Get a life. Get the girl. Get to Wembley.
Ewan Glumie was born on the day Man City last won a trophy, and for 35 years it's been failure for both of them. City have won nothing since, and he's exiled in Birmingham, temping in a job he hates and living with an ex who hates him. But success might be on the horizon. City are heading for an FA Cup final and Ewan knows he has to get a ticket, get a career and get a girl before it happens or forever accept that he's the jinx, and that the gloating 35 Years banner at Old Trafford is more about him than City.
The Striker's Fear of the Open Goal is a desperate, comic look at how a football team can be the most depressing thing in a man's life... and the only thing worth living for.
Contents
Top 5 worst ways to start the day
How much do you hate your job?
Most annoying cartoon character?
Does your girlfriend get jealous of your love for City?
Fittest girl in your office? (photos if possible)
When you started supporting City, did you think it would be this long without a trophy?
How many visits to the toilet on average do you make on derby day?
Most annoying beggar near you?
Depth of History vs Depth of Pockets
Strangest thing you’ve seen today
How do people who don't work spend all day in the pub?
Mates’ annoying girlfriends who come to the pub for the match just to moan
Desperate for a dump during lunch break dilemma
Is Typical City alive or dead?
Turned up at work naked dream, anyone?
Stay in and mope or go out and get shitfaced?
Top 5 best nights of your life
Which comes first: girlfriend or City? Be honest
How much are you willing to spend for a cup final ticket?
Important City games that clash with family birthdays clique?
How do you tell her that the cup final comes before her?
Some of us have waited our whole life for this, City. Don’t let us down
Does City’s success make you feel more successful by association?
Also by Andy Conway for Kindle
The Striker’s Fear of the Open Goal
Published by Wallbank Books at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 Andy Conway
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Pete Bradbury at Digit64 www.digit64.co.uk
Read more at andyconway.net
...
To all the FLBs
who were there for the 35
…
Ewan Glumie was born on the 28 February 1976, while Manchester City were playing the League Cup Final at Wembley Stadium. He sometimes told people he was born at approximately one minute past four, at the precise moment of Dennis Tueart’s overhead kick, which had won the cup for City, but in truth, no one was really sure of the exact time. He’d heard different versions and both his mother and father were unreliable witnesses.
His mum had told him he came out of her right at that moment, as if Dennis himself had leapt into the air and bicycle-kicked him out of her womb into the net of life. It was the story he’d grown up with as a child, when he’d first become aware of this thing called birth and asked her about it.
—Oh, she’d said, your birth was very special. You were born at home right here in Manchester and the TV was on for the game because I told them they had to bring the telly upstairs.
She’d kept one eye on the final while she went through her labour with the midwife, and everyone had said it was the excitement at seeing such a spectacular winning goal that had brought on the birth, just a minute into the second half.
It was 1-1, due to a first half opener from young Peter Barnes on the eleventh minute, which had been wiped out by a 35th minute equaliser from Alan Gowling, the Newcastle forward, after half a dozen chances by City that could have seen them easily 6-0 up, and it was looking like they would pay the price for not putting away those precious chances, and as soon as the teams had come out for the second half, City had launched an attack. Willie Donachie, the left back had sprinted unopposed into acres of space down the flank, deep into their half, looked up, and launched a cross-field diagonal to Newcastle’s penalty area. Tommy Booth on the far side had snatched a header that arced the ball back across the goal. It had floated across the area, everyone watching it like a falling grenade as Dennis Tueart, who’d twisted himself round, back to goal because the ball had gone behind his run, had jumped into the air, flailing with his left leg, which was nowhere near the ball — everyone thought he’d missed it — but the flailing left leg had only been leverage to power his right leg as it scissored up and connected perfectly with his right boot and the ball ballooned goalwards, down and to the right, hitting the Wembley turf once and cannoning past the flailing hand of Mike Mahoney, the Newcastle goalkeeper, to ripple the net.
—And that’s the exact moment you were born, she’d said.
But another time, when she was annoyed with him, she’d said he was born when Newcastle scored, because he was bad luck.
Years later, after she’d left them, he’d asked his dad about it, needing clarification, and he’d said no, he was born after the game had finished and he remembered because the telly was downstairs and he was the one watching it, even though he supported neither team, being more aligned to Birmingham City, his home town, but feeling he might be able to contribute to the messy, screaming process going on upstairs if he kept her informed of proceedings by shouting up when anyone scored.
—Tueart just missed a sitter!
—Newcastle just had a chance!
—Corner to City!
—Great save by Corrigan!
All the time wondering if she was even interested, being, as she was, too busy screaming.
—The game was over, he said. I remember watching them doing the lap of honour with the cup, with that big blonde woman with the bell, and your little screams came from upstairs and I turned the TV off and went up to see you.
Ewan had tried to tell himself many times that the exact moment he’d been born had no significance, that it was impossible that a football team that had won nothing since that day, thirty-five years ago, had no direct relationship to his life — that their constant failure was not the cause of everything going wrong for him. Nor the more frightening thought that it was all the other way round and he was the one that had caused City’s bad luck. Because many people over the years, when he’d told them the conflicting stories of his birth, or when they’d realised the significance of his birth date, had laughed and suggested maybe he was the Jonah, the jinx, the bad luck charm. If they were supporters of other teams they’d laughed. City fans had always joked about it but with a strange glare in their eyes — a glare that betrayed their real thoughts: maybe this guy was the jinx. And if City had won nothing since he’d come into the world, it followed that as soon as he left it they would become successful again, like they used to be.
And there was another worry, because City had been taken over by rich Arabs from Abu Dhabi three seasons ago and they’d started investing to build the club up to the level of their rich competitors so they could finally fight on an equal footing and everyone, even their bitterest rivals who’d gloated that they’d never win anything again, knew that it was only a matter of time before the first trophy came, maybe even this season. And this season only had a month to go. And City had somehow scraped their way into their first FA Cup semi-final for thirty years, to be played at Wembley, and the only team standing in their way were bloody United, the rivals who, since that last City trophy in 1976, had gone on to receive their own massive injection of cash and then gone on a twenty-five year orgy of excess, winning every cup in sight, which had made the misery of City winning nothing for 35 years even more pronounced.
So, if City were to beat United in the semi-final and then go to the final and win the cup, maybe Ewan would have to die first. Some time in the next month.
This was totally nonsensical and the kind of logic that would be laughed at by an idiot child. But to any football fan in the world, it was like a pirate being handed a black spot.
Top 5 worst ways to start the day
Ewan was worrying about his impending death as he looked at his face in the mirror and wondered if he could get away with not shaving. If he cut his throat open with the razor, would it guarantee City winning the FA Cup? He could never know and he needed to stop thinking about it.
It was eight thirty on a Monday morning and he had flu coming on and faced another inevitably late arrival at an open plan office he attended solely for survival.
He decided to forget the shaving. He couldn’t be bothered. He could hardly be bothered washing sometimes, but then you’d end up having to get right up close to some woman in the office and even the half bottle of perfume she had on her neck couldn’t save you from the smell of your own armpits or your sweaty crotch. So the effort had to be made. He skipped the shave, and showered, resisting the urge to crack one off. There’d be plenty of time for that later at the office. Always slipping off to the toilet and walking out ten minutes later with his knees trembling. Desperate, but he could hardly stop doing it. Couldn’t leave it alone. Epic sadness for a man of thirty-five, who was unattached, in a way, and available. Even reasonably good looking, or at least not hideous, which was all you could hope for. But sad was what it was. Desperation on a grand scale.
He shouldn’t have done it, he shouldn’t have done it. There was a pain in his head and a black flash every so often.
He brushed his teeth, careful not to catch his trouser leg on the bucket he’d mopped the cat piss up with earlier, and then a quick gargle with the whiskey and he was running down the stairs and out into the bright summer’s morning with it still burning in his throat. Nothing like it for warding off the flu demon. A kind of scorched earth policy. Killed all known throat infections dead. An extreme solution to an extreme situation: his vulnerability regarding every whiff of flu doing the rounds.
Of course, exercise was the best remedy. But he never got round to managing ten press ups. The only vigorous exercise he was getting was in the toilets at work, and every time he thought that was going to kill him. Imagine it. A heart attack in the antiseptic gents; found lying there with his purple dick in his hand. Maybe some more conventional exercise would put a stop to all that too.
He felt dazed. A strange feeling this morning. He didn’t know if it was the flu, all the flu remedies he’d pumped into his body, or what he'd done with the door frame.
There it was again. A black flash. He shouldn’t have done it. Maybe he’d caused some damage. It was a stupid thing to do. But it had happened before he knew it. Moira had been off down the stairs, leaving in a huff after a stupid argument, and then he’d done it.
It was supposed to be all over with Moira. They were just living under the same roof now, sharing a flat, with separate bedrooms, trying to be civil friends when all the time there was this irritation with each other. This morning they’d got in each other’s way. She’d baited him.
—I saw Penny last night, she’d said.
Ewan hated Penny anyway so he’d said nothing. Moira was watching him drink his morning coffee, dazed like a bomb survivor. Then she’d hit him with it.
—She said Kosh is back in Birmingham.
She’d had this look on her face. Disgust and triumph. Waiting for his reaction.
—Oh, that’s nice, he’d said. She staying with her brother?
—Yeah. You’ll have to get in touch with her. Have a nice chat.
Ewan had just out stared her. She’d given up, not knowing whether to be angry or amused. He’d followed her onto the landing.
—Have you finished with the bathroom yet?
She was trotting down the stairs.
—All yours. Give my regards when you see her!
And he’d done it a few seconds later. After she’d slammed the door, trying to leave on a note of triumph.
He’d headbutted the door frame.
A sound like a dull punch. His teeth had clicked. A dull nausea that made him think of childhood, though he couldn’t think why. Maybe someone had hit him when he was a kid and it had made just the same sound in his head. It seemed so bizarre now. He had headbutted the door frame! What had possessed him?
He’d let her goad him. Yet again. He’d have to stop rising to her bait. How had she worked out that it was mentioning Kosh that would most get him riled? Kosh: the woman he’d always wanted instead of her.
The bus stop was just a few minutes’ walk from the flat. He had fifteen minutes to go, which was cutting it very fine indeed. Not that they seemed to care. The temps seemed to get away with murder, and he just went with the tide. If that was the situation it suited him down to the sewers; no questions asked. He didn’t like to say he lived in Birmingham, mainly because it accentuated his utter failure in having never moved back to Manchester, so he always said he lived in Moseley, which was the city’s nearest thing to a bohemian quarter where you could convince yourself things actually happened. They called it the Village, just because it sounded NYC, and Ewan went along with it because he could think of it as an overhang from when it really was a little village, but he’d almost punched someone he once overheard trying to call it MoHo.
The bus ride to work only took fifteen minutes, so he'd only be five minutes late, which was practically early. He used to use this time to read books, but these days he just took out his iPhone and caught up on football talk. He tabbed up the site to check on what his online FLBs (Fellow Light Blues) were talking about. Normally they chatted about anything but football. In fact, football talk was generally frowned upon, or admitted to with some embarrassment. The site prided itself on being a place where people could talk about the trivial things of life such as:
• Songs that sound like footballers names.
• Is it called a barm or a bap?
• Films that sound like footballer’s names.
• How many shits do you do per day on average?
• TV shows that didn’t quite make it.
• Bread products that sound like footballer’s names.
• Who would win in a fight: a shark or a tiger?
• Cars that sound like footballer’s names.
• 80’s match things you don’t see anymore (apologies for football thread).
This morning, though, there was some discussion about the crucial league game taking place tonight. City were off to Liverpool and it was a great chance to banjo them, as they’d done earlier in the season, and cement their place in the top four to secure that vital Champions League spot for next season. Securing Champs League football for next season was absolutely vital for the future of the club because, although the Abu Dhabi owners made Croesus look like a benefit scrounger and they could pump billions into the club with money they’d found down the back of the sofa, the bigwigs at UEFA had become terrified that their carefully constructed entertainment cartel was about to be blown apart and were forcing clubs into ‘financial fair play’. This meant it was fine if you had massive debts and you could meet the monthly interest payments with that Champs League money you got every year, but you couldn’t just invest in your business to build it up to compete on an equal footing with the big clubs who’d had the Champs League money pumped into them for years. That was deemed 'unfair'. But City were tearing the cartel apart and it was a joy to see, especially after having had to watch it feed itself for the last dozen or more years and keep the same four teams in the money and everyone else the poor relations.
Liverpool had been one of the chosen ones but had recently foundered, slipped down the table, appeared to be in crisis, and City were more than likely going to take their place. But they were crawling back to their knees again, before the ten count, and making a bit of a revival, so tonight’s game was no certainty.
Ewan read quickly through all the comments, those who were totally pessimistic about a victory, those who were quietly confident, and those who wanted to know the top five Liverpool players whose names sounded like bread products.
How much do you hate your job?
He walked into the office block with a snort of relief. He’d made it. Only five minutes late. He was always thankful for the corridor of coat hangers that ran down the middle of the otherwise wide open floor. You could get to your desk without having to march down the whole office. He liked to slip into his chair like a ninja, so silent and deadly that people would look up and think he'd been there all morning.
The other temps were all there at the desk, which meant he was the last in. Maybe the supervisor would have a word with him later; put him through it in the nicest possible way. But he didn’t think so. She was too meek and mild. A little old lady who looked like she should be organising church tea parties, but was a reputed financial wizard, renowned in their sister departments around the country who all phoned her most of the day for advice. Even the opposition knew about her. They’d been trying to head hunt her. Little old Mary, who used to be a nun.
They, the temps, were shunted off to form a little clique away from the permanents, where they could get on with the boring menial tasks of the section that the others had almost forgotten existed. And if they did remember they just laughed at the memory of when they’d had to do the mailings and other such mind deforesting tasks.
Even the Misfit was in before him. He’d probably been sitting at the desk since the crack of dawn, making the other temps look bad, the stupid arse. Ewan had tried to feel pity for him, but he was just annoying him now. Since he’d arrived he’d put their work back a month and Ewan had begun to feel the first stirrings of responsibility. He'd been fighting the urge to take Mary the ex nun aside and say
—It’s not me, honest. It’s the Misfit. You know my work, Mary. Have I ever let you down?
But he wouldn’t. Not in a million years. He didn’t give a toss if the mailings went out on time or not. But he didn't like having these feelings. They suggested that he might care, and he really didn’t want to wake up one morning and find out that he cared about any of this. He tapped a few keys and the cursor swept across the screen a hundred times, leaving a forest of figures behind it. The day had begun. He would get through it by counting the black flashes, thinking about City tonight, and Kosh, who was back. He didn’t know which thought excited him more.
Most annoying cartoon character?
On the way home he treated himself to a chippy tea — fuck it, it was a match night — and took it upstairs to his loft room hideaway while browsing the site to see if the teams had been announced and get an idea from the site what people thought about tonight’s game. Everyone was confident. A simple professional performance was all that was needed. Liverpool had literally nothing to play for and if we weathered the first 15-20 minutes, we’d batter them in the second half. Win the midfield battle and collect the three points. More or less secure that all important fourth spot, then approach the cup semi-final against United with confidence. More importantly, though, who’s the most annoying cartoon character?
He weighed up the nausiness of Foghorn Leghorn and Woody Woodpecker before throwing Olive Oyl into the mix, then set off to Pat Kavs to watch the game.
The pub had a smattering of people. There were never that many for midweek games and you were lucky if they turned the juke box off and put the sound of the game up. There were a handful of his mates there and he joined them at a couple of tables. Stuart, a failed singer-songwriter (Aston Villa), who apparently had a night off from his suicidal girlfriend; Ram, a failed jazz saxophonist (Birmingham City), who was long term unemployed and lived with his mum but somehow managed to go to a pub every evening; Greg, a failed drummer (Spurs), looking like one of the old hippies the neighbourhood was famous for, but who’d once been this tall, fat punk. A heroin chic lifestyle that didn’t actually involve heroin was sucking the life from him. He was now as thin as a streak of piss and growing a beard because he couldn’t be bothered to shave anymore.
Between the four of them, they’d come up with a long list of Moseley lookalikes, winning kudos for the best name attached to whatever celebrity-resembling local they encountered. Greg was the main keeper of The List, updating it with venomous glee after every foray into Moseley. The main highlights of The List were:
• Julianne Less — much less attractive Julianne Moore doppelganger
• Pete Mong — possible fatter, older brother of Pete Tong
• Maisy Fantayzee — ludicrous dreadlocked 90-year old crusty great-grandmother
• Ropey Dahl — possible formerly-cute former-model
• Mong Chaney Jr — lupine hirsute fuck faced turd horror double
• Silly Piper — low rent Dr Who assistant
• Skelewhore — gurning Fright Night atrocity that Ram once swerved a blind date with
• Div Tyler — pretty but thick ringer for Liv Tyler
• Ian McSpewan — Prince-dwelling illiterary genius
• Arvo Spurt — Prince-dwelling atonal spit of Estonian minimalist composer
• Portly Love — love-handled gone-to-seed ringer for Kurt Cobain’s widow
• Fleetwood Wack — ageing local soft rock band
• Mong Cheadle — ageing Afro-Moseley superstar who looks nothing like Don Cheadle
They had talked many times of setting up The List as a website or something, but it had never happened. Ewan had recently realised that The List was the only creative thing he’d done in the last four years.
On the other side of the bar, perched high on a bar stool, was Derek Cuntona, local United fan who looked exactly like the French fan-assaulting, sardine-obsessed shit actor — if you squinted at him through a dimpled pint pot. He had never set foot in Old Trafford, nor, it was rumoured, the north west of England, but watched his beloved reds on TV in Kavs every single game. He would occasionally come over and say a few words to the lads, like a businessman working the room, and most of the guys would engage in football talk and even a little banter with him, but he was here purely in the hope of watching City lose. Or making a friend. There was another United fan lookalike in the Village — Steve Coppelganger. But he, thankfully, never watched games in Kavs and pretty much kept himself to himself.
Derek Cuntona, though, tried to engage Ewan in banter all the time and Ewan had occasionally fallen for it, always regretting it later because he never wanted there to be a moment in his life when he might realise he had an actual relationship with him. Whenever he came over for his shtick Ewan mostly just wanted to shout out
—Look! There is no you and me! Don’t you fucking get it?
But he always held back and engaged in a couple of barbs out of politeness. It was obvious that Derek Cuntona wanted to get in as much shit as possible now because time was running out; City were on the ascendency and they’d pretty soon be challenging United for major honours, starting with next week’s FA Cup semi-final. It would all be over soon and they’d only have their history to drone on about.
He shook hands with Stuart, Ram and Greg, and a couple of other guys who occasionally turned up for games but weren’t really friends he could talk to above a few routine football observations.
—Should be no problem for you lot, tonight, said Greg.
—I can’t believe you’re saying that about Anfield, said Ewan.
—You’re better than the scousers, said Ram.
—He’s made a few changes, countered Ewan. Weak side.
—You ought to beat them, the money you’ve spent, said Stuart.
—You can’t buy success, now, remember?
Ewan laughed. Everyone had said it to him the last two years, cheerfully predicting total failure for ‘The Project’, but no one said it anymore because it was obvious even to Derek Cuntona that City were very much buying success, just like every successful team before them. But he always did this: put on a show of humility, talked down their chances, appeared doubtful, mainly so he’d never look like Derek Cuntona.
—No Brendan tonight? Ewan asked.
They all shrugged.
—I heard Kosh was back. Maybe he’s with her.
—Aw, are you all excited? said Stuart.
—You what?
Ewan looked at him like he’d just pissed on his shoes.
—Everyone knows you’re in wuv wiv her, Stuart leered.
He was becoming the kind of constantly needling, piss-taking ‘friend’ you found yourself hating more than your enemies, having skipped the frenemy stage altogether.
—You’ve been listening to your girlfriend too much, said Ewan. You’ll be setting her poems to music next.
—Oooh! The burn!
—If she is back she better have brought some skunk with her, said Greg.
—I don’t think she’s going to risk prison just to smuggle something you can buy round the corner, Greg, sneered Stuart.
Ewan wondered what was going on. Why had Moira mentioned it this morning if Kosh was still in Paris?
The game began and the evening fell apart. It was like no one had told City it had actually kicked off. The team that had beaten them 3-0 at home earlier in the season was replaced by eleven imposters wearing prosthetic football player masks but possessing all the skill of the local under-12s ballet class. They started shaky and then progressed to all out shambles, overrun in midfield, jostled off every ball, torn apart at will. Liverpool were 3-0 up after 35 minutes and Tevez had limped off injured. Derek Cuntona was laughing to himself on the other side of the bar. It was a disaster.
Half time came and he looked up the site on his phone to see what people were saying, and glanced down the subject headers.
• Tevez done his hamstring and out of the fucking semi too!
• FFS sort it out, Mancini!
• It’s a joke this!
• Why are we always so shit?
• Another fucking false dawn!
• Tevez has played his last game for City. I’m off to cry now
• Absolutely devastated
• Fuck my life
He didn’t click on any of them. There was only one thing for it. He turned his phone off and looked up to his mates.
—Okay lads, he said. Who’s the most annoying cartoon character?
They threw in some of the names he’d thought of himself then Greg supped his beer, smacked his lips, slammed his pint on the table with an air of authority and said
—Tweety Pie.
—Oh yes. Very annoying.
—I always wanted Sylvester to eat him. Does that make me a bad person?
—What about Robin? Batman’s Robin.
—Not a cartoon character.
—And he’s not annoying. Just shit.
—I find shit annoying.
—Hong Kong Phooey.
—Ooh, good call!
—He can’t even get out of a fucking filing cabinet without the cat helping him. He’s shit.
—But also annoying.
—I’m going Bart Simpson.
—Controversial.
They were all laughing through half-time and Ewan saw Derek Cuntona looking over with a frown. He couldn’t work out why Ewan wasn’t dying of shame to see his team being raped like this. He just didn’t understand that he’d seen this all before. He’d slid from silent fury into Buddhist acceptance many years ago. He’d watched them play like this for the majority of the previous 35 years, pretty much as soon as he’d started watching them, so this was just a prescient reminder of the bad old days which would soon be behind them forever. It was the only way to cope with it. And these guys he watched games with, they weren’t sticking it to him because he’d never stuck it to them, and he’d always had plenty of opportunity because City had always seemed to have the sign over both Birmingham and Villa. He’d never gloated though, and that was why they could sit and watch this pile of shit with him and not rip him to shreds, just throw in the odd joke.
The teams came out for the second half and looked like they’d decided to play, but it was too late. It stayed 3-0 and he made a conscious decision to avoid the site the next day or two till the monging had died down and everyone might be building up to the semi-final.
He finished his drink ten minutes after the game finished and they turned the juke box back on, said goodnight to the guys and walked out. Derek Cuntona called out as he passed.
—Looking forward to Saturday?
—Yeah. Should be a good game.
—Oh well, another season over.
—We’ll see.
—Don’t think that banner’s coming down for another year.
—Great.
—Good luck.
—Cheers.
—You’re gonna need it.
—Righto.
He walked out and tramped the dark streets. The banner was sitting there at United’s ground and said 35 YEARS. Last season it had said 34 YEARS, with the 5 just visible, counting up the years since City has last won a trophy. It had first appeared about ten years ago, pretty much when City were at their lowest ever and supposedly an irrelevance to a United that were winning every trophy going. It was flattering that they still cared enough, and he’d had to admit it was quite funny. It was funnier that it was a permanent exhibit, apparently under supervision of the club itself, so you could see it there even for England games at Old Trafford, which made it even more bitter. City fans, ever predisposed to gallows humour, had taken United’s 35 years and won fuck all chant and turned it into 35 years and we’re still here: shouted out with perverse pride. Plenty of people on the site were full of glee at the prospect of tearing the banner down, because it was almost inevitable that City were going to win something very soon, but Ewan had always said they should ask them for it and put it up at Eastlands as a permanent reminder of how long they’d all stuck by their team. It was something to be proud of.
Then he winced as he realised he should have said Mickey Mouse.
Does your girlfriend get jealous of your love for City?
His first day with Moira had also been a City day, and the two things were now forever linked in his mind. Eleven years ago on a beautiful summer’s day in May, City had won promotion back to the Premiership, only a year after escaping from the third division. They’d beaten Blackburn 4-1 at their ground and the place had been full of blues. They were in every stand. They were even outside the ground on the grassy knoll, peeping through a gap in the stands, and before the game was over, they opened a gate and let them all pile in to do a conga around the pitch. It was a beautiful day and he hadn’t been there. He was broke, as usual, and couldn’t get a ticket even if he’d had the money. He’d been to a fair few games that season but had had to catch the closing games on TV.
After they’d won and he’d watched thousands of blues on the pitch and the team spraying each other with champagne in the dressing room, he’d stumbled out onto Woodbridge Road, wearing his City away strip, the white Kappa one which was discreet and pretty cool, deliriously drunk, the sun blinding him, and he’d walked down to the corner, heading back to his box room flat that overlooked the village, and he’d bumped into Moira at the corner.
They’d had an on-off flirtation for the last year and he’d suspected she was insane and they were deeply unsuited, but he felt this attraction to her nuttiness, and she was a painter and that was quite exotic, and then bumping into her on the street corner, in the sunshine, feeling drunk and giddy and so sublimely happy and at peace with the world, he had a sudden overwhelming urge to be with her and share this moment with her. She’d never seen him like this. Not just Ewan the football fan, giggling because his shit team had just won promotion, and wearing a polyester football shirt as well, even if it was quite tasteful, but Ewan happy; Ewan laughing and carefree and not having an argument. She’d known Ewan the writer with a stack of rejection letters and an intense, brooding quality, but not this guy, who seemed fun. He’d invited her back to his place to share a bottle of Cava and a spliff, and she’d accepted, bowled over by a spur of the moment adventure, and they’d fucked all evening and she’d stayed the night and most of the next day and they’d drifted into a relationship from that moment.
And just like it hadn’t been the end of City’s woes; it had also been far from happily ever after with Ewan and Moira. City had gone straight back down again the next season, and Moira had become a pain in the arse. What’s more, he’d met Kosh by now, Brendan’s beautiful sister, who had a publishing job in London and he was smitten with her and not only because they’d both named Billy Liar as their favourite film. After another season, City had won promotion again as champions (another fucking trophy that no one counted) and he and Moira had moved in together in a flush of optimism. And then there’d been eight years of indifferent form with occasional flashes of brilliance (several ecstatic victories against the red bastards who’d won every cup going, and dismal cup exits to lower league fodder and pitiful league placings) while he and Moira struggled on trying to find a way to live together without killing each other, she pretty much giving up on being an artist in favour of teaching it to sullen teens at a local school, both occasionally finding brief moments of joy, although these were largely alcohol or drug-induced, while Kosh had given up on London and lived in Moseley for a while and he’d seriously considered moving out and asking her out the next day.
On the day City were taken over by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan (may all his teas be chippy teas), he’d sat in front of the TV all day following the story on Sky Sports News, his laptop on the coffee table clicking on hundreds of threads with City fans going mental. Moira had left him to it, annoyed by it before midday and unable to appreciate his wondrous pronouncement I think we just became the richest club in the world. She was even more annoyed to see him still in the same position at midnight, red-eyed and euphoric, intoning We just bought Robinho! and after a couple of weeks of Lottery winner delirium, he’d emerged into the real world again to discover that they’d pretty much split up without really admitting it, and Kosh had disappeared to Paris.
Then came the eighteen months of Mark Hughes’ managership, and City weren’t the only ones getting badly fucked by an ugly no-lipped gonk with anger management issues who would inevitably leave claiming unfair dismissal, extortionate compensation and two thirds of the Oasis vinyl.
Then Moira had walked up into the loft room one day before Christmas, catching him on the site instead of writing, and said she’d tried hard but she couldn’t bear it anymore and they needed to split up. It had come as no surprise to him, because he’d just heard that the Arabs had sacked Hughes, so he was kind of expecting Moira to do something to mirror it. He was used to these coincidences now, and in fact had come to accept that there never was a coincidence: his life mirrored City’s existence exactly and the two were inextricably linked and always would be. He’d just shrugged his shoulders and said Okay, and had slept in the loft ever since.
Mancini’s thirteen month tenure so far had been a slow building of confidence and closing in on the rare prey of success. Ewan did accept that this didn’t really reflect his own life as he was working in a shit hole and had no money or prospects, but he felt that something good was going to happen soon. City were going to win something and so was he. He’d mirrored their every misery, so now it was surely time to mirror their success. Wasn’t it?
But he wondered if he could make a clean break with Moira. She’d always suspected him of cheating on her. But through the ten years they’d been together he’d never cheated once. He’d thought about it. He’d thought about it a number of times. But he’d never done it. Now he realised he may as well have: he’d have been treated the same. In the end, even though he knew his own innocence, her suspicions had made him suspect himself. Maybe if he mentioned a woman’s name twice it really did mean he wanted to sleep with the bitch. Maybe it was a game they played together. Moira was more familiar with the rules than he was. Obviously, because she was the one making them up as they went along.
He’d always thought himself a reasonably nice bloke, but Moira had made him realise he was an evil, cheating bastard. The fact that he’d never actually slept with another woman was a mere technicality. Just thinking about other women made you a cheat. Talking to them made you a love rat. Mentioning their names made you a multiple rapist. He had to face facts: he was a total sexist shit. That was why she slept apart from him now; why they’d become just sharers of the same flat. He was having a string of affairs with dozens of women:
• every woman at work, including that bitch Mary the ex-nun,
• every mutual friend of theirs with a vagina,
• every woman in every bar they had ever been in together,
• every woman in every bar he had ever been in without her,
• every woman in every street they had ever walked down.
He couldn’t keep his eyes off any of them and every single one of the bitches wanted to sleep with him too. It was amazing that a fairly shy guy who’d only ever slept with five women in his life could carry on such a debauched secret life of utter depravity. He’d be exposed on the front page of The Sun any day now with the headline BRITAIN’S NO 1 LOVE RAT. It was only a matter of time.
He’d never realised what a colossal shit he was until Moira had educated him to the fact. It had taken many years for him to face facts but he’d begun to accept it now, and that was the first important step in maybe helping him to find a cure. It was just a shame for poor Moira that she’d had to bear this cross. No wonder she had to go out on a Monday night for some much needed conversation with an understanding platonic friend. She had so many problems to discuss, and, unlike him, she didn’t have the consolation of City in her life.
Poor Moira.
Fittest girl in your office? (photos if possible)
Avril had decided it was time to take the piss out of the Misfit. It was Friday afternoon so a bit of light relief was in order.
The Misfit wore a kind of check shirt, which was more like dark blue graph paper. The kind of shirt that shouted itself into fashion from time to time. This wasn’t one of those times. A grey tie had a stranglehold on his neck and the shirt collar splayed out over it. He wore a red t-shirt under his shirt. You could tell because it stuck out above the tie knot as bright as a vicar’s dog collar. On top of that he had pudding basin cut hair and thick glasses and a blotchy face like a scalded knee. He didn’t have much going for him.
It wasn't fair to judge someone by their look, but he was doing it to all of them: Kaz in her just this side of smart rocker’s gear. Avril, like a Mary Quant mannequin in purple, with her cutaway blonde bob, screaming for reverse reincarnation to the sixties. And yet he expected them to see through the shirt and tie he had to wear. He probably looked like some fucking squareoid, just one step up from the Misfit on the evolutionary ladder, so it was mere luck that it was the Misfit getting it from Avril now and not Ewan.
—Did you go out last night? she asked him, her moo cow eyes signalling to Kaz and Ewan.
He had this grin that defied the usual tendency to wideness. It was like he was blowing a marble out of his mouth.
—Yeh. Speedway.
—You do speedway as well as ice hockey? You’re active.
—I only watch. Spectatin’.
—Oh. Like you do with stock car racing?
—Yeh. And I do that with the ice hockey too.
—Oh, you only watch the ice hockey; I thought you played it.
Avril giggled at her mistake. So did Kaz. So did the Misfit.
—No. Just spectate.
—You get out a lot, don’t you. Really active. Don’t know where you get the energy.
The Misfit just laughed. It was a silent laugh, like he’d got a mouth full of cake. Kaz was laughing too. Avril was trying not to, keeping the performance going, like she was starring in her own comedy sketch.
—Wish I did as much as you, she said. My life’s dull by comparison.
Could he not see it? Did he really think these little talks were just friendly interest? At first he’d hated them for singling him out for ridicule, an easy target to lighten up their dreary work hours. But he’d found himself running with the pack. Some of his politically correct friends would have roasted him for it, but they didn’t understand, they’d never had to submit to this kind of mind deforestation, they’d never realise how easy it was for all your human kindness to slip away in a place like this.
It was like being at a party that had wound down after all your friends had gone and there was only a bundle of strangers left. It wouldn’t be so bad if Tim was still here. He’d enjoyed working here then. Before he’d come to do his few months of temping, he’d been burnt out of his student flat. Had been so casual about it; just some local antagonism to students in general, nothing personal. The only thing left undamaged by the fire was a charred pack of cards. They had always played Blackjack during tea breaks to the odour of damp charcoal. But now Tim had gone off on his round the world jaunt; alone in the world, without a house full of possessions holding him down. His world went no wider than his shoe prints and was therefore as wide as the world itself.
Ewan had had a repeated vision recently: warming himself on his burning house with a petrol can in his hand, laughing at the moon. Did you have to go crazy before you could just walk away from it all, or could you just do it anyway to prevent yourself going crazy? Do it. Just do it, he thought. Like your mother did.
He walked off for his tea break and dug out his iPhone and logged on to the site. The wall to wall monging about the shit Liverpool game had died down now. Mancini had publicly apologised to the fans and said he’d got his team selection wrong and also promised he would win the cup and achieve fourth spot. Actually promised. Few had believed him, caught up in a mongnami of negativity about him: he clearly wasn’t up to the job and the whole season was going tits up and Man United were going to give us a dry bumming in the semi and we’d finish fifth, maybe sixth and they’d get to put another year on that fucking banner of theirs. But now, with the semi-final tomorrow, everyone had brightened up and was getting giddy about the game.
He couldn’t concentrate on the site because he could hear Kaz talking about her boyfriend. She was sleeping with some married man, another rocker, and was always lording it over his wife.
—Stupid cow. She can’t complain. It’s her fault for not keeping him happy.
It was the kind of thing that made you want to just tell her what a wanker she was. But she talked like a psychopathic thirteen year old who’d murdered her older sister and taken on her identity, so he tried not to talk to her too much, just in case she ever took something the wrong way and stabbed him. He just hoped she didn’t think he was ignoring her.
His break appeared to be over. He’d somehow found himself back at his desk. Shit. At least it meant that time was moving quickly and he'd be out of there soon. He looked around and started to mentally compose a Top 5 Girls in the Office Who Would Get It.
• Clea, the honey blonde who delivered the mailings to his desk
• Vicky, the tall, slim, high cheekboned one with the luxuriant waves of russet hair and the bourgeois accent
• The raven haired retro girl with the strawberry lips, who walked silently past his desk at home time every afternoon
• The olive skinned Asian woman with the smile that made his lungs cave in
• The fulsome flagcracker with the Pre-Raphaelite hair from the floor below
All the women his eyeballs were having an involuntary affair with. They were all getting married, getting pregnant or just getting as old as they could as fast as they could. The ones who weren’t were just having a girlish fling with their own youth before putting it aside. There weren’t many who possessed any kind of detachment. Clea was about the only one. Avril and Kaz had something, but it was more cynical immaturity. Clea had real cool detachment without being icy.
She was something to do with the computer room, one of her duties being to dump the mailings print out on their desk twice a day so they could envelope them. He’d admired her self-confident banter with Avril every time she came to the desk. But when she’d suspected his interest though, she hadn’t seemed so certain, for a few days looking at him strangely, trying to work it out. Then she’d adopted a new mode of banter. Every time she passed him in the corridor she gave a gentle salute. She baptized him ‘Mr Mailings Man’ and hailed him with it all the time. He could tell she was thinking: is this guy interested me? If so why isn’t he asking me out? What’s going on? Why does he keep looking at me like that?
She looked like those old photos of Sylvia Plath, and he’d always had a thing about Sylvia Plath; always had a thing about women who looked like Sylvia Plath. There was a woman who worked in his bank that was the spitting image of her, only brunette, not blonde like Clea, and he stammered like a schoolboy every time he went in there, even though she’d never actually served him. Clea had the Sylvia Plath look too. His biggest worry was that he might one day ask her if she wrote poetry.
One of the other women, one of the permanents a few desks away, caught his gaze. She looked like she’d bit into a lemon when she smiled at him. A distancing. And he hadn’t even meant to. Wasn’t thinking about her, thoughts miles away again. It was bad enough that he did stare at some of the women, without his daydreams being mistaken for that as well. Perhaps the women were talking about it.
—Have you noticed how that Ewan Glumie’s always staring at me?
—He does that with you too? God, he gives me the creeps!
—He’s a right freak if you ask me.
—Shall we put in a complaint to Mary?
—I would. Puts me off my work. Something ought to be done about it.
—It’s that Clea from the computer room I feel sorry for. Every time she comes round he undresses her with his eyes.
—It’s indecent.
—She doesn’t know where to put herself.
—’Course, it’s obvious why he’s interested in her.
—Why?
—He wants to get access to the computer room so he can sabotage it, the Bolshevik bastard.
—I thought it was because she looks like Sylvia Plath?
—Who?
Sometimes he just felt like skipping all the breaks and finishing an hour and a half early, getting out of the place. But then he wouldn’t have the thrill of seeing Clea’s hair coming down.
This was his home time ritual. The ricochet ritual. It was five o’clock on Friday. He’d made it through another week of Dante’s Inferno and had 48 hours of escapism and a cup semi-final to enjoy. And it started right now with the ricochet ritual.
He had to time it just right. Sometimes he logged off and clocked out too quickly and Clea would leave behind him and he wouldn’t get to see the moment. Sometimes he left it too late and she’d already gone. He clocked out and walked to the stairwell but stopped just short and checked his phone, his favourite way of timing the moment exactly. They were pouring out all around him and either waiting for the lift or just piling down the stairs, lit with fierce evening sun through the giant windows. And here she came. Clea. She took the stairs, as always and he put his phone away and stepped into the flow of people walking down the three flights, almost in a spiral, and Clea about ten steps below him. He’d nearly trip over sometimes when the moment came, always between the third and second floors: she idly reached up with her hand and scraped the elastic from her pigtail and her blonde bangs swung down to her cheeks. The sun ricocheted off her hair and it hit him in the chest so he made a little involuntary groan. No one heard it with all the footsteps echoing on the stairs, a human snake descending.
She walked off in a different direction to him once outside and he laughed to himself. He swore if she came in one day with her hair cut short he’d be over her immediately. She didn’t always tie it back. Sometimes when she came round with the mailings she was wearing it down. Maybe he should ask her for a list of the days she would have her hair down so he’d know when he could leave early without missing the ricochet ritual.
Maybe not.
His phone buzzed. It was the usual text from Stuart: We're already in the Prince. Come soon. Alcohol in danger of running out.
He knew he'd have to get home first. He almost broke into a run. The working week over, a night on the pop followed by a cup semi final. He was buzzing more than his phone.
When you started supporting City, did you think it would be this long without a trophy?
He got off the bus back in Moseley and a bus ticket spiralled up to land on the wall beside him, from the woman in front. Parachutes. The word dropped into his head from childhood. Little dry two winged seedlings that you could flick into the air with a snap of the fingers. Some had called them helicopters but he’d stuck with parachutes. You’d flick them in the air and they’d flutter longingly before falling flailing. There was something about these memories of childhood that saddened him. How had that boy become this man? He wanted to go back and tell that boy what he would be in twenty-five years. Give him the whole sorry picture and they’d both sit down and cry together. Especially when he told him City still hadn’t won anything.
—What? Thirty-five years and nothing? No trophies at all?
—Nothing, mate. Sorry.
—Not even the League Cup?
—There’s the second division trophy.
—The second division?!
—We win that. We’re the record holders for that trophy. But no one counts it. Oh, and we get a third division trophy as well.
—The third division?!
—Yeah. We’re not champions, though. They start having a play-off for third place. It’s at Wembley and everything. We win that in 1999 and they give us some trophy for it. You should put some money on that, actually. Wait till we go 2-0 down in the final few minutes, then lump everything you’ve got on us winning after extra-time and penalties. I could do with the cash about then because I’m pretty much broke all the time and a total failure.
—We come third in the third division?
—Yeah. Fantastic day out, though. One of the best days of my life, actually.
—I don’t believe this!
—Hey, you need to stop crying now. It’s gonna be fine. I promise.
—At least tell me you’re a successful writer. You know that’s the only thing I want to be. You are, aren’t you?
—Okay, let’s get back to City.
A few streets from the Village he opened his door and met the smell of cat. Moira walked out of her bedroom carrying a makeup bag and a towel.
—Nice day? she said.
He watched her walk past to the bathroom.
—Not so bad.
She was sorting her stuff out in there.
—I’m off in a minute. Going for a meal.
Ewan darted into the kitchen, opened the fridge and took out two pasties. They would provide a wall of ballast against the beer and he didn't need to cook. Result.
He walked past the bathroom and took the second flight of stairs to his own room: the loft. The haven. Something about it made him slow down. Its remoteness from the rest of the flat, and its height from the street. He’d thought this would be the ideal place to write, but he hadn’t written anything for a few years. He was always too tired. And that hadn’t stopped him years ago, when he’d been working and studying and writing all the time. He’d written like he breathed, like it was a compulsion: ten novels, forty short stories, a handful of novellas. He’d written since he was fifteen and hardly missed a day. Until about four years ago when he’d given up, in the face of mass indifference from the publishing world. He’d had a handful of short stories published back in the day but had never made the big breakthrough. He’d had an agent for a while but she’d never managed to sell anything and eventually started acting like his own personal Brownshirt book burner. Everything he did was ‘well-written’ and ‘really strong’, but there was never a market for it and it wasn’t worth bothering a publisher with. Kosh had put in more hours than the agent for him. She’d read a couple of his novels five years ago and tried to push them when she worked at a publishers in London. There had been a buzz about them for a while and one was even lined up for publication and he’d thought he’d finally made it. And then the editor had moved on and a new one had taken her place and kicked out the old list.