It's Coming Home

Forgetting the St. George hat on his head and the St. George flag fluttering across his shoulders, Liam ran after the car, his pint spilling onto the floor, shouting, ‘Back! Back!’ as he ran, avoiding people coming his way and those walking, excruciatingly slowly, in his direction. After seventeen seconds Kirsty turned left, out of sight, exhaust fumes the only evidence that she had been on the road, the engagement ring in his pocket the only piece of evidence that she had been in the pub with him. Downhearted, he dropped his pint, hearing it smash, and ambled back to the pub, disillusioned by the triangular flags hanging across the front of the Seven Oaks pub. He sat on a bench, lit a Carlton cigarette, checked his watch (less than two minutes to go) and covered his ears, shielding himself from the rowdy sounds from inside the pub, the shouts, the clank of glass on glass, the roaring rendition of an out-of-date song that people like him still sang, remembering, if distantly, the hope flutter away after the final penalty kick, the footballers representing his country sitting forlornly on the floor, comforted by people only a little less devastated than them. 

He remembered the time well; the year was ninety-six and there was the chance that the victory of thirty years before would be repeated, this time for a new generation to saviour. Now, twenty-odd years later, he had entered the pub with Kirsty with more doubts than he had entertained back then at the age of fourteen. He had grown older, arguably not wiser, and had faith, more faith than he bestowed on anything else, in the ability of this team, the crop of fresh talent, to win the day. No other occasion called for a booze-up in the middle of the week than a semi-final in the World Cup. Cheered by the thought that it happens once every four years, and four years is a long time for someone like him, someone stuck in a routine, dead-end job answering and making calls, picking apart staplers and trying to repair elderly printers, he had tightened his grip on Kirsty’s hands as they, in unison, thanked a bulbous man for holding the door open for them. It was, if he discarded the birth of Sam, the greatest day of his life, and if they won the semi-final, well, that’d be the greatest day of his life. Was the birth of his only son an occasion for less cheer than England winning the World Cup? A hard question, a tough dilemma. Not that he’d share that thought with Kirsty, who’d probably punch him in the gut.

Which was close to what she did. Liam smoked quickly, nervously adjusting his dark sunglasses, purchased cheap from a stall in Magaluf (a hazy experience), often turning around to check if Kirsty had seen sense and returned to the pub. He flicked his three-quarters smoked cigarette away and inspected a bite on his lower leg, a bite that had already become inflamed, the area around it red and itchy. Must have come when I was watering the garden, he thought. He hadn’t watered the garden for six days, weary of using the reserves of water, fearful of a drought (well, there hadn’t been rain for fifteen days, and those fifteen days had been scorching, tarmac-melting hot), until Kirsty … no, he couldn’t blame her for everything; he had watered the garden out of boredom induced by watching that vampire drama she always watched on Netflix. Watering the garden just to get out the house. Once upon a time he used to fish or play snooker to get out the house, but his friends had moved on, taking jobs in other parts of the country; unlike him, they had learned trades whilst he had plumped for university, following his older cousin’s footsteps. Where was he now? Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Patrick had crashed into a car doing the top speed on his Yamaha motorbike, his arms in the air like Kate Winslet in Titanic. Death upon impact, they said. He probably didn’t know what had happened, coked to his eyeballs: the habit of a successful kitchen-fitter. Liam refused to appear at the funeral out of spite for his cousin’s, his idol’s, stupidity, and had been on his way to jump off a roof when he had seen Kirsty with a gaggle of drunk women - nothing worse than a collective of drunk women on a warm night - approaching him; they weren’t going to let him pass without jeering and leering, leeching and reaching. One touch, two touches, hey! A slap to the backside, a firm grip of the testes. He was pretty much sexually assaulted that night. Still, the impromptu and unprovoked sexual assault took his mind away from suicidal thoughts till, standing amongst the thirteen women (lucky or unlucky?) he forget where he had been walking and why he was on the outskirts of the city centre at ten past one on a Saturday morning. ‘You’ll feel it in the morning, girls,; he remembered saying, having the wherewithal not to say ladies. Two of the women took each of his arms and walked on with him. ‘Why not get a taxi?’ one of them said. ‘Have you got money for a taxi?; another of the women said. ‘Cause I didn’t see you pay for a drink tonight. Where are you hiding your money?’ To Liam: ‘Will you be my Turk tonight?’

Only Kirsty stood out amongst her friends, Kirsty in her jeans and drink-drenched t-shirt (a purple bra underneath) with her hair shorter than it had ever been. Strangely, Kirsty had ignored him and the lasciviousness of her friends, walking ahead of them. She showed her capriciousness from the first time he saw her. In the taxi, bundled in the back with three women, a sulky driver in front, Kirsty had prevented one of her friends, a chubby blonde girl, from reaching inside Liam’s jeans. ‘He isn’t a toy to be abused,’ she’d said. Then, to Liam: ‘Where are you going, mate?’

Mate. He liked the masculine aspect to the word uttered from feminine lips. Mate from her voice was matter than a mate from anyone else. ‘Home,’ he’d said. Eyebrows titled, she’d said, ‘Yeah, so where’s home?’ To add to the masculine effect, she was chewing vigorously yet daintily (not the only dainty thing about her, as he was to learn), not bovinely like the other women in the taxi and the driver. ‘Tyford Gardens. Forty-six Tyford Gardens.’ The chewed gum, no larger than a five pence coin, showed on her tongue when she smiled. 

‘She gone, mate?’ the landlord, Jack, asked, resting his hand atop a pump. Gaining the answer from Liam’s watery eyes, he poured out a pint of Stella Artois and planted it down in front of him, spilling some of the liquid on Liam’s hand. ‘One on the house. You never know, we might win.’ Rubbing his hands together, Jack added, ‘Can’t wait for the final if there’s a final. I’ve half a mind to go off to Russia. All this talk about the Russians being the enemy. Blah!’ He walked off to serve another customer, the price tag dangling from the collar on the back of his yellow polo shirt. All the time spent in this pub and he hadn’t stopped to appreciate the smell. ‘Cooking burgers?’ The Seven Oaks didn’t serve food due to Jack’s nostalgia for pubs of the eighties, and also to keep easily offended families out. Could be a special occasion. What was he thinking? It was more than a special occasion Christ, England were in the semi-finals of the World Cup!

Someone barged into him as they passed by, leaving the mild stench of urine behind. Then, as suddenly as he’d knocked into Liam, the man turned and said, ‘Cheer up!’

///

Punters gathered around, hyped after the earlier dogfight (winner and loser euthanised after careful deliberation). Sirens silenced them whilst they lasted. Liam leaned against the turnbuckle thinking it wouldn’t be a disaster if the police raided the place. Last week he thought he saw lights from a hovering helicopter, bright lights reaching through the ceiling and floor into the gym’s basement. Lights from inside his head, more like, for on that night he had taken more unguarded punches than he was used to, and had collapsed in the squalid toilets, lying beside a smouldering spliff. ‘Hunger,’ his manager, Brian, said. ‘You don’t eat an hour before a bout but you eat an hour before the hour before a bout.’

Sent from Glasgow, standing at six-foot-four, backed by a visiting gangster, a gangster from an undiminishing family line of gangsters, offshoots spreading everywhere, Liam’s opponent had already won the match. A fight for pride is not the same as a fight for victory; stonewalling, skipping around like a man half his size, Liam made it through five rounds before the crowd (shadiness required for entry) began booing, throwing their drinks in the badly-assembled ring and shouting insults at last week’s heroic bare-knuckled boxer. ‘You aren’t throwing the match,’ he heard his trainer, Lucas, say from the corner of the ring. 

‘No, I’m not winning it either.’ Something inside him grew unstoppably and he threw punch after punch, careful to step back from counter punches. 

Heralded as the greatest up-and-coming bare-knuckle boxer in the country, Liam rejected all offers of a fight in Spain (‘Some of those expats are hard, Liam; the sun f***s them off’) and took his towel with him. Accepting paranoia as a consequence of his action, Liam moved to live with Kirsty and her mother on the same road, the second-to-last house on the street. That was where Kirsty’s brother, notorious in his own mind - this stirred him - arrived from a stretch in a Warwickshire prison, favours for this, favours for that (dropping the soap created, for Neil, a long contacts list), asking for board and a room to stay. Denied his request, he assaulted Liam in the back garden with a shovel, caving his skull in. Three days later, Neil visited his sister’s lover in hospital with a job offer. Encumbered by debt, increasing by the month, Liam accepted the offer with the reassurance that the crime family he had become acquainted with due to his long arms, butterfly-like movements and knockout blows (he has to be using dusters) were behind him and would reap fifty percent of the profits, meaning Liam would reap ten percent of the profits, but there was a lot of profit to be made where people want to live in a doped reality. Whilst shaking on the deal, Liam felt a jolt of electricity run down his arms, down his body into his toes, a jolt of euphoria and serenity. Under an hour later, he had struck a deal with the man in the next hospital bed to co-run a funeral agency. ‘Doesn’t everyone need funerals? You wanna put your money in a business that never fades, if you get what I mean. You get what I mean? Funeral’s never go out of business. Charge people twenty grand for a coffin and flowers and they’re gonna take it.’

As weed-pusher and co-director of Wheelham’s Funeral Agency, established twenty-nineteen, Liam and Kirsty moved into a newly-built property on a newly-built road, formerly woodland, in Warren View. Oh, don’t forget that Neil moved himself in after two months, creating what he termed a man-cave in what was supposed to the baby’s room, the baby Kirsty was carrying. A Saturday night showdown in the kitchen resulted in severe, life-threatening wounds in the side of Liam’s neck caused by shards of glass. This time Liam pressed charges and laughed in court when the final verdict was given - six years, really three. ‘Why didn’t you stand up for yourself against him?’ Kirsty asked when they returned from court. ‘Why didn’t you fight back?’ 

‘You choose your fights, Kirsty. Plus I’m not gonna fight a member of your family. Doesn’t feel right. Wouldn’t be right.’

///

Kick-off on the big screen. An uneasy silence lasting four minutes or so until the tenseness of the assembled pub dwellers died out. England, keeping the ball well, passing around as if on a training session, their confidence and vigour restored; this could indeed be the year. After scanning the faces of those around, Liam ordered another pint, not free of charge this time, and sat on an uncomfortable stool, half his concentration on the pub door. A missed chance from England. ‘Should have put that one away. Let’s hope he doesn’t rue that miss,’ a commentator said, part of an established twosome. Unbiased as usual. He had let her know he was sorry for getting them in this mess and had sworn to get them out of it by any means. Kirsty had taken the latter two words to mean something other than what he’d meant. By any means. He should have explained that those three words didn’t mean he was going to return to selling drugs and working with the con-man he’d met in the hospital. This time he’d take care of his money, saving half of his income in an account for the future as security. Rainy days, he thought, poking the beer with his index finger.

‘What are you doing these days?’ Jack asked, sitting on an equally uncomfortable stool on the other side of the bar. Lisa, his cherished barmaid, had arrived seven minutes but at least she was there, at least she was a face the punters liked gazing at. Dreading a riot no matter what the result, he had hired three security guards to arrive at half-time or thereabouts (quarter to eight). Three security guards against a pub-full of (mostly) people who didn’t shy away from fights wasn’t much; it didn’t even provide temporary contentment, but he could tell the insurance people he had done something to protect his property.

Whether he was aware of it or not, Jack had a reputation in the area as a well-connected former bare-knuckle champion who could call on help when in trouble, though his reputation had dipped a little after being hospitalised by Neil, a man seen not unfairly as a pipsqueak hanger-on. Therefore, people talked and rumours spread as they always do, like Chinese whispers. It had been said that he was contemplating a return to the underground win as a means of restoring his pride as well as his bank balance, as well as a means of paying off the debts that had accumulated. A family must be paid for, after all. ‘Still looking for a job,’ Liam said, winking. ‘Ring me if you hear of any work needs doing.’

‘Any work that needs doing where, what?’

‘Any work anywhere. I’m not averse to doing whatever needs to do. Above board, generally speaking.’

‘Is that why she walked out on you?’ Jack walked around the bar and sat beside him, his stomach hanging down his shorts. ‘Cause I didn’t hear you argue. Usually people argue before one of them walks out.’

‘Is that right? S**t, yeah, you’ve overheard plenty of arguments in your time, old man.’

‘She’s a good woman, Jack.’

‘You saying she deserves better?’ Liam leaned over to pour himself a fresh pint. Nobody else waited at the bar. ‘She’d have walked a long time ago if I’d treated her badly. F**k, mate, I treat her as she needs to be treated. Know what I mean? Anyway, she’s the one who wears the trousers in her arse. She’s the boss.’ Whist inspecting the four twenty-pound notes in his pocket to see which was the cleanest (they all looked quite clean), he heard the door open and almost fell off his stool turning around.

‘Not her,’ Jack said.

‘You used to be all right, Jack, till tonight. She doesn’t talk to you. I buy the drinks.’

Jack snatched the pint and hurried to the other side of the bar. ‘You can f**k off if you’re gonna be a smartarse.’

‘You got the menopause, Jack? Got the limp dick problem? Can’t get it out for the horse waiting in the back room?’

He would have liked a glass to smash on the wall beside him as he made his hasty exit. As it was, Jack had suddenly collapsed at the same time Liam jumped off his seat after swivelling around. The engrossed punters uttered a cry of misery at the missed free-kick; the ball ended up in what the commentator termed row z.A baby began crying. The television flickered, tormenting the viewers for a few moments. One last flicker. The English goalkeeper hoofed the ball to a wide attacker, who ran into the taller, heavier left-back. Sitting a table closest to the television, a middle-aged woman scratched furiously at a scratch card, blowing away the grey dust with strained asthmatic effort. No luck today. No luck from the previous three scratch cards. Still, England might win tonight. 

Liam looked away from her - she was the only other person sitting alone - and started on his way to the before stopping. They’ll link you to it, he thought, stepping back, stepping on spilled beer. They were cooking something greasy and oniony in the back. Could be a half-time surprise. What happens if we lose tonight? Liam overheard a child ask his father on the way to school. That’s it, Joe; nobody knows.

State of things, Liam thought, lighting a cigarette under a canopy advertising Benson and Hedges Special Filter cigarettes from the nineties. Missus has gone, the football’s s**t, landlord’s just had a heart attack and Ben needs … Ben needs picking up! Kylie had agreed to a glass of orange juice before she went off -

Kylie had rushed off to pick Ben up from his friend’s house. No cause for concern. She’d return with Ben and they’d sit together outside, talking things through, acting as the family they ought to be.

///

‘Look ere, Liam. Says ere yer get free tits at the weekend. Free tits of yer choice. Free or three? I saw a woman wi three tits on the internet. Worse sight than those f*****g beheading videos.’

‘It won’t say three or free tits,’ Liam said. ‘What is it, an advert for Hooters? They don’t show their tits at Hooters.’ He sighed. ‘They show them under their tops, Matt; they aren’t pole-dancers.’ He pulled The Sun from under Matt’s nose and looked at the advertisement in the corner of the back page: Free Drinks for New Members! In small print, the disclaimer: New customers are entitled to two free drinks from the value menu.

Matt, narrow-shouldered yet barrel-chested, unconsciously picked his nose and wiped the bogey under the table before dipping his quarter-eaten digestive biscuit into his tea, letting it dissolve, licking the warm crumbs from his fingers. ‘We should go there tonight. Bring Big Barry with us. It’s about time e flashed the cash. A hundred grand on the lottery. Who the f**k wins a undred grand on the lottery? Everyone I know wins a tenner at the most, fifty quid ere and there, not a undred -'

‘Leave Barry and his money alone.’ Liam folded the newspaper up, screwed the lid back on his bottle of Pepsi and flicked his neck from side to side, preparing for the last four hours of work. ‘He’s spending the money on a bungalow for his mum.’

Turning bright red, Matt spat a crescent of dry digestive biscuit out. ‘What’s the fu-’

Catching sight of Little Lee, the foreman, Matt muttered, ‘What the bloody hell is he thinking? He can start a business with a undred grand. No offence.’

‘What offence am I supposed to have taken?’ Liam adjusted his yellow building hat. ‘You have to fail to know success.’

Pointing to his large forehead, which would have been a stupendous forehead if he had any mental prowess behind it, Matt muttered, ‘The man might as well go and ge it chopped off, cause I know e ant got a dick now. He can go and ge it chopped off.’

‘You all right today, Matt?’

‘No, been meaning ta av a piss all day. One porta on a massive building site. First day an’all.’ Matt wafted the newspaper at a freestyling fly, dipping up and down in preparation to divebomb his face. ‘One more thing, Liam. Sit down before a tell ya. Unless ya wanna ear this at the end of the day?’ Liam remained standing, leaning to the left, ears cocked. 

‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Is this about your car? I don’t want that trap.’

Matt let out a scream of joy, his first scream of joy since he watched the first semi-final World Cup football match the night before, after squashing the fly with the newspaper. 

‘I’ve seen her with him.’ Feigning a coughing fit, Matt rolled onto the floor, face-first. 

‘Get up, Matt. Tell me what you need to tell me.’ Then he ascertained it: the he in question was the newly-rich Barry and the she was his long-term girlfriend, Kirsty. The two had always been close childhood sweethearts. He took small comfort from the idea that childhood sweethearts usually drift apart in their teenage years. These two had a lot to talk about together, a lot to reminisce about. Liam grabbed Matt’s sweaty grey shirt and pulled him onto his feet. ‘How long have you known about this?’

A blind rage, a red-tinged world. The man he punched was not Matt; the man he punched was a shadowy figure, the easiest opponent he had faced: one, two, three punches to the chin, cheek and nose, Liam’s knuckles made strong by repeated use, healed by the passing of time.

///

Dulled by the groins, the intelligible shouts, Liam stared at the television screen, blushing but cool enough not to give his secret away as the paramedics tended to the unconscious landlord behind the bar, pumping his chest. With Kylie by his side, he had cared about the outcome of that evening’s game, the much anticipated semi-final, but found he didn’t have it in him to show disappointment about the one-nil lead Croatia had taken (a technical display of brilliance leading to the goal). Sitting alongside the middle-aged woman, he said, What would you do if I gave you a load of scratch cards?’

‘What’s that?’

‘I said,’ Liam said in a hushed tone, ‘several cabinet members have resigned from their posts over the bad Brexit deal the Prime Minister has -’

‘Who’s talking about Brexit?’

Another goal from the Croatians, this time from a scrappy free-kick - off one head onto another, a failed clearance from a panicky defender, a side-footed placement shot into the bottom corner, out of the goalkeeper’s outstretched reach. The baby began crying again. ‘F**k’s sake!’ Someone shouted from the bar. ‘Can’t these useless b******s defend or what?’

Big Barry, of average height but bulky as hell, a renowned know-nothing-know-it-all, showing off his muscle-free, fat-heavy arms in an obscenely tight-fitting t-shirt, gasping for air after gulping down dark bitter, staring straight at him. Geared for a fight, trusting in his healing knuckles, larger than they’d ever been (unlike other body parts), Liam approached him. ‘You been seeing my missus, wankstain?’

‘Liam lad, I’ve got missuses hanging off my balls. No need for yours. Wouldn’t do her anyway.’ He looked at his best friend, keen geezer (Lad’s Bible enthusiast) Michael, ginger-bearded with an unnaturally hostile stare, father of four from three different women, made gullible by the first man who showed an interest in them, led on by bold, idiotic promises - commitment-free all around -stared at him, reeking of stale weed. Ah, so that’s where the stare comes from. ‘I heard you slept with her, that’s all. Shouldn’t have bothered with it.’

Laughing, Big Barry held his iPhone out. ‘You seen her Facebook? Latest post’s about you, bud. Looks like you’ll be lucky tonight.’

Screams of joy, a solitary shout of Get in! England had scored. Nine minutes left and one goal to go. ‘Come on!’ Liam shouted, his lungs vibrating. ‘Come on!’

Two-one with forty seconds of extra time to play. Thirty-nine seconds. Thirty-eight seconds. Thirty-seven. Croatia, passing sublimely, the final period of a well-worked game. Watch them throw their pints in anger. Watch them smash the place. Enough of watching the door; Kylie isn’t going to come here. The Facebook status - I’m selfish, lazy and a little bit insecure …  - wasn’t about Kylie’s love for him; it was her declaration of independence. Big Barry had deceived him.

Full-time. An awkward silence. Belgium two, England one.

‘First glass for you, BB’. A thrill, not quite akin to the thrill of winning a boxing match surrounded by nefarious people in a dangerously stifling windowless basement, but a thrill nonetheless. Big Barry fell straight down, as if leaping from a diving board. ‘Who’s next?’

‘Look lads, we aren’t going home yet. Got the third-place play off! someone exclaimed, a roar of raw emotion.