There's Only One Danny Garvey, page 17
He stands at the foot of the bed in the upstairs room I’ve only recently moved my meagre belongings into. I lasted just over five months on the sofa. Constantly reminding myself that I wasn’t staying, only passing through. But the growing piles of notes and textbooks and wall charts needed somewhere to go. We’d irritate each other, Higgy and me, especially in the days after a defeat. So I moved my stuff upstairs. To the pokey attic room I regularly occupied as a child. Flitting to and fro, back then, to accommodate Libby’s unpredictable houseguests and the spontaneous parties she held for them. Raymond shared a similar existence, although from just before his sixteenth birthday, I can’t recall him staying anywhere other than here in Higgy’s house. Unless he was being detained. Perhaps understandable that neither of us holds on to a recognisable concept of home.
‘Get up!’ Higgy’s anger shocks me out of a dwam. A rude awakening from the best sleep I’ve had since I came back from Arbroath. ‘Go an’ see yer mam! Ah’m no’ askin’ ye … ah’m bloody tellin’ ye! She’s got weeks. Ah doubt she’ll see Christmas. What the hell’s the matter wi’ ye?’
And I’m forced to ponder this, the question at the root of everything. I don’t know the answer. My team are finally playing consistently good football. The club itself is more buoyant than it has been for years. Everyone is pulling their weight. We’re bringing in adequate money from a range of fund-raising initiatives that I’ve instigated. As far as a demonstrable commitment to the part-time job I took on, no-one can argue about the evidence. We’re climbing the league, lower mid-table now; a miracle given the shackles of the points deduction.
I’m working hard at my strange relationship with Damo, Nancy and, God help me, Doreen. And I’m trying to repair some of the damage that I caused Jock Reid’s widow. For fuck’s sake, what more does Higgy want from me?
And then – as the door shakes from the force with which he slams it – it hits me, lying there in Higgy’s cold attic room. Libby is a dereliction that I can’t repair. I spent years in the cold north defiantly refusing to give in to regret, as if to do so would allow my mistakes to rush in through badly built levees, drowning me. I used injury and the reflective, contemplative time it offered me as a catalyst to becoming a better, more informed person. I came back to fix things. To address the failures. To absolve myself of a guilt that was engulfing me. I can’t do any of these things with Libby. Because she can’t be fixed.
Higgy is downstairs. Fuming at what he presumes is my indifference. He composes himself. Thinks about the words, and their order.
‘She needs a bit ae time wi’ ye, son. It’s no’ excusin’ the past … an’ it’s no’ drawin’ a veil over it either. But she’s yer mam, Danny. Don’t punish her anymore. At least ye’ve got the chance tae say goodbye properly.’ He gets his coat. ‘Ah’m goin’ for a quick pint. An’ then tae the bookies.’ His voice breaks. He’s in pain. ‘Ah’ll pick up the wee fella, an’ see ye later up at the park.’ He leaves before I can answer.
I watch him walk down the path into the teeth of a bitter November wind. Through the window, I watch him wipe his eyes with his hand.
We’re at The Barn again, the last in a run of three games in a row. The first of them, a satisfying 5-3 win against Muirkirk Juniors. A pulsating match watched by close to two hundred people. Young Gilmour continued his scoring run with a brace. A Queen of the South scout was watching him. We followed that with a narrow single-goal victory against Craigmark Burntonians; a game notable only for a double penalty save by Tony McIntosh after the referee ordered the initial kick to be retaken for Gilhooly’s encroachment. In keeping with the instantly forgettable nature of the match, we claimed the points as a result of an own goal.
Today’s game is an Ayrshire Cup tie against Annbank United. It’s a big game for two reasons. A win puts us into the quarters. Both teams sit equal in the league on points, having played the same number of games. Harry Doyle predicts it will be nip an’ tuck. We need to take our chances, he stresses. But it’s also Nancy’s first match dispensing Ernie’s hot food from the van. She’s here, but Damo isn’t. I find myself in the ludicrous situation of waiting for a ten-year-old boy in a space helmet to appear before giving the final team-talk. As if something in the boy’s stored bank of statistics might give us the edge we need.
Fifteen minutes until kick-off and Higgy hasn’t shown. It’s possible he’s punishing me. He’ll know I didn’t go to Libby’s house. Or rather, I didn’t go in. Her carers informed me at the doorstep that she was sleeping, having had quite an unsettled night. They would let her know I’d visited though. It was enough for me. I was relieved.
The rain is falling steadily but the turf seems to be holding firm.
We look lost in the first half. The pitch feels enormous. We’re not moving quickly enough to shut down space. It’s no surprise when they finally score. A shot from outside the box. McIntosh is rooted to the spot. The ball’s in the net.
Annbank celebrate, and my keeper mouths apologetically to me that he saw it late. Another thing he sees late, as everyone else waits for the restart, is a right cross from behind him, connecting with his jaw.
‘Where the fuck wis you last night, ya dirty bastard?’ A woman. An extremely loud and angry one. Pushing a pram right into the middle of his muddy goalmouth.
‘Carole,’ he yells.
‘Don’t fucken Carole me, you! Where were ye?’ She’s screaming for all to hear.
The ball’s back on the centre spot but no-one’s watching it. Everyone’s eyes are trained on the domestic disturbance. A handbag is out. It’s being wielded skilfully. McIntosh hits the deck.
‘Jesus Christ, should ah send her off?’ asks the ref. He’s at the touchline to ask us for guidance.
‘Good luck wi’ that, son,’ sneers Harry Doyle.
‘Where were ye, eh? Ah’ll tell ye where ye were!’
‘What wis the point in her askin’ him, then?’ says a supporter standing behind us.
‘Ye were back at hers, weren’t ye? That dirty midden.’
McIntosh says nothing. Two hundred and fifty sniggering people watching him on his knees. In the mud.
‘Ye’se aw havin’ a good look, eh?’ Tony’s woman stares down the pitch; a c’mon, ah’ll take the fucken lot ae ye’se open-legged stance that prompts the nearest players to take a few steps back.
One last swing to the jaw and she’s off. Tony McIntosh has remained silent about his whereabouts. She’s left him with the pram. I shout to Josey Monsanto to get stripped. As substitutions go, this one is unusual.
‘Sorry boss,’ says Tony, sheepishly struggling with the pram’s wheels in the soft, wet turf. The look on his face betrays his reason for calling me, requesting a summit. As he passes me, I notice that the pram contains two babies.
‘Aye,’ I say. ‘We’ll discuss it at trainin’.’
The first half ends without further incident, but fifteen minutes after it should have.
We head into The Barn, soaked and still shocked from the pitch invasion. Tony McIntosh apologises to everyone as he takes off his strip. He offers little explanation. He dresses quickly, wishes us well. The pram is blocking the dressing-room door. No-one can get in or out. His babies are now wide awake and screaming.
‘Don’t worry, man. We’ve got this,’ I hear Monsanto whisper to Tony as he manoeuvres the muddy wheels and leaves.
The team is about to head back out when Higgy comes in. He stares at me sternly. Billy Gilmour’s mouth opens in advance of Damo squeezing past.
‘Wee man!’
‘And Gilmour scores!’ says Damo, like a tiny Archie McPherson.
‘Well, ah fucken just might now!’
‘Hey you,’ shouts Higgy. His anger at me hasn’t dissipated. ‘Mind yer language in front ae the wean.’
We’re a different team in the second half. The McIntosh incident seems to have interrupted Annbank’s rhythm. The rain stays off and we use the wings better, having pushed Peters further out left and Lorimer stretching the game to the right.
In sixty minutes, we get our reward; a ball falling kindly to Davie Russell who lashes it in from fully thirty yards.
Two more goals in quick succession, one from Gilmour and one from O’Halloran, give us a bit of breathing space. In a frenetic last ten minutes, the Annbank captain is sent off for protesting a disallowed goal. From my perspective, it looks like he had a point. He pushes the ref over, and the red card comes out. A lengthy ban is inevitable after he spits at the official as he’s wrestled away by his team-mates. I leave a few minutes before the final whistle. I need time to prepare. Harry Doyle sees it out.
I’m shocked when I see her. There was little enough of her the last time, but she’s faded to the point where continuing to breathe seems unfeasible for her. After hugging me, Higgy gets his coat, and although I tell him to stay, I can tell he’s relieved at the opportunity to go. He’s spending more and more time here with Libby. He needs a break.
I sit next to her bed. On the arm of a chair. There’s even less space in the living room now than there was last time I was here. More expensive things that bleep. More wires. More bags of fluid hanging from poles suspended above her. A bag, quarter-full of dark-yellow stuff. A tube connecting it – thankfully concealed under the blankets – to her rotten insides. I gag at the thought of having to empty it. But a nurse from Marie Curie will be back in a few hours. She’ll do it and save Libby from having to listen to my daft, nervous chat.
She’s awake. A mask over her nose, which she strains to pull back when she sees me.
‘Aw’right?’ I ask, stupidly.
‘Help me up a bit,’ she croaks.
Mindful of the bag of watery shite, I gingerly try to lift her. There is no weight at all. It’s like lifting a medical skeleton. Little muscle or sinew, just bone. She must be in intolerable pain.
She winces. ‘Yer team win, then?’
‘Aye,’ I reply. ‘Struggled a bit in the first half, but we got right back in it after the break.’ I sound like I’m being interviewed, post match.
‘Glad yer enjoyin’ it, son.’ She coughs. A little bit of blood on her lip.
I wipe her mouth. She looks at me. It’s a look that says: no’ long now, son.
We don’t speak for a time. I watch television and pretend that we’re watching it together. Libby stares at the wall. I think of Higgy, sitting here contemplating whether a pillow over the face would end their suffering, or just hers.
‘Are ye stayin’ then?’ she says.
‘What, now? D’ye want me tae?’
‘No. In Barshaw,’ she says. She coughs again but this time, it’s almost soundless. Every time she does must knock another ten minutes or so off what little she has left.
‘Ah … I don’t know yet. Depends.’
She doesn’t probe. She won’t have the energy. I take her hand. She looks at me strangely. She doesn’t say anything else, and I sit there for a couple of hours, holding her hand as she drifts in and out of consciousness, until my shift ends and I get relieved.
I first spot him coming out of the bookies. I think he sees me, but I head off in the opposite direction, hoping that he didn’t. I catch a reflection in a van’s wing mirror and can see him gaining on me. I can hear him calling. Difficult to ignore. I dive into Ernie’s shop, and Nancy’s there, behind the counter. She looks up and I’m certain I see her smile.
‘Hi.’
‘Hi yerself,’ she says. ‘That’ll be four pounds, fifty-nine, Mrs Dodds.’
‘Right, hen. Here ye are.’ Mrs Dodds hands over a note. Waits for the change, takes the bag, swivels deftly past me like Maradona dodging static defenders, and opens the door. A little bell rings as Dennis Deans bursts in past her.
‘God’s sake! Where’s yer manners?’ Mrs Dodds tuts at Dennis’s lack of chivalry.
‘Ah knew that wis you. Did ye no’ hear me shoutin’ ye?’
‘Naw, sorry. Headphones, y’know?’ I point to my ears. Only thing I can think of. It seems implausible, since I’m not currently wearing any, but he doesn’t query it.
‘Ah spotted ye last week tae, speedin’ doon the street in that wee purple motor. Wavin’ like a bastard, ah wis,’ he says.
I’m about to remind him that I don’t drive, that it couldn’t have been me he waved at, but he cuts across me before I can.
‘Right, ah’ve finally got ye, so none ae yer excuses this time, Danny. Party at ours. A week on Saturday. Ali’s insistin’ ye come.’
I look over at Nancy, eyes pleading. Searching for an excuse that gets me out of what would surely feature high on a lifetime list of favourite worst nightmares.
‘Danny,’ she says, throwing a rope to a drowning man. ‘Ye said we were goin’ out on Saturday. The Pictures? Jerry Maguire?’ God bless her! ‘Don’t tell me ye’ve forgotten?’
My eyes signal a relieved thank-you. Dennis looks at her. There’s a flash of recognition. It takes him a minute or two. He was high and hammered but the fragments are returning. He remembers her.
‘Ach, it’s you!’ Dennis says. A broad smile bursts across his face. He can’t recall a name, but that doesn’t matter right now. Danny Garvey and a plus-one; even better than anticipated.
‘You an’ him, eh? Ah had a lumber lined up for ye tae, Danny boy, but hey, nae problem if ye’ve got yer own,’ says a determined Dennis. ‘Both ae ye’se are comin’!’ Nancy stares at me. ‘Here’s the address.’ He takes her pen and scribbles on a napkin. Dennis is delighted. Like Leadbelly’s man, going round taking names, he has another two for his deal with the devil.
‘See the two ae ye’se about seven, then, aye?’ He leaves, excited and without any further details being given.
Nancy and I stare at each other until she finally says, ‘What’ll ah wear?’ and I breathe again and we both laugh, and the prospect of this unavoidable night down in a lowly circle of hell suddenly becomes a lot more bearable.
—Raymond phoned. Mam answered and there were angry words before I got to the call. He sounded drunk, although that couldn’t have been possible. He was raging that I hadn’t been on the visitors’ list for such a long time. That I’m deliberately avoiding him. Cutting him out. I’ve used Damo as an excuse for this, but he can see through me. He knows that’s not it. I’m just worn out; exhausted with being a ‘prison wife’. Debilitated by the constant reminders of it. I need a break from it; a night off from my life.
I get the phone call early on the Friday. The news isn’t good. The last league game before Christmas is off. A relentless deluge of water has fallen in Kirkconnel since the start of the week. Kello Rovers have hit a mid-season slump, losing their last three games. We, on the other hand, are in the middle of a purple patch. Up to sixth in the table, only ten points behind the leaders, Troon. We’re also in the semi-finals of the Ayrshire Cup. No-one wants the run of games to stop. But the winter’s coming and it could be weeks, if not months, before we play again.
I’m warming to the small, grey cellular phone. It allows me to let the full squad and backroom team know they have a free Saturday within minutes of me knowing.
Higgy calls. He won’t be back tonight. He’s staying over again but he tells me Libby is doing a bit better. He puts it down to me visiting her, but I know that’s just to prompt a quick return. A quiet Friday night, then. I hunt for the plastic Woolworths bag with its unopened purchases from earlier in the week. I leaf through my new LP sleeves and start making a list. The best way to say many of the things that I’m struggling to articulate.
It feels like I’m experiencing palpitations. But I know it’s just nerves. There’s a lot to be nervous about, to be fair. Unequivocally, this is a date. The previous times have just been two people – friends from a small village – out for a drink. But this is an appointment. A specific time and place to be, as a couple. Danny and Nancy. And at what is ostensibly a fucking school reunion. What was I thinking?
—I’ve been in ten different outfits over the course of this afternoon; all variations on the same theme of jeans and a blouse. Apart from one. The option that keeps drawing me back to it. I wore that short black dress with the tiny white polka dots on the last night Raymond and I were out together. The week before, I had a few spare pounds. Can’t remember where from. But I decided to buy Raymond something for his birthday. I was in the chemist’s shop paying for it and the woman asked if I needed something for my split lip. Raymond had given me it the night before. I was so embarrassed; I just left the aftershave. I bought the dress in the Oxfam shop next door instead.
We went out for his birthday, him all apologetic and desperate to make up. It didn’t end well, he got drunk and loud and spiteful, and we argued over Damo. But I love the dress. It’d be nice for it to have a different association.
—It takes me half an hour to walk from the bottom of her street to her front door, so many times do I half turn and almost vomit from an anxiety that feels like it is consuming me from the inside of my belly. My mouth is desert dry. My chest is tightening. I could do with a drink; a real one.
‘Hi … em, is Nancy in?’
‘Ah’m sure ye know she is.’ Doreen, the Inscrutable. She must practise these folded-arm, pursed-lip, withering stances in front of a full-length mirror. I can imagine the postman approaching the front door to be met with a whit the fuck’s it got tae dae wi’ you? when asking for her signature as a receipt for a parcel.
She keeps me waiting outside in the rain. My hair is wet. It doesn’t suit me the way it seems to suit the irritating, geeky one from Higgy’s favourite TV programme.
‘Mam … God’s sake, ask him in!’ Nancy shouts from upstairs.
Doreen turns her body to the side. Just enough for me to ease past her. She’s making it abundantly clear that she doesn’t approve of this dalliance.
In the living room, Damo is sitting on a stool facing the television set. He’s less than three feet from the screen.
