IVON by Michael Aylwin

Author:Michael Aylwin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: RedDoor
Published: 2017-11-20T16:00:00+00:00

‘Inside ball!’

Coach Davis’s instruction is clear and decisive and what Ivon had been thinking anyway. He turns the ball inside, but that hardly does it justice. He feints left, looks left, makes to pass left, then, at the last minute, flicks the ball out of the back of his right hand. He does it with a flourish, a sense of theatricality. Calculated theatricality, mind. It’s all for effect. Make the oppo think that play’s about to move left, which they do, leaving a nice hole on his inside shoulder. And, yes, it’s also to embellish the manoeuvre, lend it his own stamp, make it more than just the intellectual property of an alien voice in his head.

But, whichever way Ivon dresses it up, what he does is turn the ball inside. As instructed.

Travis, the right-winger, takes the pass and is clean through to the try line. The metallic roar of the stadium starts up. Ivon converts the try, and London have a 7–0 lead after 22 minutes.

It has been a frustrating 21 minutes. Ivon has, for the most part, done as he’s been told, kept a low profile, tried to respect their ways. He is appalled that any of his teammates should think he would ridicule them. The image of Moby suggesting as much at training has stayed with him. That upright and very proper bearing of the man. His crew-cut hair, accentuating a skull that is large, wide and ever so slightly flat at the back. He is warlike in his commitment, fearsome in loyalty. And yet there is a hint of the goon about him, too, something a bit clumsy and childlike. For all their differences, Ivon finds him endearing for that. He can picture Moby as a boy in Wales galumphing in for his tea with mud on his cheeks and love in his heart. He would never ridicule that.

But they are from different worlds, Ivon and his new teammates. In Wales, these boys might have become other people. In Wales, they might have become another team, one that expresses itself and plays for the love of playing. But they are in England, and they want Ivon to play within their structures. It is a delicate conundrum. He will not disrespect them, but he didn’t come here to play within himself, either.

With the stadium still raging like the inside of an engine, London are defending on their own 22. The penalty siren goes off. Is it in his head or over the noise? The monotone voice of the stadium computer, very definitely inside his head, says, ‘Yellow 14, off your feet’.

Too right. That guy just flopped on the ball. And he was a mile offside. The ball pops out towards Ivon. He grabs it and takes a quick step to the nearest edge of the illuminated patch of turf that marks the point of offence.

‘Kick for touch,’ says Coach Davis.

Tim, the scrum-half, is alongside. So is Travis, further wide on his wing. Ivon sees three defenders scattered

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