Dad's still wrecked over Elvis, so when he comes home one day, more pissed than normal, I don't think nothing of it.
We're havin our tea, me, Mum, and Becky, and when Dad comes in he's got his face all red and blotchy and he ain't walkin straight. Ain't even coverin up for Mum, which ain't a good fuckin sign. He throws his coat over the settee and leans on the back to stop from fallin over.
Mum's sittin at the table with her back to him. They ain't hardly said a word since they had a big barney after the Jubilee about his drinkin. And Becky's too busy tryin to stop Mum feedin her peas to notice Dad's even walked in the front door.
'Come on, Becky,' Mum says, 'just eat a few up, there's a good girl.'
Dad's squeezin his eyes with his thumb and finger like he's tryin to push all the tears back in.
'No want peas,' Becky says, and zips her mouth shut and folds her arms.
'Dad?' I says. 'You all right?'
Mum sees the look on me face and turns round. Me and her both know it's more than Elvis. Dad takes a deep breath and blows it out long and hard, and tells Mum the factory's gone to the wall. She gets up and goes over to him, and holds him tight.
What with Grandad, Nan, Elvis and now this, I dunno how much more Dad can take.
'Come and sit down, Bill.' It's the softest I've heard Mum speak to him in ages. 'I'll put the kettle on.'
And with that, Mum and Dad was speakin again.
Mum asks me to sort Becky out with her dinner, and her and Dad go and sits down on the settee. I sit in Mum's seat at the table so I can hear what they're sayin.
Becky's bein a pain in the arse. Won't eat nothing. Soon as I take me eyes off her, the little mare scarpers in the front room. Runs up to Dad and jumps on his lap and holds him tight like Mum. Just wants to make it all right for him. Whatever it is. Just wants to make it all right. Bless her.
Mum tells me to come and get Becky, but she's back before I've even got up.
'No peas, John John. No peas.'
I tell her to sit down, and she does it with this sort of end of the world look on her face. Then I do me big eyes at her and a big wide mouth, scoop up a big spoon of peas, and stick em right in me gob. Becks nearly falls off her chair with her gigglin. That's enough for me, though. Fuckin hate peas. I get up, quickly spit em in the bin and start clearin the table. Becky's holdin onto me legs and I'm draggin her cross the kitchen, clearin up quiet so as I can hear what Mum and Dad are sayin.
Some of them's been there thirty years and more, Dad says. He's done fifteen himself. Been there since before I was born. Never use to say much about what he did whenever I asked him. Sort of embarrassed, like he was ashamed or something. Mum'd always say something like, 'Your father? What does he do? As little as possible, son. That's what he does.' Then she'd laugh. She knew his job was shit – probably just puttin things in boxes or something – and she knew it made him feel less of a man in the doin of it. But it's how he provided for us, and that's what mattered to him more than anything. That's why he did those long hours in that shit-hole of a factory. That's what made him a man.
But all that's gone now.
Mum says she'll see if there's anything goin in the supermarket where Auntie Ivy works. But Dad's proper old school. Won't have Mum workin, won't have none of it. Won't sign on, neither. Proud, my dad. And the thought of Mum out at work sort of pulls him together a bit. Tells her not to worry, he'll pick something up.
Couple weeks later, he's queuein up at the Social like all the other poor bastards, and Mum's stackin shelves with Auntie Ivy at Fairways.
***
Always gonna take its toll on Dad, all the shit he's been through. And the drinkin just tops it off. Most mornings he don't even get up in time to see Mum off to work. Sparko in bed, he is. Fucked. I end up givin Auntie Gwen a bell so she can come round and look after Becky while I go to school.
Becky ain't gonna be startin playgroup for another year, and Auntie Gwen's said she'll help out lookin after her so Dad can go out lookin for a job. But it don't work like that. Most days she's still here come tea-time knockin us up something to eat.
Dad has his good days, though, and he'll go down the Job Centre, see what's there. Tells me it won't be long before he's back on his feet. But he don't have no luck. His luck run out a long fuckin time back.
I know Mum's been down the doctor’s with him a couple of times, and he's on tablets cos I see him take em and Mum's always on at him to make sure he remembers. But they don't tell me nothing. Neither one of em. And he's started havin these moods, you know, like he's really fuckin nasty sometimes. Other times he won't say a word for days.
No matter how hard things get, Dad never misses a match up at the Boleyn. I'm in the school team now and I'll have a kick-about in the street or over The Barmy till the cows come home, but I ain't never been one too much for watchin. But I go with Dad every home game now. Keep him company. And I tell you what, standin on them terraces, with my dad, and thousands of others all singin, chantin, swearin and jokin, well, there ain't nothing fuckin like it. Sorta know now when Dad used to say it weren't never really about the score, you know. More about the bein there. Together. Good fuckin job it ain't about the score, cos we're doin really shit this season. I mean, really fuckin shit. We can all see where it's headin but neither fuckin one of us is sayin a word about it.
On a good day, when Dad's up for talkin an that, me and him go over the game on the way home, slag the ref off, read bits out the programme, try and work out why we lost. We always end up laughin goin in the front door. He puts his arm round me shoulder and says it ain't about the result, it's about the stickin together when it's all fallin down round your ears, knowin it's all gonna get a whole fuckin lot worse. And how we fuckin laugh.
Other times, when Dad's on a downer, we come back from football not sayin a fuckin word. He goes in and sits in his chair and I go up and lie on me bed lookin at the ceilin feelin like there's something missin.
Even though Dad's still outta work, and Mum brings home hardly nothing, she never stops him goin. It's like she knows it gives him more than she understands. Something he can make sense of, you know. Fuck knows there's nothing else.
It's got so bad we gotta beat Liverpool last game of the season to stay up, and not even Dad thinks we got a fuckin prayer with that one.
***
The Boleyn Ground 29th April Nineteen seventy-eight
Hammers 0-2 Liverpool
***
Mum and Becks is in bed, and me and Dad's in the front room sittin quiet in the dark, listenin to Elvis. We don't say nothing about the match. I mean, what's left to say? When it comes down to it, all the buzz and the stickin together and the singin, and all that bollocks, don't mean a fuck.
We been relegated to the Second Division for the first time in twenty years. Dad still ain't got a job, and Elvis?
Elvis ain't never comin back