Simon Beckett - Owning Jacob - SA

“I can do what I want.” It was said without petulance or bravado.

Looking at him, Ben saw that nothing he could say, no talk of rights or court action, was going to alter anything. Jacob sat on his arm, apparently content. He was wriggling his fingers.

After I moment Ben realised that he was copying Kale’s earlier movements with his hand.

“Can we at least talk about this? You know, perhaps sit down—”

“I don’t want you in my house.”

“Oh, come on, this is getting stupid!”

Kale’s whistle made him jump even as he was regretting the choice of words. There was a scrabble of claws from within the house. Oh fuck, Ben thought as he saw the bull terrier from the scrapyard materialise in the hallway. It trotted towards them, bow-legged with muscle. He felt childishly betrayed when he saw Jacob trying to whistle himself.

The dog stopped at the doorstep and glared up at him. A threatening rumble came from its throat. He quickly checked to see how far away the fence was. Kale held his hand over the animal’s head, restraining it without touching it.

“Go on.” Ben thought that Kale was speaking to the dog before realising it was to him. He flinched back as it gave a single, yapping bark, its front legs bouncing clear of the ground.

Then Kale pushed it back into the hall with his foot and shut the door in his face.

He angrily raised his hand to bang on the peeling grey wood, then lowered it. He knew it wouldn’t do any good. All he’d achieve would be an assault by Kale, or the dog. Or both. He didn’t want that to happen in front of Jacob.

He didn’t want that to happen full stop.

He turned to leave. The woman with the brush hadn’t moved. Other people had also come out of the nearby houses to watch. Ben tried to ignore their collective hostility as he went down the path. When he reached the Mini radiator grille he gave it a savage kick that sent it spinning into the overgrown garden. It hurt his foot, but he refused to limp as he walked back to his car.

Across the street, the man in the vest leaned over his gate and spat on the pavement.

The floodlights caught the fine drizzle as it fell and turned it into beads of silver. The harsh glare bathed the football pitch in unnatural brightness, shifting once-familiar colours into an unreliable spectrum and giving objects a hard-edged focus that was both more vivid and unreal. Beyond the light there was only blackness, so that the floodlit pitch seemed to exist by itself in an ocean of shadow.

Ben’s head hung between his knees. Next to him Colin squatted with a football between his legs. His hands were bulky in the goalkeeping gloves, and his track suit was smeared with mud. He nudged Ben and offered him a plastic bottle of water. “You okay?”

Ben nodded without lifting his head. He was still too winded to speak. His throat hurt as he drank. He lowered the bottle after a couple of swallows, swilling the last of it in his mouth before spitting it out. He was thirsty but he knew if he had any more it would only give him a stitch in the second half. He handed the bottle back.

Colin’s Adam’s apple jerked as he drank deeply, eyes shut.

Ben felt the burning in his thighs and calves and wished he played in goal himself. His breath was beginning to come back, but his chest still ached.

Colin’s chin shone wetly when he lowered the bottle. He wiped it with one gloved hand. “How’s the leg?”

Ben examined the scrape on his shin. Dried blood and dirt obscured it. “I’ll live.”

Colin looked over to where the opposing team were sprawled around the goal mouth in a mirror image of their own.

“He’s a dirty bastard. He has somebody down every game.”

The match was a ‘friendly’ between Colin’s firm and a rival practice. The teams were supposedly made up of lawyers from each, but a blind eye was turned to ringers such as Ben, provided they weren’t too good. Which, right then, he certainly wasn’t. He kneaded his calf muscle and looked over at the player Colin had indicated. He was in his twenties, with curly black hair and an arrogant strut. He had brought Ben down with a late tackle, unnoticed by the referee, and run on without a backward glance. Ben hadn’t seen him before, but then he hadn’t played for weeks. He felt every one of them now in every part of his body.

Since seeing Kale’s ripped torso and corrugated belly he’d been making an effort to get fit. He’d been drinking less and cutting down on joints, even doing sit-ups and push-ups at home. It didn’t seem to help. Having a bruised and scraped leg helped even less. During the game he had been too busy to dwell on it, but now, with time to catch his breath and thoughts of Kale and Jacob still in his mind, he looked over at the laughing player with a gathering of animus.

The second half was easier than the first. Either he had caught his second wind or was pacing himself, and he no longer envied Colin his stationary spot in the net quite so much as he huffed around in midfield.

There was still no score when the ball came to him on the break. He ran with it, seeing the greyhound-thin shape of one of the forwards sprinting towards the goal. He swung his leg into the pass, and suddenly he was sprawling face down in the wet grass. He looked up to see the curly-haired player running off down the pitch.

Ben was barely aware of the whistle blowing as he scrambled to his feet. The other player turned around just as he reached him. Ben threw a punch and felt the jar shoot along the length of his arm. He was hit himself, and then they both slipped in the mud and fell over.

They scrabbled about on the ground for a few seconds before they were dragged apart. As Ben was pulled to his feet the curly-haired player caught him on the cheek. Ben kicked him on the thigh, then other players were between them. Colin had both his hands on Ben’s chest, pushing him back.

“All right, Ben, all right, cool it.”

“The bastard hacked me!”

“I know, I know, but—”

“The cunt!”

“Look, calm down, will you? I’ve got to fucking work with these people!”

The intensity in Colin’s voice penetrated even Ben’s anger. He looked at his friend, took in the thinning hair stuck darkly over his scalp with the rain, the face that was beginning to show incipient jowls where a jawline used to be, and felt as though he were looking at someone he didn’t know. The heat went out of him.

“Sorry.”

Colin took his hands from his chest, giving him a warning look. “What’s the matter with you?”

“I’m sorry. I lost it a bit”

“ Jesus, Ben!”

Ben mutely accepted the reproof. The referee, an older solicitor from Colin’s firm, beckoned him over. He hung his head as he stood next to the player who had fouled him, saying nothing as they were first told off, then sent off.

His shoes squelched desolately through the mud as he made his way from the pitch to the sports hall’s changing room. Good move, he thought, hitting a lawyer with twenty other lawyers as witnesses. His opponent walked parallel with him, a few yards away. The heavy slap of the ball being kicked resumed behind them.

“Fucking bastard.”

Ben looked around. “What?”

The other player’s lip was swollen. He gave Ben a look of contempt. Their studs made clacking noises as they reached the path.

“You heard, wanker.”

The hot anger that Ben thought had gone suddenly boiled up in him again. “If you’ve got something to fucking say, fucking say it!”

“Fuck off.”

“Are you going to make me?” He felt disbelief as he heard himself, but the desire to lash out was a thick pumping of blood behind his eyes. He could barely contain it.