The Footballer's Wife (8 page)

‘Will do,' Len said, putting the phone down. His feeling of foreboding was still there. He rang Charly's phone, and this time she answered.

‘Hi Dad.' She sounded distracted.

‘You alright, love?' he asked.

‘I'm fine. Joel's been in hospital. He's out now but will have to miss a couple of games. He's got his foot bandaged – stood on some glass.'

‘And are you alright?'

‘God, Dad, why wouldn't I be?' Charly asked, exasperation in her voice.

‘Just checking,' Len said gently before putting the phone down.

The next morning Len bought the
Sun
; he thought it was safe to bet that he wouldn't be featured snarling on page seven. He turned to the back page to see that the main story was all about his daughter's boyfriend and his injury. This wasn't news to Len and he was just about to look at his stars, something he'd never admit to reading but something he did every day, when a footnote caught his attention. As instructed, Len turned to page eleven and there on the showbiz gossip page was a picture of his daughter with a bruise blackening her left eye. The article was speculating on the origin of the bruise – Charly had claimed to have walked into the fridge – but Len didn't have to speculate, he knew full well where it had come from. He ran out of the house and jumped in his Allegro, heading for Manchester.

Len waited outside the apartment block where Charly had told him that she and Joel were now living, until someone was entering. There was no way that he was calling Charly, the temper he was in. He knew she wouldn't let him in. Who did this Joel Baldy think he was? Len thought beyond anger. Thinking he can thump his daughter? He wanted to
stand up and fight like a real man, thump Len if he was going to thump anyone. He looked at the listing on the lift. They lived in the penthouse; that was easy enough to locate. Len stood in the lift, the blood coursing through his veins. He felt suddenly calm as he watched the numbers to the top floor fly by. He didn't know how he was going to handle this, and he certainly didn't know if he was going to be able to keep his temper in check.

Len stormed over to the door of the penthouse. He knocked and waited. The door opened and Charly stood staring at her father, as if at first she couldn't quite place why he was there. Len gently took her jaw in his hand and, turning her head to the side, inspected her bruise. ‘Where is he?' Len asked in a low, menacing voice. Charly looked like a startled fawn as it dawned on her that her father hadn't just popped round for a cup of tea. Len marched past her into the lounge where Joel was sitting with his leg up on the leather pouf, watching his widescreen TV. Len didn't wait for him to speak or push himself up in his chair, he just grabbed the young man by the throat and punched him straight in the face.

‘Feel nice, does it, you piece of shit?' Len punched Joel again. ‘Hit my fucking daughter and
think that's OK?' And again he punched him in the face.

Charly ran across the room; Len could feel her pulling at his back. ‘Dad, don't . . . please, no!' she screamed. ‘He didn't do anything.'

‘Walked into the fridge, did she?' Len spat in Joel's face before punching him again. ‘They fucking wreck those fridges, don't they?' He drove his fist into Joel's already bloodied face.

‘Dad!' Charly screamed, thumping Len on the back. Len stumbled backwards, looking at the mess he'd created. Joel tried to get to his feet, but couldn't; he was gurgling something incomprehensible.

‘If you've got any sense you'll come home now,' Len said between breaths.

‘After this? Are you mental?' she screamed.

Len looked at Charly; what was she doing? This lad had money – so what? As Len stared at his daughter he missed the fact that Joel was mustering up every ounce of energy he had. He launched himself at Len, rugby tackling him to the floor, snapping the coffee table in two, with Len's back taking the brunt of the fall. The last thing Len remembered was the impact of the blow knocking him clean out.

Charly was in casualty for the second time that day. Her father had been out for the count and had swallowed his tongue. Amazingly some first aid training that Charly had done at school – which at the time had seemed like a thorough waste of hers and everyone else's morning – had probably saved his life. Joel had stayed at home, which was definitely for the best, and Charly had accompanied her dad in the ambulance to St Mary's. He had come round on the way there, but they were keeping him in overnight for observation. The police had come to take a statement but Len had remained tight-lipped, and refused to give any account of what had happened to him, much to Charly's relief.

Charly knew that if the papers got wind of this scandal there would be a bank of paparazzi at the front door so, after she had said her terse goodbye to her father and headed for the door, she decided to see if there was a side exit she might be able to sidle out of. She called a cab company and asked to be picked up at the Academy on Oxford Road. It was a little bit of a walk but she knew where it was and she couldn't risk waiting for a taxi by the hospital.

Charly spied an emergency exit but it was well and truly shut with a break-glass bolt over it for added security – she kept on walking. She eventually found a fire escape on the third floor that was propped ajar, letting air into the stuffy corridor. Charly looked around before pushing it open and finding herself having to shin down an escape ladder. She jumped the last few feet to the ground and dusted herself down while checking that the coast was clear. She walked along the side of the building and out into the street that led from the hospital to the main area of Manchester University. It was a busy night and she was soon being carried along by a throng of students. She didn't reach the venue where the taxi was waiting: she saw a cab with its yellow light on approaching. Charly flagged it down and jumped in. Now she had to go home and face Joel. He should have come to hospital with them, such was the severity of the injuries he'd received at the hands of Charly's father. But he had refused, insisting on cleaning his face up himself and staying in the apartment. Charly felt sick to her stomach. She couldn't imagine the reception she was going to receive when she got home, but she knew one thing: it wasn't going to be good.

Charly was exhausted by the time she reached her apartment block. Thankfully there was no sign of any long lens cameras as she paid the taxi driver and walked as inconspicuously as possible through the main entrance. She was dreading seeing what Joel looked like. In the hospital she had tried to call him but he wasn't answering his phone. She had sent him a number of texts but he hadn't responded to any of them. Charly's mind raced. For all she knew, Joel could be lying in a pool of blood on the floor after the injuries he'd sustained courtesy of Len. Or he could just be waiting and seething. Charly stepped out of the lift, her legs weak. She put the key in the lock and as she pushed the door open and shouted hello into the open plan apartment, she saw Joel, sitting in a chair, his face swollen and bruised but cleaner than last time she had seen him, with his injured foot raised. Joel stared at his girlfriend.

‘I'm so sorry about everything,' Charly said, beginning to sob. Up until now she had felt totally composed but as her shoulders began to shake she realised that she had been in shock.

‘Not as sorry as me,' Joel said flatly. She looked at him and his eyes burned through her. Charly
walked over and reached out to hold him. ‘Don't even fucking think about it. I want you out of here.'

‘What?' Charly was stunned.

‘You don't want me to get out of this chair and give you the pasting I think you deserve.' Charly looked at Joel, terrified.

‘What pasting?'

‘Get your stuff and get out. I don't need this shit. From you or your trampy cunt of a father.'

‘Don't talk about my dad like that.'

Joel bolted forward in his seat. ‘Out. Now!'

Charly ran from the apartment in the clothes she stood up in. She didn't even wait for the lift, she was so terrified. She ran down every stair to the ground floor, not noticing that she was gasping for air as she ran out into the street. What was she going to do now? Where was she going to go? Charly looked desperately up and down the street before remembering there was one place she would be safe.

*

Markie was having a weird week. His mother adding herself to the unofficial payroll was odd enough but last night he had managed to have the worst night's sleep of his life and it made him feel as
if he was driving through Bradington in some hallucinogenic dream. Tracy was starting her first day today and Mac had volunteered to take her out. Markie couldn't quite work out why, now, suddenly Tracy wanted to go into gainful employment. She'd been happy to sit on her backside for the last three decades claiming state benefit, incapacity benefit, child benefit; you name it, she claimed it. It was a wonder she'd never managed to wangle herself a war pension, Markie thought wryly. He knew there was some reason that she wanted to come and work for him, but while Markie was figuring out what this was, he was going to adhere to the old adage and keep his friends close and his enemies closer. And anyway, he knew instinctively that his mum was going to be good at her new job.

Markie pulled into the car park at the front of his office building and his mum and Mac came out of the door together, Tracy laughing like a drain. Markie looked on bemused; he wouldn't have thought for a minute that his mum would have managed to drag herself into the office before ten – and it was quarter to nine.

‘I'm just going to take your mum up the Hardacre.'

‘Ey, cheeky,' Tracy said, slapping Mac on the arm.

Markie took a deep breath; the last thing he wanted was some hideous mental image of his mother and Mac courtesy of his mum's innuendo.

‘The Hardacre estate, you saucy mare!' Mac said, laughing. Markie didn't know what was worse, his mother's cackling or Mac encouraging her.

‘Right, what's the plan then?' Markie asked, hoping they'd both put a sock in their
Carry On
routine and get on with whatever they were meant to be doing.

‘Got a few ladies to visit. Going to give your mum a dry run.'

Tracy snorted a dirty laugh again.

‘Fuck me, Finbar Saunders,' Markie said, shaking his head.

‘Who?' Tracy asked.

‘Never mind. Let me know how you get on, won't you. What are we owed up there?'

Mac looked at the printout he was carrying. ‘About six grand. Lots of little lump sums. You know, the usual Christmas sob story brigade: “Oh, the hamper company's gone bust and I can't afford to buy little Johnny a quad bike and a Nintendo now.”'

‘Don't worry, son, I'll have them coughing up in no time,' Tracy said.

‘You two should try your Chubby Brown routine; they'll soon be running for their purses just to get shot of you.'

‘Shut your face, Markie, you're not too old for a slap,' Tracy said, suddenly losing her sense of humour.

‘Charmed.' Markie walked off, leaving the pair to it.

So that was what his mum was after, he thought as he walked away. Poor old Elvis was obviously heading for the scrap heap and she had Mac in her sights. Well, if there was ever anyone who was a match for his mother it was Mac Jones. What an unholy pairing. Markie was going to sit back and watch this one unfold:
Corrie
was getting a bit dull at the minute and Markie liked a good soap.

*

Len was standing outside St Mary's waiting for Jimmy to pick him up. He had tried unsuccessfully to get hold of Charly, but he strongly suspected his daughter wasn't speaking to him and wouldn't for a while. He went back over what had happened yesterday. Joel Baldy had needed a good kicking and Len was the man to give it to him. Thinking he
could lay a finger on his daughter. These footballers, they thought they could do what they pleased and bugger the consequences. Well, not where Len was concerned. He was worried though; he'd managed to keep himself in check for such a long time that his recent behaviour had stunned him somewhat. Not because of how he'd acted so much as the fact that he'd enjoyed it. He'd enjoyed throwing a punch at the officious steward at the match, and he'd really enjoyed laying into Joel. The feeling that came over him had been almost serene.

He knew that he needed to get back to work and submerge himself in his routine; that way he'd be able to calm down and feel on an even keel again. The way he felt at the moment, he was king of the world one minute and at rock bottom the next, worrying about what Charly must think of him.

Jimmy swung the heap of junk that he was passing off as a car into the pick-up area where Len was waiting. In the back was a miserable-looking woman. Len couldn't put an age on her – she could have been twenty, she could have been forty. Her hair was scraped back from her head so tightly that she looked surprised, and her stonewashed denim padded jacket with cartoon-print lining didn't look like it had ever seen the inside of a washer. Jimmy
threw the passenger door open. ‘What the bloody hell have you been up to?' he asked as Len edged into the seat.

‘Long story; just get me to my bed.'

‘This is Gemma,' Jimmy said proudly.

‘Pleased to meet you, love.'

‘And you. We've made a bed up at our house for you. Thought seeing as you were coming round that you might as well stay,' Gemma said flatly. Len quickly decided that she was one of those people who just always looked miserable. She could probably win the lottery and her face would still hang like a slapped arse.

‘Well, that's kind of you, but you didn't have to.'

‘You might have no choice – don't know if the car'll get as far as Bolingbroke. Ours is this side of Bradington, isn't it?'

‘Why, what's up with the car?'

‘Ringer,' Jimmy said, straining to change gear. The engine sounded like a plane taking off but they were only doing twenty miles an hour.