Clapham Lights (24 page)

‘You should be locked up,’ Valerie says, dialling 999.

Craig snatches the phone out of her hand and runs into the hall.

‘Give me that back you pervert!’ she screams, chasing him with her arms swinging wildly. Craig cowers in a corner as she thrashes away at his head and upper body. Ophelia jumps on her mother’s back and tries
to wrestle her to the ground.

‘Get off me! Get off me!’ Valerie screams. ‘He’s a sex monster.’

‘Calm down, calm down!’ Ophelia battles to control her mother who’s writhing on the floor so she slaps her and yanks her cardigan over her head until she stops struggling.

A police officer and a paramedic lead Valerie Simpson out. She has been sedated. Ophelia apologises to Craig and tells him to put some TCP on the scratches on his face. Craig says he’s fine and sorry for causing a scene. He then says that if they still want to buy the flat, he could give her the owner’s details if her parents refuse to deal with him or Cinq.

‘Craig, that’s so kind,’ Ophelia says, giving him a hug. ‘Can I take your mobile number?’

T
he conductor announces that they will shortly be arriving in
Norwich
and reminds passengers to take all their belongings with them before alighting. The train slows as it passes storage warehouses and rows of dilapidated terraced houses. Carrow Road football ground is just visible through the mist. Craig rolls up his
GQ
and pushes it into his holdall as they pull into the station.

He jumps down onto the platform, zips up his jumper and weaves through the passengers, many of whom are students struggling to heave suitcases. It’s cold and the wind swirls under the canopies overhead.

A girl with dreadlocks and a lip piercing barges past, almost tripping Craig up with her wheelie bag as a mother with two infants in matching raincoats hurries in the opposite direction through the station’s atrium.

He stands outside the main entrance and scans the congested car park. Black cabs are lined up to his right and along from them is the bus stop where most of the students have congregated. Beyond the car park and the main road, a floating Chinese restaurant sits moored
opposite
the Riverside Hotel and traffic is queuing on the narrow humpback bridge which leads up to the city centre.

Craig is making a phone call when a new silver Ford Mondeo pulls up. He jogs over to the car.

‘You haven’t been waiting long have you?’ asks Peter, Craig’s dad, as his son gets in. He has a flat Yorkshire accent and is slim with a deeply lined forehead and short, wiry greying hair. He is dressed in a crew-neck jumper and jeans.

‘I’ve only just got here. The train was a bit late.’

‘That’s OK then. I just popped into work and got caught up. How are you?’ he asks, as they pull onto the main road.

‘I’m fine. It was good not having to get up and go to work this morning.’

‘Did you have to take a day’s holiday?’

‘Yep.’

‘How was work this week?’

‘Bad. Nobody’s buying anything,’ Craig says, staring out of the window as they pass the bars and takeaways along Prince of Wales Road.

‘How’s the job hunting going?’

‘Even worse. I’m signed up with lots of agencies, but none of them have come up with any better alternatives.’

‘Have you tried more estate agents?’

‘Yes, but because the market’s quiet, nobody is taking anyone on. And the fact I work for Cinq doesn’t help much either. I’d rather forget work at the moment.’

They stop at traffic lights opposite Castle Mall shopping centre.

‘What do you think of the new car?’

‘It’s all right,’ Craig says.

‘I did ask for one with a wooden house on the roof but they’d sold out,’ Peter says.

Craig doesn’t react.

They drive along Church Road, which is lined with large detached houses half-hidden by trees and hedges. Peter turns in between two overgrown conifers and parks in front of the garage. The Tennants’ house is a
modest
three-bedroom 1930s property with a buttermilk exterior and racing green front door.

Peter stops to look at the flowerbeds under the front windows as Craig let himself in. The house smells of paint. He takes his bag upstairs and goes straight to his old room at the far end of the landing.

The bedroom is bare and an upright vacuum cleaner has been left in the middle of the floor. There is nothing on the freshly-painted peach walls and the new chest of drawers and wardrobe are empty. The lamp on the desk beside the double bed doesn’t have a bulb in it. Craig puts his bag on the floor at the foot of a small bookcase containing
leather-bound
photo albums, and accidently kicks a polystyrene tray of paint pots and brushes. He stands at the window looking down onto the back garden and then checks under the bed where he finds a plastic storage box full of his old football medals and trophies.

A car pulls up outside and there is some muffled talking. Craig goes
back downstairs and puts his shoes on.

The front door opens and he gives his mum a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Janet is a foot shorter than her son and has sandy hair tied in a bun. She has a thin face and a sagging double chin.

Craig carries the shopping bags from his mum’s Renault Clio through to the farmhouse-style kitchen where she makes tea whilst his dad sits at the table reading
The Times
. He asks Craig what he thinks of his room. Craig wants to know what’s happened to the rest of his stuff.

‘Will you need picking up later? Janet asks, as she pulls up in the
puddle-scarred
car park.

‘I’m not sure. I’ll ring you.’

‘Are you sure you’ll be warm enough?’ she says looking at Craig, who is wearing an old waterproof jacket over his jumper.

‘It’s not cold; it’s just a bit wet. I’ll be fine.’

‘Say hello to Tony and Adam from us.’

‘Will do.’

He kisses his mum on the cheek, closes the car door behind him and walks across into the Dereham Athletic clubhouse. It is a wide,
single-storey
brick building with a brass plaque by the door marking its
reopening
in May 2007.

The bar is warm and homely with a red patterned carpet, framed shirts on the walls and a trophy cabinet full of silverware. Five tubby old men dressed in red and yellow club ties stand talking and supping ale. Away from the bar, a group of children sit at tables with colouring books and soft drinks, supervised by two mothers.

Tony has already bought Craig a pint from the girl behind the bar. They sit on stools looking out to the pitch where the two teams are
warming
up. It’s beginning to rain. The Lakenham Town manager is shouting instructions from underneath a golf umbrella as his team jog across the width of the pitch. Adam, wearing a club tracksuit and white boots, is chatting to a Dereham teammate and sucking on an energy drink as he goes through a series of stretches. He’s grown a beard since he visited Craig in London.

Craig looks up at the collection of team photographs that hang over the bar. ‘I’m trying to think of the last time I came here,’ he says. ‘I don’t think it was last season.’

‘Were you not here for the Norfolk Vase semi last year?’

‘No, I was working.’

Tony sips his beer and then orders a packet of cheese and onion crisps. ‘Have you thought about playing in London?’ he asks Craig.

‘I don’t really have time, mate. I’d like to but I couldn’t go training and I couldn’t play most Saturdays.’

‘Why don’t you play on Sundays then?’

Craig flicks at the zip on his jacket. ‘I suppose I could, but Sunday’s the only day I get a lie in. If I was playing, I couldn’t drink that much on a Saturday night and don’t get much of a chance to go out, and I’m useless with a hangover. Also I wouldn’t know where to join. I don’t think anyone at work plays and I don’t really want to just turn up somewhere on my own.’

‘There must be loads of teams you could play for though.’

‘Yeah, but it’s not like being up here. I haven’t seen that many sports clubs, it’s more park football. People seem to prefer going to the gym, or running on their own.’

As the players amble back to the changing rooms to get ready for kick-off, a groundsman in a cagoule spikes the pitch with a fork.

Craig is accosted by a barrel-chested man in a Pringle jumper who asks him if he’s going to come back and play this season.

The rain stops just before kick-off but the pitch is saturated, making it difficult for both teams to play with any fluidity. Adam takes several heavy tackles from the lumbering Lakenham centre-back who is
marking
him.

It is 0-0 at half-time and neither side has had a shot on target. Some of the Lakenham players look jaded as they leave the pitch in their
mud-splattered
kit, which has turned from white to grey in the wet.

Craig and Tony go back to the bar. Craig pays for the beers and glances up at the team photograph from the 2005/6 season. He is in the front row, second from the left. They take their drinks outside and squelch around the perimeter of the pitch, stopping between the two dug-outs.

Dereham take the lead from a corner when Lakenham’s goalkeeper drops the ball at the feet of Dereham’s right-back who taps in from two yards. Neither Tony nor Craig recognise him. Their second goal comes
from a penalty after a handball, and Adam scores the third. He is put clean through, shoots straight at the ‘keeper but knocks in the rebound after the ball holds up in a puddle.

The Lion is a traditional, intimate pub on the corner of two quiet
residential
streets. Its high ceiling and large windows make it feel spacious but drinkers are crammed around small tables and those standing have to constantly move as people jostle to get served. The sound of chat and laughter drowns out the juke box.

Some of the Dereham team are playing pool in an alcove to the right of the bar. They are drunk and keep sinking the cue ball by mistake.

Adam and Tony are at a table near the door, underneath an old
photograph
of three farm workers on a combine harvester. Outside, rain is hammering down from the black sky. A drenched young woman enters and shakes herself off in the doorway.

Craig pushes his way through the bar carrying a jug of lager and places it carefully on the table. Tony makes to pick it up but Adam stops him.

‘Does it seem a bit boring coming back here?’ Adam asks Craig.

‘No, not at all. It’s different. I miss it a bit to be honest.’

‘It’s cheaper,’ Tony says.

‘Home’s home isn’t it,’ Craig says.

‘Did you not invite Mark up for the weekend?’ Adam asks.

Craig smiles. ‘Ha, no. I don’t think watching you play football and a few drinks in here is his idea of fun.’

‘Where is he tonight?’ Adam asks. ‘Some posh nightclub throwing his money around?’

‘I don’t know actually. He’s been really quiet for the last couple of weeks. He broke up with his girlfriend.’

‘He had a girlfriend?’ says Tony. ‘Who was she?’

‘I didn’t know anything about her,’ Craig says. ‘She just turned up one morning at the flat.’

‘What did she look like? Please don’t tell me she was fit,’ Adam says.

Craig laughs. ‘No. She was big. Taller than you. No wonder he kept quiet about her. He was bringing other girls back to our place anyway, so it’s not like it was ever going to last.’

‘I was going to ask how you put up with him, but I suppose he’s a
constant source of entertainment,’ Adam says.

‘He’s not always been like that, though. He was just showing off when you came down. He was pretty quiet at uni. He’s changed since he started his job and now has a bit of money. He didn’t really have
anything
to be full of himself about when I first knew him. He’s an OK bloke if you can see past the bullshit.’

‘Money wouldn’t change me,’ Tony says.

‘No, you’d still be an idiot,’ Adam says. ‘What’s happening with you and that girl from work, Craig? The one that blew us out. Anna was it?’

‘No, Hannah. She didn’t blow us out, she had to go home. There’s nothing happening anyway, and I’m pretty sure nothing’s going to
happen
.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she’s fit?’ Tony says.

‘She’s not that fit,’ Adam says.

‘She is,’ Craig snaps back.

‘Yeah, but she’s gettable. Don’t build her up too much otherwise you’ll never ask her out.’

‘It might make things difficult at work anyway.’

‘Forget work. If she’s as nice as you say she is, and she’s single, and you get on, she’ll probably go out for a drink with you even just out of politeness. Don’t come on too strong or act mental and you’ve always got a chance. Back yourself.’

‘That’s the problem.’

‘Mate, if you don’t do it someone else will.’

‘Cheers, but it just doesn’t feel right at the moment though. And I haven’t got any money to take her anywhere.’

‘Don’t worry about that. Just don’t wait for something to happen because if you do that you’ll never get anywhere.’

Peter and Janet have booked a table with a view of the river at The Duke’s Head for Sunday lunch. Two swans are floating serenely near the water’s edge despite the rain. Craig’s eyes are red and puffy and Tony keeps yawning. Adam is the last to arrive.

During lunch, the subject of the boys’ weekend in London comes up and Craig kicks Tony under the table when he starts talking about the bar
bill in Mankini. Peter looks disapprovingly at Craig but he convinces his dad that Mark paid for it all.

Adam asks Craig’s parents how the business is going, tactfully changing the subject. Peter says that one of their major competitors went bust last week, so they’ve been able to pick up some extra orders on the back of that, but everyone is holding their breath.

‘What time train are you getting?’ Peter asks as he joins his son in the living room.

‘I’ll have a look on the internet,’ Craig says. ‘I’ll probably go around seven. Is that all right?’

‘That’s fine.’

Craig has his feet up on the sofa and is watching the Wigan v Man City match on the television, which sits inside an oak cabinet. Either side of the unit are bookshelves full of hardback sports autobiographies and antiques and gardening reference books.

Peter sits down in an armchair and flicks through a Cotton Traders catalogue that comes with
The Sunday Times
. He is dressed almost
identically
to the male model on the cover, wearing chinos and green check shirt. He closes the catalogue and drops it into a magazine holder beside his chair.

‘Any chances?’ he asks.

‘They’ve only been playing ten minutes,’ Craig says.

Janet knocks on the patio doors and waves her muddy trowel. Peter waves back. Craig cranes his neck and smiles.

‘A letter came for you the other day,’ Peter says. ‘From HSBC. Mum opened it by mistake.’

Craig doesn’t say anything.

The back door closes and Janet is humming to herself in the kitchen.