Fan (30 page)

Kelly wasn’t home. The house was dark and empty. He clicked on the kitchen light, filled the room with brightness. He rubbed his eyes. Everything was the same, the condiments where they were meant to be, the cutlery resting in the cutlery tray, the place mats on the dining table. Everything was how he’d left it.

He moved through the kitchen. The pad and pen on the table, the washing-up in the sink. He passed his inverted reflection in the kettle, glanced meekly at his distorted form.

And yet there had been a shift, in the fabric of things, in his perception of them, something slight, almost intangible. The house was cold and silent and absent of the feeling of home.

It was all untouched. All of it.

He wandered through to the living room, musty, occupied by tired light, the curtains closed, the TV remote perched on the arm of the sofa. He pulled back the curtains, opened the French windows, got some air in the place. He thought about going upstairs to the bedroom but he couldn’t do it. Not yet. He wrestled away images of a lifeless body draped over the bed, of pillows, of electrical cords coiled around sickening white flesh, of fury and frenzy and incandescent rage.

Instead he stood looking around the living room, at the photographs, the ornaments and trinkets, the pictures on the wall, their favourite picture, a village in winter softened by snow, the orange glow of home in windows, a lone horse standing upright in a field of white, stoic, resilient, locked in time. He imagined, as he had many times before, wandering into that scene, becoming part of it, resting his palm on the horse’s broad neck, hitching up his jacket and trudging down the lane to the house that was his own, pushing open the door, feeling the warmth hit him, shaking off his boots, brushing
himself down, heading deeper into the house, deeper into a home. And here he was in his own home, still in his jacket, feeling the cold against his cheeks, feeling marooned within its walls, uncertain of what the next few minutes might reveal, uncertain of everything. He took off his jacket and sat on the arm of the sofa. He picked at the backs of his arms.

The blinking light of the answerphone caught his eye. He reached over to it, looked at the red display indicating half a dozen untouched messages.

Another bad sign.

He took a deep breath and pressed the button, listened to his own distant voice calling from a vacuous nothingness, from faraway hotel rooms, from BJ’s hallway. He choked back tears.

The last message was from Chris, inviting him back to work, suggesting they put it all behind them, suggesting that everything was sorted. Good. That was good. He had a fucking job to do after all, lives to steer in this direction and that, dreams to deliver. There was just his own life to pilot, his own fucking future to secure.

The message clicked off. He stood staring into the blackness.

Later, eventually, he climbed the stairs, holding his hands out to keep himself upright, feeling his world tilt on its axis, causing him to feel sick in the stomach, dragging himself from the brink of vile places, clinging to the real world, or at least his perception of it.

He reached the dark landing. The doors were all closed, a further signal that he’d been the last person to leave the house, because Kelly wasn’t like him, Kelly didn’t care about doors and windows and lights and plug sockets.

The little window in shadow. The silent stillness of the house. Not even the quiet drip of the cistern. One thing and the next and the next.

He stopped at the bedroom door, straining to listen beyond it. He placed the palm of his hand on the cold wood.

He pushed the door open.

The room was stuffy, full of shadows, but the bed was empty, the duvet neat and tidy, the cushions placed just so. He stood there, breathing in the familiarity, breathing in his own forgiveness.

It was alright.

Everything was alright.

The phone rang. He could hear it in the furthest outreach of his mind. It was far off, hardly audible, but it was ringing for sure. He knew it would be Kelly, that she’d taken off as he’d taken off, the two of them more compatible than they cared to understand, the two of them one and the same. The evening came back to him in that very moment, the fight in the bedroom, the scratching and the tearing, her slamming the bedroom door, descending the stairs, dragging her car keys across the kitchen unit, leaving the house, starting up the car and speeding away, leaving him there. He remembered all of it. He remembered spending the next hour setting things straight, locking doors and windows, tidying, organising, putting everything in its place, as he always did, as he had to do. Everything except the washing-up. There had been no time for the washing-up.

And then he’d left.

Neither of them had returned since.

He crossed the threshold of the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed, his eyes streaming with tears.

Somewhere beyond the walls of his home he could hear a train pulling out of the station. And he could hear singing, all the boys together on some glorious away trip. He could hear BJ and Jeff laughing at some mad moment, hear Spence and Robbie Box laughing too, taking the piss. He heard the soft thud as one of Doddy’s darts hit the board, the quiet murmur of the TV in Hopper’s cosy living room. And then he heard the sound of Jen crying into a pillow, Tracey Carlton screaming in a car park, Janet Allen gasping her last breath in her modern
kitchen. He heard the weakening cries of a solid mass of people, heard them slip, one by one into unconsciousness. He stared helplessly into the dark void surrounding him, stared through wire-mesh fencing at lives slipping away. He heard the creak of a rope swinging from a beam in a tired old railway hut, Stimmo’s final moments on this good earth.

He saw all of those things and heard all of those things as if they were happening all over again.

He would always see them.

These things were his burden.

But they were only echoes.

The lads were Forest and Pompey, Wednesday and Everton.

The lads were Notts County, Lincoln City and Liverpool.

And the others.

All the others.

Connected through one common bond.

The pull of Saturdays.

The pull of away days.

This story and that story.

This adventure and that adventure.

Every single fucking week.

My blessings and respect to each and every one of you.

This novel was written almost entirely to the sounds of Ian Brown and The Stone Roses.

Other notable musical accompaniment:

The Inspiral Carpets

The Wedding Present

The Blue Aeroplanes

The Brilliant Corners

Cud

Happy Mondays

Depeche Mode

The Weather Prophets

Ian Prowse and Pele

The Bridewell Taxis

The Popguns

Talk Talk

The Smiths

and

The Cure’s enduring album
Disintegration
, released on 1st May 1989

Plus many, many, many more.

A soundtrack to an era.

A soundtrack to a life.

It was the end of the 80s, the end of our youth
Ben Graham

This has been an emotional journey, one full of melancholy and magic, blessing and burden.

Much thanks to the many old friends who have lent me their memories and reinstated my memories of a period of my life that had been locked away for many a year. I am eternally grateful.

To Mike Nicholson for his incisive comments and expertise on the Hillsborough sections. I hope I’ve done all that were there justice.

To Martin Odoni for his thoughts on various details concerning Liverpool FC and for pointing me in the direction of Chris Rowland’s book on Heysel,
From Where I Was Standing,
an excellent read.

To the members of the Facebook group ‘Lost Football League Grounds of England, Wales and Scotland’. They know where this book’s heart is. Speak to them, listen to their stories.

To Karen (for her boundless positivity), Martin, Malcolm and all at Arcadia Books, particularly Gary Pulsifer for supporting this project from its germination. I hope I’ve done the idea, our idea, justice.

To Al Needham for lending me his words and wisdom on Notts dialect and all at Left Lion for their support.

To Jeremy and Sue Rodwell, for Chania.

To all at Café St Pierre and Café Boho, Canterbury for not hurrying me on each time the cups and plates were empty.

To Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band for keeping the fire burning both in themselves and in me. May it never be extinguished.

To all of the players, management and supporters of Nottingham Forest Football Club during the 1980s. Thanks for the many wonderful hours spent in your company.

To Justin, Dan, Bruce, Scott and anybody who has made a creative contribution to this novel.

To my wife and children for putting up with everything the writing of this novel has thrown at us, and for allowing me the hours. I am eternally grateful for their enduring patience, understanding and support. Without them this book wouldn’t exist.

Finally, to all of those who need to listen, a simple message:

Give the game back to the fans. That’s who it belongs to.

Danny Rhodes, February 2014