Jay had always remembered Twickenham Stadium as being a bit grimy from his childhood memories. His father brought him here to occasional international matches in the years before his parents got divorced. The building had changed a lot since then. It now looked resplendent and worthy of the title ‘England’s National Rugby Stadium’. The spectators hadn’t changed much though, other than their style of clothing. Jay had always been impressed by their good behaviour even though emotions often ran high on and off the pitch. Today, England would be playing France – a match which always mustered up nationalistic sentiments from both sides of the Channel but yet still retained an almost family atmosphere.
Jay, Steve and Ben found their places high up in U4, the cheap seats on the third level, and supped their lagers whilst soaking up the sound of drums, the smell of firework smoke, and the sight of a Frenchman urinating from the top of the steps behind them as he sang La Marseillaise.
“Glad I’m not sitting up there” Steve nodded towards the newly baptised wet benches.
“C’est lavie!” sniggered Ben as the French players ran out of the tunnel under a deafening wall of cheers “Lavvy? Do you get it?” shouted Ben. Jay and Steve groaned.
Once the English players were stood in a line, a brass band played the French national anthem followed by the English. The match was whistled under way to the accompanied of bellowing horns from all corners.
By half time, both sides had one try and one conversion. But the French led 10-7 due to a penalty which an over exuberant English player had given away by making a dangerous tackle. Spirits were still high on both sides, as was the noise.
“So Jay.. how did you get on with the thing?”
Jay had difficulty hearing what Steve had said and bent his ear towards him. Steve asked again, this time louder.
“How did you get on with you know what?”
“Oh.. that! Yeah.. great.. The operation was a success!” Jay raised two thumbs up to emphasise his point.
“Really? That’s great!” shouted Steve back.
“Yeah, but did the patient survive?” asked Ben with a cheeky grin.
“Yes.. very funny Ben“ Jay cast a sarcastic smile at Ben “Time will tell!”.
“Why do you want to time Will Tell? William Tell? Isn’t he dead?” Ben looked around him bearing a self-satisfied smile.
“Jeez.. you just get more and more stupid don’t you Ben?” Jay laughed, punching Ben on the shoulder as he turned back to look at the pitch. The teams were on their way out again for the second half. Jay looked up at the large screen to get a better view of the players but saw that the camera was still focussed on the crowd opposite. Jay was suddenly convinced that he had caught a glimpse of the mystery woman. He kept it to himself, knowing full well that the others would only make fun of him. Jay spent much of the second half looking up at the screen to see if he could find her again. Several bone-crunching tackles, a French try, a conversion and an English penalty kick later, the game ended 20-10 to France. The home crowd, obviously disappointed, lamented the tries that could have been as men, women and children made their way to the exits.
Maybe she is French? Jay thought to himself, scanning the crowd for any hint of her as they made their way out of the stadium. Jay decided not to go to the pub with Steve and Ben afterwards, using the excuse that he had lots of work to do. Jay hugged Steve and Ben, said goodbye and set off home.
Jay noticed that there were small white and yellow flowers in his minuscule front garden. They were hiding amongst tufts of grass, clumps of earth and litter – almost frightened to come out. He thought it was strange that he hadn’t noticed them before and made a mental note to pick up the litter.
Jay’s PC was still running when he got in. He didn’t even remove his jacket, he just sat himself down in front of his PC and carried on from where he had left off. Jay had gone through half of the personnel database records without spotting any likely candidates. ‘Focus, you need to be focussed!’ he mumbled to himself in a frighteningly obsessive manner. ‘Take one line at a time!’
Lane, Leman, Lewis, Lord, Lucas, Martin, Matice, Mervyn, Morris, Mumman, Murray.. – ‘Wait, Mumman..’ Jay stopped scrolling and went back. He clicked on the name Zulekha Mumman, apparently a part-time service employee at Globus Travels. Jay jotted down the name, address, telephone number and other details on a sticky yellow note so he wouldn’t lose it. A quick search on the Internet showed no records of the address, just a couple of entries on social media sites, but one result did show that the name ‘Zulekha’ was orginally Persian and meant ‘brilliant beauty’. Jay was optimistic but controlled his excitement. He had, after all, made one disastrous mistake before. Jay decided to relax for the rest of the evening by playing blues on his guitar. Things shouldn’t happen too hastily this time..