Wildlife (28 page)

‘Should we kiss?' says Roger eventually. ‘I'm guessing we should kiss on account of you just shooting someone. Well, you sort of shot yourself, didn't you? And I leapt from the wheelchair having previously been barely able to move. And so . . . She gagged me, the other you, do you know that? You're not going to gag me, are you? Should we kiss?'

Anka has removed the remains of the ham sandwich from her rucksack. She's finishing it with small bites, chewing each one meticulously. ‘I could never have done
this without you, Roger. Eat, I mean.' She takes another bite.

Roger leans against the wall, staring briefly at a selection of corporate logos. ‘But, Anka,' he says, ‘how do I know you're the real you? I mean, that's exactly what the other you claimed to be.'

‘I can prove it,' Anka replies. ‘I can. I promise.' She has finished the sandwich. She swallows emphatically: ‘You're such a little nerd, Roger. It's so strange. You and me, like this. You're such a little nerd.'

Roger grins. ‘When I'm with you, Anka, in fact, even when I was with the other you, I had such a desire to be seen. That's so weird for me. I mean, recently, as you know, I barely left my flat. But even when I was gagged in that wheelchair with this mouse stuck in the back of my head, I wanted to be looked at by other people. I didn't feel ashamed. Is that what love is? Just some sort of pride?'

‘Look down there.'

Anka is pointing down the corridor to where a canvas tunnel curls away from the exit. A small section of green grass can be seen where the tunnel ends.

‘That's the pitch,' says Anka. ‘How strong are you feeling?'

‘Stronger than before, definitely, but I've still got a lot of heavy equipment inside me.'

‘Turn round then. Come on, Roger, turn round and be thankful I weigh next to nothing.'

The moment Roger has turned away from her, Anka leaps onto his back, throwing her arms round his neck and allowing him to grab her legs. ‘Now, run, Roger,' she cries, grabbing the wires that fall from his ears and tugging them like reins. ‘Come on, El Rogerio, run!'

Roger does run. He begins to gallop down the corridor at quite a pace. ‘I'm thirty,' he cries, his voice echoing harshly in the narrow space. ‘Thirty years on planet earth. Ha ha!' Anka, as she has at last acknowledged, is very light. Roger finds he can run as fast as if a child were hoisted on his back. He enjoys the feeling of her kicking his backside with her heels as a jockey might a horse. Oh yes, pretending to be a horse, being kicked on the backside by a girl, even an ill one, it's so much better than crapping a motherboard into a toilet, so much more fun than bullshitting teenagers on the Internet. At the end of the tunnel, two bright orange men are attempting to form a human barrier to prevent Roger and Anka from reaching the pitch. They look terrified. Terrified by the blonde, beautiful and sickly thin girl riding the big-headed boy as if he were a horse. The orange men hold hands and spread themselves out. They say shit, shit like ‘Stop', shit like ‘You can't go through 'ere'. They say shit in angry cockney accents. ‘You can't go through 'ere.' But Roger can. He just knows he can. He's running faster than he's ever run before.

If we were one of the guests up in the banqueting suite, like, say, if we were that old guy who remembers the nineteenth century, then we could turn from where Joe Aspen and Sally are trying to pull the dick from off Ian's forehead and stare down at the pitch. We'd see two people burst from the tunnel in the corner of the pitch – a girl on a boy's back. We'd see the girl waving happily at the crowd, pulling hard on reins that come from the boy's ears. We'd see the two of them go charging off down the touchline, galloping over lush green grass, past the stupid Chelsea mascot, who to us, through our nineteenth-century eyes, would look like a
massive blue lion. Dumb Southerners. We'd see many a bright orange steward chasing these two, arms outstretched, attempting to run in a calm manner that befits a chubby bunch of crowd controllers. We'd see the crowd waving their fists and opening their mouths wide, passionately willing that the two heroes avoid capture.

If, by chance, we grew tired of watching the chase and our attention turned briefly to the action taking place on the pitch, we'd see the huge Chelsea midfielder, Michael Essien, whose face, I could add, seems forever electrified with delight. We'd see him hoof the ball from his own penalty area up into the sky. Following the flight of the ball, we'd see the much loved and much maligned midfielder Frank Lampard turn his marker on the halfway line, spring the offside trap and suddenly find himself running alone towards the goal, monitoring the ball's progress with occasional glances over his shoulder. Fuck me, we'd think. Fuck me. Even though we recall holidaying in the nineteenth century and even though our head contains every single year the twentieth century had to offer, we'd still think, fuck me, this is entertaining.

Down on the touchline, suddenly aware that certain activities on the pitch have drawn the attention of the crowd away from themselves, Roger and Anka are considering running onto the pitch.

‘You wanted us to be seen together, Roger,' shouts Anka, pulling hard on the wire that comes from Roger's left ear in an attempt to make him turn onto the pitch. ‘This is your chance. Run onto the pitch. It's our only option!' Anka's laughing. She's laughing at the alarmed tone she heard in her own voice. Roger's laughing, too. He's laughing so much
that Anka's slipping down his back. His grip is shot to shit by his sense of joy. He has to pause and shunt Anka higher up his back and strengthen his grip on her legs. Glancing up, he notices that more orange stewards are coming towards them. We're trapped. Anka's right. It has to be the pitch.

Once again, if we were that nineteenth-century guy staring down at the pitch from up in the banqueting suite, then we'd have a cracking view. Jesus, we'd be thinking, I once shared a world with the likes of Oscar Wilde and Otto von Bismarck, and now, over a century later, I'm sat watching the England international Frank Lampard running through on goal pursued by a big-headed guy with wires in his ears and an anorexic on his back, who, in turn, are being pursued by several men in weatherproof jackets and bobble hats and several athletic men in football kits who, presumably, are keen to stop Frank scoring. Superb, we'd think. This is superb entertainment. Because even when you've lived as long as we have and you've holidayed in 1870s Morecambe, witnessed the advent of the computer age and watched men stick flags in the moon, you still can't shake the feeling that life is too short, that we just cling to the porcelain with all the other shit, staring up, praying that a well-aimed jet of piss doesn't spray us away. Thank God, we'd think, thank God for these light-hearted moments. And what's this? we'd wonder, rubbing our eyes in disbelief. What's this? Suddenly we can see dozens of teenagers leaping over the advertising hoardings near to the dugout. These, I believe, we would no doubt say, aren't these the latest batch of sceptical young life fearers? They're piling onto the pitch in black T-shirts. Purple drainpipe jeans. Hooded heads. False
red hair. And even though we remember Teddy boys, mods, rockers, the jitterbug and the Nazis and the time before Teenagers, we would, to our credit, ask, are these not those who are fond of loud music, guitars and heartbroken American men with high voices? Are these not those who have invented new dances? Is it true, we might ask, regarding these young people piling onto the pitch, is it true that these are the latest generation of young people, scared like we were of every single second, past or future, every single second except for that one dry, nutlike second that lies split in their palms, protected by their fingers, fingernails painted black? Life is short, we would say, every year of the twentieth century rattling round our heads. They should relax. Life is short.

‘Tackle him!' Anka's shouting. ‘You can catch him, Roger. He's overrated. Tackle him and boot the ball in the net yourself!'

Roger has no idea who the footballer they're chasing is. He does not follow the game. Famously, he enjoys musicals. Staring up at the crowd, he can't help but fantasise about singing and performing for such a large audience. To sing a song sincerely in front of such a crowd. That'd be nice. As it is, he's happy to just be seen by them, happy to be seen in public with Anka riding on his back. Because as much as we pace quietly around our skulls as if we were the librarians of our brains, what we really need is to be seen, occasionally touched, occasionally cheered up, occasionally kissed, occasionally ridden like a horse. Roger realises this now.

In front of Roger, Lampard has allowed the ball to drop over his shoulder. He has controlled it well and begun to
dribble at pace towards the goal. Further up the field, Roger can see the goalkeeper, dressed in yellow, bouncing out towards the edge of his area, spreading his gloved hands out wide, making himself big, watching Lampard's every touch of the ball. The goalkeeper seems calm. Lampard, too. The moment of truth is coming. The moment of truth is knock knock. Scratch.

Anka has turned round to flick immaculate Vs at the chasing stewards, the desperate defenders and the obsessive teens. The air is unbreathably loud. Thick with noise. Thousands here are desperate for a goal. Thousands are desperate for a save or a miss or a total fuck-up. Even so, Roger can hear Anka's shrieks. ‘Piss off,' she cries at the orange men and the trendy little kids. ‘We're artists,' she cries. ‘We're eaters. We're lovers. Piss off!'

All this throwing of insults is, in fact, quite unnecessary. Because despite the fact that Roger is apparently full of heavy technology and finds it difficult to get about, on this occasion he is proving to be an excellent runner. Not only is he easily maintaining his lead on the stewards, the kids and the defenders, but he's gaining on Lampard. So much so that Anka starts whipping Roger's shoulders with his wire reins, kicking his backside firmly with her heels and actually stretching her arm out beyond Roger's large head in an attempt to grab the midfielder by the shirt and bring him down.

The moment of truth is seconds away. Lampard, pro that he is, can't even hear the crowd, only the sound of his own quick breathing and the thudding of his feet on the turf. He glances up and examines the position of the goalkeeper. Lampard's thinking maybe he should try and chip the ball over the keeper's head. That would be nice for the crowd,
he thinks. But the chip is always a risk. If I miss, he thinks, I'll look like a bit of a tit. Maybe I should just take it round him and slide it into the net, Yeah, that's probably easier. But less spectacular! Oh, thinks Frank, it's a worry, life, I mean, football, scoring, it's a worry, I'm always worrying nowadays. It's age. Age.

‘We've got you, Lampard!' cries Anka. She and Roger are within inches of being able to bring him down. ‘Better be scared. We are sick! We are eaters of food! We are lovers!'

Lampard glances over his shoulder to see the galloping Roger bearing down on him, his large bespectacled face perspiring madly, and, on his back, Anka, shouting, reaching out with her fingers splayed. Naturally, Frank's a little alarmed to find that he's being pursued by a strange couple, several stewards, three or four defenders and a gang of EMO kids, puffing and panting, calling out all sorts of crap: ‘El Rogerio, slow down. El Rogerio, you're so cool. So cool!' Naturally, Frank's confused. But he's also a professional footballer halfway through a difficult season. He needs to score. I need to score. He calculates he's got little more than a second before Anka drags him down. I'm gonna have to try and chip the keeper. There isn't time to go round him. If I fuck up, he thinks, I fuck up. It's as simple as that. It's been a difficult year.

It's time. The England international straightens his back and tightens his shoulders. He spreads his arms out wide for balance. He takes one last look at the keeper to check his position before bowing his head and staring straight at the ball. His right leg starts bending at the knee. He's going to stab the bottom of the ball with his boot, causing it to sail over the keeper's head and bounce calmly into the goal. It's time.

It is certainly time. Anka, for the sheer humane and humorous hell of it, is going to pull Frank to the ground and then instruct Roger to dribble the ball past the keeper and into the net. She sees that he's about to shoot and decides to go for it, reaching with both arms for the footballer's shoulders. That's when it happens. (The simple thing.)

It is fashionable to crave the simple life. I myself crave the simple life.

There is a

There is an extremely loud thud.

The crowd, all forty thousand of them, look on, amazed and suddenly silent. Rubbing their eyes with fists, saying, ‘Good heavens,' and ‘Good grief.'

It is simple. Something
very
simple has happened.

A large blue rock, clearly a section of the sky, has fallen from the heavens and crushed Frank Lampard. It has flattened him like a pancake. Just one Adidas football boot and a bit of blue sock poke out from underneath the rock. The ball must have been burst. The footballer must be dead.

Anka's fingertips had just brushed Frank's shirt when it suddenly felt like he'd disappeared. Roger noticed the fallen object and was able to alter his path and stumble out of the way, causing Anka to fall off his back. Now the two of them are stood staring at the blue rock. It's as big as a small car. It's shiny. It smokes like ice. Every inch of it looks sharp. The sun has gone in. The stands are darker; you can't quite make out the faces of the crowd.

Anka grins at Roger. ‘It's good this, isn't it?'

Roger nods. ‘Yeah, it's ace.'

‘It beats the past,' says Anka. ‘My past, I mean, and I'm guessing yours.'

Roger nods again. ‘My past, Anka. Jesus. You should have been there . . . awful. Absolutely awful.'