Chapter 284 - 107 Steps I

He came out of it on crutches the next morning, and he was still on them 12 days later, when the deed was signed.

We signed it in the bar under the main stand at 7 on the Sunday, at the table by the window where the trust had been founded. The registration had come back on the Friday. The deed sat in front of Margaret in a blue cover, 4 pages, open at the last one.

Ted came in with his 1996 scarf already on and his best jacket under it.

"You are early, Ted," said Maureen.

"I have been up since 4." He looked at the table. "Is that the deed?"

"That is the deed," said Margaret. "Sit down, Ted. Read it first. We have until 8."

"I will read every word."

He sat and put his glasses on, and read the first page with his finger moving along under the lines. tick, tick of the clock over the bar. Maureen stood by the window with her coat over her arm, waiting to witness it.

"Does it say for good?" Ted said, without looking up.

"It says nothing in that clause can change without the holder’s consent," said Margaret. "The holder is the trust. So yes, Ted. It says for good."

"And the trust is all of us."

"The trust is 700 people and a pound each, as of Friday night."

"700." He turned the page. "There were 40 of us in here."

"There were 600 by the end of the Crewe game," said Maureen, from the window. "Priya took the pounds on the till."

"What does it stop?" Ted said. "Tell me in words I can say in the club shop."

"Nobody sells the ground, or leases it, or leaves it," said Margaret. "Nobody changes the name, the colours or the badge. And nobody lends this club money beyond the ordinary unless the trust says yes, in writing."

"Nobody," said Ted.

"Nobody at all, Ted."

He took his glasses off and wiped them on the end of his scarf, put them back on, and read that page again from the top.

"I have not signed anything like this since my wedding," Ted said.

"Then it is a good morning for it," I said.

I signed first, where Margaret had marked a small cross. Ted signed for the trust underneath me. Maureen signed under both of us as witness. scritch of her pen, quick and small, the way she signs everything.

Margaret blotted it, slid it into a clear folder, and put the folder in her bag.

"It comes with me," she said. "I want it in the building where they hand out the cup."

"If they hand it to us," said Ted.

"Wherever they hand it."

toot, toot from the car park. Raj, 5 minutes early, with his boot open for Ted’s stick.

We were on the A13 at 8 in Raj’s Vauxhall, heading west into London with the sun behind us. Ted had the front seat. Raj had decided that the week before without asking anybody.

The last time I was on this road, in the life before, I did not get to the end of it.

"You are quiet," Raj said, in the mirror.

"I am thinking."

"Do not think. It is a Sunday." He turned the radio down. "Ted. Show him."

"Show him what?"

"You know what. You showed me in the club shop yesterday. Show him."

Ted sighed and opened his wallet on his knee. The slip was folded behind his bus pass, where he had put it in February. He held it up between 2 fingers so I could see it.

"13th of February," he said. "100 to 1. 10 pounds."

"What is it now?"

"She offered me 9 to 4 the night of the semi, for today. I said I did not want it. I have got this one."

Margaret was beside me in the back with her bag on her knee. She leaned forward between the seats to look at it.

"Is that the only copy?" she said.

"It is the only one they give you."

"Then put it away, Ted. Please."

He folded it back along the same creases and put it behind the bus pass again.

"I am not getting it out again till it is paid or it is not."

"It will be paid," said Raj.

"Do not say that in a car, Raj. Not on the way." He put the wallet away and patted the pocket. "Drive the car."

"When did you last go to Wembley, Ted?" I said.

"1966. On a train. I was 32. I stood behind the goal and I could not see the half of it." He looked out at the river. "I never went back. It was not ours to go to."

"It is today," said Raj. "I have driven this road every week for 20 years, and I have never once driven it to a final."

"Will Lenny be there?" Ted said. "With his knee?"

"On crutches."

"Then he will be there," said Ted, and nodded.

"He will be on the bench end, behind Craig," I said. "He asked for a seat where he could see the back 4."

"Course he did."

"Margaret," said Ted, without turning round. "Where is it now?"

"In my bag, Ted. On my knee."

"Keep hold of it."

"I have not let go of it since we signed it."

"If we win," Raj said, "I am driving the 3 of you home tonight and I am not taking a penny."

"You never take a penny off me," said Ted.

"I take it off him." Raj nodded at me in the mirror. "Not tonight."

Raj drove the car, and said nothing else till Dagenham.

By 11 Wembley Way was full of amber and black from one end to the other, and it was singing.

"FROM THE SEAWALL UP TO WEMBLEY, THE TIDE IS COMING IN!"

boom of the drum, carried all the way from the Bovril End on a man’s chest. A man in front of us had a flag made out of his front-room curtains, with TILBROOK sewn across it in white.

"MR MERCER!" he shouted, when he saw me. "LOOK AT MY FLAG!"

"Who made it?"

"I did!" said the woman beside him. "I sewed the letters on last night! I have not slept!"

"That is a good flag," Ted said to her. "You hang that out of your window tonight, whatever happens."

"12,000 through our ticket office," said Maureen, when we found the families’ block. "For a final, from a town that size. I counted it twice."

She had come on the families’ coach to see it done. She was in the second row beside Riyad’s mother, with a programme open between them, pointing out the names.

"46 seats," she said. "Every family that asked for one."

A small boy in a number 2 shirt leaned across from the row behind. "Is my dad playing?"

"He is, love," said Maureen. "Number 2. Right at the back, on this side. You shout for him."

His mother caught my sleeve. "Thank you for the seats, Mr Mercer. He has talked about nothing else since Thursday."

"Thank Maureen. She put it through."

"Do not thank me," said Maureen. "It is the club’s money."

Margaret had found Ted a seat on the aisle in the bottom tier of our half, 5 rows up from the foot of the steps that go to the Royal Box. She had rung the stadium twice about it.

"Steps," said Ted, when he saw them. "How many?"

"107," said Margaret.

"I am glad I am not going up them."

"Nobody is asking you to, Ted. You are sitting here, where I can find you."

"Go on up, son," Ted said to me. "Go and sit with the people in ties. I am not going anywhere till it is finished."