Anthony Cartwright - Heartland

An impressive novel, glimpsed through the prism of a pair of football matches

D. J. Taylor, Guardian

Ambitiously structured. A welcome and timely take on England now, from a talented and thoughtful writer

Carol Birch, Independent

Movingly traverses the territory of the human heart

Anita Sethi, Independent on Sunday

The real strength of this novel lies in the vivid Black Country vernacular and the framework carefully constructed to fit the football match in Sapporo

Harry Ritchie, Daily Mail

A thoughtful study of cultural identity

Melissa McClements, Financial Times

Inspired novel about football and far right politics in the Black Country

Four Four Two

Praise for

The Afterglow

Anthony Cartwrights first novel shines brightly for British regional fiction

Zadie Smith

Combining sharp social observation and compassion with the compelling narrative focus of Jon McGregors If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, this is a most impressive debut

Guardian

The real thing. An excellent read, told with style and pace

Alan Sillitoe

This is a novel you want to let speak for itself, so passionately concerned is it with voice and taboo, with the pressure of the unsaid on the said, with collective and individual utterance. With great tenderness, Cartwright reveals the tentative dreams and aspirations for a better life that underlie the seeming heartlessness of his quiet heroes

Michle Roberts, Independent on Sunday

Anthony Cartwright

First published in 2009
by Tindal Street Press Ltd
217 The Custard Factory, Gibb Street,
Birmingham, B9 4AA
www.tindalstreet.co.uk

This paperback edition first published in 2010

Copyright Anthony Cartwright 2009

The moral right of Anthony Cartwright to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

Epigraph from The Burning Graves at Netherton by Roy Fisher in The Long and the Short of It: Poems 19552005 (Bloodaxe)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without either prior permission in writing from the publisher or a licence, permitting restricted copying. In the United Kingdom such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WIP OLP.

All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental

A CIP catalogue reference for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978 1 906994 08 2

Typeset by Country Setting, Kingsdown, Kent Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Cox & Wyman, Reading

For Isabel

Patchy collapses, unsafe ground.

No cataclysm. Rather

a loss of face, a great

untidiness and shame.

Silence. Absence. Fire.

Roy Fisher,

The Burning Graves at Netherton

God save the Queen. Rob got up from the table and walked behind the bar. He stood next to Stacey, poured a round of drinks and put the money at the side of the till. A few voices started to sing. He looked up across the room, caught his dads eye at the table. He couldnt put faces to the voices barking out the anthem at the back of the room. Smoke hung blue in front of the big screen and David Beckhams face. Then Robs Uncle Jim started bloody singing. Glenn joined in. Send her victorious, happy and glorious.

Andres reading is coming on, though, Stace.

Rob looked away from the singers, back to Stacey, trying to look down her top as she bent to grab a packet of crisps from one of the boxes under the bar, then glancing back at Glenn to check he hadnt caught him looking at his sister.

Yer keep telling me that, she said. A lot of good iss doin him now.

What dyer mean?

It ay gonna put his face back together, is it?

No, but his reading, iss important for him.

Iss too late. Wait till hes thirteen befower yow teach him to read?

Rob was tempted to tell her she could have had a go herself, but bit his tongue and just said mildly, Hes comin on though, honest.

Whatever.

Still OK for later? he asked quietly.

She nodded, didnt look at him. He saw she was smiling though, in spite of herself.

Rob checked again that Glenn wasnt watching. This would just make more complications with him, even though hed gone years without speaking to Stacey. Rob neednt have worried. Glenn and Jim led the singing to a crescendo. It made perfect sense. They could continue the election here and now. Form some kind of coalition this time. Rob thought he could phone one of the journalists who had come looking for the Tipton Taliban. Long-serving Labour councillor drinks with BNP cronies. What would they make of that? The papers seemed to have lost interest in the place since the election. And since the Wood-house kids had nicked one of those new mobile phones with a camera when they mugged some of the reporters in the Wetherspoons car park.

That night, his uncle had stood leaning into the bar like he was steering it in a gale. He called a couple of the reporters over, winked at Rob.

A bloke from Tipton goes to New York for his holiday, decides to visit Ground Zero, yer know, pay his respects. Hes stondin lookin at the ruins an this chap comes up to him, big ten-gallon hat, typical Yank, from Texas, like Bush, yer know.

Hey, Pardner, this bloke says.

How do, says the bloke from Tipton.

Where the hell you all from?

Me? Im from Tipton, mate.

Tipton? Tipton? What the hell states that in?

Our bloke has a look around him an says, Abaht the same bloody state as this.

His uncle had doubled over, banged the bar with glee. The journalists looked nonplussed. Then Jim had said, Stick that in yer bloody papers, suddenly straight-faced, staring hard into them.

The anthem ended to the sound of cheers and the banging of tables. Come on England. Rob felt the hairs on his neck go.

Cinderheath Football Club, Dudley, England, 7th June 2002. England versus Argentina, Sapporo, Japan.

David Beckhams face was in close-up again; more clapping and banging tables. Come on England. Rob put the drinks for his uncles end of the table down heavily, beer sloshing on to the paper tablecloth, edged with Union Jacks, left over in the back cupboard from a royal wedding or jubilee. He sat down next to his dad with their drinks, touched his old mans arm.

They had the top table, of course, all organized by his Uncle Jim. First teamers, committee members, invited guests: an aristocracy of sorts.

Beckhams face filled the screen, filled the room. Rob had driven past the giant hoarding over the motorway a few weeks ago. Hed driven for miles, worrying about the game against the mosque and the election, worrying about his dad whod gone out to do some canvassing for Jim. His old man wasnt meant to be walking too far or getting too worked up since his bypass operation. He wasnt meant to be drinking either, for that matter, but that hadnt stopped him. Though Rob couldve offered to drive his dad around, hed had to get away, anywhere, to find some air, a way of getting the throbbing out of his temples.