Philip Kerr - False Nine

‘By Scott. Hmm. Gui likes to read.’

‘From the number of underlinings it seems to be a favourite of his.’

‘Then you must sign it for him,’ said Jérôme. ‘A lot of the others are signed. Fergie’s book. Roy Keane’s. Mourinho’s. He loves having them signed. Here, let me find you a pen.’

Jérôme pulled open a drawer and produced a Mont Blanc fountain pen which he handed to me.

I tried to write my name, but without success.

‘It seems to have run out of ink,’ I said, handing it back.

‘I think there’s some more in the desk,’ he said, sitting down at a modern-looking table near the window. He pulled at the barrel of the pen and then frowned. It was clear he didn’t know how it worked.

‘It’s a piston-filler,’ I said. ‘I’ve got one at home. You unscrew the end, stick it in the ink, then screw the end back up, which sucks up the ink.’

‘Shit,’ said Jérôme looking at his hand. ‘It seems there was maybe some in it after all.’

He wiped his hand on the back of his jeans.

‘I’ve lost a lot of white blouses like that,’ said Grace. ‘Here, give it to me.’ She took the pen, filled it with ink, wiped it carefully on a tissue from her handbag — but not without getting some ink on her own fingers — and then handed it to me.

‘There you go.’

I opened the book’s title page and wrote my name and an anodyne little message for Gui about how lovely his house was and wishing him good luck with his career. Books are hard enough to write but the dedications are even harder. Especially in football. The number of times I’d written It’s a funny old game , or This is a book with two halves . Somehow good luck never seems quite enough. I handed the book to Jérôme who turned the pages as if the book had been an artefact from a time capsule. Maybe all books are. I mean, who the fuck reads any more?

‘Perhaps I can read this on the plane to Barcelona,’ he said. ‘But why’s it called Foul Play ?’

‘You remember I said I’d been in jail, for something I didn’t do?’

He nodded.

‘The full story of what happened is in here. How I got fitted up by the British cops for something I didn’t do. There’s that and the fact that I had a reputation on the park as a bit of a hard man. Until Richard Dunne I think I held the Premier League record for the most red cards. No, that’s not quite true. I think he holds the record jointly now with Patrick Vieira and Duncan Ferguson. Honestly, though, I was never a dirty player. Just fully committed, as they say. I never set out to injure anyone. But I do think football’s a man’s game that’s in danger of becoming just a little tame.’

‘Oh? How?’ He laid the book on the table and picked up his glass.

‘I watched Messi up close twinkling his toes at Camp Nou the other week and I was thinking in the old days, someone — Norman Hunter, Tommy Smith — would have taken his legs off at the knees. I’m not saying that’s a good thing, mind. Just that maybe the balance has gone too far the opposite way. Actually, I think that this is why a lot of European players struggle in the Premier League. Because the game is much more physical in England than it is in Spain. With one exception. Cristiano Ronaldo. I think he’s probably the most physical player I’ve ever seen. I met him once and it was like shaking hands with fucking Xerxes. The king in that movie 300 about the three hundred Spartans? The one who Leonidas tells to go and fuck himself.’

Jérôme nodded. ‘Good movie.’

I shrugged. ’Had its moments.’

‘You know, I’ve been thinking of writing a book myself,’ admitted Jérôme. ‘Oh, I don’t mean another boring autobiography about how I first got picked for Monaco and what it was like to pair up with Zlatan. No, I mean a proper book. Like the one your Russell Brand wrote?’

‘Oh, you mean a booky-wook.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s like a book but it’s written by Russell Brand. Which makes it a little bit different, I suppose.’

Jérôme nodded. ‘Have you read his latest book?’ he asked. ‘It’s called Revolution .’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Have you?’

‘Not yet. But I’m going to when I can get hold of a copy in French. I’m really looking forward to it. In fact, if you see one at the airport in Pointe-à-Pitre maybe you could buy it for me. So I can look at it on the plane.’

‘Sure.’ I noticed he said ‘look’ not ‘read’; there’s a crucial difference that’s little appreciated by a lot of people who still buy books.

‘I’ve even got myself a title,’ he proclaimed.

‘Yeah?’

‘I’m going to call my book The Electric Tumbrel . Like the cart that they used to transport people to the guillotine during the French Revolution. Only this one’s electric? Because we’re in a hurry to get rid of some of these people, right? The bankers and the politicians. Plus it’s modern and better for the environment, too.’

I smiled, thinly. I hoped I wasn’t going to have to endure much of this boring lefty-crap on the private jet. If there’s one thing I hate in the world it’s a lefty with a mouth on him. Or her. Especially when they’re sporting a pair of diamond earrings and a massive gold watch.

‘I mean, where does it say that footballers can’t be politically engaged?’ he said. ‘And it’s not like Spain doesn’t have severe economic problems. Did you know that youth unemployment in the country is fifty-five per cent?’

‘Yes, I did. And it’s a tragedy.’

‘That’s second only to Greece. The fact is we need to politicise this generation if anything is ever going to change. We have to see past the politics if we’re going to establish a new way of governing ourselves. We need to overthrow the governments the way they did in Iceland. By mass civil disobedience. It’s the only thing that works. Because I really believe that inequality is man-made and what we can make we can also unmake. The politicians we have now are part of the problem not the solution. So, into the electric tumbrel with them, that’s what I say.’

‘Sure, sure, but if you don’t mind me saying so, what matters more right now is that you put this recent difficulty behind you. If you take my advice you should resume your career as quickly as possible and let your football do the talking for you. For a while, at any rate. There will be time enough for you to publish a book.’

‘Yeah, you’re probably right.’

‘I know I’m right. You can say what you like when you start putting the ball in the back of the net.’

‘You live in London, right? Like Brand?’

‘I’m not sure he doesn’t live in Hollywood now,’ I said. ‘Or Utopia, for that matter.’

Or perhaps cloud-cuckoo-land.

‘But yes, I live in London. In Chelsea.’

‘Chelsea. One day, I’d like to play for Chelsea perhaps. I think José Mourinho is probably the greatest manager in modern football.’

‘I wouldn’t say that at Camp Nou, if I were you. Although I happen to agree. I think in terms of matches and trophies won he’s the most successful manager of the twenty-first century. Not to mention the most glamorous. Until José came along all managers in the English game were angry-looking Scotsmen in ill-fitting tracksuits, but he was the first one to look like he could walk from the technical area straight onto the pages of GQ . Like me, he’s the son of a professional football player so I’ve always felt that we have something in common. But there’s not a lot of love for José in Barcelona. Not since he was the manager at Real Madrid. Certainly not since he poked poor Tito Vilanova in the eye. Anyway, José said sorry. Which is probably just as well in the circumstances.’