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“Mabel, you just don’t know what it’s like. You don’t know.”
“I know that you shouldn’t have to pretend to be something you’re not, just because people are used to the idea of you as some hardman who loves boozing. You’re still normal if you enjoy other things, Alfie. You’re still a bloke, even if you’re the sort of bloke who enjoys watchingRepair Shop, and likes confessing things toBlue Peterpresenters, and prefers drinking sweet things before getting home at a reasonable hour to have a shower that he turned on by swizzling the knob.”
He looked away at that.
At some distant idea of the sort he wasn’t allowed to have.
“God, that sort of bloke sounds so happy,” he said, and oh man, he just sounded so wistful. So despairing about this thing that seemed small to her but obviously loomed large for him.Trapped by your own persona, she thought.
And no matter how much she wanted to pretend she didn’t care, she couldn’t.
It made her heart pound weirdly, just thinking about that fact.
She honestly felt a bit sick for him.
So couldn’t help saying heartfelt words to him.
“Maybe you could be, too. If you admitted you liked those things,” she said.
Then he met her gaze, and oh god. A lot of stuff happened when he did. Intense stuff, which kind of made her wish she’d not gone down this path or had sounded more calm when she’d said what she’d said or just something, anything that didn’t lead to this. But it had now, and there was nothing she could do. She just had to hope it didn’t cause some terrible explosion.
Because god knew, that was what he looked on the brink of.
Surely we’re on the brink of something, she thought.
Then just as suddenly as it happened, he shrugged.
“I’m gonna go make a cuppa. Want one?” he asked.
And thank god, thank god, that was the end of that.
RESEARCH NOTES/IMPORTANT QUOTES
“He was nothing less than professional, always early, always prepared, never skipped training, never complained about the rain or the heat or even injuries. But he was also, indisputably, the surliest and most annoying man I ever worked with.”
—Roy Tattersley, Coaching Assistant 2009–2010
“Three months we were there, and we only learned on leaving that he’d not been able to ever watch the telly in his swank hotel room because he hadn’t known how to use the voice activation to turn it on. Swear to god if you didn’t know time travel doesn’t exist you’d think he had blipped here from 1972.”
—Jack Bonsaro, teammate 2007–2010
“One time I woke up and he was standing over my bed, fully dressed, with his suitcase next to him. Like he was going to pack me into it if I went one second over the time we were supposed to be out of there.”
—Jack Bonsaro, teammate 2007–2010
“He could have done it, too, because he always had hardly anything in his suitcases. Two tracksuits, always black. No spare shoes, he always just took whatever he had on his feet. People always used to say he got his hair that black because he dyed it but I knew he never did. Because he never had anything except a toothbrush in his wash bag.”
—Jack Bonsaro, teammate 2007–2010
“The wash bag thing isn’t true, Jack’s lying. My client is well known for taking a bottle of Hugo Boss Macho wherever he goes. Macho, for the man on the move.”
—Geoff Haswell, manager 2005–Present
NinePretty Sure Kate Bush Never Wore Dungarees
It didn’t surprise her that he knew how to make a good brew.
Especially after the roller coaster of revelations they’d just gone through.
