Free Only a Game by J. M. Gregson Page B

with that. It’s a good school. I like it here. I want us to put down roots.’
    Darren Pearson sighed wearily at the end of his day. As usual, he was the last to leave the Brunton Rovers’ offices at Grafton Park. The night security officer was in his office beside the single thick wooden door which was all that was left open at nights. The ex-policeman bade a cheerful but respectful goodnight to the man who had appointed him, the man who did more than anyone else to keep the day to day navigation of the club upon an even keel.
    Pearson was responsible for the non-footballing staff at the club. He knew all their first names and rarely forgot them; even the tea ladies and the part-time cleaners got a cheery word from him. He knew much about the triumphs and tragedies of their private lives and rarely forgot to comment on or enquire about whatever was most important to them. Apart from the one or two who had been around for a long time, the people who worked for him knew little about his own background and he preferred it that way. But most of them not only respected his authority but admired his bearing and his attitude.
    If only they knew, thought Darren Pearson, as he pulled the door to behind him and walked away into the darkness. If only they knew how the man who seemed to them so competent and balanced plunged into a world of chaos when he left the familiar corridors of the football club.
    He knew where he was going. He had nerved himself to do it many hours ago. Perhaps he had lingered a little longer within the familiar, intricate surroundings of Grafton Park to put off this moment. As usual, the coolness and space of the world outside was a surprise after the artificial lights and heating of the honeycomb of offices beneath the main stand of Brunton Rovers FC. Most people would have relaxed on re-entering this wider world, but Darren Pearson felt nothing but fear. He felt he was a man flung out from the womb, where all was safe and happy, into the wider and heavier threats of a world he could not deal with.
    He started the engine, set in motion the heater fan which would soon mitigate the damp cold of the interior. But then he sat motionless for a long time behind the wheel, building up his nerve, trying to force action through the atrophy which beset his limbs. He had not had an alcoholic drink throughout the long day, but his body told his brain that he was not fit to drive, that he could not drive, that his legs and arms would not conduct the familiar, automatic movements to control the vehicle. Mere fancy, he told himself: it was the brain which directed the body, not the other way round. He heard a dry, scarcely human sound, and realized a second later that it was his own harsh laughter. He rehearsed yet again the speeches he had devised during the sleepless hours of the preceding night.
    Brunton’s brief rush hour was over. Darren drove competently enough, once he had forced himself to begin the process. The car was an automatic. He listened to the gears changing as he steered the Vectra through the town. If only someone would programme his own gears and his own humanity for him, would guide him smoothly and painlessly on automatic through whatever was left of his life.
    He drove more slowly as he approached the place, beset by the familiar doubts, which dragged like weights on his resolution. He slid the Vectra into one of the visitors’ bays in the small car park and switched off the engine. He would give himself a few seconds to compose himself; you could achieve little in any field if you were not composed, could you? He was frightened not of the meeting itself but of the rejection which must surely result from it. Then a sudden shiver shook his body and he felt the numbness in his legs: he must have been there for many minutes.
    He stamped his feet before he went to the entrance to the flats; a man going out to his car looked at him curiously. The door he wanted was on the ground floor.