Beckham (36 page)

The time after France 98 was pretty uncomfortable, to say the least. But before then, and since, it's not as if I've felt under any kind of constant threat: you're guarding against the hundred-to-one chance. But feeling secure leaves us freer to get on with doing what we do, publicly and privately. We like to take Brooklyn and Romeo out to dinner sometimes. We want to stop off to stock up on snacks. We want to go shopping at the local supermarket, shlepping up and down the aisles and choosing what we fancy, instead of going on the internet or ordering by phone. I still feel, deep down, like the person I've always been. If I want it to stay that way, I've got to make sure I can still do the things I've always done. I've never had a problem with people wanting to chat or to ask for an autograph. How could I? I asked enough United players to sign stuff for me when I was a boy. I don't like the idea of things turning up on memorabilia websites, people trying to get rich on the back of someone else's popularity but again, it's a balance. I'd rather risk making that mistake than risk disappointing a kid who's been standing, waiting, outside the stadium for an hour after a match. I know what it's like to look up to people, to admire the achievements of someone who's good at what they do. I know what it's like because I always have done myself. And still do.

I'm a fan. I always will be. I remember one night a few years ago, Dave Gardner and his girlfriend were down in London and Victoria and I took them to the Ivy restaurant for dinner. Dave got there first and he slaughtered me later about how the
maître d'
had changed his tone completely when Dave told him who he was supposed to be meeting. It went from: ‘Who's this bloke?' to ‘This way, Sir.' All in a split second. When we got there, the paparazzi were doing their stuff outside. Dave was starting to mock me for being a face at this expensive London restaurant when we looked across the room and saw Our Man at the same time.

‘It's not him, is it?'

‘I think it is, you know.'

‘No, no, it can't be.'

It was, though: Michael Jordan, sitting in the corner, puffing on the biggest cigar I'd ever seen in my life.

‘Look. Look who he's with.'

One of my all-time heroes was there at his table, chatting with Madonna, the pop star Ricky Martin and Tom Ford, who was head of Gucci at the time. I don't think Dave or I touched any of our food. We were sitting staring across at him.

‘Should I go and get his autograph on a napkin?'

‘No, you're not allowed to do that in the Ivy.'

Next thing we knew, a bottle of champagne arrived at our table. It was a little while after Brooklyn had been born and this was congratulations from Michael Jordan and Madonna.

Then they both came over for a chat; Victoria knew Madonna and I'd met her at Madison Square Garden the night I arrived in New York after France 98. But Michael Jordan? I was like a little kid, couldn't think of what to say to the bloke. It was some night. And by the Monday, it was all round Old Trafford. Dave had started telling people as soon as he got home. All day at training it was about Saturday night with Becks and Michael Jordan:

‘What was he like? What was he like?'

I get a genuine thrill from meeting people like that: superstars as far as I'm concerned, whether they're sportsmen or rappers or actors. Dave Gardner's the one who ends up hearing about them all. Every time I go to a party there seems to be someone there I'll get excited about saying hello to: an Elle McPherson or a Michael Jackson or a Michael Caine. Most people would just think I was name-dropping. But Dave's known me long enough to see it for what it is. I still get nervous—thrilled—in the company of the people I admire. If I meet one of them I can't keep it to myself. I always have to ring up the next day to tell Dave.

An amazing part of my life—of life with Victoria—is that, sometimes, those people I'm nervous before meeting and tongue-tied when I do turn out to become friends. I met Elton John at a Versace fashion show in Italy. He was sitting next to me and did all the hard work of the ‘hellos' and ‘how are yous'. He'd actually met Victoria a couple of times before and just went ahead and introduced himself. After what he's done in his life, I should think Elton's long since got past being shy in situations like that. We got on really well: there just felt like an instant connection. We started spending time together and we've continued to ever since. Elton and David Furnish are Brooklyn's godparents and probably the closest friends Victoria and I have ever made as a couple. Maybe that's because, as a couple, they're like us in so many ways: very much in love and not afraid to show it. They're incredibly generous: almost the first thing Elton did the afternoon I met him in Italy was to offer Victoria and me their place in the South of France as somewhere to go if we ever needed to get away from it all.

Meeting new people, even for a shy one like me, is a pleasure. There are some people, though, who meeting is more like a privilege: the Queen; the Prime Minister; the greatest sportsman of all time, Muhammad Ali. In May 2003, straight after the end of the soccer season, we had an England trip to South Africa. I was on the wrong end of a
pretty clumsy tackle in our game against their national team: another weird injury. I broke the scaphoid bone between the wrist and thumb on my right hand and spent the next couple of months with a removable cast on the lower part of that arm. The injury I picked up in Durban, though, I'd forgotten about even before I was told it had healed. It's meeting Nelson Mandela on that South Africa trip that I'll always remember.

I'm a father to two boys: it's the biggest responsibility in my life. Here's a man who's been a father to a nation. Meeting Mandela was an opportunity I feel humble to have had. We were based in Durban, where the game against South Africa was going to take place three days later. We got a flight at dawn to take us to Johannesburg and were taken to the offices of Mr Mandela's charity foundation. We were all in our England blazers, there were press and other officials and staff gathered round and the morning was already getting warm. The top man, though, seemed so relaxed, leaning back in his armchair, the sunshine streaming through the window behind him.

Victoria will tell you: I've become used to a bit of public speaking since I got the England armband. A little preparation, along with the self-confidence she's given me, and I'm usually ready to go. In fact, Victoria reckons the difficult bit is getting me to stop making speeches these days. My time came to speak to Mr Mandela. I sat down and leaned in towards him. I had a job to do as England captain but, at first, I was just dumbstruck in his presence, overwhelmed with my respect and admiration for him. Did he pickup on how I was feeling? I don't know, but he put me at ease with a little pat on the back. I remembered some of what I'd wanted to say:

‘To meet a great man such as you is an amazing honor. It's great to be here today. It's an amazing honor for all of us.'

Mr Mandela asked me and the other England players to support South Africa's bid to host the 2010 World Cup. I'd love to see them get it: soccer's the people's sport in South Africa. I'd come with United
in the past and again, this time with England, you could see the passion for the game all around you: in the stadiums, in the townships, and on every street corner. I gave Mr Mandela an England shirt with his name and 03 on the back. I know he likes team colors: I still remember him wearing the South African rugby shirt after they won the final of the Rugby World Cup. He leaned forward and reached a hand out: some of his grandchildren came up to meet me and the rest of the England lads. He said quietly to them:

‘This is David Beckham.'

I had my hair in tight braids and one of the press guys asked Mr Mandela what he thought about it. He just smiled:

‘Oh, I'm too old to have an opinion about that.'

I'd have been happy listening to his opinion on that and anything else for the rest of the day. We all know his story but, looking into his eyes, catching his smile, following the lines across this incredibly handsome face, you couldn't help wanting to hear it from him. I don't think Mr Mandela would have been too sorry to spend a little while longer with us either. Time was pushing on, though, and we had work to do back in Durban. By the time we stumbled off the bus back at the hotel, having been up before dawn, our lack of sleep was starting to catch up with us. The afternoon drifted past in a dream. Meeting Nelson Mandela today: did that actually happen to me? I needed to call Victoria and tell her all about it before I could really believe it was true.

Whatever's happening we have to touch base. Because both Victoria and I have had careers that take us away from home a lot, telephones have been a pretty big deal in our relationship down the years. When we were first getting to know one another, she was traveling all over the world with the Spice Girls. They even took a year away from England for tax reasons on the advice of their manager. That put pressure on the times we could actually be with each other. Sometimes I think we got to know each other down the phone line. I'd be in Manchester after training; Victoria would be in a hotel somewhere in the States, getting
ready to go on stage at a 30,000-seat auditorium that night. I can remember days when we spent five hours on the phone at a time. You find out so much about the person you love and eventually marry in the first weeks and months after you meet her. There's all that history, all those details, you have to fill in. Me and Victoria learned about each other long distance.

That's carried on ever since, of course. We married, we've had children, but we still have to be away sometimes for weeks at a time. We'll still talk all the time but it's different now. For a start, we don't mind a bit of technology: the videophones while I was out in Japan at the World Cup were just the job. And these days, of course, it's not two single people: a boy and a girl falling in love. Whoever's at home has got their hands full with Brooklyn and Romeo. We've always had fantastic support from our parents looking after the boys. But whichever one of us is at home will still be busy with mealtimes, bathtimes, bedtimes and school runs. We end up talking on the phone more often now, but not for such a long time. There'll always be something the boys need that means:

‘I'll have to call you back in a minute.'

I think we're lucky. Victoria and I are as comfortable talking on the phone as we are face to face. I know I hate being away from her and the boys but it's that much easier because, if we're on the line, it's intimate and easy enough between us that I feel like we're connected, even if our words are having to be bumped across continents. We feel close enough, anyway, to keep me going until I get home. Life gets so intense and so strange sometimes that, if I couldn't ring the one person who understands it all, I'm not sure I'd always make it home with my head in one piece. Five minutes on the phone with Victoria can make sense of what's going on at my end for me, sort out the strangest problem and calm the biggest crisis. The trust and love that make it work like that are the same in any marriage. Most people's conversations, though, can happen across the dinner table when they get in
from work. If I need to talk to Victoria, I'll often have to find out an international dialing code first.

Of course, with the life we live, the important thing is that Victoria and I are in it together. We both know what it's like to be successful in what we do in our careers. Partly because we're a couple, we know what comes with a certain level of fame and an unbelievable amount of attention. We're lucky we have great people around us: family and professional advisers who relieve some of the strain, help us find our way through living the public side of our lives and careers. When it comes down to it, though, it's me and the missus. Every now and again, we'll have to sit down and pinch ourselves, look at what's happening together:

‘What's going on right now? What might be just around the corner?'

Whether those conversations happen over the phone or face to face, the important thing is that they happen. Life gets crazy sometimes. We'll see things, be asked to do things, be presented with challenges that we could never have foreseen turning up even a couple of years ago. Truth be told, we both enjoy the unpredictability of it all; Victoria even more than me. There's always something new going on. It's important to try to keep things under control, for our own and the boys' sakes, but every now and again—whether it's studio time in the States or a transfer, out of the blue, to a new club in a different country—things feel like they take on a life of their own. And leave us just hanging on to the slipstream. We have our tricky moments, like anybody else would. But having each other, I think, stops me or Victoria getting overwhelmed by it all.

We can talk to each other. And we can go home to Brooklyn and Romeo. It doesn't matter what's been going on around me the rest of a day. I walk into the house and, as soon as I'm with the boys, nothing else matters but them. They're more thrilling to me—every single day—than anything else in my life. People must look at the lifestyle that comes with being Mr and Mrs Beckham and imagine it's all mad, all completely unreal. Some of it seems that way to us as well. But the
foundations for me are the same as those for anybody else with a family. Inside Bubble Beckham, there's another bubble: it keeps the four of us safe—and sane—inside it. My real world, where I find what I need for the rest of the adventure, is with Victoria, Brooklyn and Romeo. There's nothing unusual about that, is there? I'm myself, both feet on the ground, like any other husband and father, when I'm at home with my wife and my sons. It's like Victoria said when we were talking about the move to Madrid:

‘This is a huge thing, a huge change in our lives: a different country, a different way of life. But this is just a time to get our heads down and get on with it, concentrating on the things that really matter. You play your soccer—and you'd better play well—and I'll do my music. And for the rest of it, we'll be where we need to be: you, me and the boys. The family.'