The old man didn't move, even when the referee was about to call off the match. Hundreds of other spectators had escaped the lashing rain under the stadium cover. Some had given up and gone home. The back of the stand was already too full.
As they saw the man, the crowd remembered what could happen: Heysel, Hillsborough, and their own stadium: Bradford.
The old man hadn't even pulled the hood over his head. His head didn't turn when someone tried to shout at him to come away from the rain. One of the long-time security men had tried to convince him to come under the cover, knowing it wouldn't help.
The old man hadn't given up. He sat in the front row as the seats were darkening from the lashing rain, as if he had been fighting against the devil, showing it he wasn't giving up.
I wondered why. I had started in my new job in this new town only a couple of months earlier Vicky and I had decided to split our belongings and go apart. I had moved away to build a new life.
Still, second thoughts were crawling in my mind. Maybe we were just missing a family. We had tried to have a baby for years. She yearned to be a mother. The enormous, gathering melancholy had brought her almost to the verge of a nervous breakdown.
I couldn't take any more all the accusations that were poured on me when I escaped to my work. Maybe I should've been present more, thinking how we could have made our life together more happy.
I knew Vicky had always dreamed of her own cafe and a small family guesthouse. Of a place where she could be close to people, be her own master. Make her work and work place on her own terms.
I remembered seeing the man in the earlier matches. The silent salute for him by the fellow spectators at the same stand. Today before the match someone had tapped on his shoulder, said a few nice words. The man had only looked in front and nodded. You couldn't tell anything from his expression. When the rain started, his appearance told it all.
A man I worked with, Wally, was sitting next to me. He was nearing retirement age. He had a big moustache, a peaceful voice and way of talking, a way of telling stories with fully detailed backgrounds. He had been living in this town all his life. He had this ability to bring the stories alive with a great man's understanding. It is not common anymore with many people.
"That man's name is Barney. His wife died last Sunday. Now the man is alone. He only has his thoughts. His memories."
"Memories?"
"He's had a rough life. Him and his wife had five children. They are all dead. The first daughter died before her first birthday. Sudden infant death syndrome. If not much is known about it now, at that time even less was known. Medicine wasn't very developed at the end of the 1940s.
They decided to have another child. And the third, the fourth, and the fifth. The second one, a boy, died at age 10, run over by a car on Worring's Hill slope. They've been mourning for him for 50 years."
I remembered the woman standing on that hill every morning. She had looked out on the road in a sad way. Some outside passer-by could only see a mental patient who had some fixation in her head. I hadn't seen her there in two weeks.
"Three other children lived longer and made it to adulthood. The family didn't have an easy time. The deaths of two children had left heavy scars on the wife. After that, she couldn't work anymore. This man's burden was heavy on top of all that sorrow. He's a man who had gone through wars and everything."
"Wars?"
"He had been a pilot in the Second World War. He was shot down over France. Luckily he survived when the enemy caught him. The war ended just at the right time. So that the other fight with life could start."
Wally took a small break and looked down the stand. The old man was still not moving. He had pulled the hood over his head. The rain was hitting him in the head and neck. His blue coat was soaked and looked black now. Players on the field looked as if they were playing in a mud pond.
"I'm sure you remember the fire in this stadium 25 years ago. Fifty-six people died in it."
I nodded. Everyone remembered that. It was suspected that a spectator had dropped a match or a lit cigarette under the stand into rubbish that had accumulated below.
In seconds the fire spread like a flash. In a few minutes, the whole main stand was a fire hell on Earth. People trying to escape the flames, some with their clothes on fire, trying to reach the pitch were seen live on TV around the nation, soon around the world.
"One of them was his youngest son. He was only 25 years old then. He would've turned 50 a few weeks ago. He never made it to the pitch. He had suffered a permanent leg injury in his youth ..."
Wally went silent for a moment.
"When the new stadium was finally built after many delays, the dad decided to take a job as a pitch master. He did it in memory of his son. He had recently retired from his factory job, and he came here every morning, picked up every single piece of trash personally, checked under the stands, mowed and fertilized the lawn, and on match days painted the pitch lines. He only left here during the day to have lunch at a bed and breakfast place run by his daughter. It used to be in that corner." Wally pointed past the corner of the opposite stand to a residential area nearby.
I remembered having seen a nice old house there. Empty. There was only a worn-out sign outside of it saying "For Sale." It had been there for a long while.
"Barney's daughter Isabella ran it until she was diagnosed with cancer and had to give it up. She died ten years ago. She didn't have any children. Breast cancer ..."
I remembered Vicky.
The rain was lashing even more heavily now, but Barney wasn't moving. I felt as if the rainy day match was especially important for Barney as he sat on the stadium bench, having his own time far away from celebrations. I knew he wouldn't move anywhere before the final whistle.
"For a long time, those two seats have been reserved for him and his grandson, his son's son." Wally sounded almost sad.
"What happened to the son? You said all his children are dead."
"Sometimes people ask if it's possible to die of grief," Wally said. "Can someone die of a broken heart? We're all unique. Some are more sensitive, some less. Very few people are totally rock hard and without feelings. No one should be.
"The son's destiny was marked by being too good, if that kind of virtue even exists. He married a normal woman, but soon the woman started treating the marriage as a pitch for power games. Even after their divorce, the ex-wife bullied the man and held their only child as a hostage in her manipulations. Finally she dragged the son to another place. Moved at least every year. Getting settled in new schools in new suburbs and towns took a while. At the same time, the little boy's dad felt hurt. The boy's mother had fed her son pure lies. And children sometimes believe everything. Not many children can yet question their parents, especially their mothers.
"Finally the mother managed to arrange things so the boy's dad didn't get to meet his little son much anymore. Because of his son, the father had twice moved to a bigger flat when the mother demanded it so the boy would have more room. He had twice rejected good job offers so he could be with his son daily. He had ended a long-distance relationship with this foreign woman so they wouldn't have to move and jeopardize the son's future.
"Finally, even after those sacrifices, the son was taken away. The man died of grief. He was barely forty. The pathologist who performed the post mortem called it heart failure. He could've marked the cause of death as 'broken heart.'
"The little boy's mother finally got judgment from someone more powerful. She died in a car accident, driving drunk down the bridge crossing the river in her village."
"And the grandson went to live with his grandparents?"
"Exactly. He's been a joy to his grandpa. That man has experienced so much grief; you wouldn't wish that on anyone. The last of it was his wife's death. She died last Sunday at their home. He was taking care of her to the end. And when this man dies, the grandson won't have anyone."
Just then we heard a young boy's voice from behind.
"Grandpa! Grandpa! Come away from the rain!" the boy said and rushed past us in the dark, stormy afternoon. He reached his grandpa sitting alone under the black sky and embraced him without any hesitation, as children often do when they haven't yet learned to hide their feelings.
For the first time, Barney moved, as if he had come alive hearing his ten-year old grandson's cheerful voice. I watched the grandpa and grandson embrace. Under the hood, you could see the old man's wrinkled face. He had seen life and gone through grief. I saw the happiness and love that the little boy felt toward his grandpa.
For a moment.
How long would that little happiness last? The old man was maybe eighty-five years old. There wouldn't be many years left together.
On some future Sunday afternoon, this old man wouldn't sit on that seat anymore. At some point, social and welfare officers would gather together information on who this little boy's relatives were and would realize there weren't any suitable guardians. They'd find him a foster home. Life would go on. Happy or unhappy, depending on what cards someone in charge of the rains and shines of this life would deliver to this boy.
The rain ended. The rough black velvet curtain on the sky was drawn away. Blue sky showed up. Grandpa Barney took his hood down. The match was ending. Soon we'd know the final result.
I remembered Vicki. In my mind I saw a home in this city. The house for sale that Wally was talking about. I saw it becoming alive again. I saw Vicky in the lobby of the reopened bed and breakfast, signing the guests in, preparing them breakfasts. I saw an old man sitting there for lunch, as he had in the past.
One day the door wouldn't open. He wouldn't leave his hat in the hallway before sitting down in the lounge to have his cup of tea.
I saw the lonely boy who would easily land a new home, new loving parents. The home would be next to the stadium. And in the years to come, this boy would sit on that same seat where his grandpa had sat on Sundays all these decades.
He'd sit in the stands, which would soon be named after the man-the loving grandpa and husband-who in his life had seen more sorrow than just about anyone else.