Pride and Premiership (19 page)

“I don’t ask for much. I mean, what the hell do you do with your time?” he asked.

Instantly I knew he mustn’t have been picked for the game tomorrow (he’s always in a right mood when that happens), so I told him I’d hurry home.

I got back about half an hour ago and he’s still sulking. He’s on the phone to his agent now, saying that he hates his manager. Personally I don’t think it’s that bad. He hasn’t been completely dropped for the game – he’s a substitute.

Oh well, I’ll be treading on eggshells for the rest of the night!

To cheer him up, I’ll try that shepherd’s pie recipe that his Mum dropped round yesterday.

I pretended I was asleep while Robbie was on the phone to his mum, telling her my shepherd’s pie wasn’t half as good as hers. And I don’t know why – I’ve never even wanted to be a good cook – but a hot tear dropped out of the corner of my eye and rolled down my cheek.

I couldn’t bear to hear any more, so I tossed and turned to make him think I was waking up.

“Anyway, Mum, don’t worry, I’m just gonna show what I’m about when I get on the pitch,” he said, changing the subject.

She said something back and then he told her, “All right. See you for Sunday lunch, yeah?”

Oh no, not again
, I thought. Not another chance for her to show off her perfect Sunday roast with the roast potatoes cooked just how Robbie likes them – in goose fat, crispy on top. So bloody what! The way she panders to him you’d think Robbie was her only child, but he isn’t – he has two lovely but seriously neglected sisters. And I don’t want to sound like I hate his mum, because I don’t, she’s actually a nice woman. But she has a big problem – she thinks the sun shines out of her son’s ass.

Robbie’s dressed. I’ve still got the hump with him, and he’s still being a miserable git, but I have to admit that he looks absolutely top-drawer today. He’s wearing a black suit with a pink shirt and tie.

I’ve decided to wear the D&G polka-dot dress he bought me. You have to make a real effort when you go to watch home games because all the wives and girlfriends check you out – and they snigger behind your back if they think you’re wearing something cheap. It doesn’t matter what it looks like as long as it’s bloody expensive. This dress cost £800! Robbie got it for me to wear to the second home game of the season (he hated what I wore to the first one), and when he picked it out and I looked at the price I literally started to shake. I couldn’t believe it. But I’m used to it now.

“For fuck sake,” he’s just called up the stairs, “we ain’t got for ever, you know.”

I remember when he wouldn’t swear in front of me – that changed bloody quickly. (Except for the “c” word – he won’t say that when I’m around.)

I’d better go.

Yay! Robbie scored!! Netherfield Park Rangers: 1, Everton: 0. Thank God. He looked miserable sitting on that bench during the match. Probably as miserable as I felt sitting there watching – I still don’t understand the first thing about football, so watching a game is even more boring if your boyfriend isn’t actually playing.

Will Travis, who is to Robbie what Kellie USED to be to me, was the one who nudged me when Ivan Oyenko, one of the Netherfield strikers, got injured. I looked over at the substitute’s bench and, sure enough, the manager was telling Robbie to get out of his tracky bottoms – he was substituting Robbie for Ivan with twenty minutes to go. My stomach churned because I knew how much Robbie wanted to score.

Will kept jumping up out of his seat and shouting, “Different class, mate! Different class!” whenever Robbie did something well. “It’s confidence, Rem,” he explained to me every time he sat back down. “That’s all he needs.”

When Robbie made a run back and tackled an Everton player, I thought it was a mistake because he’s supposed to score goals, but Will clapped and said, “He hasn’t changed a bit since the Rockingham Wanderers days.”

I took a deep breath, expecting Will to harp on about their time playing together (from the age of six to eleven in the same Essex Sunday League team, etc., etc.) but he spared me. Or should I say Darren Hargreaves (the Netherfield Park Rangers goalie) did, when he dropped the ball and it almost landed over the line.

Will clapped his hands to his head. “What a muppet!” he yelled. And Darren’s wife Anna, who had been quite nice to me up until then and happened to be sitting two rows in front, turned around and gave me the filthiest look ever.

Seriously, I would rather have watched paint dry than seen an extra four minutes of the match, so I groaned when the extra-time board flashed up. It was still nil–nil at that point – and it didn’t look like it was going to change, either, until Robbie won a free kick. He decided to take it himself, and he struck it so hard that it whizzed past the Everton goalie and into the top of the net. Even I jumped to my feet that time. It was Robbie’s first goal of the season and it felt like a cloud had been lifted from over both of our heads.

When we got into the car to drive home, Robbie leant over and pecked me on the cheek. Will, who was sitting in the back seat, went, “Oi, you soppy git.” But Robbie told him I deserved it.

“I’ve been a right ‘c’ to live with lately,” he said. “Haven’t I, princess.”

“Um… You haven’t been that bad,” I lied.

Robbie’s gone to training and I’m bored. So when Terry’s girlfriend Paris called to ask if I wanted to go shopping with her, I said yes straight away. Paris isn’t as bad as I first thought. She’s still crazy, I admit – and she’s still majorly orange – but she’s the only one of the team’s wives and girlfriends who ever invites me shopping.

The rest of the girls prefer to shop alone. I reckon it’s because they want to make sure they buy the very latest designer gear before anyone else does. Someone like me still gets a kick out of being able to afford the clothes in the first place, but they’ve moved way past that. They get a kick out of having things
first
. And the smart ones put their names down on waiting lists months before things actually come into the shops.

Paris either has a solid-gold heart or thinks I’m no competition, but I don’t care. I’m just grateful that someone will hang out with me in this bloody foreign country of Essex, where everyone is style crazy and dressing down means wearing a full face of make-up, a French manicure and designer jeans or tracksuit – with REAL Ugg boots. A place where wearing Fuggs (fake Uggs), like I used to, will make people gawp as though you’ve just murdered someone.

I have three pairs of proper Ugg boots now – chocolate brown, tan and black woolly ones that button up at the side. Today I’ve decided to wear my tan ones with my grey Franklin & Marshall tracksuit, and I’m going to set the whole outfit off (OMG, I sound like James now) with my blueberry Balenciaga bag.

I’d never heard of Balenciaga before Paris explained that the bag I’d bought from Camden Market, with the long stringy leather bits to open and close the zip, was actually a Balenciaga copy. I’d used it when I went to Robbie’s first match and apparently she overheard some of the wives and girlfriends laughing about it in the Ladies, so I threw it in the bin and she took me to buy a real one for £800!

So even though Robbie isn’t keen on me hanging out with her, Paris is OK in my book. Today we’re going to Stylissimo, our local designer boutique.

OMG. I’ve spent £2,000 today and all I bought was two dresses and a pair of shoes! Admittedly the most major pair of shoes on earth – red, patent, strappy – but still. And Paris spent even more than me!

She’s only just left. When we were in Stylissimo, Terry called her to say he was coming back to ours with Robbie, so she brought me home.

When we arrived, the boys were sat on the floor playing on the Xbox, 200% focused on the big plasma screen in front of them.

Terry glanced across at the gazillion Stylissimo shopping bags in Paris’s hands and said, “Been spending my money again?”

“That’s right.” Paris grinned. “You don’t want me walking around like a tramp now, do ya?”

Terry just shook his head and carried on playing. “Take that, you muppet!”

We left the boys to it and went to hang out in the kitchen, but I had to keep going backwards and forwards between the two rooms because of Robbie interrupting all the gossip Paris was filling me in on: “Princess, can you bring us some beers?” … “They’re not cold enough – put ’em in the freezer for a bit.” … “Can I have a cuppa instead? You want one, Tel?” … “Are those beers ready now?” … “I could murder some toast with jam – no, butter first, THEN jam… Cheers. Oh, and some crisps as well – salt and vinegar.”

Anyway, once I’d caught up on all the gossip, Paris told me about her plan. The Netherfield Park Rangers boys are going down the West End this Saturday, and she’s arranging for us wives and girlfriends to go out too. Only it won’t be to Faces (our local night spot) like usual. No, she’s going to make sure we “accidentally” bump into the boys by going to the West End too. Paris hates them having boys’ nights out because she thinks some of the players get up to no good. I honestly don’t think Robbie is one of them, but I must admit, it would be good to make sure – so I told her to count me in.

When Terry and Paris finally left, Robbie turned to me and said, “She’d better spend all the money she can.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s going to be binned any second now,” he replied. “She’s trouble, that girl. Don’t waste your time hanging out with her.”

I know I don’t write as much as I used to, but nothing that interesting happens to me any more. I wake up, shop, go to the gym every day (yes, the gym! I have to stay in shape), cook (well, attempt to) and go to Sak’s once a week for a manicure and pedicure followed by Vidal Sassoon for a wash and blow-dry. That’s about the long and short of my week. And when I read this diary back when I’m old and grey, I’m not going to want to hear about that stuff – I’ll only want to know about the exciting things. The DRAMA. I reckon tonight might fall into that category, because the boys are off to the West End for the night and they have no idea that we wives and girlfriends will be there too!

Decided not to give up on Kellie, so I gave her a call and invited her to our girls’ night out. It wasn’t easy, though. We’ve been best friends since primary school and Kellie has always been my confession stop. She knows about my first kiss, my first bra, the first time I had sex, and yet I felt nervous ringing her, like I needed to warm her up before I pounced with the question.

“Guess what? Malibu’s preggers!” I announced as soon as she answered. It worked perfectly.

“What?!” she squealed. “No way!”

She wanted to know who, what, why, when. So I told her a bit and then baited her with, “Let’s meet up later. We’re having a girls’ night out and I’ll fill you in with the details then.”

“OK. Where?”

“Dinner at a place called Sketches first, then hitting the clubs,” I told her.

“Um, not sure about dinner… Might be a bit too early… Um…”

I realized she was probably backing out because she was short of cash so I said, “Dump the dinner, then, and just come for the clubbing. Paris has got us on to loads of guest lists.”

“OK then,” she finally agreed.

Yippee!

Robbie has just left for his night with the boys smelling like a bloody aftershave factory. He was also in the best mood ever. He had a Black Eyed Peas tune on repeat, which he sang along to at the top of his voice while he got ready, blatantly rubbing my nose in it about how good he was expecting tonight to be.

A part of me knows it was because the team beat Tottenham today and Robbie scored again – “a half-volley just on the edge of the box!” (WTF?)

But another part of me can’t help thinking that Paris might have a point about some players misbehaving tonight. And although the other day I was confident that Robbie wouldn’t be one of them, today I’m not so sure.

“Why aren’t girls allowed to go too?” I asked Robbie earlier. “What have you lot got to hide?”

He made these big puppy-dog eyes and said, “Babe, don’t have a go at me. I didn’t make the rules.” And it made me feel like I was being paranoid, so I left it. But when I saw him singing his heart out with the joy of bloody spring, I was glad he didn’t bother to ask where we girls were going. And I’m glad that I’m actually going to be right on his big-headed backside!

He’d decided to wear his grey Armani trousers and powder-blue Ralph Lauren shirt, and he looked so–oo sexy but bloody well knew it. And it occurred to me that the girls in the club – or clubs – he’d be going to tonight would know it too.

It took me back to the time we first met in the Lounge, following Malibu’s plan to snare ourselves a footballer, and I suddenly realized that tens of girls in the clubs tonight would be doing exactly the same thing. I wanted to say let’s forget this boys’/girls’ night out crap and just go somewhere together, but I didn’t have the guts. So I decided to do the next best thing – make him feel just as insecure as I did.