Michael celebrated, arms in the air, running, shouting, dropping to his knee and sliding toward midfield where his teammates, young and old, piled on top of him, patting his head, his back, his chest.
The goalie, an old uni mate, shook his head.He’d been good back in the day, but he now carried an extra stone or two.Sorry, not sorry, Baker.
Words bandied around and through him.
“Well played, old man.”This from one of the sons on their team.
“Sport, where’ve you been?We need you.”From a father.
The referee blew his whistle.“Time, lads, the match is over.”
“Uncle Mick, smashing.”Finn ran across the pitch to give him an energetic fist bump.“Uncle Mick, Uncle Mick, Uncle Mick.”
Evan slapped Michael on the back, knocking out what little breath remained in his lungs from the ninety minutes of play.“You’re his hero.”
“Only in football.”
The opposing team came round for congratulations, admiring Michael’s scissor kick goal, then the old men moaned about their throbbing knees and bruised ankles.
After gathering his gear from the sideline, Evan came alongside.“Pints at the pub?Finn’s going home with the Baker boys, so I have time to myself.Piers, are you buying pints at Pub Clemency?”
“No, but I’ll join you for one.”Piers dropped his kit bag next to Michael.“Listen, mate, I know you don’t want to hear it, but you’re wasting your time with the HMSD.If you go to the diplomatic core, you’ll fare no better.Even worse if you sign up for the stuffy offices of Pratt Printing—no offense, Evan.You’re a football man.Cross football needs you.No one’s really managing the club.We don’t even have a mascot.Come on, man, take up the call of the pitch.It is a Cross club after all.”
“You know there’s no career for me in football.That ship has sailed.”Michael dug his phone from the zippered pocket of his kit bag.He was waiting for a call from MP Hamish Fickle’s office.So far, nothing.He slipped his phone back into the bag.
“I’m not asking you to play for the Capitals.I’m asking you to take the helm here.Use your training and skills to expand the club.You’re stellar with the boys.They’d swing from tree limbs if you said it’d make them better footballers.”Piers picked up his gear, slinging the strap over his head.“I’m not fooled about your financial and social status.The Cross and Pratt coffers can easily afford you a lovely place in downtown Port Fressa overlooking the bay.I don’t know why you live in that palace flat.You can’t entertain there.”
“You assume I’m interested in entertaining.”Michael replaced his spikes for his trainers and zipped on a Cross football club hoodie with a glance toward his brother, who was fixed on organizing his kit.
Piers didn’t know about the decreased Cross coffers.It was reputation not wealth that maintained the family name and status.Funds for the Cross Football Club and the three Cross grammar schools came from a strictly managed trust.
On the Pratt side, Michael had money left by his great-grandparents.Clocking two years with Pratt Printing enabled him to participate in the profit sharing.He could easily take on managing the club.
“Fine, Michael, mate of mine, but think about it.”Piers hoofed toward his motor, tossing over his shoulder, “See you at Pub Clemency and I’ll buy the first round.”
“He’s not wrong.”Evan scooted toward Michael.“You look happy on the pitch, big brother.As for the kids, you’re a flame and they’re your moths.”
“That’s a little poetic for you.You seriously think I can leave Her Majesty’s Security Detail to run round on a pitch with eight-to-fourteen-year-olds?I’m one of the few Cross men still in her service.Dad is practically holding down the diplomatic edge on his own.”
“Mick, you have a right to live your life.But Mum’s got a point as well about how the decisions made by our Cross ancestors a thousand years ago, even two hundred years ago, govern our lives.It’s the twenty-first century, for goodness’ sake.Do you think our twenty-first great-grandfather would hold us to his ancient ways?”Evan puffed out his chest and lowered his voice.“‘Carry on for a thousand years in the same way as we do now in our stone castles and chapels, freezing to death in the winter and smelling like rotgut in the summer.’”
With a laugh, Michael started for the car park.“You think the Pratt line is any different?Mum never misses a moment to prod me to join her family line.”He tossed his bag into the boot.“I’m not being stubborn, Evan.But I—” He breathed in, trying to form the words.“I feel called to do what I’m doing.Yeah, maybe for some allegiance to our Cross heritage, but it’s more than our name or reputation.It’s something I feel here.”He patted his chest.“I’ll stay true until that feeling goes away.”
Why didn’t Evan understand?Did he not sense what Michael sensed when he studied the Cross catechism?Every young Cross man and woman studied Lauchten and House of Blue history every summer during their teen years.They could teach college professors.The Cross family were the treasure keepers, the keepers of the gospel, holding fast to the stories the rest of Lauchtenland forgot.But in the last twenty years, the family willing to take on the life of a Cross had dwindled.
When he’d proposed to Purnell, she understood his devotion to duty.She sensed it was more than an assignment.It was a way of life.The Cross life.
“I don’t know why you hang onto it all,” Evan said.“How are you different than any other former Special Forces chap who joins the HMSD?Does our name really carry prestige?”
“She called me when she wanted an equerry and protection officer for Lady Royal.And yes, because of my Cross name.”Without it, he’d have never met Scottie.“Besides, one day, I may be the only Cross left in service to the Crown.If you ask me, the last man standing is every bit as important as the first.”
In the eighteenth century, a whole line of Cross uncles, aunts, cousins sailed to America.In the nineteenth century, typhus and smallpox ravaged Lauchtenland.The Cross dynasty was not immune.Add to that, the simple attrition of a thousand years.Families moving away.Families with no sons and their daughters marrying into other ancestries where, after generations, their Cross heritage was forgotten.
In the 1920s, one Cross recordkeeper lost his family’s documentation in a fire.Then his two sons were killed in the Second World War.
No, Michael must stay the course of the Cross.It would take Emmanuel Himself coming down from the mountains, fragrant with the woods and smoke, to tell him otherwise.
“I never felt called to Cross service like you,” Evan said.“Tracy and I decided together Pratt Printing was best for our future.I’m fine with you rejecting Mum’s offer.I get it.But Mick, there’s more than one way to be a Cross man.What if a Cross man upholds the youth football club our great-great-grandfather founded?It was one of the first football clubs in this part of Europe, other than Great Britain.Do you realize a Cross man or woman hasn’t run the club since the 1950s?No Cross has ever been superintendent over our three schools.Serving the community is serving the Crown.”
