‘For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s fair.’
‘Thank you.’
‘But you have been stupid.’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’
‘I don’t think you have to apologise. At least not to me.’
She gathers up her coat from the seat next to her.
‘I have to go now, Keith.’ She stands. ‘You know where to find me if you need to talk.’
People are running up the street from the direction of the tube station, with their football scarves flying in the wind and their newspapers rolled up like batons in their hands. He stands and looks on as they pass quickly through the turnstiles, eager to watch the evening match. He had arranged to meet Laurie half an hour ago, but it is becoming increasingly clear that his son must have forgotten. He presses the redial button on his mobile and tries Annabelle again, but her phone seems programmed to go to voicemail without even ringing out. He is loath to leave a message so he quickly shuts the phone and decides that he may as well go in and watch the game. There is no point in trying Laurie’s mobile, for when he called him this morning to arrange to see him, his son announced that his phone would be out of credit by the end of the call and he didn’t have any money to top it up. He could barely hear Laurie, who was on the bus en route to school, but they had arranged to meet at seven o’clock at the Loftus Road turnstiles, and he told Laurie that after the game he would top up the phone for him. Once he finished talking to his son, he decided to order a latte before leaving the Starbucks. No doubt Lesley would already have arrived at work, with her business face in place, but his own shapeless day would continue with him sipping on a latte and thinking aimlessly about what to do with his book. When his latte arrived he asked for it to be placed in a cardboard sleeve so he could hold it without scalding his hands, and as he grabbed a handful of napkins for extra insulation he realised that whatever frustrations he felt with regard to his book it helped to know that at the end of the day he would be spending time with his son. But there is no sign of his son. Laurie probably thinks that Queens Park Rangers against Sheffield Wednesday is a fixture for losers. The kind of match that he would be embarrassed to admit to having attended. In a way, he sympathises with Laurie, but in the absence of anything else to do he moves towards the turnstiles. After buying a ticket, he is subjected to a full-body search, which he feels is somewhat unnecessary at his age, but he knows that it is best to say nothing to these guys. He stands with his hands up in the air and waits until he hears the predictable, ‘All right, mate,’ which he recognises as his signal to move off towards the home fans’ stand.
At half-time it is nil — nil, and the lamentable quality of the football on display leaves him somewhat relieved that Laurie has chosen to abandon him. It would have been difficult to try and justify this rubbish to a seventeen-year-old Barcelona fan. These two outfits are unquestionably on the decline, clubs that were ‘big’ when he was a boy, but who now struggle to attract five-figure crowds. He points at a bar of chocolate, pays the money, and then picks up both the chocolate and his pint of lager and shuffles to one side where he discovers some space on a shelf where he can put down the plastic ‘glass’. He reaches in his pocket for his mobile and calls Annabelle again, but she still isn’t answering so he decides to text her. ‘Where’s Laurie? Did he forget football?’ He keeps it short, for he doesn’t want to sound too alarmed. He knows how quickly Annabelle panics, and he has no desire to reveal to her how disappointed he is that his son has not even had the decency to let him know that he has changed his mind. As he tucks the phone back into his trouser pocket, having first set the call feature to vibrate, he notices that the crowd is beginning to file in for the second half. He looks at their down-turned and miserable faces, and he wonders why he should subject himself to forty-five more minutes of this nonsense. Both teams are safely mid-table, and at the moment there is nothing to play for. However, even if there was something at stake, he is reasonably sure that neither team would be competent enough to exploit the situation. In fact, he only suggested coming to this match so that he could spend some more time with Laurie, but without his son’s company what’s the point? He decides to linger over his pint, and maybe order another. There is a closed circuit television screen behind the bar so it occurs to him that he might as well stay put and watch the game from this vantage point.
It is after eleven when he finally slumps down on to the sofa and kicks off his shoes. The second half was hardly an improvement, and when Sheffield Wednesday scored the winning goal in injury time he quickly downed his third pint and headed for the exit before the rush. The Queen Caroline was busier than usual because of the football, but he found a spot on a threadbare bench seat near the jukebox, and then foraged in his pockets for a handful of £1 coins which he pumped into the machine before returning to the bench seat and listening to the music. For some reason he decided that tonight he would just play reggae, and so he chose songs by Dennis Brown, Gregory Isaacs, Third World and Bob Marley. No doubt those who were not fans of reggae music would have been un-impressed by his devotion, but that was their problem. As he sat in front of his pint he was consumed by his feelings of disappointment and frustration that neither Annabelle nor his son appeared to think it necessary to let him know what was going on. How, he wondered, had he gone from being a husband and a father to this? Mr Bloody Nobody.
He gets up from the sofa and crosses to a precariously stacked pile of CDs. He scans them quickly, then takes out a Peter Tosh CD and slots it into the player. He listens for a moment and then turns the bass up a single point before returning to the sofa. He doesn’t want to disturb the neighbours. What should have been a stress-free evening with his son has turned out to be deeply hurtful, and Annabelle has still not called him back. In fact, the only person who did contact him was Lesley, who telephoned him as he was watching the second half of the match on the television screen behind the bar. She apologised if she had been out of line in summoning him to Starbucks, but he assured her that there was no reason at all for her to say sorry. He didn’t tell her that after their meeting at Starbucks he had not managed to achieve anything all day, beyond calling his son and arranging to go to the game with him, for he had been unable to get Clive Wilson’s treachery out of his mind. He should, of course, have been thanking her for being so honest and putting him in the picture, but he just listened and occasionally interrupted and reassured her that he really did understand why she felt compelled to contact him and meet up. ‘Let me know if you need to talk,’ said Lesley, ‘I know it’s not easy for you, but you’ve got my number on your phone now so don’t worry about calling me. It’s fine.’
He gets up from the sofa and lines his shoes up neatly. Then he turns down the volume of the Peter Tosh CD before making his way into the kitchen. Come on, Annabelle, he’s not just your son. She should at least have the courtesy to put him out of his misery and tell him that Laurie is all right. He takes the solitary bottle of Pouilly-Fumé from the fridge and twists a corkscrew into it, before wrestling both cork and instrument clear. He pours the wine into a tumbler and then puts the bottle back into the fridge. As he slumps down on to the sofa he picks up his phone and dials quickly from memory. He can tell from her voice that she is in bed and probably about to go to sleep.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up. I can call tomorrow if it’s better for you.’
For a moment there is silence as she takes in just who it is that is speaking. Then Yvette laughs slightly.