. As the pain started to get easier, he thought he might meet someone else like Jackie. It didn't work, not in that sense, anyway. He met
Pauline much later, when she came in her little van to do his mother's hair.

Sometimes you just atta be brave, yer know, he heard Rob saying, waiting for a response. Rob had been dwelling on things more and more, lately. That had been his undoing as a player, Jim reckoned: over-thinking. You needed to get on with things.

There's a lot of things yow atta stand up to, mate. Yer just have to pick the battles yer can win, he said.

Jim wanted to sound as if he knew what he was talking about, but he wasn't sure what he meant, what he thought, at all.

The Argentinian keeper, Cavallero, was suddenly underneath the ball
as a cross swung into the area. He got a punch on it and Ferdinand went in and flattened him. Something went through the crowd in the Cinderheath clubhouse, like a change in the voltage, with the sense that things were building here, an England goal was coming.

There'd been jeers for the prostrate keeper but it was Hargreaves, in close-up on the screen now, still shaking his head, who was limping off.

He's finished.

Thass a loss, Hargreaves gooin off, thass a big loss. Glenn was talking loudly again to whoever might be listening.

Trevor Sinclair was going to replace him. He looked nervous. Fair enough, Rob thought.

It makes yer think. There's some lucky players on theer, yer know, Danny Mills, Trevor Sinclair, some lucky players with the injuries. I mean, we ay got much strength in depth, have we? I spose Sven knows what he's doin. I quite like that Danny Mills, mind yer. He's havin a decent go of it today, iss the left-hand side thass bin the problem. He's game enough, but winning the World Cup? I doh know.

Rob turned to his dad, surprised by this lengthy speech.
Rob could never really tell what was going through his old man's head. He knew he liked Sven, essentially believed that all Europeans, foreigners in general, had an innately superior knowledge of football than the English. But of all the players on show, Danny Mills was perhaps least like the type of player his old man usually rated: no first touch, all hard work, graceless, shaven-headed and menacing, the old image of English football abroad – before Beckham and Owen turned them all into the Beatles – the very opposite of the kind of player the legendary Tom Catesby had been.

The night Tom Catesby saw Puskas and Czibor, Machos and Kocsis at Molineux
was the moment everything fell into place for him. There were fifty-odd thousand at the ground that night but Tom thought they were playing just for him, just to show him what it was his life was for.

That first half, sitting in between the apprentices and the older squad players who hadn't been picked, Stan Cullis's back to him as was usual, might have been the happiest in his life. Monday 13th December 1954, Wolves v. Honved. The unofficial European Cup Final, the unofficial club championship of the world. The way the Hungarians moved, the way one minute Puskas would stroll out from the middle of the park to be here on the wing and the way there'd be someone else to take his place, that movement, and the way he might trot back again and take about three markers with him and the ball would end up in the space he'd left, at Czibor's feet, was mesmerizing. Puskas waddled, pot-bellied, pointed, then would ghost into position, take a touch, strike it clearly and purely out of the mud. Instead of the stop-start, bang, bang, huff and puff stuff that was played up and down England there was this. Football like water, like dancing, like light.

Honved were two-up at half-time. It had been the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. Cullis got the Wolves organized
in the second half; they huffed and puffed, and the crowd roared, and the Hungarians' legs got slower in the Molineux mud. The Wolves players, good players, great players some of them, Tom knew that, were stronger. The Honved players were at the end of a world tour. When Shorthouse banged the third in, people were going crazy – Wolves, the best club side in the world – but it didn't matter to Tom. They could have scored ten in that second half. He'd seen his future in the first.

There'd been jobs to do at the end. The place was going berserk. He'd wanted to get near to the Hungarians, maybe even try to get Puskas's autograph. Instead, later, he swept out the dried mud from the Honved dressing room, wandered around the grandstand's empty insides. As he was sweeping, moving lighter and lighter on his feet, even in the heavy boots he was wearing, he felt like he was barely touching the ground at all, like he could run across the Molineux mud and leave no footprints.

He was the last to leave and floated up to Dudley Road to get the trolleybus, the crowds long gone. As it rattled along uphill, Tom remembered the feeling, like the trolleybus itself was suddenly floating above the cobbles, as if everything was capable of moving like the Hungarians, as if everything was suddenly lighter – and of course it couldn't be – but he could be. This knowledge hardened into certainty as the trolleybus made a little whoosh down the hill into Gornal – how it could change his life, take him away from here, turn him into something new.

What abaht this game? Jim asked.
Yer still playin? I'm sorry abaht havin a goo at yer this morning.

Rob looked uncomfortable and shrugged. I'm gonna play in it. I meant what I said. It is just a game. It is ower team. He shrugged again. I might pack it in then, though, call it a day. I've had enough. I'm thirty next year.

Thirty's no age, son.

Depends how you look at it. I could probably book a holiday and not have to worry about anybody ringing me up for pre-season.

Am yer gooin on holiday, then?

Rob smiled and shook his head. They sat and watched the people hurrying for visiting hours.

Stacey emerged from the lifts. She looked tired and pale. Without any make-up on she looked young, younger than she actually was. Too young for all this anyway, Jim thought. She'd had Andre when she was fifteen. It had caused a lot of fuss at the time. Her hands were tucked into the sleeves of her red hooded top, little wisps of tissue paper coming from the end of each sleeve.

All right, she said quietly.

All right, love, Jim said, and touched her arm gently.

Stacey nodded and stared at Rob. She'd already given him a mouthful of what she thought of the school at Andre's bedside in A&E, barely looking at him.

Doh, Mom, Rob's all right, Andre had said, through dry lips.

Police have onny just finished, she said, still quiet but spitting the words out now. Wanted a statement off him. Stood guard while we waited to be sin. I'm surprised they day arrest him. He's bin blamed for everything else why not gerrin stabbed?

They'm keeping him in, ay they?

Arr, but I'll atta fetch Gemma now.

The doctor and health visitor kept fobbing Stacey off about Gemma. Jim thought he might go with her to the surgery himself, insist they refer the girl to a paediatrician or somebody. Gemma would go wild, flinging herself around the place, hurling herself into walls and doors, screaming, kicking, biting. Stacey had told Jim how late Gemma'd been to sit up, walk – but that nobody would listen to her.

What did the doctors say about Andre? Jim asked.

Said he's OK. He's lucky. Depends how you look at it, I said. It ay that lucky havin a load o kids jump on yer and –

She began to well up. Jim put his hand out to her but she waved him away, fumbled with her tissue.

I'm all right. Iss all right. They just wanna keep him in for observation. The policeman's still standin at the end of his bed. I've tode him not to say nuthin. They've glued his face, said it woh scar as much as stitches. It looks bad where … yer know … iss weeping rahnd the stitches on his shoulder. Iss all jagged on his shoulder an tha. He's bin pestering abaht where his bike is, so he must be all right. She smiled, took a deep breath, smaller tears than before rolling down her cheeks.

What abaht now?

I'll atta fetch Gemma in a minute. Her's wi me neighbour. Yer know, Gloria, the nice one. I've said I'll come back here fust thing in the morning. They've got me mobile number up on the ward. I'll atta get Gemma back an settled.

Nobody could have her tonight?

Stacey shook her head. Jim thought briefly he could offer to look after Gemma or have them both round for the night. He pictured what Pauline's face would be like when she got in and found out. It would be her doing the looking after, admittedly.

All right, I'll tek yer back.

Iss all right. I'll do it, if yer want, Rob said.

Actually, if that is all right, Jim said. It meant he'd beat Pauline back from college. He might even be able to do a bit of election thinking or try a conversation with Michael.

Stacey shrugged, nodded, stopped crying.

Owen was in again, this time, clear through, yes!

Yes! Jim leaped forward in his chair and in front of Rob, who didn't see the ball as it hit the post. Beer splashed
across the tablecloths. A woman screamed from the back of the room. Rob jumped up and the ball wasn't where it was meant to be, wasn't nestled in the back of the goal. Instead Owen was looking skyward, jogging back, his mouth a kind of rictus. Rob stayed standing. There was no one behind him here, next to the bar, just the fruit machine blinking with the gold of a pirate's chest. He reached for his cigarettes and lit one, dragged on it heavily. His dad glanced up at him and then back at the screen, shaking his head slightly.

Jim had slumped back into his chair, a big hand patting his chest then reaching out to right the spilled drink, his own, calling to Stacey, who was chewing her nails behind the beer pumps, to replace his pint. Rob watched Stacey as she turned to pour the pint, her body moving under her top.

That might have been it. The one chance. That might have been it in a game like this, cagey, jumpy, nobody really at ease. Rob sucked so hard on the cigarette it gave him a headrush, like that first time he'd tried one on the seafront with Adnan.

A taxi driver got kicked nearly to death.
It was a few weeks after Italia 90. The things were linked in Adnan's mind because of the way he found himself – involuntarily it seemed – leaping with excitement when Cameroon had gone two-one up against England in the quarter-final. Zubair looked at him askance. Before that he'd been delighted when Platt scored his miracle goal against Belgium. He was his mate Rob's team-mate, club captain, after all, and he grasped at this vicarious sense of belonging. But when Cameroon surged forward against England he couldn't help himself, spurred on by the agonized groans he could hear coming from houses and pubs through the tiny bedroom's open window, thrilled by the
shiny black bodies that overran England, the looks of horror on English faces.

Zubair looked like he was going to kill him and punched the air in front of his face when England equalized and then scored again. They never talked about it afterwards. They were talking less and less. Adnan settled for feeling quietly satisfied when Pearce and Waddle missed their penalties against Germany, became as subdued as his brother, who sat there with his head in his hands, thinking about defeat.

Yusuf Khan got pushed round in a wheelchair making grunting noises, got fed through a tube. His teenage wife had to learn to change his catheter and colostomy bag. It had been on
Midlands Today
. The mosque was raising money for him. Adnan saw them sometimes. The wheelchair was hard to steer over the broken pavement; it was too heavy for her. He'd lurch about in the seat like he was doing a dance.

There was a Black Country story from the war. Adnan had read it in the library. A woman's body was found in a hollow tree trunk on the Clent Hills near the gypsy camp. Her hand had been removed, the way that witches do for spells. About the time the woman had been killed, two German airmen had parachuted into the woods. There had been a spy ring in the area, guiding bombers to munitions factories. The body was never identified. There were all sorts of stories: gypsies, witches, spies. Then graffiti started appearing in Hagley, in Stourbridge and around, up in Dudley,
WHO PUT BELLA IN THE WYCH ELM?
No one knew who was writing it. It had continued, on and off, for forty years. No one knew any answers. Stories filled the gaps.