Chapter 522: Milan II
The genuine, slightly overwhelmed clapping of a man who had bought Crystal Palace from administration and was now watching his club drawn against AC Milan in the knockout rounds of a European competition. Dougie beside him was typing on his phone. Probably texting me. I checked. He was.
I looked at the room. Thirty-five faces. The players who would play the match. The coaches who would prepare for it. The analysts who would dissect Milan’s system. The physios who would keep the bodies ready.
"First leg at Selhurst Park," I said. "February fifteenth. Second leg at the San Siro, February twenty-second." I looked at Sakho. "You’ll get your wish, Mamadou."
Tomás’s camera, positioned in the corner of the room, had captured every reaction. Sakho’s stillness. Konaté’s wide eyes. Zaha’s grin. Dann’s quiet declaration. Kovačić’s assessment. Sarah’s phone. Bray’s notepad. Parish’s clapping. And Danny Walsh, standing at the front, looking at his squad, his face showing nothing to the camera but showing everything to the people in the room.
I drove home through South London. The January evening was dark and cold, the streetlights on Lordship Lane casting long pools of orange on the pavement. The radio was playing the draw coverage.
I turned the radio off. The silence was better. The silence let me think about what was coming. February. Milan. The San Siro. And before that, the second leg against Arsenal at the Emirates. And before that, the Premier League matches that would keep us in the race. And before that, tonight. Emma. Home.
Music was playing, something acoustic and French that she had discovered on a playlist and had been listening to on repeat for three days because Emma’s relationship with music was the same as her relationship with everything else: total commitment until she was finished, then absolute silence until the next obsession arrived.
Her reading glasses were on, the tortoiseshell frames that she wore only when she was working and that made her look like a university lecturer who had accidentally wandered into a fashion campaign. Her feet were bare, her legs tucked beneath her on the chair, a mug of tea beside her laptop, half-finished, forgotten.
The first episode of The Terrace was scheduled for January 15th. Four days away. The dining table was her production desk: research notes, interview transcripts, a printed schedule from
She didn’t hear me come in. I stood in the doorway for a moment and watched her work. The concentration on her face. The way she chewed the end of her pen when she was thinking.
I took one step into the room. The floorboard creaked. She looked up.
It was the unguarded expression of a woman who had been so deep in her work that she had forgotten another person existed, and who was now remembering, all at once, that the person she loved was standing in the doorway of their home after winning a cup semi-final and being drawn against AC Milan in the Europa League.
Not the greeting kiss. Not the well-done kiss. The kiss that came from nowhere and meant everything. Her hands warm on my jaw, her mouth finding mine, the taste of tea and the faint smell of the perfume she had put on that morning and that was still there, twelve hours later, in the hollow of her neck. She kissed me the way she did everything: with total commitment, without reservation, without any interest in performing the emotion when she could simply feel it.
"Which neighbours?"
I laughed. She pulled back and looked at me, her hands still on my face, her green eyes bright, the lamplight catching the loose strands of red hair at her temple.
"You heard."
"That about sums it up."
"We’re going to the San Siro."
"You’re coming to the San Siro."
"Tell me about the match," she said, picking up her pen. "Not the manager version. The Danny version."
"And the cameras?" she asked.
"Good. That’s when the best footage happens." She looked at me over her glasses. "The podcast pilot is finished. First episode records on Monday. Launches the fifteenth. I’m doing it on the Palace transformation. Fan voices. Club identity. The before and after."
"Episode three. You’re a guest. Non-negotiable."
"Then I interview Frankie instead and he tells the world about the time you tried to give a tactical briefing in the Railway Arms and the centre-forward fell asleep."
"Smart man."
I brought both cups to the table and sat across from her, the podcast notes between us, the Milan draw still echoing in my chest, the sound of Selhurst Park still in my ears, the woman I loved preparing to build something of her own while I processed the fact that Crystal Palace Football Club was about to play AC Milan.
And in the quiet of the Dulwich penthouse, with the city dark outside and the lamplight warm and the woman across the table chewing her pen and underlining phrases, the boy from Moss Side allowed himself, for one evening, to stop being a manager and simply be a man who had come home.
[First leg: Selhurst Park, February 15th. Second leg: San Siro, February 22nd.]
[Carabao Cup semi-final: Palace lead Arsenal 1-0. Second leg: Emirates, January 24th. Eze to start.]
[Netflix: Elena filming the draw reactions. "That’s the cold open of episode two."]
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