Read Online In Pieces by Nick Hopton - Free Book Online Page B

Division.
    â€˜You know him? Who is he?’
    â€˜A scout.’
    â€˜I thought you told me that there wouldn’t be any scouts around today.’
    â€˜I lied.’ Burns grinned. ‘I knew you wouldn’t play so well if you were nervous about being watched.’
    Jimmy’s heart was beating ten to the dozen. Clearly, Nick Hornby had been right after all. ‘So who’s he a scout for? Someone big?’
    â€˜Could be. You just keep cool. I’ll let you know as soon as there’s something to get excited about, okay?’
    What a prat. Treating him like a child. But if there was interest in him from a big team like Arsenal or Chelsea… Even if it was only a good First Division team… Then… Who could say, perhaps his career would finally take off?
    Despite his irritation with Burns, Jimmy couldn’t help feeling on top of the world. Just wait until he told Si.
    ~
    When the Sleeper first arrived in London he wondered what he’d got himself into. It had all seemed fair enough at home when the English soldiers waved guns in kids’ faces and shouted to get out of the road. It wasn’t difficult to hate those scared-looking squaddies with their camouflage jackets and ridiculous patrols. They were an invasion force and as such there was a duty to resist them. But in London, at first, it was a bit different. He’d expected to work within a cell, in close contact with other‘soldiers’ such as himself. But the leadership had recently decided on a change of tactic, and were now sending young sleepers to integrate themselves into the community, isolated from the organisation except for the most minimal operational contact, until the moment came to act—the awakening.
    The Sleeper crossed to Liverpool on the ferry. He knew all about Liverpool, of course, from following the football. And he’d laughed with his family at the reruns of the
Liver Birds
he’d watched on the telly, so it was exciting to sail up the Mersey for the first time, watching the seagulls wheel and squawk over the choppy grey water and taking in the great city’s memorable skyline. He’d have liked to stay a few days, but his orders were clear. He grabbed some fish and chips and then took a National Express coach to London. West Hampstead to be exact, where he’d been told to stay until further instructions arrived. Fine, he thought, and went exploring. Carefully, mind, so as not to arouse suspicion, but he wanted to see what was what in London.
    The people all seemed okay, not much different from at home. A bit sadder and more serious, but generally the same. He told this to Mrs Donnelley, his landlady.
    â€˜Don’t be so stupid.’ She had a sharp tongue in her head.
    The Sleeper liked her at the start as she reminded him a lot of his ma. But Mrs Donnelley was more passionate and didn’t have the tired eyes and sagging body of his ma.
    â€˜They’re the agents of oppression as much as the soldiers on the Falls Road. These respectable-looking folk are the bastards who pay for freedom fighters and patriots to be locked away and to die from starvation and beatings in English prisons. Don’t be taken in by their looks,’ and she wagged her finger angrily in his face. ‘Don’t be taken in…’
    He heeded her words and soon saw through the masks of the people around him. The crowds on the tubes and in the buses, they were as much to blame as the English Government. He realised that. The smug bastards… They were the ones who maintained the occupying army in Ireland. It was their sons who’d killed the heroes of Ireland. It was a good feeling to know that soon he’d blast a great big hole in the middle of their complacent lives.
    But after a month he’d still not heard anything, and then one evening he and Mrs Donnelley were watching the news as they had tea, and saw that a cease-fire had been declared. ‘Oh sweet