Born Under Punches (4 page)

Twenty-first century Britain. The legacy.

Larkin turned off the TV, pulled his chair over to the table, powered up the laptop again. The disks, the piles of paper, the well-thumbed books.

More ghosts to exorcise. More work to do.

‘So, Mick,' Tony Woodhouse said, leaning forward, shoulders hunched, fingers steepled, left leg awkwardly folded behind, ‘how you doin'?'

Mick fidgeted, tried to make himself comfortable, but the old armchair had accommodated so many shapes it was virtually worn out. His mouth moved, his forehead creased, but the words weren't ready to come out.

Tony stayed as he was, body relaxed, mind sharp and attentive. Wanting no further distractions, he put down the file he had been holding and waited. Mick would speak when he was ready.

The office was cheaply but warmly furnished. The morning sunlight made it more so. A desk and chair, an armchair, shelves and filing cabinets, all old when Bobby Robson was a boy, all just about still going. One wall was virtually filled with box folders, textbooks and other items, with no shortage of papers to be filed away. On the walls were posters promoting positive attitudes and embracing inclusive statements, comforting homilies, drawings and poems. The office was a work area but also one of safety and refuge.

Mick looked middle-aged, poorly dressed and unhealthy. Tony was well groomed, his zip-fronted sweatshirt and stone cargoes not quite hiding a developing paunch. The contrast between them skin deep, but not bone deep.

Mick opened his mouth again. ‘I kna' you want the truth, Tony …' he managed at length.

Tony nodded.

Mick's lips moved, his brow furrows deepened. He was coming to a conclusion, facing things within himself, finding his voice before speaking the words.

‘Not good …' Mick cast his eyes down, shook his head slowly from side to side. ‘It's been bad. I've been … back on the booze, Tony.'

‘Right,' Tony said quietly.

Mick looked up. Tony caught the conflicting emotions bouncing around behind his eyes: guilt, pain, self-disgust. ‘I didn't want to. I couldn't stop mesell … I just …' His fingers flexed and unflexed, a useless gesture, an expression of impotence.

‘How much?' asked Tony. His voice held no judgement.

Mick began to pull at the hem of his old, dirty jumper. ‘Just … just the one bottle. Vodka. And … an' a couple of cans. Special Brew.' He let out a sigh of Atlas-like proportions. ‘I just needed somethin'. I've had a rough week.'

Tony nodded empathically. A lot of people in Coldwell had similar problems. Their personal strength dictated the ways they dealt with them.

‘How many bottles, Mick? How many cans?' Quietly, drawing the answer out.

Mick shook his head, stared at the floor. ‘I cannot remember.'

Tony let out a small sigh, not of exasperation but of sadness. ‘Try to, Mick. Be honest with yourself. And me.'

Mick looked up, a sad, imploring light in his eyes. ‘I cannot remember. Honest, Tony. I'd just have one, an' then I'd feel all right. An' then before I knew it, it was empty. So I had another. An' another.' He stopped talking, sniffed, composed himself, resumed. ‘All this week's dole's gone. An' next week's.' Mick sighed again, continued in a small, broken voice, spiralling down, talking as much to himself as to Tony. ‘I've let everyone down. Everyone. Angela, the kids, mesell …' Another Atlas sigh. ‘I told them I wouldn't. Not again, I promised …' Mick stopped speaking and fell totally still, a wall of palpable failure surrounding him.

Tony let the silence run its course, then: ‘So how are things with Angela?'

‘Aw … she puts up with a lot, that woman. Her jobs, the supermarket, the pub … they keep us goin'. I tell you, she doesn't deserve this. She doesn't deserve me …'

Tony spotted the signpost pointing down the road of self-pity and expertly changed the route. ‘So was it back to the hospital this time?'

Mick nodded absently, eyes averted. ‘Aye, but they didn't keep us in for long, though. They say there's nowt they can do with us. If me kidneys or me liver fails one more time, that'll be it.' He looked up, straight at Tony, eyes splattered red like wasted wine. ‘That's why they sent us back to you. To stop it happenin' again.'

‘Right.' Tony nodded, feeling his own Atlas pressure build. He felt the old familiar throb and ache in his left knee, uncoiled his leg and flexed it. He gave a small, brave smile, hoped Mick caught it. ‘So, Mick, what's going to happen next?'

Mick shook his head. ‘I don't know …' He cupped his hands in front of him as if holding something awkwardly. ‘I've got to stop drinkin' an' never do it again. I've gotto get from here—' he moved his hands to the right ‘—to here …' He shook his head in disbelief, amazed such a huge chasm could exist in such a small place.

Within Mick's eyes was an almost pure distillation of human suffering. Raw, naked, virtually too painful to look at, to make contact with. But Tony not only looked, he held Mick's gaze. And in doing so showed why he was so good at his job. He understood.

Mick continued.

‘Tony, man, sometimes it's just too hard. To keep goin'. To find a reason to get up in the mornin'. To just smile. I kna' I'm a man. I'm expected to just take it an' be strong an' keep goin'.… but …' Another sigh. ‘Sometimes it just hits us, you kna'? Apart from me family I've got nothin'. Nothin'. An' I never will have. An' that's not self-pity, that's me bein' honest.' Another sigh, and a smile; a ghost smile full of shadows. ‘You kna' … You're the only person I can say this to. Not even Angela.'

‘I'm glad you feel comfortable enough to do that.'

Mick nodded, the smile deepening ever so slightly. ‘I don't expect you to wave a magic wand an' make everythin' better. But you listen. That's somethin'.'

Tony smiled, hoping it held hope. ‘Right, Mick, here's your options. I can put you on a programme …'

Mick scowled. ‘Done that. Doesn't work.'

‘Well,' Tony shrugged, looked at Mick, waited for a reaction. ‘You could join the team.'

Mick's face crumpled up. ‘Aw no, Tony, I couldn't do that, man. I've just got out of hospital.'

‘Come on, Mick, it might be just the thing you need. Bit of fresh air, do you good.'

Mick's face was still downcast. ‘Nah …'

‘I'll make a deal with you, Mick. Come to training on Saturday. Bring your stuff. If you don't feel up to it after that, you needn't play on Sunday. How's that?'

Mick shook his head.

‘Come on, Mick, I need all the left-sided players I've got. It'll be a laugh. What d'you say?'

Mick thought about it and eventually his face broke into a full smile. The expression seemed so unfamiliar, Tony thought it was like watching wood bend out of shape.

‘You've talked us into it,' Mick said in mock grumble.

‘Good man. I'm counting on you.'

A flicker of self-respect passed over Mick's face. ‘I'll be there, Tony. You can count on me.'

‘I know I can, Mick.'

As they both smiled at each other, the phone rang.

‘It's for a book,' Stephen Larkin said a couple of hours later, sitting forward, arms open in gesture, adapting to the old armchair as well as Mick had. Tony sat in the swivel chair, arms folded, legs crossed.

‘About the miners' strike and after. Twenty-year anniversary. Or it will be by the time the book's finished and out. Using Coldwell as a kind of microcosm for the country as a whole.'

‘But I wasn't here during the strike.'

‘I know. But you're from here and you're back here now. Like I said on the phone and in the letter, what I propose is this. I come here for a week, say, sit in on sessions …'

Tony opened his mouth to argue. Larkin stopped it.

‘If you and your clients are OK with that, if not, forget it. I put your work in context with the area, then I do some interviews with you. You know, your playing career, how your life changed, how you ended up as an addiction counsellor. Big profile of you, lots of good things to say about your work.' Larkin sat back in the uneasy chair. ‘What d'you think?'

Tony thought. Larkin waited, thinking about the morning.

The day had the colour of smoke and the smell of the coast: sharp salt and decaying fish. Coldwell was along the Northumberland coast just north of Whitley Bay; he remembered it from the miners' strike.

The battle of Coldwell. How could he forget?

It was the first time he had been back to the town since he had started working on the book. The first time away from libraries, documents, dry facts. The first time in the present and not the past. Larkin didn't recognize the place.

He had driven in, parked the Saab in the car park of the new shopping mall. It held the kind of stores that appeared only in poor areas; retailers selling furniture and electrical items on the never-never, stores offering under a pound tat, supermarkets with harsh, guttural names selling discount goods, unfamiliar brands of dubious quality. Staffed by part-timers on short-term, no-benefits contracts, women with families to support, ex-colliers retrained to push trolleys together, beep barcodes on food packaging.

Sadness clung to the small, adjacent bus station. It seemed the buses never managed to take people far enough away, always brought them mournfully back. On the low wall outside the toilets was a gathering of career alcoholics, crack-and smack-heads, a meeting place for the dispossessed.

The only thing Larkin recognized was the old church, but even that had changed. Its doors looked as if they were hardly opened, its graveyard now a home to weeds, lichen and discarded hypos. The hope of any salvation long since gone.

The town was now a patched-up thing, dead, just not lying down yet. A town with no industry or future. Post-strike. Post-industrial. Post everything.

Tony nodded thoughtfully.

‘Do I get paid for this?' asked Tony.

Larkin shrugged. ‘I don't have an advance for this yet. But if and when I get paid, although it's not normal practice, I'll make sure some comes to you for contributing.'

‘To the Centre.'

‘Whatever,' replied Larkin.

Tony thought again. ‘OK,' he said at length. ‘You've got a deal.'

Larkin found that on first impressions he liked Tony Woodhouse. Most of the footballers and ex-footballers Larkin had met had been arrogant, ignorant bores. Tony seemed different. Articulate, intelligent, instinctively wary, he seemed to Larkin like a decent bloke. Larkin noticed the pronounced limp when he walked. He would get round to asking about that eventually.

They talked a while longer, formalizing the agreement. Tony agreed to virtually everything Larkin had proposed.

‘What made you pick Coldwell, then?' Tony asked.

‘I was here during the miners' strike in '84. I saw what happened.'

Tony snapped his fingers. ‘That's where I know you from. Why your name was so familiar. You've got a sister called Louise, haven't you?'

‘Yeah.'

‘I used to go out with her.' He shrugged, smiled. ‘Years ago.'

Larkin smiled, nodded. Memory cracked.

‘That's right. We met once, didn't we?'

‘Briefly, I think.' Tony's expression changed. Larkin couldn't read it. ‘Louise … She's married now. How is she?'

‘Fine, I think. Haven't seen her for a while. We're not close.'

‘Oh, well.' Sadness in the voice. ‘If you see her, tell her I said hello.'

‘I will.'

Tony nodded, got painfully to his feet, made his way over to the window. ‘So what d'you think?' he said loudly. ‘Coldwell's changed a bit, wouldn't you say?'

‘You could say that.'

‘You were here during the miners' strike, eh? Good sense of community then. Everyone pulling together.'

Larkin nodded.

‘You see down there? That lot down there?'

Larkin looked. Tony was pointing at the drinkers and druggies sitting outside the bus station toilets. He nodded.

‘They're there virtually every day, the same faces. Always greet each other, always looked pleased to see one another. They talk, they laugh.' He sighed. ‘I sometimes think that's the only community we've got left in this town.'

Larkin nodded in reluctant admission. They fell into silence, watching the town square. Eventually, Larkin said: ‘You've got a football team too, haven't you?'

Tony turned, eyes suddenly alive. ‘Yeah. Great idea. Good therapy – gets the clients to focus on something other than their own problems. Gives them—' he smiled ‘—something to play for.'

‘When's the next match?'

‘Sunday. Big bash. Charity affair.' Tony smiled. ‘Bring your boots.'

‘Oh, no,' said Larkin, arms out in front of him. ‘I'm the world's best spectator but the world's worst player. Sorry, I couldn't.'

‘D'you want this interview?' Tony's face was smiling, but his eyes were serious.

Larkin sighed. ‘All right, then.' He smiled. ‘I'll start training this week.'

‘That's what I like to hear.'

Larkin took that as his cue to leave. They agreed a time for Larkin to be there the following day. He turned to go.

‘If you see Louise,' said Tony, his smile edged with sadness, ‘tell her I said hello.'

‘I will.'

Larkin left.

Driving back through Whitley Bay, Larkin, thinking over his meeting with Tony, was gripped by a sudden impulse. He pulled the Saab off the main road. He was going to visit his sister.

Behind the links and deserted beaches of the run-down seafront of Whitley Bay was a warren of solid, middle-class semis. It was into this maze that Larkin drove.

He and Louise had never been close; beyond their biology they had little in common. As far as Larkin knew, all Louise had wanted was her husband, her kids and her semi beside the sea. He had wanted different things from life. He hadn't thought of her for ages. He couldn't remember the last time he had seen her.