Thursday, February 12

A pause in play

'I think that we communicate only too well, in our silence, in what is unsaid, and that what takes place is a continual evasion, desperate rearguard attempts to keep ourselves to ourselves.'

-Harold Pinter

HP: We could go and see a play.

Silence.

HP: We went to see a play once before.
Pause.
That time when we were over for a game in Cambridge.
SB: Did we so?
HP: Yes! You remember. Freezing. That small chap scored for us. What was his name?
SB: I don’t remember.
HP: You do. Useless bugger most of the time, but he could hit a ball on the volley.
SB: I don’t remember.
HP: Scored about two goals in his whole time with us, but both were absolute crackers.
Pause.

SB: You might mean Rawle.
HP: Was it? I don’t remember.
Pause.
Anyway, we went to see a play.
SB: A play? In Cambridge?
HP: Yes! Come on, you remember. It was when that tall black guy… what was his name… scored in the derby… Louis. Louis was substituted twice! On and off!
SB: That wasn’t Cambridge.
HP: Wasn’t it? The one where Louis was substituted on and off? You must remember. Brainless bugger if ever I saw one. Anyway, he’s brought on in the second half, but blow me if he isn’t worse than useless, and the manager hauls him off again ten minutes later!
SB: It was Bristol.
Pause.
Bristol Rovers.
HP: Rovers? The one where Rawle scored, and Louis was substituted twice? On and off?
SB: Yes.
HP: Bristol? Where Louis was substituted twice?

Silence.

HP: Was that the season they were almost relegated, but they came to our place and won one-nil?
SB: No…
Pause.
That was the season before.
HP: The season before. They came to our place and won one-nil. Bloody useless they were, but that bugger from Wycombe… what was his name?..

Silence.

SB: Rammell.
HP: Rammell! That bugger from Wycombe, Rammell, scored against us when they hadn’t had a chance all game. Bloody useless they were. Mind you, not as bloody useless as our lot that day. They wouldn’t have been able to have finished their tea.

Silence.

Bloody useless.

Silence.

Just think, if they’d not won then, they might have been relegated. Strange to think of Rovers going through all that, and us with it all to come. It’s strange how things turn out, isn’t it?

Silence.

I suppose you only think of how things look from your perspective at the time. We needed the points to get into the play offs, but they needed the points to stay up, and I couldn’t have given two hoots about it. And there we were, five years later, needing the points to stay up when Orient…
SB: Three.
HP: What?
SB: Three years later.
HP: There we were, three years later, needing a win to stay in the League, and Orient, Orient needed the points to go up. I thought they were all callous bastards, but I suppose it’s all just perspective. Strange how things turn out.

Silence.

Strange what your mind gets to turning over when it’s allowed.

Silence.

Jesus, I wish they’d get a game on. I can’t bear not having a game to go to. What’s it like out there, nice?
SB: The same.
HP: Oh.
Pause.
Do you think they’ll get the game on this weekend?

Silence.

So shall we go and see a play instead then?

Silence.

Come on, we’ve got to do something to fill the time.
SB: We always find something. Something to fill the time.
Pause.
HP: …I suppose we do.

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