A Kestrel for a Knave

  He needed no steps or staggering to correct his balance, but stood up straight, smiling; the cross-bar still quivering.

  Applause broke out. Sugden silenced it.

  ‘Right, come on then, let’s get on with this GAME.’

  The score: still 1–1.

  1–2. When Billy, shielding his face, deflected a stinger up on to the cross-bar, and it bounced down behind him and over the line.

  2–2. When the referee, despite protests, allowed a goal by Anderson to count, even though he appeared to score it from an offside position.

  A dog appeared at the edge of the field, a lean black mongrel, as big as an Alsatian, sniffing around the bottom of the fence on the pavement side. A second later it was inside, bounding across the field to join the game. It skidded round the ball, barking. The boy on the ball got off it, quick. The dog lay on its front legs, back curved, tail up continuing the line of its body. The boys ganged up at a distance, ‘yarring’ and threatening, but every time one of them moved towards it, the dog ran at him, jumping and barking, scattering the lot of them before turning and running back to the ball.

  The boys were as excited as children playing ‘Mr Wolf.’ Carefully they closed in, then, when one of them made his effort to retrieve the ball, and the dog retaliated, they all scattered, screaming, to form up again twenty yards away and begin a new advance. If Mr Sugden had had a gun, Mr Wolf would have been dead in no time.

  ‘Whose is it? Who does it belong to?’ (From the back of the mob as it advanced, leading it when they retreated.) ‘Somebody go and fetch some cricket bats from the storeroom, they’ll shift it.’

  In the excitement nobody took any notice of him, so he looked round and saw Billy, who was stamping patterns in the goalmouth mud.

  ‘Casper!’

  ‘What, Sir?’

  ‘Come here!’

  ‘What, Sir?’

  ‘Go and fetch half a dozen cricket bats from the games store.’

  ‘Cricket bats, Sir! What, in this weather?’

  ‘No you fool! To shift that dog – it’s ruining the game.’

  ‘You don’t need cricket bats to do that, Sir.’

  ‘What do you need then, dynamite?’

  ‘It’ll not hurt you.’

  ‘I’m not giving it a chance. I’d sooner take meat away from a starving lion than take the ball away from that thing.’

  The dog was playing with the ball, holding it between its front paws, and with its head on one side, trying to bite it. However its jaws were too narrow, and each time it closed them its teeth pushed the ball forward out of reach. Then it shuffled after it, growling and rumbling in its throat. Billy walked forward, patting one thigh and clicking his tongue on the roof of his mouth. The other boys got down to their marks.

  ‘Come on then, lad. Come on.’

  It came. Bouncing up to his chest and down and round him. He reached out and scuffled its head each time it bounced up to his hand.

  ‘What’s up wi’ thi? What’s up then, you big daft sod?’

  It rested its front paws on his chest and barked bright-eyed into his face, its tongue turning up at the edges and slithering in and out as it breathed. Billy fondled its ears, then walked away from it, making it drop down on all fours.

  ‘Come on then, lad. Come on. Where do you want me to take him, Sir?’

  ‘Anywhere, lad. Anywhere as long as you get it off this field.’

  ‘Do you want me to find out where it lives, Sir, and take it home? I can be dressed in two ticks.’

  ‘No. No, just get it off the field and get back in your goal.’

  Billy hooked his finger under the dog’s collar and led it firmly towards the school, talking quietly to it all the time.

  When he returned they were leading 3–2.

  A few minutes later they were level 3–3.

  ‘What’s the matter, Casper, are you scared of the ball?’

  Mr Sugden studied his watch, as the ball was returned to him at the centre spot.

  ‘Right then, the next goal’s the winner!’

  One to make and the match to win.

  End to end play. Excitement. Thrills. OOOO! Arrr! Goal! No! It was over the line, Sir! Play on!

  Billy snatched the ball up, ran forward, and volleyed it up the field. He turned round and hopped back, pulling a sucked lemon face.

  ‘Bloody hell, it’s like lead, that ball. It’s just like gettin’ t’stick across your feet.’

  He stood stork fashion and manipulated his foot. Every time he turned his toes up water squeezed into the folds on the instep of his pump.

  ‘Bugger me. I’m not kicking that again.’

  He placed the foot lightly to the ground and tested his weight on it.

  ‘I feel champion, bones broke in one foot, frostbite in t’other.’

  He unrolled his shorts up to his neck and pushed his arms down inside them.

  ‘Come on, Sugden, blow that bloody whistle, I’m frozen.’

  The game continued. Sugden shot over the bar. Seconds later he prevented Tibbut from shooting by tugging his shirt. Penalty! Play on.

  Billy sighted the school behind one outstretched thumb and obliterated it by drawing the thumb slowly to his eye. A young midget walked from behind the nail. Billy opened his other eye and dropped his hand. More midgets were leaving the midget building, walking down the midget drive to the midget gates. Billy ran out to the edge of the penalty area, his arms back at attention down his shorts.

  ‘Bell’s gone, Sir! They’re comin’ out!’

  ‘Never mind the bell, get back in your goal!’

  ‘I’m on first sitting, Sir. I’ll miss my dinner.’

  ‘I thought I told you to swap sittings when you had games.’

  ‘I forgot, Sir.’

  ‘Well you’d better forget about your dinner then.’

  He turned back to the game, then did a double take.

  ‘And get your arms out of your shorts, lad! You look as if you’ve had Thalidomide!’

  Play developed at the other end. Billy stayed on the edge of the penalty area, forming a trio with his full backs.

  ‘How can I stop to second dinners when I’ve to go home an’ feed my hawk?’

  All the toys had disappeared from the playground, some of them growing into boys as they walked up Field Crescent and passed level with the pitch. They shouted encouragement through the wire, then shrunk and disappeared round the curve.

  They were replaced by a man and a woman approaching in the same direction, on opposite pavements. The man was wearing a grey suit, the woman a green coat, and as they drew level with the field they merged on to the same plane, and were suddenly pursued by a red car. Three blocks of colour, red, grey and green, travelling on the same plane, in the same direction, and at different speeds. Stop. Red, grey and green. Above the green of the field, against the red of the houses, and below the grey of the sky. Start. The car wove between the two pedestrians, drawing its noise between them like a steel hawser. A few seconds later the man passed the woman, grey-green merging momentarily, and seconds later the woman opened a garden gate and disappeared from the scene, leaving the man isolated on the Crescent. Silence. Then the burst of a motor bike, Rrm! Rrm! revving behind the houses, fading, to allow a thunk of the ball. A call, an echo, an empty yard. A sheet of paper captured against the wire by the wind.

  12.15 p.m. The winning goal suddenly became important, no more laughter, no more joking, everybody working. For most of the game most of the boys had been as fixed as buttons on a pinball machine, sparking into life only when the nucleus of footballers amongs them had occasionally shuttled the ball into their defined areas: mere props to the play. Now they were all playing. Both teams playing as units, and positions were taken seriously. In possession they moved and called for the ball from spaces. Out of possession they marked and tackled hard to win it back. A move provoked a counter move, which in turn determined moves made by players in other segments of the pitch. The ball was a magnet, ex
erting the strongest pull on the players nearest to it, and still strong enough to activate the players farthest away.

  12.20 p.m. Billy jump, jump, jumped on the line. ‘Score, for Christ’s sake somebody score.’ Tick tick tick tick. Sugden missed again. He’s blind, he’s bleedin’ blind. Sugden was crimson and sweating like a drayhorse, and boys began to accelerate smoothly past him, well wide of him, well clear of his scything legs and shirt-grabbing fists.

  Manchester United came under serious pressure. Sugden retreated to his own penalty area, tackling and clearing and hoping for a breakaway. But back it came, back they came, all Tibbut’s team except the goalkeeper advancing into Sugden’s half, making the pitch look as unbalanced as the 6:1 domino.

  But still Sugden held them, held them by threatening his own players into desperate heroics. But it had to come. It must.

  12.25 p.m. 26. 27. Every time Billy saved a shot he looked heartbroken. Every time he cleared the ball, he cleared it blind, giving the other side a fifty-fifty chance of possession, and every time they gained possession, Sugden threatened him with violence, while at the same time keeping his eyes on the ball and moving out to check the next advance. So that a sudden spectator would have been surprised to see Sugden rushing forward and apparently intimidating the boy on the ball.

  For one shot, coming straight to him, Billy dived, but the ball hit his legs and ricocheted round the post. Corner! Well saved, Casper. No joke. No laughter.

  It was a good corner, the ball dropping close to the penalty spot. A shot – blocked, a tackle, a scramble, falling, fouling, WHOOSH, Sugden shifted it out. ‘OUT. Get out! Get up that field!’

  Billy scraped a lump of mud up and unconsciously began to mould it in his fist, elongating it to a sausage, then rolling it to a dumpling, picking pellets from it and flicking them with his thumb, until nothing remained but a few drying flakes on his crusty palm. He scraped another lump up and began again; rolling, moulding, flicking, then he pivoted and wanged it across the goal at the posts, FLOP. It stuck, and when the next shot came towards him he dived flamboyantly and made an elaborate pretence to save it, but the ball bounced over his arms and rolled slowly into the net.

  GOAL!

  Tibbut’s team immediately abandoned the pitch and raced across the field, arms flying, cheering. Billy raced after them without even bothering to pick the ball out of the net, or look at his own team, or at Mr Sugden.

  He was slipping his jacket on when Sugden entered the changing room. Sugden watched him, then, as Billy headed for the door he stepped across and blocked his path.

  ‘In a hurry, Casper?’

  ‘Yes, Sir, I’ve to get home.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’

  Billy looked back at the bare peg and the space beneath it.

  ‘No, Sir.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Billy inspected himself, then looked up into Sugden’s face.

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  Sugden smiled at him. Stalemate. Billy looked past him, and by transferring his weight from foot to foot was able to see the door, one eyed, round each side of him. Right eye, left eye. Right eye, left.

  ‘What about the showers?’

  He nodded over Billy’s head towards the steam clouding above the partition wall at the far end of the room. Billy stopped rocking.

  ‘I’ve had one, Sir.’

  Sugden back-handed him hard across the cheek, swinging his face, and knocking him back into an avenue of clothing.

  ‘Liar!’

  ‘I have Sir! I wa’ first through! Ask anybody.’

  He stroked his cheek, his eyes brimming.

  ‘Right, I will.’

  Sugden whipped his whistle out of his tracksuit bottoms and blew a long shrill blast, which was still echoing long after the boys had come to order, and for a few seconds produced a ringing silence of its own which was audible even above the hiss of the showers, and the gurgle at the grate.

  ‘Put your hands up if you saw Casper have a shower.’

  No hands. No replies. The boys continued their activities quietly. Some were dressing, tousle-haired. Some were drying themselves on the terrace of stone tiles set before the showers. The rest, who had crowded to both ends of the partition wall, drifted back behind it and continued their shower. One boy posed Eros-like, and allowed a jet of water to play into his palm and waterfall out on to the tiles of the drying area. Most of these tiles were varnished with water, their slippery surfaces a-jiggle with the movements of the boys and the refractions from the strip lights in the ceiling. Under the walls a few tiles remained dry, their grey matt surfaces insensitive to this movement and light.

  ‘Well Casper, I thought anybody would tell me?’ Pause. ‘Purdey, did you see him under the showers?’

  ‘No, Sir.’

  ‘Ellis?’

  ‘I didn’t see him, Sir.’

  ‘Tibbut?’

  He shook his head without even bothering to look up from drying between his toes.

  ‘Do you want me to ask anybody else, Casper? – You lying rat!’

  ‘My mam says I haven’t to have a shower, Sir. I’ve got a cold.’

  ‘Let’s see your note then.’

  Smiling, he held his hand out. Billy produced nothing to place in it.

  ‘I haven’t got one, Sir.’

  ‘Well get undressed then.’

  ‘I can bring one this afternoon though.’

  ‘That’s no good, lad, I want one now. You know the school rule, don’t you? Any boy wishing to be excused Physical Education or showers must, AT THE TIME of the lesson, produce a sealed letter of explanation signed by one of his parents or legal guardian.’

  ‘O, go on, Sir, I’ve to get home.’

  ‘You can get home, Casper.’

  ‘Can I, Sir?’

  His face brightened and he started to move round Sugden towards the door. Sugden performed a little chassé, and reproduced their former positions.

  ‘As soon as you’ve had a shower.’

  ‘I’ve no towel, Sir.’

  ‘Borrow one.’

  ‘Nobody’ll lend me one.’

  ‘Well you’ll have to drip-dry then, won’t you?’

  He thought this was funny. Billy didn’t. So Sugden looked round for a more appreciative audience. But no one was listening. They faced up for a few more seconds, then Billy turned back to his peg. He undressed quickly, bending his pumps free of his heels and sliding them off without untying the laces. When he stood up the black soles of his socks stamped damp imprints on the dry floor, which developed into a haphazard set of footprints when he removed his socks and stepped around pulling his jeans down. His ankles and heels were ingrained with ancient dirt which seemed to belong to the pigmentation of his skin. His left leg sported a mud stripe, and both his knees were encrusted. The surfaces of these mobile crusts were hair-lined, and with every flexion of the knee these lines opened into frown-like furrows.

  For an instant, as he hurried into the showers, with one leg angled in running, with his dirty legs and huge rib cage moulding the skin of his white body, with his hollow cheek in profile, and the sabre of shadow emanating from the eye hole, just for a moment he resembled an old print of a child hurrying towards the final solution.

  The hot water made him gasp as though it was cold. He stood on tiptoes and raised his arms against it, the hairs on his forearms pulling the skin up to goose pimples.

  The nozzles, sprouting from parallel pipes, were arranged in a zig-zag pattern so that each one sprouted into the space between two nozzles on the opposite wall. Billy backed into the corner, his arms pressed at right angles against the adjoining walls, trying to outdistance the range of the end nozzle. Then, after a glance to map his driest route, he darted through, ducking and skidding, bouncing from wall to wall, creeping under the walls, looking up at the nozzles and twisting away from their flow into the next one, out of it, under it, through it, hi
s feet slicing the sheet of ground water into bow waves as he crashed through to the other end. Sugden was waiting for him as he turned the corner to come out.

  ‘In a hurry, Casper?’

  He closed the gap with his body as Billy tried to squeeze past him.

  ‘What’s the rush, lad?’

  ‘Can I come out, Sir?’

  He considered, while the end nozzle was playing on Billy’s back and the back of his head.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere ’til you’ve got all that mud off and had a proper wash.’

  Billy turned back into the showers and began to scour himself with his hands. The mud on his legs had blackened, and was being eroded by the incessant raining and streaming down his thighs. Rivulets of mud coursed from his knees, down the ridges of the tibia to the tiles, to be swept away and replenished with a gush as Billy swept his hands over his knees, and the mud stained his shins, and the tiles, to be swept away, to the gutter, to the grate.

  While he worked on his ankles and heels Sugden stationed three boys at one end of the showers and moved to the other end, where the controls fed into the pipes on the wall. The wheel controlling the issue was set on a short stem, and divided into eight petal-shaped segments. A thermometer was fixed to the junction of the hot and cold water pipes, its dial sliced red up to 109 F, and directly below the thermometer was a chrome lever on a round chrome base, stamped HOT. WARM. COLD. The blunt arrow was pointing to HOT. Sugden swung it back over WARM to COLD. For a few seconds there was no visible change in the temperature, and the red slice held steady, still dominating the dial. Then it began to recede, slowly at first, then swiftly, its share of the face diminishing rapidly.

  The cold water made Billy gasp. He held out his hands as though testing for rain, then ran for the end. The three guards barred the exit.

  ‘Hey up, shift! Let me out, you rotten dogs!’