What strikes Dick, other than the fact that his stepson has invited him to this Bristol Rovers match after eighteen months of living together, is just how far Hamish cycles to get to the stadium. Well, not so much the distance as the hills the fourteen-year-old has had to navigate. All Dick was aware of was Hamish setting off to match then returning several hours later, saying not much about the match and nothing about the ride. If Dick is honest with himself, he has completely ignored Hamish\u2019s trips to Rovers\u2019 matches. And that brings Dick on to the second thing that strikes him, now they are standing on the Thatcher\u2019s Terrace at the Memorial Ground. The lad who for all this time has been polite, amenable and unknowable is blazing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWatch him, Dick. The one on the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dick has no idea who he\u2019s supposed to be watching since they\u2019re twenty-five minutes into the match and he\u2019s never seen a game from ground level before, never had to identify the point of play, never had to interpret control, possession or fouls without a TV pundit telling him where to look and what to think.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe joined the Reading Academy at nine,\u201d Hamish says, \u201cthen was let go at eighteen, but look. See how good he is. Just look at those skills.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAmazing,\u201d Dick says, although he\u2019s still not sure which of the players or even which team he\u2019s supposed to be watching.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey take boys on, promise they\u2019ll be stars, then say nah, and they\u2019ve got no life outside football, and no friends because no one in the academy wants to know them any longer, and exams have been who cares, so what can they do?\u201d<\/p>\n
Hamish has returned to darting his attention across the pitch, following some story that Dick has no idea how to understand.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not right,\u201d Dick tries.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d Hamish says.<\/p>\n
Along the terrace an older man is standing with a young girl on his shoulders. His granddaughter maybe. In front of them is a woman with tattoos and a far larger man in a Rovers\u2019 shirt. Young boys, men, women, girls. The Gas hats and blue and white scarves everywhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cFuck you,\u201d the man in front yells.<\/p>\n
\u201cShh,\u201d the woman warns. \u201cChildren.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSorry,\u201d he shouts.<\/p>\n
Teenagers, five or six of them, cheering goodness knows what, because Dick hasn\u2019t paid attention to the game for a while. From the end of the stand comes a chant of We love you Rovers, we do, We love you Rovers, we do,<\/em> and opposite someone\u2019s singing about Irene and wishing her good night, from what Dick can make out, because the song is more of a wall of sound than a melody, a wave of bass energy passing through his body and on up the terraces. Hamish too is straining with bellowing. Dick feels obliged to join in with\u2026 we do, We love you Rovers<\/em>… He\u2019s still we-doing<\/em> when there\u2019s an eruption of noise and movement and Dick is just a molecule in container of sparkling water that has been shaken before opening.<\/p>\n “Didn\u2019t I tell you, Dick,\u201d Hamish is yelling. \u201cI told you. Well fuck you, Reading Academy. Sorry, Dick.\u201d<\/p>\n And in that moment Hamish\u2019s effervescence collapses into a droplet of unremarkable liquid, a blank face, straight back, the boy that Dick recognises but wants to know more about. So he says, \u201cYeah. Fuck Reading.\u201d<\/p>\n He must have spoken a little too loudly, because the tattooed woman turns with an expression he has to shy away from.<\/p>\n \u201cSorry,\u201d Dick says and turns to face Hamish\u2019s eeek-taut expression.<\/p>\n A final thing strikes Dick later, when they\u2019re queuing to get out of the car park.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry if I stopped you meeting your friends, Hamish,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Hamish looks at him, still all two-one-home-win enraptured and replies, \u201cI don\u2019t go with friends,\u201d he says. There\u2019s no reason added, no They support City or They\u2019re rugby or cricket fans.<\/p>\n “Thanks for inviting me,\u201d Dick says.<\/p>\n \u201cThanks for the half-time burger,\u201d Hamish replies. \u201cI\u2019ve never had one before.\u201d<\/p>\n Dick doesn\u2019t cry often these days. Never in front of his daughter or Hamish, and rarely in front of his wife. But there\u2019s something about a lad who cycles hilly miles to support his football team on his own and who\u2019s never had a father to buy him a half-time burger that makes Dick turn away, hoping to goodness he can spy a gap in the stream of cars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" And in that moment Hamish\u2019s effervescence collapses into a droplet of unremarkable liquid, a blank face, straight back, the boy that Dick recognises but wants to know more about. So he says, \u201cYeah. Fuck Reading.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":21130,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3530],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-fiction","writer-ruth-brandt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20646"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21131,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20646\/revisions\/21131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}