The Life We Lead: Ascending (12 page)

As Carissa got the tickets, James started to
take in more details. The elevator was to the far left near the
doors they’d come in, but there seemed to be a good bit of dead
space that visually wasn’t accounted for when you thought
about the outside of the building. Everything seemed to have a
fresh, updated look, even the surveillance system.

Before James could think about that too much,
Carissa had the tickets and had grabbed his hand. “This way,” she
said, letting her fingers slowly slip away.

James smiled and gestured as if to say,
“After you.”

They had to walk up a few flights of steps.
As they did, James found himself at eye level with Carissa’s
backside.
Nice
, he thought to himself as they hit the second
platform to turn up the next set of steps.

As if he’d announced what his eyes were
doing, Carissa smiled and said, “I do a bit of running and a day of
squats and lunges to get that shapely bottom.”

James felt himself instantly flush, which was
rare, given his level of control on his emotions. “I ... I um,
well, I umm ... I wasn’t trying to … We are going up the steps and
all. It was just kind of right in front of me,” he finished
lamely.

Some people near them snickered.

Carissa smiled. “You look like someone
painted you red. I will take it as a compliment. At least you
didn’t try tae steal a touch. Had tae give the last bloke I saw a
good imprint of my hand for that. Wanker that he was,” and she
winked.

They had reached the proper floor for the
club seating. They walked through two doors and into a rather large
open gathering area. The first thing James noticed were two stands
where wagers could be placed about eight feet from the door he and
Carissa had entered. Immediately to his right were the
restrooms.

They took a few steps on the hardwood floor
toward the general area. Several large televisions suspended from
the ceiling were showing a variety of sports. Beneath the
televisions was a buffet style layout of lunch foods.

“Fancy a wager on the match?” Carissa
said.

“Oh, yeah. What do you think, a few pounds on
the Celtic to win?” James played along, though he hadn’t expected
the question.

“A few pounds on them tae win, then? How
about someone having some stones and put the quid on a scoring
match and get the odds?” Carissa was smiling but serious at the
same time. The fire in her eyes was irresistible.

“How about a twenty note? You pick the
score.” James dug the money out of his pocket after handing
Carissa the betting sheet.

“Hmm, well, what tae pick, what tae pick ...
Want a good return on the money, which I, of course, get half the
winnings if it comes through.” She threw James a sly sideways
glance and he chuckled, nodding.

“How about the Celtic win by two goals?”

Without thinking, James said, “Well, if you
want to really play the odds and get the best bet, then make it the
Celtic win 3-1. Still your prediction, but you get a 2.5 percent
better bet.”

“Oh! Done this once or twice then? A few
pounds, he says, like this is a first time.” Carissa put down the
pen and glanced at James with her eyebrows raised, a smile on her
face. She was sharp and fast.

“That was some of the fastest calculating I
have seen,” said the lady taking bets, and James found himself at a
loss as to how to follow up without exposing too much. In the back
of his head, he processed the slip up.

“Old trick with the numbers, you know, based
on her prediction of a two goal win margin and all.” James handed
over the money and the wager sheet. The lady processed the request
and gave Carissa the slip.

“That solves that on who is holding the
winning piece,” James said with a grin.

“Have tae start this date off right. You pay
and I collect, a yin and yang system, right?” Carissa said this
with as straight a face as anyone could before laughing out
loud.

“Want a spot of food?” She gestured toward
the spread, and James agreed. He felt hunger and something else in
his stomach that he couldn’t explain. All he knew was this date was
all of ten minutes in, and he was having a blast.

They collected some fish and chips and went
to find a table after a mini-fight over who was going to pay.

“You got the tickets, and by the looks of
them, those are expensive seats,” he argued.

“The tickets were free for me and would have
been wasted. You just got the wager,” came Carissa’s reply.

“I was supposed to take you to supper.
Besides, me granddad would be highly disappointed if his grandson
ever let a pretty lassie like you pay on a first date for
anything,” James said, knowing this was a weak comeback. At the
moment, it was the best he could do.

They found a table and James went for drinks.
A few minutes later, he returned with a beer for Carissa and a cola
for himself to find an older couple had joined them.

As James set down the drinks, Carissa said,
“This is Mary and Joseph. Very cute name combination, eh? Most of
the seats are filled, and they asked if they could join us. Seems
they make all the home games.”

“Nice to meet you,” James said, shaking hands
with them both. “Can I get you drinks?”

“Oh no, deary, that won’t be needed. We have
some water. I don’t take the drink any longer, and it gives Joseph
the winds something terrible,” Mary said.

Joseph merely held up his water and muttered,
“Yes, dear,” before returning his attention to the monitor showing
the horse race.

They group ate and chatted, with Mary and
Carissa speaking the most. Carissa, like James, was enjoying the
flow of the day and saw no reason to alter their circumstances.
Besides, they’d be taking their seats for the match soon.

It soon transpired that Mary and Joseph had
three children, two daughters named Antoinette and Alice and a son
named Terry. Mary had been a schoolteacher until the summer before
last. Joseph was a master plumber who apparently was the world’s
leading expert in below-ground-pitted systems design.

“What is that, exactly?” James asked, having
never heard of such a thing, but with a high level of interest.

“Well, mate, the best way to explain is an
example, you know. So take an old system without the plumbing in,
with a well feed in, that has no pumps. Like an old castle without
proper electricity, you know, hard to put the systems in the walls.
Well, you typically have all sorts of issues, but the easiest way
to get that is to put in a sublevel pit that has the water feed off
the well. As the water feeds through, it drops and creates flow to
climb and pressure a pipe properly.”

As he described this, Joseph crudely drew on
the back of a napkin.

“Now, he continued, “if you are so
industrious as to set heat in the boiler, you put the boiler down
too. That has its own issues, mind, like the need for an exit that
is proper and nearby at the base level because …”

Mary interrupted. “Joseph, dear, I am sure
that was more than a satisfactory answer, and the match is about to
start. Shall we take our seats?”

Joseph immediately said, “Yes, dear,” got up,
and started shaking hands.

Mary continued, “It was lovely having a chat
with you both. Please enjoy the match and hopefully the Bhoys win,
eh?”

After they left, Carissa turned and said,
“Well, shall we go too, then?”

James immediately got up and looked Carissa
dead in the eye, miming, “Yes, dear.”

Carissa let out a loud burst of laughter
before covering her mouth. Recovering, she said with a dazzling
grin, “I don’t think we are quite at their level yet.”

They passed through two side-by-side doors
into what looked to be a proper restaurant on their way to their
seats. It looked vaguely familiar to James, but after a while, a
lot of places began to blend.

The seats were great. They offered a
spectacular view of the pitch at an angle to the goalkeepers net,
and the whole stadium seemed to open up to them. They were
comfortable, too. Wide and with a fair amount of legroom, and
certainly nicer looking than some of the seats in the other
sections.

Adding to the atmosphere were people all
around them. Everyone was carrying on like it was one large party.
Conversations spanned several rows, and everyone was jumping in and
out of the conversations. James thought it was like being with his
family, only slightly larger and with drunken Scottish accents.

James had never really followed soccer in the
U.S. The best he could do was avoid saying “soccer” in place of
“football.” He would just go with the flow as best he could, but
even his keen ears were having issues following the Scottish.

“From where do you hail, lad?” came a booming
voice from behind him.

“Me?” James answered.

“Aye, you. Certainly not this bell of a lass
with ya now, so where you from?” said the man. “And what is your
name? Or did ya forget that too?”

James felt a ton of people suddenly looking
at him. It was as if someone had turned off the noise of the crowd
all at once.

“My name is John, and I hail from Aberdeen.
Might I ask yours?”

“John from Aberdeen, you say! Well now, what
brings a man from the eastern parts all the way to Tom Burns’
stadium then?” said the man.

James always found sports enthusiast to be
slightly annoying by some of the claims they made like “We won” or
“my team.” James thought this was another example of that, but
James didn’t know that Tom Burns was formerly a famous player for
the Celtic.

Before James could answer, Carissa jumped in.
“Perhaps this bell who is named Carissa wanted an outing tae see
the Bhoys demonstrate how the game really should be played.”

The crowd, including the inquiring man,
laughed. “Too true that, too true. Well, this will be a match for
sure. Us lot,” and he made a vague gesture with the pint of ale in
his hands, causing it to spill, “we all come to most the matches,
and the seats you have there are not held on for the season, but
just single matches. Always like to know we have the right
supporters in the group, eh lads?”

The crowd gave a loud cheer of “Stripes!” and
the original babble broke back out.

As Carissa and James sat down, she seemed
rather nonplussed about the exchange. “The Glassies, you know, we
are friendly folk.” She changed the subject. “Now when the match
starts, until the first shot on goal for us, we will stand and jump
and show our backsides to the other team as they come down our end
of the pitch.”

“Literally, as in pull a moony?” James
asked.

“Nah, just turn our back to them, ya know,
and jump. You’ll see,” she replied.

When the player introductions were done, the
match began. Inverness, the opposing team, was moving up the pitch
with the ball. As one, the crowd stood, turned around, placed arms
over each other’s shoulders, and began to jump and chant.

James went along as best he could, though he
seemed to be the only one out of the rhythm of the jump.

The announcer said that Celtic had
possession, and again as one, everyone sat to watch. This happened
two more times, and James concluded this was a lively bunch. As
drunk as they were, he was surprised more people weren’t falling
down while turning front to back and back to front again.

“That was a good set then, no idiots tried to
climb onto the field, and doesn’t look like anyone took a hard
fall,” Carissa said, as if she’d heard his thoughts.

Another ten minutes passed, and then one of
the Celtic players had a break. He moved quickly to position as
fast as he could. The goalie would not have time to recover if the
kick were true, hard, and at the right angle. The ball was there
and the kick thrown …

“Oh, what the bloody hell was that shit? You
dirty, slanty eyed bastard!” came the pre-adolescent voice of a boy
who looked to be about nine years old directly in front of Carissa.
He was standing between two grown men, both of whom looked down at
him.

“How the bloody hell do you miss that?” the
boy continued. “Maybe if you opened your eyes and looked at what
your worthless arse was doing you could make the goal! Bet ya if ya
had a bit of meat between your legs like a proper man your yellow
gook of an ass would be making that play, then. Stupid dumb
bastard!” hollered the boy. “Get him some rice!”

“You tell ‘em, son,” said the man to the
boy’s right, looking down with pride.

After the shock wore off, James laughed so
hard he was practically in tears. Never had he heard a child speak
with such a foul mouth, let alone be encouraged by a parent to do
so. He turned his head to semi-hide the fact that he was laughing,
as he didn’t really think the racist part should be encouraged with
laughter, but the torrent of words had been impressive.

Carissa looked at James and said, “Ah, well,
you know, the match and all and the wee Glassie lads.”

The boy turned and shouted, “What of the wee
Glassie lads, Risa?” giving extra accent to the abbreviated version
of her name.

“Now that’s enough of that, lad,” said the
boy’s dad. “You treat the lady with some respect, as she didn’t say
nothing bad to you. Besides, she looks like she could tan your hind
end for good, and I won’t be able to stop her neither.”

The neighboring crowd laughed, as did the boy
and Carissa.

The match was still scoreless until five
minutes left in the first half, when the Celtic scored on a long
shot right off the post. The stadium exploded in cheers, and a
great chant broke out as fireworks went off near the opposite end
of the stadium.

The remainder of the first half had some
great shots on goal and even more spectacular saves, as the teams
battled it out, but the first half ended 1-0 for the Celtic and
with a player from Inverness being given a red card just as the
half ended, apparently for being too mouthy with the referee.