“This phone is proper mint,” he yelled. “I want one.”
“What about the match? How did you get on?”
“Man of the Match. I scored twice.”
Pandemonium broke out in the background and the line went dead. I ran into the garden to tell Tess. She was on her knees doing some weeding. When I told her, she held her face up to the sun and a wide smile spread across her face.
Toby Hammond was a city trader. At twenty-four, he had a flat in Battersea, a Porsche Carrera and a six-figure salary, a lot of which he snorted up his nose.
After drinking vodka and champagne all afternoon, Toby gave Mikey his first taste of cocaine then took him for a drive around the dark Buckinghamshire lanes in the Porsche. Losing control on a bend on an unlit lane, he wrapped the car around a tree. Toby escaped with a few minor cuts and bruises, a month in rehab and a fine for drink-driving that barely touched his bank balance.
The cost to Mikey was immeasurable. Three broken ribs, concussion and severe ligament damage to his right leg. When he woke up in hospital the next day the doctor told him he’d probably never play professional rugby again.
In the months and years that followed, my brother changed beyond recognition. The happy-go-lucky escape artist I knew and loved was left behind by that tree in that Buckinghamshire lane. His rugby dreams snatched away, he became despondent and indifferent to life. He left St Bede’s without sitting his exams and lost the place he’d secured at London University. Throughout his twenties he limped from job to job on building sites, drank heavily and then abused drugs during the noughties. He became a small-time dealer in the Manchester clubs, narrowly escaping custodial sentences on several occasions. His relationships with women were destructive and always had drink and drugs at their core. Whenever he was drunk or high, he’d tell people that the drag in his leg was the result of a bad tackle when he played rugby for England.
Julian Hammond followed his brother Toby into a career in the city. When Mikey died he sent a letter of condolence on headed paper with a Kensington address. Julian wrote effusively about Mikey being a loyal friend, a legendary sportsman and a superb drinking buddy.
I wrote “Fuck you and fuck your brother” in red ink over it then returned it to sender.
At the time of his death Mikey had finally overcome his demons. Things were on the way up. He’d been sober for three years and had a flourishing personal-trainer business. Innovative surgery had repaired his leg and rid him of his limp, he was playing rugby again locally and he and his beautiful partner Maria were trying for a baby. When I asked him to join me on the BUPA 10k, he jumped at the chance.
“Let’s do it for MIND, the mental health charity,” he said. “Let’s do it for Tess.”
On the day of the race, blustery winds and heavy rain swept over the Atlantic and Ireland and landed in Manchester town centre just before the start. It was like the winds had come to claim Mikey, to whip him up and steal him away. By afternoon they’d gone, leaving behind an eerily silent city and a hole in my heart.
We set off in the morning from Deansgate under a charcoal sky. Rain stoned down on our exposed limbs and faces and gusts buffeted us into other runners. But we buoyed each other along the way. We passed a DJ stand playing “Things Can Only Get Better” and crowds cheered us on from the pavement. I grinned at Mikey who was running slightly ahead of me. The wind had blown his hair to one side and I noticed he had a bald spot. For the first time it occurred to me that my kid brother was getting old. As we approached the 5K mark at Old Trafford, I started to flag. We passed White City Retail Park and I lengthened my strides to keep up with him. Then, as we turned towards the stadium near the row of shops and takeaways, he spurted forwards into a gap between runners. Flinging both arms into the air he started to sing. “We love you, City, we do – we love you, City, we do!”
A few of us joined in and whooped. I raised my arms in the air. As I did so I looked upwards and gasped. Above the roof of one of the takeaways was a murmuration of starlings, rolling and unfurling like a grey ghost against the dark sky. The incredible sight took away what little breath I had left. I looked round for Mikey, pointing skywards and shouting excitedly. And that’s when I saw him stagger and fall.
I elbowed my way through the current of runners to get to him. Some circumvented him with outstretched arms, others hurdled over him. A space had cleared by the time I got there and he was clutching his chest and writhing like a bad break-dancer among the discarded water bottles and litter. The sight of his bloodless face sent a slither of cold through my core. I crumpled to my knees, blocking out most of what happened next. Only fleeting images remain: the shoulders of the young doctor in a Christie’s Hospital vest rising and falling as he attempted resuscitation, the blue lights of an ambulance dancing in a puddle and the long eyelashes of the paramedic when she lowered her eyes and told me he’d gone.
“No!” I pleaded and grabbed her arm. “No. It’s not true. He can’t be dead. He’s only thirty- four.”
A foil blanket rolled by in the wind and wrapped itself around my feet like a silver shroud.
“What am I going to tell Tess?” I heard myself say then I felt a stone fall from my heart.
Chapter 9
I sank back into the
