Free The Book of Fame by Lloyd Jones Page A

looked over folded arms into different sections of the crowd. George Smith grinned at the feet of his Irish opponent—both of them with their hands on hips and legs in an ungainly outsplayedstance, like farmers familiar with each other’s problems. Tyler and the Irish hooker, Coffey, moved warily around each other. O’Sullivan and the Irish loosie leant on their respective knees and stared at the ground while picking mud out of the soles of their boots. The tall locks Hamlet and Wilson grazed in the same space as Seeling and Cunningham.
    This peaceful scene was interrupted by the arrival of a third ball.
    We freed up Jimmy Hunter. Jimmy’d have been across but slipped just short of the line.
    After that the Irish came at us with renewed purpose, a mad glint in their eye, pitchforks in hand, ball at the toe. The huge crowd of 40,000 roaring at their backs.
    At times it felt as though we were playing two different codes. We saw the paddock as an ever-changing pattern of lines. The Irish, on the other hand, saw the field as a sort of steeplechase, covered with low barriers and walls which as far as they were concerned were there to smash into. They believed in luck. They were like kids taking it in turn to kick a pebble down a bumpy road.
    We longed to tell them what they were doing wrong.
    We worked our way down to a lineout on the Irish twenty-five. George Gillett won us good ball from his unfamiliar wing forward position which was shifted with quick hands to Bob Deans. Deans dropped his left shoulder, and drawing the giant Basil MacClear in that direction, wrongfooted him, and moved off in the opposite direction to score beneath the crossbar. It was a tidy piece of work from Bob; but Bob being Bob looked a bit guilty about the deception and the flush in his cheeks was a rush of sympathy for MacClear who’d been obviously stuck in the midfield to stop such an eventuality.
    In the second half, the wind behind us, we ran at the Irish. Freddy Roberts and Billy Stead in tandem breached the defences and Bob picked up his second try. He couldn’t bring himself to look at MacClear as he jogged back from the try-line.
    The final scoring moment saw Alec McDonald peel off a scrum to score handily by the uprights and Billy Wallace convert for the final score—15–nil.
    That night we ate at the Gresham Hotel, and Irishman and New Zealander were placed side by side. In speech after speech the Irish said we were the finest bunch to ever take the field. We were magicians. We’d given the ball eyes and ears and taught it the basics of our language. We were irrepressible, a force of nature; they, a fallen leaf with no will of its own. Mister Dixon raised an eyebrow at Gallaher. It was true. The Irish charmed our hides off.
    A final toast, and as glasses and tumblers are raised Billy Wallace finds Billy Glenn, who, raising a white napkin to his lips, nods back.
    Part of Billy Wallace and part of Bill Glenn are returning ‘home’.
    Outside in the cold stinging air they climb up into a jaunty car and swing through the Dublin night for the train station. They arrive just as the train to Londonderry is pulling out. They sprint across the platform and crash through the doors of a reserved compartment. The wooden gable of the station passes in the top of the window, and flushed with champagne Billy Wallace looks up from the floor. A man with a thick bristling moustache and several chins is looking from one to theother with a postcard in his hand. His companion nods over his shoulder. ‘I’d say dat one dere is Billy Wallace. And the other is Bill Glenn.’
    Londonderry. 1 am. Billy Wallace looks out the carriage window. A few people are waiting on the platform, among them his relatives. He’s never seen these people before in his life but at once he recognises them. It’s like seeing how he will eventually look when he’s very old; and not so old. As he steps on to the platform his father’s father and his father’s brother crush him