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Chapters (75)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise
  3. About the Author
  4. Title Page
  5. Intoroduction
  6. ONE
  7. TWO
  8. THREE
  9. FOUR
  10. FIVE
  11. SIX
  12. SEVEN
  13. EITHT
  14. NINE
  15. TEN
  16. ELEVEN
  17. TWELVE
  18. THIRTEEN
  19. FOURTEEN
  20. FIFTEEN
  21. SIXTEEN
  22. SEVENTEEN
  23. EIGHTEEN
  24. NINETEEN
  25. TWENTY
  26. TWENTY-ONE
  27. TWENTY-TWO
  28. TWENTY-THREE
  29. TWENTY-FOUR
  30. TWENTY-FIVE
  31. TWENTY-SIX
  32. TWENTY-SEVEN
  33. TWENTY-EIGHT
  34. TWENTY-NINE
  35. THIRTY
  36. THIRTY-ONE
  37. THIRTY-TWO
  38. THIRTY-THREE
  39. THIRTY-FOUR
  40. THIRTY-FIVE
  41. THIRTY-SIX
  42. THIRTY-SEVEN
  43. THIRTY-EIGHT
  44. THIRTY-NINE
  45. FORTY
  46. FORTY-ONE
  47. FORTY-TWO
  48. FORTY-THREE
  49. FORTY-FOUR
  50. FORTY-FIVE
  51. FORTY-SIX
  52. FORTY-SEVEN
  53. FORTY-EIGHT
  54. FORTY-NINE
  55. FIFTY
  56. FIFTY-ONE
  57. FIFTY-TWO
  58. FIFTY-THREE
  59. FIFTY-FOUR
  60. FIFTY-FIVE
  61. FIFTY-SIX
  62. FIFTY-SEVEN
  63. FIFTY-EIGHT
  64. FIFTY-NINE
  65. SIXTY
  66. SIXTY-ONE
  67. SIXTY-TWO
  68. SIXTY-THREE
  69. SIXTY-FOUR
  70. SIXTY-FIVE
  71. SIXTY-SIX
  72. SIXTY-SEVEN
  73. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  74. CLIMATE EMERGENCY
  75. Copyright

I’d like to show Jamie that video and ask him if he thinks that’s OK, and whether he’d just stand by and watch that kind of thing happen, which is what it feels I’ve done by watching it. I’d like to ask him if that’s OK.

I’d like to ask him what that smile on Dana’s boyfriend’s face at the end of that video is all about and I’d like to ask him whether, if I spend more time with her, her boyfriend might smile like that after doing to me what he did to the man in the turban, the man who might not even have been Muslim – not that it mattered to Dana’s boyfriend, I guess – and whether he’d stand by and watch that happen as well.

I’d like to do all of these things. But I don’t. I just keep walking.

‘See you tomorrow?’ Jamie calls after me as I leave him at the top of his road.

TWENTY

TWENTY

Saturday, and I’m hunched on the side lines at the recreation ground. The weather’s turned; it’s drizzling, and even though there’s only been a few hours of it, it feels like it won’t stop until March.

Jamie and a few of the other guys – Will and Mike – nod hello as they jog out of the changing rooms and onto the pitch. Being here again brings a few memories back. Sights, sounds, smells. I don’t think the smell in those changing rooms will ever leave me – a mixture of damp socks, deodorant and that sharp, hospital smell you get from deep-heat spray. On days like today, when it’s cold and damp, a cloud of smell wafts over the field every time the door opens.

Ben was always last out of the changing room, and still is. He’s got a strange ritual about touching all the benches in a certain order before he steps outside, and the rest of the team just leave him to get on with it. As he sidles past, heading for the goal which he’ll guard for the first half, he says that I’m like a bus. ‘Don’t see you for ages, then twice in two weeks!’

‘Yep, a really crap, slow bus.’ I smile. And I start to admit to myself that I’ve missed this.

It’s not much of a game, the ball skidding around on the surface and neither team able to get it under control. There’s a goal apiece at the end of the first thirty minutes, both of them scrappy and more by accident than design.