The Book of Fame by Lloyd Jones Page B

embarrassing halftime score. It was all a bit too easy. In the second half we went about our work. The loosies dribbled over the line for Fatty Newton to score a soft try. Shortly after, Dunk followed up with his fourth try, this time on the end of a good pass from Deans in open field.
    The newspapers praised our ‘wonderful passing—the best ever seen with such a ball on such a heavy field’ and noted the almost ‘corporate instinct’ of our pack. ‘They played like eight men with one eye, and that an all-seeing eye …’
    It was our last game in London and 75,000 people stood as one to cheer us from the field.
    That night we were fêted under the glittering dome of the Alexandra Room at the Trocadero and souvenired the menus—
    Consommé Sarah Bernhardt

    Queue de boeuf licée

    Turbot d’Ostend

    Sauce hollandaise

    Selle de mouton Niçoise

    Salade romaine

    Ris de veau

    Poires Melbe
    The toasts and speeches came between courses.
    ‘Your Worships & other dignitaries, His Lordships, ladies & gentlemen … please be upstanding … to toast the greatest team to ever visit England’s shores …’

SIX
    Was there ever the time
    to do anything other
    than march under the banner
    feed the horses
    see to their shoes
    sharpen weaponry
    and make sure everything was in good working order?
    We had Sunday afternoons
    ‘down time’
    on the edge of the Serpentine, say
    smoking our pipes
    and watching the ducks ski on to the ice
    on their orange plaid feet.
    Despite the comical spectacle
    the ducks did not appear to crave a crowd—
    there was no scoreboard, no tally
    no one particular touchdown sticks in the memory.
    The ducks simply came in and took off again.
    Came in and took off again.
    They were ducks, and
    content to be ducks.
    On to the Hippodrome
    to see ‘ “Savade” in the silvered grille with his lions
    tigers, bears & dogs
    ALSO
    Fishing Cormorants.
    A real demonstration of the art of fishing.
    Real Cormorants from the East.
    Real Chinese fishermen.
    Real water.’
    We grew tired of who we were
    the way complete strangers advanced with an outstretched finger.
    ‘You’re ’im, aren’t you?’ The stranger’s face lighting up. ‘It is you.’ Then, turning to his friends with his discovery. ‘Look who I’ve got here. It’s him.’
    The way their ruddy faces closed in and trapped you with their pints held to their chests to talk about the game against Middlesex, say.
    ‘That Jimmy Hunter … he’s a cheeky wee bugger.’
    A tall man with a parson’s nose enquiring after Glasgow’s weight: ‘I hear ee’s seventeen stones. Can that be right?’
    The unexpected way that praise could drag on the heart. ‘Thar Billy Wallace. I mean the man’s a marvel. Jackett don’t move like ee does. Jackett’s a corpse compared to your Billy Wallace.’
    The difficulty of transactions in the public gaze; at last you’ve caught the publican’s eye but when he asks, ‘What will it be then?’ the drinkers chorus, ‘No Stuart, good God, man. You don’t ask this man to pay.’
    To be pulled from our seats in the audience—‘Ladies and gentlemen, we have with us tonight …’
    To be summoned by a wealthy farmer needing our opinion of his apple cider. It was good, but ‘good’ wasn’t the word he was after.
    ‘A glass of water is good,’ he said, so we upgraded ‘good’ to ‘the best we’d ever tasted’.
    Halfway through dinner his daughter made an appearance. We gazed at her for she was the most beautiful of creatures.
    Eric Harper tried to make eye contact. Frank Glasgow coughed for her attention. But the daughter did not appear to see us. She only saw her father. There were no introductions. At a nod from the farmer she disappeared as she had come without a word or glance for us.
    ‘And now,’ said the farmer, laying down his mutton knife, ‘I have one or two paintings I would like you to see …’
    The way others sought you out to lecture you.
    Savade the Lion Tamer comes to