Chapter Eight: Train ride

Eve began turning up early to training every day and stayed later with anyone who wanted to go the extra mile, either on the gym or the pitch. She worked harder in the quick rondos and sprinted after the young attackers till her calves burned. And it seemed for every mile she ran, Lucia ran two. She was busting a gut; but shouting at everyone, pissing them off, demanding and correcting them constantly. Fortunately for her, the Real Martinez players held her in high esteem. If a Hanmore player had behaved the same way, Eve was sure there would have been some kind of dressing room bust up. Instead, the mood remained lively and full of banter. On the Monday after their day at the beach, Eve had found a child’s English/Spanish dictionary in her cubby hole. Large cartoonish pictures depicted common everyday objects with both the English and Spanish words for the item next to it. There was a lot of laughter when she picked it up. ‘Right, si, gracias,’ she said as she turned back to face the room. 

‘Oh, you find the book.’ Lucia looked up from lacing her boots. ‘Matteo does not need it anymore. I babysit and he says I can give to you. He knows already these English words. Now you learn the Spanish ones.’ 

Eve gave her a wry smile and put the dictionary in her rucksack. On the way out to the training pitches, she cornered Greta. ‘So, Lucia babysat for you?’ 

‘Si, last Saturday, so kind. We do not get much time to ourselves. We had a date night.’ 

‘That was nice of her.’ 

Greta nodded. ‘She is a good person.’ 

‘Grumpy as hell sometimes though,’ Eve replied. 

Greta only laughed and shook her head. 

 

At the end of the week, they boarded a train to Barcelona. Eve had never taken a train to a play a match before. Hanmore’s domestic opponents were all close enough that they could rely on coach travel. But the train actually felt far less stuffy than a coach. She went to the back of the carriage and found herself a couple of free seats where she could spread her stuff out. Other players were sitting next to each other, dealing out playing cards, or sharing music playlists, but she didn’t feel she knew anyone on the team well enough to spend three to four hours in that close company with them. 

Real Martinez’s social media person had been following the team all day, filming them for content. Eve had been avoiding the camera wherever possible, trying to stay out of shot, but the super energetic guy was now making a beeline for her, with Mikel hot on his heels. ‘We take photo, yes, you and the boss?’ 

Mikel leaned in to where Eve was sitting. He put one hand on her shoulder and opened his mouth as if he were about to say something to her, only nothing came out. A flash went off and the picture was taken, and Mikel moved quickly onto the next carriage, where the staff and coaches were sitting.  

‘What was all that about?’ she said under breath, to herself, but the the social media guy heard her and answered. 

‘We will put it out to show we all friends again. Now I switch to video, and you give me big ‘vamos’ for the fans.’ 

‘Do I have to?’ 

‘Si, you do this and promise I leave you alone all rest of day.’ 

Feeling like an idiot, she put on her best fake smile and half-heartedly punched the air. ‘Vamos.’ 

‘Ah this is perfect. Gracias.’ He then left, going back up the carriage and getting in the faces of the other girls, some of whom played up to it and others who groaned and grumbled much as Eve had.  

As the train pulled out of the station, she watched through the window. They left the town behind and ploughed into the Spanish countryside. For some reason, she had expected it would be flat and dusty when instead it was mostly green. She saw olive trees and vineyards, with neat white houses nestled among them. After admiring the prettiness of the scenery for a while she dug her laptop out of the bag and turned it on, then spent ages messing around with servers, the train wifi, and different apps, until she found a stream of the Hanmore game that was going on 1500 miles away. It was the start of the second half and they were 1-0 up. She put her headphones on and watched as they cruised to a 3-0 victory. Poppy had a good game and won the player of the match award.  

The broadcast cut away from Poppy’s smiling face as she was given a little trophy, to the pundits in the studio, who were gushing about Hanmore’s excellent start to the season. ‘We did think,’ said the guest presenter, ‘that they might suffer in midfield without their stalwart Eve Middleton, but they’ve shifted Sam O’Brien into that position, and she’s done a fantastic job.’ 

Eve slammed the laptop down so hard that it made Lucia, who was three rows in front her, turn around in her seat. Their eyes met and then Lucia winked. Eve felt her face grow hot. She stood up quickly, unable to sit still, and the only place to go was the toilet. She traveled up the carriage and when she passed Lucia’s row, she saw that she also had a laptop open and had been watching the same stream, the same game. Was she listening to Spanish or English commentary? Had Lucia heard the pundits declaring Eve was so crap that she could be replaced in midfield by a defender? Why had she winked at her? What sort of wink was it? A friendly, 'it's ok,' wink. Or was she mocking her? Eve shot past quickly to avoid any conversation and locked herself in the train toilet for a good ten minutes, even though she didn’t need the toilet at all. She put her head against the wall and tried to breathe evenly, and only when she a little bit in control of her emotions, did she go back into the train carriage.  

They disembarked at Barcelona-Sants train station, which was large and functional rather than beautiful, and she suddenly felt nervous. Hanmore were a far more successful team than Real Martinez and every time had played the mighty Barca they had lost. Greta, who was walking beside her must have guessed her thoughts because she tugged on her sleeve ‘Half of it is up here,’ she said, putting a finger to her temple, ‘you have played long enough to know.’  

Eve nodded. Greta was right. Mentality played a huge part in football. Suddenly determined, she jogged away, leaving Greta behind, leaving all the players behind, to catch up with Mikel who was striding, chest out, tie flapping, shades on, in front of all his coaches and technical staff.  

‘I want to play,’ she hissed at him. ‘Start me.’ 

‘No now,’ he hissed back, ‘maybe cameras.’ 

‘They’re aren’t any bloody cameras. Listen, I’ve been doing all I can,’ Eve said. ‘I've been one hundred per cent in every training session. I get it, you want commitment. Play me. I will fight to the very end, I promise.’ 

Without skipping a step or a beat Mikel pointed at the one lone photographer who had come to the station to record Real Martinez’s arrival in Barcelona. ‘See, camera,’ he snapped before striding away from her.   

 

The hotel was basic, but clean and modern. They only had time to dump their personal belongings off before they were issued with a packed lunch in a paper bag which they ate on the bus that took them to the stadium. Barcelona women used a smaller stadium when they were not playing a big match in the massive Camp Neu. A league match against Real Martinez was apparently not worth opening Camp Neu for. After a short training session to get used to the playing surface, they were bussed back for a buffet dinner in a charmless conference room. Eve sat on a table with three Maria’s; to keep them all separate in her mind she had named them goalkeeper Maria, young happy Maria, and Maria the goakeeper snogger. Eve picked at the food. She had eaten some lovely meals since she had been in Spain, this however, wasn’t one of them. The girls talked around her and over her in fast Spanish. Even though she faintly recognised a word here or there, she couldn’t keep or understand what they were complaining about or laughing at.  

A team meeting followed dinner where the starting eleven was put up on a slide presentation, and she was not at all surprised to see her name not included on it. 

The evening was spent socialising and chilling. Some of the girls went for ice cream but Eve was tired; her brain hurt from trying to understand them and she was sure they were tired of translating for her. Instead, she waved them off and found a sofa in a quiet corner of the foyer with the same book that she had been attempting and failing to read on the beach a few days earlier. Lucia was also in the foyer and Eve watched out of the corner of her eye as she was constantly busy with visitors; friends, and maybe family, who were all popping by to wish her well. She sat and had coffee with them and laughed. But she had serious conversations too. People grabbed her by the arm or stroked her face until she laughed their concerns off. Then, much to Eve’s surprise, Lucia was cajoled and directed in the direction of a piano that stood in the tiny bar area. Eve had presumed it was only there for decoration – to break up all the blandness - but it seemingly worked. Lucia sat, with red cheeks, and played for a small group of people who clearly loved her. It was a tune that Eve vaguely recognised, and though not a perfect performance, not professional or smooth, it was roundly applauded by those surrounding the piano, by the hotel staff behind the reception desk, and a few other guests who lounged nearby with their coffees or wine. 

Once she had finished, Lucia got up and hurried away from the piano stool while laughing off calls for an encore. As she walked back to her seat, Lucia looked Eve’s way and noticed her for the first time. They nodded at one another before Eve buried her head in her book, and this time she forced herself to read, for perhaps thirty minutes straight, and found herself becoming vaguely interested in the plot. It was probably the first time in a year that she had managed more than a paragraph at a time.  

Progress.  

She only stopped reading when the younger girls on the team came back from their walk full of sugar-induced giddiness and a tub of plain vanilla ice cream that they pressed on Eve. She was touched that they had thought of her and walked to the lifts with them, tucking her book under the arm, and intending to eat her ice-cream in the comfort of her room while she watched something extremely shallow on her laptop. 

They all piled in and doors had almost closed before there was a binging noise and they opened again to admit Lucia, who had obviously now said goodbye to her well-wishers. She mumbled an ‘ola’ at them, and the lift, which had previously been full and noise and joviality, became quiet.  

She and Lucia were both on first floor and they got out while the rest of the girls were bound for the next floor up. They walked a few steps in awkward silence before Eve cleared her throat and spoke. ‘Guess you had a whole life here, what with all the visitors’ downstairs.’ 

‘Si,’ Lucia agreed. ‘I am in Barcelona ten years.’ 

‘They all coming to watch you play tomorrow?’ 

‘Si. They come to the game, but I no play.’ 

Eve blinked. ‘What?’ She was a bit ashamed that she hadn’t studied the slides thoroughly enough, she had been concentrating on looking for her own name and lost interest when it hadn’t appeared. She had assumed that someone of Lucia’s experience would automatically start.  

‘I am loan from Barcelona,’ she shrugged. ‘I don’t play. Is rules.’ 

‘Right, right. Of course, same in England for loan players.’  

‘And you, you have people coming?’ Lucia asked. ‘Is big game.’ 

‘No,’ Eve replied, feeling deflated. Lucia was right, it was a big game. They were playing last year’s league champions, cup champions, the champions league winners. Greta’s husband and son had travelled to Barcelona to attend. Her new teammates had been constantly pestering the admin girls at Real Martinez for tickets for their friends and family and had been grumbling about not having enough to give away. ‘Most of my mates are footballers,’ Eve said. ‘You know, they’ve got games themselves.    

‘No family?’ Lucia asked. 

‘No.’ Eve hadn’t thought to ask them. She supposed she could have bought her mother a ticket to Barcelona, put her up in a bread and breakfast and got her a ticket to the game. But then her mother grumbled if she were forced to go to a different supermarket than the one she’d been buying her bread at for the last fifteen years. She couldn’t imagine her Carole in Barcelona, wandering about in the heat and the crowds, trying and failing to find the stadium. Even in her teens. Eve had felt more like a parent to her mother, than her mother was a parent to her. All the decisions that had been made about Eve’s football career had been made by Eve herself. When she’d been underage, the contract papers had been put in front of her mother, but Eve had been the one telling her where to sign.  

‘I know about your dad, but who is your family?’ Lucia asked. They had stopped outside their respective rooms, which turned out to be directly opposite one another.   

‘Oh, it’s just my mum, and my brother, and his girlfriend, Saskia. They’re getting married.’ she added, just by way of conversation.  

‘Oh,’ Lucia smiled.’ Is nice. Big wedding?’ 

‘Yes, big wedding, gigantic.’ Eve pointed in the direction of the door to her room.  

‘It about defence,’ Lucia said suddenly, ‘do not listen to Mikel.’ She grabbed the hand that Eve didn’t have ice-cream in and shook it briefly to get her attention. ‘He say ‘we are Real Martinez, we take the ball to them, show who we are. Is rubbish. If you get on, you need to defend and wait for the mistake before you go forward, you hear, you direct the others?’ 

Eve smiled at her intensity. ‘I know. I’ve played them before, but I can’t do anything if he won’t let me play.’ 

‘Yes,’ Lucia gave her a wry smile. ‘Goodnight. I cheer from the stands.’ 

‘Will you though?’ Eve asked quietly. ‘Barcelona is the club of your heart, right? Your Dad’s club?’ 

‘I am for Real Martinez now,’ Lucia said with a furrowed brow.  

‘Maybe you should tell the other girls that,’ Eve replied as she turned to tap her keycard against the hotel room door lock, ‘because I’m not sure they know.’