Heartland (26 page)

What else yer gonna do? Rob said. Yow've got nowhere else to goo, mate. Yome stuck with em.

Rob had laughed along with the Albion supporters as the Wolves gave up their lead. Like a lot of decent players, Rob didn't really support a team. Not in the same way as the others. As a kid he supported the Wolves because his dad had played for them. He signed schoolboy forms at the Villa at thirteen, so then he supported them, or said he did. After his spells at the clubs, Rob couldn't have cared less about them. He felt like he'd seen behind the wizard's curtain. His old man was the same. Maybe it was bitterness. It was players, groups of players, that they followed. Institutions would let you down, but there were certain players, groups of players, types of player, you could trust. It was the reverse of Lee's approach. He put his faith in the Wolves and look what they did to him. It was players you had to put your faith in, not shirts and flags.

That hadn't stopped him insisting to his Uncle Jim that Cinderheath was their club. It hadn't stopped him putting a flag on his car. It hadn't stopped him and his dad following Valencia on Sky and in the Champions League that year. They'd done it with Ajax the year they won the European Cup, the year Rob was at Wrexham. Distance, foreignness, seemed to heighten their affections, or maybe they just had better players, types of player. Rob thought that he could feel himself turning into his old man.

The door was propped open; weak sunshine highlighted
swirls on the tiles where someone had mopped the floor. Every few minutes the pub Alsatian, Binda, padded to the open door, arched his back and stuck his nose into the street. Kevin the landlord would shout him back and he'd slink to the other end of the bar and his bowl of water. Kevin sat talking to a bloke in a leather jacket who Lee had nodded hello to when they walked in.

Rob breathed out a stream of smoke, looked through the open door across to Barrys' and almost as far as the car park and launderette. The only other drinker was an old man in a shirt and tie looking at the racing pages. Past Kevin and his mate, Rob could see the lounge in darkness on the other side of the pub, curtains drawn and the DJ's booth and stage dark shadows at the edge of the room, ghosts of weekend nights. They used to open the Lounge up for food on weekends, but all that had stopped.

Lately, the place had become a drinking den for Glenn and his new mates, more and more faces turning up with their England and Rangers badges, Stone Island jumpers and Burberry caps, a kind of uniform, with their
Say No to the Mosque
leaflets. Not that it was all outsiders. You couldn't claim that. Glenn was right there at the heart of it. His uncle told him Nancy and Wesley had got a BNP poster up. You couldn't even rely on your own family.

He'd tried to persuade Zubair to move their weekly drink to the Wetherspoon's. What yer scared of? I've defended most of em, helped get a lot of em off, Zubair had argued. They'm hardly stupid enough to glass their own brief.

Doh be so sure, mate, Rob had muttered but left it at that.

Lee got the drinks, gazed up at
Football Focus
, wishing he was on the coach to Norwich. Rob stretched his legs out towards the sun, the dog came and sniffed at his trainers. He felt good for having had an early night, let his thoughts drift to his conversation with Jasmine, started thinking
about Stacey. It had been Christmas since he'd been with anyone. They'd had the school Christmas party at the clubhouse and he'd ended up on the same table as Elaine, one of the dinner ladies, who'd brought her sister along with her. He'd fallen into drinking tequila with Elaine's sister. She was younger than him, but married with a little boy. After she'd danced with the big group of dinner ladies and teaching assistants, Rob staying at the bar, washing the taste of the tequila away with a couple of pints and keeping his eye on her, they'd gone across to the park, ended up shagging on a bench by the side of the pitches, her on top with his coat around her shoulders and her dress pushed up around her middle.

All over Christmas he'd waited for a bang on the door from her husband, thought maybe she might text him wanting a bit more. When he got back to school Elaine made him a cup of tea in the library and said nothing and everything was back to normal. Somehow, he couldn't see Miss Quereishi wriggling on top of him on a bench over the park, steam coming off them in the cold air. Then he thought about how he didn't want to think of her like that, but was happy enough thinking it about Stacey, wondered what that said about him.

We had a Chinese last night. I had a couple in here early on and went rahnd Glenn's. We got the PlayStation on after they'd got the kids abed. If I'd known yer was in I'd a texted yer.

I doh think I'd a bin very welcome.

He's all right.

Honestly, shuttle runs and shooting practice over the park. Yer know what he said to me when I said I was already warmed up? Big game on Sunday, Rob. Couldn't be bigger. I thought, fuckin hell, Glenn, I might o played in bigger.

His indignation was pretend now and he was smiling
as he said this, trying to get over the embarrassment of storming off from training.

It was funny though, when yer fell in that shit.

Oh, Jesus. Rob shook his head.

I kept loffin after. We come in here for one. We've brought him to this, I said. From Villa Park to Cinderheath Park. I was winding Glenn up telling him yow'd had enough, that yer most probly wunt play on Sunday.

Was yer?

He wanted to phone yer actually, check yer was all right. I tode him not to bother, leave yer be.

Cheers, mate. I doh think I could o took another dose. Iss difficult wi this election stuff.

He means well.

No he doh.

He's done well with the team.

Fair enough.

This time tomorrow we'll be finished up, mate. Lee nodded at the clock behind the bar. We'll be back in here, celebrating.

Hopefully.

They woh beat us.

I was more thinking that we wor all dahn the police station, fighting, race riot, yer know.

We'd win the fight an all. Lee sipped his pint. There woh be no fighting. Wiv gorra have more discipline than that. They've got it comin to em, though.

Rob didn't say anything.

How's Stacey's lad? Lee asked.

All right. Out the hospital.

Yer see the paper?

No.

Said they cut him with tribal markings.

What?

Said they cut him with tribal markings.

Woss that supposed to mean?

I doh know. Iss what it said.

What, like in Africa?

I doh know. It said boy given tribal markings in knife mugging attack. Summat or that. An there was a picture.

Summat or that?

Arr.

They ay Africans.

Who ay? It just said that. He looked a right state.

He was in a right state. I doh think thass very helpful though, is it?

Teenager scarred for life, it said.

I suppose he ull be. It gets on my nerves, though, the way they put it in the paeper like that.

The paeper day cut him. There was a picture. Him an his mother.

I dare say there was, but tribal markings? Meks it sahnd like he's bin attacked by savages or summat.

They am savages, mate. Lee took a big drink from his bottle to keep up with Rob and got up to go to the bar, sensing the conversation was going nowhere, the money he'd got for his ticket burning a hole in his pocket. Yer want some crisps?

Goo on, then.

I went to that meeting last week, yer know.

Which meeting?

The St George's day meeting up Dudley. They had some blokes from London doing a speech and our man, Bailey.

Jesus, what was they on abaht?

St George's day and being English. Housing, mainly. Bailey talked abaht the mosque. It ay right. How we should stand up for weselves.

Many theer?

Packed. There was loads o police aht the front an all. There was a demonstration against the BNP by all the
students an tha. It was interesting. I got invited to that April 23rd club do an all. Lee said this proudly. Rob had no idea what the April 23rd club was, could've made a guess, he supposed.

What did they say abaht housing?

All the houses gooin to Kosovans an everything. Not people from here.

How many Kosovans dahn yower road?

We had that family they had to shift aht.

They was Yemeni. Different continent. They ended up in a bed and breakfast.

Yow know more abaht it than me. Iss right, though. Our cousin's bin on the list for ages for a flat an her ay got one. Iss cos her's white.

Tell her to goo an see me uncle up the school on a Saturday morning, see what he can do. Iss actually cos the Tories sold all the council houses off.

Labour, Tory; they'm all the same, mate.

They ay.

Arr well. Yer know more abaht it than me.

Listen to what I'm telling yer then.

All I know is, things ay right. Nobody looks aht for we. Iss everything for them. Yome all right if yome a Muslim but if yome from here yow con look aht. Watch when they build that mosque. What abaht the school? Yow've said it yerself.

I day say vote BNP. Yow cor vote BNP, mate.

Why not?

It ay right.

I'll vote for who I like.

Have yer even voted before?

Once, arr. I voted for Blair when he won. Lot o good thass done, look.

Well, there's a lot o damage to repair. Yow cor vote for them.

Why not?

Rob struggled to find an argument that might win Lee over and felt his heart sinking.

Iss racist.

I am a racist.

Well, thass it then, ay it. Rob sat back in his seat.

It is really, arr.

The man in the leather coat had said his ta-ras to Kevin and got down off his stool. As he came past them he leaned suddenly towards the table and put his hand on Rob's shoulder.

I tell yer what I'd do if I had the chance, mate. If Rob had turned his head, their faces would've touched. Send em back to Pakistan an let the Indians nuke the lot on em. The world ud be a better place. I'm votin BNP, mate, fuck the lot on em. And yow.

With that he nodded at Lee then up to Kevin, still on his stool at the end of the bar, and strode outside.

Fuckin hell. Yer doh wanna get on the wrong side of him, Lee said.

Rob's heart was pounding, he'd felt his legs go watery. He gripped his glass, stretched and blinked, tried to look unruffled.

To be fair, yome on his right side, he muttered.

They watched the television for a while.

I bet they win today, Lee said out of nowhere. I might have changed their luck by selling me ticket. It might be me.

Rob went to the bar.

I doh wanna hear talk of politics in here, Rob, Kevin said quietly and pleasantly, easing himself off his stool. I doh want yer upsettin nobody.

Rob could feel his heart going again.

All right, Kev. No problem. Pint o Carling and a bottle o Bud please, mate.

Something happened in the weeks and months after Tom's injury.
First he got to wobble across the yard on his crutches, light-headed, a bit further each day until he could make it onto Cinderheath Lane. He'd go and work the contraptions at New Cross hospital that they got patients using to help them walk properly, and he'd have to spend the next day in bed, exhausted. But as summer passed though, he was able to walk along the towpath with his stick. The season started, the nights getting darker, whispers began again, of how great a player Tommy Catesby was, how if it wasn't for his injury, he'd have been lighting the Wolves up this year, how he'd have been in the England team soon, especially after Munich, in the wake of Munich.

He let them whisper, half-believed it himself, had no control over it anyway. The other half of him knew the truth, of course. He didn't say anything, let them all think it. Sometimes kids would knock on the door to get him to sign an old programme or football annual.

That winter he limped up and down Cinderheath Lane, slowly getting stronger, could almost straighten his leg. By spring he could get up and down the slag-heaps, sweating, thinking of all the running at the Wolves. If they wanted hard work, it was what they were going to get. He managed a shuffling jog along the canal towpath. People who'd never seen him kick a ball looked on and said, There's Tommy Catesby who was at the Wolves, great player, would've played for England, and shook their heads like he'd become his own ghost. One morning in the spring he walked up to the works with his dad and brothers and they got him a job on the furnaces. If they wanted hard work.

On the morning of the attacks he was already in Vermont.
He'd got as far as JFK the previous morning. He sat there
as the plane was called. His name was called. Not his real name. He'd thought that he could do it if he kept his mind empty. If he thought of nothing, it was easier. If he thought of her all the other stuff flooded in. He thought if he could keep his mind empty he could go back. It was the whole thing or nothing at all. If he went back to her, it would mean one day going back to Cinderheath. He tried to imagine his parents' faces, his brothers', if one day he just walked back in. He imagined how he'd do it. He'd pictured it thousands of times since the day he left. These thoughts crept in despite himself. That somehow there would be a happy ending. He walked out of the airport, hired a car, drove out of his life for a second time.

He zigzagged across the country for months afterwards. There were times he'd catch himself thinking he'd caused the attacks; that somehow his own frustrations, anger, fear, had willed the planes into the towers, torn them down in a cloud of ash. It was as if all his old pent-up frustrations and aggression had come exploding into the world.

He'd drive in the day, check into a motel and sit watching the news channels. That was all anyone watched now. It surprised him that he didn't get more attention. The country was changed, burned, you could feel it wherever you went. Maybe he was just too light skinned, well dressed, softly spoken. A couple of times he thought people were watching him; once in Louisville, where he'd visited Muhammed Ali's birthplace, eyes burning into him, he thought he was being followed. He thought how ironic it would be, that his story might end in an orange jumpsuit in Guantanamo. Then one night, in Oklahoma somewhere, he watched pictures of Tipton, looked at houses very much like the one he'd grown up in, the American newsreader describing a small British town and three of its boys,
jihadis
apparently, arrested in Afghanistan. He felt a strange nostalgia as the reporter interviewed
a man in a paper shop who said, They'm just normal Tipton lads.