Читать книгу Whatever Happened to Billy Parks - Gareth Roberts - Страница 12

Two days later I find Gerry Higgs waiting by the lift at the bottom of my building. He’s got a rather odd, pleased expression across his face. I’m wary, but, I have to admit, intrigued by the old duffer.

‘Hello, Billy,’ he says.

‘Mr Higgs,’ I say, ‘what brings you to these salubrious parts?’

His face breaks out into his most sinister smile. ‘You, of course, Billy,’ he says.

Of course.

‘It’s good news,’ he adds, ‘the Council of Football Immortals have said that you can watch one of their plenary sessions.’

‘Oh,’ I say, ‘that is good news.’ Though in reality I haven’t got the faintest idea what he’s talking about; what the fuck is a plenary session?

‘Actually, I was just off to the bookie’s,’ I tell him and he smiles at me again.

‘Plenty of time for that, old son,’ he says. ‘Come on.’

I follow him like a kitten, and we get into a cab on the High Street.

‘Where are we going?’ I ask him.

‘Lancaster Gate, of course,’ he says.

Of course.

I tell the cab driver. He doesn’t recognise me.

Lancaster Gate, once home of the Football Association. We get out of the cab and I follow Gerry Higgs around to the back of a massive Georgian town house; one of those ones that doesn’t look that big from the outside, but inside is like a fucking Tardis with ballrooms and banqueting suites and all that. We go through a black back door that leads to a well-lit corridor. On the wall are pictures of the greats: Steve Bloomer, the original football superstar, standing upright and handsome with his hair parted like the Dead Sea. Then Dixie Dean, rising to power in a header. Dixie, what a man, bless him, I met him once at a charity do at Goodison Park just before he died. He’d had his legs amputated, the poor bastard; I mean, how cruel is that, taking away the legs and feet of the man who once scored sixty goals in a single season? Then there’s Duncan Edwards, who died in Munich, running on to the pitch all muscle and power knowing that no fucker was going to get the better of him, and Frank Swift, back arched and diving to tip a volley over the crossbar, come to think of it he died in Munich as well, and others, all captured in their prime, beautiful men, athletes, captured before those most horrible devious rotters of all, time and fate, got each and every one of them. Bang, bang, bang, bang.

There are no pictures of me.

At the end of the corridor, Gerry Higgs turns and puts his finger to his lips. ‘Come on,’ he whispers, and he opens a door that leads to a small room with a window in it; through the window I can see another room in which sit a collection of men around three tables that are arranged in a U-shape: I look closer.

Fuck me.

I feel my whole body move towards the men, my eyes wide, bursting out of my skull. I turn to Gerry Higgs, mouth open in wide-eyed-child-like-cor-blimey astonishment.

‘Who are they?’ I ask. But I know.

‘You know who they are,’ says Gerry, grinning like a man who’s just given someone the best Christmas present they’ll ever have and knows it.

‘It can’t be,’ I say and Gerry Higgs just nods at me, the grin remaining on his slobbering lips.

I turn to look at the three tables again. At the top table sits Sir Alf Ramsey. Then at the table to his right is Sir Matt Busby and next to him Bill Shankly, and across from them, scowling at each other are Don Revie and Brian Clough.

‘That’s the Council of Football Immortals, Billy,’ says Gerry Higgs. ‘I told you, didn’t I – the greatest geniuses known to the game of football.’

‘But, Gerry,’ I say, ‘they’re all dead. I mean, I even went to Sir Alf’s funeral.’

Gerry Higgs looks at me like I’m a silly little boy. ‘Billy,’ he says, ‘Billy, Billy, Billy, these men aren’t dead. Men like this never die, they live on and on, way beyond the lifespan of mere mortals. That’s why they’re legends, old son. Proper legends. Not the five-minute wonders you get today.’

I stutter: ‘Gerry, I don’t understand.’ And Gerry Higgs looks at me: ‘Don’t worry,’ he says, ‘for now, just listen. You see, Billy, if you play your cards right, they’re going to make you immortal too.’

I try to listen. But I can’t hear them. I can see that Brian Clough is talking, he is animated and Brylcreemed in a green sports jacket; I see Sir Alf, just as I remember him, quiet and controlled, neat and tidy in his England blazer; I see Shanks in his red shirt and matching tie and Don Revie, looking glum with his thick shredded-wheat sideburns; and Sir Matt, blimey Sir Matt Busby, nonplussed and immaculate. I see them all, and I wonder what on earth is going on. Why are they here? Why am I here?

Gerry Higgs reads my mind. ‘Just listen, Billy,’ he whispers quietly but firmly. So I do. And now, suddenly I can hear them as well as see them. Cloughie is in full swing.

‘No, Don,’ he says in that piercing nasal voice, ‘the game of football is not simply about winning, it’s about winning properly, it’s about playing the game how it was supposed to be played. And kicking and cheating is not how the game is supposed to be played.’

Don Revie blusters a response: ‘Brian, I’m not rising to that, and the reason I’m not rising to that is two league titles, the FA Cup, a Cup Winners’ Cup, two Inter-Cities Fairs Cups and the League bloody Cup, that’s why.’

The other three groan. ‘Mr Revie,’ says Sir Alf, ‘Mr Clough. Please, this isn’t getting us any further. You both know the issue that we are here to discuss today.’

‘Well, we know exactly where you stand, Alf,’ says Brian Clough, curtly.

‘Thank you, Brian,’ says Sir Alf with a school teacher’s sarcasm before adding, ‘Sir Matt, I believe we haven’t heard from you on the question before us – what takes precedence: winning or entertaining, style or results.’

Sir Matt thinks for a second, his lips turning over. ‘Well,’ he says in his quiet, Glaswegian drawl, ‘no one ever remembers the losers do they? But if you can manage both to entertain and win, then you’re not far off.’

Shanks joins in, in his more abrasive Glaswegian drawl: ‘The question isn’t about winning or entertaining, I mean we’re not clowns or circus horses; it’s about making the working man who pays his money on a Saturday afternoon happy and proud, so that when he goes back to the factory or the shop floor on the Monday, he feels valuable, vindicated.’

‘Aye,’ says Sir Matt, ‘but in that pursuit we can’t allow football to lose its charm can we?’

I turn to Gerry Higgs. ‘What are they talking about?’ I say. But what I really want to know is what it all has to do with me.

‘They’re asking themselves the fundamental question, Billy,’ says Gerry Higgs. ‘Why are we here? Who should we aspire to be? The poor bastard who lives his life according to the rules, makes sure he gets by, pays his taxes, works nine to five and remembers everyone’s birthdays, or should we aim to be a little bit different to that, live according to our aspirations in one great big nihilistic fantasy? Because after all, we’re not here for very long are we?’

‘Well,’ I say nervously, ‘I suppose we all want to be a bit different, don’t we?’

‘Yes, Billy, old son.’ And he looks at me, and I know that he’s wondering how much of this I understand.

He looks back at the Council of Football Immortals.

‘It sounds so easy when you hear Mr Clough talk, doesn’t it?’ he continues, ‘but sometimes if you’re a bit different, a bit cavalier, you end up hurting the people who love you most. Isn’t that right?’

I shrug. I think I know what he’s trying to say, and I’m not sure I like it. He stares and his eyes shine like cold steel and I realise that he isn’t a mad old duffer after all, he’s actually some kind of genius. I avert my eyes and he continues: ‘Perhaps Mr Shankly’s right,’ he says. ‘You’ve got to make people proud, you’ve got to achieve something worthwhile.’

I feel my face scrunch up in confusion.

‘But what’s all that got to do with me, Gerry?’

‘Well, Billy, you see, Sir Alf has been given a chance to put something right.’

‘What?’ I glance back through the window again at the five men.

‘Poland, Wembley, October 1973.’

‘What?’

‘You must remember that night, Billy?’

‘Of course,’ I say. ‘I was sat freezing my bollocks off watching the Polish keeper put us out of the World Cup.’

‘That’s right, Billy, Jan Tomaszewski. The Clown who broke our hearts.’

I nod. Though, if I’m being honest, I don’t remember that much about the game, only Norman Hunter’s grim face and Sir Alf’s desperation in the changing room afterwards.

‘Well,’ continues Gerry. ‘It shouldn’t have happened like that: the Polish keeper kept one or two out that night that he shouldn’t, that he wasn’t meant to, and Sir Alf’s going to have the chance to change things.’

I was now utterly, utterly confused and starting to stutter like an imbecile. ‘What? How? How will that work? That was forty years ago.’

‘The Service has given him a chance to revisit ten minutes of that night and make one change.’ He tells me, and again, the word Service causes a quick pain to my temple.

‘What will he change?’ I ask.

Gerry puts his arm gently around my shoulders and ushers me back towards the window through which we could see the five legends arguing about life and football.

‘He brought on Kevin Hector,’ he says quietly.

I look up at him.

‘And as everyone knows, Billy, Kevin Hector missed the chance to score the winner.’

I stare incredulously as Gerry Higgs ruefully shakes his head: ‘It was a bloody sitter.’

He draws his breath in through his teeth, before continuing: ‘Well, now, thanks to the Service, Sir Alf’s got the chance to put that right.’

Suddenly, like a lovely spring morning, the fog of confusion lifts, the penny drops into the slot and I start to understand. ‘He could have brought me on,’ I say. ‘Me. I was in the squad for that game. I was on the bench. I was sat by Bobby Moore, he could have brought me on, not Kevin Hector.’

Gerry Higgs smiles. ‘That’s right,’ he says, ‘he could have brought you on; but would you have put it away, Billy?’

I nod, my mouth open, ‘Oh yeah, every time, every bloody time, Gerry, you know that. You remember, Gerry? Don’t you?’

He smiles again. ‘Well, you might get that chance, son.’

‘What do you mean?’ I am racing with excitement now; what does he mean I might have the chance? How could that happen? How could I have the chance? I feel my heart beating against my chest.

‘How Gerry?’ I turn to him. ‘How?’ I repeat, forcefully, and the five men in the other room all turn as one and look in still silence.

‘The Service can grant you that,’ he says, then pauses, ‘just as long as Sir Alf picks you, that is.’

‘Sir Alf,’ I state. This isn’t good, Sir Alf hates me: he once called me a lazy useless showboating pony. ‘Sir Alf won’t pick me,’ I say.

‘Probably not,’ says Gerry, ‘but, lucky for you, it’s not just up to him; he’s got Mr Clough, Mr Revie, Mr Shankly and Sir Matt Busby to help him.’

Actually, this isn’t much better.

‘Don’t look so glum,’ says Gerry, ‘look on the bright side, you’ve made the last two.’

‘Two?’

‘Yes,’ says Gerry, then he pauses, ‘not sure I’m supposed to tell you this, Billy. The Council of Football Immortals has decided that Sir Alf can bring on you or Kevin Keegan. So that’s what they’ve got to decide: you or Kevin.’

I take a slow intake of breath, and then sigh.

‘Alright,’ I say, ‘so what happens next?’

‘You just sit and wait until you’re called.’

‘Called?’

‘Yes, Billy, it’s a big thing this; changing history can’t be done lightly: the Council will want to meet you.’

‘What? Like an interview? Or a trial? Bloody hell! I haven’t kicked a ball in years.’

‘Steady on, Billy, I wouldn’t call it an interview, more a little chat. You won’t have to bring your boots. And anyway, you’ve no need to worry, you’re Billy Parks, aren’t you?’

I am not so sure. My cheeks puff out breath at the thought of it all. ‘And what happens then?’ I ask. ‘What happens if the Council picks me?’

Gerry’s face breaks into a big smile revealing yellow chipped teeth. He claps me on the shoulder. ‘Then, old son, everything changes, you get the chance to put everything right. You get the chance to make everything bad that’s happened in the last thirty- odd years disappear.’ He pauses again, adding slowly, ‘If, of course, you manage to put the ball in the back of the Polish net.’