Heartland (6 page)

He was ten years older than her, divorced, two young girls with his ex-wife in Essex. It wasn't easy. Her parents were wary, to say the least. This was the first time there'd been anyone serious. She'd had boyfriends through university, went out for nearly a year on and off with one of the other volunteers when she'd worked in Ghana, but this was different.

Matt had grown up near Riverway and his family had followed the general eastward drift – parents retired now in Canvey; his ex-wife and girls in Hornchurch – but there was something about the area he couldn't give up. Even at the cost of his marriage. Back then she thought that was committed, romantic even. Now she wasn't so sure.

But you can't measure what difference it makes, she'd say to him. Because you can't measure all the times someone doesn't drown in the docks, or pick up a knife, or get themselves pregnant after you've said something to them. There are other people responsible for them as well as you, you know. They've got some responsibility for themselves. He'd shrug and nod but then carry on as before. And she loved that in him. At first, of course.

Jasmine didn't go down to the docks again, preferred to look from the classroom's big windows, watching the arc of the bodies, little flashes of life against the steel and glass, the water and concrete. Some of them were boys whom she taught – it was all boys and young men – clumsy, inarticulate, angry in school; she wondered what
went through their minds. She'd even asked one of them, Freddie Barber, who she knew went down there with his string of brothers, who looked like he'd walked out of the
Oliver Twist
poster, but he was tongue-tied, just shrugged, looked blank, said it felt good. She hadn't pursued it. Maybe that's what it was, a few moments of grace, something that felt good, and then a blankness.

She knew what was coming next with these thoughts. Maybe if all the things Matt said near the end hadn't been so corrosive, if he hadn't been quite so arrogant, so convinced that the fate of Riverway's kids, some of them damaged and dangerous long before he came across them, was so utterly in his hands, maybe if he'd agreed that they move in together, instead of the ridiculous set-up they'd had, then perhaps, perhaps, when she'd run into Adnan, she wouldn't have been quite so reckless herself.

Matt betrayed himself – putting school first was a way of hiding from other responsibilities. She betrayed Matt; Adnan betrayed her. The way these thoughts ran: the jumpers from the towers, a rain of people on to the streets below and then a rain of concrete, steel and glass. Dust and ashes, silence and absence. Where was he? Why hadn't Adnan kept his word?

She thought, of course, that he was somewhere there, underneath the rubble, buried, interred, but she also knew that if she kept working away at these thoughts, in the way she was smoothing the edges of these posters, the way she picked the flesh from around her thumbnails, some other certainty would creep into her thoughts – like a change of light, like a drifting cloud of ash – the certainty that he was somewhere else altogether. The cold, hard fact that a person who could walk out of a life once, without leaving a trace, could do the same again. Maybe one day would have to do the same again.

Before it got too bad, she imagined her mother's voice,
kind and stern, Come on, love, and she laid out the posters and crumbling masks, pulled herself from the chair and opened the library door, off to get some Blu-tack and drawing pins and get back to work.

They had a throw.
Zubair took it, the first time he'd touched the ball. His belly was sticking out over the top of shorts that were pulled up way too far, like the way the old men who stood at the bar at the Lion wore their trousers. Rob wanted to laugh, suddenly. A couple of girls – women – from down Juniper Close gave Zubair a shout. One of them was Kyle Woodhouse's girlfriend, he thought. Zubair, with the ball resting on the flat of his hand, gave them that look that he'd always had, just staring, a raised eyebrow, an expression he probably used in court, just looking and looking.

What yer fuckin lookin at? One of the girls stuck her face towards his, her face twisting, trying to work up a frenzy. It was just after ten on a Sunday morning, the sound of helicopters overhead.

The whistle blew and blew again. The ref came across in front of Rob, a couple of their players walking towards the touchline. It could have all gone off already. Mark Stanley, the ref, the only bloke who could take charge of this game, got right in front of Zubair.

Get on with it please, player.

Mark was big, mixed race, hair almost an Afro, fifty now if he was a day, worked for the Youth Service, used to get in the paper with his karate, wouldn't take any messing. Mark had been refereeing on the park since Rob was in the juniors. He'd reffed Rob's first proper match, now he was reffing his last one.

Zubair turned and took the throw. The girl was still saying, You fuckin prick, you fuckin prick, but nobody was joining in, at least for now. Zubair threw it for Tayub
down the line. Kyle was there, or in the way at least, and the ball hit him, his standing leg, as he tried to kick it, and the ball bounced inside.

Rob was on to it, someone on his shoulder, and he saw, or maybe thought he saw or sensed or just knew, that Glenn's red hair was making a diagonal run into the space that Zubair was never going to get back to, not with that belly, not these days.

Rob struck it, laces, pinged it on a line between their penalty box and the touchline. Too good. Too much on it. Glenn curved his run, but it was away from him and ran on and the defender was across, seeing it out of play.

Glenn turned and put his hands above his head, clapped Rob. Rob put his thumb up.

Less just read this bit an then yer con play Gulf Strike.

Rob was trying to get Andre to do some reading with him in the library.

I wanna play now.

Come on, Andre, eh? Just a bit more. Yer know the rule. We'll do our reading an then yer con goo on the computer.

Lerrus goo on now, Rob.

No, less just finish this, come on.

Andre swung on his chair, looking at the computers on the other side of the library.

Fuck this shit, man.

Come on, no swearing. Less read this page.

Rob spread the paper on the desk in front of him and pretended to read that morning's
Daily Mirror
. Andre pulled the chair up next to him.

Would yer gi her one, Rob?

Andre nodded at a picture of a celebrity Rob had never heard of wearing a bikini and dark glasses on a yacht somewhere very sunny.

Her's a nice-looking girl, arr.

Her's got nice tits.

Come on, which un dyer wanna read?

Andre pointed at a story.

Goo on then.

Workers at a pub in …

Liverpool.

… got more than they …

Sahnd it aht.

Bar … bar … brought …

Bargained for.

When they … catched …

When they cleaned.

… up a load of old pipes in the … car.

In the cellar. Yer know what a cellar is? A room underneath a house. Underneath the ground. A cellar. Pubs have em to keep the beer in.

Andre grinned. I like beer.

An me, carry on, come on. What was in the cellar?

A snake.

Yome looking at the picture. Less read it.

One of the …

Pipes. Yow've just read that. Yow ay concentrating.

… was a … live!

One o the pipes was alive! Busty bar manager, Carleen Doherty, 24, was shocked to discover her boyfriend Tony's pet python, Tyson, had slithered downstairs for a nap. Can yer see, mate, look, there was a snake hiding in all the pipes.

Woss busty mean?

Means yow've got big tits.

Is Miss Quereishi busty?

I shouldn't say that to her face.

Yow like Miss Quereishi, doh yer, Rob?

What yow on abaht? Who's tode yer that?

I con tell.

Me and Miss Quereishi went to school together, did yer know that? We was in the same class as each other for a bit at William Perry.

Andre didn't look that interested.

Andre and Chelsey were both right about Miss Quereishi, of course. He knew he had to stop looking over at her through the glass partition.

They'd had an awkward conversation on her first day, then he'd bumped into her in Dudley outside the library on a Saturday morning. She'd been working in London, but had recently moved back to her parents', out near Bridgnorth. She'd been to university in London, stayed there to teach, east London, difficult schools, a bit like round here she'd said. She'd travelled a bit, taught in Ghana for a while. They'd reminisced about primary school, the couple of years they were in the same class. One time they were the ones chosen to put Atticus, the tortoise, into hibernation. The tortoise, in a panic, had pissed on Jasmine's skirt. Rob had put his arm around her. They'd had their picture taken together for both winning a quiz. Adnan had been unusually jealous at losing out for once. The photo was printed in the
Express & Star
. Rob knew his mum had it somewhere in a box of newspaper clippings, underneath all the scrapbooks of the matches he'd played in.

I didn't know there'd be anyone here that I'd know.

Yeah, loads. He told her he still saw Lee Maloney and Glenn Brown. He didn't tell her he'd gone out with Karen Woodhouse for years, that they'd had a flat together, everything, until that all fell apart. He didn't mention his old man's heart attack and her dad's part in his repair. He didn't tell her about Adnan either, thought she might ask about him. There was all the time in the world for that, he decided. He mentioned seeing Zubair for a drink now and again, but he was older than them, had already left
primary school when Jasmine was there; she didn't seem to remember him.

She said she was surprised that he was still around; she thought he'd have moved on. The way she said it stung Rob.

Well, I used to be a footballer.

Was he teaching here at Cinderheath?

Well, er no, he was sort of helping out in PE and as a Teaching Assistant. Just helping out, you know, with having finished playing football, retired really, you know.

She said it was nice to see him; that they'd have to catch up properly when she'd settled in.

After that conversation he'd gone and sat out the back and stared at the canal, smoking, until he had to go and put out the tennis nets for the afternoon lesson.

Those years when everything changed, his dad stayed in bed, didn't speak much, walked down to the shop to pick up a few cans, settled in for the afternoon's racing. Rob'd had a growth spurt and was suddenly playing with the older lads, with men standing around on Saturday mornings nodding their heads at his Uncle Jim, patting him on the back. Yow've gorra good un theer, Jim, ay yer. The scouts, in their long coats, were already having a look, bound to be interested when they knew who his dad was.

This is Jasmine Quereishi, the Head announced in staff briefing. She'll be working with us three days a week and full-time from September. She'll be working on our Ethnic Minority Achievement and setting up a reading recovery programme that we intend to have in place from next year. I'm sure you'll make her feel welcome.

The new Head had a way of speaking that annoyed people. As they left the staff room, Rob heard one of the old teachers moaning, Cos we've not been doing any ethnic minority achievement work up until now or trying to teach kids to read, of course. Rob wanted to turn round and
defend her. She did look just out of college, though, didn't look nearly thirty. She looked great.

It hadn't used to feel like this.
Jim sat moping in the kitchen and was struck with a fond memory of standing with Trevor, shaking hands with Harold Wilson who'd come to thank party workers the year that there were two elections. It had been thrilling being part of all that, central to it. Not like this. They'd all had fish and chips round at Trevor's flat afterwards up at Eve Hill, the flats Jim had helped get pulled down after the drugs and the pirate radio moved in – Trevor now long moved out to a nice semi off Himley Road. It had felt great that night, to be part of something.

Then there was 1997, of course. The landslide. The best night of them all. Jim had been at the count in Dudley, hearing outlandish stuff, rumours that then came true, like Portillo losing his seat. Jim wished his dad had been there. He thought of that story of Maradona in Naples, when he won the league for them, the partying for days afterwards, the graffiti in the cemetery,
YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU MISSED
.

Jim had paced up and down in front of one of the TV screens, across the lino in front of the dartboard where he'd rested a brandy and a smouldering cigar, playing the part, pacing as if it was on a knife-edge but grinning, slapping people on the back, thanking them for their help like he was Tony's emissary to the people of Cinderheath, feeling like he might burst with happiness.

Even at this short distance, it felt like the few months either side of that election had been a golden age. Michael was doing OK in school, things were going well with Pauline's shop; he'd even got that Wolves scout to have one last look at Rob and they'd asked him to go on trial in the pre-season. Things could only get better.

The undertow of anticlimax was already there, though, even before they'd won it, slowly pulling everyone under. That early morning, five-ish, driving home with Pauline in the back of Joey Khan's taxi, strangely sober but elated, feeling exactly eighteen years younger – they'd looked at the flag fluttering on the castle, crept upstairs for a couple of hours in bed and made love. He lay there while Pauline got ready for the salon, listening to the radio, tears in his eyes; he'd booked the day off, thought he might just wander to the council offices to swan around a little bit,
we're the masters now
.