She had that funny way of talking. It was kind of special talking with her, different from the others. She communicated mostly by free kicks. She curled the ball around the right hand side of the defensive wall for ‘yes,’ around the left hand side for ‘no.’ Her dad once coached set pieces for Barnsley; her mum died young. She spent so much time on that training ground, seeing her dad strike that football. Her dad didn’t talk much, was a man’s man. He took a bloody good free kick. He told her one thing in life: “Young lady, in this world you let your feet do the talking.” It got lonely as a kid, crawling among flourescent bibs and netting while your father taught the reserves how to defend short corners. She said none of this to me with words, just a deft, melancholy lob from 35 yards that struck the underside of the crossbar and bounced over the line.
I liked standing with her on that playing field on the hill with the town down behind us. I would eat half an orange while she drilled cross-field passes, neat tap-and-gos, hanging balls into the penalty box that told me her life. I liked the silence. I liked the view and working out which chimney, which roof was mine, while she jogged to collect all these balls from the back of the net. The edge of her left boot was scuffed from so many blasted inswingers that cried ‘Nobody gets me. Nobody really gets me.’ I pretended to get her. I tapped a short layoff that I hoped would mean ‘I get you,’ but I don’t know if it did. She smashed that layoff into the top right hand corner. It felt good pretending to understand.
We wandered down the hill towards town, a ball under her arm like an awkward phrasebook. Streams of water streaked down the path, which made for a greasy surface and, I suppose, plenty of misunderstandings if you communicate solely by free kicks. I dropped chewed orange halves behind me as we went, which left a citric trail made sodden by the rain. In town I bought three footballs from JJB. She placed her ball on the pavement and struck it cleanly. The ball cannoned off a postbox and smashed a pensioner in the face. The old man lay stunned on the kerb, his glasses bent and pathetic on his chest. She looked at me expectantly.
“Yes,” I replied. “You’re right. Of course you are.”
She seemed satisfied by my vague response. I drove a 20 yarder into a crowd of schoolkids and she laughed and kissed me on the cheek. Her laugh, her kiss, her resulting free kick, which curled around a parking meter and into the road, causing a taxi to skid across two lanes: it all said ‘You’re so good to me.’ I began to understand.
Delirious, I chucked the last ball to the ground. My run-up was poor, such was my excitement, and I leant too far backwards when I released my foot. I sent a terrible free kick ballooning harmfully up into the sky. There was just no control on that damn set piece. I turned to face her but she bit her lip, patted my arm, looked away. We both knew that my free kick had accidentally said ‘I love you.’
