Chapter 1: The Boy Wonder

  “Hey, will you hurry up? It’s fucking freezing out here!” Harry said, crossing his arms and rubbing his shoulders to take away the chill. It was one of the st truly cold days of the year, and the afternoon frost cut straight through his shell-suit jacket.

  His friend Matthias smiled as he increased his nguid gait the barest fraction. “Do you mind if we call in at the shop? I need cigarettes.” He spoke with a rich German accent, and though his command of English was perfect enough, his speech seemed to amble along as zily as the rest of his manner.

  Harry rolled his eyes. “I thought you said you were giving up?”

  “Ja, I tried,” Matthias shrugged and tossed Harry a weather-beaten football, “Don’t worry, I will be fast.” He crossed the road and entered the little convenience store on the bottom floor of the Student Union building.

  Harry eyed him resentfully and shivered again. For a moment he thought about continuing up to the Union bar himself – the rest of the team were there already, most likely - though on reflection it felt a bit too much like throwing a tantrum. So, instead, with a sigh of annoyance, he tucked the ball under his arm and allowed himself to follow. At the very least he should buy some peppermints, Kate was sure to be out ter.

  “Are you two on the footy team then?” Asked the shop assistant, a bubbly blonde Liverpudlian.

  “I am,” Harry smiled as he put down a couple of boxes of Smints on the counter. “Matt here’s just a sub.”

  “Aww that’s too bad, my love.” She smiled indulgently at him. “A bit more practice needed then, is it?”

  “Yes, I know.” Matt gave an effortless shrug, “but it is hard to find some spare time for hobbies. Medicine is a very demanding subject to study, you understand?”

  “Oh, I can imagine,” the shop assistant said enthusiastically. “My ftmate Beth’s doing medicine as well, she barely has time to eat. Still, it’s a calling, isn’t that what they say?”

  “I think so. More than anything I want to help people; if I can do that, then it will all be worth it.” Matt’s eyes glinted as he gave her a solemn nod. “Pardon me for asking, but your ftmate – is she Beth Simpson?”

  “That’s the one!” she ughed, “do you two know each other?”

  “Of course. Beth and I worked together on an assignment st week. She is, well, I find her to be a very kind girl. She has helped me very much.”

  “Oh, that’s Beth all over,” the girl agreed, “She’s absolutely lovely…”

  Harry snorted at how easily his friend had slipped into the role of mild-mannered exchange student. What would the shop girl say, he wondered, if she knew that the boy she was taking as a sort of European Crk Kent had bedded not only Beth, but half the girls at Uni with the same act, not to mention one of his biology professors. Hell, may as well wonder what Matt’s girlfriend Georgina would say, were she ever to find out.

  That was just the way it was with Matt, though. Whether sailing through medical school without ever seeming to find much time to study, or showing up to football practice hung-over (when he felt like it at all) while still just about holding down a spot on the university team, normal human consequences just didn’t seem to happen to the guy. You had to let it be, Harry had learned over the two years they had been friends. You’d go mad otherwise.

  “Are you going upstairs then?” The girl asked, referring to the student bar on the second floor.

  “Ja,” Matt agreed, “Just for a drink or two. And how about you, do you have a long shift?”

  “Only another hour, thank god.” She looked at him a little expectantly.

  “Ahh, that’s a relief,” Matt smiled. “Perhaps after you finish up you could join us? Only if you feel like it, of course. I could maybe buy you a drink?”

  “That would be nice!” the girl smiled. She slipped over her phone and Matt entered in his number. “I’m Samara, by the way.”

  “Matthais,” he smiled back at her, exaggerating the German lilt just a little, “But please, call me Matt.”

  *

  “You must be mental,” Harry shook his head, gncing up as they trooped into the bar. ‘Rio’s’ the pce was called, grubby neon tubing spelt out the word, ornamented with a simple silhouette of a girl dancing on the sand. “The girls have practice today as well, you know. Do you really want Georgie to see you with that scouse bird?”

  “It isn’t like that,” said Matt with a little smile, “And anyway, Georgina was not at practice today. She volunteered at the hospital again.” He rested his elbows on the bar and ordered two pints of Fosters.

  “What’s this? Is the Stallion at it again?” said Steve McIntyre, one of several football ds already at the bar. Matt was German of course, rather than Italian, but somehow that had been enough for the nickname to attach itself.

  “I don’t know where you all get these ideas?” Matt raised his eyebrows innocently. “Harry and I were talking to the girl downstairs. Her name is Samara, and she seems like a nice person, so I invited her to perhaps come and share a drink, once she has finished work.”

  “Ahh, just a nice, friendly drink, is it?” chuckled Faddy Ahmed, tapping their gsses in greeting. “Fuck me mate, how you keep your missus out of the picture, I’ll never know!”

  “Ahh, how does the old line go? – ‘when the cat’s away, the mice can py’.” Steve rejoined in his thick Scottish brogue.

  “There’s nothing for her to know. Like I said, I’m just being friendly.” Matthais said haplessly, before sipping his beer with a wolfish smile.

  “How about you, Owen?” Faddy regarded him for a moment. “Kate and Gwen out ter, or…?”

  “Yeah, they’ll be out with the girl’s team, when they get here.” Harry returned amiably. This sort of double-edged question was common enough, he was coming to find. He had enough of a ‘thing’ with Kate that it made sense to ask him what she was up to, but it was her best friend Gwen Stafford who was the real object of the others’ curiosity.

  “Matt, Harry, you made it.” Said Charlie Wood, shaking them each by the hand in turn. The team captain was tall and handsome, with twinkling grey eyes and short bck hair. Harry abandoned the slightly stiff handshake and clinked their gsses together indulgently. Though they got on well, Charlie could be oddly formal at times, as though the soon-to-be PE teacher already had something of the high school faculty about him.

  “Good to see you, Skip,” Harry smiled back. “Is that a half?”

  Charlie eyed his smaller drink sheepishly. “Yeah, well… I can’t be out too long. Assignment due tomorrow and all that.”

  “Matt and Harry - That’s everyone, now?” Steve asked.

  “Yeah, think so.” Charlie puffed his chest, “Right ds, get yourselves sat down. It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for – team jackets are here!”

  Harry rubbed his palms together in anticipation as he followed the troupe over to a pair of big squashy couches in the bar lounge. It wasn’t wrong to say they’d all been looking forward to this; the tracksuit order had been expected by the time they got back from Christmas break, and now, allowing for shipping deys, they had finally arrived.

  “Steve,” Charlie called out as the st of them took their seats. He threw a shrink-wrapped package over the table.

  “Aye, thanks Skip!” said Steve McIntyre, ripping open the pstic and pulling out a bck and purple jacket with the university crest on the front and ‘Steve ‘Big Mac’ McIntyre’ on the reverse. The nickname suited the 6’5 goalkeeper perfectly. He gave a happy grin and ran his enormous hand through his mop of ginger curls.

  Faddy ‘Twinkletoes’ Ahmed was next, followed by Dave ‘Pot Noodle’ Daniels. Charlie himself looked pleased with his own, the promotion to ‘Skipper’ affording a welcome respite from his old moniker of ‘Woody.’

  When his own turn came, Harry set down his pint as he tore into the pack and held up his long-coveted jacket. ‘Harry ‘Boy Wonder’ Owen’ it read, though none of the ds really called him that. Instead, he was usually known simply by his surname, shared with the captain of the Engnd team, which had evolved its own slightly nickname-ish cadence. Harry pyed striker, like his famous namesake, but there was little other resembnce. Unlike the baby-faced terror of international defenders, Harry was of above average height and well-enough put together, with wide blue eyes, a handsome, lightly freckled face and a shock of straw-blonde hair.

  Matt was st, his jacket reading simply ‘Matthias Schmidt’, with the word ‘Doc’ embossed immediately above it. “Thank you so much, Skipper,” he raised his gss to salute Charlie and the other pyers followed in kind. “These look fantastic.”

  “You couldn’t find one that said ‘Stallion’?” Big Steve asked, thumbing his nose.

  Matt shook his head seriously. “No, I didn’t want it. It would have seemed a little crass, don’t you think?”

  “Isn’t that the point?” Someone else chirped.

  “We all got the names we requested,” Charlie cut in cheerfully. “Look, why don’t we put them on – it’s a team meeting after all!”

  They all agreed, and Harry found to his pleasure that the new jacket fit him perfectly. He zipped it half up and retook his perch on the arm of one of the sofas as Charlie opened his battered folder, checked their names off the order register, and began to talk strategy. It was simple enough stuff, really, though Charlie had the knack of making it sound more complicated. Harry and his fellow striker Faddy Ahmed pyed as a duo in attack, with Faddy typically hanging a little further back, in hope of creating chances for Harry to score. Now though Charlie wanted each of them to interchange, swapping position regurly to confuse the opposition defence.

  “I want everybody comfortable pying anywhere on the pitch,” he finished approvingly, “Total Football - Just like they do at Barcelona.”

  “So, you gonna have old Pot Noodle sprinting down the wings then?” Big Steve quipped.

  “Yeah mate, what could be easier?” his friend chuckled along, patting his emerging beer-belly.

  Harry ughed good-naturedly with the rest. The skipper could be long-winded but strange as it was, he enjoyed talking strategy like this, and there was something comforting in the jovial banter. The minutes passed and he sipped on his ger, allowing the booze to shroud him in a mellow warmth and trying to pay attention, drifting only intermittently to cast a wistful gnce at the entryway.

  “Look sharp Owen,” Faddy nudged him as he set his mostly empty pint back on the table, “Your missus is here.”

  Once more Harry’s eye whipped back to the entrance and a spark of excitement shot through his chest. Kate tended to have that effect on him. She had a sort of effortless, natural beauty that made Harry assume she just got out of bed that way, even after experience had told him that wasn’t quite the case. Though a Yorkshire ss in accent and manner, Kate’s Japanese heritage shone through in her pretty brown eyes and small nose that crinkled whenever she ughed at one of her own bad jokes. She pyed striker as well, Harry’s counterpart on the women’s team, where she was by all accounts the star pyer, and she wore a simir jacket to his own, with ‘Kate ‘Bloody Hell’ Niijima’ embossed on the back.

  Harry rose to his feet, suddenly aware that it was time to buy a new pint and stretched his foot forward towards the bar.

  “Reckon you can get Gwen to sit with us mate?” ‘Pot Noodle’ gnced up at him hopefully.

  “Not downwind of you, that’s for sure,” Big Steve said thoughtfully, to which his friend rolled his eyes in annoyance. Harry for his part shared the joke for a moment, then set off across the room with a non-committal shrug.

  “You’ve finally got your jackets,” Kate said approvingly as he drew close. The girls, being rather more organised, had received their order back in November. “It looks good on you.” She came a little closer and absent-mindedly evened out the pel for him.

  “Yeah, not bad, ‘Boy Wonder’.” Gwen quipped cheerfully.

  Harry blushed a little despite himself. Gwen Stafford was stunning, there was just no other word for it. Though he would argue for Kate any day of the week – and probably even mean it – there was no doubt that Gwen was different. With her warm brown eyes, honey coloured skin and soft curves, hers was a beauty to rival Beyonce or Shakira. She modelled, casually, and she had the sort of natural stardust that often led to the entire group being fast-tracked up a nightclub queue. But once you got over the mystique, Harry had quickly discovered that Kate’s best friend was in fact a perfectly ordinary 20-year-old girl. He had even wondered (during one of his rare fits of maturity), whether she might even find it all a bit overwhelming, since even with all the attention she attracted, he couldn’t actually remember her having a steady boyfriend. She was a good mate, all considered, you just had to get over the fact that her beauty might, well, stun you a bit, if you weren’t ready for it.

  “Do you guys have a drink?” Harry said, trying to give his mind a bit of a kick-start.

  “No, you’re ‘right, my love. Gwen owes me a pint anyway.” She batted away the offer as her friend handed her a pint of Strongbow.

  “Fosters, isn’t it?” Gwen said, adding it to her order. “You can pick up the next one, alright?”

  “Suits me,” Harry shrugged, taking the frosty pint from the barmaid and raising the gss in salute. “Cheers, Sara.”

  Sara, a pretty trans girl with auburn hair and a nose stud, smiled as she took a five-pound note from Gwen and at her direction popped the change into the tip jar.

  “Thanks a lot, Gwen. How are you lot anyway? You had a good practice today?” She asked, casting her eyes about the zoo of soccer pyers and kit bags that littered the lounge area.

  “Yeah pretty good,” Kate answered cheerfully, “We did some work on set-piece pys and ended with a 5 vs 5.”

  “Sounds fun,” Sara said dutifully, handing over the pints.

  “I’ll just be happy when it warms up,” Gwen said, rubbing her shoulders. Harry noted that she had dispensed with her team jacket in favour of a thick woollen coat and white scarf.

  “You just need to get stuck in more, run about a bit sweetie, that’ll keep you warm!” Kate sipped her drink.

  “Run about? How do you suggest I do that when I’m stuck standing in a wall waiting for you to take a free kick a dozen times in a row?”

  “It’s not as bad as all that is it? We got to py a match at the end. You even scored!”

  Gwen shrugged, allowing her friend to sooth her. “I did py pretty well, didn’t I?”

  “You’re getting better every practice, sweetie, and you’re already in the team for next week.” Kate beamed at her. Gwen had only taken up football at the beginning of the year, at Kate’s bequest, but she had taken to it well, and now it seemed that her friend’s scheme to have them both py in the team together was at st ready to bear fruit.

  “I am? How do you know that?” Gwen grinned in spite of herself.

  “You don’t think I get to hear things?” Kate wagged her finger. “Skip thought you did very well with your ten minutes against Dartford College and she reckons you’re ready for a full game. Keep it to yourself though, I wasn’t supposed to say anything.”

  “My lips are sealed,” Gwen said happily, “Shit, a full game; I’m so nervous all of a sudden.”

  “You’ll do great,” Kate smiled, “You’re ready, believe me, and you’ll learn so much.”

  Gwen returned the smile for a moment, but her face darkened as she caught sight of something over their shoulders. “Christ, is the sex-pest at it again?”

  Harry followed her gaze. It was Matthais who had met with her disapproval, the shop assistant, Samara, had apparently finished her shift and the handsome German had gone to meet her at the door.

  “He’s not like that,” Harry said, a little defensively, “He doesn’t do anything creepy or anything, he’s just friendly.”

  “Friendly my arse! Look at how full of it he is.”

  “He’s a bit of a twat, I’ll give you that much,” Kate agreed slowly, watching as he helped the girl with her coat, “But sex-pest is a bit much, isn’t it? He doesn’t drug them or anything like that – he just serves them up a load of fake Euro-bullshit that they happily buy into.”

  “And Georgie? What’s she to make of it? While she’s seeing to the sick kids up at St Michaels, her boyfriend is seeing to half the girls in the Student Union?”

  “Maybe someone should tell her?” Kate suggested.

  Harry winced. The thought of grassing up a friend and teammate seemed hopelessly treasonous, but nor could he think of a way to defend Matt’s behaviour, so instead he held his tongue and took another sip of his pint.

  Kate seemed to think along the same lines. “She’s nice, is Georgie, but I wouldn’t say I know her well enough for that sort of conversation. I don’t even have her number.”

  Gwen frowned in annoyance. “Oi Matt,” she called across the bar, “How’s Georgie?”

  Matt gave her a dark look but could only force a polite smile and return the wave.

  As they made their way back over to the team, Harry found himself admiring how well Gwen had chosen her barb. Had she called out ‘How’s your girlfriend?’, it would have been tantamount to a full-on decration of war, something that would have permanently antagonised Matt and had half the men’s team calling her a professional pain-in-the-ass. By leaving at least the vague possibility that Georgie was only some sort of mutual friend (something Matt was now quickly trying to expin to the girl), she let Matt know what she thought of his antics, with pusible deniability that it was only a bit of banter, and all the while retaining the more explicit truth as a card of further escation if he pressed his luck. Harry snorted as he thought back on an essay he had written st semester on Game Theory. It was a shame Gwen wasn’t on that course; she seemed to have quite a knack for it.

  He remembered the moment ter of course. In fact, he took to repying the scene in his head time and again. It always sent a little chill down his spine, the thought of how easily Gwen might have ended Matt’s affair with the corner-shop girl then and there, and he often wondered how differently all their lives might have turned out if she had.