THE SILENT STRIKER Read online

  Dwayne and Mohammad, the two Bowker Vale players who had hung out with Marcus during summer school were in his contacts list. The two of them had to have felt it when Mr Vialli had called the ref a black bastard. They were black too. He texted them both.

  ‘Blk Bstd’?Yr new coach gon 2 far dudes. It got 2 b sorted by ne means nec. Nuh?-Marcus

  Few things were bigger than football, Marcus thought, but this was one. He just managed to finish the text when the coach came calling him. ‘Marcus, you’re needed!’

  He looked over. Leonard was in a sulk and the other players had their heads hanging. Leonard still couldn’t flight a simple ball.

  ‘I can’t teach him,’ Marcus said, ‘I don’t know how, I just do it.’

  ‘I know you better than that, Marky,’ said Mr Davies, walking with him over to the ball. ‘Show him how, like in slo-mo.’ Mr Davies did a slow-motion action of a man running to strike a ball. It got him laughs. Marcus smiled but shrugged.

  ‘Do it!’ Horse said, approaching him. Horse’s brow plunged, like he was going to drop Marcus there and then if Marcus didn’t do as asked.

  ‘Why should I do anything for him? Eh? Eh? Eh?’ Marcus said to Horse. Now who’s amused, Marcus thought.

  ‘Don’t push me, Marcus,’ said Horse.

  ‘Alright boys, easy now,’ said Mr Davies. ‘Are you going to show him or not, Marky? Go on, lad, just once.’

  Reluctantly, Marcus planted the ball down on the free kick spot. Everyone got in position. Mr Davies waved play. Marcus skied the ball. There were groans all round.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Marcus, ‘the moment I think about it I can’t do it.’

  ‘I’m disappointed in you,’ said the coach. ‘Not angry. Disappointed. I thought you were better than this pettiness.’

  Marcus shrugged. Yes, he’d deliberately skied it. But he didn’t feel bad at all. Maybe it would teach Leonard something.

  Leonard tried again. By his tenth effort he was getting it in the zone at least. Finally Jamil managed to pluck one out of the sky. He let it drop, took it at half-volley and smashed it home, then did his jig. A desperately relieved Leonard joined in with him.

  ‘There you go boys,’ said Mr Davies, ‘that’s what it’s about. Never give up. And again!’

  Half an hour later, as they trooped back to the changing room, Leonard had made all of three good passes, but the coach was happy and was making out like Leonard had it all nailed now and they had every chance of winning.

  When they got to the changing room, Mr Davies went off to deal with the broken-down water heater.

  ‘This Cup final’s gonna be Ghana versus Germany!’ Jamil shouted excitedly above the general racket.

  ‘What are you talking about … Sparrow?’ someone jeered back. Jamil had his eye patch back on and looked like a pirate again. ‘Jack’ was the word that had been said before ‘Sparrow’, Marcus worked out.

  ‘Simple. It’s Black versus White. Our team’s black, Bowker’s is white!’ Jamil declared.

  ‘So I’m black am I?’ said Dinners, the centre-back. He was white, with orange freckles.

  ‘You can’t talk Bowker white can you?’ said Jamil. ‘Oh excuse me chaps, what a good game’, Jamil imitated a posh accent.

  ‘Nope,’ said Dinners.

  ‘And would you have said what that Bowker captain’s dad said?’ Jamil quizzed him.

  ‘Hell no!’ replied Dinners.

  ‘Then you, my friend, are a brother, you are black, bro!’

  Everyone cheered and Jamil duly conferred honorary black player status on all three of the white players in the changing room. Ghana v Germany stuck in the team’s imagination and the shout of ‘Ghana! Ghana!’ rang round the dressing room, even though, Marcus reflected, neither team was all white or all black. The Ducie team was mostly black and the Bowker team was mostly white. But no-one cared for that distinction. Ideas were funny like that Marcus thought, they stuck, independently of the truth. Ideas just had to feel right to a group of people and that was that. Like the idea that Leonard could replace him.

  Marcus began unlacing his boots as the general din rose. What was ‘black’, anyway, he thought. They had done a family tree exercise in Year 8, and, of the players he knew for sure, Horse was a quarter Jamaican, a quarter Guadeloupian, a quarter Turkish and a quarter English. Jamil was half Jamaican, a quarter Nigerian, and a quarter Polish. Andrew was half Ghanaian, half Scottish-English. Sanjay’s parents were from Uganda and India, and Ira was a hundred per cent Jamaican though his family were all light skinned and looked Indian. It was more like the United Nations v Germany, than Ghana v Germany, but Marcus kept that thought to himself. What was flavour of the month was what won the day, not necessarily what was true.

  Jamil was in fine form in the changing room. He got the conversation going about what Mr Vialli had said. Everyone on the pitch and everyone on the touchline had heard it. Jamil said the referee had rung the authorities and it had become a ‘racial incident’ and Mr Vialli had been told to write a personal letter of apology to the referee. Jamil called for a vote on whether Mr Vialli should be banned from the touchline. It was carried unanimously.

  Mr Davies made it back. The showers were off and they’d have to head out as they were, he explained. Nobody minded that much; everyone knew the school didn’t have the money to fix the showers properly so they broke down every month.

  As Marcus walked home on his own, the weight of being out of the school team had him dragging his feet. Going to the training sessions was like getting ready for a party that you knew you were going to be turned away from. The new tactics might work. If they could drag Bowker’s centre-backs out of position and drop the ball into the gap for Jamil to run onto. They had spent most of the practice session on it and they knew what they had to do. They had worked on some neat set pieces too, working out when to play long, when to play short and what the options were and how the dead ball kicker – Leonard – would signal what he was going to do: left hand high meant long ball. Right hand high meant short ball.

  Marcus knew he would be out tonight on the pitch practicing shimmies, left-right ball switches, knee traps and dead ball kicks. Practice. Practice. Practice. Yet what point was that practice when he was banned from the team? He’d be a spectator at the Cup final. He might have lost his only chance of being in a final. And the Man United scout would be there for sure, watching Anthony, not him; and possibly Leonard. That would be the pits, if Leonard got the glory and the agent’s signature.

  Somebody slapped Marcus’s head. Marcus balled up his fists, thinking it was Leonard. He was about to fling a punch when he saw who it actually was.

  Horse.

  Going past at a trot. Horse turned, so he was jogging backwards.

  ‘Caught you there,’ Horse said. ‘You didn’t hear me shouting?’

  Marcus shook his head.

  ‘Anyway, don’t be such a … at training next time!’

  Marcus couldn’t make out what the ‘…’ was but he could guess. Horse had never slapped him like that before. His head still hurt. He watched Horse disappear.

  Had he been out of order not to show Leonard how to drill a ball? If it had been anybody else he would have, but not Leonard. His whole body tensed even at the thought of the name. Leonard. Marcus turned the name round in his mind, trying to weaken its spell. Leonard the Lip. Leonard the Loser. Lemony Leonard. Leonard had made fun of him. He had wrecked his shin. He had taken his place on the team. Why in a hundred years should he help him?

  Of course Horse never let the team down. He’d once been hospitalised clearing a ball in a goalmouth scramble. He’d whacked the ball off the goal line but run into a goalpost. Next day at school Horse had shrugged it off and only wanted to know if they’d won. The team was everything for Horse. Maybe Horse was right and he should think only of the team, even if that meant helping Leonard. It rankled too much though. And Marcus simply couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not after what Leonard had put him through
.

  That evening on the pitch, Marcus practiced like never before. He was still vexed with Leonard and now with Horse as well. He did half his routines but felt feverish and decided to sit on the wall for a minute.

  All around him people on the estate were busy doing their things: fixing cars, taking in washing, smacking golf balls around the park, yammering into mobile phones as they walked along. Dogs roamed across the park in packs the way the dogs of Westfield did. The familiarity of everything calmed him. He got his energy back.

  He practiced dead ball kicks. He struck the ball on the left side so it span left, then had it spinning right and finally (it was the hardest thing to do) span it on its horizontal axis – so it rotated forwards as it travelled. The forward spin was the Holy Grail of spins. It made the ball balloon up, but then dip viciously and suddenly as it neared the goal. It was almost impossible to pull off. Only the great Cristiano Ronaldo could do it every time. Marcus managed it once in thirty attempts that evening, but he was content with that. It was one more than he had ever achieved before.

  Instead of going home, he phoned his mum and said he was going to grab a bag of chips then do his homework with a mate. His mum moaned but had to let him.

  ADELE AND THE

  MARSEILLE ROULETTE

  Marcus slid past the Hawaiian pub. Smokers were standing outside nursing their cigarettes and pints. His dad had sung there every Saturday years ago and some of the regulars still recognised him from when his dad had taken him along. Adele was waiting for him by the pipes outside the swimming pool. He slumped next to her. She was looking up into the sky when he arrived.

  ‘See that bird hanging there without even moving its wings?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s thermals,’ Marcus said, ‘a current of—’

  ‘I know what thermals is, I’m not thick you know,’ she glared at him.

  ‘What maths do you need to practice?’ Marcus said, thinking, he should have spotted Adele was in a mood, she had her bottom lip pushed out and her arms crossed around herself.

  ‘Geometry.’

  He quizzed her on basic formulas as he juggled his ATC. She got most of them right.

  He asked her why she didn’t like doing her homework at home.

  ‘No-one’s ever there to help,’ Adele replied. ‘Dad lives in his office. Mum’s a zombie. You could set the house on fire and she wouldn’t notice.’

  ‘What’s your mum depressed about?’

  Adele shrugged. ‘Me? “What do you want to do with your life? What subjects are you choosing? Are they suitable? Are you going to University? Don’t sit with your legs like that, it’s not ladylike! Don’t pick your nose! Where are you going? You can’t wander round town on your own!”’

  ‘Um.’

  ‘It’s never Anthony. He can get away with anything.

  Why? “Because he’s a boy!”’

  ‘Um.’ Marcus was trying Zidane’s signature Marseille Roulette: the double step on, then spin out.

  ‘This morning she sits in the bathroom looking at her face, saying she’s getting old. I tell her, “you’re not getting old, you are old, silly cow!” She bursts into tears. Total waterfall. I give her a kiss, say I’m sorry, and she’s not really old, just old-ish, and we sit there putting each other’s make up on. And she’s happy and hugs me like she’s trying to squeeze toothpaste out of me. Next thing I know she’s … out on her bed.’

  ‘Um.’

  ‘Say “um” again and you’re toast.’

  ‘What? Oh. How’s your brother?’

  ‘He told Dad off about what he said to the referee. They had a blazing row, you should have heard it.’ She imitated Anthony’s voice. ‘“You make me sick, how could you say something like that, you could of got the whole team banned!”’

  ‘Your Anthony wouldn’t lend me money for a sandwich at summer school,’ Marcus said, still trying and failing with the Zidane move.

  ‘Yeh, well, my brother takes after his dad. Don’t be fooled by his nicey nicey talk. I can’t stand either of them.’

  Marcus did a flick and cradled the ball between his shoulders while still looking at Adele.

  ‘My dad would so not like this,’ said Adele, watching him for once.

  ‘Because?’

  ‘Duh. Because you’re black.’

  ‘I’m not going out with your dad though, am I? I’m going out with you,’ Marcus said.

  ‘If we was going out,’ Adele corrected him.

  ‘Yeh, yeh, that’s what I meant. Anyway, I can’t talk tactics with you.’

  ‘Uh, tell me then Marky,’ Adele, said, in her spy voice, ‘you’re gonna start with 4 4 3, then at half-time switch to 6 3 1, but if you go a goal down its 15 1 and bring on an elephant?’

  ‘No comment,’ Marcus replied.

  ‘Where did you get your hair …?’

  ‘What do you mean, where did I get my hair? I was born with it.’

  Adele laughed. ‘No, I said, “where did you get your hair cut?”’

  ‘Oh. At Mustapha’s by the indoor market.’ Actually Marcus’s mum had cut his hair, but Marcus would rather die than say that.

  Adele got going on a list of things boys thought girls liked but that she didn’t. Marcus tried following it for a while, but Adele was talking into her hands and he didn’t hear bits of it and anyway he lost interest. He wanted to nail the Zidane move.

  ‘Hey, Marky, I’m over here, are you listening?’ said Adele.

  ‘Course,’ Marcus said.

  ‘I’m bored. Let’s go to the petrol station.’

  ‘We got no money,’ said Marcus.

  ‘Who needs money?’ winked Adele.

  ‘You’re crazy,’ Marcus said.

  ‘I want some excitement.’

  Marcus leaned over and pressed his lips to her cheek, quickly. Then he jumped off the pipes.

  ‘Was that a kiss?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’ Marcus flicked his ATC up in the air, thinking, what had come over him? Why had he kissed her? He felt dizzy.

  ‘Now I’m even more bored,’ was all she said.

  They walked to the bus station. It was a long glass shed surrounded by bus lanes, with boarded up shops to one side and an empty parking lot to the other. It looked like a scene from a horror movie, before the mad killer struck. All it needed was an eerie soundtrack.

  ‘You can’t wait here,’ Marcus said.

  ‘I always wait here. They’ve got CCTV. Look.’

  Twin black pylons towered above the station. ‘It covers everywhere,’ she said.

  ‘Fine. Still I’ll wait with you. Got nothing else to do.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  Adele sat on one of the plastic fold-down seat panels.

  Marcus began doing tricks.

  ‘BORING!’ she called out, but he carried on anyway.

  Out of nowhere a small crowd gathered. Even the CCTV camera swung round. Marcus stepped it up. He enjoyed the crowds, though he tried his hardest tricks, like the Marseille Roulette, only when there was no one around.

  The station tannoy speaker squawked, catching Marcus by surprise. He almost dropped the ball. He saved it with a leaping scorpion kick that drew a smattering of applause.

  ‘What’d it say?’ Marcus called to Adele.

  ‘“Members of the public are reminded there is no ball playing at this station!”’ Adele told him, in a nasal squeak that imitated the tannoy. Then she gave the CCTV camera the finger. At that moment, her bus swung into the station. With a quick wave, she dived into the crowd that piled into the bus’s open doors. Marcus ran up and tapped the window where she sat. She blew him a kiss. The bus pulled away. Suddenly, the bus station was just a bus station.

  Walking home, Marcus thought about Adele. She had the ideal family. Yet the way she described it, her family was worse than his. He thought about her dad and what he’d said, ‘black bastard’. Two of Bowker Vale’s own team were black and their goalkeeper was Chinese. Hadn’t Mr Vialli seen that before he’d opened his
gob? Bowker Vale’s Dwayne had texted back to his text with an ‘ok bro’. He didn’t know what it meant, he could only guess. His thoughts drifted around. The referee sending Mr Vialli off was brilliant. If only Marcus could send off everyone who gave him a hard time. Miss Podborsky? Red Card! Mr Head of Year? Red Card!

  Adele. He always came back to thinking about her. He liked the story she told about swapping tomato ketchup for chilli sauce then watching her brother gasp when he splodged it all over his chips and began scoffing them. He liked the way her lower lip dropped and rolled outward a little when she was thinking about something. He liked what she did when he tried to explain for the fifth time the difference between modes, means and medians. She’d drop her bottom lip and go squint-eyed.

  Marcus turned the key in his front door and stepped inside. His mum wasn’t downstairs but his dad was on the sofa. The TV was blaring so he switched it off. He could see his dad’s tonsils in the back of his mouth, two pink balls vibrating in a Newton’s cradle of snores. His dad shifted in his sleep and farted. He had the picture of Marcus’s granddad – the one that was usually on the wall – on his chest. It rested there precariously. One turn and it was gone. Dads were overrated, Marcus decided as he carefully took the photo off his dad without waking him and placed it back on the wall.

  He went into the kitchen and made a jam butty then came back out, nudged his dad’s legs and squeezed himself onto the sofa. Up close, his dad’s snore was a cross between a bus engine on idle, and somebody dragging a dead body across a gravel track. His face was pock-marked from the acne he had suffered when he was Marcus’s age. Marcus felt a tingling in the centre of his own forehead. Sometimes he felt jinxed. He consoled himself with another jam butty. Then he went upstairs, lay on his bed a while. Something in his gut made him restless. He got up, went to his window and texted Adele.

  U bak ok?

  Sure.

  Stil cant believ we lost

  Soz (The ‘soz’ came with a photo of Adele doing her saddest face).

  Becos of penalties