The Footballer's Wife (3 page)

Len liked being defined by his job. He liked to be thought of as The Steward. The title felt right, like it had some weight behind it; some responsibility. But lately he wasn't known for what
he
did, he was known for what his daughter did, and it was beginning to trouble him.

Yesterday's display wasn't something he was particularly proud of. But he didn't think the punishment fit the crime. He wasn't Joel Baldy, he was plain old Len Metcalfe and he'd never seen himself in the paper before. Had he been presented with the scenario, he would have hoped that his tabloid debut hadn't seen him frothing at the mouth. He had avoided getting his usual
Sunday Globe
today. It was one of his small pleasures: a coffee, a smoke and a scan of the Sunday rag. But he just had a feeling that he might be making a rather unpleasant appearance in it today and, as such, had avoided the newsagents. It didn't matter, though, there was no shortage of people who wanted to show him today's issue. Marge the cleaner had been the first. ‘Bloody hell, Len, you look like a madman!' she had said gleefully as she threw the paper down on the bar that morning. Len had looked at it with
abject mortification. She was right; he looked like a man possessed. Marge read the opening lines aloud: ‘Madman Metcalfe, father of Joel Baldy's WAG Charly, was chomping at the bit yesterday moments after being released from police custody without charge after a fracas at the Manchester Rovers game . . .' As Marge went on, Len hung his head. The rest of the day saw a steady stream of punters coming in armed with the paper, ready to tell him something he already knew: he was a national laughing stock.

Charly had called him earlier. After his appalling showing yesterday she was ringing to rearrange introducing him to her boyfriend. She said that she wanted them to meet sooner rather than later and had suggested that evening. Len had decided that he was going to agree to anything his daughter wanted – he'd brought enough trouble to her door as it was without being all huffy about meeting her famous other half. But he wasn't sure about Joel. There had been rumours in the papers about him playing away using more than just his feet, and the fact that they'd been together for so long and he'd never met him made Len suspicious. Len tried not to worry too much, he knew that Charly had gone into this relationship with her eyes open, but he was
still fiercely protective of her and the last thing he wanted was some silly pretty-boy footballer upsetting her.

He looked up to see Fat Paul, a dimwitted wheeler-dealer from the area, heading towards him with the day's papers under his arm and a stupid grin on his face. Before he had time to say anything Len fixed him with a glare. ‘Shut it, Paul, or I'll tear you another arsehole.' Paul put the papers behind his back as if he didn't know what Len was referring to.

‘Bloody hell, I was only after a quick pint,' he said.

*

Markie was sitting at the bar of the Glasshouse, the nightclub that he co-owned with his business partner Mac Jones, in the centre of Bradington. He was sipping sparkling mineral water and looking at the guest list for this evening – more for his own amusement than anything; he liked to see who thought they were special around town – when his phone began to ring. ‘Mum?' he said out loud, looking at the caller ID.
What did she want?
His mum had been keeping her head very much down
over the last year, since it had been discovered that she was selling stories to the tabloids about her daughter, his sister Leanne, who'd had a career as a well-known glamour model.

‘Yes?'

‘Well, that's nice, innit?' Tracy snapped. ‘When was the last time you came round to see me or called me and then I call you and I get “Yes?”.'

‘Hi Mum, long time no see. God, I've missed you,' Markie said sarcastically.

‘Lovely. I bend over backwards for years for you lot and all I ever get in return is lip and sarky comments.'

Markie wasn't rising to the bait. ‘Alright, Mum, what can I do for you?'

‘I've been thinking . . .'

Markie waited for it. Whatever it was would somehow serve Tracy. She never did anything that didn't directly benefit her.

‘Thursday night. Let's have a get-together. When was the last time we did that? Me, you, our Jodie, our Scott, our Karina, our Leanne . . .'

‘The last time was before you decided that selling stories about our Leanne and your granddaughter was a normal way of making some extra cash.'

Tracy tutted; she hated being reminded of her
misdemeanours. ‘And am I ever going to live it down? Anyway, it's just been blown out of proportion now. I'm being painted as the wicked witch of the west when all I was trying to do was earn a bit of cash to take us all away somewhere nice.'

Markie burst out laughing. ‘Pull the other one, it's got fucking bells on! This is me you're talking to.'

‘Right,' Tracy said, ‘if you don't want to come then fine. Suit yourself. I'm not begging.'

Markie finished his water, stood up from his stool and walked across the floor of the VIP area to the spiral stairs that led down to the main part of the club. ‘So what's the occasion?'

‘Kent's entering a competition; I thought we could give him some moral support.'

Markie's eyes narrowed.
What did she need them for?
‘What sort of competition?' he asked, seeing his business partner, Mac, walk in. Markie nodded to him.

‘Elvis.'

Markie stifled a laugh, ‘You
what
?'

‘You heard. So you coming or not?'

Markie hung up as Mac approached. ‘What's so funny?'

‘That dipshit my mother lives with is entering an
Elvis competition and she wants us all there like the Waltons to give him moral support.'

Mac laughed and shook his head. ‘She's a rum 'un, isn't she?'

‘That's one way of describing her.'

‘Saw her the other day, in town. She was in Super Cigs. I've not seen her look so well in years.'

‘My mum?' Markie asked incredulously.

‘Yes,
your mum
. She used to be a looker when she was younger.'

Markie glared at him. Mac held his hands up to placate his business partner. ‘I'm just saying . . .'

Markie relaxed and half smiled. ‘Really?'

‘Yeah, but it was always hard to see past that gob of hers.'

The smile turned wry. ‘I can well believe that,' he said, passing Mac a breakdown of the takings for the week.

*

Jodie had spent the past three days in Majorca on a photo shoot for a leading men's magazine. In the past year she had seen her stock rise. When her sister Leanne, herself a successful glamour model, had signed her to her new management company
Jodie didn't really think that she could be successful at it. She
dreamed
she might, but she was a realist and years of living on the Bolingbroke estate didn't automatically fill a girl with hope that there was a great life to be had out there. A year ago she thought that she was going to spend the rest of her days pulling pints at the notorious Beacon pub, but she hadn't touched a pint pump in nearly a year and she was making good money as a model. The difference between Leanne's career as a model and Jodie's was that Jodie had Leanne guiding her, whereas Leanne had had a manager who didn't really care what happened to her once she earned her cut. Leanne was ensuring that Jodie was saving half of everything she received. The temptation to go and blow everything had been great when she'd first had some money but she didn't have that option with her sister around, thankfully.

She was living in an apartment near the city centre, using the money she earned from her first few months as a model as her deposit. It wasn't Trump Towers, and it was in Bradington, but Leanne had warned Jodie away from getting starry-eyed and thinking that she needed to move to London just because a lot of her work took place there. Leanne advised Jodie to stay at home and dip
into the London life for parties and premieres; that way it would always seem exciting and yet she wouldn't find herself stranded, as Leanne had, if work dried up. Not that Leanne was going to let Jodie's work dry up; she was finding work for her daily.

Jodie was standing in her kitchen leafing through the post and waiting for the kettle to boil when her phone began to ring. No one ever rang the landline. She was going to ignore it, thinking it was probably a sales call, but curiosity got the better of her.

‘Hello.'

‘Don't put the phone down . . .' the familiar voice said quickly. Jodie's face registered shock; it was her mum.

‘What d'you want?'

‘To stop all this bollocks. I'm fed up with us all not speaking; it's time to let bygones be bygones.'

Jodie took a deep breath; anyone else's mum and she might have believed them, but not her own. Whatever it was that Tracy wanted it was for herself, not because she really wanted reuniting with her family. ‘Is it money?'

‘Is what money?' Tracy asked.

‘What you're after?'

‘You cheeky sod. I don't need your money.'

‘Right,' Jodie said, trying to sound neutral. The fact was, as much as her mum was the worst example of motherhood that Bradington had to offer, she was still her mum and no matter how many times Tracy let her down, Jodie always hoped that one day she'd stop acting like a sneaky overgrown kid and start acting like the parent she was supposed to be.

‘Right, nothing. Don't think just because you've been asked to go on
Celebrity Breakdance
you're a cut above, because you're not.'

How did she know about that?
Jodie wondered. She'd quite liked the idea but Leanne had told her she wasn't doing anything that didn't involve modelling. Those types of shows were fine to do when you had something to promote or your career was in the doldrums, she'd said, but as Jodie was doing fine and was doing all the promoting she needed by just being in magazines, she didn't need to spin on her head and be marked out of ten just yet.

‘I don't think anything of the sort.' Jodie was about to snap at her mum but caught herself; she knew this could descend into a full-scale slanging match very quickly if she wasn't careful. ‘OK, Mum, go on, what's up?'

‘I've arranged a night out for us all. As a family.'

‘Have the others agreed to this?' Jodie asked with surprise.

‘Markie has. Scotty has, but then again he's not seen his arse with me the same way the rest of you have . . .' Jodie bit her tongue. Her brother Scott was too soft with Tracy in hers and everyone else's opinion. ‘. . . and I'll ring Leanne and Karina when I've finished talking to you.'

‘So what's the big occasion?' Jodie asked.

‘Kent's entering a competition and I thought it'd be nice if we were all there.'

‘What sort of competition?'

‘Elvis.'

Jodie snorted laughing. It came out involuntarily; she couldn't help herself. The thought of stupid Kent up on stage doing one of his terrible Elvis impersonations was too much to bear.

‘What you laughing at?' Tracy sounded indignant. ‘You're as bad as Markie.'

‘What do you think I'm laughing at? Kent as Elvis. Brilliant. Put my name down.'

‘I don't want you taking the piss out of him. He takes it very seriously.'

Jodie rolled her eyes. ‘Would I?'

‘Yes, you would. Right, Bolingbroke Lane
Working Men's Club; Thursday night, half seven. Don't be late.'

‘Bolingbroke Working Men's Club!' Jodie began to protest about the pipe-and-slippers venue but Tracy had already put the phone down.

*

Charly was nervous. She was standing in front of her full-length mirror in the city centre penthouse, scrutinising her reflection. Her blonde bobbed hair was perfectly straight, her petite size eight figure was poured into a muted silver Body Con dress that didn't give her any room to breathe, and her feet were encased in a pair of leopard-print Dolce and Gabbana shoes that matched her handbag.

‘You look fit,' Joel said, sliding his arm around her waist, his hand making its way down her skirt and between her legs.

‘Thanks,' Charly said flatly, taking his hand off her leg. ‘You don't look half bad yourself,' she added without really looking at him. Things had been tense between them since he stormed off the other day. The move into town couldn't have been described as fraught, as Gina had organised everything, but the tension had remained in the air.
Charly knew that the last thing Joel wanted to do tonight was meet her father. But he also wanted to make his peace with Charly. He often did this, sulked for days and then decided,
when he was ready,
that they should act as if nothing had happened.

‘Suit yourself,' Joel said at the rejection. ‘Shall we go then?' He waved the keys to his Lamborghini Murcielago.

‘I hope you like my dad,' Charly said anxiously. And she meant it. She was fraught enough as it was, trying to keep up the paper-thin veneer of civility between her and Joel, without having to deal with him not liking her father.

‘What's not to like? Other than the fact he twats stewards and ends up getting arrested,' Joel said sarcastically.

Charly smiled tightly at the ill-judged joke. Joel pulled her into his arms.

‘Don't worry. I'm sure he'll be like a pussy cat,' he said, kissing Charly on top of her head.
Let's hope you are too,
Charly thought grimly.

‘Do I need to keep it buttoned about your old dear?' Joel asked. Charly felt a sudden shudder run through her. It was one of those moments where she wanted to go back to just before he'd opened his mouth and say, ‘Please Joel, don't say what
you're thinking.' She had impressed upon Joel on a number of occasions how distressing it was to her that her mum was not in her life and how it had affected her. But it seemed that Joel, as ever, wasn't thinking about her feelings. He was just saying the first thing that came into his head. This to Joel was probably the height of compassion, Charly thought; actually remembering to think that she even had a mum who was still floating around somewhere.