Taking The Long Way Around - Chapter Two
September 1993
For Steven, it looked like Xabi was on fire; he didn’t seem to get tired, even the hard training didn’t manage to take the Spaniard’s breath away. He kept tackling, scoring, passing and feinting. The gaffer made him play as a defender, midfielder and a striker, but Xabi didn’t seem to mind. He performed every task he was asked to do with such elegance that Stevie felt a little sting of jealousy in him. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the coach had asked the Spaniard to play also as a goalkeeper; he probably would’ve amazed everyone with his hidden skills in that area too.
Most of the players were local boys, all of whom had given their hearts to Liverpool FC and sworn that they would never play for any other club. Then there was Sami, the bad-ass Finn, who still didn’t seem to pay any attention to the young Spaniard and his fellow defender Daniel, who, Stevie noticed, Xabi quite liked. He was a young, freckled Dane who wasn’t afraid to use his English despite how bad it was. While they were stretching together, the Spaniard told him that when he had heard the Dane talk for the first time, with his funny accent and all kinds of grammar mistakes, he had thought that one day he would be like that; not caring what other people thought about his way of speaking, just saying what he wanted to say. Stevie just smiled and told the other boy that his English would start to sound better and better every day if he just made sure that he used it as much as possible.
The coach of the team was a man in his late forties, perhaps early fifties. He was a man who had played for Liverpool’s first team a long time ago and had lost his view for the game while struggling to find something to do after his time as a professional footballer was over. His biggest dream was becoming the coach of Liverpool’s first team, but the chance of achieving that goal had been long gone. So, here he stood, stuck with the young boys, who actually started to have more knowledge of the game that the man himself. The coach spoke with a strong Scouse accent and it was impossible for Xabi to understand what was said most of the time, so Stevie had to make sure he translated him every sentence the Spaniard didn’t understand. He whispered Stevie his words of gratitude to Stevie after the coach had explained the next exercise for them.
Stevie sat down beside the beaming Spaniard after the training session in the changing room.
“The man is crazy if he doesn’t take you into the team. You are a much better player that I first thought you would be,” he told the boy who then whispered his silent thank you and started changing. When they walked out of the building, the coach stopped the Spaniard and started talking with a low voice. Stevie watched amusedly as the Spaniard frowned; that was a clear sign of the fact he didn’t understand a word the coach said. After the gaffer had left he laughed wholeheartedly at the puzzled expression Xabi’s face and explained to the bemused boy that he had been accepted to the team.
After a few weeks Stevie noticed that he spent a lot of time with the Spaniard. He didn’t mind that though, it just felt odd spending so much time at home, when he usually didn’t feel that happy at all in the big, empty house. They had built a routine of Xabi coming over after school; they would practise his English and then go to their football practises. Stevie asked the Basque if his parents approved him spending so much time with him instead of being at home with them, but Xabi answered merely that they were happy he had found some company for himself.
It was another afternoon like that; they were lying on the soft couches of Stevie’s living room, enjoying the comfortable silence. The Spaniard was doing his homework with a concentrated look on his face and Stevie was reading a random football magazine he had found lying on the coffee table.
“Do you miss Spain?” the Scouser suddenly asked. He had been wondering this for a while, but somehow he hadn’t asked Xabi about it. His fellow footballer looked at him and he could see a longing in those bright brown eyes.
“Sí, I do. I miss the city, is a beautiful city, you know. And my friends of course. And the weather, I miss sun.” Xabi smiled a sad smile and Stevie couldn’t help but laugh at his last remark.
“It does shine here in Britain too. You might have to wait for a long time, though, but it does. You don’t seem like you miss it that much, though. You’re all bright and shiny yourself all the time.” He was glad to make Xabi laugh and get that gloomy expression of his fade away.
“You keep me very busy; there is not much time to be sad.”
Stevie wasn’t the only one who had noticed the way things had changed. He was smoking cigarettes just outside the main building with his friends when his and Xabi’s friendship was brought up.
“My parents are away tonight and tomorrow as well. Do you want to come and get drunk?” Sami asked him with a mischievous grin on his face. They had done that countless of times; they had realised the benefits of having a grown-up brother in no time. Sami’s older brother was more than happy to get them what they wanted to drink and they used both Sami’s and Stevie’s (his parents spent more time away than at home) houses to arrange these private parties of theirs. But now there was something that made Stevie hesitate to accept the offer. That something, though he didn’t even realize it himself, was a particular Spanish friend of his.
"Nah, I don’t know. It’s school night and all.” It was a lousy excuse and Stevie knew it. That fact hadn’t stopped him from getting drunk before.
“Well, you’ll just skip school tomorrow like normal people. What the fuck is going on with you anyway? You haven’t been hanging out with us in weeks and now this... Doesn’t the pretty, little Spanish girlfriend of yours approve of you getting pissed?” Stevie knew very well that Mike was provoking him on purpose, but it was working. He felt angry, not with the way he was talking about him, but the way he talked about Xabi.
“Just shut the fuck up,” was all he could say. Stevie was rarely in a loss of words, but now he couldn’t think of anything to say to defend himself or his friend.
“Well, are you coming then or do you prefer shoving your cock up your Spanish girlfriend’s nice little arse in stead?” Stevie looked at the wicked grin that had appeared to his friend’s face, smoked what was left of his cigarette and answered reluctantly.
“I’m coming, alright!” he dropped the cigarette stub to the ground, started walking towards the school building and as Mike and the others followed him, he added, “Just leave Xabi out of this, okay?”
“Oh, I think I just found Stevie “I am big and fucking hard” Gerrard’s soft spot. What is it that he does to you that gets you this wound up? Does he suck you off after your football practises in an empty changing room? Or maybe he gets on all fours and lets you fuck him senseless, is that it?” The others started laughing as they saw the deep blush in Stevie’s face and the Scouser just muttered some incoherent curses before telling them all to sod off.
As soon as Stevie re-entered the almost deserted cafeteria he spotted the Spaniard, sitting alone and reading one of those books of his. He sat down opposite to his friend and received a curious look from the Spaniard.
“I was wondering where you were. I must sit alone for a long time,” Xabi said smiling.
“Xabi, you had to sit alone. There’s absolutely nothing you must do. Well, maybe breathing, but that’s all. Besides, haven’t you got any other friends?” Stevie asked, realising how rude his words were, but what Mike had said was still echoing in his mind.
“Excuse me?” Xabi looked at him, bemused and a little hurt.
“I’m just saying. What if I got sick or something, you’d be all alone here. I thought that you’d got to know someone from your classes by now.”
“What? You don’t want to be friends anymore?” Xabi was still looking at him, less puzzled, more hurt this time.
“No, that’s not what I’m saying. I was just wondering,” Stevie hurried to say and silently cursed himself, as that wasn’t what he wanted to say at all. He actually had no idea what the fuck he did want to say.
“You are an odd person, Steven. For me being alone is no problem,” Xabi said, smiling now.
“I’m odd? What about you then? First you moan that you must eat the lunch by yourself and then you say it’s no problem for you to be alone.” Stevie rolled his eyes dramatically and laughed.
“Moan?” Xabi asked, looking all confused again.
“You know, whine, complain,” Stevie explained and watched curiously how the younger boy took a little black notebook from his messenger bag and started writing something.
“What the fuck is that?” he asked after a while of watching Xabi scribbling.
“Is a notebook, no?”
“Why yes, I can see that, I meant that what are you doing?” Most of the time he thought that Xabi was funny (and cute, but that he didn’t admit to anyone, even himself) when he struggled with words and was acting like a little smartass he was, but now he couldn’t help but feel a bit frustrated. Sometimes it seemed to take forever for Xabi to understand what he was saying.
“You should say what you mean, you are confusing me. I am writing that down. Moan. Is written like this, no?” Steven nodded as the Basque showed him what he had written (very neatly) in the notebook,. After the word he could see some other words, which were undoubtedly Spanish. When he looked back at Xabi with a questioning look on his face the other boy started explaining the purpose of his notebook.
“I learn all these new words. I decide I become a Scouser like you, sí?”
When he saw the big grin that had formed to the Spaniard’s face, he couldn’t help but laugh. During these weeks they had spent together, he had started to notice that whenever Xabi got excited about something and started babbling about things (especially things he thought were important, like football), he forgot everything about grammar and just started putting words together, not caring about what he said.
“Believe me, you are already becoming an honorary Scouser. You just need to do a lot more swearing and start having an everlasting frown on your forehead and no-one will notice the difference between you and me,” he said and started laughing again when Xabi’s face lightened up even more.
“You really think so? You teach me to swear then?” Xabi asked and grinned.
“All in the good time, lad.” Stevie then said and continued laughing.
“Stevie?” The Scouser didn’t want to open his eyes. His head was hurting so bad he thought it was going to split in two. He tried to think where he was (he was quite sure that where ever he was, he wasn’t at home), but he had no recollection whatsoever of what had happened last night.
“Stevie?” There was that soft voice again, trying to get him open his eyes. Eventually he took a peek at the person who had tried to disturb his sleep and saw a familiar face that was smiling at him gently, though a little worriedly. He got up, which his head immediately protested to by aching even more, and put his head in his hands.
“Are you okay?” Xabi asked him as he rocked himself a little back and forth.
“I’m fine. I’ve got a bit of a headache, but I’m fine,” Stevie said and looked at the younger boy properly for the first time. “What are you doing here, though? And where the fuck am I, even?”
“We are at Sami’s parents’ house. After you do not come to school today, I call you and Mike answers, I ask where are you and that is how I am here.” Xabi kept looking at him and the worried and kind gaze didn’t go unnoticed by the Scouser.
“What time is it?” he asked then, still trying to recall the previous night’s events, quite unsuccessfully.
“Is already half past five. We have football training in an hour. I was thinking you would want to come, but now that I see you, I think is better for you to sleep and take medicine instead,” Xabi said and got up from the bed to get Stevie some pills from Sami, but the Englishman grabbed his hand before he could leave.
“No, I want to come, I can’t miss the training. Just get me some painkillers and I’ll be fine.”
Xabi gazed at Steven, whose face was a little pale, and nodded.
As they were running their third lap around the pitch, Xabi couldn’t contain himself anymore; he had to know what had happened last night. Or more like why it had happened.
“Why do you do things like that? On weekdays, I mean. Makes no sense to me.”
“I bet it doesn’t. I bet you haven’t even had a fucking drink in your life.”
Stevie knew he shouldn’t talk like that to Xabi. After all, he wasn’t like his other friends. Xabi wasn’t a bad-ass like the others, he didn’t even try to act like one; he was sensitive and didn’t really appreciate the amount of curses he used daily.
“That is not true. I drink communion wine almost every Sunday.” Xabi’s answer made Stevie cry out.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. That’s not the same thing, now, is it? You’re a fucking saint, you. You haven’t probably even snogged a bloody girl, you’d rather wait until you’re married, wouldn’t you?” Stevie laughed, but his laugh dried quickly as he saw that the other boy wasn’t joining him but instead actually looked rather embarrassed.
“You’ve got to be kidding me! Bloody hell,” he exclaimed before he could stop himself.
“I haven’t kissed a girl, that part is true. But I do not know about the other thing, the marriage I mean. But I know what you say about Scousers and swearing to be true now.” Xabi’s sly smile got Stevie laughing again despite the headache that didn’t seem to want to go away.
“I only curse this much when I’m frustrated. But you’re not waiting until you’re married? You’re not as innocent as you’d like everyone to believe then. Just wait until your first game with us, score a couple of goals and the girls will be falling for you in no time, they all love odd guys like you. And on top of it all you’ve got that accent of yours that will get them fighting for your attention.”
“I do not know about that. They all think I am weird,” Xabi said, looking sceptical.
“Exactly. Just wait and see.” Stevie merely said and winked.