Beyond Repair

Chapter 3 - Clara

I couldn't even pretend that it had gone well with Mr Matthews, but I would make the best of it, I always did. It felt like I had been watching him play for my whole life. I used to watch his matches with my dad and he was so certain that Matthews would be the next big thing. He used to go on about how he had never seen promise like that in a decades. After my parents died, watching the matches helped me feel closer to my dad. I could still hear him screaming at the television with his instructions to the team captain.

Seeing Mr Matthews in front of me was surreal. His six-foot-plus frame looked slightly odd in the tiny wheelchair. It probably wasn't that tiny, but compared to him it seemed like a toy version of the real thing. To me he seemed like a giant. Like I was still that young girl watching him on TV. I had tried so hard to make a good impression on him and I went a little too over the top. It wasn't easy meeting your heroes. Let alone the hero you clung to as a coping mechanism for years. The person who changed your entire career path.

When Dickie, the team manager, asked me to work with Matthews, he offered it as something I had to do to get to work with the team. As though it was some sort of sacrifice. That might have been how others saw it, but not me. My dream had been to work with the team, but it had always been a team he was part of. After his accident, I had wanted so badly for him to get better, to get back on the pitch. The idea of all that promise my dad saw fading away into nothingness was heartbreaking. It felt like I had let him down somehow and Matthews, too. I had been heading to university to study medicine and work as a surgeon. Triggered by what happened to my parents, but a worthy path.

I was eighteen when Matthews had his accident. I was just waiting for my acceptance letter. In that instant, when he was hanging off a cliff, it changed my life just like it changed his, although not quite as profoundly. I still remembered seeing it on the news. The helicopter flying overhead with the reporters desperate for the story while people's lives hung in the balance. It had all felt so crass, but I still couldn't tear my eyes away from it all. The bus hanging off the cliff only caught on a large piece of rock jutting out. There was no other way to describe the situation than a miracle. The situation should have claimed all their lives. It probably didn't feel like a miracle to the people who lost loved ones, but there were more people who had their loved ones saved than didn't and that was the miracle.

When the news had announced the two deaths, I prayed it wasn't him. I wasn't ready to lose that connection to my father. Instead, I had lost it anyway. Matthews might not have died that day, but he might as well have to me and the rest of his fans. There were a few photos of him as he left the hospital after they released him, but that was it. Since then, he had hidden from view. The people who he meant so much to, people like me, lost him forever. It was that moment when I realised what I was destined to do with my life. The way I would honour my father. Sports medicine. It had been a long haul getting through university. I found it much more difficult than I had expected. Then, when I came out at the ripe age of twenty-one, I needed a job.

It was completely by chance that I ended up standing in front of Mr Matthews. I had seen an advertisement in the local paper for a care assistant with a specialty in sports medicine. It seemed like fate and I applied, despite my lack of experience, needing any job for the time being while I worked on getting my dream job. Then, at the interview, I came face to face with Dickie Micheals, who was more than a little intimidating. I knew who he was as soon as I laid eyes on him, but couldn't believe my luck to get a face to face with one of the best football managers in the country, the world even.

I sat down and listened to his proposal. The team needed a new member of staff on their medical team, but not for another year when a member of staff was due to retire. Dickie would give me the chance of a lifetime to prove myself and, if I managed it, then I would be given the position. The way to prove it was to get Max Matthews to leave the house. Not just once, but regularly, for him to gain some sort of life instead of being hauled up inside his Cheshire mansion for the rest of his existence. Dickie clarified he wanted Matthews to have something to live for, that Max had given up on having any form of life. He told me his ultimate goal was for Matthews to join the coaching staff, but that he had continually refused his job offer.

I would have taken the job without the offer of a place on the team. It was Max Matthews. Being able to give anything to that man, to make any form of improvement, was an honour and the least I could do after all the help he had unknowingly given me over the years. If I could get him back out into the world for his fans, that would be even better. At thirty-four, many people had considered Max’s accident to have just sped up his inevitable retirement from the sport. I didn’t really see it that way. He might have been on the older side, but he had never slowed down. His game was still as good if not better than when he first started playing. I had looked forward to meeting him for the two weeks since the job interview.

Except, I had found myself standing in front of him, nervous and squeaky. I had purposely worn my most cheery outfit. The bright yellow jumper seemed to emulate sunshine and my red skirt only added to its brightness. It wasn't quite my usual style. Stupidly, I had tried to take a leaf out of a movie I watched and tried to be positivity personified. Not really knowing what effect I was striving for, but it wasn't to drive him from the room.

It would have helped if I had found any words other than telling him my name in the most perky way possible. Instead, I was captivated by him. His face with his high cheekbones, the dappling of stubble and that ever so slightly crooked nose. On anyone else, his nose would have been an imperfection, but when he was already perfection, it just added some normality to his face. Setting him aside from the Gods themselves.

I had only ever seen him with his hair styled, all swept to one side and concreted in place. Instead, it was clear he was fresh from the shower, his hair resembling a fluffy brown duckling. Despite being in a wheelchair for three years, he was still muscular. His legs had lost some of their definition, but his arms were huge. I wondered if it was on purpose or a consequence of having to move himself around with them all the time. Either way, he looked like he could comfortably lift me overhead and the idea sent shivers down my spine.

The last thing I saw before he turned and left was his angry grey eyes rolling in dismay. They looked like they were the window to a ship. Little port holes showing the storm raging within. I felt like he had frozen me to the spot with that glare. I looked at Dickie as Matthews left, but he just shrugged in response. "Good luck kid, you're going to need it." I watched slightly open-mouthed as he crossed to the front room and let himself out. I didn't even know what I was supposed to be doing, and I felt like someone had thrown me in at the deep end with no idea how to swim.

Was I supposed to go after him? Was I supposed to just stay there standing still until he returned?

I looked around to find something, anything to do. The house wasn't a mess, but no one was giving it a deep clean either. From the piles of laundry in baskets to the dusty skirting boards, I guessed Matthews didn't have a cleaner. Which meant anything he couldn't manage, just didn't get done. I was getting paid to be there, so I thought it was best to make myself useful. Grabbing the basket of washing closest to me, I tipped it out on the sofa and started folding. There were four baskets full to fold and at least some of them would need ironing. After that, at least I would have an excuse to go in search of Matthews.

By the time I got to the stage of hunting for the ironing board, I was on fire from the effort. Peeling my jumper off and throwing it aside. I opened door after door, trying to find the stupid ironing board. The house was so big that there seemed to be things lurking everywhere. Finally, I opened a kitchen cabinet and one fell out, almost decapitating me. It was way too low for me and it was clear Matthews had it fitted after his accident. I wondered if the entire house was like that, so adapted to his independence that it didn't consider anyone else who might need to use anything.

In the end, I grabbed a towel and spread it out double layered on the work surface. I saw my mother do it so many times when I was younger. We weren't exactly rich. We neither had the money nor the space for such luxuries as an ironing board. I couldn't help but smile to myself as I pictured her in my mind. Losing my parents still hurt, but I had got to the point where the memory of them could trigger happiness as easily as it could trigger me to be a balling mess. It was almost a nice stage of grief, as stupid as that sounded. It allowed me to feel closer to them again, in a way I hadn't managed since before they died.