The Footballer's Wife (6 page)

Tracy turned to Leanne. ‘Lee,' Tracy said, holding out her arms. Leanne edged nervously towards her. Tracy pulled her close. ‘Good to see you.' As she nestled her chin into her daughter's neck, she opened her eyes to see Jodie eyeballing her.

‘Good to see you too, Mum,' Leanne said.

‘Are we mates now?' Tracy asked brazenly, pulling away from her daughter and holding her at arm's length to get a good look at her.

Leanne's eyes began to fill with tears. ‘Course we are.' She looked relieved. Tracy smiled back but it galled her to be the one having to pass around the pipe of peace. This lot of hers, Tracy thought, they were all convinced that life was like it was on the TV: everyone gets their comeuppance and bad people have to say sorry for nasty things they've done and good people get to have nice teeth and neighbours without ASBOs.

Well, it didn't work like that. Life was hard and
you made your own way – she thought she'd taught them all that much. But seeing them all standing there like the Von Trapps made her realise that all they wanted was some mum they'd seen on an Oxo advert. Well, that wasn't her and it was never going to be her.

‘Jode,' Tracy said, feeling in need of a stiff drink and a sit down. Jodie stepped forward and kissed her mum formally on the cheek. Of all of her kids, Jodie was the one who reminded Tracy most of herself. She was old beyond her years and used her acid tongue to make sure that no one challenged her. Tracy wouldn't be surprised if Leanne had told her to rein in her mouthy behaviour since she'd taken up the modelling thing, but it was there to draw on if she needed it. And Tracy quite liked that about her daughter.

‘Drink?' Jodie asked.

Thank God
, Tracy thought. ‘Vodka and tonic would be lovely.'

‘Right.' Jodie headed for the bar, obviously wanting this awkward moment to have passed. Tracy didn't really care what Jodie thought. As far as she was concerned her daughter had been a snotty-nosed self-righteous little madam over the whole Leanne thing. She had lived at Tracy's all her life
and one whiff of bad feeling and she was off living somewhere else, badmouthing her around the place.

Tracy took a seat. She looked around to see where Kent had got to. There was no sign of him. She imagined that he was in the men's getting in ‘The Zone', as he liked to call it. Jodie returned with Tracy's drink and plonked it in front of her.

‘That's a double,' she said coldly.

‘Should hope so,' Tracy said. She looked at her daughter. She knew that she should ask Jodie how her modelling was going; tell her that she was proud of her when she saw her in the paper or gracing the front cover of a magazine, but she couldn't be bothered. If Leanne's success in her younger days was anything to go by then she'd have enough idiots surrounding her telling her how great she was, and Tracy wasn't about to join in that game.

Someone poked their head from around the gold ribbons that created the backdrop of the small stage and Tracy froze. It was Len Metcalfe. He walked over to the microphone, tapped it twice and then said, ‘Testing, testing.' Feedback suddenly screamed through the room and everyone winced. Len jumped back in surprise at the noise he'd created before readjusting the mike. As he went through his
testing
performance again, he looked up
and caught Tracy's eye. Tracy felt a shiver bolt down her spine and suddenly she was seventeen again and fighting back tears. Len pulled his gaze away.

‘Mum, are you alright, Mum?' Jodie asked, looking at Tracy to indicate that her face was giving away more than she hoped. Tracy barely heard her daughter as she flew out of her chair towards the ladies' toilets, where she promptly threw up.

‘Mum?' Jodie said. Tracy could hear her outside the cubicle.

‘Nerves.' Tracy exited the toilet, dusting herself down.

‘Nerves? What for?' Jodie asked, looking at her mum – it was obvious that she wasn't buying this.

‘Kent. It's not every day he goes on stage in front of everyone, is it?' Tracy said matter-of-factly. She could feel Jodie eyeballing her.

‘At Bolingbroke Lane? It's hardly Wembley Arena, is it?'

‘I'm just nervous for him, alright?' Tracy said in a manner that indicated that the conversation was definitely at an end.

Once back in the club, Tracy made her way over to her family. She sat down quietly next to Markie. ‘First act's just about up,' Markie said.

‘Good,' Tracy said, ‘this place needs livening up.' The club was nearly full and people were getting the drinks in and taking their places expectantly. Tracy looked at Markie. He was a good-looking lad, she thought. He didn't look like her. He had dark hair and a Roman nose and was tall, unlike Tracy, who was five foot five in her heels. She must have been staring at him for too long because Markie turned to her and stared back.

‘Want a picture?'

‘Can't I look at my son if I want to?' Tracy asked.

‘Course you can but you were taking the print off me.'

Tracy saw Tony walk in carrying Kia. He walked over to the group and said hello. Tracy had barely seen her grandchild or Leanne's boyfriend in a year.

‘Come to your nana, Kia, I've missed you, chicken,' Tracy said, holding her arms out. Kia buried her head in Tony's chest, reluctant to follow Tracy's instructions.
Suit yourself then, you brat,
Tracy thought. Tony shook Markie's hand. Tracy looked on with interest. She couldn't be sure but she thought that the two men hadn't spoken in over a year, since Markie's wedding. He had only managed to be married to his bride for seven hours before he was citing irreconcilable differences on account of
the fact that she'd shagged his friend. There was an awkwardness between Tony and Markie, but Markie soon got to his feet and came back with a drink for Tony. Leanne watched all this carefully but, once she realised Tracy was looking at her, trying to work out what was going on, she faced forward, turning her attention to the acts.

The PA crackled into life and a deep voice that was obviously Len putting on an American accent announced, ‘Live, tonight from Bolingbroke Lane Working Men's Club, it's the Elvis extravaganza.' The music from
2001: A Space Odyssey
blasted out over the tannoy and a single light that wasn't quite plugged in correctly came on and flickered unimpressively. The stage setting wasn't living up to what the music promised.

A small squat man wandered out on stage dressed in a shirt with big collars and a pair of Farahs. He had a guitar slung around his neck. ‘Uh huh huh,' he said in his best Elvis voice. Which wasn't good.

Tracy stifled a laugh. ‘Fuck me, Joe Pasquale,' she whispered to Markie, who smiled.

The man's Elvis impersonation was terrible. He sang ‘Blue Suede Shoes', which Tracy knew was a sure-fire way not to win. Kent had been droning on about it all day. ‘Hound Dog' and ‘Blue Suede
Shoes' were the two songs that made judges roll their eyes and want to shout ‘Next!'

He was followed by two equally unimpressive acts. Tracy was happily lining up vodkas and keeping an eye on Len Metcalfe's whereabouts when a young man came on stage dressed in leather trousers and a leather jacket. He nervously approached the mike. As his backing music began, something happened. A look of calm confidence came over his face and as he sang the first line of ‘Always On My Mind' people began to sit up and take notice.
Oh oh,
Tracy thought.
Kent's had it.
The young man finished his excellent rendition and received a standing ovation.

Kent was on next. Tracy didn't want him to make a fool of himself or, more importantly, her. She quickly threw a vodka down her neck and steeled herself for his performance. The music to ‘It's Alright' began to play and Kent slid in from the side of the stage on his knees, jumped straight up onto his feet and burst into song. There were whoops and cheers from the audience. Tracy couldn't believe what she was seeing – it was like actually watching
Elvis
. Kent gyrated around the stage, flipping his pelvis towards the audience, causing screams from some of the women
watching. Tracy looked around for a moment, making sure that she was right in thinking that Kent was pulling off the performance of a lifetime and then decided to relax into it; she even started clapping. As he finished he slid across the floor again, his arms raised in the air, and as the last beat of the song played he thrust his head and arms forward onto the floor as if praying to the audience. Everyone in the club was out of their seats, cheering and shouting.

‘Bloody hell!' Markie shouted to his mum over the cheers and applause. ‘He's a dark horse.'

Tracy nodded in agreement. ‘Isn't he?' she said in wonder.

When Len Metcalfe came on stage and announced that Kent was the winner and would be going through to the Blackpool semi-finals to win a place in the Memphis grand final, everyone in the room stood up and cheered again. It made a nice change for Tracy to see Kent do something he was actually good at. In the four years they'd been together she had begun to have her doubts that he was good at anything. But something really didn't sit well with Tracy. Even though all her family were there and she was proud of Kent for the first time in living memory, the only thing that she could
really think about was Len Metcalfe. And the fact that he and Kent were shaking hands on the stage and being all pally pally made Tracy feel sick all over again.

‘SHIT!' CHARLY SAID
as she burned the toast for the third time. It was their maid's day off and she was trying to make breakfast in bed for Joel. She put two more slices in the toaster and stood over it diligently until they popped out a golden brown colour rather than the blackened carcinogenic offerings she'd had to put in the bin.

She buttered the toast and cut it into triangles before neatly arranging it on the Alessi tray, next to the orange juice, tea and poached eggs she'd managed to make. Cooking wasn't Charly's strong point but today she had promised herself that she was going to surprise Joel. He'd been in a foul mood all week; since the whole debacle with her dad both at the football and the restaurant. She knew her dad could be an oaf; she didn't need her boyfriend constantly reminding her. But this week it
looked like it was going to have to be her that held out the olive branch, as it often seemed to be these days.

Charly shimmied through into their bedroom. The view from the penthouse looked all the way across the city over to the hills near Oldham. To the other side the view stretched as far as Bradington, but Charly didn't look that way too often.

‘Here you go,' she said chirpily. Joel threw the covers back and looked at his girlfriend and the tray she was carrying.

‘I'm not hungry,' he said, burrowing back under the covers.

‘But I've made it especially for you.'

‘You've made it?' he sneered.

‘It's Monika's day off,' Charly said, looking forlornly at the tray.

‘Well, if you've made it, I'm definitely not eating it. Don't need food poisoning,' Joel said from beneath the sheets.

Charly felt wounded. She looked down at the small but lovingly made meal and then at the big lump in the bed. ‘Well, I've put a lot of time and effort into this. The least you could do is say thank you,' she said, trying not to lose her temper.

Joel had turned and smashed the tray out of
Charly's hand before she realised what was happening. She looked down at the spilt orange juice and broken glass as Joel shouted, ‘I didn't ask for any fucking breakfast, did I?'

Charly leapt up angrily. ‘No, you didn't, but I thought I'd make you some because it's a nice gesture, not that you can even remember the meaning of the word
nice
.'

‘Nice? I'll tell you what nice is, shall I?' Joel jumped out of bed. ‘
Nice
is putting up with your scumbag dad all night while he talks shit and badmouths me,
that's
nice.
Nice
is not losing my rag when your dad gets booted out of the match for all to see,
that's
nice.'

‘That's my dad, that's not me!' Charly shouted.

‘Yeah, well, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree,' Joel said, turning away from her.

‘What's that supposed to mean? What have I done? What is wrong with you?' She didn't understand his moods.

‘Just fuck off, Charly, yeah? You're doing my head in and I don't need it.'

‘God, this is so typical. You start a fight then you twist things and make
me
out to look like the bad person then you won't even talk about it!'

‘There's nothing to fucking say!' Joel spat angrily.
The veins on the side of his neck were bulging. He went to march off and walked straight onto a shard of glass that was sticking out of the carpet. He leapt in the air like a wounded animal. Charly's immediate reaction was to jump up after him. She grabbed his foot to inspect it. The cut was deep and the glass was protruding out at a right angle. Charly put her finger near the entrance of the wound. Suddenly she was knocked backwards with such force that she fell from the bed, narrowly missing the other pieces of glass that were scattered on the floor. She put her hand to her head in shock. This wasn't the first time Joel had hit her, but it was the first time he had used such force.

‘Call a fucking ambulance – this could be my career over!' Joel screamed and to Charly's surprise she did exactly as she was told. She didn't scream and protest as she had in the past when he'd hit her, she calmly went over to the phone and dialled 999, trying to work out what she had done to deserve to be hit but thinking to herself that there must be some reason. It must be her fault in some way, otherwise why would her sometimes loving and caring boyfriend do such a thing? She looked at him as he rolled around the bed in agony. He didn't meet her eye once.