Joseph O'Neill - The Breezes

‘No!’ he said, erecting a brief tent as he kicked out under the duvet. ‘Leave me alone!’

‘You’re going to get up,’ I said, ‘and you’re going to get on with your life.’

‘And do what?’ he said, suddenly sitting up on his elbows and facing me, tassels of white hair shaking against his pink scalp. ‘What do you suggest I do once I’ve got up?’

I had to invent something. ‘I tell you what you’re going to do,’ I said, improvizing — and then it came to me. I went over to the heap of dirty linen and pulled out his referee’s black shirt and shorts. ‘You’re going to put this on and you’re going to get out there and take charge of a game. Look, it’s a beautiful day out there.’

‘You’re crazy,’ he said.

I disregarded him. I unfolded the ironing board and began to pass the steaming iron over the cloth, the wrinkles dissolving in its warm wake. ‘Here we are,’ I said when I finished.

‘I don’t feel like it,’ he mumbled, his mouth against his mattress.

‘That’s not the point,’ I said. ‘Never say die, Pa, remember?’

‘It’s not that simple, Johnny.’

He was right, of course. ‘Of course it is,’ I said. ‘Now get shaved and meet me downstairs in five minutes.’

He did not move.

I lit a cigarette and sat on the bed. ‘What are you going to do, lie there for the next thirty years?’

‘Why not?’ Pa said. ‘And it won’t be thirty years either.’

‘Come on, Pa,’ I said. ‘Be serious.’

‘I am serious,’ he said. ‘Get this into your head: I’ve quit reffing. I’ve packed it in, like you said I should.’

I said, ‘I’m not leaving until you’re dressed. I’m being serious, too. I’ll force you if I have to.’

Pa did not respond, so with one movement of the hand I whipped the bedspread away, exposing him there in his white underclothes. Kneeling on the bed, he furiously tried to wrench the duvet from my grip. He failed, and when I suddenly tugged hard I pulled him over the bed’s two-foot drop to the ground. He fell on the sharp red tips of his elbows, then landed with a thump on his ribcage.

Breathing heavily, I said, ‘Are you all right?’

He lay there groaning theatrically for a few moments, like an injured footballer; then, letting go of the duvet, he slowly raised himself.

‘Are you OK?’ I said.

He nodded his head, which he held tiredly in his hands as he sat on the bed. A small patch of damp showed on his Y-fronts by the tip of his penis. ‘I’m not prepared. I can’t go reffing just like that.’

‘Sure you can.’

‘You think so?’

‘Of course. You’ll run out on to that field and you’ll be right into the swing of it.’

‘But there isn’t the time.’

‘There is, if we get going now.’

He continued sitting there, rubbing his face.

‘There’s your kit,’ I said, laying it out on the bed. ‘And here are your boots.’

He looked expressionlessly at his shirt, at the nylon FIFA crest he had sewn on to the breast pocket. Slowly he took the shirt and pulled it over himself, head emerging first, then thin freckled arms. He leaned over and retrieved his special black water-resistant watch from the drawer by his bed and spent a full thirty seconds trying to tie it fast to his left wrist. After that he lifted his feet an inch or two from the floor and dragged his shorts up his legs, fractionally raising his behind to allow the shorts to arrive at the waist. Then he pulled on his socks.

I handed him his training shoes.

He laced them up automatically.

‘Your boots,’ I said, and he accepted the sports bag which contained them.

I led him into the car and drove him to the heath. I’d drop him off, then go on to Waterville. He’d get back on his own.

Out of the blue, on the way there, he began to chuckle.

‘What is it?’ I said.

‘Man of the Month,’ Pa said.

We both laughed.

‘I always said he had it in him,’ Pa said, and we laughed again, only this time our mirth was bellowing and unstoppable, every glance we exchanged bringing on still more laughter. I could barely drive I was laughing so hard.

‘Watch it, Johnny,’ Pa said, as we swerved narrowly past a parked car.

‘Sorry,’ I said. We drove on more slowly, still chortling.

‘Is Rosie OK?’ Pa said presently. ‘I never know with that girl.’

‘She’s fine,’ I said. ‘She’s just Rosie, that’s all.’

He looked at me quizzically.

I said, ‘She’s fine, I said. I mean it.’

He reluctantly accepted my assurance. ‘What about the flat?’ he said. ‘What’s going to happen about the security?’

‘Whelan came round this morning,’ I said.

‘He came round? Whelan came round?’

I smiled at his astonishment and relief. ‘Yes, he did. I’ve got an estimate back at the flat.’

‘New locks? Floodlights?’

‘The lot,’ I said. ‘It’ll be like Fort Knox once he’s finished with it.’

Pa moved comfortably in his seat. ‘I knew he’d come good. What did I tell you? Haven’t I always said that Whelan is a man you can rely on?’

I looked to see if he was being humorous; he wasn’t. ‘I’ve never doubted it, Pa,’ I said.

A moment later, formality in his voice, he said, ‘There’s something I’ve meant to say to you, son. Well done on the exhibition,’ he said.

I smiled dismissively.

‘No, you shouldn’t be like that about it. It’s no mean feat, what you’ve achieved.’

I did not respond. The odd thing was, I was actually beginning to feel the same way myself. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed that there was something meaningful about those chairs.

We drove up to the heath in the nick of time, the players erecting goalposts and crossbars and guying down orange goalnets into the grass for the last Saturday of the season.

I began to have misgivings. ‘Are you sure you’re going to be all right?’ I said.

Pa unclipped his seatbelt and the ball of one bruised eye rolled towards the scene outside. Then he eased himself out of the car and put on his football boots. Sports bag in hand, he trod two or three times on the asphalt, studs clacking, before reaching the turf. Running slowly on the spot, he paused uncertainly as he surveyed the bright-shirted players suddenly springing up all over the sunny heath like miraculous desert flowers.

He looked back.

I gestured him onwards. Go on, I mouthed through the windscreen. Go on.

He came running back. ‘Johnny, can you do me a favour?’

‘What is it?’ I said.

‘I don’t like you going all that way in the Volvo. There’s something wrong with the engine, I know there is.’

‘I’ll be OK,’ I said.

‘I don’t like it,’ he said. ‘You should take a look at yourself. You look washed out. It’s a long drive, and I don’t want what happened to Merv happening to you, that’s all.’

I saw myself in the mirror: smears of dark blue under the eyes.

‘Will you take the train? As a favour to me? Park the car at the station and leave the keys with Bill Dooley, the station manager.’

I sighed. ‘OK, Pa. OK.’

‘Thanks, son,’ my father said.

He straightened and patted his shirt for his cards and notebook. He fished his whistle from his shorts pocket and hung it around his neck, then checked his watch and put his glasses away. ‘Well, here we go, then, Johnny,’ he muttered, shaking his legs and eyeing the teams splashing more and more colour over the heath as they assembled, trying to pick out a fixture which might require his services.

Like an alarmed creature of the prairie, he froze. He stood stockstill for three or four seconds, immobilized by some distant spectacle.