I glanced at my wristwatch. There wasn’t long before the jet was supposed to take us to Spain. And it seemed I now had to decide the future of Jérôme Dumas, not to mention his whole fucking family and possibly — if Paulo Gentile was to be believed about the commercial possibilities for their futures, together — Bella Macchina, too. I could certainly have done without that responsibility.
‘I’ll think about what you’ve said. And let you know — well, as soon as I’ve arrived at a decision. In the morning, probably.’
I collected the bottle of Elijah Craig off the drinks tray. I don’t normally drink spirits; then again, I’m seldom put in fear of my life.
‘I’m going to change my clothes because I’m soaking wet, and then I’m going to finish this bottle.’
30
In my time as a football manager I’ve had to make some tough decisions. Who to drop from a team; who to sell. I remember having to break it to the guy who was my captain at London City that an injury meant he was never going to play for the team again, and it would probably spell the end of his career. And it did. I remember hearing the sound of him weeping in the bogs afterwards — him, a real hard Scots bastard. He took to the bottle after that and I felt like shit for weeks. More than a few weeks. It felt like I’d ruined his life and it’s been a skidmark on the porcelain of my soul ever since.
But choosing between two players was easy compared with the dilemma that Jérôme Dumas had landed me with. How do you decide something like that? How do answer a question that might result in the end of a young man’s career? There was that and then there was all the excess fucking baggage he’d managed to attach to my decision: the kids’ school in Pointe-à-Pitre, the hospital wing in Le Gosier, his brother’s welfare, his father’s legal defence, his cousin’s legal practice in Antigua. I told myself that a hole in the heart was one thing but that I’d have to have no heart at all to rule against him playing again.
In a way I actually admired him. His determination to play the game at all costs was something I could easily understand. You had to hand it to the lad, the idea of sending his twin to take his medical was cheeky and ingenious and just the sort of thing my old mate Matt Drennan would have done. The game was different then, of course, and that was only ten or fifteen years ago. It’s true, the money has changed everything. Jérôme was right about that. And why was it all right to conceal the true sexuality of a leading man in Hollywood — not mentioning any names, of course — and yet somehow unacceptable to cover up something like VSD? Why is there a higher standard expected of football clubs than movie studios? I don’t get that. All the crap from the Labour Party in the wake of the so-called ‘obscene’ Premier League television deal, about clubs not paying the living wage to some of their employees, had really pissed me off. Why the fuck stop there? Why not slap a windfall tax on the clubs and give the money to fucking Palestine, or to find a cure for Ebola? Cunts. The BPL is one of our most successful exports and there’s nothing obscene about that.
He was also right about VSD. More than he knew, perhaps. He probably didn’t realise it but only a week or so ago I’d read a very relevant story in the sports pages of newspapers. An English court of law had ordered Tottenham Hotspur to pay £7 million in damages to a promising star of the youth team, Radwan Hamed, who suffered cardiac arrest days after signing his first professional contract for the club, since when he had been unable to live independently. An ECG screening before he signed showed his heart to be ‘abnormal’ but he was not stopped from playing by team doctors with the result that Hamed’s family had sued Spurs for negligence. Spurs were indemnified by the doctors’ insurers in respect of these damages but it underlined that there was no way that any insurance company was even going to countenance the possibility of allowing a man with a hole in his heart to play top-flight football. The days when an Asa Hartford might have enjoyed a full fifteen years at the top of the game were long gone.
By now I was just a little bit pissed. But that was good. I was going to need to be a little bit pissed to tell Jérôme I wasn’t going to participate in his deception, which was the decision I was always going to have to make. Because the plain fact of the matter is this: I owe Barcelona a lot. I owe them everything. It was them who took me on when no one else was prepared to give me a chance. And you don’t forget that in a hurry. Not in football. In spite of what I’d told Jérôme, I knew I would have to decide in favour of the club. That’s what loyalty is. I couldn’t have decided any other way. Not in a hundred years. Naturally I felt really sorry for Jérôme Dumas but the way I saw it I didn’t have any real choice in the matter. Choosing between the club that had nurtured my managerial ambitions and a player who was prepared ruthlessly to deceive it at all costs was, if I’m honest, never a choice at all. But that didn’t make it feel any better. Which was why I’d grabbed the bottle of anaesthetic.
In truth, most of the time I was sitting in my room with the bottle I was trying to think of a way of salvaging something of Jérôme’s career. Nobody likes to throw someone on life’s scrapheap. Least of all me, who knows a few things about being on the scrapheap. When you’re in prison you realise that the scrapheap looks like a step up from where you are now.
I might have called someone with whom I could talk this over — my dad, perhaps — but the signal on my phone was, predictably, non-existent. So I was on my own. And those are the toughest decisions of all.
I slept for a couple of hours, woke around four, took a shower and went downstairs. The Louis Vuitton bags were still piled in the hall and the twins were where I’d left them on the sofa, wearing expressions of deep concern and anxiety. I glanced around. The knife was gone, thank God. I went into the kitchen, brewed some Bonifieur coffee and came back into the drawing room. Both of the twins stood up, expectantly.
I saw no point in beating around the bush so I took a deep breath and said, ‘I’ve decided. I’m afraid the answer has to be no.’
‘I told you,’ said Philippe. ‘He’s their man, not yours. You should never have trusted him, Jay. Now what are you going to do? It’s over, do you hear?’
He stared balefully at me for several seconds, as if he dearly wanted to hit me.
‘You bastard,’ he said. ‘All you people care about is money. None of you gives a damn about the people who play the game. Real people. And the real people who depend on them.’
And then he walked out.
‘Sorry about that,’ said Jérôme. ‘He’s upset, that’s all.’
‘I can see. Look, I’m sorry. But that’s just how it is.’
He sat down again and stared at his hands. ‘Yes, I understand.’
‘Actually no, I don’t think you do. I may be English but Barcelona — this club is like family to me, Jérôme. And you don’t lie to your family. I agree with everything you told me last night. It all makes perfect sense. But I can’t get over the fact that if I allowed Philippe to take your medical I’d be letting the club down badly. I’m sorry, Jérôme, but it’s a bridge too far, I’m afraid.’
He nodded silently.
I sat down, poured some coffee, and hoped that the sofa would swallow me up; either that or that the limo driver would ring the doorbell and I could leave. I don’t like flying all that much but this was a flight I was really looking forward to.
‘Tell me, what kind of football player is Philippe?’
‘Are you making polite conversation? Because I’m not feeling very polite right now.’
‘Humour me. What kind of player is he? A defender? A goalkeeper. Describe him.’