Fan (13 page)

Knackered. Sick to the stomach.

Guilty of nothing. Guilty of everything.

He slept for six hours, cocooned in the room with the windows that wouldn’t open, sunlight streaming in. The room too hot, robbed of air. Unable to breathe. His head pounding, his legs numb, his arms two dead weights.

Unable to breathe.

Unable to breathe.

The sound of screaming woke him, high-pitched, incessant screaming. He opened his eyes, sucked in a lungful of nothing. The phone in his room was ringing. It took him a moment to locate it, the phone on the dresser, out of reach. He dragged his forlorn body across the space, lifted the receiver, confused, uncertain, hardly with it.

‘Hello?’

His voice a dry croak, the taste of vodka still lingering, his stomach lurching.

Starving.

‘Mr Finch. It’s reception. There’s a call for you.’

‘A call?’

‘Shall I put it through?’

‘I suppose so…’ he said.

A click. A crackle. A voice he didn’t recognise.

‘John Finch?’

‘Yes,’ he said, more alert now, imagining the fucking police or something, thinking of Kelly, a tragic discovery, the fucking madness of that evening.

But it wasn’t the police.

‘Can you hear me? Can you hear me good and clear?’

Hard-edged. Local. Threatening.

‘I can hear you,’ he said.

‘Stay away from Jen White, you sick fucking cunt.’

The line went dead.

He sat up, his heart beating ten to the fucking dozen, trying to rouse himself, to put voices to faces, not having a clue where to start. He felt the convulsions then, the bile in his throat, struggled to the bathroom, threw up in the toilet. On his knees in the old town, vomit on his lips, vomit in the toilet bowl, the bitter smell of vomit and vodka all around him. He vomited again, planted his forehead on the cold toilet bowl, ten thousand nails in his skull. Ten thousand nails and ten thousand hammers.

Guilty of nothing.

Guilty of everything.

He milled about in the hotel room for the rest of the afternoon, a living corpse, thinking about Jen and Stimmo, about trouble pouring through an open door. He thought about other doors too, closed fucking doors and the secrets they contained. He thought about Duckenfield and Bettison and the SYP. He flicked through the TV channels, stuck the racing on, the two-thirty from Kempton, the rain drilling down, the steamed-up camera lens, the mad bastards cheering their rides home.

Horses for fucking courses.

At five he traipsed through the hotel corridors to the bar. It was empty, the shutters down, tables stacked against the wall, the carpet damp from cleaning. He tried the dining room instead where the tables were set for breakfast. There was no fucker in there either. The whole place was deserted, save for the girl on reception, tapping away at a keyboard. He made his way to the desk, waited in dumb silence like a spare prick at a wedding.

‘Are you okay, sir?’ She flashed a bored-looking smile in his direction.

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Yourself?’

‘I’m well,’ she said. ‘What can I do for you?’

He shook his head.

‘Nothing,’ he said. Then he said, ‘Is there food tonight?’

‘The chef’s not coming in,’ she said.

She went back to the keyboard, to the PC screen, to a list of numbers and symbols.

‘It’s just that I’m hungry,’ he said.

‘We have sandwiches,’ she said. ‘Sandwiches, crisps and peanuts. Or there’s the contents of your minibar.’

The fucking minibar. Home to a solitary Twix and fuck all else.

‘I thought I’d be able to get something,’ he said.

She shook her head.

‘Evening meals are reserved for pre-booked coach parties,’ she said. ‘We have no coach parties. If we did I could squeeze you in. There are restaurants in town. It’s a ten-minute walk.’

He considered what restaurants the old town might have to offer on a Tuesday evening in October. He smiled at the tragedy of it all.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘I used to live here. I lived here for a long time.’

She smiled back at him.

‘But not any more.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Not any more.’

‘Why did you move away?’ she asked him.

He shrugged.

‘To escape?’ she asked.

‘Maybe,’ he said.

‘To find somewhere better?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Is it better?’

‘Is what better?’

‘The place you live now,’ she said.

‘In some ways,’ he said.

‘I feel the same about my country,’ she said. She wasn’t looking at the PC screen any more. There was some life about her.

‘You’re Polish, right?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Do you miss home?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘How long have you been away?’

She held up three fingers.

‘Three years,’ she said.

‘Will you go back?’

‘One day,’ she said. ‘When the great migration ends.’

He stood beyond the desk, looking down at her in her uniform, thinking she might be pretty, not entirely decided on the fact.

‘When I left here there were no foreigners,’ he said.

‘That’s why they hate us,’ she said.

‘Who hates you?’ he asked.

‘The local people,’ she said.

He laughed aloud at that, couldn’t help himself.

‘They hate people from the next town,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t worry too much about that.’

‘It’s strange,’ she said. ‘They hate us just for being.’

‘You should try coming back after fifteen years,’ he said.

‘It could be nice here,’ she said. ‘If the people were more accepting.’

‘They’re okay deep down,’ he said. ‘But if you don’t like it, why stay?’

She held up her hands, waved in the direction of the empty foyer.

‘I go where they send me,’ she said.

‘You live in the hotel?’

She nodded.

‘Eventually I will get a move to London,’ she said. ‘Then we’ll see.’

‘London,’ he said.

She looked at him then, expecting him to say something perhaps. But what the fuck was there to say?

Back in the hotel room, back in his own world, he called the house, listened to the phone ring, let it run its course, put the phone down, rang the number again. He did that for twenty minutes with his arse perched on the edge of the bed, images of the evening he left wrestling for attention.

The two of them in the living room, Kelly spread out on the couch, him in the chair. A row about his intentions. His fucking bag in the hallway.

Waiting.

‘What happened to us?’ he asked.

There was a moment when she didn’t say anything, when she seemed to be sucking it all in, setting things up for what was to come.

‘What happened to you?’ she said at last.

‘No, us, Kelly. What happened to us?’

‘I know what happened to me.’

‘I’m not talking about that.’

For whatever reason she didn’t follow that familiar fucking route. For whatever reason she clambered off the sofa and crawled across the carpet, draped herself over the arm of his chair, placed one hand on his knee.

‘I just want to take us to the next step,’ she said. ‘You know what I want.’

‘And then everything will magically sort itself…’

‘I think so,’ she said.

She moved on to his lap, placed her forearms on his shoulders.

‘You realise you’d get to fuck me incessantly,’ she said. ‘Night after night, time after time.’

A new fucking tactic this. He wondered what she’d been reading, who she’d been talking to. He could see the bitches at her work, lining up with their fucking tips and methods. But for all that his cock was stirring. Of course it fucking was. He had a face full of tit. She had her cunt pressed against his thigh. He could feel the fucking heat there. She kissed him, stuck her tongue in his mouth.

Fuck it.

He kissed her back, grabbed her arse and pulled her up his lap so that her cunt was grinding against his cock. She squirmed with encouragement.

‘Upstairs,’ she whispered.

He followed her to the bedroom, three steps behind, her arse in his face. She shimmied when she realised. He pressed his nose against her crotch, made a show of breathing in the scent of her, heard her gasp, the two of them in the zone now, the outcome inevitable.

In the bedroom she sat on the bed and pulled him towards her, went straight for his belt, unzipped his flies, pulled his cock out of his boxers, started slobbering and licking at it. He gripped the back of her head, knowing full well her strategy but not bothering to second-guess it, focusing on his own thing, fully fucking loaded.

And then he was splayed on the bed, and Kelly was riding him, grunting, moaning on top of him while his hands squeezed her arse and tits. Breathless, frenzied fucking, just like the old days. And somewhere in that, eyes closed, mind desperately seeking obstruction, he found himself at Ashton Gate, Garry fucking Parker ramming the ball in from the edge of the box, six thousand Forest going fucking mental on a rain-drenched terrace, punched and kicked and dragged in all directions, transported from one point to another, a sperm in a shoal of sperm, rising and cresting a wave.

Better than sex. Better than fucking sex.

He came to his senses with milliseconds to spare, pulled out of the challenge and fell to earth, sprayed on Kelly’s stomach so that she came crashing down along with him.

‘You prick,’ she screamed.

He felt her fist strike his nose. Her fingernails gouge his chest.

‘You fucking prick!’

And then he was rolling off the bed, scrambling out of her reach.

‘We’re supposed to be waiting,’ he shouted.

‘Waiting for what?’

‘We agreed, to wait.’

‘It’s what you agreed.’

‘It’s what the doctor advised.’

‘Six months,’ she yelled. ‘It’s nearly a year. Do you think I’m fucking you for the fun of it?’

‘Keep it down,’ he said.

‘Fuck off. Fuck the neighbours. I’ll yell fucking rape. I’ll yell fucking rapist.’

She was gone from him. She was somebody else.

All he could think about was the last time, of getting off the hook. He ran to the bathroom, tried to piss, couldn’t manage it, listened to her breathing behind him.

‘You know how I feel,’ he said at last. ‘You know I’m not sure about it.’

‘Then I’m not sure about us,’ she said.

‘Kels—’

‘Don’t call me that. You’ve thrown away the right to call me that.’

‘Kelly…’

‘Kelly what? Kelly, let’s wait and wait until you’re too old?’

‘You’re thirty-three.’

‘And I’ve lost one child already. How do I know it’s not going to happen again?’

A thick channel of shadow separated them. It might as well have been the widest fucking ocean. To break it she turned on the bathroom light, sat herself on the toilet, grabbed a wad of toilet paper and started wiping herself.

‘You’re supposed to want this as much as I do,’ she said.

He started out of the bathroom. He didn’t want to watch her wiping his spunk from her stomach.

‘Where are you off to?’ she asked.

‘Somewhere else,’ he said.

‘I’m sick of you,’ she said.

She got up from the toilet, pulled him back by his wrist.

‘Now what?’ he shouted.

But she didn’t answer. She just opened the bathroom door, switched off the light and slammed the door behind her, left him in pitch darkness, pondering another fucking defeat.

In the end he followed her back to the bedroom, climbed on to the bed, lay down next to her. She wasn’t having that. She rolled out of bed again, dragged the duvet to the floor, turned on the light and positioned herself in the middle of the room.

‘Turn the light out,’ he said. ‘For fuck’s sake.’

She shook her head.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Look at me. Fucking look at me.’

She stood there, naked and exposed in the middle of the bedroom.

He shielded his eyes.

‘Look at me,’ she said again. ‘Why is this not good enough for you? Why am I not good enough?’

He sighed.

‘I just can’t do it,’ he said. ‘That’s it. I’ve said it.’

That’s when the shit really hit the fan.

Twenty minutes later, bloodied and bruised, he grabbed his bag and made his way out of the place, out into the night. He looked back at the house, at the darkened windows, at the sudden stillness, feeling the sweat on his skin cooling, feeling the breeze at his collar. And he thought about going back, retracing his steps, climbing the stairs, pushing the bedroom door open. But he couldn’t do it. There had been a breaking point and they’d finally reached it. Things had happened. Things that dislodged memories of other things, dark things, dark, nasty things he didn’t understand.

He turned his back on it all, made his way to the station and a life left behind. He had no fucking choice, no fucking choice at all.

He called Jen from the hotel room. The phone rang at her place. Rang and rang until a male voice answered.

‘Hello?’

He didn’t say anything.

‘Prick,’ said the voice on the other end. The phone went dead. For the fun of it, to antagonise the bastard, he called the number again.

‘Hello?’ The same voice. Alert now. Angry.

And again, he didn’t say anything.

‘You’re a wanker, John Finch,’ said the voice. ‘A fucking dead wanker.’

He heard the receiver slam on to its bed.

He waited a moment, mulling it over. Fuck it. He called a third time. The phone rang and rang.

Nobody answered.

9th April 1988
FA Cup Semi-Final

He woke to the sound of thunder, came up groggily from some dismal, floundering dream. He heard a voice, someone shouting his name. The thunder was the sound of fists pummelling the hotel-room door, a prelude to pummelling his fucking head. He remained perfectly still. He could hear the bastards hissing in the corridor.