Читать книгу The WAG’s Diary - Alison Kervin, Jason Leonard - Страница 9

IT HAS ARRIVED…

Saturday, 11 August—the season starts

10.30 a.m.

‘Just try to relax,’ says Mallory, examining the gleaming, silver-coloured butterflies glittering magnificently on my vibrant-pink acrylic fingernails and my matching pink toenails. She’s been painting, filing and pushing back wayward cuticles for two hours. Now we’re at the end of our morning of beautification. ‘Just sit still for fifteen minutes while the paint dries. That’s all you’ve got to do.’

I find myself nodding like a small child while Mallory packs away her things into what looks like a toolbox.

‘Can’t you find something prettier than that?’ I ask, indicating the large metal container with a stretch of my new nail.

Mallory catches sight of the butterfly wings as they flit past. She draws a giant breath and clutches her hands to her chest.

‘Be careful, Tracie,’ she says. ‘You don’t want to smudge them.’

‘But that box. It’s not very ladylike, is it? It looks like the sort of thing that you keep nails, screws and chisels in.’

Mallory smiles to herself and continues to pack everything away, managing to stop herself commenting that, increasingly, nails and screws are exactly what are needed to keep Wags like me together. ‘I’ll look for something prettier,’ she says. ‘Same time next week?’

‘Yes. I’ll need some waxing this week, too, but I’ll call you about that—my diary’s hectic. Now, would you be a darling and see yourself out?’ I offer her a heavily made-up cheek for a kiss. ‘I would come with you, but I don’t want to smudge these beautiful nails.’

‘Sure.’ Mallory smiles indulgently and heads for the door, stepping over the fluffy rug in the hallway that she says always reminds her of a dead lamb. ‘Every time I step on it I expect it to start bleating imploringly,’ she told me once, adding that when she wears her long cream coat she fears the rug might run after her, thinking she’s its mother.

I know Mallory thinks the rug’s a death trap on the shiny floor. Magda polishes the wood daily because I do like a tidy house, but I accept that it makes walking a bit tricky. I have lost count of the number of times that Mallory has put a foot on it only for it to fly away from underneath her, tipping her up and backwards and landing her on her back in a most unladylike fashion, with her legs in the air and the tools of her trade scattered liberally around the vast marble-pillared entrance hall.

I listen from the conservatory with my feet up on a cushion, cotton wool threaded through my toes and varnish still wet on my nails. No thud? Well done, Mallory! I feel like applauding. The silly girl has finally worked out that you have to step round the mat and not go galumphing over the top of it!

The door closes behind her and I know it’s time to get going. I have so much to do. My make-up needs topping up, I have to get dressed, and Doug, the driver, is coming for me at midday. I must remember to collect the car from the clamping place next week. I got a letter telling me that it’s at a vehicle recovery centre in Croydon.

It’s the pre-match lunch at 12.30 p.m. and I really can’t be late—not again. I must try to get there before pudding is served at least once this year. I ease myself off the chaise longue and place my feet carefully on the floor—walking like a duck with my toes curled up to stop them catching in the thick pile of the cream carpet.

I waddle towards the bedroom. My dressing table is neatly stacked with all the latest beauty products—lined up in descending order of size thanks to the organisational skills of my various European staff members. I attempt to push them to one side with the back of my hand, ensuring my nails don’t smudge. Christ, being a Wag is so much more difficult than people realise.

Okay, so now I have some space. I just need to sit down in front of the mirror. I place my hands flat on the dressing table and lean my weight onto them, while I hook my foot round the dressing-table stool and push it backwards. Shit! I’ve bumped my big toenail against the carved leg of the stool. Shit, shit, shit. I hop to the bed, howling as if I’ve broken my toe rather than chipped my nail, and try to examine the damage without making things worse. I feel like crying—there’s a mark right in the middle of my big toenail. There’s no way on earth I can go to the first match of the season like this! I’m just not one of those Wags who can appear in public looking like a scruff. No one would ever speak to me again, and I couldn’t bear that.

I reach for my mobile phone and dial Mallory’s number. ‘Turn round,’ I beg, tears now coursing down my face, leaving greasy tracks in my orange foundation. ‘Pleeeeease turn round straightaway. It’s an emergency.’

Outside, Mallory opens the car door and crunches across the gravel towards the house. She hasn’t left. She still has her toolbox in her hand. She confesses later that she always sits in the car for twenty minutes after visiting me before she starts the engine, because every time in the five years she’s been visiting me, I’ve called her back in near hysterics after spotting a smudge on some nail or other. ‘Don’t worry, I’m coming,’ says Mallory, as if she were talking to a four-year-old. ‘Mallory’s coming.’

I collapse onto the bed in pure relief. My shocking-pink fingernails hit the snow-white duvet and stick immediately. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.’

3.10 p.m.—the season has just started

‘Why’s he doing that?’ asks Helen.

I don’t have a clue.

‘Why did the referee blow the whistle?’ asks Helen seconds later.

I don’t have a clue.

‘Who’s winning?’

I don’t have a clue.

‘Who’s playing?’

I don’t have a clue.

‘How long did you say you’d been coming to these matches?’

Ladies and gentlemen, I have a confession to make—I know nothing about football. I’ve been coming to games since I got married a couple of years ago (sshhh) but I still don’t know what they’re all doing out there. I suspect that if I were to spend the rest of my life devoted to watching football I’d still be no more able to identify a goal-scoring opportunity than I could walk past Gucci without going in.

Someone called Trevor once tried to explain the offside rule to me by saying it was like shoe-shopping. Apparently, it’s all got something to do with the fact that you’re at the back of the shop with your husband and the shoes you want to buy are at the till. When you walk up to the counter to pay for them, if you forget to bring your bag, your husband has to bring it to you—he can’t kick it to you or you’d be offside.

‘I’d be offside? If he started kicking my handbag around, he’d be offside, out of the house, divorced, and paying an eye-watering amount of maintenance, thank you very much.’

‘No, I’m just trying to explain,’ Trevor had said. ‘He couldn’t kick your handbag.’

‘No, he bloody couldn’t!’ I was starting to grasp why offside is so important. Kick my handbag? Who would ever do that? I’d rather he kicked me, to be honest.

‘Anyway, Dean never goes shoe-shopping with me, Trev.’

‘No, but if he did—that’s how offside would work.’

‘But Dean wouldn’t come, and he’d never kick my handbag, so offside doesn’t really apply to me.’

‘But, say he did…’

‘He wouldn’t go shoe-shopping with me ever. End of story. End of offside rule.’

Trevor, in common with every other man I’ve met, never tried to explain anything about football to me again.

Helen leans over. ‘I’m confused,’ she says.

‘I’ve been confused for over a decade,’ I reply. Then I realise what I’ve confessed to. ‘Since I was about ten,’ I say quickly. ‘Yes, I’ve been confused since I was at school.’

‘Do you know what the offside rule is?’ she asks, scared now.

‘Yes,’ I whisper. ‘It’s all about getting your boyfriend to go shoe-shopping with you. But I wouldn’t if I were you.’

5.30 p.m.—the season has just got off to the worst start imaginable

‘Three-nil,’ says Suzzi, shaking her head. ‘Three-nil to them. I can’t believe it.’

‘No, it can’t be three-nil to them,’ says Helen, who has been very quiet and wearing a rather bemused expression since the offside conversation. ‘Dean scored twice, so I know we got some goals.’

I just smile and back away so I don’t have to explain. There’s very, very little that I know about football, but I do know that you have to get the ball in the right net.

‘Oh,’ I hear Helen say, when my husband’s double faux pas are explained to her by a gleeful Mindy. ‘Is that why he decided not to come out and play any more after the interval?’

‘No,’ says Mindy, her voice rising so she can be sure that I can hear her. ‘That’s because he was subbed off. You see, he wasn’t very good today. Captains never get subbed off.’

‘Oh,’ I hear Helen say as she looks around for me. She walks over. ‘Are you all right?’ she asks me.

I nod and tell her that I’m fine. Dean had an ‘off match’ but he’ll be fine soon and back on song.

‘Oh good,’ says Helen. ‘Look—I’ve got a massive favour to ask you. When are you going to write your handbook? You know—the one you said you’d write. I’ve been asked to be a promotions girl at a posh race course—you know, with horses and that. I just don’t know how I should behave there as a Wag. I don’t want to get it wrong and let my man down. I’ve also been asked to be a topless waitress at a stag party that’s being held in a private room at the opera. I’ve never been to such posh places before, Tracie. You have to help me.’

‘The first thing is not to worry,’ I tell her. Then I promise to think about this difficult dilemma and let her have my thoughts. ‘One thing I want you to remember, though, is that you can take a Wag out of a football club, but you can’t take the football club out of a Wag. Not a true Wag. You need to be clear about who you are, Helen, even if you’re surrounded by posh people.’

‘That’s great advice, Trace,’ she says. ‘I’ll try to remember that.’

‘Yes, always remember that,’ I declare, and I promise that I’ll have a proper think about her tricky situation. ‘Now, I must find my husband.’

7 p.m.

Dean has never looked sadder or more dejected than he does this evening. We’re sitting in the players’ bar with all the guys and their Wags, but my Deany is too distressed to get involved with anyone. His head has dropped right forward and his chin is resting on his chest, while his big blue eyes are shutting, trying to block out the pain and misery…the sheer horror of what happened today. His hands lay over his heart and I watch his shoulders start to heave forwards gently. He’s silently sobbing inside. I drop to my knees next to him, appalled that this strong man is crumbling before me.

I’m devastated that this should happen to him—my beautiful, talented husband. I see his hands rubbing his chest, as if trying to mend his broken heart. Then his shoulders heave again. He’s obviously going to start crying. I don’t think I can bear it.

He throws his head back and, just as I think he might start wailing in pain and misery, he emits the loudest, most disgusting belch I’ve ever heard.

‘Oooo, that’s better,’ he declares, sitting up properly and smiling at me. ‘Way too much lager.’