The Valparaiso Voyage

The tall girl with permed hair was the first person I saw who panicked. But she was not even going to the game; I’d seen her emerge from a nearby house and she was unable to prevent herself getting caught in the crowd. A roar erupted inside the ground as the whistle blew for kick-off. I had ten pounds on Italy to win two–nil, with Rossi to score the opener. The crowd pushed harder, anxious to miss nothing. One minute Cormac was by my side, the next we were separated in the turmoil. But my only interest was in rescuing that brown-haired girl. I couldn’t explain the attraction, I just knew I had to reach her.

She turned around, trying to plead with people to let her out. But another surge pushed everyone forward, knocking her off-balance. Her hands flailed out helplessly. She was ten feet away and suddenly I hadn’t cared who I hurt in attempting to reach her. Not that etiquette mattered any more. Her panic infected the crowd who realized they were likely to be crushed against the walls long before reaching the turnstiles. There was no way out. Fathers held their children tight, using elbows and fists to try and generate more space.

We were twenty feet from the stadium, nearing the zenith of the crush, when I lost sight of her. Her mouth opened as if to scream, her head went down and never reappeared. I took a blow to my skull as I clawed my way through. Then I was lifted up, my feet no longer touching the ground. People trapped against the wall screamed in terror. I saw her blue coat through a mass of legs. She seemed to be lying on something. My feet trod on somebody, then briefly touched the ground before I was pushed forward, landing on top of her. Her head turned. She looked at me, wild-eyed, terror-stricken.

‘It’s okay,’ I wheezed, ‘I’ve come to help.’

I don’t know if she heard or understood. I was just another man crushing her. I couldn’t save her or myself or anyone. When I tried to shield her head she pushed me off like an attacker. I wanted to explain, but the breath was knocked from my body.

Then my legs found space in the current of people. I felt myself being lifted off her. The police had managed to open the exit gates and bodies were suddenly sluiced into the ground. I put my arms around her, half-lifting and half-dragging her. She had been lying on a collapsed crowd barrier, in which her shoe was entangled. The wire cut into her trapped foot. I pushed against the crowd, making enough space to free her foot, then tried to help her up but she seemed unable to walk. We were carried inside the ground by the crowd’s momentum, before people broke away, rushing in different directions. I found a wall and helped her hunch down against it, trying to offer comfort with my arm around her as she cried. She looked up suddenly, pushing me off.

‘Just leave me alone! Leave me!’

She almost spat out the words. I had backed away, finding that my own legs could barely support me. I sat against the opposite wall, watching her cry. The passageway was quiet except for more latecomers wandering in, delighted they didn’t have to pay. Parents were leaving, holding sobbing children. Policemen argued with officials. I walked out into the alleyway, wondering how many would have died if the gates hadn’t been opened in time. Few clues were left to suggest that panic, except for some lost scarves and, here and there, the odd shoe. I found hers beside the barrier, with its heel broken, carried it back inside and waited until she looked up before offering it to her. She wiped her eyes with a sleeve and tried to smile.

‘Stupid bloody match. Who’s playing anyway?’

‘Italy. The World Champions. Your heel is broken.’

‘Only for you my neck would be too. Thanks.’

‘That’s all right.’

And everything was, too that night, like magic. Rossi scored first with Italy winning two-nil, a fourteen-to-one double off a ten-pound bet. We laughed all the way down Phibsborough Road to the Broadstone. At twenty Miriam Darcy was two years younger than me, just finishing her training as a social worker and ready to change the whole world. She leaned on my shoulder, limping slightly and carrying both shoes in her hand. Double-deckers pulled into the bus depot, with its statue of the Virgin high up on the wall. The King’s Inn rose to our left and blocks of Corporation flats to our right. Glass was smashed on the corner where winos had occupied a bench. I gave Miriam a piggyback over it, laughing as she slapped me like a horse when I stalled and threatened to throw her off. We reached Great Western Way, with its boxing club and row of ancient trees, then the Black Church, around which Miriam’s mother was afraid as a child to run three times in case the devil appeared. Every step had seemed magical as I bore her into the old L-shaped street where she lived with her mother.

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