Grace put the book aside for a moment.
‘How much did you say they can fine you?’ she asked.
‘That bad, huh?’
‘No, really how much?’
‘I’m not sure if there’s an upper limit, actually. I think the highest fine ever imposed was on Ashley Cole for calling the FA a bunch of twats on Twitter. True of course. But that cost him ninety thousand quid. No, wait. It was John Terry. Yes, of course. How could I forget? In 2012 he got fined £220,000 for calling Anton Ferdinand a fucking black cunt.’
‘Two hundred and twenty thousand — pounds?’
I nodded. ‘Frankly, I’ve been called a lot worse. And I’ve racially abused more than a few myself. It’s swings and roundabouts, really. I think it’s a complete nonsense that there’s language you’re forbidden to use on the pitch when half of the players in the Premier League can’t even speak fucking English. Who says what — it’s all bullshit. How is it even possible to police something like that when, for example, the Spanish word for the colour black is “negro”?’
‘It would take me almost five years to earn that kind of money.’
‘That’s ten days’ pay for John Terry. It’s lucky he didn’t bite Anton, as well.’
‘I don’t understand. How have you got away with this until now?’
‘I told you nobody read that book. It was remaindered almost immediately. Most of the copies are in my attic, I think. Nobody reads fucking books in England. Not any more. But put something on Twitter and this is something very different. They treat a tweet like it’s a letter from Emile fucking Zola.’
‘They will read your book now, don’t you think? The FA, I mean.’
‘You’re right. I’m going to need a brief to represent me, aren’t I? So. The job’s yours if you want it.’
‘Really? You’d fly me over for the hearing? To London?’
‘Why not? Just as long as I get to fuck you again, Grace. I ought to get something out of this hearing, don’t you think? Besides, it will look good me having a black brief.’ I grinned. ‘I always did like black lingerie.’
‘Scott, my dear, I think I’d better start thinking of your defence right now. Tonight. You’re going to need every word of mitigation I can find in the thesaurus.’
25
When Jérôme came downstairs he was wearing a pair of G-Star RAW jeans that looked expensively ragged and a message T-shirt which read SCORES UNDER PRESSURE. I’d once seen Mesut Ozil wearing one at the Chiltern Firehouse and thought he was taking the piss; scoring under pressure wasn’t something he’d done a great deal of at Arsenal. Jérôme was also sporting his Cartier panther earrings and a gold Tourbillon watch that had more bling than the Kimberley diamond mines. We gave each other a homie handshake and then he helped himself to a glass of wine.
‘This is a nice wine,’ I said, politely. ‘Domaines Ott. I must remember that one.’
‘It’s Gui who knows about wine,’ said Jérôme, ‘He’s got a wine cellar downstairs that looks fabulous. Me, I just order from the expensive end of the wine list and then hope for the best.’
‘Living in Paris, that could be costly.’
‘It is. Maybe wine will be cheaper in Barcelona.’
‘They make some pretty good wines in Spain. Perhaps as good as anything made in France.’
‘What’s the book?’ he asked Grace who was still reading.
‘I found it on Gui’s shelves. It’s by Scott.’ She held it up to show him the cover which featured a moody picture of me. What else do you put on the cover of an autobiography? I remembered when the book first came out how unnerving it was to see my own face staring back at me off the shelves of my local Waterstones. Like seeing a poster of some wanted criminal.
‘By Scott. Hmm. Gui likes to read.’
‘From the number of underlinings it seems to be a favourite of his.’
‘Then you must sign it for him,’ said Jérôme. ‘A lot of the others are signed. Fergie’s book. Roy Keane’s. Mourinho’s. He loves having them signed. Here, let me find you a pen.’
Jérôme pulled open a drawer and produced a Mont Blanc fountain pen which he handed to me.
I tried to write my name, but without success.
‘It seems to have run out of ink,’ I said, handing it back.
‘I think there’s some more in the desk,’ he said, sitting down at a modern-looking table near the window. He pulled at the barrel of the pen and then frowned. It was clear he didn’t know how it worked.
‘It’s a piston-filler,’ I said. ‘I’ve got one at home. You unscrew the end, stick it in the ink, then screw the end back up, which sucks up the ink.’
‘Shit,’ said Jérôme looking at his hand. ‘It seems there was maybe some in it after all.’
He wiped his hand on the back of his jeans.
‘I’ve lost a lot of white blouses like that,’ said Grace. ‘Here, give it to me.’ She took the pen, filled it with ink, wiped it carefully on a tissue from her handbag — but not without getting some ink on her own fingers — and then handed it to me.
‘There you go.’
I opened the book’s title page and wrote my name and an anodyne little message for Gui about how lovely his house was and wishing him good luck with his career. Books are hard enough to write but the dedications are even harder. Especially in football. The number of times I’d written It’s a funny old game, or This is a book with two halves. Somehow good luck never seems quite enough. I handed the book to Jérôme who turned the pages as if the book had been an artefact from a time capsule. Maybe all books are. I mean, who the fuck reads any more?
‘Perhaps I can read this on the plane to Barcelona,’ he said. ‘But why’s it called Foul Play?’
‘You remember I said I’d been in jail, for something I didn’t do?’
He nodded.
‘The full story of what happened is in here. How I got fitted up by the British cops for something I didn’t do. There’s that and the fact that I had a reputation on the park as a bit of a hard man. Until Richard Dunne I think I held the Premier League record for the most red cards. No, that’s not quite true. I think he holds the record jointly now with Patrick Vieira and Duncan Ferguson. Honestly, though, I was never a dirty player. Just fully committed, as they say. I never set out to injure anyone. But I do think football’s a man’s game that’s in danger of becoming just a little tame.’
‘Oh? How?’ He laid the book on the table and picked up his glass.
‘I watched Messi up close twinkling his toes at Camp Nou the other week and I was thinking in the old days, someone — Norman Hunter, Tommy Smith — would have taken his legs off at the knees. I’m not saying that’s a good thing, mind. Just that maybe the balance has gone too far the opposite way. Actually, I think that this is why a lot of European players struggle in the Premier League. Because the game is much more physical in England than it is in Spain. With one exception. Cristiano Ronaldo. I think he’s probably the most physical player I’ve ever seen. I met him once and it was like shaking hands with fucking Xerxes. The king in that movie 300 about the three hundred Spartans? The one who Leonidas tells to go and fuck himself.’