He
was wearing his trousers a size too big.
It
had to be that. Why else would they keep falling down if they weren’t
a size too big for him? I had another look at what was revealed by
the falling-down trousers, then sighed as the owner of them took off
for the dance floor.
I’m
not all that keen on out and out bumcrack exhibitionism. Well… no.
I take that back. Given the right bumcrack and the right ambience,
there wasn’t anything better. But in the day-to-day run of things,
less was probably more. I didn’t want to get all worked up
twenty-four-seven, did I? It would be too distracting.
I
liked Sid’s way of doing things better. Sid came across as sexy, a
tiny bit slutty, without ever doing anything I could pin down. For
instance, his clothing always had gaps. A tiny gap between tracksuit
pants and top. A zip pulled down too far. A bootlace undone and now I
was contemplating a new shoe fetish I hadn’t been aware I had.
Too
much imagination, I told myself. That had always been my problem. And
my blessing, of course, but in this case - not really.
I
pictured
things. Whole stories
from a single scene. Like the time I’d walked into the dressing
room and seen Donato sitting on the bench in his kit, his shorts
riding up to show olive-skinned thighs; legs akimbo, he was doing
nothing more enticing than looking at Facebook on his phone, Sid
leaning over, hands on Donato's shoulders.
I
had to turn around and leave the room, lean against the corridor wall
and calm down, getting a funny look from the cleaner walking past
with the floor buffer in tow. Definitely too much imagination.
Donato’s
gorgeous; tall, well-built, with a cut-just-anyhow mop of untidy dark
blond hair that he has to tame with a hairband when he’s playing.
He’s interesting, too, now that he’s learned to speak English
reasonably well. He’s - mostly Italian - and was brought up in
Germany, which has left him with an unfortunate tendency to support
BVB. Still, Dortmund’s twin city is our sin city of choice for a
night out, so we can live with it.
When
he’d turned up, with a name like that - with any other surname he’d
have been doomed to be The Don or even a Donna. But since his full
name was Donato Cola, he’d been Pepsi straight away and it had
stuck. When he’d protested, Sid told him he might have ended up
playing at a club in Spain and Donato had never said another word
about his soft-drink-related nickname.
“What’s
Spain got to do with it?” I’d asked Sid later.
“It’s
his name,” Sid told me with a grin. “Cola. Means arse in
Spanish.”
“What
are you doing, Robert?” Adrian had returned from toilets and now
leaned over me, a pout on his face. “You’re miles away. Where are
you?”
“Um,
just wool-gathering,” I said. I was grateful he’d thought to call
me Robert. By now I’d totally forgotten what pseudonym I’d used
tonight. It might be a good idea, I considered, to create myself a
personality for these occasional nights out instead of grabbing the
nearest name off my mental shelf. Not that it was much of a night out
so far. Quite boring, really. “It’s late,” I said. “I should
go.”
“Dance
with me first.” The young man with the falling-down trousers was
back and he was smiling. Well, why not? I shrugged and got up to
dance.
*********
It
was late. Or possibly early. I looked up at the sky, which rewarded
me with a vista of frowning cloud and a splash of light rain in the
face.
“I
probably needed that,” I told it. I looked around. I was -
somewhere in the centre of town. Leeds, that is. West Yorkshire. A
long way south of home.
I
was looking through the smeared window of an all-night cafe, where
two members of the aged homeless were sitting at separate tables. A
man in a dirty apron was standing in the open doorway, smoking. Every
so often he’d flick ash onto a battered metal table and chair that
disgraced the pavement, or turn and blow smoke into the cafe as he
spoke to those within.
I
was hungry, but I decided I wasn’t quite that hungry. I walked on.
Adrian
had disappeared. I was quite glad as it saved me telling him I didn’t want to go home with him. He was nice enough
but honestly? I couldn’t be bothered. Not for him.
A
Land Rover pulled up alongside me and I did a mental check to see if
I’d done anything at all or was wearing anything at all that would
make me look like rent. No, didn’t think so. Well, maybe the
leather trousers. I looked into the open window of the car, just for
a laugh, hoping they weren’t policemen on the pull for an arrest
quota.
“Jesus,
Boss, what happened to you?”
“Sid?”
I said. My holding midfielder, Sebastian Sidney, was looking back
at me, his rather goggly eyes as alarmed as mine felt. “I’m uh -
what do you mean what happened to me?” I asked.
“Your
shirt’s hanging off,” Sid said. “And your jacket’s got a
button missing.You look like you were dragged through a hedge backwards.”
“Here
you go, Boss.” The back door was open and I automatically got into
the car before realising who’d opened it.
“Oh.
Donato,” I said, trying to look as if we were in the habit of
meeting up in the back of cars with my clothes falling off me. “Been
for a night out?” I asked, aiming for cheerful. It didn’t work
too well since I hadn’t slept all night, but what the hell, I was
doing my best.
“We
have been looking for you,” Donato told me.
“Yeah,
we’ve been d-driving around the streets f-for ages.” The front
seat passenger turned round to speak to me. James Halliwell, my awful
goalkeeper. Awful substitute goalkeeper, thank goodness, if we had to
rely on him starting for us we’d have no hope of ever getting into
the Premier League.
I
had no idea why I’d ever taken him on. Of course, he had red curly
hair and cute green eyes. And the - other attributes, only visible in
the dressing room; but I didn’t really want to think I’d let my
personal preferences overwhelm my common sense to that degree.
Besides, I prefer blonds. I glanced sideways at the particular blond
sharing space with me and found Donato smiling. I wondered why. Was
he laughing at me? That was all I needed.
“Well,
since you’re here,” I thought I’d better take command of the
situation; that was my rightful place after all. “You can take me
to Darkhill Park.”
“You
want to go to the training ground?” Sid, who hadn’t set off yet,
also turned round to stare at me. “I mean - Boss - are you sure?”
“Of
course I’m sure,” I said. “We said we’d get some extra
sessions in over the break, didn’t we? We don’t want everyone
putting on weight and turning up all flabby after a summer full of
Walkers crisps.”
“I
suppose -” Sid looked dubious but started the car.
“Why
were you looking for me?” I asked. “It’s not something at the
ground is it? Did we have burglars? A fire?”
“No,
nothing like that.” Sid spoke. “Um, can we talk about it when I’m
not driving?”
“Okay,”
I said, deciding that if it was something that needed that much of
Sid’s concentration, it was probably something I didn’t want to
hear about anyway.
“Sid
said you m-might be getting a new goalie,” James said.
“Eh?”
I glared at the back of Sid’s head. “No, Sid wants me to think
about getting a new
goalie. I didn’t say I would.”
“He
said you wanted to get Jelly,” James said.
“The
eating sort?” I asked. “Or the kind you rub on your chest when
you’ve got a cold?”
“It’s
pronounced Yell-uh,” Sid said. “Jelle de Lindekerke. Belgian
keeper. Plays in Holland.”
“Oh,
him,” James said, thoughtfully. “Holland. They speak D-dutch
there.”
“Indeed
they do,” I said. “But I don’t need another keeper right now,”
I lied. “I've got you -” God
help me
“- and I've got Barry.”
“You
might get on with him, Boss,” Sid said. “His ancestors are some
old Belgian nobility.”
“What’s
that got to do with me?” I asked. I could feel myself shrinking
back in my seat; literally shrinking, to a smaller me being told by a
bunch of much bigger boys that I was too posh to play football. Of
course, they were wrong, but those moments never really leave us, do
they?
“You’re
the Queen’s something-ninth-removed c-cousin, aren’t you?”
James said.
“Only
as much as a few thousand other people are, I’m sure,” I said. “I
just happen to know about it, that’s all. And so do you. How did
that happen?”
“Uh…I,
er, d-d-d-d-”
“I
told him,” Sid said. “I thought it was interesting.”
“Thank
you so much for taking an interest in me,” I said. “What’s he
like, de Lindekerke?” I asked, not being able to place his style of
play straight away.
“I
told you all about him the other day, Boss,” Sid said.
“I
wasn’t listening,” I said. “Tell me again while I’m a captive
audience.”
“Bouncing,”
Sid said. “Like Jorge Campos only, you know, European.”
“Without
the garish dress sense as well, I hope,” I said. “He’s short,
then?” I didn’t want a short goalkeeper. He wouldn’t be able to
reach everything. I wanted a goalkeeper the size of a Potsdam Giant,
as wide as he was tall and with the speed of a released rubber band.
I did realise that some of these things were probably mutually
exclusive but what’s life without hope?
“Kind
of medium,” Sid replied.
“Medium
what? Bigger than a breadbox? Bigger than a midget?”
Sid,
not very tall himself, took one hand off the wheel and indicated a
spot a couple of inches above his head.
“You’re
sitting down,” I said.
“If
I was standing up.”
“That’s
not very big for a goalkeeper.”
“What
size did you want?” Donato asked.
“Manuel
Neuer,” I said.
“Doesn’t
everybody,” Sid said. “He’s proper huge. He’s like a bloody
troll lurking under a bridge in that goal of his. And then he runs
halfway down the sodding pitch, does something wonderful and he’s
back in his goal before anyone knows he’s gone.”
“He’s
like the Hulk,” James said.
“Only
with the green on his clothes instead of his skin,” Sid said. “And
prettier.”
“You
think he’s pretty?” Donato said.
“Well
- not as pretty as me,” Sid said, which cracked everybody up.
“And
de Lindekerke’d be cheap.” Sid returned to his theme when they’d
all finished laughing. “His gaffer doesn’t like him.”
“Why
not?” I asked. “What’s wrong with him? Why am I supposed to
like him if his current gaffer doesn’t?”
“Hang
on while I get on the motorway,” Sid said, leaving me to wonder
what was wrong with my potential goalkeeper. The only reason I could
see not to like your goalkeeper, unless he had some really vile
personal habits, was that he didn’t save goals. Even then - James
didn’t save goals and I still liked him. I didn’t want him in the
team but I liked him personally. Most of the time. I certainly didn’t
want more of the same though, Belgian nobility or not.
“He’s
got a few phobias.” Sid, cruising on the motorway, decided to
enlighten me.
“What
kind of phobias?” I asked. “Grass? Men in short trousers?”
“No,
nothing like that. Dead bodies is one of them.”
“W-what,
is he one of those n-nutters who believes in zombies?” James asked.
“No,
he just doesn’t like corpses,” Sid said. “Any corpses.”
“What
kind of person does
like corpses?” Donato
wondered.
“N-necrophiliacs,”
James said.
“Let’s
not go there,” I said, before the jokes started. “What else is he
afraid of?”
“Chocolate,”
Sid said.
“Eh?”
I stared at him. Well, at the back of him. “Chocolate? Milk, dark
or white? Comes in little squares? That stuff?”
“Yeah,”
Sid said. “His parents died of it.”
“What?”
I tried to make sense out of nonsense. “Were they very obese?”
“They
were chocolatiers,” Sid said. “They made chocolates.”
“I
know what a chocolatier is, thank you. What did they do, eat too much
of their own products?”
“They
fell in.”
“Pardon?
Fell in what?”
I asked, after a few moments during which I worked out that Sid
thought he had actually given me information.
“They
fell in the vat while they were experimenting with some new
chocolates,” Sid said. “They got covered in boiling chocolate and
they died.”
“I
don’t think you are supposed to boil chocolate,” Donato said.
“When I am making a cake, my recipe is always telling me to heat it
gently to preserve the shine. If you watch Great British Bake Off -”
“Maybe
it was like that James Bond story where people get covered in
g-gold,” James said. “Getting c-covered in anything stops your
skin working. I think.”
“It
was bloody hot,
right?” Sid said. “And they died and when Jelle went in next
morning to find out where they’d disappeared to, all that was left
was a couple of screaming chocolate people.”
“Eeew,”
James said. “Nightmare before Easter.”
“I
don’t want to make chocolate cake any more now, even with Mary
Berry,” Donato said.
“How
the hell do you know
all this, Sid?” I
asked.
“I
talk to him on Facebook.”
“Maybe
they’d exchange me for Jelly,” James said. “I’d like to g-go
somewhere I c-could learn another language.”
The
rest of us were silent for a moment. I imagine none of us knew how to
ask why James felt he’d like to learn another language when he had
enough trouble speaking the one he’d got. I was also preoccupied
with the idea that James wanted
to leave, be still my beating heart.
“I’d
like to go somewhere in Europe,” Sid said. “But I can’t leave
my mam.”
Now
it was the turn of everyone who wasn’t Sid to say nothing. Sid’s
mum was ill. She’d been ill for a long time and nobody had been
able to find out what was wrong with her. Opinion around the team had
settled on a bad case of laziness with a side order of swinging the
lead. Those sailors. They have a phrase for everything.
“I
have been almost everywhere in Europe,” Donato offered. “It is
better here. Apart from the government. And the taxes. And the
weather. But even that’s not too bad just now.”
“Sometimes
if you have a s-stutter,” James said, “It d-disappears if you
speak a foreign language.”
“Like
singing,” Sid said. “We used to go to this church where the
priest stammered - he was worse than you, James, he nearly strangled
himself trying to get a word out - but when he sung, no problem.”
I
leaned back and closed my eyes, letting the usual chat drift over the
surface of my mind; soothing backing and forthing waves of blah. I
was disturbingly aware of Donato, next to me. I opened my eyes again
as I found having them closed was a bit too much like being in bed
with him. Hm. Yes. In bed with him. No. Don’t think about that.
Don’t ever think about that.
It
was a long way home from Leeds and I must have slept, despite my
reservations. I woke to find we were just entering Knightley and
someone had wrapped a travel rug tightly around me. I appreciated the
gesture although it had left me far too warm and dreaming of bondage.
“Who’s
that?” Donato was staring out of the car. We were just going past
Bandhill, our actual football ground, on the way to where we trained
at Darkhill Park.The ground was a bit of a dump, which was the reason
why work was starting on a new stadium not far down the road. At this
very moment it was made slightly more decorative by the two women in
clubwear that were leaning against the wall near the main doors. No,
one woman and one man. Possibly. The shorter one - who was the more
probable male - seemed familiar to me.
“I’m
- not sure,” I said. I didn’t know where I knew the short man
from and I was worried it might be somewhere I didn’t want to admit
to going.
Sid
had slowed down and the two - people - were staring at us. The taller
one, who I thought was probably female and had long pink hair,
started waving at us and they both hurried out into the road as if
they’d never heard of traffic.
“Bloody
hell,” Sid said, pulling to an untidy stop near the curb. He wound
down his window. “What are you two up to? You’ll get yourselves
run over.”
“They’re
d-drunk,” James said. Then started blushing as the taller of the
two leaned down into the car. She had masses of earrings all the way
up ears that looked surgically altered to be pointed at the tips.
“I
heard that,” she said, staring at James who was now departing
tomato and approaching beetroot. “I’m not drunk. Well, only a wee
bit. Aren’t you Noel Stewart? The Knightley Wanderers manager?”
She had turned her attention to me so I supposed I had to answer. It
would have been difficult to deny my identity while sitting in a
carful of people who knew who I was.
“Um,
yes?” I said. Close up she looked familiar. She was over six feet
tall and with that hair, surely I should remember her? Or him, I
qualified after taking a good look at her.
“I’m
Fib Feary,” she went on. “Fullback.”
“You’re
our new fullback?”
Donato asked.
I
nodded. “This is Fib,” I said. The hair had finally given it
away, although when he played it was tied up into a kind of knot with
a hairnet over it. “Nice to see you,” I told Fib. Not quite sure
about that, to be honest.
“Fib?”
Sid said.
“Aye,
that’s me.”
“Feary?”
Sid added, his face full of wonder. I could see he was spoilt for
choice when it came to choosing a nickname.
“And
this is Yves Palomer,” Fib said, dragging the shorter man forwards.
“Midfielder.”
“Hello
again, Yves,” I said, nodding at Yves, who seemed to have a
permanent smile on his face. I wondered if he’d had some kind of
consciousness-altering substance before turning up here. “Nice to
see you too. Um, aren’t you here rather early?”
“We
didn’t bother to stay at a hotel,” Fib said. “We got in touch
on Facebook when we found out we were both coming to the Wanderers
and arranged to meet up. Yves’ plane got in late so we thought we
might as well go out for the night. Then we came here.”
“We
left our luggage at the railway station,” Yves said in a voice that
combined Paris and New York. He was short, about five five and had
blond curly hair straggling down his pretty olive-skinned face. He
was wearing very little and the little was covered in glitter.
“That’s
why you’re - dressed like that?” I ventured, glancing at Fib.
“No,
these are my travelling clothes,” Fib, who spoke with a gentle
Scots Highland accent, smiled at me. “I like to travel as a lady.
Even in a place as modern and mundane and obsessed with uniformity as
this, some men still open doors for me and offer to carry my bags.”
“You’re
a footballer,” I protested. “A fullback for goodness’ sake. A
position traditionally known for having persons filling it who are
built like the proverbial brick shithouse. I can’t believe you
aren’t fit enough to carry your own bags.”
“It’s
the principle of the thing,” Fib said.
“Did
you say your name’s Fairy?” James was leaning across Sid for a
good look at our new team transvestite.
“Feary,”
Fib said. “Like Fear. As in Fear Me.”
“Sorry,”
James said, ducking back into his seat, his face reddening again. I
rolled my eyes. It was that kind of thing made him a terrible goalie.
He’d see the opposition rushing at him with the ball and instead of
confronting them he’d look for a place to back off to. If that
place happened to be the inside of his goal, we were in trouble.
“You’d
better get in,” Sid said to our two new team members.
“Don’t
be silly,” I told him. “We need to get out. They can’t come to
the training ground dressed like that. Let’s go into Bandhill and
get them some spare clothes and I can ring round from the office and
find them somewhere to stay.”
Sid
pulled into the car park and we all piled out. By the time we got to
the side door where I’d told the newcomers to meet us, Fib had a
six-inch-long cigarette holder out and was smoking a Sobranie Black
Russian through it, occasionally passing it to Yves to have a puff.
“You
can’t bring that in the building,” I told him. “You can’t
have it anywhere in the ground. It’s illegal. Go outside with it.
On the road.”
“Please,
Boss?” Donato said as we watched the two of them sashay off to
smoke by the roadside.
“What’s
the matter?” I asked.
“Please
could you tell me why you have hired us a smoking transvestite?”
“She’s
nice looking,” Sid said. “I wouldn’t say smoking.”
“Shut
up,” I said as I unlocked the door. “For one thing I didn’t
know she smoked. For another, I didn’t know she was a transvestite.
And for a third, she was the best fullback I could afford for the
meagre pittance of cash I had available to spend on her.”
“What
if somebody should see them out there?” Donato asked. “Smoking
and wearing a dress and next to nothing?”
“Nobody’s
going to know they’re part of the team,” I said. I hit the light
switches and illuminated the dingy corridor that led to my office.
Scraped and battered by boots for years, it was a reminder that
nearly all the money we had was going towards the new stadium. “If
anybody sees them out there, they’ll just think they’re a couple
of sleazy football groupies waiting to get laid. Nobody’ll ever
realise they’re players.”
“Just
one more problem then,” Sid said.
“What’s
that?” Halfway through negotiating the broken and temperamental
lock on my office door, I turned to look at him.
“You'd
better stop calling Fib she,
Boss.”
COPYRIGHT NOTICE - THIS STORY AND ITS CHARACTERS ARE COPYRIGHTED.
PLEASE DO NOT COPY AND PASTE THIS STORY ANYWHERE WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION.
DO NOT COPY THIS STORY IN WHOLE OR IN PART AND CLAIM IT AS YOUR OWN WORK.
COPYRIGHT ALEX SWEENEY SEPTEMBER 2014
Eagerly awaiting part II.
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