Luck had never been on his side, and he cursed his lack of it. Lying in his bed at night as a teenager, he would run through the playbook in his head, studying form of the upcoming opposition and was able to predict how to get around even the most astute of defence. He could just do it. Never did he doubt his ability to win the tackle, get the ball, make the break, and score a goal. Never. His fitness was impeccable, his will iron, and his talent ‘one of the best we’ve seen ... He could go all the way ...’ This was what the head coach had said to his dad, and he’dheardit. The words branded in his brain, motivating him when the alarm went off each morning before sunup, and while his classmates slumbered and dreamed of girls, he would lace up his trainers, set his watch and run. Run and run with his heart thumping and his vision laser focused as his feet pounded the streets. He was going all the way. He was unstoppable!
One particular image played over and over in his head like a movie. Him lifting the FA Cup with his teammates gathered around, faces lit with triumph, the crowd making a deafening roar.He pictured it and he willed it. This was going to happen. He was Lawrence Kelleway: winner.
As far as he was concerned, when it came to his position in the team, there was no competition. He was polite to the rest of the squad but didn’t foster the close relationships that some of his teammates did. He was young, without too much life experience, but knew enough to keep these boys at arm’s length, because they might have all been one team, but they were still his competitors. To succeed, to get picked, required a certain ruthlessness that meant he only ever looked out for number one. Besides, he didn’t need a ton of mates; he had Lisa.
It still foxed and confused him decades later that what put paid to his dreams was not a mighty foe of such skill, dexterity and power that he was powerless to defeat. No, what ended his career before it had started was a divot. A clod of earth, a dig in the grass, a tiny crater no bigger than the size of a matchbox. Yes, while he was busy envisioning his wins, running miles, eating right and staying focused, the universe – the very earth beneath his feet – conspired against him. One small unfortunate and perfectly positioned bump lay in wait on the turf to trip him up. Literally.
He often relived the moment in his head, waking with a start and in a cold sweat. Thinking of the almost infinite number of different moves/routes/steps/angles he could have chosen that would have avoided what happened. He liked to play it in slo-mo: it was a damp, grey day; he was running, his eye on the ball, space either side, aware of the goal but not focused on it; he planned on taking one more step, and then one more, and then he’d bring back his left foot and kick – in his mind’s eye he envisioned smashing it into the top left.Bang!
But it didn’t work out like that. He took one step and was about to take one more when his right foot clipped the divot, dipped a little, caught the grass, and his ankle tilted over at an odd angle.He tumbled to the ground with his arms out to break the fall. The pain was instant and sharp, and he knew. Staring at the goal and the red and white ball trickling away in front of him, he knew. He didn’t look down, couldn’t bear to see his injury. He had felt it. He had heard it. A sickening, crunching, snapping sound. And in one second, everything he had planned, everything he thought he could count on and everything he thought he would become disappeared. Gone.
His parents, coaches and teammates had all smiled below eyes narrowed with concern. ‘Bit of physio, maybe an operation, you’ll be as good as new ...’ they lied, and it made it worse somehow that he wasn’t able to howl his distress at what had happened. Instead, he too painted on a smile and pretended, pretended everything was going to be okay.
Maybe that was when it had started – the lying, the covering up of any failure, the pretence that everything was wonderful.
Lisa, however, had howled on his behalf. Great gulping tears that when he held her close, dampened his cheeks too and he was grateful for the feel of them.
‘No!’ She’d kissed his face. ‘No, Lawrie! No!’ Her head shaking with the sorrow that she could see and feel, because she loved him and he loved her. She knew enough, as did he, to recognise that as he hobbled on crutches with pins in his bones and a cast on his foot, his dreams had come to an end. Her honesty was a precious thing. It provided clarity, justification almost, for the deep, deep sadness that rolled inside him, filling him up.
He thought about her often,his Lee.More than he would ever admit and more often than made him comfortable. He couldn’t explain why. It wasn’t that he didn’t love Julie or that he loved Lisa more– it wasn’t like that. Rather she was a marker from his past that was wedged in his brain, a time splinter that he was unable to shift. Not that he’d tried, taking comfort from her memory ashe drove alone, waited in a queue, showered, played golf, watched TV ... On any given day, the smallest thing could remind him of her. The scent of tar – which they had once inhaled on the roadside, wondering if it might make them high. It had only made them sick and left him with a violent headache, but that was not the point. Peeling oranges: he would picture her small, neat fingers trying desperately not to break the peel, and revelling in the glory of the long, pitted snake that lay curled in her palm, a look of utter triumph on her face. And when that orange was prepped to her exacting standards, with all the white pith and pips removed, she’d pop a segment in his mouth and then one into her own, doing this alternately until the fruit was gone. She never asked if he wanted some, it was just what they did: split fruit, shared beers, bites of a sandwich.
It was these million small things that unified them, gave them a history, built their story. And there was more: the particular smell on his scalp when his hair needed washing, she often smelled a bit like that – a little irony and to most this might be considered unpleasant, but it put him so firmly in a place and moment where the sun shone and Lisa laughed, her long hair falling across his chest, and everything,everythingfelt possible.
Sometimes he would think of her when his thoughts were calm and in a break from worrying about money, a break from trying to mentally juggle all that he had to deal with: loans that left their monthly budget creaking at the seams; deadlines that he knew would come and go without progression or solution; and a ton of earnest promises, sealed with a handshake, made to associates, banks, financiers, developers and even his family that he knew would all be broken. It was a lot. Too much, in fact, for him to deal with. Thinking of Lisa and that undemanding time was like taking a mental holiday from the reality of his life.
Their affair hadn’t surprised him, not nearly as much as it should. Not that he’d planned it or started it by design. It was far simpler than that, a visceral thing. The sight of her, the smell of her, one touch. That was all it had taken, one moment of reaching out and taking her hand into his and he had tumbled down the rabbit hole, back to the late nineties when they’d lain on the grass listening to The Verve and Radiohead, where lyrics were poetry written just for them. Each song had a meaning, speaking of how he felt and how he wanted to feel forever, but expressed with an elegance he could never have achieved. A time when he had little to worry about and he had felt special, convinced his life was going to be special too.
Guilt was a funny old thing. He felt guilty that the life he had always wanted to provide for his kids was as far out of reach as it ever was. Sure, they enjoyed the temporary bells and whistles of their rented lifestyle, but it was entirely without foundation. This bothered him, knowing that if he were to die today, they would have less than nothing.
He had always planned to leave them a nest egg, a trust fund, property; something that would mean they were set for life. It had been his dream. It was still his dream. He rubbed his hand over his face; his plan wasn’t exactly on track. Right now, he had no more than the coins in his pocket and a credit card with a small amount of wriggle room. But where Lisa was concerned, guilt was in short supply. He had the knack of being able to compartmentalise the sex he had had with Lisa and the time he spent with his wife and kids. Entirely separate. Two different worlds that he had felt confident he could keep apart, convinced that even if Julie had found out, she would forgive him – she was that sort. Kind, loyal and unwilling to do anything that might fracture their little family. To him it was no different from keeping his office life and home life separate, holidays and workdays, being asleep and being awake, being dressedand being naked – all facets of his life that were distinct. And that was just how it was: Lisa and Julie, entirely unrelated.
Seeing her tonight over the fence hadn’t been easy. The fact was he couldn’t really give a shit about Marty. But to see her so timid, cowering against the wall, as if he really could or, worse,hadcaused her physical harm – that was hard. From the very start of their affair, there had been no manipulation on his part, no build-up or anticipation, no risk analysis of the pros and cons. Instead, he had seen her, and she had seen him, and with no more than a knowing look full of promise – exciting, illicit, and highly charged – it was as if the invisible thread of shared history that bound them pulled them tight, close together.
He had reached out to touch her hand, and as her fingers slipped against his, it was like diving into a warm pool on a still night. It was arriving at a place of safety after a long and arduous journey. It was restful sleep. It was coming home. It was igniting a spark that he believed to have long ago dwindled, and it felt good.
More than good, it felt like life! It was energy! It was joy! It was distracting and fulfilling and some kind of reward for all the low moments, the hard days, the days when he lost, the disappointments. When he held her hand, he was sixteen again: fit, happy, driven, and his life ahead looked golden. Touching Lisa, being with Lisa, was like entering a time-travelling portal that took him back to when life had been simpler, and who wouldn’t want to do that, just for a short while?
He had known it was a transient thing, never for an instant had he thought it would last. Never would he have dismantled his wonderful family for a taste of his teenage life. Never. And yet right now, he felt the beginnings of sorrow, unsure what a life without Lisa as his mental escape hatch looked like. He wasn’t sure it was a world he knew how to navigate. How could he ever explainthatto his wife?
The answer was simple: he couldn’t. It was yet another secret to be locked away, another aspect of his life not to be voiced, shared, dissected.
With his thoughts whirring and his rest disturbed, it was evident that sleep was not going to be forthcoming. He figured he might as well head off now, take a slow walk home, order his thoughts. He sat up straight and rubbed his eyes. Tonight, with the net closing around him, he had wanted nothing more than to talk to Lisa, to get her insight, to find comfort from her words if not her touch. That too hadn’t exactly worked out. And here he was.
With a quick glance towards the stairs leading to the room where his mum and dad slept soundly, confident that life was good and on solid ground, he felt the familiar flicker of envy that he should be so lucky; envy and dismay that he had never figured out how to emulate their success, never lived up to their expectations. It made him feel sick. Quietly, he pulled the front door to his parents’ house shut and put his arms into his leather jacket, liking the soft feel of it against his skin, the quality. He remembered the day he’d bought itknowinghe couldn’t afford it but feeling almost goaded by the cocky shop assistant who hadn’t paid him much attention, as if sheassumedhe couldn’t afford it. Her actions had caused a white-hot flash of rage inside him – who was she to dismiss him so summarily? He’d show her.
‘I’ll take it!’ He’d strolled nonchalantly to the counter without even looking at the price tag.Nowshe was interested.
‘Oh! Oh! Certainly, sir!’ she had fawned, looking surprised, delighted, and he found it intoxicating.
‘Actually, no, wait a minute.’ He’d held up his finger and she’d stood still, staring as if he had the remote control and was keeping her this way. ‘I’ll take two, the brown and the black ...’ He’d swiped his fingers in the air and she had bustled into action, scurrying, bent over, flicking through the rails to find the item, makethe sale, smiling, no doubt, at the thought of the commission she would earn. Yes, that had shown her.
Slipping out to the sound of Cassian and Jake laughing loudly from the hot tub, his heart swelled with love for his smart boy. They were no doubt discussing the antics of previous nights out, girls at school, conquests, making plans ... He knew the score and felt a stab of something close to envy at the fact that the teenage life and all its wonderful revelations was so far behind him.
The fact that his boy, Julie, and Domino were going to have to leave their home again tore him to shreds. Where were they to go next? What was he going to do? Not that he was without a plan. There was a bloke – a friend of a friend – who worked as a high-end estate agent, and he, apparently, was in touch with some very, very well-connected people: the super-rich. People whose money was, how to put it, not acquired in the most standard way. Not necessarily illegally, but certainly without all the checks and balances that would keep HM Revenue and Customs happy. This, he was certain, was the kind of money that he could use to make his dreams come true and, more importantly, make all of his problems go away.
If he could secure the right amount, enough to pay off Micky Tate and his associates, and to bung some at the builders who had walked off site last month, enough to pay off the rent arrears, clear the backlog on the cars, settle the credit cards, reduce some of the overdrafts ... And crucially it meant the kind of money that could open up new lines of credit. He could do it, he was sure of it, all he needed was time. Or, more specifically, all he needed was enough time to put all the cogs in place that would keep the whole shebang turning.
His heart suddenly raced, and it scared him. Slowing his pace, he placed his hand on his chest, going slowly, willing the panic to pass. This kind of nervous flare-up was nothing new and was therefore not as scary as it once had been. Experience had taught himthat to clear his thoughts, he needed to breathe deeply, concentrate on breathing, go gently, make it all go away.
