1.50 - Chester Zoo

50.

On the way to Wrexham, we stopped off in Chester. I'd never been there before. Pretty much the only things I knew about it were that Jackie had played for them a few years before and that it had a big zoo. When we left the motorway and it became clear we were going into the city itself, I looked it up on Wikipedia. Population 80,000. Cathedral, castle, city walls. One of those places.

The outskirts were very green. Large, empty fields, big, lush trees. We drove through the centre, where there was a lot of traffic. Jackie knew every turn and didn't once consult his phone's navigation. I got the sense that we were taking a more direct, slower route so that I could have a look around.

From the car, the city was unremarkable. Very much like Wythenshawe or much of Manchester. Not as obviously poor as Moss Side, not as obviously affluent as Didsbury. Just an average kind of place but with the occasional bit of preserved wall or an olde time shoppe that explained why it was considered a tourist destination.

We left the tourist stuff behind and entered a light industrial zone. I was looking at a huge car showroom when suddenly we were pulling into the car park of a small football stadium. Was this where the youth team played?

White text on a blue background: Deva Stadium. And on a new line: Home of Chester FC.

That was written on a sort of office building attached to the stadium. On the actual stand beside it were the words, 'Our City, Our Community, Our Club'. To me, it seemed that those words were in the wrong order. Surely they should have been reversed?

The car park was far from full, but it was obvious that today was a match day. There were stewards and attendants and people in high-vis jackets. There were vans selling jacket potatoes, burgers, or smoothies (ooh posh!). There were stalls selling blue-and-white scarves and unofficial merch.

Jackie parked, got out, and waved at someone. It was a cute woman in a ponytail. Oh! A bit of excitement at last. She moved with the economy of movement and grace of a swan. She was pushing a wheelchair. Maybe she was one of those volunteers who helped disabled fans.

Nope. She pushed the chair right over to my side of the car. When he wasn't trying to get me to become a pro player, Jackie was busy trying to humiliate me. He opened my door. "Your carriage awaits, Mister Best." He beamed at me. Delighted with himself.

Fortunately, I was still wearing my baseball cap and sunglasses, so the cutie wouldn't remember who I was.

Strangely, I already knew who she was.

Her name was hovering over her head, along with a lot of question marks. Livia Strandon. She was 25 and presumably was part of the coaching staff. "Aren't you going to introduce me?" I said.

"Livia, this is Max. Max, Livia."

They both sort of stared at me expectantly. I think - scratch that - I'm one hundred percent sure Jackie had told her I'd start flirting with her hard from minute one, and they were both waiting for the show to begin. "Before I forget," I said, "Do either of you have Disney Plus?"

***

Jackie wheeled me into the office building, through a lot of doors, past a lot of people saying 'Oh hi Jackie!' and 'Jackie! Great to see you!' and so on. He was king of the jungle around here! The insane level of social proof was doing something to Livia. She looked at Jackie with big doe eyes; she was into him in a big way. I briefly wondered if I could put on a show so dazzling that her eyes would wander, but the thought didn't last long. Impressing Jackie's lady by accident was one thing. Consciously doing it was... unthinkable. Except I HAD thought it. So... consciously doing it was... for want of a better word: nah.

The lovebirds eased me onto a treatment table. Wait, what? We'd just been walking through some bog-standard office corridors.

I looked around and found I was in a medical space. It was all very confusing at first, but obviously there were always injuries in matches and players would be brought here. It was busy before the games, too, it seemed. Players were coming in to get massages and to discuss little bumps and scrapes with the medical staff.

The curse was giving me tons of data. There must have been, like, ten coaches at this club.

Ow!

Livia was trying to take my right trainer off. "Sorry," she said.

"No, it's okay. I just didn't expect it. Are you a coach?"

She laughed. "Physio."

Of course! Physios! The curse was showing me their profiles, too. So I could get the profiles for players, managers, coaches, and physios, except that in the last three categories I could mostly see question marks. But - and here was another mystery - there was one physio who had side-arrows on his profile screen. I did that thing where I reprogrammed the curse to let me swipe instead of having to tap the arrows. I got a short, sharp pang of headache, but then I was able to swipe. And on the next screen was... drum roll... a player profile. Player slash physio! I'd never heard of that!

His name was Magnus Evergreen.

Seeing his profile briefly made all the pain vanish from my body. I was there, floating in space like a second moon, but the heavenly body I orbited wasn't the delectable Livia. It was Magnus. I checked and double-checked his profile. It was beyond baffling.

First, it listed him as competent in every position except goalkeeper and striker. This guy could play virtually anywhere.

He was below average on the technical attributes that I could see and above average on the physical ones.

He had CA 23.

He had played a few games last season - if I was interpreting the history screen right, all as a substitute.

But his PA...

I wish I knew a way to make you read this next bit really slowly so that your eyes would double in size like mine did...

His potential ability... was minus two.

I called out to him. "Excuse me, sir?"

The guy was bending some player's leg backwards in a way that reminded me of a flamingo. I say 'some player' like I didn't know who it was. I think it was because I was in the bowels of the stadium or being treated as a football insider instead of a scout, but I was seeing all the profile data from everyone. More on the players later.

Magnus Evergreen looked over at me. He was white but not necessarily Swedish white. Do you know what I mean? He had super overgrown arms - think Vin Diesel. But then he had thin, spindly calves. Talk about skipping leg day! I would have called him handsome if his biceps didn't make his head look about 4 times too small for his body. His nationality said English slash question mark. I'd never seen anything like that on the nationality section before. It seemed the curse didn't know! He pointed to himself as if to say: who, me?

"Yes, you. Is your name... Marcus?"

"Magnus," he said. He asked his patient to wait and then came over to me. I was still wearing my cap and sunglasses, indoors on an overcast day, but somehow I wasn't the weird one.

"Right!" I said. "Magnus Evergreen. I remember now. And you're a player-physio?"

"Player-coach," he said. "But just coach, really."

"You played three games last season," I said.

Jackie had been typing on his phone, but now he was looking at me like a mobster who's just found out the guy sitting next to him at the bar has got a winning lottery ticket in his pocket and hasn't told anyone he's won.

"Just to make up the numbers when there was Covid or injuries," said Magnus. "I'm really just a coach."

"Magnus specialises in fitness training," said Livia. "That's why he helps us out. He knows more about anatomy and biomechanics than any of us have forgotten. Except Dean. Wait, did I say that wrong?"

"Who's Dean?"

"Head Physio. He'll be here in a minute wondering why you're taking up a bed on a matchday." Livia looked at Jackie, who was still staring at me in that uncanny way. Seeing that Jackie wasn't bothered by her words, she turned her focus back to me. She'd got my trainer and sock off and was examining my foot.

"Magnus," I said, fascinated by his negative PA. "There's something about you I can't put my finger on. What would that be?"

"Oh," he said, daring to smile. "Perhaps you're reading my aura. I have the cleanest aura of anyone in the staff."

"It could be that," I admitted. "Are you a rower?" I wanted to find out why he had massive arms without asking if he had gorilla DNA.

"A rower?" He held up his thunderguns. "Oh, these? No. I was a world champion bodybuilder. But once I'd mastered that, I put it behind me and sought a new challenge. My goal now is..." He looked down, then up at Livia. "Is not interesting."

She nodded at him. They'd discussed this before. Potentially: many times before.

"Well, I don't mean to pry," I said, and it was hard to wrench my attention away from him.

***

The next intensely weird moment was when the Head Physio, Dean, came in. Fairly short, fit, looked like he did half marathons for fun and talked about anti-inflammatories with waiters. He scanned the room like a true master of the universe. He saw Livia gently rotating and palpating my ankle, and sidled close to her. He watched her for a moment; she turned red. His entire being screamed that he didn't want me there, and her entire being screamed that she knew that. I wondered why Jackie had set things up like this. It was his girl in the firing line.

Dean took in a deep breath, an angry dog about to bark, when a whooshing noise came from Jackie's phone. He'd sent a message.

"Ah, Dean," he said. "Glad you could make it to work today." Jackie checked his watch. "Let's have a tiny chat outside."

"Oh," said Dean. "Jackie. Yes, of course."

***

They left together through a pair of double doors. Livia stared in their direction, my injury forgotten.

"Sorry to be a bother," I said.

She re-engaged with me. "Oh," she said, her professional mask reassembling with every breath. "No bother. Any friend of Jackie's is... How long have you been friends?"

"Since we met. I liked him right away."

"How did you meet?"

"I was climbing a tree and couldn't get down. Jackie rescued me."

"Oh, interesting," she said, proving that she hadn't been listening. Then it clicked. "You're from Manchester, right? I spent a weekend there, once. Never got a straight answer from anyone. I don't know how Jackie stands it."

"Oh, Manchester!" I said. Well... sung. Everyone in the room turned to watch. "Is wonderful! Oh, Manchester is wonderful! We've got chips, pie and United! Oh, Manchester is wonderful!" I gave myself a little clap at the end, as the chant demands.

"Boo!" booed the three Chester players who were in the room. "Hiss!"

I treated them all to a middle finger. They loved it. People are weird.

Now, in retrospect, it was only the idea that this was a detour on the way to Wrexham that had me so relaxed and willing to be myself. The truth was, even though this was a small club, it was a proper club on a proper match day. Real inner sanctum stuff! Jackie hadn't been joking when he said he'd show me the inside. If I'd had time to think about it, I might have been more timid.

The double doors burst open and Neil came striding towards my table. He looked at Livia. "Well? What do you think?"

"Really bad sprain," she said. "Could be worse but we'd need an x-ray to know."

"So?" said Dean. His entire aspect had flipped. "Book it. Emergency!" She was dialing before her eyebrows had finished shooting up. Dean spoke to me for the first time. "Max, isn't it? In the early hours of an injury like this it's good to keep the joint elevated and iced. Did you do that?"

"No."

"I see. Magnus?"

The world's only non-Swedish Magnus abandoned his patient, dashed to a fridge and emerged with two huge ice packs. He gently extended my leg, raised it, and brought the ice close on either side.

"Thank you. Max, we're going to take you to a local clinic to get you x-rayed. In the meantime, I need to check your eye socket. Ah, your sunglasses?"

I whipped them off, along with my baseball cap.

"Ah," said Dean. "That's rather..." He looked for a synonym for 'horrific' that matched his new 'kind-hearted bedside manner' persona and couldn't think of one. He pulled on a pair of blue medical gloves. "Please let me know if there's pain." He started exploring the mass around my eye. "Tricky," he said. "I think we should let the swelling diminish before deciding on a course of action. I'm not keen on orbital x-rays unless there might be a foreign object involved. That isn't the case here. Hmm. No strenuous activity for a month. I must put my foot down about that and Jackie can shout at me all he wants. Do you follow me? No strenuous activity."

"I have a date tomorrow," I said.

"Oh, dear," said Dean.

"She's from Newcastle."

"Oh, dear!"

"It's a virtual date. We're going to talk about a movie. That's why I need someone to give me their Disney Plus password. Just for one night. The film's not on any other platform." I tried to make eye contact with someone in a significant manner, but the doc was gripping my forehead; I could only move my eyeballs.

Dean smiled for the first time. "A virtual date should be all right. If you're going to do video sex, don't let it involve sneezing or blowing your nose."

I wasn't allowed to sneeze for a month. Had I just heard that right? "What? Why?"

Dean's smile froze. "It would be bad." He unfroze, but his expression had returned to a sort of irritated one. I got the impression he didn't let the Chester players negotiate their injuries with him. Stubborn as a mule, I thought. "So, no visits to Newcastle for a month. Doctor's orders. No football, too, obviously. Come for a reassessment. We might have to fit you a mask before you get back on a pitch."

"Like Aubameyang? Like Rudiger?"

"In your case, more like Phantom of the Opera," he said, and made the most extraordinary sniffing noise that I later realised was him laughing. It sounded like a guinea pig eating a watermelon. Once finished, he gave the double doors a guilty look. "Right. How about that x-ray?"

...

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