Fan (17 page)

You’re always there.

5.20 p.m.

He’s traipsing his way back to Sheffield station, casualty numbers drifting from the open windows of cars trapped bumper to bumper on the Penistone Road, finding his ear.

Thirty dead.

Fifty.

Sixty.

Seventy.

Over seventy dead.

There are queues of lads lined up outside the phone boxes at the station. Pick a queue, any queue, wait your turn. He waits forty minutes. His dad answers. His dad tells him to get home safely. It’s okay because he’s safe. Everything will be okay.

But it’s not okay. It will never truly be okay.

He doesn’t call Jen. He’s only got one ten-pence fucking piece. There are queues of lads behind him. His own crew have already fucked off to the platform.

6.10 p.m.

The ‘Special’ inches out of the city and through the peaks. Some lads are talking about it. Some lads are telling jokes about dead Scousers. Some lads are picking fights with the blokes telling jokes. Some lads are worrying about the football, about the FA Cup, if the game will be replayed, if the whole thing’s been ruined. Some lads are staring out of the train windows at England’s green and pleasant land, their eyes filled with tears.

Some lads aren’t anywhere at all.

Dronfield. Chesterfield. Alfreton. Langley Mill. Nottingham.

Lads alight the train.

Lads drift away.

Lost souls slip back into lives they no longer own.

Lives removed.

Forever.

Finchy calls Jen when he’s back on his terrain, back in the flat, pacing the hall, unable to settle.

‘You’re alright?’ she asks. ‘Do you want me to come over?’

‘I need to be out,’ he says. ‘With the others.’

‘But you’re alright,’ she says. ‘You’re safe.’

‘Aye,’ he says. ‘Aye, I suppose I am.’

There’s a cool breeze blowing when he steps out of the flat. He sets himself against it and heads into town. A chill runs through him. The hairs on his arms stand to attention.

The sun is dropping beyond the trees that border the river. The sunset is a pink wash that darkens and thickens as he makes his way in. By the time he reaches the pub the sky is the colour of blood.

It’s 8 p.m. on 15th April 1989.

9 p.m.

They’re all out but no fucker’s really out. They’re six hours and seventy miles away, on the Spion Kop at Hillsborough. The same lads as a year ago, the same location, the same beers on the table. The pool table’s there but no fucker’s on it. Music’s playing but no fucker’s listening to it. Fanny coming and going. No fucker gawping. Amidst all of this, they pick through the cost of it.

‘They’ll cancel the fucking Cup.’

‘Fuck that. It’s a Semi-Final.’

‘We’d have won today. I fucking know it.’

‘It’ll be all Merseyside now. The papers’ll be all over it. Fucking Scouse bastards.’

BJ offers his two penneth and everybody listens.

‘Listen to yourselves,’ he says. ‘Fucking listen to yourselves. People are dead. It’s over.’

‘Fucking hell,’ say the others.

‘Fuck me.’

‘It’s well and truly fucking over.’

BJ slams his fist on the table. Beer sloshes on to the carpet, the dirty sticky carpet that has seen five hundred nights like this.

But never like this.

‘You’re all cunts, do you know that? All a bunch of fucking cunts.’

He picks up his bottle and fucks off, leaving them there. Finchy watches him go, knowing BJ’s frustration will turn into something else before the night is through, force its way upon some poor unsuspecting fucker that doesn’t know any better. It’s guaranteed.

Finchy observes Stimmo pick up his own pint and slip away towards some lads that don’t go to football. Finchy sits thinking about Jen, wanting to catch up with her now, to tell his story, not sure how the fuck he’s going to tell it. He doesn’t realise it will be that way for the rest of his life. He sits marooned, a pile of fresh shit to deal with, a new understanding about the workings of the world on his plate. And from this day forward no fucker will speak about it. No fucker will offer to help. The boys will all be stuck with it, guilty as fuck for living. And the response will always be the same if they ever get up the nerve to mention it, forever a look, a shake of the head, the fear of dwelling in that place. He’ll want to talk about it. He’ll fucking need to talk about it. But no fucker will be interested. And in the end, they’ll stop talking about it with each other, too. It will became a thing they share without sharing, something to bury at the bottom of a fucking pint glass. For fifteen years.

He thinks about his grandfather and the army days, how each time the old guy brought those days up the family would move on from it. Will it be the same, him trying to talk about things and everybody else ducking and weaving?

Of course it fucking will.

And that poor guy had to carry it for fifty fucking years.

Mention it in passing. Drop a line in. Measure a reaction.

But no fucker reacts. Ever.

So bury it then. Bury it deep.

He drives to Jen’s on the Sunday, turns up for Sunday roast, for beef and Yorkshire pudding, for Brussels fucking sprouts. He’s got no appetite for any of it, their sombre faces, their furtive glances over the table, their attempts at light conversation. After the charade he and Jen go for a walk through the village.

‘You didn’t call,’ she says.

‘I couldn’t,’ he says. ‘There was nowhere to call from.’

‘You called your mam’s.’

‘Eventually,’ he says. ‘Eventually. There was a queue a mile long for every fucking phone in the city. That’s how it was.’

‘I just thought you might…’

‘I called you when I got home,’ he said. ‘I called you then. That’s all there is to say about it.’

And Sunday bleeds into Monday.

Nobody speaks when he walks into the sorting office. Nobody looks him in the eye. Spence is unnervingly quiet, focused on slotting the letters into his frame. Robbie Box is nowhere to be seen. Harcross comes over with the barrow, hands him another bundle, pats him on the shoulder and trundles away. In the locker room, Jack Stanley, ex-Fire Brigade and one of the old boys, pipes up without looking in his direction.

‘How are you, lad?’

‘Alright,’ he says. ‘Alright.’

‘Good,’ says Jack Stanley. ‘That’s what we like to hear.’

That is all.

The newspapers are full of photographs. He catches them on his round, finds himself pulling the things out of letter boxes where they’ve been stuffed by the paperboy, standing on the doorsteps of his people reading about the thing that will come to separate them from him. Images of men, boys and girls, terror, pain, panic, an unforgiving compression. Eyes and cheeks and noses. Bloated faces press against wire-mesh fencing.

The living and the dead.

The dead standing up.

There’s a list of names in the paper too, a list of the deceased and their ages. He can’t look at the list, can’t bring himself to read it. He will never be able to read it.

Tuesday bleeds into Wednesday. An endless flow of misery.

He writes a note to the local rag, fan to fan, works on the words for hours, changing this, changing that. Something to do with them all being united, Liverpool, Forest, across the miles. He takes the note down to the newspaper offices and hands it over. It appears on the Friday, at the foot of an article about some bloke who was there. No fucker asks him for his story. No fucker wants to know.

You travel out of duty, out of respect for the dead and for the game you love. And you travel for the lads too, your brothers, to be with them.

Grey April skies.
You’ll Never Walk Alone
ringing from the terraces as the teams take the field. One minute of silence while a solitary car alarm cries a forlorn lament for the lost. Black armbands, eyes on the turf, a drawing of breath and then they’re off again, football picking up the pieces, trying to mend things.

Middlesbrough 3 v 4 Nottingham Forest.

The game is a homage to football, a nod to better days but the game is an afterthought. You and the boys on the terrace in the corner, still numb from it all, not knowing when to laugh, when to cheer, when to sing. Not knowing what the fuck to do.

Middlesbrough away.

Seven days after tragedy.

Wanting to be there. Not wanting to be there. Having to fucking be there. Numb with shock. An undigested thing in the gut. An indigestible thing. A fucking tapeworm. A parasite feeding off your guilt and shame. And nothing to be ashamed about. Nothing to be guilty about.

Guilty of nothing.

Guilty of everything.

Finchy and Jen.

Jen and Finchy.

There’s talk that they’re not getting on so well, that he’s been seen out on his own more often, that she’s been seen heading straight from college to the bus station instead of his flat. There’s talk that he dumped her and then begged her to come back to him. There’s talk that he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing, what the fuck he wants.

There’s talk of things like that.

Twenty-two days since the horror of Hillsborough.

It’s an FA Cup Semi-Final but it isn’t.

It’s a game between two sides but it isn’t.

Everton await the winners. An all-Merseyside final is in the offing.

So only one side can win today.

Forest are on a hiding to nothing.

There are thirty-nine thousand in Old Trafford yet the atmosphere is stilted, tainted with inevitability, tinged with sadness, touched with loss. There are gaps on the terracing. There are people saying the game shouldn’t be played. You feel it, too, but you go out of duty, out of necessity, out of habit.

Because it’s in your blood.

You’re there with T-Gally and Gav and Hopper and Jeff and BJ and JC and Sharpster. All of you are there except Stimmo. Stimmo is not there. Stimmo is somewhere else.

You don’t know where Stimmo is.

An exemplary minute’s silence, Laws and Crosby in a mess, Aldridge nodding home the opener. Webb equalises. Aldridge strikes the crossbar.

It’s an FA Cup Semi-Final but it isn’t.

On fifty-eight minutes Aldridge makes it 2–1 but the worst is still to come. Houghton’s throw finds Aldridge who lays off to Beardsley. Beardsley crosses and Brian Laws turns the ball into his own net. Aldridge ruffles the hair of Brian Laws. Brian Laws who is the Nottingham Forest representative of your supporter’s branch. Brian Laws who
visited your gaff to play darts and pool. Brian Laws who brought the League Cup trophy along for the ride.

Aldridge grins and spins away.

Aldridge takes the fucking piss.

And Forest are out of the Cup.

They’ve been out of the Cup for twenty-two days.

You’d like to say you care but you don’t.

You really don’t.

You travel because you love your club.

You travel because you love your players.

You travel because it is Anfield.

You watch Brian Laws foul John Aldridge in the box.

You watch John Aldridge score the penalty for Liverpool, the only goal of the game.

You clap the players from the pitch at full-time.

You clap the Nottingham Forest players and you clap the Liverpool players.

But you do not clap John Aldridge.

Friday.

The phone rings. He’s expecting Jen and another bout of soul-searching but picks up to Gav instead.

‘How’s it hanging?’

‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Yourself?’

‘It’s been another bastard week,’ says Gav. ‘But it might get better.’

‘How’s that?’

‘There’s a party tonight. Some farm in the sticks.’

‘A farm?’

‘Aye, mate. It’s buzzing. Every fucker I’ve seen this week’s been on about it. It’s a big fucking thing apparently, the latest fucking happening.’

‘Jesus,’ he says. ‘Everybody’s a step ahead.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Never mind,’ says Finchy. ‘I’m not sure. I was all into going to town.’

‘Fuck that,’ says Gav. ‘There’ll be no fucker out. Trust me. I’ve got my ear to the ground. You don’t want to miss it, mate.’

He blows out his cheeks.

‘There’s Jen,’ he says.

‘Fuck that,’ says Gav. ‘With respect, like.’

‘I’ll call you back.’

‘No need,’ says Gav. ‘We’re heading off at ten from the Hound. If you’re there, you’re there. If you’re not, you’re not.’

Fifteen minutes later Jen comes knocking at his door. He lets her in, leads her upstairs to the living room.

‘I’ve not come to talk,’ she says. ‘I’ve just come to see you.’

‘Are you staying?’ he asks.

She shakes her head.

‘I can’t,’ she says. ‘I have to look after my brother.’

‘Might as well go now then,’ he says.

She grimaces.

‘You don’t have to be like that,’ she says. ‘You could come back with me. We could get a film out.’

He doesn’t speak.

‘I’m watching the game,’ he says. ‘And I’m tired. I need a kip.’

She sighs.

‘I’ll leave if you want,’ she says.

He nods his head.

‘I think I need an early night,’ he says.

‘I can stay for a bit,’ she says.

‘If you like,’ he says. ‘But I really need an early night.’

She goes to the kitchen. From the sofa, across the landing, he watches her as she rifles through the fridge.

‘There’s nothing,’ he says. ‘I’ve not been arsed to fetch anything.’

‘You should have told me,’ she says. ‘I’d have brought something.’

He shrugs.

‘What now then?’ she asks.

He shrugs again.

Ten minutes later they’re in his bed, naked between the sheets but it’s awkward, uncomfortable. They struggle to fit together.

When it’s over he closes his eyes. He thinks he hears her crying, or trying not to cry, but he’s not certain and he doesn’t ask. He doesn’t say a fucking thing, just keeps his eyes closed tight shut. In the end she gets to her feet, gets dressed, walks across the room and closes the door behind her. He listens to her footsteps as she descends the stairs. He listens to the door slam, to her feet on the pavement outside.

Eventually he slips The Stone Roses out of their sleeve, sets them on the turntable, turns up the volume. He closes his eyes.

He’s still in bed when his flatmate bursts in carrying a pack of pills.

‘What the fuck?’ he asks.

‘Just saw your bird at the bus stop,’ says his flatmate. ‘She didn’t speak to me.’

Finchy shakes his head.

‘Don’t ask,’ he says. ‘What have you got there?’

‘None of your fucking business and nothing you could fucking afford,’ says his flatmate.

‘Pills?’

‘Beans.’

‘I thought you were purely a weed man,’ says Finchy.

‘I’m branching out,’ says his flatmate. ‘These are the future. You mark my words.’

‘Are they any good?’

‘Are you kidding? These are fucking legend, mate. Not that you’ll ever know. I need a fucking Tupperware box. Something airtight. Then I can bury the bastards in the garden.’

He gestures towards the postage-stamp yard and the shed the Scottish fucker never opens.

‘Don’t you think you should ask him first?’ asks Finchy.

‘Are you fucking kidding me? Just remind me to nick a fucking Tupperware box from work.’

‘You’re a real entrepreneur,’ says Finchy.

‘You have to start somewhere. Speculate to accumulate, that’s my motto. Now what’s the fucking time, I need to get ready for work.’

When he’s gone Finchy falls out of bed, makes his way to the bathroom, runs himself a bath and festers there for an hour until the water is tepid and his skin as mottled as his brain. He thinks about Jen cooped up on the bus, the country lanes, the stillness of the village, the garden path, her mam at the window. He thinks about what a cunt he’s being these days. He thinks about Gav and the party. A party on a farm. He
wonders what the fuck it’s all about. He clambers out of the back and stands in front of the bathroom mirror. He puffs out his chest, takes three deep breaths, places his palm on his ribcage, feels for confirmation of his beating heart.