Fan (26 page)

Keeping time in BJ’s poky flat, the minutes dragging, anxious, ill at ease, unable to sit still. He stared about himself at BJ’s debris, the programmes scattered about the floor, the lager cans on the TV and every other fucking surface. He wandered through to the kitchen, to a table piled high with bills
and newspapers, flyers for takeaways, till receipts. The work surface covered in crumbs, metal cartons lined with half-eaten meals, unwashed plates, the sink full of the same, used cutlery, mugs with dregs of tea in the bottom, forks stuck in glutinous remnants of long-since digested meals. The washing machine was full, blinking away, the wash basket overflowing with BJ’s work clothes, the kettle furred on the outside. There was an open box of cereal sat next to an open packet of biscuits, a lone tea bag separating the two.

Finchy turned his back on it all, overwhelmed, thinking about doing BJ a favour and tidying the place. Maybe. Possibly. Later. After Spence.

He took himself through to the hall instead. One side of the stairs piled high with boxes. He skirted past them, climbed to the first floor, not daring to look at the bathroom, moving instead to BJ’s bedroom, an inquisitive, nosy bastard.

The bed wasn’t made. No fucking surprises there. The sheets were discoloured with an off-white stain, the pillows too. The windowsill cluttered with old deodorant cans, aftershave bottles, dust on every surface.

The father left to rot in his own failings.

One last place, though. One last hope. A gut instinct. The wardrobe in the middle of the wall. Finchy approached it, drawn by compulsion, a need to know. He reached out and took the handle in his fingers. He slid open the door.

And there they all were, squarely folded in careful piles as they might have been in a store, hung to perfection in neatly arranged rows, BJ’s casuals, his labels, his identity. Label upon label showing. Where the money went and the care and the legacy.

The history of a dresser.

Finchy stroked the fabric, breathed in the quality.

He stood there for an inordinate time indulging in the magnificence of each and every item.

Then he closed the wardrobe and bowed in reverence.

An hour later he was sat in the Social bar with Spence, just the two of them and the barmaid, no fucker else in the place.

‘They never did catch the bastard,’ said Spence. ‘Fucking strange that.’

‘I heard some bloke confessed. Some bloke in the nick.’

‘Bollocks.’

‘That’s what I heard.’

Spence took a lengthy mouthful of ale.

‘Remember Hillsy?’ he asked.

‘Derek Hills?’

‘Aye, that’s it. He went down.’

‘In the nick?’

‘Aye.’

‘Fuck off.’

‘Straight up. They caught him stealing the post. Went off the rails when his missus walked out.’

‘Wasn’t he a suspect back in the day?’

‘No more than you.’

‘I wasn’t a fucking suspect.’

Spence grinned.

‘They came to your flat.’

Finchy closed his eyes, refusing to be drawn.

‘Hillsy was giving the barmaid one,’ said Spence. ‘Or he had in the past. He always denied it. But I heard differently.’

Finchy shook his head. Was Hillsy number four, the missing jigsaw piece?

‘It doesn’t mean he had anything to do with it.’

‘No,’ said Spence. ‘No, it doesn’t. But it explains why the police had him in custody for two bloody days when they got wind of it.’

‘Poor bastard. What happened to him?’

‘He fucked off. Derby or somewhere. Died last year.’

Finchy shrugged.

‘Want to know what I think?’ asked Spence.

‘Not really,’ said Finchy.

‘It was either Arnie Burrows, Nobber Harris or Derek Hills.’

‘It might have been a stranger.’

‘It might have been, but it wasn’t.’

‘How the fuck do you know?’

‘I don’t. But I’d put a few quid on it,’ said Spence ‘Or it was you…’

‘Well, it wasn’t me,’ said Finchy. ‘Fucking hell.’

‘I reckon Hillsy did it.’

Finchy shook his head, laughed.

‘No chance,’ he said.

‘He was forever on the piss. I reckon he did it and can’t even fucking remember doing it. That’s what happens, isn’t it? People drink too much, take things they shouldn’t, forget who they are, do things out of character, wake up not remembering anything about the night before, where they were, who they were with, what they were doing?’

And now Spence was staring right at Finchy, straight-faced, unblinking. Finchy stared back, held his own, fought to hide his rattling heartbeat.

Spence. A cunt. Always a cunt.

‘And the other one?’ asked Finchy at last. ‘Janet Allen?’

Spence’s mouth creased upwards. He smiled, showed his perfectly white teeth, shook his head.

‘We’ll never know,’ he said. ‘Maybe that was just a coincidence, eh? Two unconnected events. One and then the other.’

‘At least you got out though, eh?’ said Spence.

‘I didn’t do anything.’

‘Aye, you did. You made the break. Look at this place. It’s full of lazy bastards. They moan about the immigrants but at least those fuckers get off their arses and get the job done.’

‘And you?’

‘I’ve not long until retirement. Just counting the mornings as they come, ticking each one off the list.’

‘I miss it sometimes,’ said Finchy.

‘No, you don’t. You think you do but you don’t.’

‘I miss the blokes. I miss the banter.’

‘Fair enough, but you wouldn’t miss the job if you knew it. The job’s shit these days. They tampered with it until it was fucked. They’ll privatise it one day and that’ll be that. We’ll all get our golden handshakes and then they’ll break it into pieces.’

Finchy looked around the room, at the four wooden-clad walls of the Social, at fading photographs of football teams and cricket teams and darts teams and pool teams, at the empty chairs and tables, the velvet cushions, the dark carpet.

‘This place is on its last legs,’ said Spence. ‘I give it a year tops.’

‘And then what?’ asked Finchy.

‘And then nothing,’ he said.

An old bloke shuffled in through the Social door. He nodded at Spence and ordered a beer. Spence turned to Finchy and whispered.

‘Do you remember him?’

Finchy shook his head.

‘Jack Stanley,’ he said. ‘He used to work at our place.’

Finchy smiled, stared over at the bent-up figure supping his pint in the corner, newspaper spread on the betting pages. Good old Jack. One of the old guard. One of the best.

Spence spoke.

‘I envy you,’ he said.

‘Fuck off,’ said Finchy.

‘Seriously,’ said Spence. ‘You got out just in time.’

11.50 a.m. He stepped out of the Social and moseyed up to the old town station, waited for a train to carry him north, him and BJ and a crowd of other blokes he’d never seen before, all of them dressed for the day in their labels, some of them already tanked up, already reeking. He separated himself from the throng, shimmied up the platform, retreated his ten yards.

Lincoln City v Grimsby Town. Yellowbelly pride at stake, on the field and off it.

The Imps versus The Cods.

BJ withdrew alongside him.

‘Smart,’ said BJ noticing his resplendent Sambas. ‘Now you’re talking my language.’

‘And that lot?’

‘Fucking idiots, mate,’ he said. ‘They’ll not get in. Not today. They wanted to know who you were. They wanted to know why you stopped going to Forest.’

‘What the fuck’s it got to do with them?’

‘They don’t trust you, mate. They think you’re old bill. But they trust me so you’re alright.’

They found themselves seats at the front of the train, well off the radar, years of experience coming in handy. Finchy sat and listened as half-remembered songs drifted down the carriage from the half-cut souls at the far end, the window framing the old town until they descended into the cutting north of the station and the black tunnel beyond. Then he was staring at his own reflection. He turned away.

‘There’ll be carnage today,’ said BJ.

‘Reminds me of the Baseball Ground,’ he said. ‘Reminds me of Filbert Street.’

‘This’ll be worse,’ he said. ‘Less police. Less protection. More action. Not inside. Outside. Mark my words.’

‘And you’ll be in the thick of it…’

‘We’ll see what happens, mate. We’ll see what happens.’

BJ rubbed his hands, grinned his boyish grin.

It wasn’t carnage, at least not beforehand. BJ took him to a pub away from the ground, away from the police, away from the madness. They sank a couple of pints, one eye on the TV in the corner and one eye on the window. When kick-off approached they headed in, skirting the Catchwater and the river, traipsing along Sincil Dike, blood up now, blokes and plods clotting the pavements, the narrow terraced streets, trooping up to Sincil Bank, distant chanting drifting on the breeze, the squawk of a police tannoy, the wail of a siren.

The sweet sonata of match day.

Tension in the air.

Grimsby at home.

And something he recognised, something he knew, an old fucking friend come to say ‘hello’.

The game as he remembered it.

Sincil Bank rocking, packed to the rafters, twenty-two players slugging it out on the pitch, eight thousand slugging it out off it, honours fucking even in every respect. He spent most of the game watching the lads in the away end. They’d been lads themselves, full of some inner fury. They weren’t lads any more but it was the same all around him, lads starting out at a level they could afford, lads in the thick of it and older blokes, blokes like BJ, who’d seen it and done it and never moved beyond it, blokes in their thirties yet still in their casuals, blokes with kiddies at home and bills to pay, dressers let loose on a Saturday to do what they’d always done, blokes with bald heads and tired eyes, blokes who’d been about a bit and never found anything to replace it. So they fucking carried on doing it, where they could, when they could, sidestepping the banning orders that came their way. And why fucking not? What else was there? What else could compare to it? Who was he to judge BJ and the rest of his fucking throng? What right
did he have to pretend to be any better? The bloke had stepped up when he was ripe for a pasting. He owed BJ the courtesy of not belittling him for what he was.

Fuck that.

He was better than that.

Afterwards, they paraded along Scorer Street, to the same pub as the Dale game. He knew what was coming but couldn’t drag himself away. He’d reached the end, though, he knew that much. He knew he’d be heading back in the morning, back to the life he’d forged from the scrap he’d started with.

BJ, serious in his drinking now, downed his pint in great gulps, wiped his mouth and ordered another. He was talking a lot. His eyes started to go.

‘Those cunts don’t understand. Those bastards just don’t get it.’

Finchy nodded his head, wondering who the cunts and bastards might be.

BJ. Once a mad fucker, always a mad fucker.

‘I’ll be seeing my kids tomorrow,’ said BJ.

Finchy thought of Kelly. He thought of the arguments, the serious talks, the elephant lodged between them.

‘I’ll take them out somewhere. Somewhere nice.’

Finchy nodded.

‘Some cunts grow out of this,’ said BJ. ‘At least that’s what they say. But I don’t know how that’s possible. How the fuck can you grow out of it? If you can grow out of it you were never part of it to begin with. That’s my fucking understanding. I read this thing the other day. ‘
Kids holding hands with their dads, picking up pace as the ground looms into view
.’ Breaks my fucking heart that does, mate. Breaks my fucking heart. So fucking beautiful. Because I still feel that. I felt it today. And one day I want my boy to feel it. I want him to have what we had. But he’ll never have what we had … not the way it’s heading.’

There were police outside the pub. Finchy spotted them
through the frosted glass. And then, in a fluid movement, the blink of an eye, carried by the momentum of others, he found himself moving towards the door. The line of police was on the far side of the street, linked arm in arm, forming a barrier. Finchy and the other blokes spilled out of the pub, where they were buffeted and barged into an ever-decreasing space as the police sealed off the road.

Or tried to.

Finchy sensed what was coming before it happened. He was there with BJ on the street corner, listening to the sound of a baying and yelping crowd. He could see BJ sniffing the air, sniffing out some Codhead aggro. Whatever the police had planned, whatever their ideas were, they were too few in number to prevent what was coming. One great cock-up just waiting to happen.