Capital

sucking the oxygen out of any conversation, discussion or plan. ‘Could do’: it was, as it was intended to be, an intellectual passion-killer. Parker knew how much she hated it, and knew how it summed up the safe, stale, provincial childhood world they’d both tried so hard to get away from. ‘Could do’: right.
    ‘Look,’ said Daisy, pulling more covers up over her. ‘I’m sorry you lost your job, I really am. It’s not fair. I’m sure you did everything you were asked to very well. But there are other things which aren’t fair too, and one of them is acting as if I’ve done something wrong, when I’m trying to be nice to you and get you out of yourself and give us a nice time for a weekend. That’s all I’m trying to do – something nice. You don’t have to treat me as if I’m your aunt forcing you to do the washing-up.’
    Parker sat on the bed. There was a merciful, welcome glimpse of him turning back into normal, non-convulsed-by-grief Parker.
    ‘Sorry. I don’t mean to be such a downer.’
    Daisy immediately felt herself melt.
    ‘Oh baby, I know, and you’re not a downer, you’re never a downer.’
    ‘No, I am, I have been, I know. It’s that I didn’t see it coming, you know? I wasn’t braced for it. Out of nowhere. One minute it’s all, you know, London’ – and this was an important word for both of them, a code for Escape, for the World, for the Big Life and the open road and the possibilities of things that were larger than home – ‘and the next it’s just, I don’t know, it’s like I’m suddenly on the rubbish heap. I’m nobody. I’m back to being nobody again.’
    ‘You’re not nobody to me.’
    ‘No, I know,’ said Parker, and for the first time in a few days gave a version of his real smile, a small but cheeky smile which was one of the things Daisy did genuinely love about him. ‘I’m not nobody to you. I’m not nobody. He can’t take that away from me.’
    Daisy patted the bed. Parker, still in his birthday suit, sat beside her and took her hand.
    ‘Unreachable and blank with misery,’ she said, ‘not good. Able to talk about it, much better.’
    ‘I just don’t want to get boring, and there’s loads I can’t say.’
    ‘I know. But this other way of doing it is much, much more boring.’
    ‘OK. I’ll do my best,’ said Parker, giving her hand a squeeze of the type which was a form of farewell, so that he could let it go and cross the room and start putting his clothes on.
    ‘Come on, fatso, I want to get some of this breakfast that we’ve paid for.’
    Daisy pulled down the covers and got out of bed.
    ‘You seem much jollier all of a sudden,’ she said.
    ‘Yeah, I am,’ said Parker, pulling on his jeans. She had noticed the night before that he was the only man in the hotel wearing jeans, but never mind. ‘When I was in the loo I remembered an idea I had in the night.’
    ‘An idea?’
    ‘Well, more like a plan, really. A sort of plan. Anyway, let’s go and get some breakfast and then go and see that old bint’s tumpsy.’
    Daisy threw a pillow at him. She missed.

54
     
     
    Freddy Kamo had been told on the Wednesday that he would be playing in the first team on Saturday. It was going to be his first start. He had wanted this moment, longed for it, pined for it, dreamed about it, and been angry that it hadn’t come yet. He was ready. Patrick, who had always tried to take a calm, philosophical long view about when Freddy’s first full game would come, found himself just as excited as his son. He’s going to play a whole game! In the Premiership! My little boy! Help!
    To Freddy, Patrick said, ‘I am pleased for you. You will make us all very proud.’
    Patrick sometimes resented Mickey’s relationship with his son. He knew perfectly well that Mickey was indispensable, and that he genuinely cared about Freddy; but he was only human, and couldn’t help feeling, however faintly, displaced by him. It was a little as if Freddy had acquired another father. Today though, with the news, he knew there was only one person in the world who would be as giddy as he was, and that was Mickey, so once Freddy came back from training, and headed up to the games room to play with one of his consoles, Patrick was straight on the phone to the fixer.
    ‘Do you think he’s ready? Really ready?’ asked Patrick. That morning they had had another one of the cards which he disliked so much, the ones which said people wanted what they had. Normally