Paul's flat, 1989
It was Sunday, and that meant Subbuteo with Steve like normal. Even if nothing else felt normal.
"Well, how'd it go?" Steve demanded the minute Paul opened the door. "You gonna be a dad? Picking out net curtains yet for a nice new gaff near Highbury?"
Paul couldn't meet his eyes. "She..." he trailed off, gesturing behind him towards the stairs.
Steve followed him up to his flat, but he was looking suspiciously at him, like a reporter talking to a particularly defensive team manager after a 4-1 thrashing at home.
"She told-me-she's-having-an-abortion," Paul mumbled, as he unlocked the door and let them in to his place.
He could feel Steve staring at him, and it made him wince.
"Oh, mate," Steve said.
"Yeah, well..." Paul said. He didn't follow it up with anything. What could he say?
He slumped down on the couch.
It'd really rattled him. He'd thought Sarah having a baby was the best thing that could have happened to him - a wakeup call.
The thing was - it was happening to her too, not just him.
She'd grabbed his hands over the basket of poppadoms in the stupid Indian restaurant. "I just really don't want to have a baby now. I'm in a new job, my family are all up north...It's no good for us either. We're just getting to know each other..."
"Do you want to talk about it?" Steve asked. He looked nervous, as if he was worried that Paul might say yes.
"God, no," Paul said - but he didn't really want to play fucking Subbuteo either. All he wanted was a cigarette. Steve sat down next to him on the couch and, mercy of mercies, handed him a fag and a lighter.
"I'm sorry, mate," Steve said. "I know you really wanted it to work out with her."
And when had he told Steve that? Paul wondered. It must have slipped out during a conversation about the 1972 FA Cup final.
"Yeah well - I thought it could be good for me," he said, and immediately felt like a tool. Wasn't that exactly why Sarah didn't want to have a baby with him? She said he didn't think about anyone but himself.
"I really am sorry," Steve said. "Maybe this isn't the end, eh? Does she still want to make a go of it?"
Paul grimaced. She did, actually. She was giving him another chance. In his heart though, he knew it was over. If they weren't having a baby together, he couldn't honestly imagine why Sarah would want to be with him, which meant that she'd probably figure that out too, eventually. Better to leave before you were left.
He didn't want to keep going along like this, nice and steady, drifting along together until they drifted apart.
He wanted a change.
"Listen, have I fucked up my life?" he asked Steve.
"Nah," Steve said.
"Look," Paul said, "I'm twenty-nine, I drive a used car, I've had the same job for ten years with no promotion, I've never been married and my girlfriend would rather go to Marie Stopes than raise a kid with me. I'm a loser."
"That's Tory bollocks," Steve said. "You've been brainwashed."
"Look at the facts, Sherlock. Not everything is Tory bollocks."
"Look," Steve said, "The wife-and-two-kids, suburban home thing, it makes some people happy. A lot of people happy. But it doesn't make everyone happy. Did it make your parents happy?"
"Low blow, Steve," Paul said, but it was a fair point. Steve had met Paul's mum. He knew Paul didn't talk to his dad or his poxy step-siblings unless he could help it.
But that had been the seventies, when everyone was more repressed and didn't know what they actually wanted, and Paul wasn't like that - was he? He could be happy. He could do it right.
"Anyway," Steve said, "I'm a year older than you, and I'm in the same boat. Am I a fuckup? An' don't say "Yes, obviously", unless you want me to rearrange your face."
Of course you're a fuckup, otherwise what would you be doing hanging around with me? But Paul realised that maybe Steve wouldn't appreciate him saying that. And maybe even thinking it was unfair.
Selfish. Manipulative.
"How about you, then, Steve?" Paul asked.
"Eh?" Steve said.
"You know," Paul said, feeling like he was stumbling into unfamiliar territory, "What's going in your life, how are you doing, what are your problems."
"Really?" Steve asked. He looked surprised. Paul felt a stab of guilt.
"Yes!" he said. "And hand me a beer. Tell me about your life, otherwise I'll wallow in my misery for the rest of the evening."
"Yeah we wouldn't want that, do we?" Steve said, laughing. He sighed, fumbling with the ring around the four-pack as he handed Paul a tin of beer and took one for himself. "Well," He said, "I don't even have any problems to complain about. Work is mind-numbing as always. Me brother is still a wanker. As for romance, y'know, it's pathetic. Haven't exactly been playing the field since my last boyfriend."
Paul blinked. "Wait, you're gay?" he asked.
Steve just looked at him. Paul felt like his face was burning.
"Eh, no," Steve said slowly, "I'm bisexual. Don't you remember when I got that custom Gunners jersey with "Kinsey 3" on the back?"
"I don't know what that means," Paul said.
"Well, don't worry about it," Steve said, "Neither did the Arsenal kit shop."
"I didn't know you had a boyfriend," Paul said. "You never told me."
"I don't have a boyfriend," Steve said, "That's the problem. Bastard was more interested in his ex than in me. And I thought you knew."
"I'm sorry," Paul rushed to say, "I don't - I'm surprised, that's all. You dated that girl for a bit, didn't you? Kim?"
"I thought you knew," Steve said, shaking his head, bewildered. "I thought you - you bloody flirted with me when we met, you know."
Paul's world turned inside out for a second.
"I didn't," he insisted. "What?"
"I don't remember that at all," Paul said, aware his face was red. Steve, damn him, just sniggered.
When had they met again? They'd started going to matches together during the end of the 1979/80 season. That meant Steve'd been around for nine years. Half of the Arsenal drought.
"It was an FA cup game," Steve said. "Arsenal and Watford."
Paul remembered that, just about.
When they'd met, Steve had somehow seemed cool and streetwise. This was before Paul had found out what a prat he could sometimes be. Steve'd left art college already by then - wrote for fanzines about football and music, tried to get into the NME but never quite made it. He worked for Word Processor World magazine now as a proofreader.
There'd been a time, Paul remembered, that he'd really, really liked Steve. Been excited to be friends with him.
It was all coming back to him. That match in 1980. Steve'd been a friend of a friend of Paul's, a guy he no longer talked to - another Arsenal supporter from Kent.
Paul had thought Steve was so interesting - he didn't know anyone like him then. He'd looked so cool in his black leather jacket and his stripey punk trousers, his head already shaven.
And when Arsenal had scored the winning goal against Watford and everyone rocketed out of their seats to cheer, Steve had grabbed Paul around the shoulder, shook him, shouted in his ear. Paul'd been thrilled. He'd felt like he'd won something, like his life was going the way he wanted it to now, like he'd been accepted.
He'd wanted to be Steve's friend so badly. He'd..
"Steve," Paul said slowly, "Are you my boyfriend?"
Silence.
"I didn't notice," he pleaded.
"Trust me, Paul, you aren't. More's the pity." Steve said.
"You don't mean -"
"Well, you like Arsenal," Steve said, "And you're not exactly hideous. You might be a bit of a self-centred pillock, but I'm used to you, and you're used to me. If you did fancy me I wouldn't be unhappy - but it's not like that, is it?"
"Is it?" He repeated more gently after a moment.
It would be sad, Paul wanted to say. Loveless sex between two kind-of sort-of friends. Convenience, not love. Not even lust. But there was something about the look in Steve's eyes...
Paul felt strange. He was still in unknown territory. Jesus, the idea...he wasn't the kind of person who would do that. Was he? He wasn't even sure now how they'd gotten into this conversation.
Oh, right. His maybe-ex-girlfriend was terminating a pregnancy.
"Look, Paul, you've had a bit of an odd day," Steve said quietly, "I'm not gonna jump you. But if you were interested...look, talk to me on Saturday, eh?" He reached over and very carefully put a hand on Paul's shoulder, looked into his eyes. "We can go have a drink afterwards."
"Sarah wanted me to change," Paul blurted out, wincing because even he knew it was bad form to cry about your ex when someone was putting the moves on you, "She said I was immature. Selfish."
"I like you, Paul." Steve said. "I think these girls you date don't get to see your good sides, because you're too preoccupied with teaching them about Arsenal."
"I told her I'd change, but it's too late for me, isn't it?" Paul said. "These things get formed so young. My dad took me to see Arsenal and I never thought about supporting anyone else. I'm going to be a selfish bastard for the rest of my life."
"Well, my parents are Geordies," Steve said. "They wanted me to support Newcastle United."
"How come you're Arsenal, then?" Paul asked.
"I changed my team," Steve said softly. He was looking at Paul's mouth.
Suddenly, he got up and dusted himself off. "I should be off," he said. "I want to go to the corner shop before it closes. See you, eh?"
"Yeah," Paul said, still sitting on the sofa, sort of stunned. He fumbled for cigarettes he didn't have. Steve noticed and came over to give him another one. He looked nervous. As he handed the packet to Paul, he leaned down and kissed him on the cheek. It was over in a second.
"Next week," Steve said. "I'll get the tube to Highbury with you." And he was gone.
Paul stayed where he was, smoking. He felt like he'd been run over by a train, twice. But in a good way.
After a while he got up to put the dinner on.