Chapter 256: One Year At A Time II

I wiped a patch of the windscreen clear with my fist and looked at the training pitch through it.

"He promised you a season, Mr Mercer. He did not promise you League One," the Coat said. "Another year down there and he is a year older with the same line under his name. He is 22 a week tomorrow."

"You are paid when he moves."

"I am. I have never pretended otherwise. I can still be right." He sounded as if he were smiling. "I can sell that family the Championship. I would struggle to sell them Carlisle on a Tuesday for a second winter. Enjoy your day. It was a lovely free kick."

click.

7 million pounds did not tempt me. I knew what that boy would be worth.

Out on the grass Sadler had them in a circle. I could not hear him through the glass. I could see Mahrez at the edge of it, bouncing on his toes to keep warm, 21 years old for 8 more days.

I went back to the office and signed what Maureen put in front of me, and neither of us mentioned the morning. At half past 2 I walked up to the high street for a sandwich. I had my hand on the baker's door when I saw the scarf.

Amber and black, with 1996 stitched into the end of it. It was going into the bookmaker's next door.

I have not set foot in a betting shop since I bought the club. I stood on the pavement a moment, and then I went in after him. ding of the bell over the door.

It smelled of carpet and instant coffee. jingle of a fruit machine in the corner with nobody at it. 2 old boys sat on fixed stools under a screen, watching dogs go round at Romford, and neither of them looked up.

Ted was at the counter with both hands flat on it.

"Promotion," he was saying to the girl behind the glass. "Tilbrook Town. This season."

"I have them for next season, 25 to 1." She was about 20, with a headset pushed back on her hair. "It is on the board, look."

"I can see the board, love. It is this season I am after."

"We have not got a price for this one. Nobody has asked."

"I am asking."

She looked at him, and at the scarf, and picked up the telephone. "I will have to ring it through."

Ted turned round to wait, and saw me, and carried on as if he had been expecting me.

"You stay where you are," he said. "One step nearer this counter and they will have you up in front of the FA."

"I cannot bet, Ted. I should not even be stood next to one."

"Then stand there and keep quiet."

murmur of the girl on the phone. "Tilbrook. T, I, L. No, this season. He says he is sure." She covered the mouthpiece with her hand. "They want to know if you are sure."

"Tell them I am 79 and I have a tenner."

She told them. Her eyebrows went up.

"100 to 1," she said.

Ted put a 10-pound note on the counter and kept 2 fingers on it until she took it. whirr of the printer. thunk of a date stamp.

She pushed the slip under the glass. He held it out at the length of his arm to read it, every line, and then he folded it into his wallet behind his bus pass.

"Go on, then," he said to me. "Vine says 7 points. You told him 52. I read it over my egg. Why?"

"Because I wanted one more summer first, Ted. To do it properly. Then next year we go up and we stay up."

"Next year."

"Next year."

One of the old boys on the stools swore softly at a dog.

"I am 79, son," Ted said. "I buy my season ticket one year at a time. I have done since I was 75. The girl in your office asks me every summer do I want the 3-year one, it is cheaper, and every summer I tell her no."

"Ted."

"I am not after sympathy. I am telling you how I count." He tapped the wallet through his coat. "You sat next to me in that end in the cold and told me I would see it. All of it, you said. You needed me in that seat."

"I meant it."

"Then you are not to save it for me. You are not putting it by for next year like the best china."

"It will keep a year."

"Nothing keeps." He said it gently. "I will not, and nor will Lenny's knee. And when was this club ever ready for anything? You bought it 10 points down with the receivers in the office."

"That was different."

"You paid 3 million pounds for a boy of 19 when the whole county said you had lost your head." He shook his head. "You have never waited for ready in your life, son. You have picked a funny year to start."

I also knew, near enough, how many more season tickets Ted Cutler was going to buy. I had been about to spend one of them on scaffolding.

"I have a tenner on it now," he said. "So that is you told. Go and tell them."

He would not let me run him home. I stood outside the baker's and watched him wait at the stop with his hands in his coat pockets. hiss of the bus doors. The driver let the ramp down for him without being asked, and Ted waved it away and took the step.

I walked back down the hill without the sandwich. Ted had not answered Southend, or the ceiling, or a squad of 20. He had not tried to.

BET RECEIPT 13/02/13 · 14:52 · SHOP 0417 SINGLE · WIN FOOTBALL · LEAGUE ONE 2012/13 · TO BE PROMOTED TILBROOK TOWN @ 100/1 STAKE £10.00 POTENTIAL RETURN £1,010.00 PRICE AUTHORISED BY TRADING DESK PLEASE KEEP THIS SLIP

I had the page open for 2 hours before I did anything to it. It was a good drawing of a stand. I had done it in January with a ruler, and Wilf had already been out to watch 2 of the 4 names.

Maureen came in at 6 with her bag on her shoulder to say goodnight. She found me at the desk with the black notebook open and a pen in my hand, and she put the bag down again.

"You are going to do it," she said.

"I am."

"This morning you said wait. I said wait. I stood in this room and took your side against Priya, and I do not do that for fun."

"You were right this morning. You may still be right in May."

"Then why?"

"Because I have been asking people to wait who have not got the time for it. Ted Cutler put 10 pounds on us this afternoon, at 100 to 1. He is 79."

"I cannot put that in a ledger, Sam."

"No. You cannot."

She did not answer straight away. Then she took the green ledger out of her bag and opened it on the corner of my desk.

"Then here is what I can put in one," she said. "If you are doing this, I want the bonus money sitting in the club's account by Easter, where I can see it. And I want it written down that the finance director said wait."

"Write it down."

"I did. At 20 to 10 this morning."

When she had gone I put a line through 2014. scratch of the nib. I wrote one word above it in capitals, and pressed hard enough to mark the page beneath.

NOW.

Then I turned the notebook on its side and wrote 2014 again, small, next to the drawing of the stand. The stand could wait a year.

At the foot of the page was the figure I had worked out for one more open year in League One. It would have bought the stand, a left-back and a centre-forward, with change. I left it where it was.

Sadler picked up on the second ring. clatter of a pan somewhere behind him.

"It is 8 at night," he said.

"I am coming in at 10 tomorrow. I have something different to tell them."

The pan stopped. "Go on."

"We are going for 6th."

"What changed?"

"A man of 79 put 10 pounds on us at 100 to 1."

"Did he." I heard him let his breath go, and it was close to a laugh. "Then find me some players. I have 20 names for 21 games, and about 15 of them I would pick. The window shut a fortnight ago, Sam. It is loans, or it is nobody."