It’s like I wasn’t even there.
“Okay, maybe it wasn’t so ridiculous when he was 16 … when he got that invitation to go to England. But he never did anything about it. He never saved up the fare because he never stopped playing stupid, bloody football long enough to earn some decent money.”
“Yeah, well thanks for the support, my beloved life partner and soul mate,” I said, as Dave shrank behind his glass and tried to back away from our tiff. “As a matter of fact, I’ve got heaps of money.”
Dave’s retreat was halted by his curiosity, and Shona turned to face me for the first time.
“Good ol’ Uncle Jimmy,” I explained, in answer to their unspoken question.
“Good ol’ Jimmy,” I repeated. “I didn’t want to mention it just yet, so close to his death … makes me feel a bit grasping.”
Shona’s rubber band was in definite danger of snapping.
“What are you talking about, Eric?” she asked me, perilously beautiful in the cold and dark.
“He’s erm, he’s left me some money.”
“When were you going to tell me?
“I only got the letter yesterday, from the lawyers.”
“You’ve known 24 hours and it didn’t occur to you to tell me?”
Her voice had risen slightly in pitch and volume. The warning signals were flashing, but Dave was still hovering on the edge of the semi-darkness, wanting to respect our privacy but intrigued beyond the point of politeness.
“I had other things on my mind,” I explained, already aware of how bad this was about to get.
“What could be more important than a large amount of money?” she asked me, teeth bared - daring me to expose the full extent of my stupidity.
“The grand final,” I admitted. “I was too wrapped up in the GF to worry about money.”
She went strangely quiet, as Krakatoa may have done shortly before splitting the planet wide open.
“How much did he leave you?” she asked, at last, her teeth gritted like an angry smile.
“Two hundred and forty-two thousand.”
“I see … a game of Z-grade football was more important to you than $242,000?”
It was my last chance to salvage something from the situation but, like an idiot, I told the truth.
“Well at the time, yes!”
Her fist smacked into my mouth and I found myself falling arse backwards for the second time that day.
In the dreamy half-light, I never saw it coming.
MY GOLDEN CLOUD
I’ve gotten off to a bad start by telling all this stuff about Shona. It makes it seem like we didn’t love each other, or she was wrong for me, or whatever. The truth was, we did love each other. At least, I loved her and I was reasonably certain she loved me back. She had too much time invested to want to give up on me now.
But money complicates relationships.
It’s bad enough having none. You get used to that, and you cope - united in poverty. But when the poverty vacuum suddenly fills with money, a couple is beset with choices and alternative paths appear which can sever the strongest of bonds.
With the inheritance had come a letter:
Eric Lad,
You’re the son I never had, so I’m leaving you my entire estate in the hope that you use it to finally get over to England to take up that offer at Man United. You have a precious gift, and a sacred duty to share that gift with the world. At 35, you can’t have too many years left at the top. So do it, Eric. Do it now!
Love from Beyond the Grave,
Jimmy
Thirty-five? Must’ve written it a few years back.
Anyway, all of this went through my mind as I lay on the tiles in the beer garden, trying not to laugh.
The next thing I knew, Shona was covering me with kisses and laughing and crying and saying she was sorry.
Then Dave was pissing himself, and I was pissing myself, but when I tried to get up off the floor this god-almighty flash of pain ripped through my lower back.
“Jesus fuck!” I shouted, and Shona stared at me in guilty horror.
“What’ve you done, Eric? What’ve I done?”
“It’s okay. Must’ve landed awkwardly. Fuck!”
Another spasm of pain shot through my lower spine as I attempted, once again, to get to my feet.
“Shit! My back’s totally fucked. I can’t move.”
“Lie still,” said Dave, pushing me flat on my back. “Can you wig-gle your toes?”
I did better than that. I raised my knees and tried to press them against my chest, but the pain in my lower back was searing.
“Aaah … fuck it!”
“Sorry, Eric,” said Shona, tears streaking her make-up. “I’m so sorry.”
“We’d better get him to hospital,” sighed Dave.
What a way to spend Grand Final night.
* * *
I lay in a warm, fluffy cloud, suffused in a golden glow.
Shona and Dave were laughing and chatting, but after the Pethidine, my conversation skills were a bit sub par. I just lay back on my cloud, tuning in every now and then.
It was good of Dave to stay so long. He was missing Grand Final night himself, but he seemed happy enough laughing and chatting with Shona. I suppose I should’ve mentioned the money earlier, but I hadn’t quite gotten over Jimmy’s death yet. And I felt unclean swapping Jimmy for money.
I’ve never known anyone who loved the game like Jimmy. He was still playing in his sixties and it was only dodgy knees that forced him to give the game away. I’ll never forget the night that he finally accepted the fact he had played his last game. He wasn’t emotional, he just talked quietly about Stanley Matthews, and how he’d still been playing professionally in his fifties.
“You’re never too old, lad,” he’d muttered in his soft Geordie accent, wincing in occasional pain. “You don’ stop playin’ joos ‘cause soom fooker says you’re too old. There’s summat we get from football we can’t get from anythin’ else, an’ yer a long time retired.”
He didn’t hang up his new boots, though. He gave them to me. He’d only worn them a couple of times - top of the line professional screwins with three sets of studs for different conditions. I always preferred moulded myself so I’d never worn them.
I smiled, returning from my golden cloud as Shona laughed at one of Dave’s jokes.
Jimmy had always trained me until I’d made my first rep team. I’d loved playing in goal from the start, but Jimmy had forced me to play in two teams at once for several years - keeper in one team, striker in the other to learn what strikers were up against - how they went about the business of scoring goals. And I did enjoy scoring goals, but it wasn’t the same as keeping ‘em out. A keeper’s an individual.
But playing up front had given me some insights which helped get me selected in a series of rep teams in my early teens, and by the age of 16
I was playing 1st Division State League for Kuringai. This culminated in an offer to trial with Man Utd:
15 October
Eric