Chapter 806: The Schedule
"Right. That is enough of that."
Airport police. 2 of them at the barrier, a third coming across the concourse at a walk with his hands up and out.
"Ladies and gentlemen, you are going to give this gentleman some room. Back off the line. Back off the line, please. Now."
"We are entitled to."
"You are entitled to stand behind that barrier. You are not entitled to put a lens into a woman in her 60s." The one on my left had a hand out flat. "Mr Walsh. Come with me, and bring your mum."
They walked us out through a service door and along a corridor that smelled of floor polish, and one of them took my mother’s bag off her without asking and she let him, which is how I knew.
He was about 50 and he carried it on the wrong shoulder the whole way.
"You all right there, madam?" he said to her.
"I am fine."
"You are sure, now."
"I am fine, thank you."
She was not fine. Her hand had gone to the strap of that bag about every 8 seconds since the concourse and it was still doing it, and she had not once looked at me.
I got in front of her and stopped, and the officer went on 3 or 4 steps and had the sense to keep going.
"Mum."
"Do not make a fuss, Daniel."
"Give me your hand."
"I will not."
"Mum."
She gave me her hand. It was cold and it was going, and my mother has hands like a bricklayer and I have never once in my life felt them do that.
"They are just doing their jobs," she said.
"They are not."
"No." She took the hand back and did up the top button of her coat with it. "No, they are not."
That is the whole of what my mother has ever said to me about the 19th of July 2018.
"Sorry about that," the officer said to me. "It has been building all day. There were 20 of them at 4 o’clock."
"For me?"
"There was a thing in one of the papers this morning." He shrugged. "You have not seen it, then."
"I have been on an aeroplane."
"Right." He held a door. "Then do not look at it tonight, is my advice, and I have got no business giving you advice."
We came out of a door at the side of the terminal into wet air and orange light and rain coming down through it, and there was a black Range Rover on the double yellows with its hazards going.
And leaning on the wing of it in sunglasses, at midnight, in the rain, in west London, was Jessica Finch.
"Sunglasses."
"Get in the car."
"Jessica, it is midnight."
"I have been in Essaouira for 5 days and I have got a tan line I am not discussing. Get in the car."
She had my mother in the back with a bottle of water and a blanket off the parcel shelf inside about 15 seconds, and she did it without one word of small talk, and my mother let her.
Then she pulled out into the rain and got us onto the M4 and did not say anything at all for about 4 minutes.
"Was it 4 o’clock?" I said.
"It was 4 o’clock. There were about 20. By 10 there were 60 and the airport moved them behind the barrier." She indicated. "I got here at half 9."
"You have been sat outside Heathrow for 3 hours."
"There is a Costa in the short stay and I have had 4 of them."
"You never come to airports."
"No," Jessica said. "I do not."
The wipers went. Lorries went past on the outside with their spray coming over.
"How bad?"
"Tonight? Bad. In a month? Nothing." She changed lane. "There is a piece in one of the mid-markets this morning with your face on it and the words ENGLAND’S JUDAS over the top, which is 8 days late and extremely stupid, and which 400,000 people have read.
"Do not read it. Do not read the comments. Do not read anything until Monday and if you go on the internet tonight I will find out."
"You cannot actually stop me."
"No," Jessica said. "You pay me, you can do exactly what you like, and if you want to sit up until 4 in the morning reading 900 comments about yourself then that is your money and your evening.
"I am telling you what I would tell any client, and then I am going to drive you home, and then you are going to ignore me, and on Monday I will still be your agent."
"That is a horrible way of putting it."
"It is an accurate way of putting it."
"They were asking my mother questions."
"I know."
"She is 61, Jessica."
"I know exactly how old she is. I sent her flowers in June."
She looked in the mirror, and then at me, and her voice did a thing it does not do.
"Danny. It is 8 days. It is going to be 8 months.
"You knocked your own country out of a World Cup on television, and then you lost a final and told the world it was your fault. There is a section of this country that has decided what you are and it is not going to un-decide it by Christmas.
"So you are going to have to be extremely good at your job for a very long time."
We came off at Chiswick and went south through wet empty streets, and somewhere around Hammersmith my mother fell asleep in the back with her hand on her bag.
And Jessica Finch, who has never said hello to me and has never said goodbye, started working.
"Right. While she is asleep."
"Jess."
"You land on the 19th. Pre-season started on the 9th and you have missed 10 days of it, which is fine, because Bray has run it and Bray has run it properly.
"The Community Shield is the 5th of August. Wembley. 3 o’clock. Manchester City."
"17 days."
"16 and a half." She took the roundabout. "The season opens on the 11th at Selhurst. And then the Super Cup is the 15th, in Tallinn, against Real Madrid."
"Say that one again."
"The Super Cup. The 15th. Tallinn."
"Against."
"Real Madrid, Danny." She indicated. "Who have won the European Cup 3 years running, and who Crystal Palace have never played, because Crystal Palace have never been in Europe, because Crystal Palace were founded in 1905 and have never once qualified for it in 113 years."
I sat in the passenger seat of a Range Rover on the Fulham Palace Road and looked out of the window at a bus shelter.
"There will be Champions League nights at Selhurst."
"There will."
"On that pitch."
"On that pitch," Jessica said. "Draw is the 30th."
"And the window," I said.
"And the window." Jessica did not look over. "Which shuts on the 9th of August at 5 o’clock, which is new this year, which is before the season starts, which means every deal you want to do has to be done inside 20 days.
"You have got a squad that came 2nd in the Premier League and it is not big enough for 4 competitions and everybody in Europe knows it. You need a centre-half, you need a 6, and you need at least 1 more forward or you will be dead by November."
"Have I got money?"
"You have got a great deal of money, and every selling club in Europe watched a World Cup final on Sunday and knows exactly who you are." She smiled with about a third of her mouth. "So you have got money and no leverage. Congratulations."
"Jessica."
"Mm."
"You said Thursday."
"I did say Thursday." She looked at the clock on the dash, and it said 00:04. "It is Friday. You have been home 8 minutes and you have got a mother asleep in the back."
"That is not an answer."
"No." She turned into East Dulwich Road. "Monday, 9 o’clock, my office. All 4. And Danny, do not spend the weekend guessing, because 2 of them will surprise you and 1 of them will make you angry."
She pulled up outside the building at 12 minutes past midnight and killed the engine and did not get out.
"Your mother is in the Premier Inn on the roundabout and she does not want to be, and I have got her a car at 10 for Euston."
"Jess."
"What."
"Thank you for sitting outside an airport for 3 hours."
Jessica Finch got out, opened the back door for a sleeping 61-year-old woman from Moss Side, and did not answer me, because she never says hello and she never says goodbye.
***
Thank you to Sir nameyelus and Kostas_Gounakis for the support.