Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2022 13:58:00 +0000 From: Andrew Passey Subject: A Forbidden Romance Part One (Young Friends) Sorry for the delay in getting a new story up, it's been a bit hectic and the finances aren't great at the moment so I haven't had much time to write. However, I have managed to finish off this story that I've been working for a while. Hope you enjoy it. Please do donate to Nifty if you have some spare change to keep the great resource going: https://donate.nifty.org/donate.html Matt passed the ball to me in space on the left, I did a shimmy and cut in onto my right foot, speeding past the opposition player. I saw the keeper was off his line slightly so I hit a curling shot towards the top right of the goal. He threw his hands up in a futile attempt to try to tip the ball over the bar. It sailed over him, flicked the underside of the bar and nestled in the bottom of the goal. It was like the watching crowd had been holding a collective breath and once it was in the back of the net they all started cheering. I ran to the corner where the rest of the team jumped on me, pushing me into the muddy pitch. In pretty much the last moment of extra time we'd taken the lead. We just had to hang on to it and it would mean Nunhead Rangers U14s would win the South East London U14s Cup for the first time in our history. The manager shouted at us to get back into position which we did quickly. The ref then blew his whistle for the kick off and almost straight after that blew the full time whistle. We'd done it! I looked around at my teammates as we all high-fived and hugged each other. Some of the other age groups had come to watch extra time and there was quite a crowd there. I saw my Dad and he gave me a thumbs up sign. I knew he'd be delighted. This was almost more his moment than mine, that's probably how he'd see it anyway. Sport was his thing. He'd always wanted a sporty boy to go and support. I may have been academically gifted and at the top of the class but unlike Mum, he didn't care about that. "That stuff they teach you at school just fills your head up with nonsense. It'll make you soft!" He used to say when I'd be sitting at the kitchen table with my Mum doing my homework. The idea that doing well at school was some sort of negative seemed very strange to me. I sometimes wondered how my Mum ended up with him. She was a teacher from a middle class home counties family. Luckily she taught in a school in Greenwich rather than teaching at my school as that would have been much too awkward! In any case she was all about education, education, education. Dad was more rough and ready, good with his hands and good project management skills with his own building business. He often said I didn't need to do well at school as I'd just work for him and eventually inherit his business. He liked the idea of it being a father and son thing. He never actually asked if that was what I wanted though. I hadn't yet had the balls to tell him that was the last thing on Earth I wanted to do. I wanted to be a Doctor and make people better. To do that I'd have to do well at school and I worked my arse off making sure I studied hard. My Dad's other plan was for me to be a professional footballer which while much more appealing than working for him was again probably more his dream than mine. I loved my Dad. But I wasn't blind to his faults. He was a massive racist which as I grew older really caused me problems and distress. If I ever tried to pick him up on it he'd say I was being brainwashed by "lefty" teachers at school. He seemed to be blissfully unaware he was married to a teacher and I knew from conversations with my Mum when he wasn't there that her political inclinations were very different to his. "He's a good man and great father. He works hard to provide for this family. I don't have to agree with his politics to love him, why should I assume I'm right and he is wrong?" My Mum had said the other day when I told her the recent racist outburst Dad had said. "Surely you can see that when it comes to racism there is a right and wrong? I've got mates who I can't bring home because of his views. He's a dinosaur from a different era." "He's your father, he is entitled to his opinion as are you," she said in a tone that made it clear the conversation was over. However while the conversation may have been over from her perspective, the internal one I had repeatedly with myself meant it was a struggle for me at times. The contempt my dad had for people who were different to him was hard to hear. I hated the way he spoke about black people, about Muslims, about everyone he didn't like. As I'd said to my Mum, I had friends at school who he would talk about with hatred if he ever met them. Not that I would bring them home as he'd probably spit on their faces. He could also be very charming though. He was always popular with the middle class professionals that he did work for. I'm sure they saw him as a down to earth, straight talking tradesman who took pride in his work. I presumed he wouldn't bring out his more obnoxious views with the people paying him but it was something I hoped never to find out. He'd talked about getting me to help out during the school holidays but I'd always deflected it saying I was too young. I'd say I wanted to concentrate on my school work but that didn't fly. So it was the other option, that I wanted to spend as much time as possible training and focusing on my football which would always placate him. I think Dad always wanted to be a footballer. I'm not sure how good he was. He'd tell me that Tottenham and Chelsea were interested in taking him on when he was young but that he got injured at the wrong time. That might well have been true, it might also have been a total load of bollocks. It was hard to know and I would never find out. What was clear was that Dad was wanting to live out his dreams through me. The idea of me being a footballer clearly excited him. Who knows, maybe he thought I could be one for a few years and then work with him on his business! So I kept my dream of being a Doctor to myself. I didn't even tell Mum, not that she would have said anything to Dad if I'd asked her not to but she might have told me it was unrealistic or that Dad wouldn't want me to go down that path. I guess that's the problem with being thirteen years old. You're still totally at the beck and call of your parents. They call the shots, they map out your life, they earn the money to feed and clothe you. Sometimes it felt an unfair balance, like the money was being used as a control mechanism. Happy to spend money on football boots for me, not happy to pay for me to go to the cinema with a group of black friends. Anyway it was what it was. I guess I wouldn't be the first teenage boy to be exasperated by my parents nor would I be the last! It just meant I kept things to myself which maybe was how it should be anyway. I kept my head down and I worked my arse off. I loved learning and was never happier than in bed at night reading a nonfiction book where I'd learn something new. I knew my path to be a Doctor would be a difficult one, maybe even unrealistic. Maybe boys from a family like mine never went on to do medicine given the years and cost of training. Still, that was my dream and the thought that I could one day help other people and hopefully make them better drove me on. With my studying and my football I didn't have a great deal of spare time. Maybe that wasn't a bad thing, keeping myself busy meant that I didn't have as much time to stress about something that was beginning to cause me a great deal of worry. It had sneaked up on me a couple of years ago and now it was beginning to take a lot of my mental bandwidth. A secret that I kept very very close to me, one that I hadn't told anyone about and something that I was determined never to let anyone find out.