“I see you’re well-informed.”
“Then what’s next?”
“What do you mean?”
“What will you do once it’s over?”
“Do you honestly care? I don’t remember any phone calls from you over the past few months. You haven’t even asked me how my daughter is doing.”
“You’re right. How is…?”
“Skylar.”
“Right. Skylar.”
“What do you want, Phil? Why are you here in Donegal? I never had you down as the country type.”
He laughs. “Of course not. I came here for you.”
“For me.”
“They want you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“They want you to come home.”
* * *
I’ve invitedPhil to my parents’ house, so that we can discuss everything properly. My mum offered him a coffee and a slice of her famous apple tart, which he refused. I, on the other hand, am already on my second slice. Then she left us alone, asking Skylar to help her with something in the garden so that we had more privacy.
“You never used to eat all that sugary crap,” he points out, gesturing towards my second helping of dessert.
“What I ate used to be your business,” I snap. “Now it’s mine.”
“I know that you’re pissed off with me.”
“You left me on the street.”
“You aren’t exactly living under a bridge.”
“I’m thirty-eight years old and I live with my fifteen-year-old daughter in my parents’ house, Phil.”
“I thought you’d have something saved up. You played for twenty years, and had all those sponsorships, gifts, bonuses.”
“I had some unexpected expenses to take care of.”
“Unexpected expenses?”
“That’s none of your business, either. You’re not my manager anymore – you’re nothing to me, now.”
Phil abandoned me in the moment I needed him most. When Skylar’s mother died and she came to live with me, I asked him for help: my manager of twenty years. My best friend. I spoke to him about my problems with Skylar, the fact that she needed more consistency in her life. I told him I needed to take some time away from playing, from all the bullshit that came with it. I asked him to help me transfer to a smaller team, or to give me a few months’ leave. Phil suggested I put her in a boarding school, maybe abroad somewhere, or to hire someone to look after her. He wanted me to focus on myself, my future. He said that I couldn’t throw everything away just for a little girl. As far as he was concerned, I could’ve played for another two years at least, worked my way up to the top of the company. I could’ve had more money, more power, more women. I could’ve got a bigger house, too – everything that a guy like me could ever have dreamed of. Then, one night, I heard Skylar crying in her room; I heard her cry out her mother’s name and pray for her to come back and take her away. The next day, I called Phil and told him I was retiring from sport, with or without his consent. A week later, I was out in the street – not literally, of course. But I was pretty damn close.
“I’m here to offer you a job.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Management want you.”
