Chapter two
London
A loud buzzing startled him awake. Which was quite unusual, as Jay always tended to rise at least five minutes before the alarm screeched its endless shrill around the room. Whacking down his hand on the top sent the tiny digital clock toppling to the floor with a crash. He rubbed his eyes and stretched out in the bed, when the duvet ripped free from his skin and tangled around the body beside him. Jay shivered, left there in just his boxers and a vest. He yanked his duvet back to be met with a groan and a fierce kick to his shin.
“Ow.” Jay wrenched harder at the duvet, managing to release some of it and drape it back over his goose-pimpled skin. Grabbing the scrunched-up body curled up in the foetal position, he tugged it closer to his chest and rubbed his face into the soft hair, breathing in the familiar scent. Foam chemicals wafted up Jay’s nostrils and he choked. A soft chuckle made the mattress wobble.
“Happy Valentine’s Day!” Ann poked her head out from the duvet.
“Fuck off.”
“Charming.” Ann kicked his shin. “I better get more than that from Lucas.”
“Will you tell him you woke up in bed with another man?” Jay sat and ran his fingers through his hair.
“It’s you, Jay. You’re not exactly another man.” Ann twisted around and rested her head on Jay’s chest. She pouted. “Besides, he doesn’t want to wake up in bed with me.”
Jay stroked through Ann’s hair. His fingers caught in the knots of her long dark strands and she slapped his hand away as he yanked at her scalp.
“Still nothing, no?” Jay asked.
Ann sat, tucking the T-shirt of Jay’s she wore over her knees. “No. What is it? Do you think he’s gay?”
Jay couldn’t help the laughter escaping. It actually felt quite good to laugh again.
“No. I told you, he’s religious. It’s a sin to have premarital relations.”
“No fucking sex before marriage? Are you kidding me?”
The door to Jay’s bedroom flung open and Barbara, Jay’s mother, dressed in a floor-length blue dressing gown, scurried in with one hand full of ironed football kit and the other clutching a mug of hot tea. “Oh!” She stopped in her tracks.
Ann winced and crossed her fingers on Jay’s leg under the duvet.
“Mum,” Jay croaked.
“Sorry, love. I heard your alarm and well, I just…” Barbara dumped the clothes on the end of the bed and plonked the mug down on Jay’s desk. “Sorry. Kettle’s still warm, Ann, love. Help yourself.” Curling her fingers around the external door handle, she peeked over her shoulder. “Don’t rush, though. Take your time.”
Barbara closed the door and Jay and Ann sat in silence, listening out for her traipse back down the stairs, swiftly followed by the kitchen radio being switched to Heart FM. Loud.
“You’ve still not told your mum then?”
“What’s to tell?” Jay jumped out of the bed. He blew into the mug of tea, took a sip and handed it over to Ann.
“Er, that you are a homosexual,” Ann enunciated and took a gulp of the tea.
“Not a practising one.” He yanked open his drawer and tugged out a towel.
“It’s not a freaking religion, Jay. You don’t get kicked out of the club if you don’t turn up for training.” She crawled to the end of the bed, making sure not to spill the lifeblood of the English in her hands. “And bonus points on the self-pity sulk-fest there, by the way. Thought we were done with that?”
Jay glared at her. She smiled back, so he twisted the dangling towel around a few times and whipped her leg. Ann’s high-pitched squeal and jump in the air made her spill the tea down her T-shirt.
“Wanker.”
“Well, it ain’t like I’m getting any other action, is it?” Jay flapped his hand. “Like you.”
“You could have done.” Ann plonked the mug back down on the desk and wiped the splodges from her top. “I mean, did you even check out any of the blokes last night?”
“I’m taking a shower. You coming to the match?”
“Yeah, I’ll come watch. But not in this. And I ain’t going in the get-up I was in last night, either.”
“Okay, well you can go get changed when I start the car up.”
“Do we have to go in the death trap?” Ann screwed up her face in distaste. “I’d rather ride the fucking District Line with the rest of the hangover crew.”
Jay stuck his middle finger up, swivelling it around in the air, then trudged to the bathroom with heavy steps.
Ten minutes later, he ran down the stairs dressed in his football kit with Ann slumping along behind him, black trench coat over Jay’s T-shirt to make the walk of shame to her house next door less, well, shameful. Jay had slipped into his running trainers and picked up the gleaming clean football studs left by the door, when Barbara stuck her head out of the kitchen.
“Not staying for breakfast, Ann?” she asked, voice filled with a glimmer of hope and motherly intrigue.
“No, ta, Babs. I’ll get some fried crap at the ground.”
“How about you, Jay, love?” Barbara widened her eyes. “I bought that instant porridge you like. Says thirty percent less sugar on the pack.”
Ann grimaced, poking her tongue out, emulating throwing up.
“Cheers, Mum, but I’m sticking to the shake this morning.” He waggled his bottle of prepared protein shake.
“Okay, well, good luck for today.” Barbara edged farther into the hall. “Your dad might pop along. Will you both be having dinner with us or did you get a booking somewhere? That new Italian down the High Street’s meant to be good.”
Ann urged Jay through the invisible daggers being glared across at him.
“No doubt Ann’ll be taken out by her boyfriend, Mum.” Best he could offer.
“Lucas and I are going to up west, later.” Ann grinned.
“Oh.” Barbara rubbed along her dressing gown lapel. “I see.”
Jay yanked open the front door and out to the brisk morning, unwilling to explain to his mother why the girl he constantly had to argue that he wasn’t with anymore had woken up in his bed. Damn Ann and her need for cuddles when she got drunk. He wasn’t going to admit, even to himself, that it was also he who craved company in a bed that suddenly seemed too big for one person. Having Ann stay over the couple of nights a week he had off from training and matches had also stopped him reaching for his phone.
Unlocking the door to the rusty red Fiesta parked half up on the pavement and half on the road outside his mid-terrace house, Jay sighed. The car used to belong to his brother, Bryan. But after the birth of his daughter in January, Bryan had come to the conclusion he needed to ditch the bachelor wagon and get himself a decent family motor. Jay was just happy he had some wheels and could get out of London when the smog got all too much.
It took a couple of goes of twisting the key in the ignition before the car roared to life. Growling and spluttering, the car hated early starts almost as much as Ann did. Jay rammed his foot down on the accelerator, warming her up, then leapt out of the idling car to scratch away the frosted windscreen with his credit card.
Ann pelted out of her house, dressed in a more appropriate tracksuit trousers and one of Jay’s old scholar jumpers, her hair shoved up in a messy bun. Jumping into the car, she shivered.
“Fucking hell, it’s brass monkeys out there. You can hang coat hooks on my nipples.”
“Did you skip the queue when they dished out the femininity?”
“You wanna talk about stereotypes?” Ann cranked up the heating controls.
Jay shook his head and released the handbrake to set the car rolling toward Barking Recreation Ground.
Once they’d parked, Ann scurried off to find the nearest place to get her morning fix and Jay made his way across the park. The pitch was frozen solid, with huge mud chunks chipped out of the turf and stud marks still visible from the last game. The net hung off one of the goal posts with a distinct tear in the corner flag. This was grassroots. As much as Jay missed the carefully tended pitches of his Academy days, it had been on fields like this where he’d got his love for the game.
He bashed his studs on the concrete just as Ann approached him, clutching a coffee cup in her gloved hands.
“No sodding burgers ‘til midday,” she moaned. “I’m fucking starving.”
“Maybe you’ll get some oranges at halftime.”
“They still do that?”
“Not at this level.” Jay tightened the strings on his shorts.
“What, you get pie and beer now?”
“More like water and a slap.”
Ann laughed. She took another sip of the watered-down coffee and curled her fingers around the piping hot polystyrene cup, allowing the steam to float into her face. “Incoming,” she warned out of the side of her mouth.
Adjusting his socks over his shin pads, Jay peered behind him. Martin Chang and Noah Fitzgerald headed his way, both wrapped up in huge duffle coats and scarves. Jay hung his head. He’d successfully avoided seeing those two over the past couple of months, mainly because he’d gone back to hiding at the gym and concentrating on football, and he was pretty sure neither of Seb’s bandmates were known for their sporting prowess. Fuck knew what they were doing here now, especially as this wasn’t a university match. He was playing for his non-league Saturday side as a favour. For both him and the struggling team.
“How’d they know I was here?”
Ann shrugged but didn’t respond further and sipped through the hole in the cup.
“Hi.” Martin rubbed his gloved hands together, steam wafting out of his mouth. “Cold, innit?”
“Where can I get a cup of that?” Noah pointed to Ann’s mug.
“I’ll show you.” Ann smiled.
“Lead the way, darlin’.” Noah held out his palm, and he and Ann sauntered off leaving Martin to tower his full six-foot-two height over Jay in an awkward silence.
Jay tapped his studs on the floor again. They’d been cleared of any mud and secured tight to his feet, so he only did it for want of anything else to do.
“How you been?” Martin asked.
“All right,” Jay mumbled to the floor. “Good,” he added, just in case this was a conversation that would be relayed later by satellite means.
Martin nodded, chewing his lip. “You heard from him?”
Jay shrugged, non-committal. He was pretty sure Martin would know about the many times he’d avoided Seb before his departure. “You?”
“Yeah, we Skype every now and then. He sends me shit to practise. And money.” Martin coughed, obviously noticing Jay’s eyebrow raise. “To keep the band going, y’know?”
“He okay?” He couldn’t help but ask.
“No.” Martin dipped his head to get into Jay’s line of sight. “But you already know that.”
Jay’s team bundled out onto the pitch, so Jay stretched his hips to loosen his tight muscles ready for the session. “I gotta chip.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure. But, one sec.” Martin rummaged around in his pocket. “I got told to give you this for Christmas, but I’ve not seen you around. Where you been hiding, man?” Martin nudged Jay’s arm, then held out a pristine, gleaming jet-black iPod.
“What is it?” Jay shivered. Whether it was the biting cold or the conversation with Seb’s best friend, Jay wasn’t sure.
“Him.” Martin shrugged. “His life in a playlist. He said you asked for it.”
Jay really didn’t want to take it. It had been hard enough getting over the bloke since his departure a couple of months back. He didn’t need to be adding to his misery. As if sensing the hesitation, Martin waggled the iPod.
“If you want to understand why he had to go, then you need to listen to this. And if you really want to know how he is, then it’s all on there too. Just listen to the lyrics.”
After a moment’s contemplation, Jay wrapped his fingers around the iPod in a tight grip, almost as if it were Seb himself.
“The only way anyone ever knows what’s going on inside Sebastian’s head is to listen to the shit he sings.”
The shrill of the referee’s whistle echoed around the football ground and Jay knelt down on the floor, tucking the iPod into one of the front zipped pockets of his sports bag.
“For what it’s worth.” Martin stepped back. “I’d never seen him happier than when he was with you, and I’ve known him most my life.”
“Just weren’t enough, was I?” Jay nodded a brief thanks before jumping the railing and legging it onto the football pitch. Back where I belong.
As the whistle blew, Jay shut off the agonising thoughts to concentrate on the game. He needed this. Like oxygen. The opposition, Waltham Cross, were top in their non-league status and a local rival as it was, so in this match Barking had a point to prove and one Jay was going to make sure they fucking well did.
A few minutes in and Waltham Cross left back tackled the ball effortlessly from Barking’s winger and edged toward goal. Jay had had enough of waiting for the moment. He blasted down the pitch, slid a boot in between the mid-fielder’s legs and jumped around him to capture the ball between his toes. Twisting, he flicked the ball over to his waiting teammate, then dodged around the oncoming opposition and yelled for the ball to be passed back. Amazingly, it was.
The past few matches, many of the players in Jay’s university team had revelled in the time they managed to get their boots to the ball and have their chance at glory. But Barking loved it when Rutters got going. They’d obviously seen the fire in their top striker’s eyes, and Jay tapped the ball with his ankle to guide it between his feet. Eyes straight ahead, mind closed and heart well and truly on the pitch, Jay dribbled through every player heading his way. With nothing but fire in his gut, he struck a shot from the penalty line. The mud flicked up from the frozen ground and the keeper didn’t even have time to leap. The goalposts shook in their holes as the ball slammed into the back of the net.
Jay smiled. But no words entered his mind. He just ran back to the centre circle, catching the eye of his dad clapping from the sidelines, along with two branded-tracksuit-wearing men. Jay squinted. Then drew in a breath.
Fucking hell. The scouts are actually fucking here. Close it off, Rutters. Close. It. All. Off.
He did.