Last of the Great Romantics (30 page)

'Might as well have a bit of crack,' he'd said to Daisy in Olahan's sport shop in Naas. 'When you're out, you're out. When I was doing solitary, I used to dream about seeing Ireland play at Lansdowne Road. I never thought I'd see the day.'

'You were in solitary?'

'Ah, long story. You know me for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. You see, a terrible row broke out in the recreation room over whose turn it was to have the remote control and, well, I tried to sort it out but I ended up being labelled the ringleader. So the Governor, who was my pal, said he'd have to make an example of me. Sure, the poor man couldn't be showing me preferential treatment all the time, could he? I'll tell you though, solitary really sorts out the men from the boys. Longest twenty minutes of my life.'

Meanwhile Daisy, a tad more subtly, had limited herself to a tight tricolour T-shirt with 'The Referee's a Wanker' written across it, and tied her hair into two big bunches held in place by tricolour ribbons.

'Very nice.' Simon couldn't help smiling appreciatively at her. 'Very Pippi Longstocking.'

She ignored him.

'Where's Lucasta?' Jasper asked him without taking his eyes off the pitch, even though the match hadn't even started.

'I couldn't get her any further than the bar in the Players' Lounge,' he answered.

'Sorry again for keeping you waiting,' Jasper went on, as if trying to make up for Daisy's rudeness in blanking him. 'Only for the fact that your one here handles a car like a getaway driver, we'd still be on the M50.'

'Game's just about to start, you're in the nick of time,' said Simon, ushering them down to their front-row seats. 'I hope you enjoy it now. Shame to have got all dressed up for nothing.' He just caught a flash of blue fury from Daisy's eyes. 'Oh come on, let's put our differences behind us.'

'I have no differences with you, Simon. I'm just not used to guests at the Hall treating me like something they stood on.'

'Do you think we could just enjoy the game? What do you say, shall we let the bugles sing truce for the next two hours? Then I'm very happy to revert back to slagging each other off like Kerry and Brian McFadden.'

She found herself smirking. There was something about the Scots lilt that made everything sound funny. A bit like Billy Connolly telling one of his 'we were so poor as kids' yarns, the accent alone could have you howling at the phone directory.

'We're in the front row?' said Jasper, starting to hyperventilate, 'Oh lads, pinch me, I think I've died and gone to heaven.'

As they took their prime seats, it did strike Daisy that she and Jasper stood out a bit. In a heaving sea of fans, kitted out in either the Irish tricolour or the red and white of England, the players' box was like a tiny oasis of corporate types: men in expensive suits and fabulously dressed, glamorous women, all dripping in flashy jewellery and looking like they should be off to an awards do and not sitting pretty on the sidelines of a soccer match.

Looking excitedly around her, the only people Daisy recognized were two very high-profile Oldcastle wives, Falcon Donohue and Shakira Walker, who were sitting side by side and looking bored out of their heads.

Falcon Donohue, she knew from her appearance on the celebrity reality show,
We Are Famous, Try and Shame Us,
not to mention the fact that she and her waist-length hair extensions appeared on magazine covers at least every other week. Shakira Walker, on the other hand, Daisy recognized from the girl band that she fronted, Nuclear Pussy, who had just had a number one hit with a gloriously alliterative song entitled 'You Done the Dirt and Now You're Dumping Me?' There was a big, busty blond woman beside them, applying lip gloss in a small compact mirror. She looked a bit familiar, but somehow Daisy couldn't quite place her . . .

'Bit weird, isn't it?' Simon said, misreading her thoughts. 'Never fails to churn my stomach, to be honest with you. All those minor celebs and fat gits in fat suits are mostly directors and sponsors with bugger all interest in football; they're just here on corporate junkets. Meanwhile, the real fans are queuing up outside shelling out hard-earned cash for overpriced tickets from the bloody touts.'

A pang of guilt struck Daisy. Being brutally honest with herself, she had to admit that she wasn't exactly a diehard footie fan herself. In fact, not only was this the first actual game she'd been to, the only ones she'd ever watched on TV had been the few World Cup appearances Ireland had qualified for. And even then she would moan at Portia and Lucasta that the matches invariably clashed with
EastEnders.
Looking around the packed stadium though, she felt a huge swell of pride, a patriotism that had never bothered her before, at the sea of green all around her, all
Olé, olé, olé
ing fit to burst your eardrums. Just being there, being part of it was an adrenalin rush like she'd never experienced. It was easy to see how fans became addicted so easily.

'So what do you think of your first game so far then?' asked Simon, seeing the way her eyes sparked with pride and excitement. 'I can spot a football virgin a mile away.'

She looked him straight in the eye. 'Unbelievable,' was all she could say, 'just unbelievable. It's the nearest thing I'll ever come to being in the Roman Colosseum. The only thing that could make this more exciting is if Russell Crowe himself walked out with his sword and sandals.'

The teams had just begun to line out to a deafening roar from all around the stadium and the English chant went up.

'Oh, the famous Irish team went to see the Pope in Rome [
to the tune of 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic'
]
,

The famous Irish team went to see the Pope in Rome,

The famous Irish team went to see the Pope in Rome,

And this is what he said:

FUCK OFF!

Glory, glory, glory, England,

Glory, glory, glory, England,

Glory, glory, glory, England,

And the Brits go marching on.'

The Irish fans were about to come back with a similarly derogatory chant when the national anthems began, starting with 'God Save the Queen'. Everyone stood up respectfully, which gave Daisy a good chance to eye up the teams. The first person her eye fell on was Alessandro Dumas, who also played for Oldcasde but was kitted out in the England strip today. The only reason Daisy recognized him was because he spearheaded a shampoo commercial with a really crappy slogan which was on TV only about eighty times a week.
'Stallion pour hommes',
he would croon to camera with a waterfall cascading behind him.
'Only stallion can tame your hush'
He looked lean and mean, shaven-headed and surly, ready for anything.

'Isn't that sweet?' she whispered to Simon, unaware that it was the height of bad manners to talk during the anthems. 'Look! He hasn't got a clue of the words.'

Simon didn't answer, just kept belting out the bit about 'sending her victorious', while Jasper glared over at her.

She didn't bother resting her gaze on him for too long though, she was far too busy squinting down the line to pick out Mark. Yes! There he was, tanned, toned and even more rugged and sexy-looking than she remembered, wearing the number nine shirt with his untamed curly brown locks of hair blowing all over the place: Heathcliff in an England shirt and a pair of shorts.

As soon as it was over, yet another raucous cheer swelled the stadium and then it was Ireland's turn. Tears of pride ran down Jasper's cheeks as he burst his lungs singing 'Amhrán na bhFiann', which he kept wiping away with his shovel-sized hands, forgetting that his face was painted, so that he ended up covered in big green and orange swipes. He might have looked like a Halloween horror mask gone wrong, but the expression in his eyes was beatific.

The anthems over, the referee moved out to the middle of the pitch and they were off.'
Who's the wanker in the black?'
both sides chanted in unison, as the whistle blew and the game got under way. Straight away, England were up and at it, with Mark ruthlessly taking possession and kicking a long ball over to Ryan Walker who made it past Ireland's defences and had got almost as far as the penalty spot when Alan Heap, Ireland's youngest striker and something of a teen sensation, headed it back up the pitch and away from any danger of England scoring. In no time, the English chant went up:

'He's fat, he's round, his arse is on the ground, He's Aaaaaaaaaaaa-lan Heap.'

'That's vicious!' Daisy exclaimed, hardly able to believe her ears. 'Suppose Alan Heap heard?'

Simon roared laughing at her. 'That's nothing. Wait till you get a load of some of the chants they hurl at their own players.'

Shane Donohue had possession now for Ireland, leading to a raucous chorus of:

'You're nothing but a tosser,
You're nothing but a thug,
You can't see the ball
And your wife eats slugs.'

'And that was probably before she even went into the jungle,' said Simon. Daisy turned around to see if this reference to her performance in
We Are Famous, Try and Shame Us
had upset Falcon, but she was just staring blankly ahead of her, unmoved and bored-looking.

'Wait till the fans start having a go at Shakira Walker. Let's just say I've never heard so many words rhyme with 'Nuclear Pussy'.

As the first half wore on, England's strategy seemed to be to form a five-man midfield when defending, taking their high-energy game to the flanks and literally giving the Irish no room to manoeuvre. Even with Daisy's inexperienced eye, she could tell that Alan Heap was easily Ireland's most dangerous player, yet every time he tried to make a break or create an opportunity, he seemed boxed in, giving the impression that England could suddenly strike.

Which they did.

It was all over in a blur, but in a fraction of the time it took Daisy to drop her jaw in astonishment, Shane Donohue had kicked upfield, passed to Mark who in turn kicked it to Alessandro who scored. Half the stadium stood rooted to their seats in muted horror while the other half raised the roof.
'Are you Malta in disguise?'
the English fans chanted, nearly losing their reason as the scoreboard officially confirmed England 1: Ireland 0.

'I don't believe this, how did that gobshite of a goalie let it in?' Jasper was apoplectic with rage.

'I thought this was a friendly?' Daisy asked innocently.

'Between England and Ireland?' Simon laughed. 'Is there such a thing?'

Half-time and Ireland had failed to equalize as Daisy and Jasper followed Simon into the Players' Lounge, to find Lucasta plonked at a table, happily moving on to her third g. and t.

The English fans' chant still rang in their ears as they joined her: 'Can
we play you every week?'

'It's a really good match, if ya ask me,' Shakira could be heard saying as she made her way to the bar. 'It's tragedy, it's entertainment, what more do the Irish want?'

'What, apart from a win, you mean?' chirruped Falcon, running a French manicured talon down the cocktail menu. 'Too early for a cosmo, do ya think, girls?'

'Are you mental?' replied the busty big-haired blonde who'd been sitting with them. 'It's never too early for a cosmo.'

That's where I know that girl from, Daisy thought. She's Buffy Tompkinson, the glamour model, as she styled herself . . . wasn't she a girlfriend of Alessandro Dumas?

The table Lucasta had bagged was as geographically far from them as it was possible to be and Simon, for one, didn't seem a bit sorry.

'The bitches of Eastwick, we call them back at Oldcastle,' he muttered to Daisy. 'Do you think they ever take poor, wee Cinderella out?'

She giggled.

'Seriously, though,' he went on, 'you want to watch out. Buffy, Alessandro's girlfriend, is lethal after a few drinks.'

'Did you have to mention that gobshite's name to me?' moaned Jasper, inconsolable. To say that he was devastated by the half-time score was an understatement on a par with saying that George Dubya Bush was an eensy bit of a dimwit. 'I don't know how he got past Alan Heap, for starters. And for Dumas to score, of all people! Normally, that eejit couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo.'

'Over here, sweeties!' Lucasta cooed. 'I'm awfully sorry I missed the first half, but I really had to G.T.F.O.O.H.'

'G.T.F.O.O.H.?' asked Simon.

'Mummy's code for get the fuck out of here,' Daisy explained.

'So I just thought I'd have one little pint while I was waiting for you,' she went on.

'Pint of what?' asked Daisy.

'Of gin, darling.'