In a new story, Tom Humphriesresponds to Article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as part of a new series in association with Amnesty International to mark the 60tyh anniversary of teh declaration.
THE PHONE is switched to silent out of respect for my Mexican pedicurist. Now though, the little screen keeps flashing on and off incessantly. Sean Love from Amnesty calling. Jesus. Not today. Read me my rights somebody.
I subvert a lot of governments so I find it wise to keep onside with Amnesty International. Just in case. I mean who ya gonna call? Micheál Martin?
To be honest, though, they are hard work, the Amnesty crowd. Like drinking with an op-ed page. I look at Love's name flashing menacingly. I try to focus. He ain't calling with a mother-in-law joke. That's for sure.
Just how are things going with the plight of the repressed Azerbaijani Socialist Brotherhood of Carpet Weavers? Is that Love's real name or a porn star name which he made up for himself? Maybe they want me to rescue somebody. Cool! Shit. I'm so hungry. Time for the glycolic wrap. Rosita? Heel balm? Fan-tast-ico! Focus.
Morning at Ronaldo's. As usual, at 9.30am reveille was sounded by the jingle jangle of a hammer striking an antique triangle hanging up near the staff quarters of a large reconverted building along the banks of the Manchester ship canal.
Jeeves (for it was she) pushed back the curtains flooding the room with light before he was ready. In a cruel, unusual and unnecessarily chirpy tone she interrogated Ronaldo as to whether or not he would enjoy it if she microwaved a couple of those In-An-Instant Croissants.
"I would love that," said Ronaldo. "Love it."
He reached for his bedside book, Kevin Keegan, Reluctant Messiah and smiled. 1,000 watts of teeth. In 15 minutes he would leave his bed to face the world. This would be the worst day of his life. Again. For now, though, the day would start like every other. Chow time.
Love has an idea. (Memo to self. Write U2 a song with working title Love Has an Idea.)
"As you know," he says, "2008 is the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."
"Yup, yup, Love," I say, "naturellement."
Anyway Love has stumbled on this Declaration of Human Rights thing and with a metaphorical but camp flourish he fans the entire deck of articles in front of me and tells me to pick an article, any article.
And?
Then you can write about it! Ta da?
He's trying to make himself sound like Derek Mooney on the Lotto programme. Which is sad. I know Derek and you, Love, are no Mooney.
"Pick a number between one and thirty," he says. No mention of a fee. No mention of free flights to anyplace warm where people might be incarcerated. Typical Amnesty stunt. Think not for the first time of applying for a transfer to some other bleeding-heart group. I know that Love will never let me go. (Memo to self: scrap Love Has an Idea. This is better.)
I pick a number.
"Tough," says Love. (Bono, just scribble these down as I come up with them, pet. Tough says love. Tough love shoo doo be dooby).
"That one is gone."
I pick another number.
"Not your day," says Love. (That one's for you, Donna and Joseph. Respect.)
Finally, because his credit is running out, he gets desperate.
"Look. Love Potion Number?"
"You're endorsing a politically correct scent, Love? Eau de Sean Luuurve?"
"No. The song, you fat twat."
Sometimes Love is not as politically correct as he makes himself out to be. Not when it comes to the forgotten victims of fluid retention.
"Nine?" I say, muttering the word "baldy" under my breath.
"All yours," he says. "Now Seamus Heaney is leading off Saturday, March 15th, doing an, ahem, an introductory essay," he says, purring.
"Oh."
He knows that this hurts.
Heaney is alright. But I think everyone sucks up to him out of sympathy because he is old and he never got larged up on Richard and Judy. This is more of the same. He gets to lead the peloton out.
Anyway, I thought this was going to be a sportwriters thing. Love lists off the writers involved. Mainly no-marks who cater for the cobwebbed reading room/no friends set. All of them panting for their big break, getting some of their drear into the paper. On a Saturday too. Saturday is the day we have the What's Hot and What's Not guide. Who needs this?
The only other sporting connection is Neil Jordan, and it's so long since he played for the Bulls he is mostly forgotten about. Hot? Not!
There was a bruised, louring sky over the training ground when Ronaldo arrived. His right nipple worryingly reddened from the chafing of the seat belt across his chest. He examined himself tenderly. He had often been accused of feigning injury. If people only knew the truth. In here you got yourself well, kept your injuries to yourself, the physio and the masseuse, just people you could trust.
He'd had to ask Jeeves (who would work for Portuguese players but not those Spaniards who pronounced her name Heeves, no way Joe-Say) to pour hot water on the Ferrari 275 GTB/4 Berlinetta to take away the white cobwebs of hoar frost which scabbed the windscreen. And then he'd brought the Lamborghini Miura anyway. Rooney had a Ferrari. It hurt to see Mr Potato Head pull in beside him with the same wheels.
Later, out in the field, which was needlessly bobbly, he had to wear his gloves as a meagre shield against the cold which swept in from the Steppes or the Pennines or someplace he had been told about but he could no longer remember. Alps?
They had just begun work when O'Shea, an old lag, harmless, sidled up to him out of view of the boss man.
"I don't like it here," hissed O'Shea, staring straight down the field. "I'm tired of being afraid all the time. I've decided not to stay. I doubt they'll kick up any fuss. Not for an old centre half like me."
Ronaldo moved away swiftly. Transfer deadline day, O'Shea thought he was busting out. It couldn't happen. Not today. No way, J O'Shea. The Madrid connection had taken patient months to set up. His agent had compromised his dignity with the Spaniards and would have to live with that.
They were barking now like bulldogs. Drill time. Not today. Not today, thought Ronaldo, and suddenly he was airborne, his body convulsing and contorted in the air, his face grimacing with agony before he fell to earth again clutching his right ankle. He lay there writhing.
As they stretchered him off toward the infirmary he stared at the sky, inviting now, somehow. He spoke softly and only those bearing his weight could hear him.
"I have to remind myself," he said, "that some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, (maybe, for example, to Real Madrid) the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up DOES rejoice. Still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty than mine. Ha ha."
The staff, screws, call them what you will, carrying the stretcher, exchanged glances. One rolled his eyes towards the same sky which was calling Ronaldo.
Not to carp on about Heaney but I once won the Writer of the Year gong at the Listowel Writers' Week. The big cahunas (I'm talking Myers here, O'Toole, some actual feminists) they were all in for it. And lost.
They tried to cover it up of course. Stalinist bastards. A sportswriter winning the Palme D'Or for an article about footie? They ran a paragraph in the paper of course. Sportswriter wins literary award. It was below a story headlined Monkey types line from Hamlet. They had the pic of the monkey placed in between the two stories so you couldn't really tell which story the picture belonged to.
I didn't care. Edna O'Brien (bless) handed over the prize and we both looked fabulous. She said breathily to me I reminded her of "the Russian". I didn't understand but pretty quick afterwards ole Edna and me had each other roaring. It was like a tigress getting it on with a polar bear, other people in the bar said afterwards. Aha.
I know Heaney won that Ikea prize thing but that's the gloomy Scandinavians for you. Even in that league he's no Menkell. I know Henning Menkell and you Heaney are no Henning.
Plus there's bad blood between Heaney and myself since last year's pro-am Ultimate Frisbee tournament at the Community Games in Mosney. Any man who cheats at Ultimate hasn't got a poetic soul. But he is that ruthless.
Seamus Big Booty Heaney?
Yeah right.
Love knows all this of course. He's trying to get inside my head. So for months I do nothing.
He hears them before he sees them. The sound of many boots in the corridor. Coming for him this time. He lies there, perfectly still, pretending to be dead. His brain oozes regret. He remembered the words of O'Shea. They came for Stam, I said nothing. The Irishman was right. Say nothing.
The door bursts open. Boss. He strides, ruddy but magnificent, to the end of the bed. All other lags behind him. "I know you're not deed, sonnae," he says. Gang patois.
Ronaldo rubs his eyes and sits up suddenly as though from a dream. They form a large semi-circle around his bed. They are smiling thinly. So this is how it happens. This is endgame.
Here, says Boss. And he drops a brown envelope on Ronaldo's chest. No tenderness.
He wishes he were at home in the envelope opening room. The thoughts of it make his eyes well. He busies himself with the envelope. A document falls out. In big writing on the cover page are the words Fat New Contract. With a jingle jangle the bling falls out too. A perfect gold necklace with ring and bracelet to match. The lags begin a rhythmic clapping. Some kind of native spiritual thing, thinks Ronaldo. He holds the gold chain to his neck and tears run down his tanned cheeks.
Boss: You gonnae get used to wearin' them chains after awhile, Son. Don't you never stop listenin' to them clinking, cause they gonnae remind you of what I've been saying - for your own good.
Ronaldo: I wish you'd stop being so good to me, boss. Someday I'll fly away.
Boss (blushing and cuffing him gently): Aw don't you ever talk that way to me. Never! Never!
Boss turns now and he addresses the team, the chain gang, call these men what you will.
What we've got here men is a failure to communicate. Some men, you just can't reach without going through their agents. So you get what we had here last week - which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it!
And now they step forward and in their rough, inarticulate way they each tousle Ronaldo's hair before turning to go.
Soon it will just be Ronaldo and the Boss. He wishes they would just shake hands instead of messing with the hair. What the hell.
Months pass. One call from Love.
- Perhaps you could write about China.
- I want to write about camogie.
- Whatever.
Article 9
No one shall be subjected to arbitary arrest, detention or exile
More months. Send Bono lyrics to original new work entitled I Would Do Anything for Love, But I Won't Do That.
Days later. Receive terse, pointed and frankly threatening e-mail from somebody called Hugh Linehan, Features Editor, The Irish Times.
"Tomorrow would be great. Not to labour the point, but we had a bunch of the writers down at Electric Picnic talking about how hard it was, and the one thing they all agreed on is they'd all wanted to do torture. I quote: "which f***er got torture?"
Would like to edit Linehan's features. Spend wounded hour brooding on why they were all at Electric Picnic? Was Heaney doing his human beatbox thing. Soooo last year. Still, love watching Roddy Doyle rap. The guy is street. He is ghetto.
Torture! Ya!
Spend many hours writing hilarious waterboarding jokes. I mean real sidesplitters. A few thumbscrew gags. And (rim shot please!) finish the thing off with some crafty electrodes to the testicles patter, the lighter side of the deal. You know, dimmer switches and all. I write it so it rhymes too. Just to make Heaney look like the hack he is.
Smoke large cheroot. Flick back through e-mails before tackling Linehan.
E-mail from Love in the spam folder with all that penis enlargement stuff (price is going to fall isn't it?). Haven't got torture after all. Bastards. Who got torture? I have arbitrary arrest, detention and exile. They are bad apparently. Article Nine says so. So does Sepp Blatter.
No inspiration. I would do anything for Love. But I can't do this.
When he lay down that night Ronaldo went to sleep fully content. He'd had many strokes of luck that day. He had survived until tomorrow. His hair was responding to treatment. Rooney did his hammer.
A day without a dark cloud. Almost a happy day.
There were 3,653 days like that in the sentence of Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro. From the first blast of the hairdryer to the last blast of the hairdryer.
The three extra days were for leap years. His agent negotiated special leap year bonus packages, so that was ok.
Happy now Love? Bono pick up. Donna? Joseph?
This is one of a series of 30 stories and essays by leading writers marking the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The series was created by Sean Love for Amnesty International and continues next Saturday.