Ah, his lovely wife.
Rob sighed and took a final mouthful from his bottle as he recalled both her words and the tone in which they had been delivered. He’d been shocked at first, now he was just pissed off.
It was alright for her. She’d had all day, every day to adjust to their new circumstances - and clearly, had done a decent job of it. But Rob had barely been able to find the time to breathe, let alone go out splashing the cash around, as every second of his day was consumed with City business. Business he had never even wanted and certainly didn’t enjoy. How could she not appreciate that? Instead, all she ever did was give him grief.
Sometimes, usually on his way home from George Park, Rob had even wondered if he actually liked the woman Jane had become. She was so hard and quite cold toward him these days, far removed from that woman he’d fallen in love with.
Yet, angry though he was, Rob had to grudgingly admit that maybe she had a point and that maybe some Rob time was just what he needed. Time to adjust, spend some money, buy the Harley or the hot-rod he’d always wanted. Maybe he also needed to make some time to spend with Jane. Quality time. They hadn’t had a proper night out for months, as every time they’d tried it, he’d ended up embroiled in an argument with some irate City fan.
The trouble was, when? Since she’d met up with Vicky they’d barely had a night in together. And while for most of the time he’d been quite happy to chill out at home after a manic day at City, every so often he’d wanted nothing more than to curl up on the sofa with his wife. Yet on the rare occasions they had actually both been home, all they’d done is argue about something or other. Rob couldn’t even remember the last time Jane had actually asked him how his day had been.
As he was pondering this, Joanne suddenly sprang into his mind and Rob was hit with a sudden pang of guilt. She hadn’t come back to work after storming out and Rob had been quite stunned to see her so upset, given that she’d never exhibited any emotion other than anger since he’d known her.
She might be a grumpy cow and made his life a misery on occasions, but without her Rob would be lost, and he knew it. For no matter what was going on, she’d always maintained a calm efficiency, even though he clearly got on her tits almost constantly.
Maybe it was time for some gesture or other. Not as grand as bringing Webber back from United obviously, there was no chance of that happening, but something else. A present perhaps? Well it was almost Christmas. The question was what? After all, his ability for picking the wrong gift was legendary.
For a second Rob considered asking Jane to buy something for her, but just as quickly dismissed the idea. Even he had noticed that there was frostiness between the two women - and the last thing he needed was his wife employing her vindictive streak to extract revenge and make him look even more heartless and stupid than Joanne already thought he was.
Rob was still mulling over his predicament when mention of his name dragged him back to reality and he focused on the TV, where a group of City fans were moaning about the sale of their keeper.
He grabbed the remote and after winding the item back to the beginning, took a mouthful from his bottle and settled back to watch.
Chapter Thirty One
Jane stared through the champagne-induced haze at the cup of steaming hot fluid Rob had placed in front of her. It could be tea or coffee, she didn’t care. The state she was in, there was no way any of it was entering her body.
‘Good night then?’
She glanced up at her husband who was leaning against the kitchen island munching on a slice of peanut butter on toast. The tone of his voice and the expression on his face spoke volumes. Not that she blamed him. After all, she’d been standing where he was a thousand times - and a thousand times she’d given him grief for coming downstairs in a state after a night on the lash.
‘Sorry,’ was all she could muster.
‘Forget it,’ said Rob as he pushed himself upright. ‘Just don’t drive today, OK? The last thing we need is you getting done and losing your licence. See you later.’
Jane smiled weakly as he kissed her on the top of the head and watched as he walked from the kitchen. Only once she heard the front door close did she relax. Although under the circumstances, relax was entirely the wrong word.
Not for the first time that morning, she wondered what the bloody hell she’d done.
Rob sat in his car and stared at the back of the taxi in front. Unusually for him, despite the fact that they had barely moved for five minutes, he was quite calm. In fact he was glad of the peace and quiet, for it was giving him the time to mull over what was going on at home.
Although delighted – if not a little jealous - that Jane had Vicky to keep her occupied, he was becoming increasingly concerned at the amount of alcohol she was consuming. She’d never been much of a drinker, but these days it seemed as if she was off her face at least once a week. The problem was that he had no idea how best to broach the subject with her. Criticism was one thing she didn’t take kindly at the best of times and something like this was bound to cause friction - the last thing he needed any more of.
Rob sighed as he eased the Bentley forward and followed the taxi another few car lengths before pulling to a halt.
Maybe he should talk to Vicky. After all, as she’d told him, she’d been there and done it, so if anyone understood, she would. Then again, if she wasn’t all of the problem, she was certainly half of it.
His thoughts suddenly returned to the previous night and in particular the idea that he and Jane should spend more time together. There must be some way that he could work some time off. After all, he was the boss. The only problem was that he had to be there for every game and with the Christmas period rammed and no sign of any snow, the likelihood of a weekend off was remote. Besides, if he wasn’t at City, he’d certainly be at United. But there was no reason why he shouldn’t take time off during the week. He’d certainly earned it. Maybe that was the answer.
Relieved to have reached some kind of conclusion and formulated a plan of sorts, Rob suddenly became irritated at being stuck in traffic and began to scan the road ahead for some kind of reason for the hold-up. However, as he did so, something familiar caught his eye. He stared at it for a second and then sounded his horn. Almost instantly, the person sitting in the back of the taxi turned to look and Rob smiled as he recognised his secretary’s instantly embarrassed face.
He grinned back at her and then gestured for her to join him. Not surprisingly, Joanne shook her head - but he persisted and eventually, she settled into the passenger seat just as the traffic finally began to move.
‘You are going to work, I take it?’ Rob asked, suddenly aware that she might not have been going to work at all.
‘Yes,’ she replied frostily.
‘Then you’re late,’ joked Rob in an effort to break the ice. It didn’t work. ‘So where’s your car?’
‘It wouldn’t start again. Something electrical, my brother says.’
‘Oh. So is he fixing it?’
‘No, he’s bloody useless. I need a new one really but like everything it comes down to money. Well, for some of us anyway.’
Rob ignored the dig but suddenly realised that even after working together for months, he knew little or nothing about his secretary. He didn’t even know if she was married or not. Mind you, judging by the expression on her face, she didn’t look predisposed to talk that much. Especially not to him. And besides, small talk wasn’t exactly his forte.
They drove along in silence for a few minutes and then Rob suddenly sat up. A smile spread wide across his face. He pulled out his mobile phone and held it out.
‘Do me a favour, call the office and tell them we’re going to be late. I’ve got an errand to run.’
Despite feeling a hundred times better than she’d felt that morning on account of a day spent first vomiting then sleeping, Jane’s head was still spinning and throbbing in equal measures.
This, in part, was why she was strugg
ling to not only take in what her husband had just told her, but to work out how to react to it. She was, quite simply poleaxed.
‘You brought her a what?’
‘I brought her a car,’ said Rob matter-of-factly. ‘Not a new one mind. Jamie did me a deal.’
‘So how much?’ she asked incredulously.
‘Two and a half grand. He got it in part-exchange and wanted it out the way.’
‘Oh that’s OK then,’ said Jane in a tone which suggested that it wasn’t OK at all. ‘And just out of curiosity,’ she continued, ‘why did you spend two and half thousand pounds of our money on a car for your secretary?’
Rob smiled to himself. He’d known that she would react exactly like that, since sarcasm had always been her chosen weapon of choice and he’d spent much of the day formulating a suitable response - one which might not answer any of her questions, but which instead made a very strong statement.
It had actually been a really nice day and he’d felt more relaxed than he had for a long time. After his pondering the previous night, the idea to simply replace Joanne’s car had been inspirational and thankfully Jamie (who he had noticed had had no qualms about selling a car to a City fan, despite his frequent claims to the contrary) had had the perfect motor on his lot.
She’d instantly refused it of course, but Rob had insisted on the basis that it was both a thank you for all her help as well as a cast iron way of ensuring she wouldn’t quit. After all, as he had joked, if she ever left he’d simply take the car back and she’d be right in the shit.
With that she had reluctantly accepted and for the first time since he’d known her, he’d heard her laugh. The kind of laugh only someone who has just had a massive weight lifted off their shoulders can give.
Afterwards, as they’d waited for Jamie to sort out the paperwork, the two of them had sat in a coffee house and talked, and Rob had actually got to learn quite a bit about the woman he’d been working closely with for months. Some of it had quite shocked him but he’d been touched by the trust she’d placed in him.
He had also learned a lot from her about his Uncle who it turned out and much to Rob’s amusement, had been something of a lady’s man. He’d noticed something of a glint in Joanne’s eye as she’d been talking about him and had even wondered if they’d had more than a working relationship at some point back in the day, discretion being the only thing that stopped him probing any further.
‘Well? Are you going to answer me or what?’
Rob turned both his attention and his gaze to his wife, who was now in full lowered eyelid mode. He smiled warmly in response. ‘Because I wanted to. So I did.’
‘And you didn’t think to ask me first?’ Jane replied after a suitable pause for effect.
‘Did you ask me when you spent almost a month’s wages on a handbag?’
‘That’s different,’ Jane answered dismissively. Or was it defensively?
‘No it isn’t. It’s exactly the same, an impulse thing. And as you said the other day, half the money is mine - so if you’re going to get petty, then feel free to take it out of my half. Now,’ continued Rob, ‘I’m bloody starving. What d’you fancy to eat?’
Jane sat on the sofa staring at the television, but not really watching it. Although her headache had eased somewhat, her brain was still spinning with the events of the past few hours.
Normally, she would have been furious with Rob for spending any money on another woman of any description, let alone one she disliked. And however anyone looked at it, two and a half thousand pounds was still a lot of money, particularly when in all their years of marriage, her husband had rarely arrived home with so much as a bouquet of garage forecourt roses for her - and even then it had only been because he’d done something more stupid than usual. Clearly there was more to this than met her eye but quite what that might be, Jane didn’t want to think. Nor could she ask, given that she’d allowed him to take the moral high ground upon which he was now seemingly sitting pretty.
But this wasn’t a normal scenario. Indeed, Jane was actually relieved that Rob hadn’t gone to George Park until late in the day because it had obviously given her time. Not to wonder about what she’d done, but what she was going to do. The problem facing her was that she had absolutely no idea.
Chapter Thirty Two
Rob glanced alternately at the summary of the City balance sheet and the latest printout of the league table. He felt quite pleased with himself.
Of the two, the league had always been his primary concern as the playing side of things was almost totally out of his control. However, Gary had been doing a sterling job and as things stood, with half the season gone and no sign of a major collapse, twelfth in the table was certainly more than good enough. Points wise, which was what really mattered, they were well on target.
Financially, things were even better, as barring a major catastrophe along the lines of an earthquake or a typhoon tearing the ground apart – two things he had ironically spent most of his life wishing for - he was on safe ground already. The sale of Webber to United as well as the increased advertising revenue had seen to that. The situation had been helped by the fact that pretty much every game had been sold out, on account of the Rob versus scummers pre-game and half time entertainment adding an extra bite to each occasion.
If he did have one concern it was on the terraces, as things were getting a little too comfortable for the City fans. If anything, they were actually having more fun than ever because they’d had the added attraction of abusing their chairman - a point which was not lost on the United support, including his father and his so-called mates, who almost constantly attacked Rob for his seemingly ongoing failure to fulfil on his pledge to make their local rivals’ season a miserable one.
They were right of course, and Rob knew that better than anyone. The trouble is that he’d been so wrapped up in everything else he’d had to put that side of things on the back burner. Maybe now the time was right to address it. The problem was, how?
Despite his loathing of all things scummer, even Rob realised that having made it past the halfway point of his task, it would be foolish to do anything which might put success at risk and so the playing side of things was totally off limits. Similarly, with the admin staff at the ground seemingly settled into a routine - although with things going reasonably well and their future assured either way, thanks to the terms stipulated in the will, why wouldn’t they? - it would be folly to alienate them again. Indeed, so smoothly had things become that Rob had actually scaled down his time at the club to three days a week plus match days. Instead, he’d taken to spending time at the distribution company learning the ropes and playing golf, a sport he had always dismissed as both elitist and tedious in the extreme but which ironically, he was quite enjoying because it was one of the few places where he was actually able to escape from the madness of George Park.
The fans however, were another thing entirely. They after all, had always been central to his thinking and as far as he was concerned, they were fair game. However, reluctant though he was to admit it, he couldn't actually think of anything to do to them which would cause them any angst.
After all, he’d changed the shirts, their theme tune, closed the supporters’ club and banned the fanzine editor within the first few weeks of his arrival, but they had merely seen this as the opening salvoes in a season-long war and had carried on regardless. Much as he would have done. They had even launched a new fanzine, amusingly entitled The Pie Eating Ponce, which was little more than a succession of jokes and abuse at his expense.
The two things that he had really wanted to do, because it really would have pissed them off, had been to switch the home and away ends and ban the sale of tickets for away games - but much to his annoyance, both had been blocked by the police on public order and safety grounds.
Rob sighed and settled back into his chair. For the first time in a long while he felt impotent. There was seemingly little or nothing he could do, which meant that
unless he could come up with something clever, he was going to have to bite the bullet and simply take the inevitable flak for the rest of the season. Not just at City, but from his mates at United - and knowing them as he did, he was fairly sure that the abuse they gave him would continue for the rest of his supporting life.
Still, at the end of the day, six million quid wasn't that bad a trade-off. He could always buy himself a private box.
A knock on the door dragged him back from his reverie and Rob made an effort to look busy as the door swung open. He was surprised, if not a little shocked, to see that it was Joanne who entered.
‘Bloody hell, you knocked. That’s a first.’
She placed a cup of coffee on the desk and stood awkwardly, almost nervously, as Rob stared at it in feigned shock. For the first time ever, the steam wasn't emanating from a City mug.
‘Now I know it’s serious,’ he said. ‘What’s wrong? The car's not broken down has it? Or is tonight’s game cancelled. Bollocks, that’s all I bloody-’‘No,’ she interrupted.
‘Oh shit. You're not quitting are you?’‘No. But I do have to tell you something. I think it would be better coming from me. You’ll only find out from someone else anyway.‘
The unusual, almost nervous tone in her voice was infectious and Rob suddenly felt extremely anxious.
‘You best sit down then. This sounds ominous.’
Joanne sat, clasped her hands together and began speaking. Barely fifteen minutes later, Rob was in his Bentley speeding away from the ground.
Jane was sitting in the kitchen staring into a cup of tea when she heard the front door open. Instinctively she knew that something was wrong, but hoped upon hope that it wasn’t what she had spent the past week dreading. The look on Rob’s face as he entered the kitchen however, proved that it was exactly that. He wasn’t angry, just broken. It was a look she’d seen before, many years ago.