Red or Dead (87 page)
That is very kind of you, Bob. Very kind of you to say that. But I know I’m not immortal, Bob. I know I’m mortal. Very mortal.
The game not finished, the match never finished. The pain in his heart and the smoke in his eyes. The city had been in flames, sirens in the air. Bill closed his eyes. On a stretcher, in an ambulance. Bill opened his eyes. And Bill saw Ness. His daughters and his granddaughters.
And Bill smiled. In the bed, in the hospital. Bill closed his eyes again. His eyes closed, for the last time. Bill was in the field. For all time. Bill had rolled the stone from the tomb. In the field. Bill saw the tree. Its blossoms gone, its leaves fallen and its branches bowed. In the field. Bill walked towards the tree. In the field. Bill stood before the tree. In the field. Bill looked up at the tree. Its branches that would rise up again, its leaves and blossoms that would come again. In the field. Bill touched the tree. This tree standing tall, this tree standing triumphant. Triumphant and resurrected now. Now and for all time. In the field. Bill knew this tree, Bill loved this tree. Her name was Liberty, her name was Liverpool.
On the train, at their table. Harold stared out of the window. Harold did not recognise the landscape, Harold did not recognise the place. Harold turned away from the window. And Harold took a postcard from out of his jacket pocket. Harold put down the postcard on the table. Harold slid the postcard across the table towards Bill. Harold smiled. And Harold said, You know who that is, Bill?
Aye, said Bill. Of course I do. It’s the Huddersfield Town side that won the Championship three seasons running.
Harold shook his head. And Harold said, No, on the other side. Turn it over, Bill. Do you know who that is?
Bill picked up the postcard. Bill turned over the postcard. And Bill read the words on the back of the postcard:
Up the Town, Nikita Khrushchev
Bill looked up from the words on the back of the postcard. Bill looked across the table at Harold. And Bill nodded. Bill smiled. And Bill heard the whistle of the train. Bill heard the voice of the guard –
All change here! All change, please!
This book is a work of fiction. And so this book is a novel. The following books all helped to inspire this work of fiction, this novel. However, I would like to pay particular tribute to four books:
SHANKLY: My Story
by Bill Shankly, with John Roberts (1976, 2011).
Shanks: The Authorized Biography
by Dave Bowler (1996).
It’s Much More Important Than That
by Stephen F. Kelly (1997).
The REAL Bill Shankly
by Karen Gill (2007).
And then …
44 Years with the Same
Bird by Brian Reade (2009).
A Strange Kind of Glory
by Eamon Dunphy (1991).
Best and Edwards
by Gordon Burn (2006).
Bob Paisley: An Autobiography
by Bob Paisley (1983).
Bob Paisley: Manager of the Millennium
by John Keith (1999).
Burns the Radical
by Liam McIlvanney (2002).
Cally on the Ball
by Ian Callaghan and John Keith (2010).
Crazy Horse
by Emlyn Hughes (1980).
Dalglish
by Kenny Dalglish, with Henry Winter (1996).
Dynasty
by Paul Tomkins (2008).
Everton: The School of Science
by James Corbett (2003, 2010).
Ghost on the Wall: The Authorised Biography of Roy Evans
by Derek Dohan (2004).
Harold Wilson
by Austen Morgan (1992).
Harold Wilson
by Ben Pimlott (1992).
If You’re Second You Are Nothing
by Oliver Holt (2006).
In a League of Their Own
by Jeremy Novick (1995).
Jock Stein
by Archie Macpherson (2004).
Kevin Keegan
by Kevin Keegan, with John Roberts (1977).
Kevin Keegan
by Kevin Keegan (1997).
Life of Robert Burns
by John Stuart Blackie (1888).
Liverpool 800
edited by John Belcham (2006).
Matt Busby: Soccer at the Top
by Matt Busby (1973).
Mr Shankly’s Photograph
by Stephen F. Kelly (2002).
RED MEN
by John Williams (2010).
Secret Diary of a Liverpool Scout
by Simon Hughes (2009).
SHANKLY
by Phil Thompson (1993).
Shankly: From Glenbuck to Wembley
by Phil Thompson and Steve Hale (2004).
Sir Alf
by Leo McKinstry (2006).
Sir Roger
by Ivan Ponting and Steve Hale (1995).
Soccer in the Fifties
by Geoffrey Green (1974).
SOVPOEMS
by Edwin Morgan (1961).
Talking Shankly
by Tom Darby (1998, 2007).
The Amazing Bill Shankly (CD)
by John Roberts (2007).
The Bard
by Robert Crawford (2009).
The Best Laid Schemes: Selected Poetry and Prose of Robert Burns
edited by Robert Crawford and Christopher MacLachlan (2009).
The Boot Room Boys
by Stephen F. Kelly (1999).
The Essential Shankly
by John Keith (2001).
The Football Man
by Arthur Hopcraft (1968).
The Footballer Who Could Fly
by Duncan Hamilton (2012).
The King
by Denis Law, with Bob Harris (2003).
The Management
by Michael Grant and Rob Robertson (2010).
The Saint
by Ian St John (2005).
The SHANKLY Years
by Steve Hale and Phil Thompson (1998).
The Unfortunates
by B. S. Johnson (1969).
THOMMO: Stand Up Pinocchio
by Phil Thompson (2005).
Three Sides of the Mersey
by Rogan Taylor and Andrew Ward (1993).
Tom Finney
by Tom Finney (2003).
Tommy Smith: Anfield Iron
by Tommy Smith (2008).
Tosh
by John Toshack (1982).
Winning Isn’t Everything
by Dave Bowler (1998).
The crowd attendances, team sheets and goals for many of the games in the novel were taken from the website www.liverweb.org.uk. Chris Wood of the www.lfchistory.net website also kindly pointed out many factual (and grammatical) errors in the original proof. Thank you, Chris!
Many of the scenes involving Bill Shankly and the supporters of Liverpool Football Club were also inspired by the recollections of people on the many fan forums and websites dedicated to Liverpool Football Club.
There remains a great deal of debate about when
You’ll Never Walk Alone
was first sung by the supporters of Liverpool Football Club. However, the closing scene of Chapter 12 was inspired by Wooltonian’s post of 30 April, 2004, on the www.redandwhitekop.com forum. Thank you.
The original idea for this novel came out of a conversation with Mike Jefferies. I would like to thank Rob Kraitt for putting Mike in touch with me. And to thank Mike and Rob for all their encouragement, help and support during the writing of this book. I would also like to pay particular thanks to John Roberts: very generously, John lent me the tapes of his conversations with Bill Shankly and also a tape of the Radio City interview between Bill Shankly and Harold Wilson.
Astrid Azurdia, Sam Dwyer, Robert Fraser, Ann Scanlon and George Scott also very kindly provided me with documents and materials that helped in the writing of this novel. Thank you very much.
I would also like to thank the following people for their assistance and their support. In Liverpool: Ian Callaghan, Stephen Done, John Keith, Stephen F. Kelly and Paul McGrattan. In Huddersfield: Stephen Dorril and Michael Stewart. In Leeds: Stephen Barber, Emma Bolland, Anthony Clavane, Robert Endeacott, Rod Dixon, Chris Lloyd, Alice Nutter, Jane Verity and all the Red Writers at Red Ladder, Leeds. In Tokyo: as always, Hamish Macaskill, Junzo Sawa, Peter Thompson, Atsushi Hori and all the staff of the English Agency Japan; Motoyuki Shibata, Ariko Kato and all the staff and students of the Department of Contemporary Literature at the University of Tokyo; Mike and Mayu Handford, David Karashima, Justin McCurry, Akiko Miyake, Shunichiro Nagashima, Richard Lloyd Parry, Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert and David Turner. In London: Ruth Atkins, Ian Bahrami, Andrew Benbow, Lee Brackstone, Angus Cargill, Anne Owen, Anna Pallai and all the staff of Faber and Faber. Also Jake Arnott, Matteo Battarra, Andrew Eaton, Laura Oldfield Ford, Stephen Frears, Carol Gorner, Tony Grisoni, John Harvey, Michael Hayden, Richard Kelly, Eoin McNamee, Keith and Kate Pattison, Maxine Peake, Ted Riley, Katy Shaw, Steve Taylor, Paul Tickell, Cathi Unsworth, Paul Viragh and
the staff of the Working Class Movement Library in Salford. Finally, I would like to thank all my family and friends, in Britain and in Japan, particularly Julian Cleator, Jon Riley and,
most of all, my father, Basil Peace,
and William Miller, always.
David Peace was chosen as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists in 2003. He is the author of
The Red Riding Quartet
, adapted by Channel 4 in 2009,
GB84
, which was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 2004, and
The Damned Utd
, which was made into a film in 2009. These were followed by
Tokyo Year Zero
in 2007 and
Occupied
City
in 2009, the first two books of his acclaimed Tokyo Trilogy.
NINETEEN SEVENTY FOUR
NINETEEN SEVENTY SEVEN
NINETEEN EIGHTY
NINETEEN EIGHTY THREE
GB
84
THE DAMNED UTD
TOKYO YEAR ZERO
OCCUPIED CITY
First published in 2013
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2013
All rights reserved
©
David Peace
, 2013
The right of
David Peace
to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–28067–4