The Scout or Welcome to South Bermondsey

"Why aren't you with our people?" I was surprised, because usually Johnny would not miss an occasion to celebrate our success with the blokes, especially since this season we didn’t have enough special successes, only once or twice.

"Balls to them!" Johnny laughed. "We have a cup match this Tuesday, you know. That means that the victory will be celebrated in old non-alcoholic beer style. I'm a little old for that, you know. I want to get pissed."

"I am not promising that you will get plastered, but maybe a little tipsy. We’re just too close to home."

"I’ll leave my car here, then. We’ll take yours."

"Hop in then."

We then took off and then left my car at my place.

"Hell, Alex, I've always envied you," Johnny admitted. "If the old folks had left me a house like this," he gestured respectfully at the front of my house on Court-Road, "I'd be fucking sitting in our club."

"Johnny, do me a favour and don't give me a bunch of bollocks," I said, picking up on his joking tone, "even if you'd inherited the palace at Eltham, you'd still have been pounding the doors of our base and begging to be allowed into the locker room with our incompetent players."

"I guess you’re probably right." he answered with a strange look on his mug, a mixture of pride mixed with resignation.

"There's a great pub around the corner. It’s cheap and the food is tasty and they have a serious selection of ales, whiskeys and everything that you love to pour down your gullet. There's one problem though, on Fridays and Saturdays there's always a bunch of wankers from the Royal Blackheath Club who hang out there, you know, with golf clubs and caps, all of whom think they're at minimum Tiger Woods, but they drink whiskey like Vinnie Jones."

"Good company," Johnny laughed, "Definitely better than our gym students."

"Then let's go before my wife catches me or we’ll have to sit and have tea and biscuits instead of whiskey."

Since it was Saturday night the pub was full of people. Some students were downing drinks at the bar and there were a few local pensioners sipping ale with great decorum at tables near the windows. I therefore had to say hello a couple of times.

Johnny and I took an empty table in the corner and he ordered four pints straight off.

"Well, down the hatch!" he downed half a pint like a vacuum cleaner sucking air.

"So, what happened?" I stared at him in surprise.

"What do you mean?"

I put my glass down on the table and said, "I know you pretty well. If you start out like that, it's for a reason."

"Hmmm… this is boring…" he said and finished his ale.

"Come on, what's up? For once we won and were already five points clear of the relegation zone. But you don't seem yourself."

"Five points!" Johnny said and started to down the second pint.

It wouldn't last long at this rate, I thought.

"Look, Alex," he said, suddenly looking at me very seriously and as if with regret, "do you remember when we played the Cup match last year against Fulham?"

"Well yeah, I remember. How could I not remember? We left the Cup playoffs like a champagne cork, with a whoosh, and so what?"

"Do you remember the conversation we had after that?"

"With the Big Boss? Yeah I remember."

"Do you know what happened after that?"

"Well, apparently the old man was hanging by a thread…"

"Exactly, by a thread! And our wankers found out and then they all got together and gave away the series."

"And so what?" I watched Johnny pick up a mug again. "Hey, that's my ale!"

"So what?" he waved it off. "Just a minute. Hey barman!" He waved his big hand at the bartender. "Be a friend and give us some service!"

"So what Johnny did you come here because you want to get pissed or tell me something?"

"Tell you, tell you. And so, after that conversation, I was pulled into the inner sanctum…"

I didn't want to help him or support him in any way, so once he started, I just let him talk.

"So then what did the Big Boss offer me? …Or rather, not really offer but you could say he even consulted with me…" He hesitated, and I sat and waited. "Well, anyway, he suggested to me, because we were stuck in such a tight spot and there was no opening in sight, that we think about replacing our Harris and that I become the general manager… Something like that."

"And well? So what did you say?"

"Me?" He didn't seem to have expected the question. "I didn't know what to say at the time. And then that episode happened and everything seemed to get better… and then about two weeks ago I was asked again what I thought about the fact that… well, about whether I might need to take the old man's place before the end of the season."

"Fucking wankers!" I knocked over my glass and asked him, "Did you talk to the old man?"

"Bloody hell no Alex! No! I didn't tell him!"

"I hope you didn’t tell the boys!"

"What are you nuts? Who do you think I am?!"

"All right, all right!" The bartender's assistant, a young bloke with spider web tattoos on both elbows, brought us more of the same drinks and I ordered a whiskey.

"So what do you think about all of it Johnny? By the way, what did you say to the offer?"

"What could I say to them? You know what a mess our old man got me out of…"

"What about them?" I asked.

"What about them? They said think carefully, Mr. Martin. Such offers are not often given."

"Not often…"

"That's just it…"

We sat in silence for a while. The whiskey was nice, so I ordered more.

"Come on, Johnny. If you want my advice," I put down my glass and looked at him, "if I were you, I'd go talk to the Big Boss again. Explain to him that you have to tell Harris everything otherwise you'll feel like an wanker. I'm sure the Big Boss will understand everything."