Glory Of The Football Manager System

"You want me in it."

"Only if you want to be."

"I’ll be in it," she said. "But I have conditions."

"Name them."

"They don’t film me writing. The writing is private. They don’t film me at Athletic events. And they don’t use the word ’WAG.’ If anyone on that production team calls me a WAG, I will personally dismantle the camera and feed it to them piece by piece."

"I’ll make sure that’s in the contract."

"Good." She took a sip of wine. "Also, my podcast launches January fifteenth. The Terrace. First episode. If Netflix wants footage of me, they can start there. The podcast is mine. The documentary is yours. The apartment is ours. Clear boundaries."

"Crystal clear."

"Then yes. I’m in."

She checked the lamb. It was perfect.

The kitchen filled with the smell of rosemary and garlic as she opened the oven, the heat blooming upward and catching the loose strands of her hair. She carved it at the counter with the quiet competence of a woman who had learned from her mother and had never stopped practicing.

The slices were even. The jus was poured. The vegetables were arranged with the same unconscious precision she brought to a paragraph. She set two plates on the small dining table by the window and lit a candle.

"Dinner," she said.

We ate at the table by the window, London spread below us, the New Year’s Eve fireworks still hours away, but the city already glittering with anticipation. The lamb was extraordinary. The jus was the best thing she had ever made, the red wine reduction hitting the exact balance between sweet and savoury that separated a good home cook from a great one.

"This is incredible, Em."

"I know." She smiled.

The smile of a woman who had spent the day in the away end at the Hawthorns, who had held my mum’s hand when I hugged her, who had sat in the back of a Ford Mondeo for three hours listening to Radio 4 and drinking condensed-milk tea, and who had come home and cooked a meal that would have held its own in a restaurant, because that was who she was.

A woman who could do everything and chose to do the things that mattered.

After dinner, we moved to the sofa. The television was off. The apartment was quiet. The candle on the dining table still burning, the wine almost finished, and the city humming below. Emma curled against me, her feet tucked beneath her, the nightgown riding above her knee, her head on my shoulder.

"Tell me about the year," she said.

We had done this before, on other evenings, in other versions of this scene. But tonight it was different. Tonight it was the last night of 2017, and the year we were summarising was the year that had changed everything.

"In January, I was coaching the under-eighteens," I said. "Twenty-Four boys on a training pitch at Beckenham, dreaming about something bigger, the UEFA Youth Cup. In February, we won the FA Youth Cup. In March, the U18 Nationals. In April, Parish said five matches. In June, the contract. In July, the UEFA A Licence. In September, the A badge passed, and the Pro Licence application was accepted the same day."

"And then the season," she said.

"City three-three. Marseille. The bus attack. Chelsea and the taste of ash. Wembley. Old Trafford. The breaking. The repair. Olise scoring at Huddersfield. My mum in the stands today."

"And you, hugging her, in front of two thousand people."

"And Frankie was crying."

"Everyone cried today, Danny." She shifted, her hand finding mine. "I cried watching you hug her. Your mum was shaking. Frankie took off his flat cap and held it against his chest like he was standing at a funeral, except he was smiling."

"Frankie doesn’t smile."

"He smiled today. Just once. When you let go and looked up at the fans. He smiled and then he put the cap back on and pretended it never happened."

We were quiet for a moment. The candle flickered. London hummed beneath us. Her thumb traced slow circles on the back of my hand, the absent, rhythmic gesture she made when she was content and didn’t need to fill the silence with words.

The clock on the wall was approaching midnight. The fireworks would start soon, the London skyline erupting in colour and noise, the city celebrating itself. But in the apartment, in the quiet, with the candle burning and the wine finished and the woman beside me warm and close and real, the new year had already begun.

"Em."

"Mm."

"Thank you. For this year. For following me from Manchester to Croydon to Dulwich. For buying me a suit when I couldn’t afford the bus. For cooking lamb on New Year’s Eve. For sitting in the back of Frankie’s Mondeo for three hours with my mum’s thermos. For all of it."

She lifted her head from my shoulder and looked at me. The candlelight caught her face. The freckles on her nose. The green eyes that had looked at me across a pub table in Moss Side and decided that the boy behind the bar was worth the gamble.

"You’re smiling, you do not smile at the camera," she said.

"I am now."

"The real one."

"The only one that matters."

She kissed me. Slowly. The midnight kind. Not a peck or a greeting but the kind of kiss that starts with intention and ends with the understanding that nothing else is required. Her hands on my face. My hands in her hair. The silk nightgown was warm against my chest. The candlelight was flickering. The city outside was counting down to something, but we had already arrived.

The fireworks began. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the London skyline exploded in colour. Silent at first through the double glazing, then a distant percussion, the city celebrating itself. Red and gold and white and blue, blooming and fading and blooming again over the rooftops of South London.

Emma pulled back. Her eyes reflecting the colours. Her lips still close.

"Happy New Year, Danny Walsh."

"Happy New Year, Emma Hartley."

We stayed on the sofa. We didn’t move. The fireworks died. The city settled. The candle burned down to nothing. And in the quiet that followed, in the warm, still, private dark of the only home that mattered, the boy from Moss Side and the girl from Altrincham held each other, and the year ended, and the story continued, and everything, for now, was exactly where it was supposed to be.

I am Danny Walsh. I am twenty-eight years old. And for the first time in a long time, I am home.

[END OF 2017.]

[Season: P39 W33 D3 L3. GF: 95. GA: 33.]

[Premier League: P21 W16 D3 L2. 51 pts. 2nd at New Year.]

[Europa League: Group H winners. Round of 32 draw: January 11th.]

[EFL Cup: Semi-final. January.]

[History in the making]

[Netflix: "The Walsh Way." Accepted. Crew January. Emma’s conditions: no filming her writing, no Athletic events, no "WAG."]

[Emma Hartley: "The Terrace" launches January 15th. The podcast is hers. The documentary is his. The apartment is ’theirs’.]

[January window opens tomorrow.]

[The smile was for her. It was always for her.]

[2018 begins.]

***

Thank you to Sir nameyelus for the support.