Chapter One: Real Martinez

The plane touched down, bumping and shuddering, and jarring Eve's nerves, as its wheels met the hot Spanish tarmac. She held her breath and her hands were balled into fists in her lap. Her eyes were screwed tightly shut until she felt someone tap her arm in a comforting way and she was forced to look at the woman in the seat next to her who said something she didn’t understand. She was in Spain now, this is what it would be like, constant confusion. A different language, a new city, unusual food, and twenty-four new teammates to get used to. 

The woman spoke again, but in English this time. ‘No be scared, ground now.’ 

Eve nodded, opened her eyes, and turned to offer the woman a smile she hoped looked genuine. ‘Yes. Si.’ She was a footballer who had traveled and played all over the world, at club and international level. The sickness and nervousness she felt was nothing to do with air travel. 

Grabbing the small rucksack which contained only her essentials - face cream, lip balm, hairbrush and toothbrush - Eve made her way down the gangway of the plane, nodding goodbye to the air stewards as she left. The heat of the Mediterranean sun hit her like a slap in the face, and she regretted wearing long sleeves. Her grey top was only t-shirt material but as she descended the metal stairs towards the bus that was waiting to take them to the terminal, it began to feel like a padded winter coat. Eve paused to dig around in her rucksack pockets for her sunglasses, annoying a man in a suit behind her who was obviously in a hurry, and resented being blocked by her elbows. He said something in Spanish under his breath that Eve suspected might be a swear word as he nudged her out of the way. She gave up on the sunglasses and muttered ‘Lo siento’ at him without confidence, hoping it did in fact mean sorry. 

There was nowhere to sit on the bus by the time she got on. It was packed, so she spent the journey squished against the doors, and when her mobile phone bleeped, she had to squirm and twist to pull it out of her trouser pocket. Eve looked at the screen in dread - it rarely brought her good news these days - but it was just her service provider letting her know that she was now ‘roaming’ in the EU, as if she didn’t already know. She was indeed roaming, set adrift, and a little bit lost. She was about to put the phone away again when a new message popped up. It contained only one word. 

Landed?  

It was from Poppy. Eve texted her back. 

Unfortunately. 

Neither of them favoured long text messages, so she was surprised when the response she  got back from her best friend and ex-teammate was lengthy; practically book-like by their standards. 

Cheer up our kid, it’s raining here, and at least you haven’t just spent the morning training alongside cockwomble and fuckface. Let us know what the beach is like. I'm dead jealous.

Eve could almost hear Poppy’s Yorkshire accent in the text and smiled sadly at it for a while, knowing Poppy wasn't really jealous, not at all.  She sent a thumbs up emoji as the bus stopped abruptly. The standing passengers swayed and exclaimed as they regained their balance, the big doors whooshed open, and they were released into the belly of the airport. 

At least the small terminal was air-conditioned. Eve wondered what sort of state she was in. Was her face was sweaty? Was her long strawberry blonde hair plastered to her head? It was probably the first time she’d worried about what she looked like in weeks. Her new club had said they would send someone to meet her and bring her straight to the training ground. If her outward appearance mirrored the ugliness she felt on the inside, then she'd make a bad first impression. 

After locating the women’s bathroom, Eve squared up to her reflection in the mirror and gave herself a long, hard look. She was thirty years old. Normally people told her she didn’t look it, but today her usually tanned face was pale from lack of sleep and her wide green eyes were red-rimmed. Her brows, her nails, her skin, all those features that she normally took great pride in and kept well-maintained, were now ragged and frayed; a bit like her career, her ego, and her love life. She brushed her hair, cleaned her teeth, and smeared peach-flavoured balm over her lips before she deciding she looked acceptable. 

What she’d expected to see, when she had cleared passport control and customs, was a full-bellied, slipper-wearing, proud owner of a people-carrier, holding a piece of scrappy piece of cardboard with Eve Middleton scrawled across it. She scanned the crowd in the arrivals hall, read all the signs being held aloft, then bit her lip in confusion when none of them seemed to be for her. Why did she feel like crying? It was ridiculous. They were probably just running late, or maybe she’d given them the wrong flight details. She was a fully-grown woman who had been getting herself from A to B all on her own for many years, and she had a phone, money, and the number and email of the person at Real Martinez who had been arranging everything for her. Still, it felt pretty shitty. She was tired of feeling rejected, not good enough, ignored.

Eve bit her lip and fought back tears while people greeted each other enthusiastically in Spanish, and her hands shook a little before she saw someone come through the crowds, waving lazily in her direction. She blinked and squinted and wondered if she was who she thought it was or if the stress of the day was playing tricks on her mind. They had played against one another - a few seasons ago now - but Eve remembered it well - hard tackles, sharp elbows - and a 4-0 loss. The bruises had lingered for weeks. On that Champions League night in Barcelona, Lucia Perez had scored two of the goals and assisted another. She was dangling a car key in one hand.

Eve took a few steps towards her. ‘You’re here for me?’ she asked Lucia hesitantly and then felt stupid. What if she wasn't. What if she just happened to be travelling through on her way to somewhere else. 

'Si.' She was smaller than Eve by an inch, maybe two, stockier, more muscled, tanned and handsome rather than pretty - with a Romanesque nose, thick deep set brown eyes, and a rich mane of dark hair that had been gathered at the back of her head into a mess of a bun. ‘Si, just me. You expect a Rose Royce?  

Obviously, Lucia meant Rolls Royce, not Rose Royce, which Eve thought might have been a band; a 70s soul group that her Nanna had once stumbled around to at family parties on Christmases past. ‘No, I just, didn’t expect...you.'  

‘Club asks me to. You bags?’ 

Eve reached around to tap the rucksack on her back. ‘Just this one, all I need. The moving people have got the rest of my stuff. It should've been delivered to the apartment this morning.’ 

Lucia raised a thick, disbelieving eyebrow. 

Eve felt panic rise within her, an all too common feeling these days. ‘They said, today, definitely, I packed it all up a week ago.’ 

‘Is Spain.’ Lucia replied, as if this meant something, but then she shrugged her shoulders, turned around and started walking off in the direction of the exit. 

‘So, you play for Real Martinez now,' Eve asked. as she followed her through the small airport. ‘We’ve met before, when Barcelona played Hanmore.’ 

‘I remember.’ 

‘Haven’t been keeping up with the transfer news, when did you…?’ 

Lucia stopped and turned to Eve. She gave her a stare that was unnerving in its steadiness. ‘Is a loan, this one season, then I go back to Barcelona.’ 

‘Right. Okay.’ They began walking again. It was unusual for players of Lucia’s age - what was she now, maybe 28 or 29 - to be loaned out. It was usually something a parent club as big as Barcelona did to give their young emerging talents game time and experience. Loans involving older players usually indicated some kind of problem, a falling-out with the coach perhaps. Whatever had happened, Lucia clearly did not want to talk about it. And Eve’s departure from Hanmore had been messy and rushed, so maybe the subject of why they were both now playing for Real Martinez was best avoided. 

Luckily, the awkward silent trudge to the car park took no more than five minutes and Lucia quickly pointed to her car, a smart compact 4x4. Eve walked to what she thought was the passenger side of the car before realising her mistake. Of course, they drove on the other side of the road here. When she passed Lucia on her way to the actual passenger side, the Spaniard was smirking.  

'Guess we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.'

Being English, Eve found it hard to resist filling the silence that had hung heavy between them. Twice she had opened her mouth to say something about the weather before shutting it again. Lucia wove her way expertly out of the car park and onto a bypass and then, just when Eve had decided that this woman was an arsehole who clearly did not want to be friends, she spoke.  

‘Who is Toto?’ 

‘Huh.' Eve was confused and then laughed. ‘The Wizard of Oz. Means you’re in a strange place, you know, out of your depth. The film.’ 

‘I never see it.’ 

‘You’ve never seen the Wizard of Oz? Not even when you were a kid? It was always on in the summer holidays. Maybe it wasn’t on over here though.’ 

‘Maybe yes. I was playing football. I no watch TV.’ 

‘Every day, all day?’ 

‘Si, football, every day, all day.’