Chapter 316: December II

The contractor's director came at 10, a tall man in a grey suit who had driven down from Ipswich. He had a fat black pen and the contract in 3 copies.

Margaret did not pick up her pen until Maureen had put her finger on the stand's line on her screen. 5,488,000, in the account.

She signed all 3 copies and passed them to me to sign as chairman. The director signed last. He kept one copy, gave her one, and the third went in Maureen's drawer with the steel order.

"We start on your terrace in the week after your last home match," he said. "It comes out first."

On his way to his car he stopped at the gate to the Bovril End and went up 3 of the old steps, and came down again.

"Mind them steps," Kieran shouted from the goalmouth, where he was forking the grass. "They go greasy this time of year." He went back to his fork, chk, chk.

On the Thursday morning Maureen read it to me off her screen before I had my coat off.

"Over 1,100 in Tokyo at the top yesterday," she said. "Under 1,000 now."

"Why?"

"The Chinese central bank has put out a statement. It says it is not money and the law will not treat it as money. Their banks and payment firms are not to trade it or insure anything to do with it. People can still trade it themselves, at their risk."

"When?"

"It dropped at about 8 o'clock, our time." She looked at the figure again. "It has not stopped dropping yet."

She opened the green book at the back, at the line she had written in Margaret's office the Friday before last, in pencil, in her small neat hand: 22 Nov. Hong Kong at Monday's price. I think he is wrong. M.

"If we had done it my way," she said, "the quiet man would be selling into this today, a morning at a time, and Margaret could not have signed yesterday. The man from Ipswich would have given the May start to his school job once tomorrow was out."

"Yes."

"It is still over 740." She closed the book. "I wanted you to know I had done that sum as well."

"And yours?" she said, before I could answer. "What you have left. What has this morning done to it?"

"Taken more than this club has ever been worth."

She looked at me over her glasses. "And you are not selling."

"No."

She wrote nothing down. She opened the post.

I sat at the end of her desk and watched the figure for a minute, then turned my chair away from it.

What was left was on paper in the vault at Fenchurch Street, with what had been left of the third sheet. It could stay there and fall. I had sold everything I was going to sell that winter.

At 11 Alan came up the stairs again. He stood in Margaret's doorway and did not come in.

"It is on the radio," he said. "China. Your money is down since breakfast."

Margaret did not get up. "5,488,000, paid into the club's account in pounds before I signed yesterday at 10. You can have that in writing."

"I read the letter. I wanted to hear you say it."

"I have said it."

He nodded, once, and went back down the stairs. From Margaret's window I watched him cross the car park and stop at the gate to the Bovril End, and look at it, before he walked on towards the bus garage.

At 2 o'clock Margaret put the folder in her bag and drove it to Chelmsford herself, to the strongroom.

Raj rang me that night from the cab rank.

"Sunny says it lost a third on the Chinese one this morning, and came half of the way back by tea," he said. "He is not selling."

"And yours?"

"Off Tokyo since the day after Doncaster. Mine is about 14,000 tonight, Sam. It was about 17,000 yesterday."

"It is still 14,000."

"That is what I keep telling myself." Somebody banged on his roof for a fare. "Sunny says it will be 2,000 by Easter now, instead of Christmas. I have stopped arguing with him. He is my cousin."

That night I found the gas bill in my coat pocket. The box was still on the back, in biro, with 30 November written in it. I looked at it at the kitchen table for a while, then put it in the drawer with the other bills and shut the drawer.

On the Friday morning the bricklayers were on Robbie's block, 3 of them, with a radio on the scaffold boards and the first courses of Dev's room up to their knees.

Doyle had his scholars out on the fence at dinnertime with their sandwiches. The small lad from the corridor asked the foreman if they could put their names on a brick.

"Not on the outside," the foreman said. "The weather would have them off in 10 years." He looked at me. "It is the club's block, Mr Mercer. Your say."

"One brick," I said. "Inside Dev's room."

"Behind the plaster, then. Facing in."

"ONE NAME EACH," said Doyle. "FIRST NAMES. NEAT."

They signed it with Kieran's marker pen, all 16 of them, passing it along the fence, and the foreman laid it himself at the corner of Dev's room, tap, tap, with the handle of his trowel.

Charlton came on the Saturday.

It was cold enough that the steam came off the players when they walked off at half-time. Charlton were 2 up by then, a header and a shot that went through Stokes's legs, and the Bovril End was quiet, with Kelly's lad beating the drum slower and slower till he stopped.

At half-time Sadler took Reece off and put Rudd on the left of midfield, in front of Robertson. Riyad came out for the second half and stood on the right touchline, and stayed there.

Jamie got one back on the hour. Quinn slid it through between 2 of their centre-halves and Jamie was past both of them before they turned, thump, low into the far corner. The end woke up all at once. "JAM-IE! JAM-IE!"

With 2 minutes left Riyad, still out on the right touchline, went past their full-back on the outside and crossed it long. Rudd came in from the left at the far post and headed it down, and it bounced up into the roof of the net, swoosh.

The end poured down to the front wall. Ted was on his feet with his scarf in one fist and the other hand on the shoulder of the man in front of him, shouting something I could not hear over the rest of them, WHHAAAAH.

2-2. 24 points from 19.

Danny found me at the tunnel afterwards with his notebook out.

"The trust's board met last night," he said. "Nobody will tell me what about. Is it the postman?"

"I am not telling you, Danny. Not before the trust has."

He closed his notebook and went to find Sadler.

At 9 that night Alan knocked at my door with a white envelope in his hand.

"From Ted," he said. "There are 6 of us on the board. I said I would bring it."

"Have they decided?"

"Ted has put it in writing." He gave me the envelope and went back down the path.

TILBROOK TOWN SUPPORTERS' TRUST · THE BOARD · SATURDAY 7 DECEMBER 2013 MR MERCER. MR PIKE HAS TOLD THE BOARD WHAT YOU TOLD HIM ON WEDNESDAY. THANK YOU FOR TELLING HIM. BEFORE WE SAY ANYTHING TO THE MEMBERS, THE BOARD WOULD LIKE TO READ THE LETTER FOR ITSELF. SUNDAY, 10 O'CLOCK, AT MY HOUSE. BRING IT WITH YOU. T. CUTLER, FOR THE BOARD.

I rang Margaret and read it to her down the phone.

"6 of them, Sam," she said. "And you said Danny Vine has asked them once already. Tell Ted it will be Monday. Be at my desk at 8 that morning, and we will decide what goes to his house with you."