press conference without knowing Daniël is seriously training again, without the everyday stuff.
After breakfast, Daniël goes for a quick round of shopping, while Steve gets his books,
notebook and pen out to work on his reading and writing. Only when Daniël has closed the door
behind him does he become fully conscious that he’s alone in what is still his own apartment, for the
first time since he came back from hospital. He shrugs it off as something of minor importance,
although he guesses it’s not as easy for his lover. Leaving him alone in the house, even if it’s just for
an hour, is something the boy must have lost quite a bit of sleep over. But he’s a brave, sensible
spouse and so he does what he has to do.
Steve smiles while he reads, syllable for syllable, words of growing complexity.
Hedgehog comes snuffling in his prickly coat ...
He has to remind himself that it wasn’t long ago since he discovered words had changed into
unreadable hieroglyphs, because he’s so very ready for anything that isn’t cute and inoffensive. Then
he reads on. Any practice is good practice and after lunch, it’s time to do his physical exercises to
strengthen his muscles. If he works hard and luck smiles upon him, he should be able to give Daniël a
really nice surprise very soon.
Something close to pride stretches its warm fingers out over all of his body. No matter how sad
he still feels about what he has seen about himself, he still wants to be as healthy and as strong as
possible for Daniël. Because he will not again offer his boy something he didn’t ask for. That sadness
is something he truly can’t bear a second time.
The sound of the key opening the front door startles him for a minor fraction of a second, and
then he recognizes Dan’s footsteps and smiles. No doubt this is going to become one of his favourite
sounds.
“Hey gorgeous,” Daniël kisses him. “Sorry, took me a bit longer than I planned. They’re good
people and mean well, but I can’t spend the rest of the day talking with fans and giving out autographs
when I have to prepare lunch for the sexy beast who happens to be my fiancé.”
“No one said anything hateful?”
“I think I heard a couple of boys shouting something, but I bet they were having some kind of
bet.” Daniël starts to laugh. “You should have seen the groups of giggling, blushing girls and their
mums. ‘You two looked so cute together in the papers. You’re the most romantic things ever.’ I’m
glad there was at least the guy behind me at the check-out who wanted to know when Degaré planned
on letting me start again.”
“Must have been nice, talking footy for a bit.” Steve sets the books aside.
“It was.” Daniël puts the groceries away and stacks the papers he bought on the table. “They
asked how you’re doing, and if you’re getting used being home again, if you’re still in a lot of pain
and if the doctors think everything will be alright.”
“And what did you tell them?” Steve uses his crutches to follow Daniël around.
“That you are doing wonderfully and work very hard, but still have a long way to go. They
seem to genuinely care. I couldn’t just ignore them like with the paparazzi. Not after all the cards and
mails and little gifts. Is that okay?”
“Why wouldn’t it be okay?” Steve leans against the kitchen sink while Daniël gets out the eggs
for lunch.
“I don’t know. It’s private?”
Steve can see he’s half serious about this.
“We’ll be friendly and polite to the friendly and polite, and we’ll ignore the rude and nasty as
much as possible. All the rest is a matter of behaving like normal, decent human beings. I can’t think
of a better way to get as much privacy as possible.”
Daniël nods. “That comes down to us just being ourselves. I like that idea, not having to
pretend and making sure we behave in such way we don’t even have to lie because no one’s going to
even ask that one question. You want mushrooms with your omelette? Ham too?”
They happily chatter through the meal about their plans for the rest of the day. Daniël doesn’t
make a secret of how much he enjoys training again. Steve accepts doing his exercises is not his
favourite hobby, but he sees no reason to make a tragedy out of it.
The crushing sadness of yesterday takes on an almost surreal quality. Or perhaps it’s just being
ignored for the time being, like the unread papers and the envelopes that are still unopened. Because
while Daniël might be wearing his watch again and there are moments during the day they have to
follow the rules of time, he has learned in the past months that things don’t go away if you put them
aside for a bit.
And so, after training and after tea, Daniël opens the newspapers one by one and grins and
frowns and chuckles and reads parts of it to Steve. There are some screaming headlines, but the words
are nice enough. There are fair and to the point reports about what each of them said. There are sharp
and insightful background articles. There are some interviews with managers and players of other
clubs, but also with a spokesperson from a GLTB pressure group and a handful of gay football fans.
And okay, there’s still the condescending undertone in the choice of words in the tabloids, but
in comparison to the usual tone about this subject, it’s a miracle of decency.
“I guess even for them it’s no fun kicking a man who looked into his own grave and came back
alive,” Daniël comments.
Steve shrugs. “I doubt if they really believe me that I truly didn’t know.”
“You care?”
“What those sorts of people think? No.”
“This is interesting. Want to hear?” When Steve nods, he reads aloud, “‘The question has been
asked many times: is there a place for openly gay professional footballers? The answer given in
variations on the same theme: football isn’t ready for it. The clubs. The players. The fans. No one is
ready for it. And yet it happened. And it happened in a city not exactly known for its glamour. It
happened in a club slowly climbing out from years of mismanagement, financial troubles and players
who had lost nearly all confidence in themselves and pleasure in their sport. It happened, and now the
world is watching.’”
Steve nods, unsure of what to say.
“Feels like it’s not really about us, doesn’t it?” Daniël gives him a small smile, full of
understanding.“There’s so much, going to take me days to work it through. Here, some guy doing a
psychological analysis about what’s happening around us. That’s almost a full page. I quote: ‘It’s hard
not to speculate about the group of men attacking Steve Gavan. The sheer brutality of their act defies
imagination. And yet the pictures tell a stark and undeniable truth. How much hate is needed to cause
such violence? And perhaps, a more profound question: how much love? Bitter and twisted love,
desperate in its ugliness, but love nonetheless. Sometimes a man can only pray for indifference.’”
Daniël falls silent.
“You’re okay?”
“And you?”
“Honestly? I don’t know.” Daniël shrugs. “I can’t deal with it now. New subject. I bet
Francesco and Gael have already seen the Spanish papers, Etienne and Alexandre the French ones,
Kurt the German ones and so on and so on. And I know mum bought every Dutch paper she could get
her hands on and puts the clippings in a scrapbook.”
“They wrote something about the gaffer as well? They must have.” Steve looks at the columns
of text to see if he recognises Degaré’s name.
“I bet he’ll love this one. ‘The Frenchman welcomed with an even less than lacklustre
enthusiasm by a team of players who were close to giving themselves up to relegation, soon became a