Chapter 318: Christmas II

We drew 1-1 at Barnsley on the Saturday, in a wind that kept blowing the corners back out of play. Carrow scored after 10 minutes. Their penalty came before half-time, and Braithwaite went the right way and it went under him.

Danny printed the letter whole on the Monday, across the Gazette's front page.

On the Wednesday afternoon I was at the training ground, watching Joe work the back 4 against the scholars on Kieran's first pitch, when my phone went in my coat, brrr, brrr.

"Have you seen it?" said Danny. "The biggest of the Chinese exchanges has stopped taking deposits in their money. It is 572 in Tokyo this afternoon."

"Then it has halved since the first week of the month."

"I am printing the trust's last 2 lines again on Thursday, under today's price." Somebody spoke to him in the office behind. "The wages. Do they go out on Friday?"

"Friday morning. December's go early, for Christmas."

"Then I will put that under it as well."

Out on the pitch Joe blew his whistle and the back 4 came up together in a line, the way he had been asking them to all afternoon. He came over to the rail, wiping his nose on his glove.

"Bad news?" he said.

"It has dropped by half," I said. "The trust told the town on Friday that it could."

Joe looked back at his 4. "Then I will keep them out another 20 minutes."

Margaret was in the car park with her coat on and her keys in her hand when I got back to Marsh Road at 5.

"A man from a London paper rang at 4," she said. "He asked what the club would do now. I read him the trust's last 2 lines. He is printing tomorrow that the chairman's fortune has halved, with Tilbrook Town in the first line."

"Let him."

"The town reads that paper as well, Sam." She unlocked her car, blip. "So does every away end in the country."

Upstairs the green book lay open on Maureen's desk at the back page, turned round to face the end of the desk where I sat. Maureen had gone home.

Under her line from November, in pencil, in the same small hand, she had written: 18 Dec. 572. Under 740. M. Through the words "I think he is wrong" she had drawn one straight line.

I closed the book and put it in her drawer, where she kept it.

The December wages went out at 7 on the Friday morning. Kieran was at the gate when I came in, with his phone in his hand.

"It is in, boss," he said. "Mum made me look. After the London paper."

"Tell her it will be in next month as well."

He held the phone up so I could see the screen. "I told her. She says she is checking them figures again in January."

Margaret had a note on her blotter.

"Riyad's agent rang at 9," she said. "He asked whether the wages had gone in."

"What did you tell him?"

"That they went in at 7." She turned the note face down. "He did not ask about anybody else's."

At dinnertime the bricklayers laid the last course on Dev's room. The foreman came down off the scaffold and stood with me at the fence and looked at the block, grey and square, with the gaps where the windows would go.

"Walls before Christmas," he said. "I said."

Doyle took the small lad, the one who had asked for the brick, into the corridor and gave him the cloth from the whiteboard.

"GO ON, THEN. THE WALLS ARE UP."

The lad wiped 18 NOVEMBER off the board in 3 strokes, squeak, squeak, squeak. Doyle took the pen out of his top pocket and wrote FEBRUARY where it had been, and underlined it once.

Blackburn came on the Saturday.

The trust had a table by the turnstiles at the Bovril End, with a cash box and a pile of forms held down with a stone. The painter was behind it in a bobble hat, with the lad from the website.

"31 have joined since the letter went out," said the lad. "2 have left."

"One of them wrote 'can halve in a week' on his form," said the painter, "and underlined it twice."

Vardy scored after 8 minutes. Kanté won it in our half and hit it long without a touch, and Vardy let it run across their centre-half and hit it first time at the near post, thwack, into the side netting from the inside.

The Bovril End came up all at once. "JAMIE VARDY! JAMIE VARDY!"

Blackburn's end had Thursday's London paper and a song ready by half-time, slow, with the clapping between the words, clap, clap, clap. "WHERE HAS ALL YOUR MONEY GONE? WHERE HAS ALL YOUR MONEY GONE?"

Our end gave them the tide song back. They sang it the slow way, the whole of it, and they sang it again when Blackburn started up a second time. Ted sang it sitting down at the back, with both hands on the top of his stick.

Blackburn had most of the ball after the break. Braithwaite took a header off the line with one hand, and Stokes threw himself in front of a shot with 10 minutes left and got up holding his ribs.

In the last 3 minutes Riyad took the ball into their corner and kept it there, turning one way and then the other, and won 2 throws off their full-back's shins, thud, thud.

The whistle went, pheeeep, and the end stayed behind to sing the tide song a third time. 28 points from 21.

On Christmas morning I took a tin of mince pies down to Marsh Road. The gates were locked, and the side door to the boot room was open.

Stan had the 2 big machines going for Boxing Day, whump, whump, and a radio on the shelf playing carols. The away shirts were already on the rail, 18 of them in order of number, with the socks rolled in pairs on the bench.

"They go on the coach at 7 tomorrow," he said, before I could ask.

"Have you had your dinner?"

"My daughter does it at 3. I will be there by 3." He took a mince pie, looked at it, and took another one for later. "Was it you who wanted it in the paper? About your money?"

"Yes."

"My daughter read it out to me." He folded a shirt over his arm. "I washed the kit the week the administrators came in. We heard about that on the radio, in here, on that one." He nodded at the shelf.

The radio went on into another carol.

"Kieran says the walls are up at Robbie's place," he said. "Still no kit room in it?"

"No."

"Good. Then it stays here with me." He fed the next load into the machine and shut the door on it with his knee.

On Boxing Day we went to Bournemouth, where we had lost 4-0 the season before. Their ground was called the Goldsands Stadium that season, a small ground, and loud for its size.

We held them till the second half. Then their winger scored twice and one of their midfielders hit one from 25 yards in off the bar, all inside a quarter of an hour.

At 3-0 Kelly's lad turned round on the step in front of me, with his drum between his feet.

"Are we all right, Mr Mercer?" he said. "With the money?"

"The club is all right. It was all right on Wednesday as well."

He looked back at the pitch, where their players were making a ring in front of their supporters. "So we have just been beaten."

"Yes."

He picked up his sticks and beat the drum for our lot all the way off the pitch.

We went to Huddersfield on the Sunday and they beat us 5-1.

After 14 minutes Quinn hit one low across the keeper from the edge of the box, bang, and it went in off the post.

They were level soon after and 3-1 up by half-time. Their striker scored twice in the second half, 4 minutes apart, and the home end sang the score at us for the last 20 minutes.

Sadler stood in the middle of the away dressing room and spoke to the floor. "Wednesday is Watford. We train in the morning." Then he went out to do his interview.

On the coach Joe sat across the aisle from me with his notebook on his knee and copied the table into it in pencil, a line at a time, off Pett's phone, which had come back to him over the seats.

THE CHAMPIONSHIP AT HALFWAY · after Sunday 29 December 2013

1st · Leicester City · played 23 · 46 points

2nd · Burnley · played 23 · 44 points

14th · AFC Bournemouth · played 23 · 29 points

15th · Blackburn Rovers · played 23 · 28 points

16th · Tilbrook Town · played 23 · 28 points

17th · Wigan Athletic · played 22 · 27 points

22nd · Doncaster Rovers · played 23 · 21 points

23rd · Sheffield Wednesday · played 22 · 19 points

24th · Barnsley · played 23 · 16 points

"Halfway," said Joe. "7 clear of the bottom 3."

"And 18 off the top," I said.

He closed the notebook and put it in his back pocket.

An hour out of Huddersfield, with the lights down and half the coach asleep, Riyad came up the aisle with his headphones round his neck and crouched by my seat so that his face was level with mine.

"Mr Mercer," he said. "Can I come and see you before the window opens? With my agent."

"Tuesday," I said. "After training, in Margaret's office."

He nodded and went back down the dark coach to his seat by the window, and he did not put his headphones back on.