The Only Game

‘Jimmy. How are you? It’s good to see you. Still running the club?’

‘Such as it is. Tell you what, Jane, we could do with a few young prospects like you. Remember the Junior AA? By God, you shifted that day! I thought, another two, three years, next Olympics maybe … Anyway, what are you doing now? You went to PE college, didn’t you?’

‘That’s right. But I didn’t take to teaching. I worked as a recreation officer with a cruise firm for a while, but now I’m back on the market. Any ideas?’

A shrewd examination. ‘Still in good shape? You look it. PE qualifications? Aerobics, physiotherapy, that kind of thing?’

‘I did a bit on the liners. And I specialized in sports injuries at college. Why?’

‘Chum of mine, George Granger, has started a health centre and I know he’s looking for qualified staff. Trouble is, it’s down in Romchurch, just outside London, so it won’t be cheap living and I doubt if he’ll be paying a fortune.’

‘Romchurch in Essex? I did my training in Essex, near Basildon, not too far away …’

The returning ghost clings to the familiar …

‘Jimmy, can you give me a number? Essex would suit me very well.’

‘Going?’ said Mrs Maguire. ‘But you’ve been here no time at all.’

‘Nearly a month. It’s long enough.’

‘This job. I thought you said you weren’t starting till the beginning of September?’

‘I’ve got things to do, arrangements to make.’

‘About Oliver, you mean?’

‘About Noll. Yes. And other things.’

‘I don’t see how you’re going to be able to work and look after him. He’ll be a tie. You’re not settled inside yourself yet, I can see that. Why don’t you leave him here till you see how things work out?’

‘Leave him with you, you mean?’

‘No need to sound so disbelieving. I’ve got used to him. He’s a bit on the spoilt side, maybe, but that’s the Yank way, and he’s young enough not to have suffered any lasting damage. His old gran will soon lick him into shape …’

‘No way!’

‘Well, it’s a fair offer and for the child’s sake, I’ll let it stand. Remember that when things start going wrong for you, as they surely will. It’s not your fault, you take after your da, God rest his soul, and like him, you’re proud and stubborn, never admitting you’re in the wrong, always looking for someone else to blame …’

‘How dare you! You of all people, after what you did to him and me …’

‘There you go. What was it I just said? Well, blame me all you like, my girl, but remember, there’ll be no excuse for blaming little Oliver, not when he’s got a good home waiting for him here.’

She left the room, closing the door firmly behind her.

Jane stood for half a minute, perfectly still. She forced herself to relax, but when she looked down she saw that her hands were still tightly balled into fists. Slowly, finger by finger, she opened them wide.

Her power over me is finished, she told herself. The power of family, the power of priests. It’s all in the past, everything is in the past, my mistakes, other people’s mistakes. The future is mine to make it what I will. Mine and Noll’s. Together.

Nothing will make me leave him here.

I’d rather …

Nothing!

2 (#ulink_55095320-a2b2-580f-a20f-06b9e740fa88)

It was still raining when Jane Maguire came out of the pub.

She’d had three gin-and-tonics and a packet of crisps which she’d only bought because the barman had said, ‘You OK, darling?’ as she ordered the third gin, as if buying something to eat changed her from a woman with a problem to a working girl on her lunch break.

Coatless, she ran across the car park, feeling as light and easy as when she’d been fourteen and one of the best sprint prospects in England. She hadn’t bothered to lock the car. Once inside, only a madman would steal it. There were spoors of rain down the windows where the sealing had perished, and the carpet was soggy through the rust holes in the floor.

But at least it started first time. There was always something to be grateful for, as her mother used to say. Including presumably slaps across the leg.

She didn’t want to think about that, not after this morning.

She drove steadily, blanking out past and future. Dead on three, she turned into Charnwood Grove. Perhaps once the narrow street had been lined with trees, but now only a few lamp posts rose between the twin terraces of big bayed Edwardian villas confronting each other so self-importantly, like wise guardians of the poor … where had that phrase popped up from? It was hardly apt, especially at this time of day. Until the arrival of her mobile rust bucket, there was little sign of poverty outside Number Twenty-nine which housed the Vestey Kindergarten. Mercs, BMWs and Audis gleamed and purred here, most of them newish and many, she guessed, second cars. Fathers sometimes figured in the morning drop, but the afternoon pick-up was entirely female.

As she went up the steps a couple of women, expensively wrapped against the rain, looked at her strangely. Nearly three months of twice daily encounters hadn’t got her past the nodding stage with any of them. She didn’t blame them. People who drove cars like theirs steered clear of people who drove cars like hers – in every sense! She paused in the doorway to confirm their wisdom by shaking the raindrops out of her hair, then stepped inside.

Mrs Vestey did her best with beeswax polish and ozone-friendly aerosols, but on a wet day it was beyond even her powers to stop the school from smelling like a school. As usual she was standing by the entrance to the cloakroom, in which a melee of staff and mothers were preparing the youngsters for the perilous passage from front door to kerb. She was a tall, dark woman with a slightly hooked nose and long white teeth which she flashed in a welcoming smile as she said, ‘Hello, Mrs Maguire. No problems, I hope?’

‘No,’ said Jane harshly.

‘Oh, good. I feared that you might be going to tell me that the little upset had turned into something communicable. It’s a constant nightmare as I’m sure you can imagine. So, what can I do for you?’

‘Nothing,’ said Jane. ‘I’ll just pick up Noll and be on my way.’

She pushed past the headmistress into the cloakroom and stood there a minute looking at the children.

Then she turned and said quietly to Mrs Vestey, ‘Where’s Noll?’

The woman gave her another long-toothed smile, this time not of welcome but incomprehension. At the same time her nostrils flared as though catching a worrying scent.

And Jane knew that the moment was close, the moment when fear became fact. But there were still lines to speak.

‘Please, Mrs Vestey,’ she said, ‘has something happened? Has he been taken ill?’

‘Yes, yes … at least I understood so …’ said the woman uncertainly. ‘But you yourself …’

She paused, took a deep breath, and when she spoke again, it was in the assertive tone of someone who needs to get basic facts established in a welter of uncertainty.

‘Noll is not here, Mrs Maguire,’ she said.

‘Not here? Where is he then? Has he been taken to hospital? Why wasn’t I …’

‘No! Mrs Maguire,’ interrupted Mrs Vestey, ‘I mean Noll has never been here today. You yourself rang to say he was ill …’