In The Family - Part 3

We all stared at James.

“Pardon?” I said eventually. “Are you mad?”

“What if the gaffer was drugged?” James appealed to the others. “What if we g-gave him something right now - no, listen, don’t interrupt, if we gave him something that he could have been given while he was out last night -”

“What kind of thing?” Donato asked. “We don’t want to poison our manager.”

“No, just - whatever,” James said, staring up at the ceiling as if searching for inspiration.

“GHB?” Sid suggested.

“Yeah, that’s a good one,” James said, an opinion with which I didn’t concur. I wasn’t behind the idea of ingesting anything you couldn’t buy in Marks and Spencer’s food hall.

“Is that not banned?” Donato asked. “I thought people used to use that for bodybuilding.”

“It’s a date-rape drug like rohypnol,” James said, busily searching Google on his phone. “Or it can be. Some athletes still use it. N-not for the bodybuilding so much but because it helps you sleep if you’re stressed out.”

“So does a mug of hot chocolate,” said Sid. “I know which I’d rather.”

“Wait a minute.” I decided to insert myself back into the conversation before people made decisions for me that I didn’t want to follow through on. “Are you saying you know somebody that has this - GBH?”

“GHB,” James said.

“Yeah, GBH is what we do to Rob Ryan when we get our hands on him,” Sid added.

“Is it somebody on the team?” I asked.

“Um.” James made the face of someone who realises he’s painted himself into a corner.

“He doesn’t have to say, does he?” Sid said.

“Yes, he damn well does,” I said. “I’m not having anyone in my team taking drugs.”

“You could look at it like, if they still have them, they haven’t actually taken them,” Sid suggested.

“Sophistry isn’t helping you,” I told him. “It’s my rule. No drugs. Even if they’re just hanging around in someone’s pocket. Everyone should know that by now.”

“Yes, but if it helps you -” Sid said. “Who’s got the drugs anyway, James?”

“And what makes you think I’m going to take them?” I asked, folding my arms.

The burgeoning impasse was interrupted by the entrance of my two new team members, now wearing our team’s black and white kit.

“Much more workmanlike,” I told them. “Fib, you’ve a bit of mascara running down your face. Yves, you’ll need to fasten your hair back somehow.”

“I’m not at all sure this lack of colour suits me.” Fib stared down at himself. “Could we not change it to something with a bit of red in it?”

“No,” I said.

“Blue?”

“No.”

“Green?”

“No, and before you go through the rest of the rainbow, it’s staying as it is. I like it that way.”

“But it’s so dull,” Fib complained.

“There’s nothing wrong with dull,” I said, my tone heartfelt. “Right. Why don’t we all go down to the training ground now and forget about - all the rest of it.”

“Because we want to keep our gaffer.” James was standing his ground. I decided I preferred him when he was shy and stammering.

“Is there some kind of problem?” Fib asked.

“You could say that,” Sid said. He looked at me and I shrugged. If it was going to be all over the newspaper this morning, no point in trying to keep it secret now.

I went to stare out the window while Sid described the situation.

“You should definitely take the drugs, Gaffer.” Fib gave his opinion. Yves just nodded in agreement.

“Oh, you think so, do you?” I said, turning round to look at them. “And why would you think that?”

“Because you’ll probably lose your job if you don’t,” he said. “This way, all you have to do is put up with a few hours disorientation, then we can make it look as if it’s all this reporter’s fault. We can even write an appointment with him in your diary to say you're meeting him to - I don’t know -”

“Talk to him about the new players you’re buying,” Yves suggested. “Me and Fib.”

“And Jelly,” Sid put in, which I ignored.

I had to admit they had a good idea. But - my players were attempting to run my life. And since they had a plan and I didn’t, it seemed they were making a slightly better job of it.

“Nobody’s going to have any respect for me after this.” I looked around at the grinning faces and realised I’d spoken the words out loud. I clutched my head which was still aching.

“Famous morning-after words, Boss,” Sid said. “Don’t worry. Nobody’s going to even know about this apart from us. And we’re not going to say anything, are we?” He looked around and everyone nodded.

“It’s not the kind of thing you want to get around, is it?” Fib said. “If people find out and start mocking you, Gaffer, we’ll spend all our time having fights with everybody and his uncle and his wee dog. I prefer a quiet life myself, when I’m not playing.”

“I don’t know,” I said, realising that I’d already given in and was now just playing for time. I went over to my desk and sat down, trying to look as though I was in charge of matters. “First we need to get some suitable drugs -”

“I’ll sort that,” Sid said.

“I didn’t hear that,” I told him.

“The only thing is,” Sid said, “the person I might get it from - could you like, overlook them having the stuff just this one time? Since it’s going to get you out of a mess?”

“Or kill me,” I said. “At which point, I suppose, I won’t be concerned about my current problems any more.”

“We’re not going to kill you,” Sid said. “I mean, it's not likely we will. Not at all.”

“Yes, if we meant to do that,” Donato added, “I am sure we could find ways that do not involve such fuss and trouble.”

I gave him a look.

“Theoretically, he means,” Sid said, giving Donato a look of his own. “Nobody wants you dead, Boss. Nobody wants you hurt. Or scandalled in the paper either. But it’s going to be hard to get someone to admit to having drugs if they think you’re going to fine them or get rid of them.”

“Fine, fine,” I said. “Immunity. Only this once, though. And I’m really not sure it’s not a good idea to take anything when I’ve been up all night.” That reminded me that I had some paracetamol somewhere in my desk drawers. I opened the top one and rummaged around. I could have gone and got some from the first aid box in the bathroom but that seemed like too much effort. After a few moments fighting through do-later paperwork I found the box and took out two capsules.

“I thought you didn’t want to take anything?” Donato said.

“Painkillers don’t count,” I said, gulping them down with the last of my coffee. “What I could do with is some breakfast.”

“No. No breakfast,” Donato said.

“Why not?” I demanded.

“Drugs need to have clear path to your bloodstream,” he said. “I think.”

“It’s all bloody thought, isn’t it?” I said. “You think this and you think that but none of you actually know anything. You might kill me just out of ignorance. It’s not as if I normally take drugs -”

“Apart from alcohol,” James put in. I resisted the urge to make a face at him.

“Apart from alcohol,” I agreed. “So I have no tolerance for anything like that. Who knows how I might react to it?”

“That’s a point, can’t you die from taking GHB and alcohol?” Fib said.

“You didn’t mention that!” I turned to James.

“Uh -” he glared at his phone as if accusing it of giving him false information.

“Good thing I didn’t drink much last night.” I let him off the hook.

“How much is not much?” Sid asked.

“Couple of bottles of Beck’s at the start of the night, then just soft drinks.”

“You certainly know how to have a night out, Gaffer,” Fib said. “I would think all the lager’s out of your system by now, wouldn’t you?”

“We’ll just give you a little bit of the GHB,” Sid said. “Just enough to show up on the dope test.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” I said. “You have no idea how big a little bit is. Or a big bit for that matter.”

“That’s why I’m looking up dosage on the internet,” James said, waving his iPhone at me. I started to love him a little bit more. But I still wasn’t happy about the whole idea.

“Can’t anyone think of anything else?” I asked.

Sid glanced at me and I knew he was toying with the idea of saying ‘can’t you?’ I watched him remember our relative positions in the organisation and decide not to bother.

“I’m not at my best,” I said, since I too felt that I should be the one having the ideas.

“Don’t worry about it,” James said.

“Yes, we all have done stupid things,” Donato added. I gave him another look but he just smiled back at me. Oh well. He was right, after all. I’d done a stupid thing. And I had the feeling that I was about to do another one.

“What if I say something while I’m under the influence?” I asked. “What if I tell the dope control doctor that I’m -” I couldn’t say it. Couldn’t say I’m gay out loud, even though it was obvious that everyone here already knew. “That I, uh, took the drugs on purpose or something.”

“One of us’ll go with you,” Sid said. “Keep an eye on you and divert you if you’re going to babble something you shouldn’t.”

“I don’t babble,” I said.

“You might if you’ve taken GHB.”

“Well. Possibly.”

“I will stay with you,” Donato said. “I will make sure you say nothing you should not.”

“Why you?” Sid asked.

“I am the biggest of us,” Donato said. “I can restrain the Boss if he should go berserk due to the drugs.”

“What?” I got up from my chair. I still felt roughly as exhausted as Rip van Winkle, but I couldn’t sit still any more while they came out with shockers like that. “Is it likely that I’ll go berserk? James?” I asked, since he was the one looking things up on the internet.

“Hm? No, shouldn’t think so,” he said.

“Shouldn’t think so? I don’t think that’s good enough,” I said. “Are you even listening to me?”

“No, you’re not likely to go berserk,” James said. “Don’t w-worry so much. You’ll be fine.”

“Oh, I’ll be fine.” I walked over to the window and stared out into the car park. I felt like going out there, getting in my car - in somebody else’s car, since mine was at home - and leaving. Of course then I’d probably be arrested for some mistake I’d make while driving under the influence of extreme tiredness and have a new set of problems to add to the ones I already had. “It’s all very well for you to say,” I grumbled.

“We’re doing our best to fix this, Boss,” Sid said.

“You maybe shouldn’t have gone out to gay club,” Donato suggested, which was just what I needed to hear. I turned on him.

“You think I should stay at home for the rest of my life?” I asked him. “All by myself? What kind of life is that?”

“It is life you picked when you decided to be a footballer,” he said, looking down at me, not angrily. Sympathetically, I thought. “And when you decided to be a manager.”

“I didn’t decide to be a footballer,” I said. “It was just what I did. By the time I realised that it didn’t fit in with the lifestyle I wanted to have, it was too late. And I’m a manager because -” I waved an arm around my office, at all the photos on the walls, the certificates, the trophies. My life. “What else would I do?”

“I’m not saying you should live life by yourself,” Donato said. “Nobody should be all alone.”

“No, it’s miserable having nobody,” Fib said.

“Yeah, it’s a lot better to wake up with someone else’s face looking at you,” Sid agreed.

“What about you?” I asked. “You’re -” again I couldn’t say the word. It was irritating me. A simple three-letter word and I couldn’t say it. What was wrong with me?

“I’m waiting for the right goalkeeper,” Sid said. “In the meantime, I enjoy life. It’s not the same. If you’re going out looking for love in all the wrong places because you’re desperate -”

“I’m not desperate,” I said. It sounded like a lie, even to me.

“There are gay men in football,” Donato said, returning to whatever his point was. “You can see this for yourself, here, apart from working it out from probability. You don’t have to be alone.”

“Huh?” I stared at him. What was he saying?
"You can keep it, what is it, in the family?" Donato went on.
"What, incest?" I asked.
"No, ew. Your other family. Extended family."

“Okay, I’m sorted,” James said. “I know what we w-want and how much.”

“Then I suggest we get a move on,” I said, abandoning the question of my lack of relationships with a feeling of relief. “Otherwise the paper’s going to be in the shops, the rest of the press’ll be round here asking questions and it’ll be too late to do anything about it.”

*********

“I know him,” I muttered to Sid. We were lurking just inside the park gates, looking across at the duck pond where Sid and James had arranged for a spy-novel type clandestine meeting with their drug dealer. “It’s Luke Macabeo. Why did you think I wouldn’t know a member of my own bloody team, Sid?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Sid reached up and put his hands either side of my face to turn me towards him; while I was still staring at him open-mouthed about that, he gently took off my glasses. “Now. You don’t know who he is.”

“I do, though,” I muttered, but he’d already left, James in tow.

“Let’s go over by the bandstand,” I said to Donato, who, as my designated minder, had been given the job of sticking with me at all times. “It’s far enough away.”

We wandered over to the raised wooden platform where brass bands played on Sundays through the summer, most of them good, a minority making you wish you’d been born deaf.

“This is the stupidest plan I ever heard of,” I confided to Donato. I climbed onto the bandstand, looking up at the dome that topped it, the inside of which was inhabited by a variety of spiders.

“Me too,” he said. “Everyone thinks it’s stupid. I don’t know why we’re doing it.”

“It’s the only plan we’ve got,” I said. “Unless you can think of another one?”

“No,” he said.

I nodded, optimism crushed. Turning my attention to the activity by the pond, I saw that Luke seemed to be quite agitated. Perhaps he’d just heard that I knew he was in the habit of taking drugs. Serve him right if he was worried about it, I thought.

Sid was attempting to calm him down. He’d probably succeed. Sid was good with people. He was an excellent footballer as well. He and Wes, my captain, were my playmakers and on a day when I had them both on the pitch, I could feel that anything was possible, that we could beat the world.

Now if only we had a decent goalkeeper. Barry, my number 1, was good enough - well, he was adequate. James was appalling. What was I going to do about this? As an ex-keeper myself, having a decent player in that role was a high priority for me. It was all very well to compensate for my goalkeeper’s deficiencies by scoring at the other end but that wasn’t a foolproof way of going on. What if somebody crucial should be injured? Like Wes for example, or Donato, my centre-forward of choice?

Maybe Jelle de Lindekerke would do. I needed to have a good look at him. A cheap goalkeeper - a cheap good goalkeeper - was just what I needed right now. Especially if I could exchange him for James.

Over by the pond, Sid was still talking to Luke, hand on the bigger man’s arm, his straight fall of blond hair flopping around his face. I smiled. If I needed anything, Sid always seemed to be there to provide it. I wasn’t sure how he managed it. It wasn’t that he was trying to get on my good side. He was already there. There was nothing particularly sycophantic about it.

They seemed to have finished their business now, Sid and James coming over towards the bandstand while Luke hurried away in the other direction.

“Remember, what you said?” Sid said as they came up to me. “No consequences.”

“I can remember what I said half an hour ago, thank you,” I told him.

“It’s just you were giving Luke a filthy look.”

“I can look if I want to. Doesn’t mean I’ll do anything. Did you get it?”

“Yeah,” Sid said. “It’s showtime.”

“Don’t be so bloody cheerful about it,” I said as we all set off back towards the park gates.

*********

I was wondering how I’d ended up like this; sitting in Sid and Donato’s kitchen, surrounded by woks and spice racks; Mary Berry's Baking Bible on the table in front of me and a vial of something poisonous in my hand.

Sid and Donato shared a house just outside of town. It was an old stone building with low windows, a low door that both Donato and I had to stoop to pass through, creaking floors and a number of short wooden staircases that seemed to run up and down at random. It had been decided that this was the most discreet place for what we were going to do, since, if the papers were full of my disgrace, my house was likely to be under siege by the press.

Now it came to it, I didn’t want to do this. I’d had time to realise how insane an idea it was. How did I know I could trust them, Sid and the others, to take care of me if I was in a state of inebriation? I didn’t allow myself to get into that state in public, not even with alcohol. This could be worse. I might say anything. Do anything. I might - who knows what I might do?

But the alternative - to resign from my job. Or, worse than that, wait to be asked to leave. Was there anything I wouldn’t do to avoid that?

I thought about it and what came to mind was the training ground. I loved the place, set snugly against a cluster of woodland, its rectangle blurred by long grass at the edges. I thought about how it would be, a few months from now, my favourite season. September, first thing, with the sun a golden ball rising in the sky; autumn beginning to crisp the green leaves and nothing to be heard but the sound of my feet and my breath as I ran, early, before anyone else arrived.

It was mine and I wanted it. I wasn’t ready to give it up yet and I had nothing I could put in its place.

I looked again at the vial.

“Get it down you,” Sid said. “Here, I made you some tea in case it’s got a funny taste.”

He passed me the cup and I felt quite relieved that nobody already seemed to know what the stuff might taste like.

“In fact, just get half of it down you,” Sid went on, glancing at the vial. “Or a quarter.”

“He’s got to take enough for it to turn up in his bloodstream,” James said.

“Do you even know how much that is?” Sid demanded.

“No,” James said, still frantically searching the internet, this time on his laptop which had been placed on the pine kitchen table next to the Baking Bible, Sid sweeping away a centrepiece of succulent plants and a bowl of fruit to make room for it. “I think - yeah, I think if he just takes half of it. N-no more. It’s not the amount that’s the problem - I think -”

“Too much thinking,” I said.

“It’s getting him tested quickly afterwards,” James said. “We n-need to be ready to take him to the doctor as soon as he starts showing any symptoms, because the stuff passes through your body really quick.”

“We wouldn’t want all this to be for nothing,” Sid said. “Go on, drink it.”

I looked around at them all. Donato was standing next to me, ready to do - whatever he was going to do. Fib and Yves had come along as well, training having been abandoned for the day due to the necessity for the club’s manager to spend the next few hours enjoying a chemical high. I wasn’t sure, but I thought Fib had been asked to join us because of his size. He might be expected to assist Donato, should I ‘go beserk’ as my centre-forward had so elegantly put it.

Feeling like Alice, I drank half the vial and handed the rest to Donato, who put it on the edge of the kitchen sink next to the washing up liquid.

“Nothing’s happening,” I said.

“I don’t think it’ll work immediately,” Sid said. “James? Does it work straight away?”

“Takes about ten minutes,” James said, after consulting Sid’s laptop. “C-can be up to twenty.”

“Fine,” I said, taking a sip of my tea. “Where’s the TV? You’ve got Sky, right?”

“Sky Sports, BT Sport, ESPN, all of it,” Sid said, leading the way to the living room. It was pretty well wall to wall posters and pictures of footballers, a lot of them looking as though they’d been printed off from the PC that occupied a desk in the corner of the room.

“There’s a lot of goalkeepers here,” I said.

“Those are Sid’s,” Donato told me.

“Yeah, I like em,” Sid said. “Dunno why. Just a thing. Fetish or something.”

“That’s a good picture of him,” I said, pausing to look at one of them.

“I like that one,” Sid said. “Having a big hug with his sweetie.”

“What, are they -?” I turned to look at him.

“Lovers? How should I know?” He shrugged. “But you don’t have to sleep with somebody to love them, do you?”

“I suppose not,” I said. “Although it can certainly add an interesting extra dimension to the relationship.”

“I’ve got some recordings of Jelle if you want to see em,” Sid said.

“May as well, I suppose.” I settled on the huge leather sofa and waited for what might come.

*********

“He’s a good goalie,” I said, some minutes later. “He catches the ball a lot. I like that. You punch it away and it can go anywhere.”

“He’s quick, isn’t he?” James was giving the athletic Jelle de Lindekerke a rather envious look from his place on the sheepskin rug in front of the gas fire.

“Very,” I said.

“This was all before his gaffer decided he didn’t like him,” Sid said. “There was some kind of incident. I dunno what, he hasn’t told me. There’s a post-match interview here if you want to see it.”

“I don’t speak Dutch,” I said, after I’d watched half the interview before realising I wasn’t understanding it. I’d been more intrigued by the close-up view of de Lindekerke I was being treated to.

“He’s just saying he’s happy to have helped the team,” Sid said. “Glad they won, other team played well, yada yada, usual stuff.”

“You speak Dutch?” I was impressed.

“Just a bit,” Sid said. “He speaks Flemish Dutch which is nearly the same as this Holland sort. We mostly talk to each other in French. Jelle speaks English as well, though, so you won’t have any problem if he comes here. He’s a linguist, like me.”

“Doesn’t that mean you give good blow jobs?” Fib asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Sid said. “Actually,” he winked at me, “I do.”

“Um,” I said, feeling a bit too warm all of a sudden. I turned my attention back to Jelle’s interview but that wasn’t much better.

“He’s very nice looking,” I said. He was, all pale skin, long red hair and freckles.

“Cute as a button, isn’t he?” Sid said.

“Is that why you want him?” I asked, suspicion dawning. “Do you - want him?”

“No, he’s too young for me,” Sid said. He gave me a soulful look. “My heart belongs to Daddy.”

“Daddy’s going to spank you if you don’t behave yourself,” I said. What was I doing? Was I flirting with my number 6? What the fuck? More to the point, was he flirting with me?

“Oh, is that what you like?” Sid said. “Well, I suppose I could -”

“How old is he?” I said, pointing at the screen. I thought I’d worked out what was going on here. Sid was trying to distract me. He liked de Lindekerke, but he didn’t want anyone to know about it. I knew how he felt. “He only looks about nineteen,” I added. I was being generous at that. With his big brown eyes, heart-shaped face and pointy elfin nose, de Lindekerke could probably have got away paying half fare on the bus with a shortsighted driver.

“He’s twenty-three,” Sid said. “He’s good value. Get him cheap now, you could have him for years. Goalkeepers can keep on playing longer than everyone else if they want to.”

“I suppose I could have a word with him,” I said.

“Can he come over?” Sid asked. “He’s always wanted to visit England. Well, Scotland actually, but it’s near enough.”

“Might not be if they get their independence,” I said. “Why Scotland?”

“He’s got Scots ancestors on his mam’s side.”

“That’ll explain the red hair, I suppose.”

“Red haired Scots are often fay,” Fib said. “They can see the fairies riding by on hallowed nights.”

“Eh?” Sid stared at him. So did I.

“Er - that’s nice,” I said, eventually.

“Not if you get carried away to the land beyond the Hollow Hills for a year and a day,” Fib said. “Well, it might be nice, you know, like a wee holiday, but you’d no doubt come back and find all your bank accounts had been closed and the like.”

“I’ll just - I’ll just watch a bit more of de Lindekerke,” I said, turning back to the TV. “You can tell him he can come and have a meet if you want. No promises. We’ll put him up and pay for his flight though.”

“That’s very generous,” Yves said. He’d joined James on the rug and they were looking at each other cautiously, like a pair of cats forced to share the same basket. I decided to ignore the lot of them, the slightly odd, the downright weird and the flirtatious alike.

*********

“I want to see Wenceslao,” I said, some minutes later.

“Pardon?” Donato, sitting next to me on the sofa, leaned over in a way I found very endearing. He was taking care of me. He’d said so. What a nice man. So attractive, too.

“Dimples,” I said.

“What’s that?” He looked puzzled, but I couldn’t imagine why. He must have looked at his own face plenty of times before.

“You’ve got dimples,” I explained.

“Oh. Yes. Yes, I do. What’s that about Wes?”

“If we watch the match later, we can see Wenceslao in the crowd,” I said. “Cheering and so on.”

“Or tearing his hair out and weeping if they lose,” Sid said. “It’s a big crowd, Boss. We might not be able to see him.”

“We will,” I said. “He's Wenceslao. We're bound to see him. I wonder if he’ll paint his face green and white and red?”

“Time to go to the doctor’s,” Sid said. Donato put his arm around me, which seemed awfully familiar but somehow I didn’t mind.

“Where are we going?” I said as Donato hauled me to my feet. I felt a bit unsteady, so I put my arm around him as well. It was only fair. He felt wonderful. It had been absolutely ages since I was as close as this to any man. Well, apart from hugging after a goal but that wasn’t quite the same.

I became aware that we were on the move.

“Where?” I said. I felt that somebody had told me already, but I hadn’t been listening.

“The doctor for a dope test,” Donato said. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll look after you.”

“I like that,” I told him. “Nobody ever looks after me normally.”

“I’m always bringing you cups of tea and coffee and Cornish pasties and stuff,” Sid said. “For God’s sake. So ungrateful.”

“People look after me all the time,” I corrected myself. “But not with hugs.”

“I’d have hugged you if you’d bloody asked me,” Sid muttered as we went out of his front gate.

“Bless,” Fib said. He was already outside, leaning on Sid’s Land Rover and smoking.

“Right, the Boss in the back with his minders,” Sid said. “James you get in behind and Yves can sit in the front with me. Everybody ready?”

I nodded vigorously, though I had no idea where we were going. Had anybody told me?

NOW GO TO PART 4....

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