Eight Foot Blue - 7

I kicked the football to Dad and Dad kicked the football back.

Kick the ball George, kick it hard.

It was twelve-nine to me and we had been playing our game forever and it was never going to stop. I had it in my head that it would always be like this. It didn’t matter how seriously Dad was taking it, or how much he was smiling and laughing and joking and stuff, because I just wanted to win. I was like about everyone else I knew and I enjoyed winning more than anything. Also I wanted to show Dad how good I was, which was at least as good as him, if not better.

I knew it wasn’t difficult, because he was my Dad, he was like me, but he didn’t like football all that much. If it was on the television, even if it was a really big game, then he would always find something else that he wanted to watch. Some American police show or a documentary about the dustmens’s strike or even just the news. And when I got to school the next day then I would have nothing much to talk about, nothing to say to the other boys, because I wouldn’t even know the score, but still wasn’t I better than my Dad? Wasn’t that the most important thing? I bet myself a billion pounds that the other boys weren’t better than their Dads, and anyway now I was going to score a goal, and run around, and punch the air and scream.

Goal George.
GOAL!

We were in our back garden and we had made two goals from the cricket stumps that we had bought from a shop on the sea-front at the beach the year before. Dad’s goal was bigger than mine, but that was up to him because we’d each made our own and then looked at the others and measured the strides between the posts and agreed. It wasn’t my fault that his footsteps were bigger than mine.

The sun was high and yellow and the sky was all endless blue. I had taken off my orange T-Shirt, with the picture of the Tiger on, and I was playing in only my football boots, my socks, my shorts and my skin. I liked the feeling of sweat as it shined my shoulders and trickled from my brow, down my cheeks, and also I liked picking up my shirt and wiping the sweat off with the Tiger’s face. This was something Mum would never let me do.

I liked it too when the ball went into the corner of the garden, beneath the overhanging branches and the thickening leaves of the old apple tree, which I climbed in November and December sometimes. Now it was summer and hot, but it was cooler here beneath the tree, and I could run faster even though the grass was spotted with flecks of fallen white blossom that stuck to my boots when I ran over them. If I stopped and looked up say, then I would see hundreds and thousands more white blossom dots still in the tree. Small clouds in a green sky, with thin beams of sunshine poking through. I didn’t tell Dad this though. I just made it look like I was catching my breath.

So, Dad ran toward me as fast as he could, chugging and hurtling like a runaway train. I thought he was going to clatter right into me, and that wouldn’t have been fair. That would have been a foul not a tackle, and I knew the rules so it would have been a penalty to me, if he knocked me over. Still, he didn’t and I was glad he didn’t, because instead he somehow managed to stop himself right in front of me. He was so big he was the only thing I could see, blocking out the light, in my way, but also a part of the game. I could hear him breathing, the huff and the puff, every gulp of air, and I was breathing like him too. We faced each other both waiting to see who would make the next move. Then Dad stuck out a leg and tried to take the ball, but I was ready for him. I knew what to expect. I mean deep, deep down I knew I wasn’t very good at football but still I twisted and turned and took the ball past him and ran the length of the garden.

I went as fast as I could, which was very fast, although not so fast as Jamie Coleman, who was definitely the fastest runner n our school, because everybody said so. Even our teacher Miss Mooney, who taught us everything. Everybody watch Jamie. Everybody clap Jamie, she would say, though nobody really wanted to. And anyway by the time I got near to the goal I already knew I was going to score, because there was only me and Dad playing, with no goalkeeper or anything like that.

Kick the ball, George.
Score a goal.

So I did, and even before it had rolled over the make believe line, Dad was already laughing, and I was already laughing, shouting thirteen-nine, thirteen-nine, thirteen-nine. Dad was running toward me now, a train again, a chugging and hurtling runaway train. This time he didn’t stop, because when he got to me he just carried on running and swept me up in his arms and threw me in the air and caught me on the way down. Again he three me into the air and caught me on the way down, which he could do because I was small and thin and light.

I wasn’t wearing my orange T-shirt with the picture of the Tiger on, and when I tool a big breath in, and held it there, then you could see my bones, my ribs, the shape of me. There wasn’t very much of me. And as Dad threw me and caught me and threw me and caught me, he said, exactly, “you’re getting very good,” which made me laugh, and at the same time made me want to cry. I thought perhaps I should answer him, but I couldn’t think of anything to say.