Glory Of The Football Manager System

She kissed the side of my throat. Stepped out of my arms. Went and got the salt-bake out of the oven, lifting the dish left-handed because she would not put the ring down.

”Floor,” she said over the top of it.

”What?”

”We are eating it on the floor, Daniel. There is a perfectly good table in this room and I am not using it.”

”Em, the candles, ”

”I will move the candles. Floor.”

We ate it on the floor in the end. Bottle between us. Cushions under us. The candles on the coffee table. The country going to war about me on a phone face down somewhere with a notification light blinking.

She ate it left-handed on purpose. The ring caught the candlelight on every lift of the fork. I caught her doing it. She caught me catching her. What. Nothing. Good.

I could not eat. I was looking at her.

She had her hoodie pulled back into shape and her hair down across one shoulder and the heavy red of it on her chest where the hoodie was. Her bare feet folded up under her. A piece of salt-bake on her fork she had not eaten.

She was looking at me back.

”Eat your salt-bake.”

”I’m doing both.”

She put her fork down. Did not break eye contact.

”You were nervous.”

”Aye.”

”All day.”

”Aye.”

”90 Days.”

”Aye, Em.”

”In our bed. On the M25. At my mum’s last weekend when I caught you looking at the curtains.”

”You did not catch me looking at the curtains.”

”Daniel.”

”Aye.”

She did the small dry filing thing with her face she has been doing since the bench. Picked her wine up. Took a sip. Did not look away.

”No point being nervous, Daniel.”

”No.”

”I have been yours since the bench.”

”I know.”

”You did not need a speech. You did not need a candle. You did not need a ring, Daniel, I am wearing it, it is on my left hand, I am keeping it, I am only saying you did not need to.”

I had to close my eyes a second.

She was smiling at me across the cushions. I could feel it.

”You were on eight fifteen an hour an’ all,” she said. ”I would have got it second-hand and you’d have known and you’d have worn it anyway. On a string round your neck, Danny Walsh, like a little fool.”

”Aye.”

”You absolute idiot.”

”Em.”

”Mm.”

”I love you.”

She did not answer that one straight away. She took another sip of the wine. Looked at me over the glass.

”I love you too, Daniel.”

She put the glass down. Picked her fork up. Ate the piece of salt-bake she had been holding for the last minute. Did not stop looking at me.

”I loved you on the bench. I loved you when you were a caretaker manager on three weeks’ notice with nothing in the bank. I loved you yesterday when you were a war criminal at half past eleven at night on my sofa.”

She moved the fork.

”I love who you are on the phone to your mum. I love who you are when a sixteen-year-old asks for a selfie on a bridleway. I love who you are when you call a grown man son.”

She had to stop a second.

”I love who you are in our bed, Christ, Daniel, I love who you are in our bed.”

I put my own fork down.

”Em.”

”Shut up, I am still going. I love all of it. All of you. I have loved you in the parts of you that none of the cameras have ever got near. I’m marrying that.”

She picked her wine back up.

I could not speak.

I leaned across the cushions and got hold of the back of her neck under her hair and put my forehead on hers and held it there. She put her free hand over mine on the back of her neck and we stayed like that, the salt-bake going cold, the candles burning down, neither of us in any rush.

When I sat back she held my hand on the floor between the cushions. Her thumb on the back of my knuckles, slow, the way her thumb has been going on the back of my knuckles since the second weekend.

The new ring was cold against the back of my hand for a second and then it was not.

She was quiet a while. Looking at the candle, not at me. I knew the quiet. It is the one she goes into before she says the thing she has been carrying round all day waiting for the right minute.

”That boy on the green,” she said.

”Mm.”

”The one who told you not to apologise.”

”Aye.”

”You crouched down to his level. You did not even think about it. You just got down on your heels so he did not have to look up at you.”

”He was eight, Em.”

”I know how old he was, Daniel.” She turned the ring on her finger. Did not look at me. ”I have been thinking about it since the green. And on the bridleway with the sixteen-year-old. And on the phone with your mum last night, you went soft the second she picked up, your whole face.”

I did not say anything.

”I want one,” she said.

The flat went very quiet.

”Em.”

”I am not asking you tonight. I am not even asking you this year. I am telling you a thing I know about myself that I did not used to know.” She finally looked at me. The green of her eyes steady, no joke in it, none of the dry filing. ”I want a kid. And the only man I have ever pictured on the other end of it is the one whose hoodie I have got on.”

I had to put my hand over my own mouth for a second.

”You all right,” she said.

”Aye.”

”You’ve gone.”

”I’m all right, Em.”

”You can say something.”

”I’m getting there.”

She waited. She is good at waiting. It is half her job.

”I have thought about it an’ all,” I said. ”More than thought about it. I had a whole, ” My voice did the thing again. ”I have a list of names I am never telling you because half of them are footballers.”

She laughed. Wet. Put her forehead back on mine.

”Of course you do.”

”You’d be a good mum, Em.”

”I know I would. I want to see you be a dad. That is the bit I want. That is the bit I have been sat here all night not saying.”

I put my mouth on the side of her head, in the red of her hair, and held it there.

”Not tonight,” she said into my chest.

”No.”

”But not never.”

”No, Em. Not never.”

She settled back against me. The ring caught the candle.

Tomorrow I would drive her up the M6 to Moss Side. To my mum, who had known about that ring since the seventeenth of May and never said a word. To stand in her front room and tell her the lad off Princess Road was getting married.

But that was tomorrow.

Tonight the vans were still on the road and the country was still going to war about me on every screen there was, and none of it could get up here.

She had her hand in the candlelight, turning it slow to watch the old stone catch.

Tap, tap. The ring against the side of her wine glass.

I had run out, finally, completely, of things to be frightened of.