Chapter 2
2
Skylar, who had come straight from women’s team training, pulls a towel from her gym bag. She holds it out to me. I turn my head, confused.
She smiles. ‘I thought you might need it.’ I look at her, still bemused, until she laughs. ‘To mop up the drool.’
Usually, I’d laugh back, team discipline not being one of my managerial strengths. But today, I’m definitely not in the mood and my, ‘I can assure you that won’t be necessary,’ comes out snappy.
Skylar withdraws the outstretched towel, but she’s still grinning. ‘Honestly? I’d have thought Tony Garratt stripping in the office was your idea of heaven.’
I could do without the reminder that I might have mentioned, once or twice, that Tony’s an extremely watchable player.
‘It turns out, in person, he doesn’t live up to my expectations.’
Skylar laughs. ‘Really? He definitely exceeded mine. With his shirt off, anyway.’
I do a shrug/sneer combo. ‘A few hours in the gym hardly make up for being such a liar.’
Skylar’s face clouds. ‘Yeah, I assumed you hadn’t texted him.’
‘No, and I take it you didn’t either?’
‘Nope.’
‘And I think we can be absolutely confident Katia wouldn’t have done.’
‘No chance.’ Skylar sounds distinctly smug. Katia is in almost every way a better employee than Skylar, but her Achilles heel is shyness. It’s vanishingly unlikely Katia would’ve contacted a player she didn’t know. Not without running multiple drafts of the text by me first, anyway.
Thinking about Katia, it strikes me that she may still be vainly searching the outer reaches of the stadium’s car park for a missing midfielder. I try her phone a couple of times. It goes straight to voicemail, and I end up sending Skylar off to hunt for her. I was hoping that by the time they got back, my temper would have recovered, but it turns out pacing around the office for fifteen minutes isn’t terribly calming.
Katia is telepathic when it comes to tension. The second she and Skylar walk in, she’s apologizing for not answering my calls. I decide against interrogating her over the text and make myself smile. ‘It’s OK, Kat, don’t worry about it. We just wanted to make sure you weren’t still waiting around for Garratt.’
Katia shakes her head, vigorously enough that her braids vibrate. ‘No. I got caught by Monica. She wanted one of us in the press conference, in case they needed anything.’
‘Did it go OK?’ I ask. I should’ve gone myself. That’ll be another point against me to add to Monica’s tally.
Katia nods this time, still a little exaggerated, so my pretending to be relaxed can’t be too convincing. ‘Yes, fine.’ Then she smiles, her most genuine smile, warm and sweet as freshly baked pie. ‘He was good. Great, actually.’
‘Well, that’s something, I suppose,’ I say, grudgingly. ‘At least it’ll sell a few shirts, which is what Monica bought him for, after all.’
Skylar tries not to openly laugh. ‘What’s happened to “He’s the best of his generation, top assist maker in the Premier League, the missing link that’s all we need to make it in Europe”?’
‘He was the best of his generation, but not any more,’ I snap. ‘And anyway, he’s thirty. His generation’s on their way out.’
‘I don’t know that’s true,’ Katia says, so quietly I’d have missed it if Skylar hadn’t followed on with a long list of players who’ve continued at the top level well into their thirties.
They’re both obviously right, but I’m not going to admit it. ‘Yes, but they all work like dogs to keep up their fitness, don’t they?’ Pushing back a strand of hair that’s escaped from my attempt at a French twist, I rush on before either of them can answer. ‘Garratt’s never had the discipline, and now he’s got to the age where his talent can’t cover up the laziness any longer. I should think his last club practically bit Monica’s hand off when she got her credit card out. Getting Garratt off their books must be the best bit of business they’ve done in years.’ I crinkle up my nose in disgust. ‘And now we’re the lucky ones paying him a fortune to sit on the bench.’
Objectively, that’s only partly true. His whole career, Tony’s been a tabloid journalist’s dream. But there’s a big difference between staggering out of nightclubs with a stranger on your arm in the off-season, and doing the same before a big game, or when you’re supposed to be focused on coming back from injury. Those stories only started last season. About the same time rumours began to circulate that Tony wasn’t turning up for training, and that when he did show, he was instigating trouble in the dressing room. And I’ve been doing this long enough, I know perfectly well that’s a sign something’s gone seriously wrong.
But I’m really hitting my stride. So, instead of remembering that it’s my job to make sure he settles here, I’m revving up to dissect every error Tony’s made on and off the field. Luckily, Skylar pulls a warning face, stopping me just in time. A second later, Tony’s in the doorway.
‘I’m here for my shirt,’ he says, voice flat.
I turn and gesture towards the t-shirt, still screwed up on the desk. ‘You’re more than welcome to fetch it.’
That came out a shade or two ruder than I’d intended, but he just gives me a nasty smile and lounges across to collect it. I gather together the shreds of my professionalism and try to inject some warmth into my voice. ‘Actually, if you have a minute, there are a couple of things we need to cover.’
He glances at his Rolex. ‘Yeah, I guess we might as well get it over with.’
I suppose that’s better than a refusal, but only marginally. And it’s unfortunate we’re in the shared stadium admin area, instead of the Player Care office in the training ground. Here, the cubicles are all uncomfortably intimate. I manage to find one that’s fractionally larger than the others, and sit at the desk. Hopefully, I don’t look as unenthusiastic as Tony, who’s doing an excellent impression of a teenager en route to detention. Skylar would clearly love to listen in, but Katia pulls her off to help with an unspecified task.
Tony drags across a chair and slumps down opposite me. He’s heavy enough across the shoulders that standing, it’s easy to underestimate his height. But sprawled out under the desk, his legs are so long that I almost pull back my feet. I’d put money on that being what he’s expecting, me tucking my heels under my chair like a good girl. After all, he has just watched me cower in front of Monica. But Monica pays my wages, and Tony doesn’t. So, if he thinks I’m going to give up my space, he’s very much mistaken.
That would work better as a rebellious gesture if it didn’t mean that, halfway through the opening sentence of my new-player spiel, the outside of my ankle grazes the inside of his. Tony pulls half his mouth into a closed-lipped smile. I don’t smile and I don’t break eye contact. But I do wait for him to move his foot. He doesn’t. And I’m not going to move mine, because as we’ve already established, why should I? So, while I’m describing all the helpful things my team offer, my heel is up against his trainer. That’s extremely distracting. Although not quite as distracting as noticing Tony’s eyes are the exact same grey that’s on our home kit.
Under the circumstances, I think I’m really doing quite a good job of being coherent. But I’m clearly not achieving persuasive. Every suggestion I make, Tony shakes his head and alternates between ‘Not necessary’ and a monosyllabic ‘Nah’.
Eventually, he tilts back on his chair, which at least moves his shoe away from mine. ‘Look, love, I get you’re not paid to know ’bout the football, but you’ve got a rough idea of who I am, right?’
There’s no way I’m admitting to having watched virtually every match he’s played since hitting the first team at the ridiculously young age of seventeen. ‘I do, yes.’
He nods slowly, making it clear he’s being patient because I’m obviously intellectually limited. ‘So, you get I’ve played for a couple of other clubs, yeah?’
‘I am aware of that.’
He tips his chair forward and leans across the desk towards me. ‘OK. Then maybe you could just take it as read, I know what Player Care’s here for.’
Everything about him is out to provoke. I make sure to sound ultra-calm. ‘Perhaps you could give me a quick summary? Just to be sure we’re on the same page.’
He still doesn’t show his teeth when he smiles, but both sides of his mouth are involved this time. ‘Anything I need done that I don’t fancy sorting myself, you girls take care of. Right?’
I allow myself a small and similarly cold smile in return. ‘No, not exactly.’
He sits back again, hands stretched behind his head. ‘Go on then, enlighten me.’
I’m careful to mirror him, leaning deep into my chair. ‘If there’s something a player needs, to help them settle in or to allow them to perform to their full potential, we aim to make that happen. But we’re not personal assistants. Most of what we do, the players aren’t even aware of. And while we do handle requests, within reason, we answer to management.’
He laughs, though he doesn’t look particularly amused. ‘Is that you making it clear there’s services you don’t offer?’
I don’t smile this time. And I don’t want him thinking he can make me back away, so I put my elbows on the desk and rest my chin on my hands. ‘No, but you can take it that’s the case.’
‘You might want to rethink your work outfits then.’
Despite myself, I glance down. I must have been seriously yanking at my collar when I was shrinking away from Monica, because my shirt has come open at least two buttons too low. There’s a lot of pale skin on show against the bottle-green silk, and Tony must have a clear view of the claret red of my bra. And there’s no way he’s bringing it up to flirt or as a joke. It’s to make me feel ridiculous. Like I’ve done it deliberately, like I’m so deluded, I actually believe he’d look at me twice. And it really stings, so for the first time in the whole conversation, I’m not annoyed, just humiliated. Well, not just humiliated, defeated too. It must be what it’s like for defenders when they realize, as the ball slips past, that Tony’s been ahead of them from the opposite end of the pitch.
I do the buttons up without looking at him. I’d love to crawl away as quickly as possible, but whatever I said before, signing Tony Garratt is a huge deal for the club. I can’t drop him, even if he is loathsome. I try to make my voice sound like nothing’s happened. ‘The last thing is housing. If you let us know your needs, we can come up with some possibilities. Or we can just set up a rental, if you prefer not to be bothered with it?’
He looks at me for a long time, his face blank, then runs his fingers through the hair that hasn’t been shaved into his low fade. ‘Nah, it’s all right. I can take care of myself.’
I give a small shrug, then stand to indicate that we’re done. ‘Well, you know where to come, if that changes.’