Chapter 22
22
Eight days and a home win later
Gavin glares at me as I slink into the conference room. To be fair, I’m late. But when I got to work, Sanchez was already fidgeting outside our office. After checking three times, he finally accepted Wednesday is Katia’s late start, and deigned to tell me he needed somewhere to sleep tonight, because his new son doesn’t sleep at all.
That took a while to unpick. Eventually, I managed to prise out of him that his wife is reluctant to go to pick up the baby too quickly when he cries, so she has to leave him, which makes her cry. That’s more tears than Sanchez can cope with, so it’s lucky that, however bad I am at paperwork, I’m an expert on childcare emergencies. All the same, it’s the sort of problem that always takes forever to fix.
So, really, Gavin should be grateful I’m only five minutes late. And there’s no reason to have waited for me. The meeting’s to go over the travel details for our upcoming European away match. I’ve triple checked everything that’s my responsibility, my only input will be nodding along. Not that I mind. As vice-captain, Tony’s one of the two player representatives, lounging behind the white elm conference table. I’d planned on sitting roughly opposite him, so I could make gazing at him look like I’m drifting off. But Gavin’s icy stare attracts Tony’s attention. He looks from Gavin to me, grins and pushes out the chair beside him.
‘Managed to escape the lake of tears, have you, Genie?’ asks Devo, our captain.
His concern is real, even if he sounds jokey. Sinking down into my chair, I mutter that Mrs and baby Sanchez are fine and being fussed over in the players’ lounge, if they want to say hello later. Tony smiles one of his softer smiles, and Gavin’s expression approaches absolute zero. When I said I was only five minutes late, that’s honestly true. So, Gavin’s reaction seems over the top, even for a man obsessed with punctuality. But then he wheels round to Monica’s PA, Fiona, demanding she inform our gracious leader that we’re all assembled. Now it makes sense, keeping Monica waiting is obviously unforgivable.
Only, I don’t get why Monica wants to bother with this. I mean, she’s massively overinvolved compared to other owners, but this is basically housekeeping. Monica must agree, because Fiona hisses something to Gavin. And maybe it is Monica he loves, not her bank balance. Because he certainly looks disconsolate enough as he announces he’ll chair, as Monica’s otherwise engaged. Devo’s sigh is equally doleful. I fully understand why; Gavin’s bound to insist on exactly the level of detail you’d expect from a man who considers arriving at the airport four hours early to be cutting it fine. I prepare to blot out past holiday PTSD by focusing on Tony’s profile. Only I can’t, because Fiona’s gesticulating at me.
I reluctantly abandon Tony’s square chin and smile across at Fiona. She’s an earnest woman in her mid-fifties, unremarkable except for her Yorkshire Terrier-style top-knot. Being Monica’s PA must be a dog’s life, so I suspect Fiona’s woolly exterior hides an ironic sense of humour. But she doesn’t look amused now. She’s too busy pointing at the meeting agenda, then staring up at the PowerPoint, over and over.
Gavin stops mid-sentence and looks sharply at Fiona. ‘Is there something you wish to contribute?’
She mutters apologetically at me, then more intelligibly, ‘The dates…’
Suddenly, I can see exactly what she means. The hotel check-in is the day after the flight arrives. We’re playing in Spain, so it’s nothing to do with the time difference. If those were the actual booking dates, it would be a major disaster. There’d be no hope of making alternative arrangements for the entire first team and their entourage at two weeks’ notice. But I know the dates were right when I checked last night, and when Gavin demands clarification, my ‘No, there’s an error on the PowerPoint,’ is confident bordering on dismissive.
Gavin becomes sarcastically polite. ‘Could you confirm that, simply to reassure the group?’
I snap open my laptop, and go straight to the carefully organized folder on my desktop. Thank God, the booking confirmation is right there, exactly where it should be. I’m just starting to say, ‘See, check-in is the sixteenth,’ when I stop and look more closely. And now, I want the earth to open and swallow me up. There’s the booking date, staring at me in black and white, and it’s the 17th. I can feel the ugly red blush flaring up from my throat to my cheeks as I stutter, ‘I’m sorry. There must be some mistake. The dates were correct when I checked yesterday.’
Gavin cuts in, his voice like a scalpel. ‘That can’t possibly be the case. This can only be an error made during booking.’ His eyes dart between Devo and Tony. ‘You may choose to associate with those who behave as if you’re infallible…’
‘No, doc, you’re wrong there. We all know Genie’s got form when it comes to mistakes,’ interrupts a grinning Devo. His knee knocks mine. It’s kind, coming from a man who sent me a bottle of Dom Pérignon when Gavin left, complete with giant congratulatory balloon. If anything, it makes me feel worse.
Gavin ignores Devo, except his frown deepens. ‘But this type of mistake is inevitable when Player Care is focused on the personal rather than the practical.’ Gavin’s gaze settles on Tony, and he’s got the exact same expression as when he’d catch me watching trashy TV. ‘Which is becoming rather a pattern, I’m afraid.’
I try to make my excuses. The sooner I leave, the sooner I can call the hotel. There’s probably no chance of changing the booking, but it’s torture, sitting here, not knowing.
Gavin shakes his head. ‘No. We should finish checking there are no other errors, before attempting to salvage this one.’
He’s switched to his ‘this hurts me more than it hurts you’ expression. I’ve always found that one particularly irritating, and it’s the only thing stopping the hot, angry tears that are welling up. Well, that, and Tony’s foot, resting gently on mine.
The meeting finally ends without uncovering more catastrophes. I should rush to make frantic calls. But I know, if anyone speaks to me on the way out, I’ll lose it. I scrunch down, pretending to hunt for something in my bag, until I hear the glass door glide closed. When I sit up, there’s a scrap from a club notebook on the table in front of me. It’s a doodle of a lioness savaging a stick man holding a doctor’s bag. That makes me smile. It’s the smallest of smiles, but it’s enough to push the tears out.
Holding them back seems to have doubled their volume. I search for tissues, but I guess weeping in our conference room is less common than you’d think. In the end, I give up trying to stem the flow and opt for standing at the floor-to-ceiling windows. Hopefully, anyone walking by will think there’s something worth looking at on the empty training pitches below.