jackets, bovver boots and drainpipe jeans they wore; one or two had United tattoos etched onto the sides of their heads and necks. Amidst them stood a group in dark grey jackets, and creased brown pin-stripes, looking, for all the world, like accountants, but as the mobs dispersed to a far-off platform, they fell into line with them.
‘C-O-C-K-N-E-Y, Cockney Reds will never die!’
The war cry rang round the station.
‘Like something to eat, dear?’
We’d scarcely sat down when out came lumps of food wrapped in silver foil, and a couple of cans of lager. Dad’s wolf-like teeth tore at a chicken breast. He wrenched the metal ring from one of the cans with the sound of a piston firing, and a fine Heineken mist descended over my hair and face.
‘Lovely grub!’ he enthused.
The succulent pink flesh seemed to invite a ferocious response and, as I bit through the bone into the marrow, the shards splintered into the roof of my mouth. I was about to open my beer can politely in the direction of the window-when I noticed a silver-haired man in suit and tie glaring at Dad, so, in filial solidarity, I turned it towards him and released it, to my disappointment, not with a whoosh but an unnoticed phip.
‘Looking forward to it, dear?’
Such a tame phrase could never adequately describe my feelings. I was heading for the seat of my religion.
After Stoke the weather changed. Sheets of pine-needle rain frapped against the window.
‘Here we go!’
Dad stuffed the silver foil and newspaper detritus back into his satchel and began heading up the train, bumping past scruffy, long-haired locals as the terminus came into view. I jumped off the moving locomotive onto a wet platform, the impetus carrying me into a sprint towards the ticket barrier. For once I was ahead of him.
As we made for the bus stop, rivulets of grime ran down the dilapidated brickwork of abandoned buildings. But to me, everything was transformed by association with United. Even the orange and white of the double-decker, so different from the plain red of the London variety, seemed as exotic as the singsong local accent that Dad seemed to hate so much. The bleak urban landscape and scattered housing estates glimpsed from motorway bridges looked like futuristic relatives of the Emerald City.
People began to leave their seats. I looked in vain for floodlights and wondered how long it would be before I saw Old Trafford. It seemed hours before the police let us cross Chester Road, and suddenly, there it was. The headlights embedded in the roof of the stand helped to conceal the stadium’s glory until the last possible moment, the glistening red brick radiant against its sullen surroundings as the clicking turnstiles filtered off the ocean filling the vast forecourt.
‘I’ll see you after the game, darling.’
He gave me one of his my-little-son smiles, and I moved away abruptly in an effort to separate myself from him and the ill-ease it engendered. Once inside the ground with the programme in my hand, I felt I’d arrived. I examined its cover, the figures shaking hands, the number, the date, the fixture, just to make sure it really was happening, then ran up the steps of the stand, unable to wait any longer for my first view of the ground I’d seen so often on television. I was shocked by how much the sight of what was, after all, only a football pitch moved me, as I visualised the heroes and their exploits on the turf. It didn’t matter that most had gone or that those who remained could never repeat their great deeds, that just lent the occasion poignancy, but as the teams ran onto the pitch and chants of ‘U-NI-TED’ rang round the ground, the football itself didn’t seem to matter at all. I felt I belonged here as never before, as I joined in the singing, knowing I was as passionate about this club as anyone there. The state of the art electronic scoreboard read Manchester United o Tottenham Hotspur o. I hoped that would change soon. It did. When Martin Peters put Spurs one up, looking round, I noticed that Mecca had been infiltrated as about one hundred Spurs fans celebrated. A handful of United promptly steamed into them from the back of the Scoreboard End terrace, whacking a few before being arrested. Then Peters scored again, reducing the usually deafening Stretford End to the level of a village church congregation. I joined in the chants of ‘You’re gonna get your fuckin’ ’eads kicked in’, just to give myself a bit of a lift. By the time the referee blew his whistle, Peters had added two more. I had the compensation of seeing the great Bobby Charlton score, but this current team were just men. No mist swept round their feet as they left the pitch with their heads hanging after what turned out to be the worst home defeat of the season.
As Dad phoned his report through, the name Peters was polluting the press box air.
‘Your team were lousy!’
He saw how dejected I was.
‘Sorry about that,’ he smiled sympathetically. ‘Not much of a present.’
I felt bad. I remembered why I was there, and the pleasure it had given Dad to bring me to Old Trafford, but there was no way a fanatical United supporter could have enjoyed it. It was impossible to dissemble. I shrugged my shoulders.
In the pressroom I was introduced, with mutual disinterest, to several of his colleagues. Then a handsome, dark-haired man turned and gave Dad the warmest smile he’d yet received, and all the joy knocked out of me returned. Pat Crerand, one of the gods who looked down on me as I lay asleep at night, had stepped down from his picture. The pain when he squeezed my hand confirmed he was real.
‘They could have done with you today, Paddy.’
‘There’s a lot happening here, Brian.’
‘Do you think we’ll stay up?’
I was surprised to hear myself speak.
‘Of course, son. Just going through a bad patch.’
His words reassured me for a moment, but I’d seen enough to realise that the situation was dire.
Outside the ground the streets were dark and empty, strewn with bottles, cans, half-eaten burgers and torn-up programmes cast aside in disgust, but I felt good, bonded with Dad in a way I hadn’t been for a long time, part of his world. Although we discussed the game as equals, he felt more like a father than ever. On the journey home he reminded me of how alike we were. It was said with affection, inspired by the feelings that had been kindled in us both that day, but, like the smile he’d given me before I entered the ground, it seemed to imply ownership. I felt ambivalent about the prospect of turning into another version of him; on the one hand I was filled with admiration for a man apparently so successful professionally, financially and with women, on the other afraid that I might never achieve that success, and that if I did, I might, in that last respect, grow up to hurt someone as much as I felt he had my mother.
Beta was from Berlin; more confident and mature than most of our other au pairs, her English already very good. She’d been working as personal assistant to one of the editors in a German publishing house and now she would be cleaning ours. Where others faded at the court of King Brian, Beta flourished. Poking fun at Dad and quick enough to return fire in the nightly shoot-outs, she slipped into our family like a long-lost older sister.
One evening she failed to come down for dinner. Liz offered to look for her. Ten minutes later she was back.
‘Beta’s in floods of tears. She’s really upset.’
‘Did she tell you what’s wrong?’
Mum looked anxious.
‘She won’t say.’
‘You’re very quiet, Brian. Anything the matter?’
‘Nothing, mutteler. Okay kids, I’m going up to watch Kojak. Coming anybody?’
‘Be nice if you stayed and helped with the washing-up for a change.’
‘Why, dearest daughter, when I have four wonderful children?’
He picked several newspapers off a pile by his seat, and left.
‘I’m going to see how