The Footballer's Wife (9 page)

‘What've you bought a ringer for?' Len said.

‘That's what I said,' Gemma said wearily.

A ‘ringer' was a car where the front and the back belonged to different vehicles and were welded together. AA approved it wasn't.

‘It cost two hundred quid and it's good gear when it gets above forty.'

‘Oh, well then . . .' Len said sarcastically.

‘Tell him what happened to the last one,' Gemma said.

‘Why don't you tell him, seeing as you're obviously so keen to,' Jimmy huffed, like a man who felt he was being ganged up on.

‘Back came away from the front. He's sitting there like a lemon at the top of Brown Hill and the back's taken off and goes flying down the hill towards town. Good job the police put the traffic calming things in the road cos of the joyriders, or it could have killed someone.'

‘Don't be so bloody dramatic,' Jimmy said, exasperated.

‘Who's being dramatic?' Gemma asked. She had a point, Len thought; she couldn't inject drama into that monotone drone if she tried.

‘Can we just go home in peace?' Jimmy asked.

‘Are you going to say what you said you were going to say to your dad?' Gemma asked. Jimmy exhaled heavily, but she was undeterred. ‘I want you to say it before you have a drink this afternoon; no one wants to hear something that's meant to be all heartfelt when it's coming from someone pissed.'

‘Jesus, woman, alright!' Jimmy shouted.

‘I'm just saying,' Gemma finished, sitting back in her seat. Her constant passionless nagging was enough to drive anyone to distraction and watching it do exactly that to Jimmy was quite entertaining for Len.

‘What've you got to say, then?' Len asked.

Jimmy looked like he was about to explode. ‘Alright! Dad, I'm sorry for nicking the stuff. There, I've said it. I am. It makes me feel like a twat when I think about it.'

Len looked at his son. This was a big thing for him to say, he knew that. ‘Right,' he said slowly.

‘Right? Is that it?'

‘No, it's not bloody it, is it? You pawned my gran's wedding ring and our Charly's hologram pendant that I got her for her eighteenth. What sort of lad does that?'

‘I'm trying to apologise!' Jimmy shouted as he turned onto the motorway.

‘I know, but there's some things I want to know. Who did you sell them to?'

‘Pawn shop in town.'

‘Are they still there?'

‘No, I went back for them and they'd gone.' Jimmy looked like he was on the verge of tears.

‘Fucking hell, Jimmy, why the jewellery? Of everything you have to take, you take the jewellery.'

‘Because I'm a twat, aren't I, obviously.'

Len shook his head. He had wanted to kill him about this over the years, but there was something about Jimmy finally being honest that made Len think maybe it was time to put this behind them. ‘Well, you've admitted it, and if I can't get the stuff back then that's better than nothing.'

Jimmy pulled the rust-bucket over to the side of the road, and once parked he looked at his dad. ‘I really am sorry, Dad, aren't I, Gem?'

‘Yeah, he is. Talks about it all the time. I said I wouldn't mind but he could've given a false address and got credit from Elizabeth Duke, pretended he was going to pay for the stuff over a hundred weeks. Got some new gear and sold it, or just borrowed some from somewhere. There's always a way. He shouldn't have robbed off his own dad.'

Jimmy turned round and threw Gemma a look suggesting that she button it. She pulled a face back at him as if to say,
What? I'm right, aren't I?

‘Well, it means a lot that you've owned up,' Len said gratefully.

Jimmy nodded and turned the key in the ignition
to restart the car. The engine wouldn't even turn over. ‘Shit, it's dead!' Jimmy said, exasperated.

‘Well, I'm not pushing it again,' Gemma said, folding her arms and sitting back in her seat.

CHARLY HAD STAYED
the night at a newfound friend's. His advice had been invaluable and now she was setting things in motion to ensure that if it really was over with Joel then she was covered. She wasn't going to be turfed out onto the street after everything she had put into her relationship with Joel. So this morning she was going back to the flat and she was going to reason with Joel to take her back. She genuinely loved him, but Charly wasn't stupid. She knew when something wasn't working, and if it meant switching into self-preservation mode then so be it.

She let herself into the apartment. Joel was sitting in the same position that she had left him in, but today he was comatose – he reeked of booze, and there was a bottle of brandy at his side. The TV was displaying the DVD screensaver.
Charly walked over and pressed eject on the DVD player. It was some dodgy porno entitled
Dangerass
. Charly threw the DVD on the floor and looked at Joel in disgust. While she'd been crying her heart out, he'd been sitting here wanking and getting as pissed as was humanly possible. Lovely, she thought. At this moment in time Charly despised him. Not that she was going to let him know and anyway, she knew that if he changed his mind and showed that he wanted to be with her she could quickly be convinced to put all of this behind them.

She walked over to the chair where he was slumped, his chin rough with stubble. ‘Joel,' she whispered. He opened his eyes momentarily. Charly was dressed in a bottom-skimming skirt, six-inch heels and a tight low-cut top, and had liberally applied her favourite scent which she knew drove Joel wild. She leaned forward so that he could see her cleavage. This was the last thing she wanted to be doing at this precise moment in time, with the knowledge that Joel had been making do with
Dangerass
the previous evening, but needs must, she thought.

He studied her for a moment as if he was trying to work out if he was dreaming or if she was really
standing in front of him. ‘I told you to get out,' he said groggily, with little conviction.

Charly leaned forward and stroked his head gently. ‘But you didn't mean it, baby, did you?'

He sat up in his chair as if he was trying to decide what to do next. Charly leaned forward and kissed him deeply, sliding herself onto Joel so that she was straddling him. She took his hand and pushed it under her skirt and between her legs. She felt Joel stir – there was no way he was going to ask her to get off him, she could tell. She definitely had his attention.

‘No knickers,' he said, raising a lascivious eyebrow.

‘I know; I'm a naughty girl, aren't I? Just how you like me.'

*

At the top of the Bolingbroke estate stood a lone row of shops. The last time she had been here, years ago, the cornershop had been boarded up and the name Mr Shop Right had been doctored by graffiti to read
Mr Shit Right
. Now it still had grilles covering the front but the graffiti was kept to a minimum and was of the usual
Leoni loves Liam
101%
type. She had always wondered, as she'd stood at different bus stops throughout the country over the years, why kids who wouldn't know a percentage if it came up and sat on them insisted on adding them to the end of their graffitied declarations of love.

Bolingbroke didn't look so bad. The council had obviously used some of their much-talked-about grant money for something other than six-foot-high pottery phalluses. (Bradington Council had commissioned a radical Edinburgh-based artist to create a sculpture to sit outside the town hall. She claimed it was a modern-day totem pole, celebrating the uniting of cultures. The man and woman in the street, when interviewed by the local news, disagreed. One man summed up the general feeling perfectly: ‘Well, they've spent two hundred grand on a giant knob, haven't they?') Bolingbroke looked clean now, the grass was trimmed and there were even a couple of Victorian lamps and a large wrought iron sign saying
Bolingbroke
at the bottom of the main road into the estate.

She had hoped that when she finally did return to the place she'd sweep in, looking stunning, and knock everyone for six. But she'd just popped in for a drink at the Beacon, and she didn't recognise
anyone, which was just as well because she didn't feel particularly stunning. The last decade had put paid to any notions of a midlife being conducted as Michelle Pfeiffer's twin. Her face was puffier than she would have liked it to be. Her slender figure had grown lumpy and shapeless. She still had pretty eyes but she felt that they were buried somewhere in her face rather than being the first thing people noticed about her and she was conscious that her hair colour had stopped looking baby blonde years ago and was now a permanent brittle peroxide with harsh roots. She didn't have a choice though. She didn't have the luxury of buying Nice 'n Easy; she was on a strict budget and she wasn't about to waste it on hair dye. She used the stash of peroxide she'd nicked from the hairdressers where she'd had her last job, over a year ago, to make do. When that was finished she promised herself she'd grow it out, although she was scared to see what colour her own hair actually was.

She walked along the road and came to the top of her old street. She'd never assumed that it would be easy, that she'd just walk back in, shout ‘Hi honey, I'm home' and pop the kettle on. But she hadn't bargained on the feeling that gripped her now. She was paralysed with fear. Not the fear of what she would encounter but the fear of change. What if
nothing was as she remembered it? She knew that certain things had changed in her family's life; that was obvious and inevitable. But what if things had changed so irrevocably that there was no room for her at all? She faltered at the top of the road and turned on her heel. She couldn't go back yet; she needed to have a serious think if she was doing the right thing. This was the second time in a month that she'd stood at the top of her old road and not had the courage to confront her old life, but it was a lot to confront and she needed to be ready to face up to her mistakes.

*

Tracy left Mac in the car and approached the first door on her rounds. Mac had tried to verse her in what to say but she didn't really need the speech. She knew what to do. Get the money that they were owed. She was quite looking forward to putting her acid tongue to commercial use. A woman answered the door holding a baby. She was in her thirties, scruffy and overweight, and none too pleased to have some woman standing at her door who seemed to be there in an official capacity.

‘I've told you lot to fuck off.'

‘Charmed, darling, but you've not told
me
to fuck off yet or you'd know about it.'

‘You from Social Services?'

‘You'll be wishing I was from Social Services when I tell you why I'm here and what I need you to do for me.'

‘You what?'

‘You heard. Now, you owe my business associates four hundred and fifty eight pounds and seventy two pence.'

‘Fuck off, I owe two hundred pounds.'

‘Well, if you weren't thick as fuck you'd know what compound interest is but as you obviously are I'll spare you the details. You've missed your last two payments.' Tracy stepped menacingly towards the woman.

‘Where's the fella who usually comes round?'

‘Don't worry about that, darling; you're stuck with me now till your debt's paid off in full.'

‘And what you going to do if I can't pay?'

Tracy put her hand out and touched the baby's head. The woman pulled him away. ‘I saw a baby last week badly scalded; tragic really, scarred for life. Turn your back for two minutes and these things can happen, can't they?'

‘You're fucking deranged!' the woman shouted.

‘That's right, I am. So you'd better get your shit together and make sure that this time next week you've got your weekly instalment ready. Alright?'

The woman looked genuinely terrified. She nodded and shut the door on Tracy.

‘How did you get on?' Mac asked, as Tracy got back in the car.

‘Told her I was going to boil her baby – seemed to work a treat.'

Mac laughed. ‘No, what did you really say?'

Tracy looked at him and raised an eyebrow.

Mac let out a slow whistle. ‘Fucking hell, Tracy, remind me never to cross you.'

‘I was only bloody joking, wasn't I? She doesn't need to know that though, does she? Now, where to next?' She could get quite into this.

*

Jimmy couldn't push the car on his own and Len hadn't been able to help – he was still suffering from the injuries he sustained the previous evening. Gemma was obviously sick to the back teeth of having to push Jimmy's welded together contraption so they'd had to call a taxi to get them back to the house. Len was now propped up in a corner of
the shabby living room drinking a pint of cider and watching the racing while Gemma made beans on toast for everyone. Jimmy had gone down to the off licence to buy some more drink for the afternoon and Len reached for his phone to check for the hundredth time today if Charly had bothered calling him – she hadn't. There was a knock at the door. Gemma shouted through to Len to answer it. He pushed himself up from the chair and headed for the door. When he opened it, the last person in the world he expected to see was standing there: Tracy Crompton. Tracy looked as if she was about to launch into a speech, as if she was canvassing for some political party. Although Len knew well that the only parties Tracy went near had to involve tons of drugs and booze. When she saw that it was Len who had answered the door, she reeled backwards.

‘What you doing here?' Len asked.

‘Might ask you the same,' Tracy said, trying to compose herself.

‘Our Jimmy lives here. I'm just here for the night.' Len was trying to get Tracy to look him in the eye, but it didn't seem to be working.

‘Right, well, it's not you I'm after. I'll call back another time.'